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Northern Exposure or Northern Infiltration? 

So seven men—five Iranians, two Uzbeks—crossed illegally from Canada into northern New York. Again. Arrested by Border Patrol in Mooers Forks on July 1st, after prior attempts. In any sane world, that’s called a “pattern,” not a coincidence.

But this isn’t a sane world—it’s Biden’s border policy.

These aren’t desperate refugees fleeing war-torn terrain with babies on their hips. These are military-aged males from regimes with a habit of targeting Americans, showing up at a sleepy northern checkpoint like it’s a travel itinerary from a “Sleeper Cells Abroad” brochure.

Plus-they’d already been caught before. But thanks to the “welcome mat” doctrine of 2023-24, they were allowed in. Now, finally, under Trump 2.0, they’re behind bars—where they should’ve been the first time, not browsing upstate maple syrup stands en route to who-knows-where.

When former FBI agents warn about “sleeper threats hiding in plain sight,” this is what they mean. Tehran doesn’t need jets when it has joggers with backpacks and a compliant immigration system.

Remember, this gang didn’t even cross the famously porous southern border. No, they came in through Canada—land of the hockey stick, carbon credits, and apparently, jihadist carpool lanes. 

Rick Wagner

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No Crime, No Consequence?

There’s a peculiar notion making the rounds—chiefly among people far removed from its effects—that illegal immigration isn’t really a crime. Not in the moral sense, they say. It's more like an ambitious clerical oversight. A lapse in paperwork wrapped in noble intentions.

Of course, this theory tends to sound best in places far from the border, far from overcrowded schools, underfunded hospitals, or neighborhoods absorbing population surges without proportional support. In those environments, belief becomes a luxury. So does denial.

The legal framework of a nation isn’t something you set aside because the violator had their heart in the right place. If that logic held, we’d no longer prosecute shoplifters so long as they were hungry—or speeders so long as they were in a rush to better themselves.

What’s overlooked—often deliberately—is that law is not about motives. It's about boundaries. Physical, civic, national. And when a state begins excusing violations based on sentiment, it invites not compassion, but incoherence.

Meanwhile, the people living with the real consequences—ranchers along the southern border, local governments straining to meet demand, working-class communities watching wages flatten and housing grow scarce—they’re not dealing with theories. They’re dealing with outcomes.

There’s no public hearing for these Americans. No sympathetic op-ed. No waiver on their property taxes because a federal failure dumped new burdens in their laps.

This isn’t a screed against immigration. Just honest accounting. Because policies that bypass the rule of law don’t exist in a vacuum—they accumulate. They send signals. They reward circumvention and punish compliance. And they place the cost-on those who had no say in their implementation.

The people most affected by illegal immigration are not the ones being invited to the conversation. They’re expected to remain polite, patient, and compliant while the system grinds down their expectations of order and reward.

Eventually, that conversation will happen. But it won’t be on cable news or in a university panel. It will be at the ballot box, at the town hall, or when people decide the law is no longer mutual, and the deal is no longer fair.

Consequences don’t disappear because we redefine them. They only arrive later, and with interest. -Rick Wagner

Waving Others Flags, While Demanding Rights Under Ours

There is a peculiar species of protester — abundant on college campuses, city squares, and social media echo chambers — who passionately waves the flag of a country they would never dream of living in. They shout their demands in English, backed by Wi-Fi, beneath banners of regimes whose chief export is misery and whose greatest technological achievement remains functional plumbing.

They hold up the flag of Cuba, while sipping Starbucks. They chant in support of Venezuela, then DoorDash Chipotle. They wear keffiyehs stitched in sweatshops from nations where women can't drive and journalists often "disappear." It is a theater of allegiance where the actor refuses to join the cast overseas. Call it revolutionary cosplay — minus the danger, the draft, or the consequences.

Now, I don’t care what flag you wave. You could wrap yourself in the Bolivian Navy’s banner and declare it your truth — good for you. That’s the beauty of America: we let the confused remain verbose. But it becomes high comedy when the same people crying for a “decolonized world” shriek in horror at the idea of repatriation. If the homeland is sacred, why not go?

And herein lies the chewy center-they don’t love these countries, they love the idea of loving them. They worship struggle like a lifestyle brand, and foreign suffering as a stage prop. But do they apply for visas? Do they buy one-way tickets? No — because the air conditioning’s better here.

