Way Out Charlotte Pike

As much as Sam Houston personifies Texas, you might think he was born and raised there, fought at the Alamo, and inspired manly-man Texans like Beto O’Rourke.

Wrong on all counts.

Born over the mountains in Virginia, Sam Houston was raised a Tennessean. More accurately, he pretty much raised himself in Tennessee. And did some growing up too in Arkansas among the Cherokee, to whom he ran away as a teenager to escape his despotic older brothers. Arkansas sits just over the Mississippi from Tennessee much like Mexico sits just over the Rio Grande from the U.S.

Houston’s personal history is far too rich for this short space to do justice. Some highlights: He served under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. He was an adopted son of a Cherokee chief, had a Cherokee wife, and acted as a Cherokee agent during their diaspora, infuriating John Calhoun in the process. He was elected to Congress from Tennessee. And in 1827 he was elected Governor of Tennessee, only to resign two years later due to a scandalous divorce from the white wife he married while in office. She was from a prominent family in Gallatin. Who didn’t see that coming?

After the contretemps with that Sumner County influencer, Houston went back to the Indians for a while, then showed up in Texas. There, he joined the fight for independence from Mexico but was not the famous Tennessean at the Alamo. (That was another colorful and strong-willed Tennessean: David Crockett.) Instead Houston led the Texans to military victory and became president of the new Republic of Texas and upon its statehood, its governor. And then, a U.S. senator!

And you think you did something because you made it through rush and completed a 10K? Well, you did at that. But there are few human beings before or since as accomplished as Sam Houston. If you are one of the rare book readers left, find a copy of “The Raven” to get the rest Sam Houston’s story. It’s a page-turner.

As for the right-here right-now, we Tennesseans are about to elect a new governor. It might be good to reflect a bit of what kind of governor we got in Sam Houston, and what kind of governor the next one could be.

Sam Houston was an iconic Tennessean. Although he resigned (and also later resigned as governor of Texas, angry that Texas voted to join the Confederacy), Sam Houston was no quitter. He was a fighter. He never quit anything to get away from a fight, but to get on to a bigger fight. Tennessee achieved glory from its earliest days because of larger-than-life men like Sam Houston, and Texas would be nothing but North Mexico today had it not been for the many Tennesseans like Sam Houston who made it happen. Before his governorship was upended in Tennessee, he pushed through infrastructure improvements and worked to lower rent for homesteaders – pressing issues of the day, not so different from this day.

The oddsmakers say that Tennessee’s next governor will be Marsha Blackburn. She’s made all the right moves to get the office. She’s made a good living being a reliable conservative voice for decades on Fox News and other media venues as a Congressman and later in the Senate. Her problem to this point is that in Congress, she’s been too much a talker and not enough of a fighter.

Taking hold of Tennessee’s state government now, Marsha Blackburn, or whoever might win from the cheap seats, has a chance to make Tennessee great again. That is, if the governor will not just warm the seat, but will fight like Sam Houston.

Here’s how we’ll know:

Make election integrity issue #1. A republic like the United States cannot survive without free, fair, and honest elections. The next governor should lead the nation by creating legislation requiring same-day, paper-ballot, citizen-only elections. With the confidence such a move will bring, Tennesseans will do an even better job of electing state legislators who pass no-nonsense corrections to errant trends – like making sure shameless boys don’t compete in girls’ sports and lurk around in their bathrooms.

Put Tennessee first. This republic, the longest lasting in the history of the world, was created by strong states who set their own course and made their own laws. They came together for their common defense from the threat of global (at that time, British) tyranny. Tennessee was the leader in the first wave of new states after the Colonies and it should still lead today.

So, for example on issue #1, it should not just rely on the integrity of its own elections, but should encourage like-minded states to create parallel legislation. If other states persist in lax voter standards and corrupt elections, it harms Tennesseans because they do not get equitable representation in Congress and fair standing in federal elections. Tennessee should vigorously fight that injustice in the courts.

Clip the Feds’ wings. Whatever the actual goals of each side in the conflict, the War Between the States of the 1860s did settle one question: race-based slavery was outlawed. But the country has never recovered from the lengths Lincoln went to win that war. The federal government has far outstripped its commission. Federal bureaucracy and fiefdoms have proliferated, all at the expense of states’ sovereignty, and thus of the citizens’.

