Josh First's Blog

April 21st, 2026

Sometimes no deal is good enough

President Donald Trump, the best president of my lifetime and the modern day savior of American democracy, believes in capitalism. He believes in “The Art of The Deal.” He believes that most humans, given good choices to select from, will almost always if not always choose logical, reasonable, rational options.

It is with this earnest mindest that President Trump has approached the Middle East. And in some ways, his view on human choices and preferences has, in fact, borne out with the wealthy Gulf states (Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait). These sparsely populated countries are exceptionally rich, and everything they do is centered on money. Money is the language that President Trump speaks most and best, because he is a capitalist. And it is piles of money that keep the rulers of the Gulf states in power.

So, money brings together some of President Trump’s foreign policy goals into alignment, or slight overlap, with the oil producing Arab Gulf states.

Where this money-and-comfort mindset and worldview fails is in the face of apocalyptic, genocidal supremacists like Adolf Hitler back then, or the jihadi Iranian Shia mullahs in the present. These people did not and do not speak the language of money or human comfort and happiness, other than to use these thoughts to move themselves forward on the chess board in the short term. Their currency is raw power and sheer domination and control of everyone in front of them, by any means necessary.

They are ruthless, whereas President Trump believes in choices and opportunities.

The jihadi/ Hitlerian supremacist view is contrary to President Trump’s view. The totally rational “Mutually Assured Destruction” doctrine that kept Soviet Russia and America from nuking one another in the Cold War does not apply in Iran, nor with any other Islamist country. There, money is only a means, not a goal. Lots of jihadis are happy to live in poverty, if it helps them achieve their measure of wealth in power and human subjugation.

Trump believes in kindness and human choices, free people making their own choices and reaching “deals” for mutual benefit. On the other hand, Jihadis believe in you, me, and Trump all on our knees (which is why the American and European Left share common cause with the Jihadis).

America was founded on individual freedom and choice, which are completely the opposite of Islam, and especially the jihadis within Islam. These two world views are incompatible; they do not overlap in a Venn diagram. To date, leaders like President Trump have managed to find points of contact between Western values and Islam where friction is least, but he has been unable to really find significantly overlapping areas of interest. The Abraham Accords came very close to bringing the Sunni Arab countries into a shared Venn diagram space with Israel and America, but those accords are pretty shaky. As soon as jihadis somewhere start their la-la-la-la yodeling thing, the Gulf states reflexively go into retreat. Culture is powerful.

With Iran, there is no compromise. Not because America does not want to, but because Iran’s apocalyptic, genocidal, fanatic jihadis do not accept any point of contact between themselves and anyone else that is not resolved 100% on their terms. And they will fight to the very end, even if they have to drag down their enemies with them into the abyss, to seek that end result.

President Trump is both a patient and loving man. That is clear. But he is also having trouble computing that anyone can be so different from him and from America’s hope and promise as are the Iranian jihadis. And so he keeps on trying to “make a deal.”

Mister President, a lot of us Americans, who are still squarely and absolutely in your corner, think you have tried more than is possible or than is even smart. You have done all that is possible to avert an absolute showdown with the Iranian jihadis, and they have been unable to meet you halfway. You must now accept that they are incapable of thinking like you, thinking in terms of mutual benefit. They do not think like that, or like you.

If the Iranian jihadis are allowed to stay in power in any way, shape, or form, they will return to their field of battle with America on their own terms. They will have learned from their mistakes since 2025, and they will adapt. Iran will find a way to destroy or damage America, one way or another, if they are allowed to remain in power.

You must finish the Iranian jihadi job, Mister President. If you love America as much as we all think you do, then you must make the unpleasant decision to wipe out the Iranian jihadis. It is us or them, and we elected you to protect Us.

We know that this is a difficult time for you, President Trump, and we stand firmly with you, at your side. Absolutely no one else in American politics has the strength of character that you have, and if you do not save America from jihadi Iran now, then we will end being apocalyptically victimized by them in the future. There is no art of the deal that you or anyone else can pull off that will avoid this; only military success right now will protect America.

