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We have all suffered through an interminably long four years that seemed as though it would never end. From the very first second, things went sideways, and fast. Approaching the 2020 election, we felt secure and confident. Some went to sleep on time on election night, at peace that a popular president pulling record rally crowds was no contest against a doddering basement campaigner.

But the shock and disbelief at waking up to the announcement of Biden’s win quickly turned to horror, as facts emerged about the cognitively vegetative candidate’s inexplicable midnight surge.

The horror melted into a spreading black oil of despair after the January 6th fedsurrection, an induced riot infested with federal agents, and the full scope of the long odds the country really faced became clearer. Brace for impact.

As “Dark Brandon” (or whoever was pulling his strings) slid behind DC’s wheels of power, covid recommendations transformed into mandates, temporary pandemic restrictions transferred to permanent status, and a crowd of profoundly unattractive men with wildly atypical sexual appetites transitioned into the federal government and began busily transforming the nation’s laws to better suit their twisted predilections.

Over an unrelenting four years, they prosecuted and sued the President in every way they could conceive of, limited only by their ability to conscript reckless volunteer lawyers, prosecutors, and judges. They raided his house and dug through Melania’s intimates drawer. They labeled him ‘Hitler,’ called him ‘dangerous,’ and warned anyone who’d listen that he would Destroy Democracy.

Even if only through grossly incompetent negligence, they tried to kill him at least twice, and even successfully shot him once.

President Trump’s re-election seemed so unlikely for so long that many Republicans supported other primary candidates, just because they were convinced the Nation was tired of Trump and he was ‘unelectable.’ When, following the disastrous debate with Joe Biden, Trump finally edged ahead in the polls, the Democrats did the unthinkable, and pulled a sitting, nominated president off the ticket at the last minute.

With two months to go, the Democrats frantically campaigned an unelected, unvetted pinch hitter. They spent a record $2.5 billion dollars in eight weeks selling the least-liked political candidate in history, and flipped the polls back to the donkey. Only the betting markets honestly predicted the outcome, and the joyful but unelected replacement nominee lost badly in an inglorious mudslide.

Trump’s come-from-behind victory was unpredictable and unpredicted. At one point or another, every single political pundit forecast Trump’s loss, and most of them predicted he’d lose badly. But the people, primed by the pandemic, rejected the experts’ prognostications and advice, and stuck with the felon. In that sense, and in countless other ways, President Trump’s re-election was uniquely historic, a miraculous comeback story so unbelievable even the Hallmark Channel would have passed on the script.

In seven days he’ll be restored to where he should have been in 2021. But in nearly every conceivable way, Trump is better poised to accomplish his agenda now than he would have been had he formally won four years ago.

Had Trump in fact won the 2020 election, his faltering Administration would have remained mired in a slough of political despond. Instead, a different take on how things played out is that Trump was gifted with four years to re-arm and re-tool. During that time, instead of re-arming and re-tooling, through catastrophic cultural missteps and toxic identity-group alignments, Democrats did their level best to Bud Lite themselves and alienate vast sections of their traditional base, like black men, Latinos, and women.

Perhaps more often than not, history works in mind-bogglingly mysterious ways. The story of Trump’s 2024 re-election is one of those cases. Although cheated out of the 46th presidency, paradoxically, a much more politically muscular Trump will return to the White House in 2025, stronger, bolder, freed from the shackles of political controversy, and far more focused.

Let us count the 2025 advantages over where he was in 2020. Trump now enjoys a mandate. He has the House. He has the Speaker. He has the Senate (or at least, a claim to the Senate). He has the Supreme Court. The RussiaGate nonsense has been transformed from a political liability into massive political capital — and another type of mandate. The legion of presidential legal battles are over in any legitimate sense; his lawyers mostly conducting mop-up operations.

Ironically, in many ways the Democrats nourished a mesomorphic Trump Administration. By crying about “Trump’s revenge” for months and months and months until our ears bled, and by prosecuting the former president six ways from Sunday, they paved a runway to previously unthinkable future prosecutions.