Tennessee should lead the way in defying unlawful and wanton federal directives, funding manipulation, and abuse of the Constitution. Opposition to the overreach can take many forms from rejecting federal highway and education funding that comes with strings attached to forcing the Feds to apply to our Legislature for a license for any and every operation within Tennessee’s borders, whether park maintenance, law enforcement, or agricultural regulations.

Don’t just promote, but insist on the straight and narrow. AI, Darwinism, and atheism are allowed in the public schools, so certainly God belongs there, too. Legislate it. Set broad guidelines for schools – like non-discrimination, say, and a mandated Memorial Day-Labor Day school year, and the return to neigborhood schools directed by parents and taxpayers, and the Ten Commandments in every school lobby. Then allow each school system to make its own dress codes, hire its own principals and teachers, and set its own curriculum. And yes, to paraphrase Gen. Patton, to pray every damn day if they want to.

If some so-and-so’s object to prayer before football games, or cell phone bans, or wearing decent clothes to school, fine, allow them to opt their children out. But first and foremost, in the schools themselves, teach children the three R’s and the path to success in life in a structured, reliable, Godly environment. The whole state will benefit and the taxpayers will feel that they have gotten their money’s worth. And parents won’t feel like they have to flee the schools to make sure their children are getting proper formation.

And how about accepting the obvious: Perversion belongs in nightclubs or privately between consenting adults. Keep it away from kids, from the public square, and from the family structure. Teach kids the straight and narrow and if they veer too far off it later, that’s on them.

Fight Mr. Big. Stop the state from kissing the hindquarters of big corporations that promise the Moon. We don’t need more people and we don’t need more of their kinds of jobs. If the state is going to give a tax break, a grant, or a subsidy, give it to small, locally-owned businesses and by all means, family farms. And where the Feds have completely dropped the ball on anti-trust enforcement, pick that ball up and run with it: Force atrocious companies like Microsoft and Amazon and Google and the like – monopolies in disguise – to get licenses to operate here just as if they were one more utility. Then stop them from raping and pillaging the Tennessee consumer and small businesses, or else send them packing. And by the way, stop the subscription madness and the notion to eliminate cash. That’s a big way to cramp the big boys’ style and protect individual rights.

Speaking of which, restore property rights. The pursuit of happiness – at least economically – is all about private property. The growth of a citizen from pimple-faced kid to middle class adult can be traced directly to ownership of real estate and other material assets. Legislation is pending that would remove or reduce the state’s take from property tax, but the real problem is that most counties rely on property tax for the lion’s share of their budgets. Fine. Counties should be able to levy whatever tax their constituents want. But don’t treat the property owners like renters. Enact legislation which will make property tax a lump sum that will be charged at purchase time and can be paid in full from day one, or financed through one’s mortgage according to consumer choice. No one’s property should be subject to theft by the state for not paying an annual and ever-growing property tax.

Gate the whole community. Rich folks whether Democrat or Republican love to move up to gated communities, or if they’re rich enough, to surround their plantation with a fence and a gate worthy of Dachau. Who can blame them? They want to keep the miscreants out. Why shouldn’t every Tennessee citizen deserve such security? If the Feds won’t enforce the border and remove the illegals, Tennessee should provide daily free bus transportation to Washington and the doors on those buses should lock from the outside. Then maybe teenagers will learn how to work during those long summers we’re going to give them and the undereducated can start a lawncare or construction business without having to compete with illegals living like sardines in trailers and undercutting their pay. Not to mention all the bad habits some illegals bring, from pedophilia and sex trafficking to gangs and cartels.

Make Tennessee Healthy Again. Revitalize and in fact revolutionize the health care industry by ignoring the Feds and making health insurance once again a wide open market like it used to be. And make sure that the lockdown, masking, and vaxxing madness that was perpetuated during Covid never happens here again. One way would be to institute steep fines and the risk of losing their business license for any company or institution operating in Tennessee which attempts to force any sort of medical procedure on its Tennessee employees.

Put the kebosh on the surveillance state and the Mafia state. Of course, on private property, it’s the owner’s choice. But on Tennessee roads and in public spaces, no way. Forbid the cameras. State Troopers can do a fine job without them. They have done so for years. These hideous data centers are not about AI; they are about storing surveillance. Screw ’em. Otherwise we are building the walls of our own prisons brick by brick.

