THEY LAUGHED WHEN I SAT DOWN TO PLAY THE PEOTUSA!



We wouldn’t normally presume to offer unsolicited advice to an incoming president, at least in such detail, Mr. Trump–except that we may well be responsible for your surprise victory over “Her Magnificence” (a cognomen for Mrs. Clinton impulsively bestowed upon her by an effusive Tina Brown and used routinely by us here at WOOF ever since). But you probably know Tina, right? You seem to know all the glittery people. Anyway–we don’t suppose you had time to notice but we closed our October anniversary post with a suggestion that all patriotic Americans enter the voting booth and cast their ballots while chanting (quietly, of course so as not to distract others) “Klaatu barada nikto.”

The logic here is relatively obvious: If Patricia Neal’s recitation of those words saved the earth from Gort the robot in the 1951 screen classic The Day the Earth Stood Still, we were pretty certain they might work to save the earth from Hillary, too. It is, of course, impossible to authoritatively tabulate how many American voters actually took our advice and thereby sought to enlist extraterrestrial assistance in saving the United States from destruction– but it only took Patricia Neal in the movie–so you can see our point when we say that your shocker electoral triumph may be largely or at least partly due to us–and, of course, benevolent space intelligences who can presumably hack election results without leaving a trace…or perhaps simply transmogrify the hearts of thousands of voters–who knows? So, on this basis, we at WOOF are tendering a kind of desideratum for you to ponder during the lull.

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On forsaking Christine…

And here’s another point. You may not read WOOF regularly, Donald, sir—and we understand if you don’t. After all, you actually work for a living, and you were busy on top of that getting elected—and before that, no offense, you seemed pretty liberal. So we can understand if you aren’t familiar with our editorial customs. But by way of demonstrating how united we became post-convention behind your candidacy, we want to point out that 2016 is the first presidential year we didn’t nominate a separate candidate for the White House. Usually, we nominate Christine O’Donnell—remember her? We just love her. After the 2012 fiasco, we mailed out a lot of our famous “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Christine O’Donnell” bumper stickers. We ran out of them…and since we didn’t charge money for them, we couldn’t afford to print more. But that’s not the point. The point is—and we hope you are properly impressed by it—that despite having a bunch of fresh bumper stickers ready to go this year, we hung fire! And this despite the fact that our planned “Christine in ‘16” slogan reflected the last presidential election year that rhymes with the comely Delawarean’s name until next century—so it took some restraint, believe us!

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We’re here to help, Donald—and you’ll like our advice on these matters because it’s the best advice. It’s huge. And it’ll be great. Great. We promise! For example:

Immigration: You know you have to build a wall, right? It was hardly your idea, although because of your outspokenness on the subject, most people probably think so. Few, for that matter, realize that Peter T. King (R-NY) introduced the “Secure Fence” bill in 2006, and that it was passed by both houses of congress including a supportive vote from Hillary Clinton. When“W” signed it into law, he told onlookers that, “This bill will help protect the American people. This bill will make our borders more secure. It is an important step toward immigration reform.”

U nfortunately, bills are just pieces of paper and they can’t do any of those things, and while fragments of a “secure fence” were built, mostly the fence remained unbuilt. In no time at all, wily illegals perceived that crossing the border in those far-more-numerous locations where there was no fence was as easy as ever. Eventually, this flaw caught the attention of the 110th Congress, which introduced the “Reinstatement of the Secure Fence Act of 2008”, even though the 2006 act was never really un-instated. The reinstatement bill called for building enough fence to seal the entire border, which is what the original fence was supposed to do—but this version of the bill died in committee.

In 2010, waves of illegal aliens poured across America’s southern border at such appalling rates that Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) decided to take action by authoring the “Finish the Fence” amendment to Peter King’s original bill of 2006, requiring Homeland Security to complete the project by constructing an additional 353 miles of fencing, which wasn’t technically “additional,” because it was already supposed to be there, only it wasn’t. But the amendment to finish the fence that was already lawfully mandated by the original bill died in committee. By 2012 public outrage had grown to a level that the Republican platform that year declared, “The double-layered fencing on the border that was enacted by Congress in 2006, but never completed, must finally be built.” Strangely, however, the Republican congress seemed to forget all about this plank of the GOP platform in the wake of Obama’s re-election.

In fact, even defeated candidate Mitt Romney, whose platform contained the urgent language, joined a chorus of GOP luminaries calling for immigration reforms, which in Washington DC means the abandonment of all efforts at reform and the approval, instead, of blanket amnesty. Romney recommended “swallowing hard,” and passing “a permanent amnesty bill.” Nobody to our knowledge has figured out precisely what distinguishes permanent amnesty bills from ordinary amnesty bills or why swallowing makes them less stupid, but despite valiant efforts by congressional RINOs, no amnesty at all has passed—leaving it to President Obama to impose de facto Amnesty, accompanied by his peculiar resurrection of busing as a means of relocating masses of illegal, non-English-speaking immigrants to distant states—mostly ones that he hates.

