"Ursula von der Leyen" descends directly from European nobility, and she married into European nobility. Her great-great grandfather was the German noble and industrialist Baron Johann Ludwig von Knoop. Her husband, Heiko von der Leyen, descends from the Prussian baronial line of "von der Leyen zu Bloemersheim." (Source: Grok) The EU is just another way for the ancient nobility of Europe to continue to exercise their illegitimate, unelected, hereditary power and avoid the voice and vote of the masses. European immigrants came to America to escape the despicable vise grip of bloodlines controlling destiny. The EU should come nowhere near America.

I just saw this at a traffic light, and I wanted to share a photo I took because I think it demonstrates a perfect distillation of the Leftist mind. On the left side is a symbol of radical violence. On the right side is a traditional symbol of peace. How is it possible for a human being who is smart enough to obtain a driver's license and own a car to embrace such wholly contrary concepts all at once? ANSWER: Because to a Leftist, all of their ideas are virtuous, so violence in the pursuit of virtue equals peace. Let me say that again: Violence is peace. Anybody seen George Orwell around lately?

The "Deep State" is a murky, dark cabal of like-minded Leftists, all rowing in the same direction without a stated or deliberate conspiracy. They don't need a conspiracy, because they all think alike. It consists of unelected Leftist government bureaucrats, Leftist thinktanks and NGOs, the Democrat/Media Complex, most of high-level academia, most of the legal profession (the kind that rotates between government and BigLaw firms), and assorted hangers-on. When the American electorate elects a Presidential administration (I'll call such an administration the "Good Guys") that stands in stark and well-stated opposition to the Deep State, that same affiliated cabal acts like white blood cells when they encounter an infection--they swarm in a fight to the death. If the Good Guys call on a private citizen to assist in the fight against unelected tyranny, anyone who answers that call is not the "Deep State." Instead, they are patriots who are as far removed from the actual Deep State as is possible. Discernment matters.

This is why so many people try to destroy Data Republican. Quick side story related to part of her excellent article. After I retired from the Army, I went to law school full time: Georgetown Law. My 3L year, I took an International Law course. Rosa Brooks was the instructor. Yes, we covered the basics of International Law like the Caroline Affair, but the class rapidly devolved into a leftist wet dream of US interventionism based solely on the tragic "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) doctrine that keeps getting American servicemen and women killed in faraway places like Somalia. I hated it, and disagreed silently while seething in class. It wasn't a class teaching the law. It was an extended political indoctrination session being taught to seventy 24-year old gullible minds who had never held a job, and me. Grades matter in law school. Everything is graded on a curve, the whole semester comes down to one final exam, and if you don't get good grades you don't get a good lawyer job and end up getting paid pennies in some public sector job while sitting on $300k of student loan debt. So in the final exam, I wrote answers I knew Rosa Brooks wanted to hear. I got an award for the highest grade in the class. Some may say I should have written how screwed up she was as a form of protest. I think mine was a better form of protest. Rosa Brooks is an archetype: the government lawyer who knows what is best for you, doesn't care about the will of the electorate, and sees men and women in uniform as objects to be manipulated to advance their worldview of tyrannical, society-destroying Cosmopolitism. These are the people who believe they should rule you.

Let me just say something. I've known Data Republican longer than most of you. She became an online friend back when my X account was much bigger than her X account. I saw her making predictions about the 2024 election that were different than everybody else, grounded in novel analyses of data points nobody else ever looked at, and even before the actual election results proved that she was the most accurate electoral analyst on Planet Earth, I like to flatter myself and think that I spotted her analytical genius very early on. I got to know her as a result of my admiration for her work. I have talked to her a lot over the past couple of years. She is genuine. She is who she says she is, in every way. She is not an "op." She is not funded by [FILL IN THE BLANK OF WHATEVER ORGANIZATION YOU DESPISE]. She is an independent, extremely smart person with strong Christian moral convictions. She does what she thinks is right, and she stands in the fire bravely, in a way that few of us could ever bear. Is she perfect? No. We all make mistakes. But you know what? When she does, she owns up to those mistakes, unlike 99% of the other "influencers" out there. Which makes me admire her even more. If you are one of those people who keep insisting she is some sort of paid information warfare operative as part of whatever conspiracy du jour has infested your inflamed cerebral cortex, you can just stick it, idiot. I'm done.

This is what actual transparency looks like. Good for you DR. I would like to dwell for a moment on this: "I have been described by a very vocal segment as someone who is somehow simultaneously a Zionist and being part of the Flynn network." This sort of dualist absurdity is an epidemic among many who are politically active online. Not everyone is paid for their thoughts. Not every thought is black-or-white (no gray area), 100% one way or 0% the other. Sometimes complexity exists. Intelligent people are able to form their own COMPLEX opinions on a case-by-case basis. This confounds the stupid and ignorant because they themselves lack that intellectual complexity so they cannot understand it. We are all individuals. Not everything is a conspiracy. Intelligent people can and do think through each issue on a separate basis, without regard for tribal beliefs. (I think this has something to do with the "friend/enemy" distinction James Lindsay has identified as being such a problem.) I'm not sure if this tribalistic inability to recognize nuance is a basic human failing, or if social media amplifies it 1000%, or probably both. But we all need to do better.

This is so awesome and has made my day. Stars & Stripes has always supposed to have been for the troops, by the troops. The recent deviation into being yet another venue for woke propagandistic garbage was never acceptable. This is level-setting back to the appropriate and intended task and purpose. Glorious.

