What Is a Citizen?

 

This year’s Supreme Court session ended at the end of June, which is usual. The fact that the final days of June are watched like a sporting tournament tells us the judiciary has more power than it ought to have.

We were assured, by Hamilton in Federalist 78: 

[T]he judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.

In other words, it has only the words of its opinions—and what power the society as a whole grants to those opinions.

When the opinions are good, we are pleased that they have clarified and verified the law. When the opinions are not good, we are frustrated that their opinions have the power of law, as if they had power to legislate. We were promised by our founders that we would not be put into this position. And yet here we are.

Here is what Thomas Jefferson said about such a situation:

"[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not ... would make the judiciary a despotic branch. ... [T]he germ of dissolution of our federal government is ... the federal Judiciary ... working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped. … They are construing our Constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone.”

 Several of the cases this session deserve a good discussion. But for today we’ll just cover the final one. The Supreme Court rendered its decision about birthright citizenship on June 30^th, the last day of the 2025 session. It deserves a post of its own. The question—still unanswered—in Trump v. Barbara is, What is a citizen?

It shouldn’t be that difficult to answer, on par with “what is a woman?” which is another question at least one of our justices cannot answer. It takes a certain obtuseness, maybe only possible by well-educated individuals lacking wisdom and moral fiber, to fail to understand such basics.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

Happy Birthday, America! Celebrating the Semiquincentennial Part VII

The 250^th Birthday of our country is a big deal. Most countries don’t even have a birthday they can identify. And while our US Constitution still has another eleven years before it hits 250, the average constitution in world history lasts only 17 years. We’re more than 30 times the average age. So we’re celebrating!

This series of monthly posts began in January. Here’s the series so far:

·       Part I: The Declaration 

·       Part II: The Preamble to the Constitution 

·       Part III: Article I, Lawmaking 

·       Part IV: Article II, The Executive Branch 

·       Part V: Article III, The Judicial Branch 

·       Part VI: The Bill of Rights, mainly 1^st Amendment Religious Freedom 

So, we’ve been doing some learning in our monthly celebration posts. But this month, with the actual birthday this very Saturday, I’m taking one post to focus more on the celebrating than the historical record—although there are some good places to go for your American history learning with your families this summer. I recommend PragerU videos (no cost), and Glenn Beck’s Torch has a “Summer of 250 Study Guide,” free for subscribers, with original songs for each of the Bill of Rights, and plenty more to make our nation’s founding interesting. 

For adults, I continue to recommend Hillsdale College courses, probably starting with Constitution 101. And, again, I recommend this 1989 video of the making of the Constitution, A More Perfect Union.   Anything from Wallbuilders, with David and Tim Barton, is also good; they have books, videos, museums, and more. Here’s a video from a couple of months ago that just popped up for me, about the signers of the Declaration.  Also, I think this weekend the Young Washington movie comes out; I haven’t seen it, but I’m hopeful that it will be good. Washington was an extraordinary person.

And, while we covered the Declaration of Independence back in January, do yourself a favor and take the five minutes to read it sometime this weekend—preferably within hearing of young people.

Celebration

Back in 1976, at our bicentennial, we had a lot of local things going on. I was in a choral group of young adults; I was still 17, but had just graduated from high school, so I qualified for the young adult group at church. We had a director who was studying to become a director, which he accomplished shortly afterward. The only song I remember singing was “Fifty Nifty United States” originally by Ray Charles. We had choreography and everything. I’ve since had my daughter and a homeschool group perform that song. I haven’t found a good video/audio version that wouldn’t be improved by your singing it yourself in your family, so I won’t link to any. But here’s the sheet music. It’s worth learning. It’s pretty fun. And the states in alphabetical order will forever stick in your mind.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

Conservative Partying, Part III: Platform & Resolutions

This is the third of three posts reporting on the Texas State Republican Convention, held in Houston June 8-13. Part I covers festivities, election of officers, and Rule Committee. Part II covers Legislative Priorities.