Rumor has it that this year all new cars will have mandatory facial surveillance of he driver with no opt-out. Ban the sales of such vehicles in Tennessee. And while you’re at it, ban scooters on the streets. And party buses.

And for God’s sake, stop Tennessee from doing Tony Soprano’s job. Can the lottery. It’s making a few people a lot of money with state sanction and perverting the funding of higher education. Return betting to the back-alley bookies where it belongs. Gambling addiction sports the highest rate of suicide of all the social evils.

And… Don’t get sucked in by “medical marijuana.” Instead, celebrate sobriety and lead the nation in requiring responsible citizenship, cleaning up the streets, stopping the squatters, and institutionalizing those who will not or cannot support themselves. The potheads can go to Colorado. Here in Tennessee we have plenty of things to make us stupid enough already, not the least of which comes from Pulaski, and we know it’s best enjoyed sippin’, not inhalin’.

Reform and Re-Charter Nonprofits. How in the heck is it that Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital could sexually butcher mixed up kids and get away with it? Who has been fired for that? Has their nonprofit charter been challenged because of it? C’mon, Tennessee. It’s time to put the magnifying glass on EVERY nonprofit operating in the state, including churches, whether based here or not. Get executive salaries in line. Make sure their mission is of benefit to the community. And make sure their boards are responsible. In fact, it might be smart to set up standards for DIVERSITY on nonprofit boards: How about requiring that some average folks are on every legally constituted board or commission? If these operations are not going to pay taxes like the rest of us, we ought to have a say about how they operate and what they do.

Set a principled example for Congress. Tennessee law requires that new legislation be taken in “regular order” – in other words, only one issue can be voted on at a time. This is the single most effective check on corruption. The prevailing habit of Congress in passing omnibus legislation to which pork and other unrelated legislation is attached to gain votes and skirt public review must be stopped if the Feds are ever going to reflect the will of the people again without the taint of corruption. Tennessee can and should set the standard for Congress to reform itself. That’s a tall order, but if not us, who?

These are just a few ideas to get started.

There’s no foreseen need for the next governor to resign after two years and head to Texas. But if this country is going to be fixed – and is there really anyone out there who doesn’t recognize that it is in dire need of fixing? – it can start right here, right now in Tennessee if we get the right kind of governor. One that kicks kiesters, not cans down the road.

To our next governor, Marsha, or by long odds one of the others: If you want to do a good job for your home state, it is time to summon your inner Sam Houston. But stick around for a full term and make Tennessee a leader again, not just one more me-too state.

For a two-page PDF statement of where Way Out Charlotte Pike is coming from, please CLICK HERE.

john.arra@wayoutcharlottepike.com

It is a mistake to think that the rise and dominance of companies like Microsoft and Google and Meta and Amazon and such are proof that capitalism is alive and well. Quite the contrary. The failure of the U.S. government to regulate the behemoths of e-commerce and e-discourse and A.I. through the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice is the clearest sign that the United States, and by proxy the “Free” world – is dangerously on the verge of a complete collectivist makeover – or fascist, depending on how you look at it. Fascism and collectivism amount to the same thing – all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. As spoken by the pigs who run things, i.e. “the Club.”

Except for the very conspicuous but unavoidable sin of allowing slavery to continue temporarily, America as conceived by the Founding Fathers was supposed to solve this equality tar baby. But what always rises to the top? The cream or the chaff? In politics, the worst element seems to rise to the top most often. The Founding Fathers knew that we common people are actually the cream of civilization – the shopkeepers, the laborers, the farmers, and all those who don’t leave the parenting of their children to hired help. They did their level best to create a federal system of government with checks and balances that would keep any given pile of chaff at the top from wielding too much power.

Alas, the chaff has won. They have made the federal government into a complete botch. At 250, the U.S.A. is D.O.A. Perhaps it is best to rename our nation the Holy Roman U.S.A. for all the good its government does representing the interests of the average citizen. The aspirations and guarantees of the Bill of Rights have all but gone the way of the dinosaur.

This is not to be pessimistic. It is not to bury one’s head in the sand. Rather, it is to look for another way. It is, as the late great pundit used to say, living in Realville.

For a very current (no pun intended) example, we need only consider all the fuss over data centers. The arguments are completely misguided. The issue is not whether data centers should be next to the zoo or gobbling up water and energy and farmland and wildlife in our backyards, but whether they should exist at all. The truth is, allowing a proliferation of data centers at all is the mistake. Anywhere. Any time. Allowing data centers in the human experience at all is like political prisoners thinking they have freedom because they are allowed to scribble graffiti on the bricks with which they build their own prisons.

