"What Happened to Phone Booths?" (opens in separate window)

the victory option

saturday, april 4th, 2026

There are two kinds of people: the kind of people who want to end the Iran War and people who want to win the Iran War. The Victory Option encompasses the goal of the first kind of people because it ends the war, but ending the war is not the proper objective. The proper objective in any war is to win it. Anyone glancing at social media sees people with an absolute commitment to America’s defeat. And defeat comes about only if Donald Trump chooses to quit the war – because the Iranians can’t make us do anything since they don’t have a nuclear bomb, thanks to Donald Trump – in a way that doesn’t achieve victory. Victory means regime change. Once again, remember your Clausewitz – war is simply politics with other means. This is a political struggle. The military aspect is just how it’s being done, not what’s being done. demonKKKrats. They're not on our side.

A victory end-state is one in which Iran is no longer a destabilizing force in the world – note that I said “world,” not just the Middle East. By destabilizing force, I mean the funder of radically jihadi savages all over the world – for example, they blew up a Jewish center in Argentina – as well as enablers of Chi Com mischief by selling Xi oil. They are also a destabilizing force because they seek to be the owners of sufficient numbers of drones and missiles that they can inflict unacceptable punishment on their neighbors.

Oh, and there’s the whole nuclear thing. Just imagine Iran with nuclear weapons on top of ballistic missiles. You know, the ballistic missiles they promised they didn’t have, but actually had, since they shot a couple at Diego Garcia? Putting aside all the fatwas the fatheads cite claiming that the ayatollahs had forbidden nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, think about them having Paris and London in hot rock range, with the United States coming soon into the crosshairs as Iran reaches intercontinental capability. That’s when they start dictating to us. Call me crazy, but I prefer we dictate to our enemies instead of vice versa.

So, what we’re fighting for is a neutered Iran, or rather a neutralized Iran, where it stops being an active enemy. It doesn’t have to be a friend. It just has to not be a threat, because they are right now. And that’s one of the things a lot of people on the Democrat side and some of our podcast bros and libertarians misunderstand. Well, they misunderstand a lot of things, but this one’s particularly important. The mullahs hate us and want us dead for reasons that we can’t necessarily comprehend. But the fact that we can’t comprehend why they believe that some missing mahdi requires them to kill us doesn’t mean that they don’t believe that some missing mahdi requires them to kill us. They do. They’ve told us so for 47 years. They’re not out there chanting “Death to America” figuratively. We have real enemies.

And as American First conservatives, we don’t believe in wishing away enmity because dealing with that reality is inconvenient and clashes with things we’d rather do. There are a lot of things we would rather be doing right now than cleaning out the Iran abscess. We’ve got budgets to cut, frauds to expose, DEI to purge, and illegal aliens – so many illegal aliens – to deport. It would be great to have those things as our sole focus. But, being adults and fans of the first wave Rolling Stones, we understand that you can’t always get what you want.

This was the time to strike Iran. This was the time to win once and for all, to end this forever war by victory. Some people who don’t want victory are mad because they alleged there was no imminent threat. That might be true, in the sense that they hadn’t yet completed building up their arsenal of rockets, missiles, and drones, and they hadn’t finalized their nuclear weapons program. Then the threat would be very imminent, and therefore not subject to the airborne remedy we’ve been applying for the last four weeks. Hit them when they’re weak? When the hell else should we hit them? Is there some sort of Marquess of Queensberry rules we should be applying? When you have a psychotic enemy who wants to murder you because of their false religious dogma, you don’t wait until they have a fair and fighting chance. Kicking them when they’re down is the best time to kick them. And to keep kicking them until they beg to surrender.