This post we’ll cover Platform & Resolutions Committee, from the perspective of an editor, which you’re probably not going to get anywhere else (not that the world is clamoring for such a perspective). Anyway, I’m afraid it’s still long, but it’s all in this post anyway. No more splitting into parts.

As I was reporting some arcane detail to my husband, with great enthusiasm, he commented that I sure am passionate about this. And that’s true. I love the words and the ideas—a whole lot more than the politicking. Anyway, here we go.

The Platform Is Conservative

Let me start with something positive. I had a conversation with one of the Committee members, someone for whom this is not her first rodeo either. And she asked me my impression of how the platform is doing. I don’t remember the exact wording of her question, but I was happy to report that, from my viewpoint, our platform is getting more conservative over time, and the grassroots are getting more unified.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

Conservative Partying, Part II: Legislative Priorities and (part of) Platform

 

Today is Part II of my debrief of the Texas Republican Convention. Part I is here.

I thought I would do Legislative Priorities and Platform in one post, but this has gotten ridiculously long. So I’m going to split it, and cover Platform & Resolutions in a Part III. (I’m assuming you’ll thank me later.) Most of it is written, so I should get Part III posted in a day or so. Thank you for your patience. I’m still quicker at getting this out than RPT is.

The convention ended Saturday, June 13. After two other editors did formatting and general edits, I spent all of Monday and Tuesday after convention doing a careful edit. There was integrating those changes and finishing indexing, and then a meeting between the Editorial Committee Chair, the RPT Secretary, and the Platform Committee Chair to go over any edits that needed approval—and to add the changes that were made on the floor of the convention, which I believe added one plank and one resolution, plus some other amendments to planks. I have not seen the final wording of those floor changes, other than what I saw on screen at convention. I do not understand the delay following convention to get those to the editors; a process changed after 2022, apparently.

But as of today, as I begin writing on Thursday, June 25, no updated version has been posted since the printed (and online) Permanent Committee Report for either Platform, Rules, or Legislative Priorities.

So we do not yet know the results of the scantron voting. We do not have a list of 8 Legislative Priorities, narrowed down from the 15 presented by the Permanent Committee. And we do not have the edited version of the Platform, which should include those floor changes, and the final numbering.

So all I can write about today is what we voted on, not what the results are.

To see the version we saw for floor debate, you can go here (until they move it or change it). 

I could also mention that this wasn’t that easy to find. I tried the TexasGOP.org site; I found nothing but the 2024 versions there. I couldn’t even find Convention information, other than on the calendar, telling me that event had passed.

I tried looking up the convention, which is a separate site: convention.TexasGOP.org. And all I could find were the schedules provided for convention goers.

So I did another search and found these versions on the “about” page of the convention website, and scrolled down and found the links I needed.

It shouldn’t be this hard, especially for somebody who has been paying attention all along.

If you’d like to watch the floor debates, LP and Platform happened on June 13. Floor debate for Chair election and Rules happened on June 12. And the Permanent Committees were on June 11. Temporary Committee of the Whole for Platform was Jun 10. You can find several of the livestreams on YouTube. 

Legislative Priorities

Legislative Priorities Committee was an addition not that long ago. We added them as part of our Platform Report in our Senatorial District 7 Convention in I think 2016 and 2018. And then Mark Ramsey, the 2018 State Platform Chair, had persuaded RPT to add Legislative Priorities as a separate committee, and was the first Chair of that committee in 2020.

The purpose of Platform is to guide mainly the Texas Legislature (and also some direction to other state leaders and to the US Congress) to know what the grassroots cares about.

The platform continues to be long, with lots of specific details. As we get ignored, we add more details.

There’s so much there, in the RPT Platform, it seemed like a good idea (I think it is) to tell the Legislature what is most important. That’s what Legislative Priorities is intended to do. LPs are, then, an extension to the Platform; in fact, each LP must relate to at least one plank in the Platform. So there’s some communication between these two committees during Convention Committee meetings.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

Conservative Partying, Part I: Festivities, Election of Officers, and Rules

 

Last week was the state Republican Party of Texas Convention, June 11-13, with preliminary meetings starting June 8. It was held here in Houston, at the George R. Brown Convention Center, one of just a few facilities in the state big enough to handle this large convention. (The other cities are San Antonion, Dallas, and Ft. Worth, so it’s always going to be in one of these cities.)