In other words, among other things, Trump’s four wilderness years demolished a latticework of invisible doctrines, institutional norms, and political precedents that protected treacherous former presidents and insidious government officials from criminal prosecution. Under the long-standing, unstated you-stay-out-of-our-branch-and-we’ll-stay-out-of-yours arrangement, only four years ago judges would have explicitly or implicitly refused to convict bad government actors, protecting them with one archaic defensive doctrine or another judicially-made immunity rule.

But those rules are now obscured or even erased, thanks to the relentless state and federal prosecution of the 45th president. If anything, judges may now be more likely to lean the other way. The Democrats have even opened Pandora’s box to civil lawsuits against former Presidents, something previously unthinkable in the cold marble corridors of the nation’s courtrooms.

The newfound strength of Trump’s brawny political position is obvious in many ways. First, some of the best evidence is the way the world is responding to Trump’s election. We have repeatedly seen the awe-inspiring Trump effect, involving many markets and actors moving toward better positions merely because of Trump’s election.

The domestic and international demand for Inauguration tickets evidences an expectation of power, and such expectations often help manifest the expected result. When world leaders and domestic power brokers act like someone has power, that is power. The expectation is self-reinforcing and creates the very reality they're anticipating.

Then there is the galactic media shift, from relentlessly fawning Biden coverage to wall-to-call critical Trump reporting — even though Trump is not yet in office. They are already obsessed with him. Like Mark Zuckerberg, who gave Democrats $450 million in 2020, but is now throwing Biden under the censorship bus, many former institutional gatekeepers feel the political winds blowing and have completely capitulated.

And what about Trump’s new and powerful allies, like Elon Musk, who were far off stage in 2020, or even on the wrong side? Not only are they allied, but they are all-in allies.

Second, there is the evidence of the man himself. Trump has always been a confident speaker, but now he speaks with an authority and confidence beyond anything seen during his first term. Trump talks like a man whose most ambitious plans have been realized to the fruitfulest extent and who is finally coming into his own.

As evidence, just consider how effortlessly President Trump wheeled out his historic ideas of recovering the Panama Canal (a ‘settled matter’ of international law), making Canada into the 51st state (instead of DC), and buying Greenland —an idea that provoked hoots and howls of mockery in 2019 when he first mentioned it but is now a seen as a serious geopolitical play in an increasingly Arctic-focused world.

Witness Trump’s bold nominations for cabinet and agency leadership positions.

Over the weekend, news emerged of President Trump’s plans to take the oath at noon, then head straight into the Senate building to start signing a record number of executive orders. Say what you like about executive orders, but this tidal wave of action reveals a President who knows exactly what he wants to do and has an agenda clearer than perhaps any Administration in our lifetimes. ...

One week out from this historic Inauguration Day, I am arguing that this muscular Trump Presidency could never have happened without the cheating, the wilderness years, the persecutions, and all the Democrat overreach that drove independents and conservative Democrats into the arms of the Republican party, defying punditry that long claimed the nation’s changing demographics would cement Democrat party power for generations.

In other words, you just can’t predict how history’s big moves will work out. Whoever unleashed the pandemic —intentionally or negligently— which tanked Trump’s second term in 2020, never considered that it might result in this kind of swinging pendulum.

@Real_RobN
And here is,

Matthew Perna (seen in red sweatshirt) walking calmly in the Capital building for only 14 minutes on Jan 6 after being invited in by Pelosi’s capital police.

As +1500 J6 prisoners are celebrating their release tonight, Mathew can’t because he is dead.

Matthew pled guilty to initial charges, believing he may face 6-12 months in prison.

Only after pleading guilty did the domestic terrorist and BLM supporter within the DOJ, Matthew Graves informed Matthew that he would seek a TERRORISM enhancement to his sentencing, which would raise his sentence to 6-9 years in federal prison.

