Vote As If Your Life Depended On It

 John Nantz writes about the latest lie to poison our existance at Townhall.com titled MAFAts Is A Lie. I often wonder if they can hear themselves screeching? Are they that unaware of theselves? Or do the just not care?

The truth is always the first casualty of war because deception is the tyrant’s most powerful weapon.

In our own country, a political war rages. Language has been conscripted by PSYOPs operatives whose sole objective is to poison the American mind. And, democrats have been tireless in propagandizing for their master — the father of lies.

Never before has an American political party allied itself so completely with infernal forces. Their lust for infanticide is sociopathic — it is this spirit of death that most animates their base. They howl against the empty tombs of infants while they prance obscenely in front of churches and mime pulling infants from their own wombs and cheer while the slaughter is dramatized in scenes that would have staggered Dante’s imagination. One must only mention the Dobbs decision to drive the legion of death from the field of discourse, shrieking into a proverbial herd of swine.

Is this the party of truth?

...snip...

So when Democrats describe Make America Great Again supporters as terrorists (MAGAt or plural MAGAts), you should pause to consider: which side stands for measurable, objective, truths like those embodied in the constitution? Which side seeks to decentralize power? You can be sure that those who blur the lines around meaning do so with an evil intent to forge iron shackles figuratively and literally.

But as to the terrorism question, which party supported a summer of violence and destruction perpetrated by their own surrogates: BLM and ANTIFA? The real violence — from the left — resulted in millions in property damage and death during the summer of 2020. Left wing violence is commonplace and is perpetrated always in the name of the people. That terrible summer made January 6th look like a rowdy Cub Scout meeting. Yet the organizers, as well as the organizations themselves, go without facing prosecution. That single fact proves the political nature of the January 6th prosecutions. And, despite the participation of a few RINOs, like the now deposed Liz Cheney, the January 6th kangaroo court is a Democrat owned and operated affront to liberty.

Does Nantz sound hysterical, perhaps overwrougt? Yet these things actually happened, and more. And these things continue to happen with more and more regularity and intensity. We can expect it to get even more intense as November approaches, perhaps beyond. I urge gentle readers to determine where they can find bits and pieces of truth. Then test the truth against the anvil of truth, the Bible. What those who perpatrate these lies want is your freedom, your property, and perhaps your life. Theirs is an anti-human philosophy and must be defeated.

Vote as if your life depended on it. It does!

 David Lanza at the American Thinker warns us that Unelected Bureaucrats Unilateraly Implement the Green New Deal. Green New Deal Leftists are going through the bureaucracy because they can not get it through the elected legislators. But these people are profoundly undemocratic, and do not care what the polity thinks. He starts by pointing to Bank Australia, and the average American may think "Well, Australia is half a world away. Why should I care?" But you should care becase California has already signaled it will ban the sale of gasoline powered automobiles by 2035. But it was not by a vote of the California legislature, it was done through the California Air Resources Board (CARB). Even California couldn't have done it by democratic means.

There is no public consensus in the West in favor of electric cars. They have limited range. They are expensive. Recharging the battery is extremely time consuming and costly. The batteries often need to be replaced at a cost that equals or exceeds the price of a new car. The cars constitute a fire hazard which requires tremendous amounts of time and water to extinguish, often placing garages and general traffic at risk. Electric cars and their batteries cause greater environmental damage than the gasoline cars they are intended to replace. Constant promises that improved technology is just around the corner have never been fulfilled. The public has generally not shown a willingness to accept these risks, costs, and harms.

Without any consensus, activists seek to impose this drastic change on all of us through the back door. There has been no vote on the electric car. There is no mandate. Yet, they can push the agenda anyway.

...snip...

The entrenched bureaucracy is part of the executive branch and acts almost independently of the other two branches. Congress unconstitutionally yielded its legislative power to the bureaucrats almost a century ago, while the states are apparently ceding their power to California.

If we lose our vehicles and accompanying travel freedom, it will happen without anyone asking our opinion or allowing us to exercise our right to vote. We will find ourselves in a position where we cannot afford to travel beyond the cities, forced to return and submit to the crime, taxes, congestion, and corruption that drove us away in the first place. No rational person would choose this course of action. Yet this is the goal of the Deep State and its allies across local governments and the corporate world.

I urge gentle readers to read the whole article. Understand that if we are forced to give up our gasoline powered cars, we will be giving up All our freedoms. Please also realize that for the forseeable future, so called "green" energy is a pipe dream. The technology is not there, and short of world shattering techological breakthough, like...say...a practical fusion reactor...we will not achieve a fossil fuel free world. This is nothing but an anti-human philosophy mascarading as our salvation. It is based on a malthusian idea that has been part of the environmental movement for at least 60 years.

You have the power to turn this around. But it depends on your elected representatives taking back their power. Vote as if your life depended on it.

Pray for those who persecute you

 So, it is Sunday, and Pastor Michael Brown has sermon at Townhall.com that I think hits the nail on the head. Pastor Brown has titled his sermon Seven Steps to Help Unite the Church of America. Note though, that Pastor Brown is not Father Brown, and this has nothing to do with Catholicism and uniting behind the Catholic church, though one can do worse.

Brown goes through the many ways politics and social situations have divided us. He does not point out that some of this was deliberate and intentional; to divide anc conquer.  Rather, Brown advises us to go around that deliberate tactic.  Instead of arguing past each other, we should listen sincerely to each other. There is no reason to give up your personal convictions, but instead to attempt to understand. I know that I have been often aggressive in pointing out my own convictions and denigrating of the other side. We should all be more calm, while standing where we do out of reasoned conviction, not merely because of emotion. Only mankind can reason, but reason without the guidance of God leads to tyranny. Our only hope of freedom comes when we follow God's word.

Which leads to Brown's seven steps. The first is to recognize that God desires unity. And if we are serving Him, then we should desire it our selves. We should strive to be as unified as humanly possible. For this, Brown provides some very useful rules for engaging others. Indeed, that is most of the rest of his Seven Steps. But it is the final one that is most important, and it is the one I have the most difficulty doing.

Brown says we should pray for those with whom we disagree. Brown thinks that it changes both ourselves and the others as well. Hmmm. Our God is Almighty, and can do anything, so he could indeed change peoples minds and hearts. I accuse others of believing in a God who is too small. Perhaps I have also believed in a God who is too small. I think it is a good practice that I will incorporate in my prayer life in the future.

If Leftist Don't Like Being Called "Communist," Maybe They Should Stop Being Communists

So last evening I was watching The Five on Fox News, when the designated "liberal" mumbled something about not likeing being called "Communist." Now, Richard Fowler, the "liberal" in question is one of the most obnoxious people on The Five. He uses the full playbook of Leftist debate including changing the subject, erecting and knocking down strawmen, and in general defending the indefensible.

But, if he is tired of being lumped in with Communists, it would be helpful if White House advisers didn't cite Communist China and Mao's "Great Leap Forward" as a reason to push their Green New Deal.  And, oh by the way, since when do we put in policies to appease China?  See Biden Climate Czar Invokes China's Deadly 'Great Leap Forward' to Push Green Energy. Just sayin. Oh, and screw the Chinese Communist Party.  The people of China don't deserve to be treated that way.