When I read this (the post quoted below) all the way through, at the end I was literally nauseous. This was never about Trump. Instead, this was ALWAYS about We, the People. You see, the American electorate Constitutionally expressed its will in 2016 in electing Donald Trump as President, and the unelected, unaccountable, bureaucratic "experts" of the Deep State decided that THEY KNEW BETTER and that they would overturn the American electorate's choice "for its own good." NOTHING describes the dangers of the vast, unelected federal Leviathan better than the description of what they did here. What these men and women did was treason, plain and simple. And in a just world they would be facing the consequences of committing treason, but we apparently do not live in a just world. 😡😡😡😡

RE: Intra-Party Squabbles As we watch Tucker Carlson and his elite group of emotionally wounded narcissists do everything they can to destroy the Republican Party and hand the federal government to literal Communists (who knows why they are doing this), I think it’s important that Republicans understand the Democrat tactic of ALWAYS uniting behind their party’s candidates so we can adopt the same approach. I’ll explain using a personal example. I’m not sure who I will support for President in 2028. I used to think I would be a slam dunk for JD Vance, but frankly some of his associations, his connections to this “common good” movement and his handling of the Iran negotiations have given me pause. I have not really dug deep into any of this yet, so it could be that I am being superficially swayed by false reports, but the fact is I may choose a preferred Presidential candidate for the GOP that is not the choice of many other Republicans. That’s OK. As we swing into primary season (which will heat up the minute the 2026 midterms are over), we in the GOP SHOULD vigorously debate who we want as President. Vance? DeSantis? Rubio? Gabbard? Let the arguments flow. Be fierce. Be committed. Stand by your beliefs and fight for your candidate. THAT is America. But know this—whomever I support, once the GOP candidate is chosen through the primary process, THAT is my candidate who I will fight for tooth and nail. Why? Because the alternative is LITERAL COMMUNISTS. Too many on the Right let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If you have some pet grievance against Trump that causes you to shut down and walk away, then you don’t see the big picture—i.e., the alternative big picture where President Kamala ran roughshod over the Constitution and opened up our borders to millions of illegal aliens demanding handouts from your tax dollars. Does the GOP suck in its current incarnation? YES IT DOES. But I repeat: THE ALTERNATIVE IS LITERAL COMMUNISTS. So the way to do the most good is to fight fiercely for incremental change in the party but then support who it nominates. The Carlson/Massie/MTG style of “I’m taking my ball and going home” causes grievous harm to America and hands it over to its enemies. There is a difference between (i) fighting for your candidate and ultimately supporting the nominee and (ii) purposely destroying your party so the bad guys can take power. This is an immutable reality that too many on the Right fail to understand. I get it. You don’t like it. It makes you mad. But it is a reality that you can do nothing to change, so the only solution that will actually advance the goals you seek is to operate within the framework we are stuck with, and try to change it incrementally as best we can.

I am so with DataRepublican on this. If you follow me you know I do not tolerate racists and antisemites in my threads on X, regardless of whether or not I share any other ideological beliefs with said person. The fact that credentialist NeverTrump idiots believe that normal MAGAs are wholly aligned with the tiny handful of racist MAGAs shows only that highly educated people are often bigoted idiots who cannot see outside their own bubble. If you can identify the involvement of MAGA serving members of our government in "Patriot Front," Data Republican, I will help you expose them as eagerly as I expose Commie DEI racist antisemites in our civil service and the offices of Democrat representatives. Right is right and wrong is wrong.

RE: Tucker My theory on Tucker is that for years on the major networks he had producers who protected him against his own worst instincts. Then when he went out on his own he was able to fully indulge those instincts, wallowing in them, and he's turned into a white male Candace Owens as a result. The insane laugh should have tipped us off a long time ago, sadly.

Something miraculous is happening in the USA and the world thanks to the World Cup and the USA’s 250th. I’m not quite sure yet what it is, I have to give it more thought. I think it has something to do with the world realizing that managed decline is not necessary (with Trump’s America as the example), and I think it has something to do with more Americans not being afraid to be patriots about their nation and their culture. It’s more than that though—I have to ponder. Article coming when I figure it out. Any and all ideas welcome.

If you are a Millennial or later, you may be unaware of the near total domination Democrats had over American politics in the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s. Yes, the Dems and the GOP swapped Presidencies pretty routinely, but Congress tended to be overwhelmingly Democrat. When Newt Gingrich and his GOP team won a majority in the House in 1994, it was shocking and felt unbelievable. Now, in 2026, we are truly coming to understand that for decades Democrat electoral victories were built on: 1. Artificial, racist voting district constructs, ostensibly under the Voting Rights Act. 2. Complete control of votes and voting in most large cities. 3. Taxpayer dollars funneled to Leftist NGOs to promote Democrat policies. 4. A mass media with complete obedience to Democrats. 5. Illegal aliens, both for purposes of census district apportionments and illegal voting. 6. Highly questionable voting practices such as mail-in ballots, lack of voter ID, ballot dropboxes and ballot "harvesting." 7. "Errors" in census data that always pointed one-way. 8. The success of calling anyone who challenged their voting policies "racist." 9. Federal government employees "resisting" GOP policies while showing complete fealty to Democrat policies. Today, however, these electoral crutches are being kicked out one by one, and Democrats are becoming increasingly insane and violent as a result. Reality is being laid bare, and we are all coming to understand just how artificial Democrat power actually has been. In ten years they might be a powerless rump party, which suggests a third party supplanting the Democrats might soon be a reality. It's shocking, isn't it?