There were festivities. But there was also business: elections of officers, and setting the Rules, Legislative Priorities, and Platform for the upcoming biennium. I spent my time editing the platform again (I know I’d said I wouldn’t do it again, but at least I didn’t lead the team or work through any nights). So I’ll cover the other business first and then spend a bit more time on Platform.

Festivities

There was a live elephant. I missed when it came into the main hall, but I saw it in the exhibit hall, behind Governor Abbott, where people were getting photos. They closed the line just before I got there, so I didn’t get pictures with me in them.

Governor Abbott taking photos with supporters

 An elephant, indoors, is pretty awesome. My guess is the Democrats won’t try to compete with a live donkey at theirs. It would be an offense to donkeys, as Ted Cruz quipped.

There were speeches, and songs. Some of the music was really good. I missed much of that, because I don’t get there in mornings, especially when I didn’t get to bed before 3:00 AM. I did listen to livestreams on YouTube. Go to the RPT channel and choose what you want to see.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

The Bill of Rights: Celebrating the Semiquincentennial, Part VI

We’re reaching the halfway point—and approaching the actual July 4^th birthday—in our celebration of the 250^th birthday of our nation. So far we’ve celebrated by walking through our founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, and the Preamble and first three Articles of the Constitution, covering the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

If we were simply walking straight through, we’d get to Article IV on through VII of the Constitution. Maybe we’ll come back to these in more detail, but for now let’s just summarize those articles:

Article 4 covers interstate rules, and guarantees for citizens going state to state. There are four sections, including information about how new states may be admitted, and how the federal government guarantees protection to each of the states.

Article 5 offers ways to amend the Constitution: amendments can be proposed by either two-thirds of both Houses, or two-thirds of the state legislatures can propose an amendment. This option has been talked of more in the past few years; 20 states so far have voted to go ahead (including my state of Texas), out of a needed 34.

Article 6 talks about paying debts incurred by the national government, and that the federal government shall be the supreme law of the land.

Article 7 talks about ratification of the Constitution, and signatures from representatives of the states at the Constitutional Convention, where the document was written and revised.

Next come the Amendments. There are 27. The first 10 are what we call the Bill of Rights. And that’s the topic for today’s post. Even so, we might not cover all 10. I’m going to go through a little history and background and at least cover the First Amendment. And since there could be books and books written on the First Amendment, we’ll mostly just get to the first right in the First Amendment.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

The Empire, the Thucydides Trap, and Other Big Picture Things

 

I’ve been interested lately in the bigger picture—and it’s the more positive picture—of President Trump on the world stage. So much interrelates. I’ve written about it here and here. 

One of my sources has been Glenn Beck. But I was clued in by a friend to another source of just this kind of chessboard thinking: Promethean Action. Mainly, I’ve heard from two women, Susan Kokinda and Barbara Boyd, who study and make the connections and try to share this rather complicated viewpoint with the world. I’m still looking into the background, which I may touch on below.

I had heard Susan Kokinda a time or two on Stephen Gardner’s podcast. I had even gone to her Substack once. But then I forgot to keep going there. So I knew who she was when a friend reminded me of this resource, and I’ve been listening and learning—about things I never knew before—this past couple of weeks.

These people are very pro-Trump, in a very serious and non-cheerleader kind of way. They use a deep study of history, maybe particularly ancient Greek history, to understand what we’re seeing today.

I’d like to use a fair amount of their own words to explain what’s happening in the world, at least their viewpoint, which I find compelling.

The Empire

I think it will help to start with The Empire.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

Remember Memorial Day Meaning

Arlington Cemetery, from a visit in 2014. Center sculpture is titled “Price of Freedom.”
Lower left is honoring the Battle of Iwo Jima.
Right is the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

I almost forgot about Memorial Day this weekend. It’s the last Monday of May, but there are six days of May after the last Monday. So it came as a minor surprise. I had half written a post for this week, but I’m setting that aside for a few days to do this Memorial Day remembrance.