By Josh • Posted in Government Of the People..., Immigration • No Comment

April 19th, 2026

Advice for young men

Following a lot of recent discussions about the generally sorry state of America’s young people, it is necessary for this elder to chime in. Go ahead and say it: “OK Boomer,” it just proves the point here.

Because I am a man, and grew up in a time when Americans knew who they were and what a woman was, and what a man was not, this advice is aimed at America’s young men. If you think you are young, then this is for you. And if you are starting over a little later in your life, then these thoughts might also be for you.

First, be a gentleman in all ways, and dress like one, if you can. Be articulate, thoughtful, reflective, a listener, and respectful, even of people or opinions you do not yet understand or with which you disagree. This will set you up for receiving the same, which we all enjoy. Dressing nicely will really make you stand out, and be received well.

Second, be chivalrous at every opportunity. Men my age were taught to open doors for women, which made women feel special and made men feel better than average. Today I open doors for women, and men, every opportunity possible. Sadly, many older women evince surprise at this kind act, and I always say “If I did not hold this door open for you, my mother will jump out from behind that bush over there and she will kick my ass.”

The older women know exactly what I am talking about, and smile, or laugh, because they remember. They enjoy being treated nicely and because discipline was once an important part of child rearing and creating a healthy, well adjusted, functioning adult. Some women will even laugh or confirm my fear that Mom is indeed right over there, just waiting for me to screw up. Fear of Mom is not always a bad thing. It built functioning human civilizations for thousands of years until recently, when moms decided they had to be their children’s best friends, or worse, their enablers.

Third, learn how to fight. Fist fighting was a way of life when and where I grew up, and almost all of the boys I had fist fights with ended up becoming close friends. We ended up hunting, fishing, camping out together, riding dirt bikes, etc. Some of us are still in touch. It shaped us, it did not ruin us, though some kids liked fighing too much, and they ended up being the older guy you know who goes to jail.

A lot of those youthful fights were more a test of a guy’s measure than an act of hostility. Guys sizing each other up. Today, hostility is in the air, and danger lurks around every suburban street corner, because crime goes unpunished and the wheels of our society are falling off. A man worth being called an American should know how to at least defend himself, if not make an attacker regret his choice.

Recently at a wedding, I encountered a young man whose last appearance in my life was as a scrawny, nerdy, bookish, bespectacled, sweet natured teenager. Today, he is a fine, confident, and muscular specimen of a young American man, complete with a concealed carry pistol and weekly boxing lessons. No designated victim he, unlike so many American men.

You do not need to be a black belt in anything, some of which are actually a liability and not an asset (overconfidence kills the cat); you just need to know when to run away, which is almost always, and lacking the possibility of retreat, how to make a good showing for yourself and your future health. Boxing and various other forms of fighting can be learned almost everywhere across America.

Simple lessons teach the basics of stance, timing, blocking, parrying, and striking. Eons ago, I tried a few styles of Karate, and settled on the old version of Tang Soo Do, Korean street fighting. That was replete with throat rips, eye gouges, and finger breaking. Today, such training is considered a legal liability, and Tang Soo Do is no different than the version of the point system Thai Quan Do taught in most dojos.

Whatever fighting style or practice you learn is good. Again, learning to defend one’s self is not about becoming the bully of your block or being a nationally recognized expert in arm locks and spinning back kicks, or ripping your shirt off at parties and demonstrating your moves. You are not taking classes in self defense so you can do somersaults that end in hand choppng pine boards. Rather, every American man should have enough confidence and will power to stand toe to toe with an assailant, if the need arises. This is the American spirit.

A man’s spirit.

TBC

By Josh • Posted in Fruit of Contemplation • No Comment

April 14th, 2026

Best colleges are the ones you never heard of

The best colleges are the ones you have probably never heard of, including community colleges. The supposedly “elite” Ivy League schools are actually the very worst, because unless you study hard science, a student there is not getting educated, but stupider.

