21 posts from Sunday, November 23, 2025

Let's talk right now, do you believe President Trump has issued any illegal orders? To my knowledge, I am not aware of things that are illegal, but certainly there are some legal gymnastics that are going on with these Caribbean strikes and everything related to Venezuela.

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This is something that no generation of American has ever seen, not in 250 years of constitutional history. A group of sitting members of Congress, senators and representatives went on camera and told active duty military personnel and the CIA to ignore orders of the president of the United States. You can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. What message is that sending to the rest of the world? For the first time in American political history, members of the United States Congress openly encouraged the military to look at the commander in chief and say, no. You can say, and it's reasonable to say, well, this is just advice, right? It's a reminder that you don't follow illegal orders. Sounds reasonable until you look at history because history has a merciless way of identifying patterns long before politicians will admit to them. In the entire American experiment, there are only a handful of moments, anything like this has occurred. And every single one of those was a moment that was a prelude to national fracture. 1860 to 1861, it was the secession winter. Southern leaders encourage officers at the federal level and forts to abandon the union and pledge loyalties to the states. Not normal politics. This was the beginning of the rupture and then came Fort Sumter. 1870, reconstruction. Some states rejected federal authority outright, sheriffs, militias, even sometimes judges refused federal directives, but Congress itself, they never told the army to ignore the president. In Vietnam, members of Congress denounced the war, denounced Nixon, denounced Johnson, but no one ever told active duty troops, disobey the commander in chief. It wasn't done. Because every generation up until this one understood something very basic. You cannot politicize the chain of command without breaking the Republic. And once the military begins to decide on its own, which orders are legitimate, which president they prefer, you no longer have civilian control. You no longer have a Republic. You have factions inside an armed institution. And that is exactly how nations collapse and every single one of those sitting representatives know it. Turkey, Argentina, Spain, Egypt, every single example, the pattern is always the same. Political parties begin encouraging the military to resist the other side and the center completely collapses. And this is the part where you need to hear me clearly. What we saw here this week with this is not the Bubba Effect, where ordinary citizens lose trust in authority or rally behind the local guy. No, no, no. This is something far more seditious and serious. This is the institutional Bubba Effect, where leaders inside the government with their own plan, the political class, begin urging Bubba in the military to take sides in domestic political disputes. That is a very, very bright line. The great unbroken line in American history, unbroken in our history. That line kept us from becoming every other failed Republic. And now these people have stepped over it. Now let me take on Donald Trump. Is this treason? No. Treason has a very narrow definition. Thank God. It requires aiding an enemy of the United States or levying war against the United States. So this is not treason in the strict constitutional sense. But here's the question. Isn't it something just as dangerous? Isn't it an attempt, intentional or not, to plant the idea inside the military that the president's orders are optional? The military does not take sides, period. Even if these lawmakers thought they were just, you know, recommending moral guidance, they were, they believe they were just reminding the troops to refuse illegal orders. That's not your job. That's the job of the generals and the job of Pete Hegseth. They do that in every classroom, every time they're sworn in, they are told those words. That comes from within the ranks, not from political leadership. They told the rest of the world that in the bloodstream of our Republic now is questioning the president. And that is unprecedented. It's historic and impossible to remove because it breaks the guardrails.