I admit, it took me a while—longer than it should have—to recognize what Memorial Day was. As a child, it was sometimes called “Decoration Day,” the day we decorated the graves of our ancestors with flowers from the garden. I didn’t attach the military meaning to it; we decorated the graves of all our relatives in a given cemetery, not just military members.

And once I attached the military meaning, then I incorrectly thought of it as a day to honor veterans. I didn’t get it right until maybe a decade and a half ago. Here’s the accurate info:

·       Armed Forces Day, for those currently serving, is celebrated the third Saturday in May (May 16 this year).

·       Veterans’ Day, for living former servicemen/women, is celebrated November 11.

·       Memorial Day, for those who died while serving, is celebrated the last Monday in May (May 25 this year).

 

Originally, Memorial Day was celebrated on May 30, whatever day of the week that fell on. That was changed when the majority of our holidays were placed on Mondays, in 1971, to give people a three-day weekend, which allowed for travel and was probably intended to thereby allow for more celebrating of those days. Unfortunately, a three-day weekend has made some such weekends generic. And Memorial Day may have thus suffered loss of meaning, or reverent remembering.

So to remedy that loss of remembering, I’m adding this post here, in grateful thanks to those who gave their all. As Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address:

…that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Memorial Day is meant as a holy day, not a mere holiday. I expect most of us will enjoy the holiday aspects as well. Maybe a cookout or a family outing. But it would do our country well if we also set aside a bit of time to use the day for its intended purpose—to remember the fallen.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

That Wounded Beast Needs Defeating Again

Revelation 13:

1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

 We’ve mentioned the Revelation 13 beasts a number of times here, often enough that it’s starting to feel like a theme. Symbolically, this sea beast is the worldwide cabal, the whore of all the earth, the great and abominable church, the secret combinations, the deep state, the anti-Christ. The symbolism of the sea means it extends beyond one nation; it crosses the seas. So it is multinational. The heads represent leaders, or aspects, or possibly particular countries or organizations. I’m sure you can use your imagination to try to name them. Horns represent powers or abilities, and so do crowns. The multiple numbers of them show great power. Seven is symbolic of completeness; ten also indicates completeness, so it probably means over the whole entire world. The dragon from which the beast gets its power, position, and authority is Satan.

Now take a look at verse 3. One of the heads is wounded. It looks like it is a mortal wound. But then that head is healed, which seems incredible to the world. I think the likely real-world corollary of this wounded head is the taking out of communism/socialism/fascism in the past century. We defeated this beast head in World War II. That should have been the end of it. The many millions who had died because of this beast head were a sure indicator of its evil nature, and the good people of the world wanted it thoroughly and completely defeated.

We thought we had done that. We thought we had conquered the ideologies that led to hundreds of millions of deaths in the last century. The people in general were absolutely against them. No communism. No socialism. No Nazism. We had won WWII. Korea and Vietnam were also against this ideological enemy. But eventually we even won the Cold War.

To read the full article, follow LINK TO SUBSTACK.

The Judicial Branch: Celebrating the Semiquincentennial, Part V

We’re continuing our monthly series celebrating the nation’s 250^th birthday. Here are the previous parts:

·        Part I: The Declaration of Independence

·        Part II: The Preamble of the Constitution

·        Part III: Lawmaking

·        Part IV: The Executive Branch

In our Part V today, we’re getting to Article III of the Constitution, which covers the judicial branch of the federal government. That is, the Supreme Court and other federal courts.

The Supreme Court is somewhat seasonal. It is typical for the session to choose, in late summer and fall, what cases it will hear for the year—and the year is numbered by when the process starts, so we’re currently still in the 2025 session. They will hear oral arguments for those cases throughout the winter and spring. And they make their rulings by the end of June. That’s a general rule. In reality, they can take up an urgent case and rule on it quickly at any time. And they aren’t required to wait until June to rule on any case; they can rule when they have a decision ready. And sometimes they hold a ruling until July or so. It just typically piles up until June, with rulings coming out in multiples the last couple of weeks. It feels a bit like a sports tournament, with results coming down to the wire and everyone paying close attention.