Fortunately, Donald Trump understands that. He rejects the idea of half-measures. Can you imagine the pressure that he’s under right now from many within his own coalition to slow down or stop this campaign? But he’s not going to. He won’t give in. He’s putting his agenda at risk, and it is a risk because of the weak-hearted, in order to make America safe again. Oh, and our allies, too. I mean both the useful ones, like the Israelis have proven to be, and the useless ones, like our NATO allies, have proven to be. If you don’t think their leaders in NATO, who are crying because Donald Trump is having an illegal war, which is against international law, to the extent there is such a thing as international law, are not thrilled with the idea of this threat being neutered without them having to offend and aroused their imported third-world, barbarian contingent, you’re not paying attention. But that doesn’t change the level of abuse and harassment from them that Trump is suffering because of this. The Democrats are screaming at him. Some of his coalition members are screaming at him. Foreigners are screaming at him. Everyone’s screaming at him, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care because he’s doing the right thing. And he’s strong enough to do it. He’s channeling Winston Churchill, who famously said:

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

And Donald Trump will never quit, not till he gets what he wants. And what he wants is victory.

But that’s not what his opponents want. Oh, some opponents will be perfectly happy to have Iran ruined, including the aforementioned NATO allies and many Democrats who understand what a threat these barbarians are. But they don’t want Trump to get the credit. They don’t want Trump to get the glory. Some of them would accept an Iran unbound in order to deprive Donald Trump of the recognition he will earn for his steadfast commitment to ridding the planet of this strategic threat.

The libertarians are just unserious idiots, so I’m not even bothering with them. But there is a contingent of Democrats who are not only upset about Donald Trump potentially getting credit but about America potentially winning. They hate America. They think we’re the problem. They’ll run their mouths about a 1953 coup in Iran as if that somehow gives these turbaned jerks a free pass to butcher our people in perpetuity. These Democrats despise America. They want America to lose. AOC’s preferred end-state is this country’s humiliation and defeat. Ilhan Omar would celebrate America’s loss like she would celebrate her wedding anniversary with her brother. And the only thing that could please Rashida Tlaib more than an American being killed by these Islamic scumbags is if that American was also Jewish.

So, what’s the answer for Donald Trump? It’s easy. It’s the same answer it always is, the same as it has always been through history when fighting a war. It’s to win the war. Victory is the answer. Not ending the war. Ending the enemy. There is no substitute for victory. We didn’t fight to victory in Korea, Vietnam, or even Iraq or Afghanistan. And you know what? That was the problem. You’ve got to win. Fortunately, our president is Donald Trump, and he just doesn’t know how to lose.

A Day In The Life.

Up at 9:30a on Saturday, a mild sunny, breezy, 45°F morning, I upped the heat, made coffee, fired-up the Win-7 Pentium HP Desktop to let its 32 million lines of code load, had breakfast, had a couple smokes in the garage and checked the leftover errands list. I scanned the weather and the rapidly-breaking news, tuned into the "CP Show" Podcast on Radio.net, and relaxed for the morning.

The persistent, terrible Sciatica pain I had all last week, is still with me, until I take a 250mg Bayer® Aspirin and a 50mg Tramadol®; then, it's tolerable. Those 2 will last 3-4hrs, and I'll have to repeat.

If an illegal, criminal, alien invader killed another illegal, criminal, alien invader, which side would the leftist, Marxist demonKKKrats be on?

I skipped minor condo chores, made lunch, took another Tramadol and slept on the LR couch for almost 2hrs. As it was getting dark, I closed the condo, made dinner and watched the news, switched to "Expedition X" and "The unXplained" until 1a, and bagged it for the night.

Awake at 8a on Sunday, I rolled over and went back to sleep until 10. A partly sunny, bright and windy day, I had stuff to do, so I got to it. I upped the heat, made coffee, watched he replay (race was 2a our time) of the Japanese F1 Grand Prix was on, and I had 2 loads of laundry to do. I got ready for the day, started laundry, and had some breakfast, at 2p. Heh. I had bad pain all day, and took numerous aspirin and a few Tramadol, to get it to a tolerable level.

Laundry done and 3 trips up and down the stairs over with, I had some lunch, took another 2-3hr nap on the LR couch -- the pain abates when I'm lying down -- watched the 2026 INDYCAR at Alabama race, and closed the place up around 6p as temps dropped into the 39s, as the news was coming on. After dinner, I switched to History's "American Pickers" and "History's Greatest Picks", and Discovery's "Filthy Fortunes" until 1a, and unplugged.