This is a subject of discussion because “higher education” (especially the biggest name schools) a) is proving itself to be a useless enterprise that rarely provides students with useful, valuable skills, abilities, or knowledge, b) is collapsing under the weight of its own political indoctrination, c) abandoned merit and critical thinking decades ago for pet political narratives with no practical application in a student’s life or career, and d) is unfathomably corrupt, a violation of the entire founding idea of the academy, which was supposed to be a place of truth, honest debate, and accountability.

Colleges are the very last place on this planet where you are likely to encounter the free speech or freedom of assocation rights needed for the academy to attain its purported goals. More likely, today’s college students experience a Stalinesque gulag lacking only those Siberian snows in its icy rigidity and mortal danger to the brain, soul, and, if you are white, Asian, or Jewish, to your body.

Colleges are now where American kids go to die intellectually, and where they are carefully trained to remain in perpetual spoiled childhood status. These ever-child beings have been created by colleges for the sole purpose of being ever-present street activists, loud cannon fodder for the political Left’s non-stop war against a constitutional America, capitalism, meritocracy, equal opportunity, societal order etc.

No thought was given by college administrators to how exactly these perpetually angry spoiled little brats were going to eventually support themselves through gainful employment. No one, not even the Ford Foundation and its fellow underwriters of chaos and destruction, has any use for a confused and angry 22-year-old who cannot think itself out of a wet paper bag. So imagine the actual work places available to “woke” college grads: Mean adults who expect 9 to 5 productivity from the college grads they are paying.

These two things, college grads and productive work places, do not belong together. To wit:

Unfortunately, in my line of work I must occasionally employ attorneys skilled at litigation. And in this process, I have learned over and over that the best litigation attorneys are the ones from the no-name schools. Third-tier law schools that no one ever heard of now produce, in my experience, the hungriest, most assertive, most zealously-represent-the-interests-of-your-client kind of lawyers out of all. These small schools have the least amount of time for woke DEI crap, and their mostly blue collar students have the least amount of interest or money to spend on that crap.

So, for most of those young Americans contemplating post-high school education, may I recommend the following:

Tech degrees in surveying (big shortage of young surveyors), medical equipment, welding, diesel engine mechanics, and machinery operation from schools like Penn Tech in Williamsport, PA.
Directly applicable degrees in finance, marketing, math, science, economics from community colleges (like Harrisburg Area Community College, or HACC) and small regional no-name colleges that never got into DEI, much less just got out of it like so many schools are now doing.
Assiduously avoid any kind of “degrees” in environmental anything, history, English, French, German, women’s studies, gender or race studies. These 100% subjective and micron-deep fields are completely useless, are based on various theories of cultural Marxism, have zero practical application in the real world where the work must get done every day for whatever the particular business is to succeed, they will rot your brain and fill your head with toxic poison of no interest to anyone trying to make a living and feed themselves on this planet, and they will saddle you and your parents with huge student debt that bought you nothing but a diploma worth less than the piece of paper it is printed on.

For those high school grads who want to make money, buy a house, have nice things, raise a family, may I suggest starting a small business or two in a garage, and see where that takes you. No college experience anywhere is a substitute for your own hard work and enterprising spirit. America has a million untested markets available, each one just waiting for some young person to test it and see what the prospective buyers want to spend in it.

This is one area the college experience will not prepare you for, and in fact will dumb you down: Free markets.

By Josh • Posted in Family • No Comment

April 12th, 2026

Spoiled brat Republican kids, wth

Next installment of cane-shaking at spoiled American kids, this time directly at the so-called conservatives and Republican young people.

Why are you young people, with so much promise, so much potential, so much energy, so many options, also so negative and living the flip-side of the grievance culture that the Left has used to nearly destroy America?