Article III, Sections 1-3

Let’s do our due diligence and make sure we understand the actual wording of this relatively short article of the Constitution.

To read the full article, follow LINK TO SUBSTACK.

The Priority—a Cultural Question

me with the family in the mid-90s; me being grandma in 2012

I want to talk about things I’m thinking about, trying to understand changes in culture, while still holding on (not necessarily clinging bitterly) to traditional principles. This is about what is expected of women. And of men.

It is my assertion that feminism has worked to turn women into bad men, and maybe as a side story also turn men into weaker creatures.

This touches on economics, family, education, and a whole lot of things.

Where to begin?

There was a Jordan Peterson lecture, quite a number of years ago, in which he looks at the societal change of women in the workplace, men and women working together, and saying we haven’t worked that out yet: how to behave toward one another, how to become simply professional coworkers, in a world in which men and women find each other attractive, or not, or maybe want to have friendships with the people they work with but don’t know how to navigate that. He pointed out that half a century is not nearly enough time to navigate such a dramatic societal change.

That’s just a piece of it. What I’d like to start with is the current expectation that women are in the workplace—not at home raising children.

Chances are, you had some kind of reaction to that last sentence, and it was based on a whole lot of unfairness that has been pointed out to you in media of all sorts, and in education, and probably some personal experience—just everywhere.

Somewhere underneath the surface is a change from family economic units to individual economic units. It has been a seismic societal shift in a relatively quick few decades.

To read the full article, follow LINK TO SUBSTACK.

Comprehending the Chess Board

 

I’ve mentioned, more than once, that strategy is not my strong suit. But I do play chess, a bit, because the guys in the family enjoy it. Actually, at this point, I’m not often playing chess games; I’m playing chess puzzles, on the chess.com app. They’re set up so, if you make the right one or two moves, you can get a checkmate. And I’m pretty good at it.

Our grandson is a chess puzzles champion, in his interscholastic league. One day he showed me how to play a chess puzzles match (which I haven’t tried since). You needed to make the right moves almost instantly, which he does. I take an average of 5-7 seconds. So I guess I’m very slow.

one of the family chess matches
several years ago

Occasionally I take a free lesson, which shows you how to make good opening moves, and a bit of strategy from there—which makes sense when it’s explained to me, but otherwise I’m at a loss.

Because the chess puzzles seem so easy to me, and the situations follow patterns that come up a lot, I’ve asked my sons how a player would allow those situations to arise. But they assure me, those situations do happen in the natural course of play.

All of this is to say, common sense requires some experience, some careful observation, some understanding of the whole board, and some pattern recognition.

In our somewhat chaotic world today, is there a skilled player who understands the board, or a wild-and-wooly take-any-piece-you-can player?

Glenn Beck thinks we may have a chess champion handling the board. He says,

“If this war ends without spreading, and this theory that I'm going to lay out for you, these six things, if this is what it is, it will all have been done without the kind of global war that has defined the 20th Century. This is America reclaiming its golden age. Just smarter, stronger, and sovereign.”

Thursday’s overview (it was on radio, so you have to just imagine the chalkboard) is similar to one I wrote about a few weeks ago—also because of what Glenn Beck was saying. I don’t think we can say definitively that he’s right, but I think the evidence is building that our President Trump has a good grasp on the worldwide game board—and a plan.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

The Executive Branch: Celebrating the Semiquincentennial, Part IV

We’re continuing our monthly series celebrating the nation’s 250^th birthday.

·       Part I: The Declaration of Independence 

·       Part II: The Preamble of the Constitution 

·       Part III: Lawmaking 

·        In our Part IV today, as we’re walking through the Constitution, Article II covers the executive branch, the powers vested in the President of the United States of America.