The situation persists. In fact, only recently, the New York Times even noticed it. The Times was quick to assert that building a wall is “impractical,” commenting that “more restrictive immigration policies” would be better. The Times may have forgotten that such immigration policies (indeed, immigration laws) already exist, but are no longer enforced. So, yes, we really need a wall. And don’t think a Republican House and Senate necessarily means this will be easily achieved. Look at their record. Guts are in short supply in Washington, Donald sir, and money talks. A lot of your superficial supporters on the Hill continue working for business interests seeking cheap labor, and the pro-immigration groups (almost all of which represent the Worldwide Totalitarian Socialist Conspiracy that Governs Us) seeking to deracinate our culture and subvert our constitution. These interests must be crushed. Not negotiated with–crushed. So build the wall, Donald, sir—and yes, make Mexico pay for it. There are, in fact, several ways to do this—and you probably know what they are. The two most obvious are impounding the 25 billion that flows back into Mexico from Mexicans working in our country—or you could simply redirect the 25 million that Mexico receives from us in the form of foreign aid annually, or both. The academics and media pundits who maunder on piteously that the ramifications of such moves would be horrendous for Mexico have at once grasped and missed the point. But you grasped that a long time ago—didn’t you! Build the wall.

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Congress—your new “allies” Even long-time spokespeople for the political right—people who, in other words, should know better—are waxing ecstatic over the fact that the GOP outperformed all expectations in retaining control of the House and the Senate. Granted, this is much better news than losing these institutions to the leftist hordes, but that doesn’t amount to unicorns and sunbeams…far from it. Any supposition that the majority of GOP members in these crucial governing bodies “got the message” can be immediately dispelled by the consideration that both Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan were immediately reinstated to their leadership positions. We aren’t certain that you understand what appalling news this is, Mr. Donald—but believe us when we tell you, it is an absolutely dismal beginning, signaling a difficult and treacherous road ahead.

Smiling men with bad reputations…

You probably recall that Mr. Ryan has been an outspoken critic of practically everything you’ve proposed, said, or thought throughout the nominative process and general election. When you suggested banning Muslim immigration for a period, he professed to be horrified, moaning that such a moratorium was “not what this party stands for and, more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.” Absurdly, Mitch McConnell found grounds to object to your proposal (no different from Jimmy Carter’s temporary ban of the same nature) because “It would prevent the president of Afghanistan from coming to the United States. The king of Jordan couldn’t come to the United States. Obviously we’re not going to do that.” Senator McConnell did not indicate why either the King of Jordan or the President of Afghanistan might wish to immigrate to America, which would be the only condition under which your ban would apply to them—but Mitch has never been a deep thinker.

It wasn’t that long ago that McConnell was assuring the media elites that his senatorial leadership would spell doom for the cursed Tea Party. When McConnell crowed to his allies at the New York Times that “…we are going to crush them everywhere,” he wasn’t talking about the Democrats—he was talking about his own party’s conservatives. The primary victories of RINOs like John McCain, Thad Cochran, Kelly Ayotte and yes, Paul Ryan, all won against first rate tea-party-style challengers, are tributes to McConnell’s jihad against the GOP’s conservative element. And because American voters still prefer RINOs to radical leftists, all but Ayotte (who went out of her way to trash your candidacy on the advice of her expert consultants) won their elective contests.

You must have noticed that guys like Ryan and McConnell were sniping at you the whole way for the amusement of the inside-the-beltway gerbil pack—and they haven’t changed any, and they can’t stand you, Donald. As soon as they can bad mouth your presidential performance to the piranhas at WaPo or the lynch mob on Meet the Press, they’ll jump at the opportunity. And the rest of “your” Republican House and Senate voted for them to retain their leadership roles—so don’t think that you have a GOP wind at your back—it’s really a RINO dirk. Wasn’t it the Incredible String Band’s Mike Heron who recorded an album back in the day entitled “Smiling Men with Bad Reputations”? The description was never more apt!

Some giddy optimist at National Review (which we know you declared a failed publication, but just the same) wrote recently that “Conservatives should hope for a synthesis of Trumpism and Ryanism that improves on both.” There are several flaws in this argument. First, there is no such thing as “Ryanism” in a strict sense. Ryanism, unlike Reaganism, or McCarthyism, or for that matter Trotskyism, is an ism without viscera. A smarmy willingness to compromise with the very forces one swore implacable opposition to only months earlier, while doggedly serving, no matter how underhandedly, whichever interests may currently offer maximum media strokes and establishmentarian approval, is less an ism than a personality disorder.

Second, we are fairly certain that Paul Ryan is not a student of Hegel, and we are willing to bet that you aren’t either…sir. So the idea of synthesis, while philosophically charming, is almost certainly inapplicable in praxis. More probably, Ryan will spend his time and energies half-consciously assessing your perceived gains or losses in the matrix of power politics, all the while maneuvering in accordance with his perceptions. This is not a guy you can merge with synergistically. Nothing about the man will hold still long enough to merge with.

