Five top takeaways from Trump's high-stakes UN speech to the world

From Fox News.com (Sept. 22):

"A lot has happened since we gathered here last year," President Donald Trump said midway through his address to the United Nations General Assembly.

No kidding. First there was the Gaza ceasefire and hostage return, then Operation Absolute Resolve that removed Nicolas Maduro from power in Venezuela, and, of course, the deployment of U.S. military and economic power to stop Iran’s "mad dash" for a nuclear weapon.

Trump has put American courage and fortitude on display by taking big risks to strengthen the U.S. position—not just for global leadership, but for America’s future. This U.N. speech had its triumphant moments. "Bully no more," Trump said as he touted the battlefield success of Operation Epic Fury. Yet Trump’s serious and formal tone was evidence that this has also been a year that has tested the optimism and tried the patience of both President Trump and the American people.

Here are five takeaways.

1. Iran’s Choice is a Deal or Annihilation. "Just imagine if such a vile regime were ever empowered to carry out large-scale terror attacks from behind a nuclear shield. This was the reality we had to confront—a reality that far too many preferred to ignore," Trump explained on Tuesday.

And the U.N. audience broke into spontaneous applause when Trump vowed again that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. He asked world leaders to stay "united in maintaining pressure" on Iran. But, to no one’s surprise, this speech was also a direct message to the "lunatic clerics" who run Iran, to borrow the phrase from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Iran can make a deal or face annihilation. "I believe we’ll make a deal right after the midterms," Trump said. He’s ever-hopeful, but this is why 50,000 U.S. service members, led by two aircraft carriers, remain in the region under U.S. Central Command. Either way, he said, we "will soon see a world free of the 51-year menace." And indeed, it could go either way.

2. Greenland. Did you see Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen happily nodding during Trump’s remarks? Yes, this agreement that keeps Chinese investment out of Greenland and builds up Pituffik and other Space Force locations was a win-win for American security, Greenland, Denmark and NATO. This deal meant a lot to Trump, and it was smiling faces all around with the president, Frederiksen and Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen at the signing ceremony held immediately after his U.N. address.

3. The Cartels in the Crosshairs. Trump’s speech delivered two scorching messages reiterating his commitment to the Western Hemisphere. First, Venezuela and the United States together control roughly 22% of the world’s proved oil reserves. Second, Trump said the "cartels are the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere" and decried these "sick, demented adversaries." Put this in perspective: These cartels control more cash than the global jihadis, so expect drug boat strikes to continue. "The United States will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And if necessary, we will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital national interests of the United States," Trump warned.

4. Super Intelligence. Not content with renaming lakes, seas and the Kennedy Center, Trump said he wants AI to be called Super Intelligence—or SI. He joked about seeing whether "SI" catches on, but here’s the serious message: The U.S. is ahead of China and will do whatever it takes to achieve supremacy in the global race for tech stack adoption and market share. "Whoever wins SI wins," Trump reiterated. That’s a nice setup for the state visit of China’s Xi Jinping later this week.

5. Melania Trump. Considering how little the U.N. has done with Iran or, for that matter, Ukraine, Trump let it off easy. Trump took a few swipes at the U.N. bureaucracy, but he was also courteous about U.N. Resolution 2817 condemning Iran’s attacks on international shipping. Most of all, Trump took time to acknowledge his wife, Melania Trump. On March 2, 2026, she became the first sitting first lady to preside over a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, leading a discussion on children and technology. During the speech, the first lady was seated with Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. As Trump scanned the audience for her, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer waved to point her out.

This was a thoughtful gesture, but it was poignant as well. For all the courageous tone, President Donald J. Trump has a lot of work ahead of him.

His 2026 U.N. speech may stand as the high-water mark of Trump’s bold efforts to improve international security and diminish the menace of China. [source]

Trump admin orders 270 trucking schools to shutter in crackdown on licensing of illiterate, illegal immigrant drivers

From NY Post.com (Aug. 31):

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy shut down 270 commercial driver’s licensing (CDL) schools Monday for offenses including graduating illegal immigrant truck drivers who can’t speak English or offering subpar training facilities.