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If Republicans don't win this midterm election, the Democrats will spend the entire time trying to impeach the president, investigate the president, do what they do, maybe they'll bring out the Oswald files, now that they brought out the Epstein files, you never know. Maybe they'll bring out the Wilkes Booth files. I don't know what they'll do, but they're certainly not interested in the best interests of the country. They're moving radical Marxist-Islamist left. And I was thinking about healthcare proposals, and I went back and looked, because I remember, we have all kinds of fantastic proposals out there, including this administration. I think we ought to start talking about them. You don't have to pass them immediately, but when you're asked by a reporter, do you have a proposal? You should have it right in your pocket, I sure as hell do. It's right here, and this is what we want to do. Now, key conservative plans over the years have market-based reforms, allowing insurance plans to be sold across state lines to increase competition, expanding the use of association health plans, which allows small businesses to band together to form effectively their own insurance groups, promoting and expanding health savings accounts through credits, through tax incentives and so forth, so you put money aside, like you do for your pension, and that money is available to use, Medicaid and state flexibility, giving states more control over their Medicaid programs and marketplaces, potentially cutting federal spending on Medicaid, but allowing flexibility with the states, introducing work requirements for Medicaid. The president did this, the Republicans did this, God forbid, if somebody has to work 20 hours a week, even volunteer 20 hours a week for Medicaid, I don't want to, the system's against me. What was it? Get off your butt and do something, so the people who are off their butt doing something don't have to pay for you on the dole, too. And addressing preexisting conditions, all the plans, using state-based high-risk pools or reinsurance programs to cover individual preexisting conditions, so you take cases that are the most difficult, expensive, and you specifically try and help those people, but it doesn't mean all healthy people, all young people, should have the same plan when they don't need the same plan. You know, the Heartland Institute had a great plan several years ago, I looked, Justin Haskins writing in The Hill, this is four, five years old, he said, "The key to fixing the health care system is to provide greater access to all people while making key structural reforms that utilize the power of market economics and personal choice." Not socialism or Marxism, Bernie, no, rather than impose top-down mandates that respect consumer freedom. So they come up with a plan, and the proposal is HOA's, our Health Savings Account, so we just talked about, what else? Those who get employer-provided health insurance, like 160 million Americans, would receive the money from the employers directly so they can purchase their own insurance plans instead of being forced to settle for whatever those plans are, and lower-income Americans, those with disabilities and kids, now enrolled in the Children's Health Insurance Program chip, would receive the government funds directly. This is what the president's talking about when he says, "Why are we funneling this through these bureaucracies, through these insurance companies?" Give the money to the people to make their own decisions. Have their saving account, or small businesses can get together, set up their own consolidated type insurance plans. There's so many opportunities. We throw so much money at the bureaucracy, so much money at insurance companies. Give it to the people. We will help people directly with preexisting conditions. We can do that, and there are many plans out there that Republicans themselves have come up with. How about promoting them and talking about them when the Democrats keep talking about a Soviet-style health care program like Obamacare? It is a complete and utter disaster.

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I get tired of these criticisms of the president, you know, you're focused too much on foreign policy, not enough on domestic policy. What are they talking about? This guy's got hundreds of executive orders, reversing regulations, tax cuts, the border, on and on. I said, you know what? Last Saturday, I explained on this issue of affordability that blue states are unaffordable and red states are affordable. And Republicans need to run on that. But what about the people in these states, Mark? What about it? The president of the United States is president of the United States. He's not running the local pizzeria. He's not running the local grocery store and all the rest of it. There are things he can do and things he can't do, but there are things he's doing like we've never seen before. I think he's doing more than FDR ever did at the height of the New Deal. And it's only eight, nine months in. Let's look at this. He is the general. In the culture war, he's the general in making domestic moves that no president has made, certainly not in our lifetime. And what am I talking about? He's defunding DEI. He's removing it from federal policy. And he's removing it from state and local policy and colleges and universities that receive federal funds. He's depoliticizing the left-wing, anti-American rewrite of our founding and history that's taking place in federally funded museums and national parks, which are promoting hard left ideology. He's removing left-wing directives that were coming out of our education department, the local school districts, K through 12 classes. He's doing the same thing. He's fighting hard when it comes to higher education. In fact, he's dismantling the Department of Education, something that President Reagan wanted to do desperately and he was blocked by who? The Republicans in the Senate. Trump's doing it with the help of his excellent education secretary. He's promoting school choice like no