You will say that America is ganging up on us, which is true, and that much of the ground rules, that your parents made you live by while you were growing up, are not being followed by anyone else, which is also true.

True, all of it, but irrelevant. Let me ask you a question:

When our forefathers founded America, what kind of conditions did they face? Not very good, right? Bad, right? Overwhelming odds, right?

Were the British fighting fair, while trying to stop the young republic from gaining independence and succeeding as a new nation run by its people, instead of its nobility and aristocracy? No, the British did not fight fair. In fact, they very often took no prisoners on the battlefield, and “dispatched” with bloody bayonet anyone who was wounded, and then executed by firing squad anyone left standing.

And yet, General George Washington and his brave troops fought, and fought, and fought. They were undeterred. They bled and fought, day after day. Yes, it was tough, but what option did they have? To lose was to lose everything, and become slaves.

You young conservative Americans are not weak, and you are not pathetic, and you are not sad losers, so STOP ACTING LIKE THAT.

My advice, or rather my request, is that you look within yourself/ yourselves and find and use that same strength and ingenuity that our Founding Fathers had to draw upon to survive and create the great country we live in. It is in you.

And yes, America is in survival mode right now, no arguing about that. Our beloved America is in terrible shape because of anti-Western ideology on the Left and complacent cowardice on the Right. The Democrat Party is crazy and the Republican Party is lazy, and the crazies are winning.

So do not mimic the Left and begin whining and bitching about how unfair things are. Do not do that. Rather, band together and pursue positive goals. Like: Recruit American Blacks, Hispanics, and Asian Indians into the Republican Party, and make the Republican Party a truly conservative institution that promotes the basic principles of America’s founding, like meritocracy and equal opportunity for everyone.

And like: Create your own institutions, if the current ones are corrupted.

Years ago, my son was one year away from being an Eagle Scout, and he dropped out of Boy Scouts because of the massive assault on the institution. The demand to include girls in his troop was one problem, because he could no longer hang out with just boys and talk about Boy things in a safe environment. And then came the gay thing, where everyone had to talk about being gay, and acting gay, with older gay men hanging around, in what had been a non-sexual environment where talking about sex anything was generally frowned upon. It was this new form of sexual harassment that drove my son out of the Boy Scouts, and broke his will as a Boy.

Hugely sad for our family, who had all cheered on our son in his many years as a Boy Scout.

And I experienced something similar while in graduate school, back in 1990, when I was matter-of-factly told that White men had a bleak future in academia. My dream of being a college professor was blown up, because I had the wrong skin color. I felt sold out, and betrayed by the institutions I wanted to be a part of.

And in fact, when I went to work in the Federal government in Washington DC, instead of finishing my Phd and becoming a college professor, I discovered that the federal workforce was only a few years behind the racial and anti-man gender assault well under way in academia. My career turned into a white guy running like hell, trying to stay out ahead of the pack of dogs chasing us down (how ironic that the people running those packs of hunting dogs were and still are all White Liberals, who long ago destroyed the American Black family).

So I know of what I speak, and of what you feel. Your groups, organizations, institutions have almost all been corrupted, and you find yourself overwhelmed and surrounded by attackers. All of this is factually true, it is not just a feeling. But do not live by your feelings, live by your intelligent brains.

Be like George Washington when he fought the British, and retreat and re-form and re-organize in safety, again and again as much as you must, in order to fight effectively another day.

But fight you must, as men, as American men, as George Washington men, because if you little bastards sit around sucking your thumbs and bitching about how unfair life is, you will indeed lose this fight and lose America and all of its beautiful promise, and your adult lives will be a horrendous leftwing Marxist hellscape of slavery and oppression. And tough guys like me will either be dead or too old to fight for you.

So fight, dammit, fight smart and out-flank the enemy. Out-organize it, and defeat it. And once you have your enemy defeated on the battlefield…do not leave it alive to come back and attack you again later on. Make Marxism and treason absolutely illegal in America… by making it terribly punishable.