“If you’re here illegally and you can’t speak the language and you’re not well-trained, you don’t deserve to be in a big rig, driving American roads, endangering American citizens,” Duffy said at a press conference in Detroit alongside Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and federal prosecutors.

Duffy announced that his department was removing 110 CDL schools from the federal Training Provider Registry, forcing them to “immediately cease all operations.” The schools had been found to have trained 5,000 enrollees later found to be unable to speak English.

Another 160 schools were suspended for failing to meet training facility standards — sometimes claiming a single truck or small parking lot comprised their training center.

States issue commercial driver’s licenses allowing holders to cross state lines, but the federal government sets national standards and has oversight over the roughly 31,000 CDL training schools across America.

“The last administration allowed truck driving schools to self-certify to say that they meet all of the federal standards to be a certified truck driving school. What we found is many of those schools don’t actually meet that standard,” Duffy said.

“We’re not gonna have a problem. We’re gonna have truck drivers,” he added.

“You have to speak English to operate a commercial vehicle. I didn’t create that rule. President Trump didn’t create that rule. That rule has been in place for decades, and we have schools that know the rule and still pass people through their school who can’t speak the language,” Duffy continued.

“And so there’s 110 of them, through our data analysis, that are the greatest offenders. As of today, those schools are shut down. We also have shut down 160 additional schools. These are schools that, in essence, certify that they are qualified to train truck drivers. However, they don’t have adequate space.”

Duffy said 239 people died in crashes caused by non-English speaking truck drivers since the start of Trump’s term in January 2025, with California issuing most of the licenses used by operators involved in the smash-ups.

In attendance at the announcement was Delilah Coleman, 5, who suffered a brain injury in 2024 when Indian illegal immigrant Partap Singh caused a pileup with his 18-wheeler in California. [read more]

Good!  Hopefully, the orders will stop the needless killings by illegals driving semis.

Trump: US Navy Cleared All Mines From Hormuz

From Newsmax.com (Aug. 25):

President Donald Trump said Tuesday the U.S. Navy has cleared all mines from international waters in the Strait of Hormuz and warned Iran that any attempt to mine the vital shipping route again would draw an immediate military response.

"I have just been informed by the United States Navy that all mines have been removed and/or detonated from within the International Waters of the Strait of Hormuz," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump said Iran has been warned that "any ship or boat placing new mines will be immediately and systematically destroyed."

The president added that the U.S. Space Force is monitoring "every square inch" of the strait and said a "Zero Tolerance policy on mine placement" is now in effect.

The announcement marks the culmination of a months-long U.S. effort to clear mines planted by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps after fighting erupted with Tehran earlier this year.

U.S. Central Command began a major mine-clearing operation in April after Iranian mines disrupted commercial traffic through the strategic waterway. The Navy deployed destroyers and underwater drones as part of the effort to establish safe shipping lanes through the strait.

The Strait of Hormuz, which separates Iran from Oman, is one of the world's most important energy corridors and normally carries a major share of global oil shipments.

Trump had said last week that the strait was "open and operating" and that its mines had been removed or detonated, even as Iranian attacks on commercial shipping continued.

Trump also said Space Force surveillance extends to "Pickaxe Mountain" and three Iranian nuclear sites he said had already been destroyed. [source]

Great!  Good to know.

6 signs of power hungry leaders

From Joseph Mattera on Christian Post.com (Jan. 26, 2024):

God-ordained public service should never be about a person’s desire for power but should arise out of a servant’s heart to meet the needs of the people they represent.

Jesus modeled this when He washed the feet of His disciples and when He said that the greatest in the kingdom of God are those who serve (John 13; Mark 10:43). Of course, we have power-hungry leaders in every sector of society — not just in politics — and this includes the church.

I believe power-hungry people are the cause of numerous problems and divisions within the marketplace and church, and we need to be honest with them and speak to them when necessary, lest they sabotage great organizations.

Since their drive for power will stop at nothing to achieve their ends, more mature leaders must counter their dangerous ambitions instead of continually feeding into them.