Up at 7a on Monday, an overcast 50° morning, I fired-up the furnace, made coffee and checked the news and weather sites. It's Easter Holy Week in the world, and nice again, Christians are under fire worldwide. Notch. So much in the news. I tuned into the "CP Show" until 12noon, got ready for the day, and left for my 4 stop trip down south of York. The R/S buttock/lower hip/leg/feet pain was intense again, I used my cane, but there's no choice except to go.

Traffic was light and I made good time. But by the last stop, I was very tired from the unending R/S buttock/lower hip/leg/feet pain. I unloaded, got the recycle and garbage bins out to the curb, had a bit of lunch, and hit the LR couch for almost 3hrs. I was weak and exhausted, had lunch and felt somewhat better. I closed the condo when darkness arrived, had dinner, watched the news, and switched to History's "Ancient Aliens" until midnight. Lights out. My cleaning lady's in at 8:30a.

Up at 6a on Tuesday -- 0-DARK-THIRTY -- I made coffee, and got ready for the day. JoAnne would be here at 8:30, and I had a couple things to do before she arrived. She got to work, and I got out of her way. In a lot of pain again, I took an aspirin and a Tramadol, climbed onto the LR couch, and fell asleep. She was done and gone by 12 noon, and after several mugs of morning coffee, I had lunch and scanned the news and weather. The 81° temps felt great, but due to the humidity and no breeze, I set the AC at 72°, and spent a lot of time on the back patio, enjoying the weather when smoking.

I had several errands to do, most importantly, pick-up a refilled Tramadol Rx at Weis Pharmacy, and do a couple small condo chores. I watched about 20mins of the news, made dinner and switched to History's "Curse of Oak Island" for the evening. I bagged it at 12:30a.

Awake at 7a on Wednesday, I rolled over for another hour, and got up at 8:30, made coffee, tuned into the "CP Show", scanned the weather and news. A rainy morning, as storm cells moved thru the area, severe t-storms were forecast for the afternoon and evening. Meh. Sis stopped by around 11:30a, and we had a nice visit, as well as planning our Good Friday's Dinner. After she left, I searched WF's website for 2 missing tax documents -- checking acc't and savings acc't interest 1099s -- and after finally finding them, my CPA said they don't need them, I threw my hands up on the matter.

Happy Easter

It was a beautiful Spring day at 81°, wit severe t-storms, damaging winds and large hail forecast. None of which happened, thankfully. I spent some nice relaxing time, in between minor condo chores, out on the back patio, had a nice 2hr nap, and closed the condo before dark. I watched the Artemis II moon launch on TWC -- FNC's coverage was terrible -- then the evening news and POTUS' speech at 9p. I switched to Discovery's "Expedition Files" until 12:30a, and quit for the night.

Up at 10a on Wednesday, a heavily-overcast, rainy, cold 39° -- compared to 83° for the past 2 daqys -- morning, with the lawncare crews mowing and mulching the 40 unit complex. Noisy. I fired-up the furnace to take the chill off the place, made coffee and scanned the weather and news websites. I tuned into the usual "CP Show", and enjoyed the coffee.Aherry would be over aound 1p, so I had some things to do before she arrived. Those done, I got ready for the day, had breakfast, and she arrived.

Temps had dropped drastiically into the upper-30s overnight, but we decided to take a drive to nearby Flinchbaugh's Orchard & Farm Market to see what goodies they had gotten in so far, albeit a little early. She's healing nicely from her fall a couple weeks ago. I told her not to 'beat-up' concrete curbs, macadam parking lot pavement or speed bumps with her face again. Heh. We had a great time, as usual, and she left before 6p. I watched the evening news, had dinner, and switched to Discovery's "Filthy Fortunes" (good serries) until 1a, and unplugged.

Up at 7a on Good Friday, an overcast, foggy, rainy, a cold-ISH 43° morning. I upped the heat, made coffee and scanned the news and weather sites. I got ready for the day, Sis arrived at 1:30p, and we drove over to My Rose Cemetery to pay respects to Mom & Dad at Easter, and his 102nd birthday.