Your Call to Arms. Vote!

Andrea Widberg, at the American Thinker has a post warning that the Democrat party message has become quite Facscist. Her post, entitled Demcrats to conservatives: We hat you: we really hate you. Charlie Crist, the Republican...er...Independent...er Democrat candidate for Florida Governor doesn't want the votes of people he considers "haters." New York Governor Hochul has ordered Republicans out of the State. Pf course, merely calling us "haters" or ordering Republicans out of the state (though I don't know why a Republican would want to live there is a mystery) is not, by itself Fascist. But it is despicable.

It seems like just yesterday that politicians would try to sway voters to come to their point of view and cast a vote for them. Things have changed. In the past week, Charlie Crist told conservative voters he wants nothing to do with them because they're evil; Kathy Hochul told Republicans to leave her state; and, in the culmination of this abuse, Joe Biden effectively affixed the label "fascist" to Trump's 74,216,154 voters (all of whom are actual human beings). Is it any coincidence that, in the same week, activists twice swatted Marjorie Taylor Greene? Democrat politicians are engaging in eliminationist rhetoric, and it's scary.

...snip...

Well, I guess you can't get any more official than the man in the Oval Office when it comes to getting the Democrat party view about those who don't vote for it. Joe Biden, it turns out, sides completely with Crist and Hochul. As far as he's concerned, the 74,216,154 living, breathing Americans who support Donald Trump are "semi-fascists." The way I see it, he meant "fascists" but thought he could soften the blow with the meaningless prefix "semi."

...snip...

As a reminder, fascism is a subset of socialism that, unlike communism (another subset of socialism), allows for private ownership of the means of production provided that everything is ultimately under complete state control. Germany and Italy were fascist countries. China, once a communist country, is currently fascist.

Donald Trump's MAGA philosophy sought to shrink the government and return power to the people. It is the opposite of fascism. Biden's administration will allow for private ownership of the means of production if everything is ultimately under complete state control. As revelations about the FBI demonstrate, his administration even has its own secret police. So tell me — which party has the fascist approach to governance?

Once you have politicians declaring that identifiable classes of people are fascists, are haters, and should be deported, you have created an eliminationist philosophy that can easily slip into calling for the death of those same people. I don't think it should surprise anybody that Marjorie Taylor Greene was swatted twice in the past few days, something that the swatter invariably hopes will lead to the swattee's death.

You've heard the phrase "vote as if your life depends on it." This year, it's true. Don't sit the election out. Vote a straight Republican ticket in November, because Democrats cannot be trusted with power.

If gentle readers were sitting on the fence before, perhaps because you suspect your candidate may be a squishy RINO, you now have your call to arms. Vote!

Pray, but Act As Well

 M. B. Matthews reminds us at the American Thinker today while it is true that God is in control, but we must act.

Some Christians believe we should “Let go and let God.” I find that crushingly cringeworthy. It says, "You don't have to do anything." Committed Christians know that sloth and inaction are deadly; we are called to work against evil, and to do whatever we can, however insignificant, to fight the dark forces that stalk this nation. I must do likewise or someday I will have to explain why I didn't.

God is certainly in control, but He has tasked us to fight for what is right, as Jesus did. But some people honestly believe that nothing will affect them, because, “God is in control.” God was in control during the Holocaust, too. God gave us a mind. He gave each of us a mission, however limited, because we are in a battle for America's soul: As America goes, so goes the world.

The enemy is smart, cunning, and strong. Prayer is not enough. When Jesus went to the Cross, he prayed at Gethsemane. But then He acted, doing His Father’s will. Action is necessary. Something. Anything. Write or call representatives, be a poll watcher, talk to those who are not like-minded, if you can get them to listen. Never, ever, say you refuse to vote because you're unhappy with the imperfections in our candidates. Those imperfections plague you as well. Every person who sits out an election out of sheer pique may as well cast a vote for the opposition. Turning this ship around requires small degrees of turning and each vote is one degree, whether we like the candidates or not.

Pray, pray for our country, pray for each other. But act as well.

A Question

 Everyone is talking about President Biden's relief of student loans for certain students.  People on the right are complaining that it isn't fair to the people who either didn't go to college, or who paid their student loans.  They are correct.  People on the righ are also point out that it will only add to the inflation we are already experiencing.  Also true.  People on the Left are ecstatic that this will help them in tough election situations.  That could be true too.

However, nobody is asking the question under what authority the President can just decide on his own to spend $300 billion dollars?  Was this authority snuck into some omious,,,er... omnibus bill?  You know, one of those 1000 page monstrosities that now one reads before voting on it because the Constitution includes a "good and plenty" clause?  I am asking, because I don't know.  But it bothers me that nobody seems to be asking the question.

Who, General, Are the Terrorists Again?

 David Codrea, at Ammoland warns us that Connected Insiders Signal Contempt and Lethal Intent for 'Traditional Americans'. It is one thing when Edward Luce, a Brit, finds American conservatives deplorable. Conservatives in America are trying to conserve the blessings of the American Constitution as founded. Conservatives in Britain want to conserve the morarchy. See the difference? It is quite another when a 4 star General of the Air Force expresses similar beliefs.

It’s typical of a snotty attitude by “progressive” Brits, simultaneously enjoying while subverting the freedoms this country still (partially) recognizes. And they can always count on Americans of all political stripes to sacrifice themselves to foreign entanglements if the UK succeeds in poking the Russian bear overmuch or finding too late the “refugees” it took in have their own ways of doing things. That his father is a titled insider who “served” as Lord Chamberlain to the Queen recalls both Thomas Paine’s observation on hereditary qualifications and one of the more popularly resonating Monty Python skits.

...snip...

This isn’t about them though. It’s about another guy who’s also a connected insider through and through and who has been for a long time. He’s ostensibly an American of much more importance in higher circles than mere media commentators, and he signaled to the world that he embraces Luce’s characterization of Republicans.

“I agree,” retired Gen. Michael Hayden tweeted. “And I was the CIA Director.”Gentle r

A general and a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency? Not to mention former National Security Agency director? With four stars, he was the “highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the armed forces.”

Gentle readers will want to read the entire article, as David Codrea is a much better writer than I could ever be, which is probably why he is a professional. I wanted to touch on the distorted ramblings of this "connected" person. When I hear someone spewing such, or see it in writing about me and people like me, I wonder what facts they are looking at? These people never called out the BLM and Anitfa rioting, looting and burning whole cities down. Indeed, it was encouraged by people like our sitting Vice President. On the other hand, I have never rioted, or burned, or looted, or murdered anyone or anything. I have never beheaded anyone. But burning, looting, murdering, beheading, and other such actions are the typical hallmarks of terrorists. How can I be considered a terrorist if I have not engaged in these terroristic actions?

As Mr. Codrea has often noted though, every day for the Left is upside down day. In other words, you can find out what they are doing by what they are accusing us of doing. If following the law is terroristic, then I am a terrorist. However, it was the Left that rigged the 2020 election. I think they might be the actual domestic terrorists. It was the Left that engaged in the rioting and looting of cities, defunding the police, refused to prosecute actual criminals, allowed drug users to occupy our streets and terrorize people walking by. Oh, and allowed poeple to sucker punch others, hijack their cars all without consequences. Who are the terrorists again?