(I believe all leaders, because of our fallen nature, have to deal with some or all of the following issues at times in our lives. But some have totally given in and live out these issues as a lifestyle of choice.)

1. Power-hungry leaders only relate to other ‘power’ people

Power-hungry people are constantly going to social events, parties, conferences and frequently joining boards of powerful organizations that will connect them with the most influential people — irrespective of whether they truly have the time or talents for it or genuinely want to connect with these people on a deep human level.

They are always looking for the next person who can do something to help them climb the social ladders in their spheres of influence, which causes them to use people instead of serving people.

2. Power-hungry leaders constantly drop names to impress

There are certain leaders whom I have heard speak several times, and every single time they have spoken, either to me in private or in public gatherings, they have mentioned prominent academic institutions where they received their degrees or dropped the names of high-level leaders with whom they have access.

After a while, it becomes obvious they are attempting to flout their power and accomplishments so they can receive accolades or respect from others instead of it being a sincere attempt to give their audience context for their life narrative.

3. Power-hungry leaders compete with other peer leaders

Power-hungry leaders are always jockeying for positions, fighting with other leaders they deem a threat to their influence or attempting to marginalize others with faint words of praise or outright gossip and slander.

(Street-wise Christian leaders usually don’t engage in outright slander but tend to marginalize others subtly when in the company of those they don’t know well.)

Essentially, power-hungry leaders will not rest until they become the “big dog” in the organization.

4. Power-hungry leaders are all things to all people

Power-hungry leaders often are like chameleons who adapt to the color of their environment. For example, I have met political leaders who speak as biblical Christians when they are speaking in churches, but when they are with secular humanists, they speak about their antibiblical values.

The only thing power-hungry people value is their own power. When they are with Christians, they speak religious lingo, and when they are with secularists, they speak secular lingo. I don’t think even they know what they truly believe!

Unfortunately, many sincere Christians get fooled by these people’s surreptitious words and believe anything they hear. After such people are elected, these Christians are shocked by what they really stand for!

5. Power-hungry leaders are driven by selfish ambition

Though they may work many hours visiting their communities and churches and being among their people, their ultimate goal is to be in power, not to meet the needs of the people.

This is more obvious when it comes to candidates for an elected office. But pastors and church leaders have also fallen into this syndrome and act this out in the context of their own denominations or congregations.

6. Power-hungry leaders love the praises of men

At the end of the day, power-hungry people live to hear other people sing their praises. They have such low self-esteem that they need to continually feed their egos by being the center of attention in every event, party, and gathering they attend.

Consequently, they are easily insulted when they deem others not bowing down to kiss their rings and can quickly turn on these people. [read more]

Sounds like the elite Left. Definitely the anti-Christ will probably exhibit most of the signs.

Human Diversity and Individual Instruction

From Mises.org (Sept. 5, 2020):

One of the most important facts about human nature is the great diversity among individuals. Of course, there are certain broad characteristics, physical and mental, which are common to all human beings.1 But more than any other species, individual men are distinct and separate individuals. Not only is each fingerprint unique, each personality is unique as well. Each person is unique in his tastes, interests, abilities, and chosen activities. Animal activities, routine and guided by instinct, tend to be uniform and alike. But human individuals, despite similarities in ends and values, despite mutual influences, tend to express the unique imprint of the individual’s own personality. The development of individual variety tends to be both the cause and the effect of the progress of civilization. As civilization progresses, there is more opportunity for the development of a person’s reasoning and tastes in a growing variety of fields. And from such opportunities come the advancement of knowledge and progress which in turn add to the society’s civilization. Furthermore, it is the variety of individual interests and talents that permits the growth of specialization and division of labor, on which civilized economies depend. As the Reverend George Harris expressed it:

Savagery is uniformity. The principal distinctions are sex, age, size, and strength. Savages…think alike or not at all, and converse therefore in monosyllables. There is scarcely any variety, only a horde of men, women, and children. The next higher stage, which is called barbarism, is marked by increased variety of functions. There is some division of labor, some interchange of thought, better leadership, more intellectual and aesthetic cultivation. The highest stage, which is called civilization, shows the greatest degree of specialization. Distinct functions become more numerous. Mechanical,—commercial, educational, scientific, political, and artistic occupations multiply. The rudimentary societies are characterized by the likeness of equality; the developed societies are marked by the unlikeness of inequality or variety. As we go down, monotony; as we go up, variety. As we go down, persons are more alike; as we go up, persons are more unlike, it certainly seems…as though [the] approach to equality is decline towards the conditions of savagery, and as though variety is an advance towards higher civilization….