4 days after receiving the news Matthew went into his garage, put a rope around his neck, and hung himself.

AFTER MORE THAN A YEAR OF TORTURE IN THE UNITED STATES HE COULD NOT TAKE IT ANY LONGER.

Mathew Graves belongs in prison for murder.

More than 350 people who were charged in connection with the protests that took place on January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol have joined a new $50 billion class action lawsuit against the Department of Justice, accusing the agency of weaponizing the justice system and government overreach.

The lawsuit, announced on December 27, accuses the Department of Justice (DOJ) of widespread human rights violations, politically motivated prosecutions, and mistreatment of those charged with offenses related to the January 6 (J6) protests.

Another friction point: release of the pardoned J-6 prisoners is being loudly opposed by DC District federal judges such as Tanya Chutkan and Amy Berman Jackson. They don’t enjoy any privilege or prerogative for voicing prejudicial opinions about vacated cases, nor for failing to comply with paperwork needed to discharge them. They can be impeached for that in the House of Representatives. Or, if they actively obstruct releases, the new-and-improved Department of Justice might consider 18 U.S.C. § 242 - Deprivation of rights under color of law.

Meanwhile, goons at the DC jail detained pardoned prisoners unlawfully this week after years of the grossest mistreatment, including solitary confinement in basement “holes” without beds, blankets, or water, and direct physical assault that could be described as “torture.” All of this was countenanced by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, despite plentiful public reports of abuse over the past four years. That is, she knew all about it. This is an argument for finally rescinding Washington DC’s “home rule” status and placing the city and all its departments back under federal management.

Listen to this father speak out about what was done to his son who was a J6 prisoner.

But wait, there’s more. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the DOJ itself is now under investigation. Ed Martin, the new interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., is leading a review of all January 6th prosecutions. In an email Monday, Martin asked prosecutors to turn over “all files, documents, notes, emails and other information” related to the J6 cases.

“The loosely defined inquiry,” WSJ noted, “jarred prosecutors in the office as well as others who recently left.” In other words, not knowing exactly what they’re being investigated for is making them feel anxious. The irony! The turnabout! The hunters have become the hunted!

Ominously, Ed Martin has long criticized the J6 prosecutions. He served on the board of the Patriot Freedom Project, a group supporting J6 defendants, and he also helped organize the “Stop the Steal” movement in 2020. Martin has called the DOJ’s creative interpretation of the obstruction charge —later shot down by the Supreme Court— as a “great failure.” Most inauspiciously, Martin wrote, “we need to get to the bottom of it.”

Now, Ed Martin is in charge of investigating the DOJ.

According to MSNBC, the firings also included top FBI career leaders and “more than 20” directors of various FBI field offices across the country, including Miami, Las Vegas, and the DC Field Office. David Sundberg, who championed the J6 investigations, was the DC Field Officer Director, and was fired.

But what really got Democrats stirred up was Bove’s request for a list of all rank-and-file FBI agents and personnel who worked on the January 6th cases—a list that could include thousands.

That’s when the fur truly started flying. It was an all-hands-on-deck moment for Democrats. Cory Booker, Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, AOC, Jamie Raskin, you name it, they all issued hyperbolic, outraged statements from their offices and on social media.

It backfired horribly. It was incredibly bad optics. These politicians’ support doesn’t help the FBI at all. The fact that all the Democrats’ most partisan members were screeching like barn owls only proved the point. You’d think that if the FBI Agents were apolitical and totally unbiased and neutral and so forth, at least some Republicans would be sticking up for them (likewise, if they were really even-handed, some Democrats would be irritated with the FBI).

Has the FBI no friends left among the Republican Party? If not, it speaks volumes.

Perhaps sensing the political moment better than Hakeem, Schumer, and Schiff, the FBI Agents Association shot for a more conciliatory approach. It invoked political self-interest, by suggesting how firing so many FBI agents at one time could backfire on the Administration: “Dismissing potentially hundreds of agents would severely weaken the Bureau's ability to protect the country from national security and criminal threats, and will ultimately risk setting up the Bureau and its new leadership for failure.”