And then there are the things General Hayden himself engaged in.  Wasn't it he who as drector of the NSA collected every electronic signal world wide, including the cell phone data of every call and message sent and received by American citizens.  Doesn't this violate our 4th and 5th Amendment rights?  And if it does, who then is acting illegally against our highest American law (other than the laws of God Himself.)

Some RINOs Named

I often excoriate those on the Left as either being evil themselves, or supporting evil, often buying the spin that it is really good.  But I have mentioned that some on the supposed Right are also wolves in sheeps' clothing. John McCain was one such, who never let an opportunity to stab conservatives in the back go by. Today, at the American Thinker Olivia Murry has a post entitled RINO Republicans sit on the board of a nonprofit which bankrolls global leftwing censorship efforts. Here's the quote where she names names:

A recent blog posted to the ISD website discussed a “hate-riddled public health disinformation campaign” where social media users identified monkeypox was almost exclusively (if not entirely) spread by homosexual male relations, and questioned how children were getting the disease. The author said this truth was used to spread “dangerous rhetoric against the queer community”, despite the legitimacy of the concerns: less than two weeks ago, Georgia law enforcement arrested a gay couple who stand accused of using their adopted sons in the creation of child pornography, so it's not as though adults abusing children is a rightwing boogeyman story.

So which Republicans help fund this nightmarish leftist enterprise? If you guessed Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, or Mitt Romney, you’d be correct. However, a few more are flying under the radar, and they are Tom Cotton, Joni Ernst, Dan Sullivan, and Kay Granger.

Those seven members of Congress sit on the board of the International Republican Institute, which is listed as a donor to ISD. Additionally, ISD lists partnerships with the McCain Institute — John McCain was a former chairman for 25 years — as well as a tentacle of the United Nations. On top of receiving funding from the IRI and those seven prominent Republicans, other benefactors to the ISD include George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Do what you will with the information. I know even good men have things that are not so nice in their makeup as well.  But know that your Senators can not be entirely trusted to not lead us into the hands of tyrants and dictators. I am surprised that my own Senators are not on that list.

Judge Roy Moore Wins Defamation Lawsuit

 Gentle readers may remember Judge Roy Moore from Alabama as the Judge who installed a granite monument on court grounds that included a depiction of the Ten Commandments.  Of course, the Left went wild with outrage.  This was while Muslims were the protected class du jour.

Moore, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, had been a controversial figure in Alabama politics, stemming at least from when he became known as the “Ten Commandments Judge” after installing a granite monument in the Alabama courts building that included a depiction of the Ten Commandments. In 2017, he was in a special election contest against Democrat Doug Jones to fill the Alabama Senate seat formerly held by Jeff Sessions.

Today, at The Federalist John Lucas tells us that Roy Moore Defamation Victory Sends a Message About the 'Actual Malice' Standard. Lucas describes a coordinated attack involving the Senate Majority PAC, a subsidiary PAC, the Highway 31 PAC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post to spread a sexual lie about Moore. As I recall, it was shocking. Moore just secured an $8.2 million settlement against the Senate Majority PAC:

After a five-day trial, the eight-person jury retired to deliberate. Typically, after a trial of that length, with 17 witnesses and no fewer than 254 exhibits, the jury will deliberate for a number of hours, perhaps into the following days. This jury, however, was back in 90 minutes with an $8.2 million verdict for Moore on two separate counts, defamation and “invasion of privacy, false light.” That is an extraordinarily quick result for a trial of this type and a multimillion-dollar verdict.

In response to nine specific written questions from the court, the jury found that Moore had proved by “clear and convincing evidence” that Senate Majority PAC intentionally published a false and defamatory statement and “false information” about Moore. The jury also found that SMP published the untrue statement “with actual malice (that is, SMP knew that a statement was false or acted with reckless disregard as to whether a statement was false)”.

The verdict should be a wake-up call for the media and others who publish attack ads...

It is one thing to publish false information because you believe it to be true. It is quite another to deliberately lie. the latter is called "bearing false witness," and of course can, and often does ruin a person's reputation, which is often the point. It may not be illegal, but it is definitely immoral.  It should be punished, and in this case it has. But we need to see more of it. People should be able to evaluate their candidates based on reality, not based on lies told by the candidate's opponent.

What is to be done?

 At the American Thinker today, Steve Feinstein tells us that he is Tired of the 'Rank and File.' The term 'Rank and File' is a leftist term for the salt of the earth working men and women, who are individuals, not cogs in a machine. These are the people who make America work. They have families, loved ones, children to educate not indoctrinate.  But in this article, the 'rank and file' are the individual bureaucrats following the often illegal orders of those at the top.

We hear this a lot: “The rank and file are fine. It’s the leadership that’s bad.” That’d be nice if it was true. But it’s not.

If there is one thing that progressive Left governance has accomplished in the last two Democrat administrations, it’s been their complete (and sadly, likely irreversible) destruction of formerly non-partisan governmental organizations. The FBI, DoJ, IRS, and CIA used to comprise the bedrock foundation of a just and equitable American society, ensuring an unbiased legal system, providing national security and pursuing America’s best interests around the world.

Regrettably, that is no longer the case. These formerly neutral national institutions are now blatantly and unapologetically nothing more than extensions of the Democrat Party. With their actions predictably covered and excused by the mainstream liberal media, these establishments have taken to proactively opposing and undercutting all manner of conservative politicians and initiatives

Feinstein then points out how agencies such as the IRS, FBI, CIA and DoJ have been turned into literal arms of the Democrat party. It has probably happened to the DoD and certainly Homeland Securtity. I have written about some of my experiences at the Department of the Navy. Most of the people I worked around were nice enough, and a few I considered friends. But the fact is that most either "leaned left" or were outright socialists. I have written about how, even though many of these people believed that man was causing global warming, none were willing to act on their beliefs. Which is the problem. How many of the "rank and file" have refused orders to do things which are clearly questionable if not illegal. How many have resigned in protest?  How many have quit?  If enough had done so the leaders might well have reconsidered their own actions.

However, the IRS, FBI, DoJ, and CIA are highly selective, specialized enterprises, demanding the very highest professional qualifications and the most stringent individual principles. Every employee is bound to a code of ethics and a sworn duty to respect and uphold every aspect of American law. The rank and file do not have a “Get out of jail free” card when their superiors flout the law in deference to factional political considerations. On the contrary, when the Comeys, Lerners, and Garlands of the world act with such contemptible disregard for the rule of law because of their misplaced political leanings, it is the responsibility of the rank and file to say, “No! This does not stand. It stops here and now.” These rank-and-file employees are purportedly the most intelligent, honest, and skilled people in the world at what they do.

They need to act like it. Or else, everyone will see the obvious: This is all their fault.

I frankly have no clue what to do about this. It seems that we not only need to perp walk the leaders of these organizations to the public square, and the DoJ is not up to the task. But we also need to make some expamples of those who followed those orders. The Nuremberg trials established that "just following orders" was not enough. These people have sworn to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States. That Constitution is clearly not compatible with the idea of a Marxist dictatorship, and that is where the current situation is leading.