And finally, sir, “hope” is not a policy—and Conservatives are better advised to spend their time creating (and in many cases, remember, tenaciously obstructing) change, than hoping for it or against it. Let the liberals do the hoping.

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Congress—your former friends Now about your “friends” from the old days—and in particular, since you recently made mention of him, your relationship with Chuck Schumer. We know you probably don’t like us iterating this unattractive concern, Donald, but to run the detail past you one final time, you seem to have been a rather liberal and Democrat-oriented guy for the majority of your time on this planet, and we can definitely understand that—up to a point. After all, when it comes to the particulars of doing business, whether in New York or internationally, one must deal with, befriend, play golf with, and express common ground with a lot of politicians and proverbial “fat cats” who are almost uniformly leftist, whether in the oleaginous domestic sense, or that more cosmopolitan sense that one associates with the likes of Alfonso Cortina, Thierry Breton , or Sir Anthony Salz. But we got kind of worried when we heard you say that you look forward to working with Chuck Schumer because you “have always had a good relationship with [him]” and because “He is far smarter than Harry Reid and has the ability to get things done.”

So okay, yes, Schumer is far smarter than Harry Reid, but let’s be honest, so is the average begonia. Also, Reid’s extraordinary inability to voice any criticism or accusation that doesn’t ring simultaneously with mendacity and heinousness made him a kind of poster child for the depraved Left—a Golem-like figure so divested of redeemable characteristics that his opposition to any person or principle served as an almost automatic advertisement for the virtue of whatever he saw fit to assail. A man so detestable that his own exercise machine beat him up. You won’t be so lucky with Schumer, whose genius for duplicity is refined, and whose ability to dissemble any point whilst affecting a certain heuristic (not to say cloyingly condescending) sincerity is comparatively effective with large numbers of gormless voters and media poltroons.

It may be a particularly bitter lesson for you, sir, given your guileless enthusiasm for such characters, but the same politicians it was pleasant and profitable to schmooze while you chatted about real estate deals, or private jets, are now your blood enemies….and flattering someone like Chuck Schumer based on fond recollections of innocent times gone by will not drain him of a scintilla of malice. Consider that no sooner had you found gracious words for the newly anointed Senate minority leader than he made a beeline for the Politico to assure them he was not your friend, never ate a meal with you, never played golf with you, and only took around ten-thousand dollars in donations from you over past election cycles because—well—you only really became objectionably despicable about a year ago. He reminded us of Obama back in 2008 making a show of struggling to remember who on earth Bill Ayers was.

How liberals compromise….

On FOX News Schumer vowed to compromise with your administration, yes; but he vowed to do so only on those occasions when your objectives “echoed the views of Democrats,” which is to say, when you already agree with him. For almost 50 years this has been the Democrat approach to “compromise,” and Schumer is a past master. Notice he has also laid groundwork for “compromise” on the 2nd Amendment, telling reporters that you can “prove” your administration is serious about keeping domestic terrorists at bay “only” by “persuading the National Rifle Association to support gun control measures sponsored by Democrats.” Only, in other words, by abridging the 2nd Amendment.

The man has already made plain his devotion to compromise on the topic of healthcare, telling MSNBC that “Obamacare, he [Trump] won’t be able to do.” And build the wall? Impossible, says Chuck, “unless he includes a plan for immigration reform.” Yes, we know—this seems funny on the face of it. Saying you can’t wall off the border unless you also have a plan to reform immigration is exactly like saying you can’t go on a diet unless you also have a plan to lose weight. You probably think, well, we can file that one under “duh,” right? Wrong. In liberaleze this means a compromise is required in which you agree to blanket amnesty in exchange for the Democrats agreeing to fund your wall—and, in liberaleze, this means that amnesty will be driven through and the wall will never again be mentioned.

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Obamacare must die. And the longer you wait to kill it, the harder it will be. This is due in part to the fact that as soon as the leftwing establishment media begin churning out shrill warnings about what cataclysmic ramifications are certain to follow upon the repeal of this most invidious means of human bondage, a substantial number of Republicans will turn to jello and begin scoring brownie points with their media handlers by appearing on newscasts to support the liberal view. They will appear jointly, as is traditionally the case, with Democrats who will provide contrast by also supporting the liberal view. You must confront this tenaciously! It would be more than sufficient grounds to kill the Affordable Care Act owing to its horrendous impact on business, and small business in particular. It adds to unemployment because most employers daren’t surpass the limits at which they must become providers or custodians of all sorts of reticulate, poorly understood, and often Dadaistic healthcare requirements that cannot be afforded by struggling businessmen, or easily accessed by employees bucking such obstacles as impossibly high deductibles and a drastically diminished quality of service provision.