Certainly, then, if progress is to be made by added satisfactions, there must be even more variety of functions, new and finer differentiations of training and pursuits. Every step of progress means the addition of a human factor that is in some way unlike all existing factors. The progress of civilization, then…must be an increasing diversification of the individuals that compose society….There must be articulation of each new invention and art, of fresh knowledge, and of broader application of moral principles.2

With the development of civilization and individual diversity, there is less and less area of identical uniformity, and therefore less “equality.” Only robots on the assembly line or blades of grass can be considered as completely equal, as being identical with respect to all of their attributes. The fewer attributes that two organisms have in common, the less they are “equal” and the more they are unequal. Civilized human beings, therefore, are unequal in most of their personalities. This fact of inequality, in tastes, and in ability and character, is not necessarily an invidious distinction. It simply reflects the scope of human diversity.

It is evident that the common enthusiasm for equality is, in the fundamental sense, anti-human. It tends to repress the flowering of individual personality and diversity, and civilization itself; it is a drive toward savage uniformity. Since abilities and interests are naturally diverse, a drive toward making people equal in all or most respects is necessarily a leveling downward. It is a drive against development of talent, genius, variety, and reasoning power. Since it negates the very principles of human life and human growth, the creed of equality and uniformity is a creed of death and destruction.

There is a sense, however, in which equality among men is sensible and beneficial. Each individual should have the freest possible scope for the development of his faculties and his personality. In order to have this scope, he must have freedom from violence against himself. Violence can only repress and destroy human growth and endeavor, and neither can reason and creativity function under an atmosphere of coercion. If each person has equal defense against violence, this “equality before the law” will permit him to maximize his potentialities.

Since each person is a unique individual, it is clear that the best type of formal instruction is that type which is suited to his own particular individuality. Each child has different intelligence, aptitudes, and interests. Therefore, the best choice of pace, timing, variety, and manner, and of the courses of instruction will differ widely from one child to another. One child is best suited, in interests and ability, for an intensive course in arithmetic three times a week, followed six months later by a similar course in reading; another may require a brief period of several courses; a third may need a lengthy period of instruction in reading, etc. Given the formal, systematic courses of instruction, there is an infinite variety of pace and combination which may be most suitable for each particular child.

It is obvious, therefore, that the best type of instruction is individual instruction. A course where one teacher instructs one pupil is clearly by far the best type of course. It is only under such conditions that human potentialities can develop to their greatest degree. It is clear that the formal school, characterized by classes in which one teacher instructs many children, is an immensely inferior system. Since each child differs from the other in interest and ability, and the teacher can only teach one thing at a time, it is evident that every school class must cast all the instruction into one uniform mold. Regardless how the teacher instructs, at what pace, timing, or variety, he is doing violence to each and every one of the children. Any schooling involves misfitting each child into a Procrustean bed of unsuitable uniformity.

What then shall we say of laws imposing compulsory schooling on every child? These laws are endemic in the Western world. In those places where private schools are allowed, they must all meet standards of instruction imposed by the government. Yet the injustice of imposing any standards of instruction should be clear. Some children are duller and should be instructed at a slower pace; the bright children require a rapid pace to develop their faculties. Furthermore, many children are very apt in one subject and very dull in another. They should certainly be permitted to develop themselves in their best subjects and to drop the poor ones. Whatever the standards that the government imposes for instruction, injustice is done to all—to the dullards who cannot absorb any instruction, to those with different sets of aptitudes in different subjects, to the bright children whose minds would like to be off and winging in more advanced courses but who must wait until the dullards are hounded once again. Similarly, any pace that the teacher sets in class wreaks an injustice on almost all; on the dull who cannot keep up, and on the bright who lose interest and precious chances to develop their great potential.