Before we get started, I just want to mention a version of the Constitution I got in the mail, from Turning Point USA. It’s all there, like a pocket version, although it’s slightly bigger than pocket sized. It includes illustrations, and on every page a definition of terms down at the bottom. (Some pages the definitions take up half the page.) The whole thing is there—all the original wording. But with the helps, it just seems easier to understand. If you’ve got a young person in your life—or if you just want an easier way to read and understand the Constitution—this might be a handy version. They sent me mine for free, in an envelope requesting a donation. But you can get these from their website, here. 

Article II, Section 1: Electing the President

OK, Article II of the Constitution first goes over the election of the President, which is using the Electoral college.

To read the full article, follow LINK TO SUBSTACK.

Life Is Full—Because the Tomb Is Empty

"He Is Not Here," by Walter Rane

As I do most years, I celebrate more than just Easter day; I celebrate the Easter season, and particularly Holy Week, from Palm Sunday through Resurrection Sunday.

Celebration can take a lot of forms, as it does for other holidays (holy days) as well. For me, that involves home decorations, food, family traditions, music, study, and anything that helps me focus on the reason for the celebration. Easter is particularly rich in meaning, so it’s full of opportunities.

At Christmas I’ve been filling my decorations with nativity scenes my entire adult life, so I have a pretty sizable collection of small ornaments and table decorations. For Easter there are beginning to be decoration items related to the actual meaning of Easter, little scenes, maybe with moving parts, to tell the story. But I haven’t acquired any yet. I have a couple of small art pieces, and I painted one last year, of the moment of resurrection. This year I have plans to do one of the empty tomb. It’s still in planning stages, but I’m hoping to get time this weekend to make it a reality.

Music celebration is something I fully embrace. This year on actual Easter Sunday, the twice-a-year Worldwide General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be taking place (it’s always the first Saturday and Sunday of April and October). So we’ll be listening to the Tabernacle Choir and hearing messages from general church leaders, including our prophet and apostles, as well as a few others. So music locally was done this year on Palm Sunday. Our ward (congregation) did a very nice program, mostly music, for our sacrament meeting (worship service) this past Sunday. I was assigned the organ that day, and I play for the choir and the Primary (children 3-11). And I sang a solo, accompanied on organ.

I did that solo again in the evening for our stake concert (a stake is a geographically combined group of congregations, like a diocese; ours has eight wards). I also sang in the choir.

The piece I sang was “He Was Despised,” an alto aria from Handel’s Messiah, not one of the more well known ones, but one I really like to sing. Handel knows how to write for the different voice parts, and all of the alto solos are a good fit for my voice; they feel good to sing. This one is mournful. It uses the words from Isaiah 53: “He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” written some 700 years before they happened.

To read the full article (which includes a video I made), FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

Puzzling It Out

 

If we had a picture of what “America First” would look like, how might we envision that?

·       Protected borders.

·       Trade deals that are to our overall advantage.

·       Trade deals that prevent our enemies from controlling the supply and transport of goods we want to buy and sell.

·       Regional protection, to further secure our borders.

·       Alliances that are equally beneficial to us and our allies, rather than mainly costs and burdens to us while protecting the allies.

·       Domestic peace, law, and order to protect life, liberty, and property.

·       Equal protection of our rights as citizens.

·       Prioritization of citizens over legal non-citizens, and no acceptance of illegal non-citizens.

·       Better election infrastructure and laws to ensure election integrity.

·       More transparency and truth, to allow for clearer decisionmaking.

·       I’m sure there might be a few other things we could list. But let’s just point out that the America First picture goes beyond the boundaries of the United States, necessarily.

Similarly, if you were thinking “My Home First,” you would want your home protected and in good shape for those living in it with you, but you would also benefit from a healthy, thriving, safe neighborhood, within a healthy, thriving, and safe community, city, county, state, region, etc. It’s not that you’re trying to control all those larger circles; it’s that you know you and all your neighbors near and distant will benefit from the things that benefit your home, so interest in those things is mutual.

There have been a fair number of beyond-our-boundaries locations President Trump has acted on since coming into office in 2025. Some of them were more than a little surprising.

I think President Trump spent those four additional waiting years looking at the table with puzzle pieces spread all over—while looking at the picture on the box that the rest of us don’t see.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.