Benjamin Franklin saw this danger when he said, “A republic, if you can keep it.” George Washington warned against it by arguing not only against “entangling alliances” but also against political parties. And within that same generation, Andrew Jackson – scorned these days as if he were solely responsible for the abuses perpetrated against the Indians – was the first president to tackle the problem head-on by taking on the national bank. As soon as you are unable to use your credit card to pay for cigarettes or a firearm or to keep you children in a better school, you will finally know what he was railing against. He was fighting against giving a big national money system the power to choose the winners and losers among the common citizens.

Alas, Jackson’s battle was lost finally nearly a century after his death when the Federal Reserve was established. Do yourself a favor: If you don’t know what all the fuss is about re the Federal Reserve, take an evening and watch “From Freedom to Fascism.” You will come away convinced that this is the ultimate fight today for the little guy before cashless money, the surveillance state, and social credit scoring destroy our last portion of the freedom to determine our own destinies.

That’s just one issue. It brings in others, like the welfare state, privacy, and individual sovereignty. Like monopolies. Like the diminishing opportunity to own real property. Like tax money spent on wars that no citizen votes for. Like poisons in our food and air and water. Like freedom to worship as one chooses. Like freedom to determine one’s own health choices. Like the freedom for every soul to live and pursue happiness.

The federal government is a miserable failure, whether with the Reds or the Blues in charge. It is up to the states to enforce the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the new States’ Rights. As you vote for every local office from dog catcher to governor, choose the outsider. Choose the iconoclast. Choose the common man. Choose the one who goes home to his or her spouse instead of the lobbyists’ parties. Choose the one who is not afraid to tell people what they don’t want to hear. That is the one who will defend your rights.

How will you know which one that is?

It is the one who does not stand a chance without your vote.

For a two-page PDF statement of where Way Out Charlotte Pike is coming from, please CLICK HERE.

john.arra@wayoutcharlottepike.com

If you follow current events closely and study history even closer, the unavoidable conclusion is that at 250 years, the U.S.A. is D.O.A. The American democratic republic is neither democratic nor a republic.

Without legitimate elections and captive to big monied interests, the central government has become a machine for whom the productive among us work endlessly, feeding the beast like miners captive to the company store. Our debt will never be paid off. It will pass from generation to generation.

This is a conclusion that will be a hard swallow for many who live in the bubble of social media and social credit scoring on their phones, who cheer for the Reds or the Blues and never think deeper than what is on the tiny screens below their noses. But the sooner we all accept the truth of the situation the better off our future will be, because forewarned is forearmed.

Maybe at first DJT was not just self-serving, but if he ever wanted a better life for the common man, that’s a moot point now. He won the top job by riding on the wave of Constitutional conservatives who rallied to his side not once, not twice, but three times. But like Peter, he progressively denied his followers all three of those times. Virtually every non-statist ally has now been ejected from his administration. After the theft of Massie’s seat and Tulsi Gabbard’s shooing, only RFK is left.

(Perhaps also Stephen Miller. It’s hard to say whether he is a true Constitutional idealogue or is as monomaniacal as his boss.)

But the bottom line is this: the Club has taken over. The Ukraine war smolders on and we keep searching for a way believably to claim victory in Iran while scuttling away with our tails between our legs, Hormuz out of our control, gas prices pushing $5.00 a gallon, and our arsenal all but empty. Those fighting for global domination are using the rest of us as cannon fodder whether physically in shooting wars or financially.

What hope is left for the common citizen? What hope for social mobility, for equality of opportunity, for the pursuit of happiness? Only the state and local governments show slivers of light. But the states are a motley crew, even the reddest of them, run mostly it seems by the corrupt senatorial class. What independence and sovereignty the state governments have left to offer their citizens is dubious at best.

Ultimately it all comes down to the individual. It can be argued, as the affairs of man constantly rotate back to the system of masters and slaves, that servitude is the natural state of mankind. That one should accept the way things are and simply find happiness as servants of the realm. But if you have a heart and faith and a real love for your fellow human beings, you will not accept that.

As an American, and more specifically as a Volunteer, you do not have to look far into the past to find inspiration for living as a sovereign individual – the Paul Reveres, the Meriwether Lewises, and iconic Tennesseans like Jackson, and Houston, and Forrest and many others.