Back at my condo, we ordered 18oz Prime Rib (center cut) for Easter Dinner, picked it up at the nearby Texas Roadhouse and had dinner at my condo. She left around 4:30, I grabbed a 2hr nap, and watched Discovery's "Gold Rush" and "Gold Rush: Mine Rescue" until 11:30. Lights out.

Today starts a new week, here in the "Journal", and it's clear for me. I'll call Sherry over the weekend, to see what her schedule looks like for the week, and if we can set an afternoon aside, to do some walking in the nearby park. May you and yours have a Blessed Easter!

Springtime For RINOs.

Went to the No Kings assemblies in my town and the next nearby town on Saturday. Mental illness as far as the eye could see. Old folks, too, as far as the eye could see, predominately of the female persuasion: the devouring grandmothers. The Democratic Party has marshalled mental illness as its premier campaign strategy, and lately it is winning bigly around the country as mental illness becomes the go-to cope option for the ragged remnants of Boomerdom.

They believe things that are patently insane, for instance, the latest proposal by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) that illegal immigrants deserve reparations on account of being “traumatized” by U.S. immigration enforcement actions. If it feels like the Democratic Party is at war with our country you are not hallucinating. It is every bit as much a jihad as the Death to America crowd in Iran has explicitly pushed since 1979.

The president gets no help whatsoever from his own party, as you see in the disgraceful hijinks around the urgent issue of election reform. You know exactly how the election playbook was written: let x-million foreigners into the country illegally, give them (illegally) social security numbers, driver’s licenses, automatic voter registrations, addresses, mail-in ballots. . . and voila! They don’t even have to mail-in their own mail-in ballots. Lawfare ninja Marc Elias will arrange ballot pick-up service. And the cherry on top is that the census must count all the illegal aliens to add new congressional districts for extra seats in Congress.

So, in the face of that, Republican Majority Leader John Thune could not muster enough votes to save the SAVE Act. Or so he said. Looks more like lack a’wanna. Eerie lack a’wanna. On their tours of cable news, the hapless Republican senators, when asked, would not name their colleagues leaning against the SAVE Act. But you know who they are. Mitch McConnell, Murkowski, Tillis, Collins, Capito.

Leader Thune could not even manage to get Homeland Security funded with the prospect of Iranian sleeper cells awakening around the country. He just threw in the towel at three o’clock in the morning on Friday, and sent the whole crew home to meet the Easter Bunny. Chuck Schumer did an end-zone dance. The brokenness of our politics could not be more in your face. As things shape up this grueling springtime, Mr. Trump might have to go Abe Lincoln on these folks. That is, declare some sort of national emergency to save the election and the country.

Of course, the nation is more than a little distracted just now with doings in Iran. The No Kings folk are unabashedly rooting for everything to go wrong there, and not a few conservatives in the public arena are straining to conjure an Iranian victory in their black-pilled deliriums. Many claim they “have no idea” what we are doing there — can it be that hard? — or else they are rabidly exercised over our alliance with Israel in the operation. You know how that goes. Cue Tucker. He’ll explain.

The truth is we are pounding these savage Shia clerics and their Revolutionary Guard myrmidons to the garden of eternal bliss where the seventy-two virgins wait. Whatever remains of Iran’s legit government is bargaining under cover for an off-ramp now. Pakistan mediates. The parties sit in different rooms and pass notes through the mediators in a third room. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi pretends that he will not negotiate with Mr. Trump’s envoys, Witkoff and Kushner, both Jews, the horror! But that’s sheer fakery.

To avoid humiliation in the process, Iran is still lobbing missiles and drones around the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Israel, and they will probably keep doing that until the very moment of capitulation. Anyway, in less than a week, Mr. Trump turns the lights off all over Iran, and then they are back in the twelfth century. . . no command communication, no juice for anything, no money, no food, no water, no nothing . . . and a population getting dangerously desperate to make it all go away. . . to return to some dim memory of what normal life once was in an Iran not ruled by psychotic death cultists.