So Job #1: Form a stronger, better, harder, more popular, leaner, less elitist Republican Party, and go out and win elections with a majority of the country supporting you. You can do it, if you but will it.

By Josh • Posted in Fruit of Contemplation • No Comment

April 10th, 2026

“OK Boomer” and other spoiled brat crap

No apologies at all today, this essay is a frustrated old man rant. And like most frustrated old men, I am certain this will be ignored by the vast majority of its audience, if not every single person for whom it is meant: You bratty kids who say “OK, Boomer” about everything you don’t like hearing from your elders, including frank universal truths that supposedly conservative adults embrace.

One of the great successes of America and the civilized West is our material wealth and comforts. Our poorest citizens generally live better than all of the poor people in most other countries as well as their middle income people; and our middle income citizens live better than almost everyone else across the planet.

We Americans have so much overabundant food that a lot of our citizens are fat, lazy, and pre-diabetic. And the fat and pre-diabetic Americans do not even have to work hard, physically or otherwise, to get a roof over their head and put food in the fridge. Many of us are practically sleep walking through life.

Our American people are largely being lulled to sleep by all this overabundance and daily over-indulgence. Very little effort is required to have nice things, a modern cell phone, a car, a roof over one’s head, as much food as you can eat any time you want it, endless entertainment and opportunities for personal expressions, etc

Life in America is not hard for a lot of our people, and in fact, life here is so good that it is almost too good. We have so much of every thing that the abundance is nearly killing us. Not just physically, but mentally, spiritually, culturally, too. Many Americans seem to be addicted to ease of life, easy living, easy everything, to the point where any minor hiccup in their life is cause for the now ubiquitous TikTok breakdown sob story video.

Guys (and many women) like me, who grew up at a time when Americans began working hard at age twelve or fourteen, who had daily chores to do as part of living in a family house, who every day felt personal duties and obligations beyond their/ our own personal desires and wants, who have a hard, tough core inside of us from having worked hard and sacrificed for long, we have a real tough time understanding or even empathizing with today’s young people. And by young, I mean up into the forties, sad to say.

And for guys like me, in particular, who grew up in rural places where hands-on chores in forests, the woodshed, and the farm yard were standard operating procedure, this disbelief we feel while watching American culture devolve into a giant cry-and-whine-fest, is a million times accentuated.

You weak little bastards.

See, like our own elders did before us, it was us elders who sacrificed so much for you young people. We who worked so hard to continue on the growing America that was handed to us. We who believe in hard work and diligence and deferring pleasure and gratification in lieu of achieving some important goal, personal or national. It is us who are disgsuted by the arrogant, dismissive, unappreciateive “OK, Boomer” quip from young people who a) Do not know how to work b) Do not want to work and c) Could not save their ass with both hands if it was handed to them on a silver platter.

We think “OK, Loser.”

Reputed conservatives, of all Americans, are the ones who shock me the most in this regard. Young people who brag how “religious” they are, and how traditional their conservative their beliefs are, are also the same ones casually dismissing us, their wise elders, while they get to either wallow in self pity over nothing, or, just as bad, start scapegoating other people for imaginary slights and failings that have nothing to do with where so many floundering young people find themselves today.

For tough old coots like me, the last generation with any connection to the original frontier lifestyle and values that created our America, the culture that serves you now, we elders, who know how to shoot a rifle and swing an axe and put up with personal insults without disintegrating into a pile of pathetic mush, you spoiled little brats look like the face of failure, all right. You look like you are going to drag down our beautiful America into complete and absolute failure once us tough old “OK, Boomer” adults are dead and gone or unable to put up a fight to save this great republic.

Get your shit together, kids, and work hard to get America on track to future success. Hard work is good for you. It makes you strong, it makes you tough, and it makes you appreciate the things that you get to own and call your own. Being tough means that you can survive when the going gets tough. Leverage the strong economy this current administration is brilliantly putting together for you.