It is to those iconic Tennesseans we will now turn. Let us learn something from their examples to keep the citizens of Tennessee and the other states free, faithful, and prosperous. The sure road forward for freedom-loving people is to ride shotgun with those heroes who made America, the country that bucked the chronic trend of history toward totalitarianism.

For a two-page PDF statement of where Way Out Charlotte Pike is coming from, please CLICK HERE.

john.arra@wayoutcharlottepike.com

I didn’t leave Donald Trump. He left me.

Before the summer of of 2016, I didn’t care much for Donald Trump. I knew him only because he was unavoidable. But I quickly jumped on his presidential bandwagon because of one thing: unlike the losers for whom conservatives previously had to settle, Trump could win.

Like the outsider Ross Perot before him, Trump didn’t need the job. He had already made his mark on the world. He had the money and the audacity and just the right amount of crazy to take on the corruption. And it seemed he had a drive toward greatness not just for himself but for the country.

Ike Eisenhower was the first to identify publicly the Dulles-driven Deep State demons of corruption after World War II. John Kennedy lost his life when he came up against them. Then followed a series of very flawed presidents who one after another went down whenever they stepped out of line, until Ronald Reagan.

Reagan, too, nearly lost his life. He was determined, however, to change the suicidal course of America, and for a while he prevailed. But then his legacy was squandered, quite intentionally in retrospect, by that son-of-the CIA George H. W. Bush. His interruption of Reagan’s progress led to the malaise of the Gulf Wars, 9-11, and Obama.

Trump looked like the antidote. But hopes for Trump were dashed in his first term by the Covid con game that led to the farcical mail-in ballot scam which put the Obama puppet Biden into office. Then the seemingly indomitable Trump bounced back, regaining the presidency.

His initial moves were inspired. Like locking down the border, tight. Like putting RFK Jr. in position to turn back the tide of bad health care leadership ushered in by Obamacare. Like reinvigorating the military with true patriots after double-dealing generals like Lloyd Austin and Mark Millie. And like moving one step closer to a more equitable, consumption-driven taxation model by shifting momentum from income tax to tariffs.

But… Trump was either lying to America all along, or he got hijacked along the way, or his mind, though still remarkably strong, went brittle. Whatever happened, the snakes have taken firm control while he just acts as if he’s still in charge. The Faustian deal he made to get back into office past the corrupt election machinery may even keep him in power past the mid-terms, despite his poll support cratering.

Yet, personally, I don’t think he was lying. I think Trump really intended to make America great again. He believed that victory would be won by empowering the citizens once more. The social mobility, good basic education, and Judeo-Christian values which had fueled America to overcome the Depression and defeat the Nazis in the 1940s were his model. He would wipe out the vestiges of communism and set us up as the shining city on the hill as we were before.

Unfortunately the bottom line is that Trump has failed. The first sign of impending failure in the second term was the Big Beautiful Bill. Instead of taking up issues in regular order with clean votes, the BBB signaled that the swamp was in charge, trading pork for performative legislation which would later be eviscerated by lawsuits and sensational journalism. The second sign was not cutting off Ukraine. Then there was Epstein and the lack of prosecution of the pedophiles. Not to mention the administration’s tepid moves toward legitimizing the elections, knowing whatever they do will be held up in litigation long enough for the elections this year and in 2028 to be compromised yet again.

And now there’s the fool’s errand of invading Iran. How many thousands of millions a day is it costing our treasury? How many lives must be sacrificed? How many times must we be told over years and years that Iran is an imminent threat? How much inflation can a middle class and the poorer class support? And all just to get back to the previous status quo of safe passage through Hormuz. It is such folly, such Benjamin Netanyahu / Lindsey Graham / Mark Levin folly, the very kind of stupidity Trump supposedly ran against.

In retrospect it is becoming clearer that our alliance with Israel is more the problem than the solution. This explains Israel’s perplexing rush to be the first nation in the world to have its population fully Covid “vaccinated.” Israeli leadership has apparently cast its lot in with the global elitist enemies of the American republic.

But no matter. Now it is spilt milk. If you have been paying attention, you know where the problems lie. You know that all the folly is just a side effect of the primary issue, that the little guy has been laid wide open to the malfeasance of too-big corporations and too-big government and the dirty scoundrels who gain money and power from the dysfunction.