It also remains a constitutional fact that Americans cannot be compelled by their government to purchase a product–any product–unless they have voluntarily entered into some sort of contractual relationship necessitating the purchase. In other words, if you decide to drive a car, the state will allow you to do so on the condition (to give a single example) that you are an insured driver. (Unless, of course, you are an illegal alien, but we digress…) You may choose not to drive a car, or you may prefer to move to a state where the requirements for driving a car are more to your liking, but if you seek a license, you are required to provide certain assurances of indemnification. Not everyone drives, and Heaven knows not everyone should drive–but everyone gets sick now and then, and the government cannot pretend that we do so voluntarily or as part of a contractual understanding.

The mandated coverage aspect of Obamacare is a tyranny, foisted upon Americans (through the reprehensible connivance of Chief Justice Roberts) as somehow constitutional. Which, clearly, it is not. It was Justice Roberts’s genius to rewrite the Administration’s argument, you may recall, Donald, sir, so that the increasing levels of fines levied against citizens who failed to comply with the law mandating purchase of health insurance were reimagined as a tax. Everyone knows taxes are legal, so hey, presto, so became the individual mandate. Nobody knows what Justice Roberts may have been smoking, or if Jack Bauer simply failed to liberate whatever beloved relative of Roberts’s was being held hostage by Obama’s minions in time to spare the Chief Justice rendering a coerced opinion– but that’s all behind us now. Sadly, Obamacare is not, and it has to go– and go now, while its conspicuous failures–intended to make totalitarian control of America’s medical establishment irresistable–can be held aloft instead as proofs of the entire scheme’s impracticality.

Take for example the fact that the impossible costs written into the law are now going higher, as dictated by the law’s fine print. Using Obama’s home state of Illinois as an example, premiums are blasting off to dizzying heights. (Maybe that’s why Rappin’ Preezy says he won’t be returning to Chicago.) Bronze premiums are rising 48 percent, Silver are up 44 percent, and Gold is soaring to a 55 percent increase. (By the way, is this bronze and gold stuff all a Satanic rip-off of Plato’s Republic? Nevermind…) These hikes are similar to those occurring in all 50 states. And of course, all this was by design–because at this point the single payer option was to be trotted out, while all the insurance companies were to be accused of abject greed and driven out of the business by our benevolent leadership in Washington (read: the Leftists in charge of the caper) and specifically the IRS. After all, the IRS did such a good job fairly administering 501(c)(4) status to groups seeking to file as non-profits, it only follows that they should determine what degree and what types of health benefits our citizens may variously receive. Seriously, Donald, this is like putting the Post Office in charge of the space program– except that it compounds blatant unsuitability with a history of overtly malicious bias.

Comrades, there are wreckers in the healthcare sector!

The collapse of Obamacare as we are now witnessing it was part of the original design. As intended, the private insurers (easily the dupes of the decade, so enthusiastically did they greet the idea of mandatory health insurance as a pending bonanza) are now facing bankruptcy unless they charge impossibly high premiums for governmentally dictated levels of coverage or simply drop out of the loop. This was the point at which a future president, say Hillary Clinton for instance, was supposed to carry the socialist ball forward by vilifying the evil corporate insurance providers and explaining to the same citizenry that thought it would be able to keep its insurance policies and its doctors if it wanted to, that thanks to the treason of the money-grubbing private providers, government had no choice but to step in and save the day. The scheme is almost pristinely Stalinist. A few show trials at which the CEOs of major insurance companies confessed to being “wreckers in the healthcare sector” would bring the whole thing to perfection. The ignorant masses would then demand pure government healthcare by tumult– But then you got elected, Donald, sir, and that was absolutely not in the plan.

So now, behold Obama maneuvering to institutionalize the single-payer option by renaming it the “public option” and advocating its adoption in the Journal of the American Medical Association (wherein peer review would typically deflect such disingenuous and factually insupportable flimflammery, but not, evidently, when the flimflam has been ghost-written on behalf of the First Medic). Obama’s JAMA monograph expounds such significant medical insights as that “Congress should revisit a public plan to compete alongside private insurers in areas of the country where competition is limited,” by which, rest assured, he means the entire country. And the sparkly new idea he and his comrades have generated to address this “unexpected” difficulty? Why, a single-payer government system managed by the IRS and designed to completely replace all other funding sources by undercutting the market with dollars bled from the very taxpayers to whom it will be offered! In other words, the same old endgame Obama has been advocating since 2003 when he blithely advised the AFL/CIO (who aren’t even doctors!) that he sought nothing short of “a single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan,” except that now he’s within a hair’s breadth of success.

You have a blessing in disguise, however, Donald sir, in Obamacare’s planned collapse–for instead of railing against the private sector and shouting that more of this poison will cure everyone, as Hillary was expected to do, you can point to the system’s myriad fatal flaws as evidence that the Affordable Care Act is a dramatic failure, and make the case for euthanizing the entire program. Obamacare must be destroyed.