president in American history. Options, particularly for poor people, particularly for poor minorities. He's withholding federal education funds for leftist agendas and indoctrination being pushed in our schools. He is fighting hard and again using federal dollars as a whip to prevent men from going into women's sports, boys from going into girls' sports. I was supposed to be protected under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. He has defunded PBS, a left-wing operation. He has defunded NPR, a left-wing operation. Why do we need him? He got 1,200 channels on cable and he got hundreds and hundreds and thousands of stations on radio. If they're that great, let him get private funding. He has locked down the border, literally locked down the border. He's enforcing immigration laws against Democrat mayors, Democrat governors who are the new Confederates who are trying to nullify federal law. He's trying to deport illegal aliens, especially the worst of the worst. He's appointing originalists to the federal bench to try and counter what Biden did, which is basically destroy the judiciary with activists, left-wing lawyers. He's rebuilding America's infrastructure and industrial base through tax cuts, regulation cuts, and yes, tariffs. And by the way, his tax cuts are for all Americans, including on tips, social security benefits, overtime, middle-class income earners, and small businesses. What else? Revolutionary changes over there at the Department of HHS in our federal health agencies, extensive reform of welfare programs including expanding work requirements, major overhaul of the student loan programs, including capping them, a complete overhaul of radical left-wing, de-growth environmental rules over at the EPA, massive expansion of domestic energy production, including opening more land for drilling, speeding up permitting for energy projects, reevaluating or rescinding regulations seen as burdensome to domestic energy production. His administration has recently issued executive orders, signed legislation, provided financial support aimed at significant expansion of U.S. nuclear capacity. I think this is one of the great answers to energy in the United States of America. He's authorizing mining for all materials, especially rare earth materials, and we see it bearing fruit in Alaska and in Pennsylvania, including expediting permitting, prioritizing mineral extraction on federal lands, as well as using the Defense Production Act to fund projects and reduce dependence on foreign sources, like China. He's consistently promoting policies aimed at massively expanding U.S. artificial intelligence. He's got the commitment of investments of trillions of dollars in this, so we stay ahead of China, because this is the new frontier like it or not. And technology growth through deregulation, increased R&D investment, public-private partnerships, workforce training. I pulled, Mark, where'd you get it? I pulled it off the Internet. I looked at all these different sites, pulled it together and said, "What do they mean he's not focusing on domestic activities?" Are you kidding me? He's expanding U.S. timber production on federal lands. He's streamlining permitting processes. He's reduced regulations, with a goal of a 25% increase in production. These actions were aimed at cutting red tape, expediting logging, salvaging operations, purportedly to reduce wildlife risks and boost the domestic industry. Hey, Newscom, you could learn something from this. Pay attention. Reducing regulations and opening previously protected areas to commercial fishing, aiming to boost the domestic economy and compete with foreign imports of fish. What about farming, enhancing farming? The enhanced crop insurance, expedited and expanded disaster assistance, market access and trade deals for countries in Asia and Western Hemisphere, particularly China, aiming to remove tariff and non-tariff barriers and expand market access for U.S. agricultural products overseas, like ethanol, soybeans, poultry, deregulating the agriculture industry and overturning climate-related regulations that lower farmer input costs. Even the cost of fertilizer was prohibitive. Now he's bringing it down. What else? He's expanding ranching, primarily by increasing access to federal grazing lands, expanded grazing access, financial support with more government-guaranteed loans, and expand access to capital for producers, predator compensation for livestock. We've been protecting predator species for forever, and obviously it has an effect on the livestock, increasing funding for small meat processors, reduction of inspection fees 'cause he wants more production. Remove unfair tariff and non-tariff barriers and create fair and reciprocal trade, expanding opportunities for U.S. exports. That's what's meant by reciprocal trade deals when he talks about them. He's pursued various actions aimed at lowering medical and prescription drug costs through executive orders, price transparency rules, and voluntary pricing agreements with manufacturers, capping out-of-pocket insulin costs from participating Medicare beneficiaries at no more than $35 a month for a month's supply, initiatives at the Food and Drug Administration to speed up the approval of lower-cost generic medicines and biosimilars, which are often significantly cheaper than the brand-name alternatives. States can now legally import lower-cost prescription drugs if it can be done safely from Canada. What else has the president done domestically? Oh, I don't know. He's focused so much on foreign affairs. Executive orders on deregulation, signed executive orders directing federal agencies to identify and remove unnecessary administrative expenses and rent-seeking practices that drive up housing costs and impede new development. He signed into law an expansion of low-income housing tax credits, a program that incentivizes private investors to build affordable rental housing, federal land development. He supports plans to make federally-owned land available for new housing development. And of course, what he really needs is for the Fed to get its ass in