No, socialism is not and has not been successful, anywhere or at any time it is tried. Socialism is for weak, lazy, losers; it is not for true Americans. And respecting your elders is still “a thing” the world around, in every traditional society. If you cannot show respect to us “Boomers,” then do not call yourself a conservative, or religious. Rather, you are just a slightly different anarchic leftist.

Rant done for now, and definitely not over. Ol’ Papa is just beginning to work up a good lather. You ungrateful, weak little shits.

By Josh • Posted in Family, Fruit of Contemplation, Immigration • No Comment

April 7th, 2026

Happy Iranian Freedom Day…

By Josh • Posted in Immigration • No Comment

April 1st, 2026

Passover + Easter = Peaceful freedom

Tonight is the beginning of the week of Passover, the ancient Biblical holiday marking the end of Jewish slavery in Egypt and the beginning of their 40-year trek to Israel, their Biblical homeland.

Passover is the major worldwide holiday dedicated to human freedom. From Passover comes inspirational phrases in American founding documents and coinage, and the Last Supper in the Gospel. This Sunday is Easter, the worldwide holiday about spiritual renewal and peace.

Tonight, while Jews and Christians are at their Seder tables, President Trump will announce the beginning of the end of the war to end Iran’s apocalyptic nuclear holocaust ambition. This Easter Sunday will mark the beginning implementation of that winding down. The symbolism of this timing of events is powerful.

In just one month, President Trump has done what naysayers and spineless apologists had said could never be done – the destruction of a genocidal Islamic tyranny determined to hijack our entire planet. Iran as we knew it a month ago is no more, its 47 years of nonstop militarism now in rubble, its threats to humanity vastly diminished.

Imagine if world leaders had had Trump’s level of foresight and bravery in 1938; if they had had his strength of conviction to confront Adolf Hitler before he gained momentum; there would likely have been no World War II, no mass destruction of Europe by the genocidal German Nazis. President Trump’s principled, decisive nature this past month has saved what is left of Western Civilization, giving it time to save itself in the long run, before it is subsumed under a wave of foreign ground invasion and Iranian nuclear missiles.

Tonight, the world knows peace for the first time in a very long time. If you don’t know this, you should, and if you don’t appreciate this fact, you need to contemplate on it. No more TDS, no more JDS, just give thanks that the America you so easily take for granted has a lot more breathing room. Much thanks to be said this Passover and this Easter for President Trump’s gift of peace and freedom.

And we all hope the Iranian People will take this same opportunity for themselves.

Screenshot

By Josh • Posted in Fruit of Contemplation, Immigration • No Comment

March 25th, 2026

Carpe diem, carpe lifeum, carpe friendum

Carpe diem – Latin for seize the day – was popularized in America by now deceased actor Robin Williams in a wonderful (if moronically anti gun) movie called The Dead Poets Society.

In his characteristic full-throttle mode, hard to tell if he was acting or just being him-so-interesting-self, Robin Williams playing the school teacher, beautifully exhorted his high school students to carpe diem, seize the day, to gather ye rose buds which ye may, to live life fully moment by moment and day by day, to miss nothing, let no opportunity slip by, to live and be their best.

This is an ages-old challenge for all of us, especially Americans, whose lives today are filled with so much clutter and nonsense, especially online (except for this blog, of course), so much material chasing, and ego driving, and so little opportunity for reflective contemplation.

Well have I been reminded of carpe diem in just the past couple days. Another friend gone, before their time, before the years said they should be gone and leave us. A wonderful and interesting person, full of life and cantankerous fist-waving at President Trump and Republicans, who was a pretty conservative rural white Southerner, nonetheless, whose personal views on borders and illegal immigration and public welfare for new immigrants fell deeply into Republican policy territory. Whether this contrary policy place was cognitive dissonance or confusion or misplaced brand loyalty to a political party that had long ago left this person behind, I do not know, nor do I care.