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About Dodd-Frank As you will discover to be the case henceforth, helpful advisors will pop up unbidden to offer you unsolicited guidance with only your best interests at heart. It’s remarkable, actually, how often lifelong Democrat operatives pause to prescribe policies and attitudes for Republicans, and always in hopes of advancing and improving the Republican brand. If only our own side could display such magnanimity!

Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com, for instance, recently opined that “It doesn’t look good for Donald Trump the populist to be essentially disemboweling what was the principal regulatory response to the financial crisis.” But you didn’t swear fealty to the Republican Party and its populist vision, did you, sir. No, in early September you announced from Trump Tower that you were “totally pledging [your] allegiance to the Republican Party and the conservative principles for which it stands.” Everybody heard you—including Reince Priebus whose brow jiggled in such a way that we assume he wasn’t anticipating the entirety of your vow. So in other words, Mark Hamrick might as sensibly have said, “It doesn’t look good for Donald Trump the turnip,” and completed his paralogism on that basis—it would have applied no less sensibly.

We labor the point only to remind you, Donald, that “smiling men with bad reputations” are everywhere, and they will devour you piecemeal if you don’t proof yourself against their advisements, which, no matter how prettily phrased, are never more than invitations to revisit the toxic-waste dump of leftwing agenda items. And what agenda item was Mark Hamrick subtly defending? Why, Dodd-Frank, of course—surely you realized.

Okay, as you no doubt recall, you promised to dump Dodd-Frank. This is a good idea, although it will not catch fire for you; first, because the average guy in the street has no idea what you’re talking about. Second, because the banks themselves are afraid to join you in protesting the law’s absurdities mainly because, third, the general perception of banking as an institution is almost entirely negative nowadays—from the Occupy movement to the Tea Party and at most points in between, the “banksters” are loathed and excoriated. And one thing you can say for Dodd-Frank, it definitely makes bankers miserable. Of course, favoring this imbecilic law because it beats up the banks is about as intelligent as favoring confiscatory taxation for the wealthy because one resents rich people.

The Economist recently noted that “After the crisis of 2008, finance plainly needed better regulation. Lots of institutions had turned out to enjoy the backing of the taxpayer because they were too big to fail.” But wait a minute—aren’t government (which is to say taxpayer) bailouts the last resort of government regulators? And would bailouts be necessary if banking institutions were not press ganged into making untenable loans to minorities as a result of people like—well, Dodd and Frank—and threatened with federal retaliation if they refused to issue bad paper?

In fact, six years after the passage of this harebrained rewrite of our financial laws, Dodd-Frank has beaten small bankers senseless, left large bankers leveraged against the flurry of endlessly incomprehensible rules and regulations with which the legislation bristles, strangled access to credit, and set us up for a banking collapse that could dwarf 2007. As you seem to perceive, Donald, the whole mess was concocted by politicos who either believed or who found it expedient to pretend that deregulation caused the banking crisis. But when the federal government coerces banks into behaving incautiously, there is no deregulation. And Barney Frank and Little Chrissie Dodd running the nation’s finances makes no more sense than Joseph Stalin trying to run the Soviet Union’s agricultural programs or railroads. It was ridiculous back when Barney and Chrissie (and Dick Durbin –remember him?) were busy causing the credit collapse, and became even more ridiculous when the same culprits expressed outrage at the problems they’d caused and volunteered to fix them, whereupon Frank and Dodd churned out a 14,000 page bill…or rather, they agreed to carry the bill forward on behalf of the shadowy forces that concocted it. WOOF could explain these shadowy forces in detail, but it would require another 8,000 words—so for brevity’s sake we like to call them the Worldwide Totalitarian Socialist Conspiracy that Governs Us (somebody says we stole that particular description from the John Birch Society, but so far they haven’t complained). _________________________________

Defense Okay, so far so good! In fact, people often ask us things from time to time like “who would you choose for secretary of defense?” And we always got a kick out of replying “Mad Dog Mattis!” which remark would probably leave more liberals aghast if only more liberals knew who on earth he was– but it sufficed to scare the bejabbers out of the better informed amongst them. It also–have not the slightest doubt–drove Barack Hussein Obama up the Oval Office wall, he having purged the legendary Marine along with scores of other combat-hardened career officers in his putsch to oust battle-worthy commanders from the military’s top ranks, making way for the kinds of sycophantic careerists with whom he prefers to populate the Pentagon (WOOF story here). And while this was going on, Obama’s short-lived but remarkably destructive secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, was outspokenly determined to reduce the ranks of our military to the smallest number of active units since before World War II, at which he succeeded, sad to say–given how a vastly reduced military prior to World War II conduced rather obviously to America’s involvement in–well–World War II. And this in the face of massive build-ups by Russia and Red China whose forces have been consistently upgraded and expanded since the beginning of the present century, and whose militaries are mainly deployed in anticipation of armed conflict with those forces that survived Chuck Hagel’s meat grinder. “The U.S. Military…is aging. It’s shrinking in size,” warns Dakota Wood, a Heritage Foundation analyst. And this, sir Donald, is profoundly understated.