You Vill Eet Ze Bugs, and You Vill Like Them...or Else

 Anony Mee (an obvious pseudonym if there ever was one) has an interesting article today at the American Thinker entitled Don't They Know That Crickets Fart Too? The point of the article is that everything that lives and eats produces carbon dioxide as a result of bacteria in its microbiome breaking down food for nutrients. That includes, oh by the way, bugs. All of this CO2 is simply recycled. There is no new CO2 coming into the system as a result of this bacterial action, and that includes cows.  Some science training would be helpful for people hoping to be our new scavenger class.

What is interesting, and I certainly did not know this, is that the raising of cattle is both a gateway into small farming, and has profound meaning for black ranchers.

Because I’ve written on this subject before, woke greenies should note that half of America’s Black farmers raise beef as their primary agricultural commodity. No other product even comes close. They do so on small farms/ranches of around 125 acres, on average. Beef ranching is also the gateway into farm life. More young and entry-level farmers engage in beef production than any other ag activity. Beef is also a small farm activity. One-third of all beef operations are carried out on less than 50 acres, and over half of all such farms have fewer than 50 cattle.

Before Americans jump, especially with taxpayer funds and supportive legislation, into slaughtering the beef industry just to raise up another living creature-based food let’s make sure we look at the whole cost to society as well as to the environment. Besides, crickets fart too.

Gentle readers will want to read the whole article for the other tid bits contained therein. For example, Mee explores the environmental costs of putting ethanol into our gasoline. This was a stroke of "genius" that came out of the Carter era gasoline crisis, and lives on as a legislative "gift" to the corn farmers. But over all, Anony Mee points out that this attempt to change our eating habits has nothing to do with saving the planet and everything to do with control.

There Are Too Many Gun Laws

At Ammoland Dean Weingarten has an article entitled America Has A Problem with Too Many Gun Laws. Actually, Weingarten would have been correct if he had left out the word "Gun" from the title. While it is true that there are too many gun laws, the truth is there are too many laws, period.

The United States has far too many gun laws. There are laws about where you buy a gun, who can buy a gun, who can possess a gun, who can carry a gun, what kind of gun can be bought, shot, loaned, carried, or given, and where a gun may be possessed, purchased, shot or traded, what kind of ammunition can be sold, possessed, made, or shot, and where it can be at what times.

...snip...

In the colonies and the early Republic, there were extremely few gun laws. The rare gun laws were almost never enforced, in part because there was little serious mechanism to enforce them. The electorate would not accept any significant attempt to disarm them. Some early laws required people to be armed.

Weingarten points to the reconstruction period after the Civil War that politicians began passing laws to disarm disfavored groups such as blacks, Catholics, the Irish and of course the Italians. Then with the advent of the Progressive Movement and their so called "good government," the regulation of guns picked up. As Weingarten notes, disarmament is necessary to carrying out the Progressive agenda. The most notorious of these laws though was New York's Sullivan Act which was just knocked down by Bruen.

In cities, organized crime, in conjunction with corrupt city governments, worked to disarm people to protect their enforcers, such as the Sullivan law in New York, passed by the notorious “Big Tim” Sullivan.

Sullivan knew the gangs would flout the law, but appearances were more important than results. Young toughs took to sewing the pockets of their coats shut, so that cops couldn’t plant firearms on them, and many gangsters stashed their weapons inside their girlfriends’ “bird cages” — wire-mesh fashion contraptions around which women would wind their hair.

Ordinary citizens, on the other hand, were disarmed, which solved another problem: Gangsters had been bitterly complaining to Tammany that their victims sometimes shot back at them.

There are too many gun laws, clearly. There are thousands, and they overlap and contradict each other. They make the ownership and carrying of guns a risk to otherwise law abiding citizens excersizing their rights. But what is worse is that these laws have no effect on crime which is always the excuse given.  Worse still, they create criminals out of otherwise law abiding citizens.

The results are millions of people whose lives are disrupted, who are convicted of crimes for exercising their Constitutional rights, whose property is stolen under the color of law, and whose ability to defend themselves is severely compromised.

These are serious costs. Those who push to disarm people ignore the costs of their measures. Those who bear most of the costs are the poor, who are most vulnerable to the machinations of the legal system, and the middle class, who have resources that can be plundered by the government, careers which can be destroyed, and property that can be confiscated.

Because of the multitude of gun laws in the USA, it is easy for a person to run afoul of the law through simple necessity.

More Speculation on the Trump Raid

Many have been speculating on why the FBI conducted a raid on former President Trump's home in Florida, Mar-a-Lago.  The reasons put forth in the warrant are implausible, as noted in yesterday's post.  But today, Jeff Carlson at the Epoch Times has a different idea and it makes much more sense. You can read his rather long analysis at Spygate DOCs and Trump's RICO Lawsuit: Exploring the Real Reasons Behind the FBI Raid.

Following the FBI’s raid of the residence of former President Donald Trump, there’s been much speculation about the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) motivation. Was it done to prevent Trump from running again in 2024, or was the raid related to documents and evidence surrounding the January 6th Commission? While these factors may have had some bearing on the FBI’s raid, some entirely different, and potentially larger, factors may be at play.

It is likely that the FBI’s raid on Trump was driven by intelligence community fears over information that was contained within those documents relating to the RussiaGate hoax.

The DOJ’s coordinated FBI raid of Trump was likely related to the potential unsealing and public presentation of this information—particularly in relation to Trump’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) suit against Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and former FBI officials like former Director James Comey, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former agent Peter Strzok, and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page—and his amended RICO suit, which added more defendants.

Gentle readers will want to read the entire piece and absorb the analysis. It is about time that RICO was used against these corrupt deep state actors. Of course, Trump has the resources to prosecute a RICO lawsuit against deep state actors. Most of us do not.

But the deep state is not just going after people like Trump. At the American Thinker today, Thomas Lifson has a post detailing Sharyl Atkinson's travails with the FBI spying on her. You can find the details at Sharyl Atkinson revels how low the FBI will go. How low? Apparently the FBI considered planting kiddie porn on her husband's computer. Ms. Atkinson needs funding to continue with her lawsuit, so please see it you can contribute to her gofundme page.

Telling Truths

 At the masthead of this blog you will see a quote from Glenn Beck:  Truth has no agenda.  The truth takes no prisoners, does not appologize.  It is what people mean when they say "it is what it is." Today, at the American Thinker Ted Noel Truth Matters And Never More So Than With the Mar-a-Lago Raid

With the bungled raid on Mar-a-Lago by Voldemort Garland’s minions, we must turn off the valve on his gaslight and blow away the stench being spread by the lamestream media. To do this, we must unequivocally declare that words actually have meanings. As John Adams said at the Boston Massacre trial, “Facts matter, and facts are stubborn things.”

And here is where Noel uses the Truth to knock down each of the fantasies the Left has created to justify the raid on Mar-a-Lago. Noel lays out four types of items that the FBI might plausibly be interested in according to the salivating and speculating mob.

The first is the simplest. Donald Trump works at Mar-a-Lago while he’s there, so he has created work-related documents. Those are properly his and should never have been taken. They aren’t covered by the Presidential Records Act and aren’t classified security documents.