But there’s a big problem with that argument. The argument is that firing these FBI Agents will weaken investigations into domestic terrorism and crime by understaffing the agency. But if these agents were so non-essential they could be assigned to January 6th cases for three years, it’s very hard to imagine we can’t somehow limp along without their particularly ignoble crime-fighting efforts.

In CNN’s story, one anonymous FBI employee said the January 6th case was the largest investigation ever worked by the FBI. “Everyone touched this case,” the employee explained helplessly.

In other words, imagine how much more efficient the FBI will run, once the “largest investigation ever,” which distracted everyone, is finally over. Speaking of efficiency, on Thursday, media began reporting that a DOGE team was now embedded on the Director’s floor at FBI headquarters. The 4-man DOGE team reportedly includes two former FBI agents, a former aide to Representative Jim Jordan (R-Oh.), and an as-yet unidentified SpaceX employee.

With the confirmation of Kash Patel later this week, Mr. Trump’s agency team will be complete. What follows will be a Krakatoa of revelation, drastically altering the climate of US politics for years to come. You should learn exactly how many FBI and CIA agents were moiling and roiling in the J-6 mob. You’ll find out what the J-6 DNC pipe bomb caper was all about.

"What follows will be a Krakatoa of revelation..."

If we could climb into a functional hot tub time machine (might as well be comfortable), it would be fun to return to the top floor of the Hoover Building in Washington on January 7th, 2021— right before they carved our justice system in twain. When the agency’s top brass discussed launching the largest FBI operation in history against unarmed, first-time-offending Trump supporters, for trespassing, we could listen to see if anyone in the room warned them that, “you know, we could get some blowback over this.” Yesterday, four years later, the FBI did get some serious blowback, and blowback’s name is Dan Bongino. Behold, the New York Times headline that nobody, especially not the FBI, saw coming: “Right-Wing Commentator Named F.B.I. Deputy Director.”

The Baby Boomers have now been purged from control of the nation’s two-tiered justice system, and the Gen-Xers are firmly in charge.

In case you aren’t familiar with him, Dan Bongino, 50, is a former New York City police officer, a former Secret Service agent, and earned a Penn State MBA (“unqualified!”). He hosts a popular conservative podcast, was a Fox anchor during the difficult years, and has published at least seven books, including 2018’s Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump.

Yesterday, President Trump announced that newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel hired Dan to be the agency’s Deputy Director — Patel’s number two — a job not requiring any Senate confirmation.

Around this point in the story, an exhausted Times summoned the strength to weakly protest: too much politics. The FBI, claimed the Times, is “an agency known for its tradition of independence.” Apolitical. Huh? Is that true? Is that really what the FBI is known for? “Independence?” What do you think?

Oh, well. Set aside the Times’ silly opinions.

Suffice it to say, the Times feels dissed and disgruntled. It might not have been illegal, but the Times whined that Bongino’s appointment was “radical,” an “abrupt departure” from normal bureaucratic norms and customs. (Ironically, that was precisely why we voted for a Trump Administration: to end ‘business as usual’ in Washington.) But that wasn’t all. The Grey Lady labeled Patel and Bongino misinformation superspreaders and sneered that they were the “least experienced leadership pair” in the FBI’s history.

But … doesn’t that evaluation depend on what kind of experience we’re talking about? Both Bongino and Patel, for example, have written entire books about FBI malfeasance. Does that count? Now, the profoundly skeptical pair run the agency. They aren’t likely to be co-opted by the permanent bureaucrats, either, since they both stuck to their guns during Trump’s wilderness years at great personal cost (Bongino, for example, was fired from Fox after platforming Trump in 2023).

FBI, meet blowback. Blowback is your new boss.

You know, Pelosi and the FBI kind of fucked themselves by arranging the 9/11 entrapment scheme