That phone attached to you like a tick and the nattering Nabobs of media will tell you otherwise, but all is not well: the Deep State, and corporate monopolies, are running your life. And that of your children. And your aging parents. And your boss and your employees and every single citizen.

Just try to be different, to step out of line, to think for yourself. You need only remember the draconian measures of the Covid mess to know what will happen to you when the Deep State and Big Biz are firmly in charge again. And sadly, with the turn he’s taken this year, that will be in great part thanks to Donald J. Trump.

The only hope for the Republic lies closer to home now. The federal government is a complete loss. The states must rise to the occasion. And good state government starts with your school board, your sheriff, your mayor, and your legislators. Good state government can overrule federal mandates, challenge federal law in court, and rein in runaway cities. And good local media can keep the voices of truth alive that are already being suppressed and will soon be extinguished again on the national level.

The fight now moves completely to state government. The fight is not Democrat vs. Republican. It is citizen vs. the federal government. It is life vs. death. It is family values vs. perversion. It is freedom vs. totalitarianism. All that and more must be legislated, adjudicated, and enforced on the state level as bulwarks against the globalist, elitist, Godless forces that want to make one world with two classes only, masters and slaves, the antithesis of civilization.

And beyond that, for it will take a long, long time now to rebuild the Republic if it is even possible, each citizen must think first of self-sufficiency. Do not look for institutions to provide for you. Eat your own food. Drink your own spirits. Care for your own children. Leave Trump to his just desserts. Pray to God who always loves you no matter what Earthly demons attack. And pack your own heat. Because God helps those who help themselves.

For a two-page PDF statement of where Way Out Charlotte Pike is coming from, please CLICK HERE.

john.arra@wayoutcharlottepike.com

Look, you did your best. You did not let the bastards get you down. But at this point you have an indisputable reason to quit while you’re ever so slightly ahead: old age. Walk out now under your own power before you are wheeled out in a chair, or worse.

You thought you could beat the demons at their own game by making a deal to take back your office. You accomplished much, especially in your very first months back at the helm. You stopped the rupture at the border; you stifled inflation; you reinstalled pride in the military; you lowered the crime rate; you reinvigorated the economy; you put the world on notice that the power of America was not to be toyed with.

But snakes got into your staff this time, too. They have been hard at work undermining your campaign promises and splitting your base. They led you to botch the Epstein mess. And now they have lured you because of success in Venezuela to take too big a gamble in Iran. This misstep played right into the neocons’ hopes for fighting Israel’s war against the Persians, a people who have foiled world leaders from time immemorial. The campaign has eviscerated our arsenal, undercut our energy supremacy, and embarrassed those who fought so hard to get you elected. And cost too many good soldiers’ lives already.

Now you need to rest, to regain your health while you still have time, to be there for your beautiful family. And you should let a younger man take the reins, reload the guns, move the battleships back into position for winnable, essential conflicts, and regain the momentum that your win in 2024 built up. The people will vindicate your accomplishments and your wisdom in knowing when to step down with a resounding victory for a MAGA Congress in the November elections.

If you don’t, your legacy as a president will be squandered like Jimmy Carter’s in the sands of the desert. If you don’t, there will be a tidal wave of voter unrest amid spiraling inflation and an ever growing count of body bags coming out of the Middle East. If you don’t, all will surely be lost.

You owe it to yourself, to your family, and to the American people. Resign now and give J.D. Vance a chance to reset the game board. He has the critical support of the military because he is of the military. He is smart and has youth and vigor and charisma. He is the man for the moment.

And you will show wisdom by knowing that no one, not even you, can beat Father Time.

For a two-page PDF statement of where Way Out Charlotte Pike is coming from, please CLICK HERE.

john.arra@wayoutcharlottepike.com

One doesn’t hear much about Nicolas Maduro these days. Nor his wife, whom the special forces team curiously took out of Venezuela into U.S. custody at the same time as don Nicolas. It seems it was more of an extraction than an arrest. The U.S. saved Maduro from retribution by the various cartels who were going to slit his throat sooner or later. He had made deals with all of them and was wetting his beak every which way and ultimately, he could not serve nor control them all.

Donald Trump can certainly look to Nicolas Maduro as one of the few people in the world with a hairdo worse than his own, but Trump might be looking for an extraction about now much like Maduro’s. In retrospect it is easy to see that Trump has been a dead man walking from the beginning of this term.