Second are his passports. As president, he had both a personal and a diplomatic passport. Those are his unless he is required to surrender them by a Court or the State Department. No such orders have been given and, should he be required to surrender them, the Mar-a-Lago raid would look like kicking over a sand castle on a beach.

The third class is security-related documents. Here’s where things get interesting. If Trump took classified documents with him and did not store them properly, then it is possible to suggest that there might be a securities violation.

But…

In 1988, the Supreme Court, in Navy v. Egan, declared that the President’s control over classified documents is absolute:

The President, after all, is the "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States." U.S.Const., Art. II, § 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security and to determine whether an individual is sufficiently trustworthy to occupy a position in the Executive Branch that will give that person access to such information flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.

...snip...

There is only one possibility regarding any materials taken from the White House before noon on January 20, 2021. Unless Donald Trump rescinded his standing order, all those documents were, in fact, declassified the moment they left the Oval Office. Thus, any Espionage Act charge relating to documents at Mar-a-Lago is bogus. As President Trump said, “All the documents were declassified.”

The only possible way that Trump could have possessed classified documents would be if he removed them after Biden was immaculated. But Donald and Melania left the White House around 11:00, and there is lots of news coverage to confirm that fact. He hasn’t been back since.

Of interest, Marine One flew in and the Trumps flew out on it moments later. Neither Donald nor Melania had anything in their hands other than the other person’s hand. As for the movers, they are required to be gone with all the outgoing President’s belongings, mementos, and whatever before noon. Put bluntly, if Trump didn’t get it out of the White House by noon, he didn’t have it at Mar-a-Lago, and that means that any papers fell under his standing declassification order. Game, set, and match.

Having disposed of the possible justifications for the raid, we are left with these truths. The DOJ no longer dispenses justice equally according to the law, but has been weaponized against conservatives. We used to take pride in the fact that there were no political prisoners in the United States. But January 6 prisoners have proven that is no longer true. The FBI no longer enforces federal law, but has become the American form of the infamous Secret Police, taking down the regime's political enemies. And of course, not lost on anyone, if they can do this to an ex-president, they can do it to anyone. 

And that, as they say, is the truth

Setting Brushfires of Freedom in the Minds of Men

J. B. Shurk, at the American Thinker today has some encouragement for those of us who often feel that our voices fall on deaf ears in an article entitled Setting Brushfires of Freedom in the Minds of Men. The title phrase comes from none other than the great American revolutionary Sam Adams.

I do love American patriot Sam Adams. He was a brawler and intellectual who passionately believed in the cause of liberty, while also understanding that strategic patience and persistent public agitation were as valuable for effecting change as punctuated bursts of outright rebellion. His fingerprints were all over the Boston Tea Party, but he was also instrumental in forming Committees of Correspondence across the colonies that helped shape public opinion into organized action. He grasped the bigger picture and played a most dangerous game exceedingly well against the world's foremost empire. What is more, he found power in being the underdog. He appreciated the effectiveness of guerrilla tactics beyond the battlefield. "It does not take a majority to prevail," he once averred, "but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."

What a splendid turn of phrase — setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. It provides so much insight into who Adams was. It didn't matter how invincible the British Empire appeared. It didn't matter how few resources he might have had at his disposal. It didn't matter how many of his contemporaries said it couldn't be done. He refused to stop whispering words of revolution. He insisted on being a thorn in the side of the Crown. He struggled for years to awaken in his fellow colonists a new American identity imbued with a sense of moral purpose and dedicated to the protection of human liberty. As the American colonies' most ardent arsonist for independence, he never stopped setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. He lit small fires everywhere, fueled a conflagration, and changed world history forever.

Every patriot can do something, anything, to through sand in the machine. It doesn't matter how small your contributions may be. What matters is that you too can set brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.

Pick A Side!

From the blog War on Guns website by David Codrea, here is a open letter to the arms manufacturers by Dave Licht titled Pick a Side. I normally don't reprint the entire article, but since its author gave everyone permission to do so, here it is:

Letter to manufacturers

August 17, 2022

Dear Gun and Ammo manufacturers

PICK A SIDE!

Are you going to arm an increasingly tyrannical government deep state takeover seeking to diminish AMERICANS CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS and intending to target and abuse your customers?

Will you keep arming the states and agencies that unconstitutionally restrict your customers from buying your products?

Will you keep arming the officers in states that intend to red flag your customers and seize their property purchased from you, without notice, hearing or due process?

Will you compete to arm the new 87,000 gestapo (irs) agents seeking to plunder and eat out the substance of your customers…….and you?

I have been a good customer. I have been a loyal customer. I am a law abiding citizen of the United States of America. I can purchase your products on the secondary market…..I don’t need to do business with you. But you need me. Most of the industry would not survive or exist on .gov contracts.

We all know what “shall not be infringed” means and it’s way past time to stop dancing around it.

Ronnie Barrett is a HERO because he took a stand. He refuses to sell anything to any state, agency or officer that the citizens of the state can not have. AND he cancelled their warranties! It’s time for the industry as a whole to follow the example he set.

So………Manufacturers…….whose side are you on? If we don’t hang together they’ll pick us off one at a time……and America will be lost. PICK A SIDE

Sincerely,

 

Dave Licht

pass this on……..please forward to everyone you know and do business with

I urge gentle readers to pass it on, and act on it as well.

The Invasion of the Body Satchers

 Steve Rose (a pseudonym) has a hard hitting article entitled Stip Calling Them Democrats. They're Communists. In case you hadn't noticed, I have stopped refering to them as "Liberals" because they are not very liberal. Instead, I call them all Leftists. Leftism takes into account Fascists, Socialists, Progressives (the American version of the Fabians) and of course Communists. But Rose makes a strong case that the party calling itself the Democrats, who are after all, now against actual democracy, have become the Communists. And how do we know they are against democracy? Because they keep accusing the Republicans of destroying "our democracy." They always accuse others of doing what they are in fact doing.

Rose offers an analogy to what has happened to the Democrat party

Imagine this scenario:

You have a neighbor, Mr. Jones—a kind old man whose wife died years ago, who works in his small garden, wears the same old jacket all the time, and has a funny but genuine laugh.

One day, suddenly, Mr. Jones disappears.

Several days later, you notice some activity in his place—it looks like Mr. Jones—and you go to say hello. But suddenly, you realize this is a stranger. He looks like Mr. Jones, sounds a little like Mr. Jones, and acts in some ways like Mr. Jones. But it’s not him.

This person lives in Mr. Jones’ place, wears his clothes, works in the garden, and even has a strange imitation of his laugh. “Who are you?” you ask. He responds, “Why, I’m Mr. Jones, of course!”

I have a friend, who was an Obama supporter. We were discussing some Obama policy years ago, when he alluded to anyone who disagreed with the policy as a racists. Ignoring him, I stated that my problems with Obama had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the fact that he was in fact a Communist. "Does that mean I am a Communist," my friend cried. I replied that "If the shoe fits, wear it." That ended the debate.

Just as I consider the Constitution of the United States as a divinely inspired document, I consider Communism to be Satanic. Rose spells it out for us, though:

We’ve been conditioned to believe that communism is just a myth, that it isn’t real, or even if it is real, it only exists in faraway places like China, and anyone who mentions it is a conspiracist who deserves ridicule.