Here’s a thought: You could make Our Beloved Helmsman even more frantic were you to appoint, say, Jim Webb as Secretary of the Navy. Yes, he was SecNav already under Reagan, but now that Mr. Webb is a Democrat (and a sufficiently outspoken and insubordinate one to keep the DNC in conniptions) it would be fun to ask him to return and once again set about the creation of a 600-hull fleet. We at WOOF have been lambasted a time or two for recommending that the Iowa class battleships be once again recalled to service– and by a number of well-informed, patriotic readers who happen to think the idea is–well–stupid. But we’d still be okay seeing the three ships in this category returned to the high seas–call us hopeless romantics–but don’t you think it might be worth considering, Mr. Donald? Those Iowa BBs are big–they’re huge. Huge.

But apart from this admittedly arguable recommendation, there is no escaping the fact that our naval presence around the world is now dangerously thin. As we mentioned, Webb built Reagan a 600-hull navy–and in fact, the average size of the U.S. fleet since World War II has been better than 700 ships. Know how many we have at the moment, Mr. Donald? If you guessed 273, you’re doing well—but our Navy isn’t. It cannot keep ships deployed in a number of theatres important to the global maritime environment. Our international adversaries are well aware of these gaps in the Navy’s coverage and you can be sure they are itching to exploit them. Without firing a shot they can focus influence in regions that may be co-opted into alliances or reliances on potential enemies to the detriment of American interests—and this must be addressed quickly. Sea power remains the most visible and influential form of military might. Building ships, improving weaponry, and keeping our technologies ahead of the curve will cost a lot, but we cannot afford to continue downsizing and revising our Naval presence.

The Army is in even sadder shape. Aside from the desperate need for improvements in the areas of enhanced lethality, enhanced survivability, improved communications systems, and imaginative advances in its avionic and electronic warfare programs, it needs two-hundred-and-fifty thousand more troops.

And then there is air power to consider. As you come to office, Red China is phasing more than 1,000 advanced fighters into service. They will be deployed in full before the end of your first term. Russia is racing to modernize its force of fighter and bomber aircraft. Meanwhile, we are still trying to get the F-35 to stay in the air and not catch fire on takeoff. You see, President Obama killed the F-22 Raptor, so we only have about 120 of those magnificent fighters operational. The idea was that the F-35 would be so much better. This is an old liberal ploy, Donald, sir—kill an efficient weapons project with promises of something much better to come, and then either deploy a flock of turkeys or kill the next project, too, on the same premise. But in battle, a sky full of something is better than a portfolio full of promises.

Build war planes—and build them using your particular genius for cutting through the bureaucratic bologna and wangling the best bang for the buck. To begin with, reboot F-22 production to the tune of an additional 250. That action alone will answer the Chinese expansion profoundly. The F-35 may ultimately prove serviceable in several capacities, but it is too complex, too expensive, and sacrifices too much maneuverability in the name of technological gimmickry to be relied upon as a our first line fighter. Oh, and our Navy needs fighter aircraft that suit its particularly strenuous requirements for carrier duty—don’t saddle them, or the Marines, with a compromise like the F-35 that satisfies nobody because it was meant to satisfy everybody.

Sadly, sir Donald, we must also refurbish and update our nuclear missiles. Your predecessor has been cutting back on them as fast as he can, and the damage to our security is extreme. The Russians will take note of improvements to our strategic bomber and missile forces and respect it—and so will the doddering commie oligarchs in Beijing, who are all Maoist atheists and in no hurry to be disintegrated, trust us. Wars aren’t won or prevented on a budget—but a close eye on how an expanded budget is managed at the Pentagon can put us out front again. As Air Force General Daniel “Chappie” James once told a contingent of his fellow Black Americans who complained that his campaign for the B-1 meant less money available for improved sewage systems in East Burbank, “Without the B-1, there won’t be any East Burbank.” You should really hire General James, Donald, except he’s been dead since 1978. Nobody’s perfect!

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Budget cutting. Cutting taxes increases revenue. But this fact is so little understood by anybody other than Arthur Laffer and everyone in the WOOF cave, that cutting taxes can never be proposed as an economic stimulus without legions of critics chanting, “What budget cuts will you make to offset the loss in revenue?” And of course, budget cuts are a great idea in and of themselves, because we conservatives favor budgetary restraint, as Jeff Sessions has presumably taught you by now. But when you encounter demands for budget cuts from those afflicted with the sophism that reducing taxes amounts to reducing revenues, you will notice they seem overwhelmingly of the opinion that it can’t really be done (which is how you know they never wanted taxes reduced in the first place). They all say the same thing, to wit, “Whose ox are you willing to gore?” Ignore the planted axiom that all federal purse tightening must slash welfare and entitlement programs (although this is never an unattractive idea), and tell them you have quite a few substantial cuts in mind that lie outside the province of these gored oxen. As they blink uncomprehendingly, compound their bewilderment by suggesting that for starters you plan to sell Amtrak and the post office for a dollar apiece. Stress that the price is open to negotiation.