I never cared. It just made them an interesting person, whose chemistry somehow strangely matched with my own.

This old friend was important to me, as are so many old friends from, let’s say, the past fifty years of my ever-shortening life. And yet, not important enough to see in person for many years, despite mutual declarations of intentions and desires to do so. So much to catch up on, the kids, the grandkids, career, friends, family.

Now, this person like a puff of smoke in a gentle breeze – poof – is gone from my life, and from the life of their own children and family, who loved them very much.

As I age, I am seeing more and more friends literally drop dead or get sick and die. People I care about very much, and maybe to whom I have not expressed my appreciation in a long time. Or my apologies for stupid behavior in our youth. Or to share some knee-slapping hilarity over ridiculous and probably dangerous adventures we did together, long ago, when rural American youth did such things with impunity, and without fear of being branded a terrorist.

Yes, I have regrets, now that my friend is dead, before I had a chance to sit down with them one more time. And in this moment of regret, or recurring moments as I move through my day from one errand and activity to another, I am reminded to carpe diem.

And… Carpe Lifeum, Carpe Friendum.

To miss no opportunity to breathe in the richest of life that I can muster, at every moment. Enjoy my friends, my life. Before I, too, suddenly and unexpectedly breathe my last breath on this earth.

Not to sound morbid, but my friend did just unexpectedly die, literally dropped dead, and so let us both turn this sad black rose into a red rose bud that we gather together, and treasure together, while we yet may.

Goodbye, old friend, and Hello, living friends. We need to have a coffee or a beer together, don’t we…

By Josh • Posted in Fruit of Contemplation • No Comment

March 20th, 2026

All hail John Fetterman and Chuck Norris

All hail US senator John Fetterman, and actor/ martial artist / patriot spokesman Chuck Norris, late of Planet Earth and now karate chopping endless pine boards in Heaven.

These two guys are (were) mavericks. Both started out as registered Democrats, and ended up as something else. More on this in a minute.

Nothing is more American than being an honest-to-goodness maverick; the one-off, independent spirit who charts his own path through tough times and obstacles. Maverick really is the heart and soul of American Yankee entrepreneurship, guys who think way outside the box. Whatever the box may be at that time in history.

Our own American Indians were impressively maverick, until they met the tough Scots-Irish frontiersmen, who largely founded the America we have known and loved lo, these past 250 years. They were even more maverick. The same Scots-Irish Over-Mountain Men who fought at Kings Mountain and won George Washington’s war of independence, and then got on their horses and rode back into rugged Kan-Tuck-Ee, and whose descendants then fought the British again at the bloodiest Battle of New Orleans in 1815, and whose descendants then became the iconic Rocky Mountains Mountain Men of the 1830s.

Mavericks, indeed. Generations of them. Generations of Us, the Americans, who are the mavericks of the world.

Chuck Norris said he left the Democrat Party because it had gone too far left, had become something unrecognizable, something not-American. Chuck Norris’ acting career was spent playing the same themes of American patriotism, the tough principled individual against mobs of loathesome no-goodnicks, the voice of the rational good guy against greedy bastards, and always, the maverick.

Lone Wolf McQuade, Delta Force, Texas Rangers, his TV shows were a consistently recognizable and reliably entertaining genre that summed up a great deal of American culture goodness, much as The Lone Ranger TV series had done for the previous generation.

Exit Chuck Norris stage right, and enter… stage left…?… a new maverick who almost died, who was only mostly dead, and who came back to the land of the living, and who yet still remains with us reborn, John Fetterman.

I well remember John Fetterman as the angry, defiant, politically anarchic state senator from western PA. That Cro Magnon beetle brow and large, sluggish frame made him easy to deride as a Frankenstein – like moron. But… Au contraire, mon ami!