Just like the Devil, the greatest trick of the Communists has been denying their existence.  

Rose then offers a long list of actions the so called "Democrats" have taken in recent years that are straight out tof the playbook of the Communist dictators.  If you say this list also resembles the tactics of the mafia, I will point out that you are exactly right.  Communists are at heart criminals.   How any decent human being can endorce Communism is beyond me.

The most recent raid on our former President's home should have awakened every normal American to the fact. But if it hasn't, Rose is hear to spell it out slowly and explicitly. Unfortunately, some Republicans have been showing signs of being replaced as well.

The Communists have followed the old moveie The Invasion of the Body Smatchers to take over te Democrat party from the inside.

Pray that Men Do Not Disappear

 Eric Utter has an interesting piece at the American Thinker today calling out the breathless assertions of an Atlantic writer, Daniel Panneton, who has just discovered that the Church often refers to itself as the Church Militant. Oh my, are Catholics declaring a new Crusade against the sacred government? Utter says that Panneton should calm down in his article entitled Atlantic Writer Claimst the Rosary Is An Extremist Symbol.

Atlantic contributor Daniel Panneton recently wrote an op-ed in which he stated: "Just as the AR-15 rifle has become a sacred object for Christian nationalists in general, the Rosary has acquired a militaristic meaning for radical-traditional (or 'rad trad') Catholics." Say what?

In the article, titled "How the Rosary Became an Extremist Symbol," Panneton claimed that "on this extremist fringe, rosary beads have been woven into a conspiratorial politics and absolutist gun culture. These armed radical traditionalists have taken up a spiritual notion that the rosary can be a weapon in the fight against evil and turned it into something dangerously literal." Yes, only "extremists," clinging to their God and guns, believe in free speech and assembly and the right to defend oneself and one's family. And the fight against evil.

Panneton went on to claim, "[T]he rosary — in these hands — is anything but holy." Thanks for clearing that up, pal. Being a little judgy, aren't we, Panneton?

Note that the Church Triumphant refers both to the saints in Heaven, but also to the fact that Christ has already won the battle with the devil. He has triumphed over death, and has made all those who believe in him fellow sons and daughters of the Almighty God. The Church Penitant should be our constant attitude, for we are all sinners, and must continually seek His forgiveness, which he freely gives to those who seek it.

But we are discussing the Church Militant. The Church Militant was first mentioned by Cyprian (210-258 AD) in a letter to Cornelius. It refers to those currently living. It has always been metaphorical, but does refer to the fact that the Church is always marching forward. While it is God, through the Holy Spirit that converts people to faith in Him, the Church stands ready to receive them and nuture their faith, and teach them through word and deed. We often express this with hymns like "Onward Christian Soldiers," or "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."

I would also note that throughout the Bible, God convinces people to do His work by persuasion. It is Islam that converts people with the sword.

Panneton breathlessly writes:

In mainstream Catholicism, the rosary-as-weapon is not an intrinsically harmful interpretation of the sacramental, and this symbolism has a long history. In the 1930s and ’40s, the ultramontane Catholic student publication Jeunesse Étudiante Catholique regularly used the concept to rally the faithful. But the modern radical-traditionalist Catholic movement—which generally rejects the Second Vatican Council’s reforms—is far outside the majority opinion in the Roman Catholic Church in America. Many prominent American Catholic bishops advocate for gun control, and after the Uvalde school shooting, Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, lamented the way some Americans “sacralize death’s instruments.”

Militia culture, a fetishism of Western civilization, and masculinist anxieties have become mainstays of the far right in the U.S.—and rad-trad Catholics have now taken up residence in this company. Their social-media accounts commonly promote accelerationist and survivalist content, along with combat-medical and tactical training, as well as memes depicting balaclava-clad gunmen that draw on the “terrorwave” or “warcore” aesthetic that is popular in far-right circles.

This passage conflates metaphorical Catholic language with what is a Leftist wet dream. The Leftist want badly for conservatives to start a civil war in the worst way. They believe they would ultimately win such a war. I remain doubtful that they would, but I am certain that a hot war would not be a good thing for either side.. Kurt Schlichter's new book We'll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America explains all this in detail from someone who has been ringside to such civil wars ans an Army officer. 

Panneton further denigrates what he considers a masculinist culture in conservative Catholisism.  What he seems not to realize is that masculine virtues have always been part of the Catholic faith since Christ walked the Earth.  They are embodied in Biblical teaching.

I am a Lutheran, and a conservative one at that. So some Catholic politics is obscure. However, what I can descern from reading Catholic publications like Crisis Magazine is that there are a considerable number of Catholic laymen and some prelates who believe that Vatican Council II, whatever the intentions, was userped by those in thrall to Satan.

 These are not necessarily political conservatives, but they are Catholic conservatives. They desire to worship using the Traditonal Latin Mass, which, understanding that the Bible has not changed one whit, why should the Mass change? They also point to changing Catholic teachings, which again, if the Bible has not changed, why should Catholic teachings change. Oh, and Jesus was never a pacifist. The Bible teaches that we should defend our lives and the lives of our loved ones, something our Founders recognized and put into our Bill of Rights.

Eric Utter recognizes that Panneton is a Leftist radical and probably your typical metrosexual pantywaist.  He asks us to pray the Rosary that true men do not disappear.  I have never prayed the Rosary because Luther came along after Guttenburg invented the printing press, so no need for a mnemonic device.  Still, if he would show me how, I would pray with him.

Edit:  Mia Cahtell, at Townhall.com has looked into who Daniel Panneton is. The article is titled The Atlantic Contributor Espousing Anti-Catholic Hatered is an 'Anti-Hate' Expert. It paints Panneton as a nut. Figures.  The guy sees white supremacists and the far right under every bed and rock.  Sad.

Archbishop Vigano Had Trump Right

 Kennedy Hall at Crisis Magazine has an interesting article entitled Archbishop Vigano Was Right About Donald Trump.

Whatever one may think about Donald Trump, it is clear that he is a fly in the globalist ointment. Yes, my friends and colleagues who have decided to choke on red pills will say that he was always a “psy-op” or that the man was just an opportunist who feigned political ideals in order to win the greatest reality TV show in the world—the presidency.

It may very well be that the Donald is not St. Donald the Great or a Holy Catholic Monarch, but at this point I think it is foolish to think that he is just a globalist tool or an opportunist politician. Whatever he is, the Left and the Marxists hate him, and it is clear they will stop at nothing to take him, and everyone associated with him, down. For all his flaws, he is the man who brought in the judges who took away Moloch’s insatiable stranglehold over American law, which is why the so-called Trump Derangement Syndrome is clearly more like a manifestation of the demonic.

I suspect that this assessment is pretty accurate. Our God has a habit of choosing the most unlikely people to perform His work. Moses was a murderer, David killed a great many people as well, and stole his faithful servants wife. It is by choosing such flawed individuals that God shows his power. Even though the people bungle through, God somehow brings good out of evil. But it is also true that there never is a sinless person around when he needed one. But there are are flawed individuals who nonetheless say "Here I am. Send me."