What we are witnessing is not genuine solidarity but performative dissent — the flag as fashion accessory, rebellion without risk. It’s the political equivalent of a vegan who only fasts between cheeseburgers.

The irony is so thick you could pave potholes with it. These are the same citizens who decry nationalism, then hoist the colors of someone else’s nation with fervor that borders on spiritual. They abhor the American flag as a symbol of oppression, but will wave the emblems of far more oppressive states while protected by the very freedoms they detest.

Now, I’m not advocating we start issuing travel vouchers and exit papers. This is America, after all — home of the free, land of the dramatically confused. But perhaps the next time someone waves the flag of a place they’d never live, we simply ask, politely: “When’s your flight?”

Because patriotism, like real estate, is best proven by moving in — or moving out.

Rick Wagner

Standing up to bullying, unscientific transgender activist mob By Douglas Murray 

The Rogue’s New Gallery of Left-Wing Scoundrels - Victor Davis Hanson 

"But recently, during the LA riots, the left went completely crazy as the entire Democrat Party and California state officials sided with violent protesters and illegal aliens."

ABC News fires Terry Moran days after veteran anchor’s social media outburst at Trump aide Stephen Miller 

Mission: Highly Improbable Every Tom Cruise Movie Ever Made

A little something different and fun for the weekend, some good humor from writer Dave Barry – Ed

Socialism’s Return: A Familiar Mistake in a New Suit

There was a time — not so long ago — when socialism’s failures were considered a matter of historical record. From the ashes of the Soviet Union to the unraveling of Venezuela, central planning and collectivist economics had earned their place in the “ideas we’ve tried and abandoned” file. And yet, here we are — watching it reemerge on American soil, dressed not in drab uniforms but in hashtags, slogans, and campaign platforms.

This isn’t a fringe movement. It’s a deliberate reframing of socialism as compassion rather than control. Today’s version promises free college, free healthcare, and guaranteed income — with little mention of cost, accountability, or consequences. These appeals are emotionally potent but economically hollow.

Worse still, the new socialism conflates equality of opportunity with equality of outcome — a shift that undermines the very ethos of American liberty. What begins as wealth redistribution often ends in thought regulation. In the name of equity, individual achievement becomes suspect, and dependence institutionalized.

The cultural institutions meant to defend liberty — the press, the university, civic education — too often amplify these ideas without critique. The result is a generation unfamiliar with the consequences of centralized power.

The answer is not reactionary outrage, but clarity: a renewed commitment to constitutional principles, personal responsibility, and historical truth. Liberty does not sustain itself. It must be taught, understood, and defended — every generation.

-Ed

The So-Called Trump-Ramaphosa ‘Ambush’ - Victor Davis Hanson 

Brains, Bots, and Bureaucrats: The Talent Gap That Could Tip the Balance

In the grand theater of 21st-century power politics, forget tanks and tariffs for a moment — the real war is being fought in classrooms and laboratories.

China now churns out over 4.7 million STEM graduates each year, a feat of technocratic central planning that would make even the ghost of Khrushchev blink. The U.S.? A respectable but comparatively quaint 800,000 — many of whom are headed not to particle accelerators, but to startups building the next viral sandwich app.

While America freestyles its way through an education system held together by duct tape and district boards, China’s is a precision-guided pipeline, calibrated to feed engineers directly into AI labs, chip foundries, and space programs. It’s not subtle — but it’s working.

And here’s the kicker: technical literacy among China’s industrial workforce stands near 60%, versus an estimated 35% in the U.S., where the idea of vocational training is often treated as a kind of educational exile.

Of course, America still leads in frontier innovation, much of it powered by imported brains. But when the visa dries up and the curriculum leans more on “critical feelings” than critical thinking, one starts to wonder how long the edge can hold.

Because make no mistake: the next arms race won’t be fought with missiles — it’ll be coded, soldered, and spun up on silicon.

-Rick Wagner

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From One Fake Left-wing Hysteria to the Next-Victor Davis Hanson 

Trump is a Large Hadron Collider 

"The usual yardsticks don’t apply. President Trump isn’t trying to run Washington better than other politicians, he’s setting out to remake it."

How do we stop the media from talking about itself? 

End US Taxpayer Support for the Higher Education Gravy Train 

Your tax refund is a total scam — that blinds us to Washington’s spending addiction 

Let them eat woke 

"The organizing principles that have defined the Democratic Party since the 1930s are now exhausted and near the grave."