gear, and the significantly lower interest rates as they should. And he's been pounding on the Fed and pounding on Powell and telling him, "You're killing the housing market. I'm doing everything I can from a fiscal perspective. You need to act from a monetary perspective and lower interest rates." In the initial months of his second term, real inflation-adjusted wages for blue-collar workers saw a significant increase, contrasting with negative real-wage growth observed during the first part of the Biden regime when inflation was high. Now, what else is he doing? Education is a disaster. The president knows this, and he's been working on it. Against the teachers' unions, against the Democrats in Congress, against Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, against this massive industrial education complex that is in place, they take your tax dollars at the federal level, they take your property tax dollars at the state level, and what do they do? We don't want parental involvement. We don't want school choice competition. We don't want -- We're in charge, pushing a leftist ideology every step of the way, and the results are seen, and Trump says, "Wait a minute. No more. We got to fix this." What is he doing? In K-12, he is ending the radical indoctrination of our students. It's being monitored. It's being fought, and he's being opposed every step of the way. School choice and vouchers, the proposed Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act, by allowing tax-free withdrawals from 529 education saving plans for a K-12 cost. So you can take that money out of the money you put aside for college and university in one day, which your kids may never use for that, or you may not, and apply it to school choice at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels. School discipline. Reinstate common-sense school discipline policies that focus on objective, behavioral misconduct rather than DEI principles. Thank you, Obama. Parental empowerment. The administration has supported policies aimed at giving parents more control over their children's education and school options. Higher education. Dismantling the Department of Education, it's going on right now, under a great secretary of education, and that means transferring many of its functions to other agencies, block granting funding to the states, that sort of thing. That has been a desire of conservatives and Republicans since the late 1970s, when this monstrosity was created, as a gift to the NEA and the AFT, and this is the first president, the only president, to actually do something about it. As I said, ending DEI in affirmative action, the Department of Education, removed or archived hundreds of guidance documents and webpages related to DEI, and they directed schools to comply with the Supreme Court decision that ended affirmative action in college admissions. Accreditation reform. Initiatives were proposed to reform the higher education accreditation process to encourage a competitive marketplace and potentially lower college courses. You know, we conservatives, I for one, these are things I have supported and advocated for decades. And you know where they went? Nowhere. They were on white papers. They were in seminars. They were in debates. This man, Trump, is actively enforcing these ideas, these principles, these proposals, trying to get America back from the hard left. That's what it is. I love it when they say, look what he's doing. He's imposing his will. He's attacking free speech and academic. No, he's not. He said enough is enough. You radical left-wing kooks, you don't own the country. You don't own the culture. You don't own the government. No, it's time for patriotic Americans to take their government back, and I, Donald Trump, will take the lead, and that's what he's doing. Combating antisemitism and foreign influence, this is very important. This administration has taken measures to combat antisemitism on college campuses, increased transparency requirements for foreign gifts, and influence at American universities. We need to do much more in this regard. The prior regime was doing next to nothing. And we need more from the Republicans in Congress, too. You know, we don't want a dictator. Well, neither does Trump. Neither do I. Neither do any of these Constitutional conservatives. But we would like you guys in Congress to participate a little bit more, maybe. That would help. That's not that you're doing a bad job. We just need to ramp it up. Student loans. Actions have included attempts to limit eligibility and cap barring for some federal student loan programs. They blew the lid off this. They federalized it. It is a massive swamp of abuse, of spending, and so forth and so on. And Trump's trying to pull it back, as he should. And there's also this public service loan forgiveness. They've been looking at that very carefully. This is a trillion dollar entity with massive abuse that's taking place. And you and I are now on the hook because Obama basically nationalized and killed all the privatization. Trump's trying to bring back some of the privatization and so forth in competition and get control over it. Transgender athletes in sports, I hit this very quickly, and order, keeping men out, executive order, keeping men out of women's sports, prohibits educational institutions receiving federal funds from allowing transgender women to compete in women's sports categories. You know, I would say 10 years ago, this would be, excuse me, what's going on? And so this president said, "No, we're gonna fight these things." You know, Biden was all in. His people were all in. He said no. Continued significant support by this president for historically black colleges and universities through a White House initiative. Folks, I could go on and on and on. This president has been focused on domestic policy, on foreign policy. He knows he's got one term left. He's got about three years left, despite what some of the kooks are saying. One term left. And he's doing everything he can. This is why this midterm election is so crucial.

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