Turned out, John Fetterman was one of the only people to graduate from Harvard University in recent decades who is not a moron. Fetterman says he is one of the only registered Democrats in his heavily Republican family, and for most of his career that showed. He was obviously trying to prove something to somebody with his ridiculous rhetoric and big doofus behavior as mayor of a East Succotash small town no one in that town had ever heard of, and then again in the Pennsylvania Senate chamber. With the satirical hoodie and no-no cargo shorts to boot. The guy was not a serious person, much less a serious representative of The People. He was all hat and no cattle.

And then, a couple years ago, the newly elected US Senator John Fetterman had a brain aneurysm, almost died, and suddenly returned to the US Senate as a maverick. This was bigger than any theater or movie; it was politically seismic, if also scientifically and cosmically weird.

Fetterman was not just dressed as a maverick, or doing boorish college student takeover-the-podium stuff, but also now thinking like a maverick. Communicating and acting outside the box he had been in, and had almost stayed in. Suddenly, the new John Fetterman was a calm voice of reason on thorny political issues. His staffers quit his office in droves, angry that the defiant far-left hysterics they had signed up for had grown up and put on a nice Oxford shirt under that hoodie.

For the past two years, post-aneurysm US Senator John Fetterman has been a calm voice of reason, not a politically partisan hack who just flows along with the partisan mob. He is a thinker, a divider of policies. I do not always agree with him, but enjoying more than finding some common ground with him, I really appreciate having a senator who carefully weighs stuff out before committing to a policy.

And the farther and harder crazy loon left his Democrat Party goes, the more John Fetterman stands like a rock of reason in a world where leftists have abandoned all reason.

Now, Fetterman is closing in on an upcoming primary race for the senate seat he occupies. This election is sure to bring out the angry far left Democrat voters who chased away Chuck Norris, Ronald Reagan, me, and a horde of other patriotic self-directed Americans from the “Party of Love.” US Senator John Fetterman surely must recognize that his maverick thinking, which bridges both political parties and unites most sane Americans, is a liability on the left, an admirable quality on the right, and puts him squarely in the middle.

One must wonder if US Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) is about to declare himself as an Independent, and thereby hold this Senate seat for the rest of his life, or at least until his next and probably fatal aneurysm. All will hail Caeser Fetterman, the newly hatched butterfly, the Master of the Political Realm for pretty much as long as he wants, if he declares himself an Independent.

Americans always like honest mavericks, and I think Fetterman is about to show us another bigger-than-life iconic example of the how and what of that.

By Josh • Posted in Government Of the People... • No Comment

March 16th, 2026

SAVE ICE

The SAVE Act is in its final throes of being brought to a vote in the US Senate. This is the proposed law that will require all voters to prove they are American citizens before they can cast a vote.

Makes sense to me. The only people who would oppose this kind of basic election law are those who oppose election integrity and who want vote cheating.

Way way too many memes contrasting the ridiculous claim that getting ID to vote is racist, because you know how racist it is when we show our IDs to buy booze, get into a venue, pick up a prescription medicine etc etc… there is no good reason why a person would oppose ID for voting. The only people who oppose ID for voting are people who benefit from fraudulent elections.

Which is why funding for ICE ( U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is so important: America must have control of its borders, control of who enters America, and control over what these people are carrying into America.

Controlling who enters America helps us control who is voting in America, because one political party has turned illegal immigrants into a business plan (illegal votes, stolen elections, fraudulent government grants recycled back into that political party).

So, today is SAVE ICE Day. We need the SAVE America Act and we need ICE funding, which are both being held up by just one political party that objects to basic election integrity and national borders integrity.

Also last night, that one political party held a political rally in costume called “The Oscars,” in which personal IDs had to be presented multiple times in order to take a seat behind the very high walls, and in which voting for winners was limited to a very carefully selected and vetted group of people.

Schizophrenia used to be a feared medical condition, but nowadays it is an honorable, even noble calling. By only the wealthiest of self-appointed elites, no less.

I sure hope we are able to SAVE ICE and bypass national schizophrenia surrounding American elections going forward.