Elon Musk And DOGE Team Interview With FNC's Bret Baier 

In case you missed it. It really is worth watching-Ed

California and Its Collapsing Blue-State Democrat Model -Victor Davis Hanson 

Autopen on Autopilot 

"Did Biden know what he was signing and if not, who had control of the autopen and was it used without Biden’s approval? Provided Biden didn’t physically sign these documents, are they legally binding?"

Trump’s Democratic ‘Allies’-Victor Davis Hanson 

"So, a once top Democratic strategist has gone from his 1992 iconic campaign reminder, “It’s the economy, stupid,” to smearing Trump as a fat slob with syphilis. Carville’s descent sums up his entire party."

Freedom of speech in Europe is very, very under threat 

Five Ukrainian Fables / Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness 

What conservative women know − and liberals don't − about happiness 

Tom Hanks, Margaret Brennan, and the European Ministers—Reveal It All-Victor Davis Hanson 

"Three recent but completely unrelated events illustrate the deranged hatred of Donald Trump and his supporters continuing now even into a second decade. And yet the venom only further marginalizes the left."

Why Trump 2.0 Looks Unstoppable 

A ‘Trump tornado’ is about to hit Europe 

 

All the damning moments CBS edited out of Kamala Harris controversial 60 Minutes interview

Yes, there is a Mexican state-cartel alliance 

"The shock for the informed is not that Trump declared the Mexican state a narco-regime, but that it didn’t happen years ago"

Mexico—Friend, Enemy, Neutral, or Something Else? - Victor Davis Hanson 

White House reveals Trump explanation for NJ drones — and raises even more                                     questions 

President Trump’s ‘First Hundred Hours’ 

"His rapid actions are meant to change the nation’s direction and underscore that change"

              AMERICA IS BACK

The Great Dumbing Down of American Education 

Woke DEI + Green Nihilism = Dresden in California-Victor Davis Hanson 

"Add it all up, and the woke socialist state has been eagerly deindustrializing, decivilizing, and retribalizing its way into what is now a veritable peacetime Dresden on the Pacific."

Escaping from LA and the rest of California 

Conspiracies Too Awful to Imagine?-Victor Davis Hanson 

"They have established precedents, if ever again followed, will destroy the republic as we have known it."

  California Announces Mass Deportation Of U.S. Citizens

Babylon Bee Reports—SACRAMENTO, CA — In an effort to crack down on the invasive influence of American culture, the state of California announced that come January, it will commence mass deportation of U.S.

 

Merry Christmas, crazy miserable commies

Canada: Trudeau’s Stumbling Government Appears on Verge of Collapse 

Are the Years of Madness Ending?-Victor Davis Hanson 

Tracking Putin’s Most Feared Secret Agency 

Falling Out of Love with Obama: What changed? 

Why did the South Korean president declare martial law? 

 The Paradox of Administrative Growth in Declining Sectors

When it comes to the curious phenomenon of administrative growth amid the ruins of shrinking sectors, It is a tale as old as bureaucratic time: shrinking relevance matched not by austerity but by a fevered proliferation of committees, compliance officers, and PowerPoint presentations.

Northcote Parkinson, an astute observer of the bureaucratic condition, famously remarked that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion." In a declining sector, the administrators do not retreat, pruning their numbers to match reduced demand. Instead, they conjure new initiatives, oversight panels, and layers of protocol to justify their continued relevance.

As the productive engine sputters, administrators reallocate dwindling resources into tasks that, while busy-sounding, are functionally inert: compliance tracking, endless restructuring, or auditing the auditors.

The real work—the building of things or the teaching of students, is overloaded by a disproportionate cost of the administrative middle managers monitoring it all.

As operational budgets dry up, resources are redirected to fortify the administrative body itself. These entities will lobby for their importance, rebrand their missions, or create entirely new mandates to justify their continued existence. Bureaucratic structures are as permanent as ancient ruins, but far less picturesque.

As a sector declines, administrators often claim a disproportionate share of remaining resources, often dressed in the language of oversight or strategic necessity. The result is an absurd ratio of administrators to actual producers

This is an inefficiency spiral, a kind of slow-motion collapse of a sector’s core mission. An empire-building instinct baked into the DNA of administrative entities. And it ends, not with a bang but with an overstaffed compliance review.

-The Political Viking