Everybody else is greatly alarmed by the disruption of Persian Gulf oil supplies through Hormuz. Global finance was already pretty shaky before the hot war commenced, and the economic tail of that dog was not wagging happily. In America, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, Apollo Global, and Blue Owl Capital had recently “gated” redemptions — meaning investors can’t get all or part of their money out of plays that are folding on collateral rot. This private equity fiasco has significant contagion potential. The sudden oil shock makes everything feel a hundred times worse, and pain is already felt, especially in the far east and Australia / New Zealand.

But consider that the Hormuz “blockade” is also a bit of last-ditch capitulation bravado. It could be a shorter crisis than the alarmists imagine. We see everything that Iran has got from high in the sky, whatever attack boats remain. . . the thermal signatures of rockets going off. . . the bays where the drones emerge. Mr. Trump might order troops in to stabilize ports and more than one island. Or perhaps not. I doubt we’ll know until after Iranian lights go out. If the kinetics conclude, what remains is re-starting the maritime insurance apparatus with or without Lloyd’s of London. Then, tankers start moving again.

Our Own Ruling Class Desperately Wants to Lose This War.

What’s more treacherous and treasonous than wishing your own country gets defeated in war, especially by a bunch of goat-molesting seventh-century pagan savages whose primitive mindset is matched only by their grotesque perversions? Well, the disgusting perversions part is merely a collateral reason why members of America’s donkey party seem to have such an affinity for Iran’s rulers – the mullahs, with their bizarre bestiality and grotesque handmaiden dogma, and the San Francisco Democrats, with their furry-friendly gender-spazz grossness, collectively share the worst figurative collective browser in the history of ever. Yet, it’s more than their joint commitment to degeneracy that binds them together in a desire for America to lose this campaign. The Democrats hate America, and they think it will help them politically if America can be humiliated. But more than that, seeing America lose also satisfies the evil lurking inside them.

It’s not just about Donald Trump. That’s where people get confused. Oh, they hate Donald Trump, to be sure. He is aesthetically displeasing to them, rejecting their carefully curated image of what it means to be in the American ruling class. It’s not just his style, but his attitude. They find him vulgar and crude because he ignores their complex and emasculating social conventions that enforce collectivist commie conformity. They also hate him because he has money, and much of our ruling class really doesn’t – for example, most regime media scribblers would double their income if only they knew how to do plumbing or drive a truck. There’s a gulf between their prestige and their pay, and Trump’s flagrant celebration of his own riches generates the greenest of envy.

But they also hate him because he’s a class traitor. He understands them because he was one of them until he got tired of them, and he has nothing but contempt for them. He knows they’re weak, stupid, and greedy, and he won’t honor their pretensions to intelligence and competence. Trump was a guy who had to build tall buildings. He either did it right, or the buildings fell. His opponents build nothing. They talk and write. They suffer no consequences for failure, and his critique of their fecklessness is the closest they’ll get to accountability. They hate him for that.

But that’s all personal. That’s why they hate Trump as an individual. But Donald Trump also operates as an avatar for the normal Americans he represents. What the ruling caste really hates is you. They hate normal people. They hate people who devote themselves to faith, family, and the Flag. They have to. They need to hate you because, through hating you, these unaccomplished hacks find a purpose and meaning. They don’t go out and slay dragons. They go out and nag people on Twitter. We, on the other hand, largely live real lives. Many of us are veterans – and we have seen it get real. Occasionally, someone in the ruling class does a tour in the Army and milks it forever – Happy March 29th, Vietnam Veterans Day, to the hero of the Tet Offensive, Senator Dick Blumenthal! – but being in the military is dirty and icky, and you’re stuck with people who are also dirty and icky. You know, Americans.

They do jobs where they talk and despise Americans who have jobs where they sweat. Remember, among our ruling class, the ultimate gig is to sit and run your mouth. Look, there’s nothing wrong with running your mouth for a job – I do it – but if that’s the only thing you’ve ever done, that breaks your mind. I’ve worked at McDonald’s, been fired from Denny’s for gross incompetence, been a private in the army, and jockeyed rental cars at San Francisco Airport, where everyone in the lot was either a college student on break or a convict on parole. Your past is probably similarly colorful. But the color of our ruling class’s past is flat white. They went to the University of College, then they started writing somewhere, and that’s it. They never sweat, never bled, and probably never drove a car with a stick shift or a V8.