The Big Beautiful Bill was the first sign. The one thing it accomplished was deportations. The rest was all pork, like every other bill for the past 50 years that has been passed out of regular order. Now Trump has caved on that for good simply to get lines moving better at the airport.

Just in the last few days Trump has declared victory in Iran despite no one’s surrendering and he knocked the wind out of Robert Kennedy’s health system reforms by issuing an executive order giving liability protection to purveyors of glyphosate. There have been no prosecutions of individuals from the Biden administration who clearly broke the law. No prosecutions of people clearly implicated in the Epstein files, even with still partial disclosure. And no systemic reform to wipe out election fraud.

So… it is clear we have been in the postmortem period for Trump all along. If winning is everything to the Trump family, saving face is a close second, so the spin will be intense and a casual observer may not notice.

But failing an act of God, the party formerly know as MAGA is going to get creamed in the midterms this November. Batten the hatches. Hide your valuables and children. Keep your nose clean. And prepare for the Anschluss. Because it’s not just coming, it’s already started.

For a two-page PDF statement of where Way Out Charlotte Pike is coming from, please CLICK HERE.

john.arra@wayoutcharlottepike.com

Donald Trump got sucker punched by the Covid 19 gambit in his first term. He was forced to capitulate to moronic protocols that led to mail-in voting and THAT created the chaos that concealed the Obiden steal long enough for the Club to take the presidency back in 2016.

But Trump is no dummy. He had the goods on some of the Club’s key players. That’s what the Club was looking for in the Mar-a-Lago raid. That’s what they did not find. That’s how Trump could be sure the people’s vote would put him back into office in 2020.

But this time around it’s a one-two sucker punch. First BOOM, it was the Epstein mess. Now BOOM, it is the mess in Iran. And the Club has the Donald on the ropes again.

Actually, if you have eyes to see, hindsight is 20-20. Now that we are over a year in, we can see that Trump’s trump cards weren’t much stronger than getting him dealt another hand to win the election. His pile of chips has been decreasing ever since. It’s almost as if the Club planned it this way. Controlled opposition.

For example, there’s that nasty little thing about being the “peace president” and supposedly ending eight wars that no one ever heard of, yet getting absolutely nuthin’ done about the war in Ukraine that he was supposed to end in a day or a week or whatever. Trump is starting wars now instead of ending them.

And there is a string of other losses: Losing MTG. Losing Elon Musk. Losing Rand Paul. Losing Thomas Massie. Losing Tucker Carlson. (None of them were really MAGA of course, and they are all stupid.) Losing MAHA to the (true Nazi) company Bayer over glyphosate, poking right in the eye the one real star of his administration, RFK Jr. And on and on such that Trump is fast sidelining his base as it wakes up to his capitulation to the globalist pissant class in general.

For God’s sake, does it not raise alarm bells to anyone with a non-neutered brain cell left that everything with Lindsey Graham’s stamp of approval on it is baaaaad, and that suddenly the Grahamster is all about Trump?

Yet it seems that Trump is all we’ve got if we want a competent military, strong borders, legitimate elections, a vibrant middle class, chemicals out of our food, escape from the green money-taking machine, and even men that are men and women that are women. But take off the rose-colored glasses and the talk of Golden Eras and all that, and what we are left with is watching the fall of the Trump legacy like a deflating bouncy house.

Kristi Noem was the sharp edge of Trump’s deportation policy. Her beheading by Trump is emblematic of his retreat or capitulation on nearly every front. At least Kristi Noem – no worse in her personal foibles than most of the self-dealing, bed hopping, sociopathic Congressional and Senatorial class – went down fighting. Trump won’t lift his little finger in that battle any more, all the while sending other people’s sons and daughters into harm’s way in the Middle East.

Trump is going down complicit. It will be a slower fall than Noem’s from many outward appearances but in fact, he is already fallen. There’s no fight, fight, fight left in him for the people.

For a two-page PDF statement of where Way Out Charlotte Pike is coming from, please CLICK HERE.

john.arra@wayoutcharlottepike.com

Bless her heart, Pam Bondi is the very definition of anti-gravitas. The harder she tries to sound authoritative and combative, the more she sounds like a cheerleader in a cat fight.