Obviously, the worst injustice is the prevention of parental teaching of their own children. Parental instruction conforms to the ideal arrangement. It is, first of all, individualized instruction, the teacher dealing directly with the unique child, and addressing himself to his capabilities and interests. Second, what people can know the aptitudes and personality of the child better than his own parents? The parents’ daily familiarity with, and love for, their children, renders them uniquely qualified to give the child the formal instruction necessary. Here the child receives individual attention for his own personality. No one is as qualified as the parent to know how much or at what pace he should teach the child, what the child’s requirements are for freedom or guidance, etc. [read more]

Carl Sagan’s Final Warning on the Importance of Scientific Skepticism

From FEE.org (Sept. 18, 2023):

Shortly before he died, the astronomer Carl Sagan (1934-1996) offered a two-part warning in an interview with Charlie Rose.

The first part of Sagan’s warning touched on humanity’s growing ignorance of science, which Sagan attributed largely to the failure of modern schools. Sagan saw this as a clear danger to humanity, especially in a society built on science and technology.

“We’ve arranged a society on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology, and this combustible mixture of ignorance and power sooner or later is going to blow up in our faces,” he told Rose. “I mean, who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it?”

Shortly before he died, the astronomer Carl Sagan (1934-1996) offered a two-part warning in an interview with Charlie Rose.

The first part of Sagan’s warning touched on humanity’s growing ignorance of science, which Sagan attributed largely to the failure of modern schools. Sagan saw this as a clear danger to humanity, especially in a society built on science and technology.

“We’ve arranged a society on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology, and this combustible mixture of ignorance and power sooner or later is going to blow up in our faces,” he told Rose. “I mean, who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it?”

The second part of Sagan’s warning was even more profound. The University of Chicago-trained astrophysicist pointed out that science is not simply “a body of knowledge, it’s a way of thinking,” one based on skepticism and questioning. It was imperative, he said, not just that people be educated in the sciences and grounded in healthy skepticism, but that people be allowed to question and challenge those in authority.

“If we are not able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate those who tell us something is true to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan—political or religious—who comes ambling along.

…It’s a thing that Jefferson lay great stress on. It wasn’t enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in the Constitution and the Bill or Rights, the people had to be educated and they have to practice their skepticism and their education. Otherwise, we don’t run the government, the government runs us.”

Covid and the Corruption of Science

Sagan’s warning was eerily prophetic. For the last three-plus years, we’ve witnessed a troubling rise of authoritarianism masquerading as science, which has resulted in a collapse in trust of public health.

This collapse has been part of a broader and more partisan shift in Americans who say they have “a high degree of confidence in the scientific community.” Democrats, who had long had less confidence in the scientific community, are now far less skeptical. Republicans, who historically had much higher levels of trust in the scientific community, have experienced a collapse in trust in the scientific community.

John Burn-Murdoch, a data reporter at The Financial Times who shared the data in question on Twitter, said Republicans are now “essentially the anti-science party.”

First, this is a sloppy inference from a journalist. Burn-Murdoch’s poll isn’t asking respondents if they trust science. It’s asking if they trust the scientific community. There’s an enormous difference between the two, and the fact that a journalist doesn’t understand the difference between “confidence in science” and “confidence in the scientific community” is a little frightening.

Second, as Dr. Vinay Prasad pointed out, no party has a monopoly on science; but it’s clear that many of the policies the “pro science” party were advocating the last three years were not rooted in science.

“The ‘pro science’ party was pro school closure, masking a 26 month old child with a cloth mask, and mandating an mrna booster in a healthy college man who had COVID already,” tweeted Prasad, a physician at the University of California, San Francisco.

Today we can admit such policies were flawed, non-sensical or both, as were so many of the mitigations that were taken and mandated during the Covid-19 pandemic. But many forget that during the pandemic it was verboten to even question such policies.