We are not the same. They were the student government geeks and drama dorks in high school. As all adults know, adulthood is simply high school writ large. Much of our ruling class is collectively trying to get revenge on us for never getting invited to drink Coors behind the gym in high school.

Barack Obama gave the game away with his clinging to their guns and religion quote, as did Hillary Clinton with her basket of deplorables gaffe. Our ruling class, to which the Democrats are devoted – the party hasn’t been a workingman’s party since back when everybody agreed that a man can’t menstruate – distinguishes itself by its great self-regard rather than by its great achievements. It has no great achievements. What has our ruling class achieved in the last 60 years? Vietnam? The Iranian Revolution? The Iraq War? The Wall Street collapse? Obamacare? Grindr? Our ruling class has failed and everything. Is there anyone out there who thinks the world is better now than it was in the 80s? Certainly not anyone who lived in the 80s. Sure, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union collapsed, but that was despite our ruling class, thanks to the efforts of Ronald Reagan, who is a lot Trumpier than the Trump haters will ever give him credit for. Yet despite failure after failure after failure, our ruling class still believes they are geniuses.

We, normal people, know the truth, and our failure to genuflect to our alleged betters grates at them. How dare we! We, normal people, are the essence of America, and that makes our ruling class hate America. It seems strange that they would hate what they seek to rule over, but Satan does, so why not The Squad? Understand that they are powered by an all-encompassing contempt for people like you and me, and our patriotism and love of country require that these people despise their own country. America is bad, they believe, built on a foundation of racism, genocide, and transphobia, and all sorts of other badnesses. Since none of them has a religion, this ideology has to serve as a substitute. We are their heretics, their demons, their anti-wokes, and they want us to pay.

Which means they want our country to pay. They were positively giddy when a lucky drone shot killed a half-dozen Americans. They were delighted when a random missile hit took out one aircraft on the ground in Saudi Arabia. They are hoping against hope that they can somehow turn a military campaign of unprecedented skill and daring into a disaster. In the first few days of this war, we decapitated the entire Iranian government. We shattered their nuclear program. We destroyed their air force, sank their navy, and generally blew the snot out of anything worth blowing the snot out of. Our planes fly through their skies unmolested. The Democrats and their allies among the disaffected grifter class are reduced to claiming that Iran’s ability to fire the occasional missile indicates America has been completely defeated. They are aided in this propaganda initiative by the regime media, which got the memo. They must turn this victory into defeat, and they’re trying to do it. They’re not doing it very well, in the sense that anyone who is not a complete moron sees through it. But then again, nearly half of America voted for Kamala Harris, so America has a significant moron problem.

They want us to lose because they think America, and therefore Americans, deserve defeat. They also want Trump to lose because they think it’s going to help them politically. So, we now have our ruling class largely rooting for these retrograde barbarians to somehow pull victory from the jaws of defeat. And the regime media will help; no matter how this ends, all the networks and the newspapers are going to tell you that this war was a failure. But you know how you know it’s not a failure? Because there’s no head ayatollah running around. The former one got blasted to bits. His son probably did too; right now, his legendary impotence is the least of his medical concerns. Oh, and the fact that all of Iran’s ships are resting at the bottom of the ocean, there are no planes left, and they can only squeeze off a couple of shots from random drone and rocket launchers every day, is a pretty good indicator of victory. Never in history has there been such a comprehensive defeat of an entire modern nation in such a short time.

Still, people in our own country wish for our defeat, and if those wishes aren’t granted, they’ll try to manufacture a defeat. It’s bizarre to see so many Americans so eager for America to lose, but that’s where we are right now. We’ve got Americans who want Americans to lose a war to a generational enemy with American blood on its paws. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, but they have no shame. Shame goes hand in hand with accountability, and they can’t accept the idea that they are accountable to anyone other than their own class. But just remember what’s happening here. Remember how much they must hate you to want their own country to be defeated by a bunch of fanatical freaks. And govern yourself accordingly.