Quickly, while their minds reel with visions of motionless locomotives wrapped in vines and undeliverable parcels, add that you want to dissolve the IRS. There is no constitutionally defensible basis upon which this tyrannical and politically malignant institution can justify its existence–and the multitudes that inhabit its dark kingdom can be replaced by any number of simple and equitable tax plans. Why not ask Ted Cruz for help devising a plan that will benefit the exchequer without immiserating the citizenry or shredding the bill of rights? It’s time you two buried the hatchet, and if you can bury the IRS along with it, so much the better.

Next–get rid of the Department of Education. The media will scream that without it, our youth will fall prey to ignorance and illiteracy, but that’s what we believe you New Yorkers call crap. You know about the NEA, right? No other professional organization points annually to the increasingly poor product its members produce as evidence that its members deserve raises. Well, the whole Department of Education was created by Jimmy Carter as a pay-off to the National Education Association for its support in his 1976 election. Nobody needed it then or now. It spent 80 billion this year alone, and achieved nothing except a continued decline in the literacy and general educational levels of America’s school children. Under Obama it became a major promoter of “Common Core” which is a bane to the Republic and a propaganda utensil intended by its radical creators to turn our sons and daughters into America-loathing ignoramuses with no actual concept of their own history, cultural significance, or identities.

Eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency will have every liberal academic and media flak in America ranting that you are destroying the planet and polluting the very air we breath (can’t you just hear them?) but in fact, the EPA is a clown act even when it isn’t functioning as a hit squad for leftist political ends. In August, it caused the massive collapse of a mine in Colorado. It also spilled millions of gallons of heavy-metal-contaminated goo into the Animas River and thence into the waterways of three states. In 2013, in the midst of a blinding snowstorm, a cohort of EPA bravos donned helmets, vests, and combat utility harnesses, hefted their M-4 assault rifles, adjusted their goggles, and marched menacingly into Chicken, Alaska (WOOF did not make that up) to raid the alleged operational epicenter of a gang of Clean Water Act violators headquartered in a copper mine. The Chicken raiders encountered no armed resistance from the dumbfounded workers, but several House subcommittee Republicans branded the mission “an effort to intimidate miners.” The EPA insisted it was acting to protect Alaskan fisheries from pollutants issuing from mining operations, while the mining CEO accused them of exercising “an authority that nowhere has Congress given them, to go across America and determine where development should occur and where it shouldn’t.”

Rep. Darrell Issa, (R-Calif) attempted to look into the matter, but when his committee subpoenaed the EPA biologist whose advice triggered the raid, the guy disappeared. When Issa’s committee sought the biologist’s computer records, they disappeared too. The EPA “discovered” that all documents covering the mine episode in Chicken between April 2007 and May 2009 had vanished. Meanwhile, it transpired that the mine on which the biologist based his recommendation was not the mine the EPA raided, but rather “an imaginary mine the EPA invented,” as explained by Washington Examiner columnist Ron Arnold, who added, “You can’t respect anything the EPA says.”

Meanwhile, perhaps most infamously, residents of Flint, Michigan called in the EPA to help with water contamination. But EPA decided to save money by introducing water from the Flint River as Flint’s tap water. The water was so polluted it ate away the pipes, further contaminating Flint’s water supply, which fact the EPA set about trying to cover up. The agency would have allowed Flint residents to continue drinking lead-contaminated water if it hadn’t gotten caught. Just get rid of them, Donald, sir. Don’t just drain the swamp– clear the air. We will all breathe easier.

Other government agencies ripe for demobilization include the Department of Energy (another Carter brainstorm that led immediately to gas rationing and soaring prices at the pump), the Department of Commerce (whose very existence threatens commerce) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, named after a novel but hopelessly dated Paul Newman film. And when was the last time, sir, you looked over at Ivana during breakfast and said, “Say, honey, anything in the paper about whether Europe is complying with the Helsinki Accords?” Not for a while, right? And yet we find dollars in every year’s federal budget (except for those years when Obama didn’t bother submitting one, of course) to maintain a cold-war relic known as the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Europe can get along just fine without it, or perhaps more accurately, it won’t be any the worse for its absence.

Heck, even the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a paramilitary arm under Obama—remember when they raided the Gibson guitar factory and seized materials and computer records because Gibson’s president gives money to Republican causes? Fortunately, Gibson finally got its wood back and created the “government model” guitar series (buy some here) to mock the event—but our mental jury is still out on Fish and Wildlife—maybe we’ll wait to hear from Chuck Berry on the matter.