People were banned, suspended, and censored by social media platforms at the behest of federal agencies. “The Science” had become a set of dogmas that could not be questioned. No less an authority than Dr. Fauci said that criticizing his policies was akin to “criticizing science, because I represent science.”

This could not be more wrong. Science can help us understand the natural world, but there are no “oughts” in science, the economist Ludwig von Mises pointed out, echoing the argument of philosopher David Hume.

“Science is competent to establish what is,” Mises wrote. “[Science] can never dictate what ought to be and what ends people should aim at.”

Even more importantly, however, to shut down discussion and censor political opponents is the antithesis of the spirit of science, which has experienced major breakthroughs only by challenging and tearing down previously accepted scientific assumptions and orthodoxies.

Carl Sagan understood this, which is why he said it was so important to “ask skeptical questions” and “to be skeptical of those in authority.”

If we fail to do this, or if we are not allowed to do this, Sagan warned what will happen: we will no longer be running the government; the government will be running us. [source]

Speak truth to science? Scientists are people too. They can make mistakes and even falsify results. Good points to heed.

Cracking the Zodiac Killer’s Cipher – How Mathematicians Finally Solved the Z340 Mystery

From Discover Magazine.com (2020):

Few cases have captured the public's imagination and baffled investigators quite like the Zodiac Killer. For decades, this unidentified serial murderer taunted law enforcement and the public alike with cryptic messages and ciphers, leaving a trail of terror in his wake.

One of the most infamous aspects of the Zodiac's sinister saga was the series of letters he sent to local newspapers, in which he claimed responsibility for his gruesome crimes and taunted authorities with cryptograms. Among these letters, one stood out as a tantalizing puzzle that would endure for years – the Zodiac Killer letter that finally got decoded.

Wonder no more, true-crime aficionados.

Who Was the Mysterious Zodiac Killer?

In the late 1960s, a serial killer self-identifying as “the Zodiac” killed at least five people in Northern California and claimed to have murdered more, according to Biography. In November 1969, the Zodiac Killer sent a card to the San Francisco Chronicle containing a 340-character secret message, also known as the Z340, that for more than 50 years went unsolved by detectives, cryptography experts, amateur sleuths, and curious others, according to a study in Arxiv.

After months of crunching code, three researchers on three different continents announced that they’d finally decoded the Z340 message. Further bolstering the claim, experts at the FBI verified the solution (and even tweeted about it).

……….

Who Cracked the Z340 Zodiac Killer Code?

Although the codebreakers involved had each been working on the cipher for years, the successful joint effort began in 2018 when Oranchak delivered a talk about the cipher at the annual meeting of the American Cryptogram Association in Asheville, North Carolina. He posted the talk on YouTube where, predictably, it elicited hundreds of comments, many of which came from people who (erroneously) claimed they’d already solved it.

But one person stood out: Blake. He responded to Oranchak’s talk with mathematical ideas about how to approach a code that includes both homophonic substitution — in which one letter might be swapped for more than one symbol — and transposition — in which letters are reordered in a systematic way. Oranchak and Blake began corresponding and eventually generated hundreds of thousands of possible ways to read the code.

To make sense of those, Oranchak brought in Jarl van Eycke, a Belgian warehouse worker and codebreaker who’d written AZdecrypt, software used for decoding homophonic substitutions. Van Eycke used an updated version of his software to churn through the possibilities. “Jarl just smashed it out of the park,” Blake says. In late November and early December 2020, the trio reprocessed their previous results, this time looking for words and phrasing characteristic of other writings by Zodiac.

And they struck gold. Van Eycke’s software spit out two phrases: trying to catch me and gas chamber. They fixed those phrases in the software, ran it again, and more words like paradice [sic] and slaves began to appear. Finally, in early December, they had the message in total. Notably, the message included “that wasn’t me on the TV show,” referencing a call-in news show that had aired just days before the Chronicle received the cipher in 1969. [read more]

Nice. Too bad the Zodiac Killer was never found.