Howard Lutnick is another one. He may be smart as a whip about some things like building businesses, but he comes across as pure bootlicker in general. And completely unbelievable about his supposedly hands-off relationship with next-door-neighbor Epstein.

For some reason President Trump seems to love these cartoonish kinds of people. No doubt it has to do with their over-the-top praise of “the greatest President ever,” but he is smarter than that. Smarter than an average palooka’s ability to understand why he ultimately would include such clowns in his administration, especially alongside genuine standouts like Scott Bessent, Marco Rubio, and J.D. Vance.

Perhaps the mystery is explained by other characters of dubious worth that Trump tolerates in his inner circle, those like chief of staff Susie Wiles or Justice Department traffic cop Todd Blanche. They are smart for sure, far ahead of the Bondis or Lutnicks, but any fool can tell they are less than loyal. They seem to be agents of the Club and quite likely are the ones who champion the lesser lights to Trump.

Though Bondi and Lutnick hold higher positions, they are easy for a clever Svengali to control as is shown by Trump’s often coming late to the table on saboteurs within his own party (thanks to Wiles’ controlling who has access to him); and by the lack of arrests by another cartoon figurehead, Kash Patel (and what arrests have been made are built on sand when there is plenty of rock available).

These are the kinds of problems you have when you’ve made a deal with the devil. Once you make that Faustian compromise, you are at best just the lesser of any given two evils. It is because your house is divided against itself. Lincoln warned what happens in that case. For all the good Trump has done to strengthen the border, remove the illegals, get boys out of girls’ sports and locker rooms and dresses in general, raise America’s stature in the world once again, and all the rest, he cannot shake the Achilles heel of the deal he made.

One need only see what is happening in Virginia to find evidence of what is coming. Trump came into office like a diesel locomotive on full rich but his progress is faltering thanks to a fractured Congress and a party with just enough snakes to get nothing done legislatively, whereas the shape-shifter Spanberger captured the governor’s chair in Virginia by pretending to be middle-of-the-road and now she is the locomotive, pushing radical left policies at blinding speed.

And meanwhile Trump is hobnailed by the cartoon characters and the Svengalis. So for the upcoming Congressional elections which will determine whether we return to the Obiden morass or move forward, MAGA is dispirited and the standard Trump hoists is at best, the lesser of two evils. One can only hope that Americans will recognize the lesser of the evils, and vote in big numbers. But we know where that has gotten us with the likes of McCain and Romney since the Obama era. And with electoral fraud still the norm without voter I.D….

The market success that Bondi put up this week as some sort of defense for the bungling of the Epstein issues will not survive losses in November. It’s probably a good idea to buy gold right about now once again, even at the currently high price.

For a two-page PDF statement of where Way Out Charlotte Pike is coming from, please CLICK HERE.

john.arra@wayoutcharlottepike.com

The killing of a screaming Mimi by an I.C.E. agent this week has sparked the Jacobin meltdown that so many societal observers have predicted.

The Bolsheviks of the Left have assiduously been searching for a George Floyd moment to ignite the fires among the disaffected, the drugged, the drunk, the loopy, and the ugly in general that will turn civilization on its head. In their imagining, the rabble will live on the change falling out of civilization’s pockets while they, the Politburo, will wrest control from the rule-of-law Republic.

The truth is, it is the Club who will benefit (see previous post). Poor people will become poorer. The middle class will fade away. The Politburo will be the vast administrative state that doles out food and scanty privilege to keep the serfs at bay. The new Dark Ages will gradually enshroud the urban world.

Unless Donald Trump manages to steer the ship through the storms.

Not likely. Despite Trump’s magnificent vision, his seemingly endless energy, and the brilliant people he has brought on board his team, he is his own worst enemy. He cannot with impunity insult and degrade his purest MAGA allies – Rand Paul, MTG, Thomas Massie, Josh Hawley, for notable examples. It is like being a quarterback and disrespecting your linemen. Without them, you cannot expect to carry the ball across the goal line. In fact you will be sacked.

Trump made a Mephistophelian deal re Epstein to regain office but barring a miracle, his momentum will run out in November and after that, Katie bar the door. The screaming Mimis will prevail.

It is time to choose sides. You are either in that minivan pressing the pedal to the metal or putting a stop to it. Everyone else will be road kill.

For a two-page PDF statement of where Way Out Charlotte Pike is coming from, please CLICK HERE.

john.arra@wayoutcharlottepike.com