And do you know what the Federal Citizen Information Center (FCIC) does? It provides information–stuff like how to buy a new car, arrange a college loan, transplant your Dwarf fothergilla shrubs, install drainage around your home, or connect with additional government agencies if you need…well…additional government agencies. The FCIC mission statement touts the Center’s function as “answering questions relating to government services…” so here’s one: Why, in the age of the Internet, do we need the FCIC?

And then we have the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR). Originally established to “identify policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term” and “achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run,” the Commission has obviously failed and can best serve both its stated goals by disbanding. But since the Center stubbornly refuses to see reason, you may have to be firm…all in the name of fiscal responsibility, of course.

Other tax-funded organizations you might consider terminating include the obviously feckless United States Institute of Peace; the quaintly antiquated Board on Geographic Names (USBGN), founded to ensure consistent spelling of map locations as the railroad expanded Westward, and the Federal Interagency Committee for the Management of Noxious and Exotic Weeds (FICMNEW), which we mention not only because nobody needs it, but also for its metaphoric implications pertaining to these and countless additional agencies crying out for eradication. We could fill an entire article citing additional examples of federal flab in desperate need of actuarial liposuction, but you get the idea, right?

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ISIS At home, begin by supporting passage of the “Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2015,” or S.2230, and never mind that the chief sponsor is Ted Cruz, this is vital legislation aimed at stopping Islamic extremism’s piecemeal establishment of Sharia law here at home. Abroad, you must proceed with a level of violence inflicted on major targets with such repetitive, yet often unpredictable brutality that the foundations of Islam tremble. You have this power; we will leave it to your Joint Chiefs to advise you on the particulars. Do not go gentle.

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Israel Oh, and God wants you to mend fences with Israel. No, not your personal fences, they’re fine–but under Obama the United States has spared no effort to belittle, insult, vilify, and/or delegitimize the Jewish State while embarrassing and insulting its leadership. Obama’s anti-Israeli exertions include his efforts to humiliate Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House, to return Israel to the indefensible borders predating the Six Days War, pour hundreds of millions of dollars into Iran’s war chest while encouraging its leadership–the proverbial Mad Mullahs–to perfect and complete construction of atomic weaponry to be used against the Jewish State, his (unsuccessful) attempt to rig the Israeli elections to result in Bibi Netanyahu’s defeat, and finally his sticking his thumb in Israel’s eye by abstaining from a UN vote crucial to Israel’s border security followed by John Kerry’s outgoing anti-semitic rant intended to disparage our most reliable ally in the Middle East and sell it down the river (which in this case would be the East River). All of this must be turned around quickly, sir Donald–and supporting Israel wholeheartedly is the quickest way to dampen media gossip about your “Alt Right” proclivities into the bargain.

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Putin Apparently, President Obama decided not to leave office without uttering at least one sentiment that was indisputably valid. Toward this end, one assumes, he recently averred that “Over a third of Republican voters approve of Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave.” Notwithstanding the probability that Old Dutch has been spinning in his grave for the last eight years, Slow Rappin’ Preezy had a point. Sure, his hypocrisy was at full blast, since he cheerfully played flunky to Mr. Putin throughout his first term, even begging Russia’s indulgence on the occasion of the famous live-microphone incident in which Obama could be heard begging Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to prevail upon “Vladimir” to grant him more time to further weaken American missile defense efforts, assuring the Russian that “This is my last election–after my election, I have more flexibility.” So in other words, if the idea of pro-Russian conservatives seems a jarring departure from tradition, so do throngs of liberals abandoning a convention of irrational Russophilia dating all the way back to the New Deal in order to thunder patriotically against the bloody-fanged Slavic hordes of the East. On the Left, of course, this is simply further evidence–if any were needed–that principles are largely adaptable to whatever pretense furthers the collectivist cause at the moment.

That said, Vladimir Putin, while certainly an interesting case study, is not an all around good guy, Mr. Donald. He is a fascinating guy, a smart guy, a guy it was fun to watch serially outwit Obama and his secretaries of state in Syria and around the world… even a guy you might want to hang out with, ride a few bears with, shoot some Tokarev automatic pistols with– learn some Judo from–but never mistake him for a geopolitical buddy– he’s not your pal, he’s not your ally, and no, George W. Bush never looked into his eyes and saw his soul. What he saw was sociopathy. So by all means, remain friendly toward Pooty Poot, enjoy his company, and maintain the warmest possible relationship with Russia–but never forget: When this guy doesn’t like you, he puts polonium-210 in your borscht. Don’t drink the borscht, Mr. Donald–please!

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HUGE!

And that’s it for this December, anyhow, Mr. PEOTUSA. Congratulations, again! Looking forward to your inaugural–which reminds us–we haven’t gotten our invitations yet, are you sure you have the address right? Remember, it’s a cave–so it can be a bit dodgy finding us. Use Federal Express, they know where we live…they always get our copies of National Review here okay–oops–forget we said that. We’re all in your corner now, Donald Sir; and it’s going to be huge!