One Catholic prelate understood this as much or better than anyone, and that is Archbishop Viganò. In 2020, the archbishop released a number of powerful and striking letters about then-president Trump and the impending election. In his letter from June 7, the former Nuncio to the United States began by saying that “we have been witnessing the formation of two opposing sides that I would call Biblical: the children of light and the children of darkness.”

He claimed that the “children of light” represent the majority of society and that those who have given themselves over to the dark side are in the minority, even if they are more effective or influential for the time being.

Sounds about right. 

The Government Should Not Pick Winners and Losers

 Dr. James Spencer has an article today arguing that our government must begin treating certain ideologies that have religious tendencies what theya are: religions. The article can be found at Townhall.com and is entitled Beyond Religion: The First Amendment and Ideological Groups.

People on both sides of the political sphere claim that the First Amendment — which guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition — is being taken away or misappropriated somehow. Yet, as we worry ourselves about the relationship between the state and religion, my concern is that we are allowing the state to offer preferential treatment to ideological groups with religious-like characteristics. Such an allowance will likely lead to the same sort of problems our nation’s founders sought to avoid with the First Amendment.

The First Amendment is both crucial and insufficient because it does not address the state “establishment” beyond religion, despite the rise of ideological groups that share many of the dynamics and functions of religion. As important as the First Amendment is, it only addresses the exercise of governmental influence in and through formal “religions” (e.g., Christianity). The goal here is not to reinterpret or even revise the First Amendment, but to highlight its limitations and to point to a dynamic between the state and ideological groups that may well have similar consequences to state establishment of religion. At this point, ideological groups whose beliefs and practices distinguish between sacred and profane while forming a community (however loose) with a specific, relatively inflexible, view of morality may be empowered by the state to force that understanding of morality on those outside the ideological group — just as they fear religion would.

For instance, James Lindsay argues that the social justice movement, which is rooted in critical theory, tied to identity politics, and cultivating a community (however diffuse), “takes on many of the qualities of a religion and should be recognized and treated as such, at least culturally.” If it is the case that we should treat the social justice movement as a religion, we would do well to apply the establishment and free exercise clauses to this movement as well.

While some citizens may want Christians (or adherents of other religions) to keep their faith out of politics, they may not recognize the religion-like characteristics of other groups. By not recognizing the potential problems created by the state’s “establishment” of ideological groups that have a sufficiently “religious” character, we may well be subjecting ourselves to the same sort of tyranny the founders of our nation sought to avoid with the First Amendment: a state which leverages a particular articulation of sacred and profane for political ends, disregarding pluralism and individual rights by preferring one sect over others.

I urge gentle readers to read the entire article, and thing about its consequences. Right now, the government at various levels can be said to be "establishing" the religion of Islam, of CRT and Social Justice, climate change and others. And then there is the granddaddy of them all, Marxism. Which brings us to the American Thinker by author Richard McDonough entitled The Marxist Religion.

Marx is famous for his anti-religious view that “Religion is the opiate of the masses;” the view that religion, specifically Judaism and Christianity (“the Jew being a practical Christian and the practical Christian a Jew”) is like the addictive drug of “money worship” that people take to deaden the pain of their oppression by capitalism. For Marx, these religious superstitions must be replaced by the enlightened science of Marxism that, stating the “laws of [economic] motion” in human history, will liberate human beings from capitalist oppression for a full rewarding human life.

Karl Popper, however, showed that Marxism is not a genuine science because it is not falsifiable. Whenever Marxist predictions fail, which they regularly do, instead of revising their theories to take account of the facts, Marxists employ ad hoc hypotheses to save their theory, e.g., when the socialist revolution did not occur when and where Marxism predicted it would, Marxists just made excuses.

In fact, Marxism is not absolutely opposed to religion. Marx is hostile to traditional religions because it aims to replace traditional religious belief in a transcendent God with a materialist religion that deifies man himself. Marx is hostile to Christianity and Judaism because he sees them as competitors with Marxism’s own materialist religion.

The idea that Marxism is a religion is not new by any means. Jonah Goldberg, in his book Liberal Fascism notes the religious nature of Marxism. But he was surely not the first.  And indeed, it is that religious nature, that faith in Marx's pronouncements, that makes it so hard, indeed nearly impossible, to reason someone out of this faith. Marxism substitutes the state for the transcendant God. It substitutes man's changable notions of morality for the unchanging morality of God.  But McDonough explains it as Goldberg, whom I suspect of being a secular Jew, could not:

In the Biblical story, humanity begins in an innocent paradise of union with God in the Garden of Eden until the Fall in which Adam and Eve commit the Original Sin of disobeying God. Consequently, they and their descendents are expelled from paradise and forced to travel a long painful historical journey until the Messiah emerges from the “chosen people,” the Jews, and, in the final confrontation between good and evil in the apocalypse, redeems humanity.

In the Marxist story humanity, begins in a primitive idyllic tribal communism in which everything is shared equally between members of the tribe. Unfortunately, the emergence of private property leads to a lengthy historical class struggle between the capitalists and the workers (the “proletariat”) until, in the penultimate battle, the socialist revolution, the workers free humanity from capitalist oppression and bring about a full-fledged communist Utopia.

Marx has simply replaced the original idyllic Judeo-Christian paradise, the Garden of Eden, with the original idyllic primitive tribal communism. The Judeo-Christian original sin of disobeying God is replaced by Marxism’s original sin of creating and instituting property. The Judeo-Christian struggle between good and evil is replaced by Marx’s class struggle between capitalists and workers. The Bible’s “chosen people,” who are the Jews, are replaced by the proletariat (workers) who are chosen by Marx’s “laws of [economic] motion” to lead the revolution. The Bible’s final apocalyptic battle between good and evil is replaced by the socialist revolution. The Biblical notion of heaven is replaced by Marx’s materialist heaven -- communism -- on earth. The Bible’s ultimate communion with God is replaced by Marx’s communism (communion) with one’s fellow man. In brief, the Marxist account of the historical struggle that begins with the original tribal communism and ends with a return to a more enlightened communism at the end of history is simply the Biblical salvation story translated into Marx’s “materialist” terms. Indeed, Marx would have understood this himself as he was very familiar with Old and New Testament imagery and doctrine as well as patristic literature.

At the very least, no federal money should be going to climate change efforts either for or against. It is a religion and should not be either established or disestablished. Let it compete on an equal plane with all other religions. The same applies to ever other ideology that seeks to be unfalsifiable. That means, of course, that all the monstrous ideologies like CRT and transgenderism, that the education establishment is trying to cram down our chidren's throats would not be allowed, for the same reason that enforced prayer is not allowed.

People can believe what they want. They can be Christian, or Jew or Muslim. They can believe in a Marxist Utopia or in any other sillu thing. However, the government must not take sides. Rather they must protect and defend the Constitution for all Americans without putting the thumb of government on the scales of justice.  The government should not be in the business of choosing winners and losers.

The FBI: Has it become the secret police force of the Democrat party?

 Over at The Federalist Margot Cleveland a piece calling out the FBI Director as disengenous in his remarks concerning the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago Monday. The article is entitled FBI Dirctor Calls Legit Criticism of Corrupt FBI 'Violence,' But We Weren't Born Yesterday

FBI Director Christopher Wray’s Thursday statement represents a disgraceful attempt to silence critics by conflating condemnation of the bureau’s conduct with violence and threats against law enforcement. This outrageous tactic will not work, and that Wray resorted to it confirms he no longer deserves to be FBI director.

“Unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others,” Wray began his short, four-sentence statement, before immediately pivoting to the truism that “violence and threats against law enforcement, including the FBI, are dangerous and should be deeply concerning to all Americans.”

By calling criticism “attacks” and then immediately warning the country of the danger “violence and threats” against the FBI pose, Wray deceitfully framed legitimate speech as violence or, at a minimum, the threat of violence. The object of this framing is obvious: to silence Americans who have finally found their voice following the FBI’s raid of Trump’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago.

In 2016 when the Republican primaries looked like a DeMille movie with a cast of thousands, I was not in favor of Donald Trump. But the more the media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) got wound up about him, the more I looked into him. Ultimately, I voted for him, and for once the guy I voted for did a lot of what he had promised to do. This was not your typical politician. I could wish that my Congress critter and Senators would do the same.

So, yes, I voted for him again in 2020. While I expect a certain amount of shenanagans in elections, particularly the usual stuff like raising the dead to vote and busing people from precinct to precint to vote, the level of rigging in this election was astounding. Couple that with the Russia hoax, with the Mueller investigation, with two attempts to impeach him, with the drive to put away everyone who was in Washington, D.C. on January 6...They are really afraid of this man and his supporters. But what, one wonders, do the FBI and the Democrats have to be afraid of if everything they are doing is upright and above board?

More importantly, though, the FBI and indeed, all law enforcement should be scrupulously nonpartisan.  They should apply the law equally for all parties.  But it is clear that the FBI and the DOJ have become the not so secret police force of the Democrat party.    

Meh...

 A little too little and lot too late. CDC admits it was wrong...well, sort of.

These People Disgust Me

 Yet more on the Climate Change hoax today at the American Thinker. Brian Spinosa seems frustrated when Talking Climate Change with Science-Deniers, Distorters, and Sound-Biters. He points out that the climate alarmists constantly deny or ignore facts that don't fit their chosen narratives. It is frustrating, and one wonders why they do this. These are not stupid people, after all. I once asked a fellow engineer if he believed that SUVs were changing the climate. He assured me he did. So, why, I wondered, did he drive an SUV? His answer was that the only way it would work is if everyone had to give up their SUVs!

Hmmm. Besides being somewhat of a nonsequiter, one has to wonder at a man who does not live according to his supposed beliefs. One would expect that he would set an example for the rest of us.

 I pointed out to another coworker that carbon dioxide had been a greater percentage of the atmosphere than it is today, (I didn't know how much higher at the time) and yet life thrived. So why were we now heading for an existential crisis. I just got a shrug. This did not fit with how engineers should react. He should have shown me where I was wrong, or had some explanation for why it was still an existential threat. 

I began to suspect that there was something else going on.

The United Nations has been one of the organizations leading the manmade climate change push. The paragraph below, from the February 10, 2015 Investor's Business Daily article "U.N. Official Reveals Real Reason Behind Warming Scare" seems to state the goal clearly.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism. "This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution," she said.

Historically, Ms. Figueres is totally off base. While the term "capitalism" was invented 150 years ago, capitalism was the way business was done since the world began. When ancient merchants collected their wares, hired camels and people for security and to handle the animals, see to the logistics of the caravan, the entire cost of the effort had to be realized with enough additional profit to pay for more wares, and give the merchant a profit. The merchants who did this took on considerable risk, and their profits were similarly large, when they made them. That is capitalism. 

The change with the industrial revolution was that machines were now used to amplfy man's abilities to both make prducts and transport them. This greatly advanced the profits made by industrialists and merchants, who still took risks and when they were right, profited handsomely. Did the industrialists exploit their workers? Well...yes, until laws were passed to force them to treat their workers like human beings. The problem was never the econimic system, but the people who were turning the system to evil ends.

Marx didn't really want to change the system, he just wanted to be in charge of the profits himself.  These Marxists don't want to take the risks, or try to figure out what is the next thing people will want and pay for.  No, these people want and pay for.  No, they just want to steal the profits from those who took the risks and deserve the results.  And they want to do it by convincing people they need to give them the power to do so.

The UN is doing the same thing. They don't want to change the system, they just want to be in charge of the system, to reap the profits themselves. Oh, and this is the quiet part, if they impoverish and and kill a substantial portion of people, well that's the breaks, right? You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right? 

These people disgust me.

A Co-Founder of Greenpeace Speaks Out

 Alicia Colon, at the American Thinker today in her post entitled Greenpeace's Patrick Moore and the hardcore evidence against climate change myths states that:

One of the most interesting persons I interviewed for the New York Sun was Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace.

I had mistakenly expected him to be one of those left-wing environmental wackos, but he was anything but.

He had left Greenpeace after realizing that the group was more interested in social machinations than in helping humanity. He was also the only one in Greenpeace at the time with a scientific background.

I would like to have been a fly on the wall during that interview.  I have just acquired his book Fake, Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom and consumed the first three chapters immediately. Much of it I had known from my work at the Naval Facilities Engineering Command and subsequent research. But there was some I didn't know, as well. I knew for example that in the Earth's distant pass, the overall planet was warmer and greener. Indeed, it turns out that life, including animal life, had flourished when the atmosphere contained 5 times the amount of CO2 as it does today, and it didn't burn up!  So much for St. Greta of Thunberg's claims. Indeed, the so called "pre-industrial" CO2 content in the atmosphere, 280 ppm is near the starvation level for plants. Burning of fossil fuels has raised the level of CO2 to 410 ppm and the effect on the planet has actually been reversing desertification and greening the planet.  That is good news!

The overall point of the chapter on climate change is that rather than spelling doom to the human race and animal species in general, man's discovery and utilization of fossil fuels has probably saved the planet.  There was nothing to stop the continued decline of CO2 in the atmosphere and soon all the plants would die, which would spell doom for the animals as well, including us.

But I think the overall point of the book is that we all need to be better, more critical consumers of the news.  He points to the fact that alarmists and scammer use things that are invisible, like CO2, or that can't be easily verified like polar bears or the so called Pacific garbage patch to scare people and guilt them into opening their wallets to donate, or to give up some of their liberties in order to solve the supposed threat to their existence.

When one studies these “narratives” of invisible and remote circumstances, it is hard to avoid noticing that the purveyors often stoop to ridiculing and shaming, and likewise exhibit an unwillingness to discuss the allegations in a civilized manner. It is virtually impossible to engage in debate as they usually dismiss those who question their narrative as a skeptic, liar, denier, or of being in the pockets of “big oil.” And if the alleged skeptic has employment, these narrators will work underhandedly to have you removed from your livelihood or position. In summary, these purveyors of global environmental catastrophes are definitely a scurrilous and dishonest lot.

" Moore, Dr. Patrick. Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom (p. 14 &15). Ecosense Environmental. Kindle Edition."

Other clues in the writing include things like the words "may", "might", or "could." That something "may" happen means it also "may not."  When people fudge the numbers, they don't want to later be proven wrong, so they hedge with words like "may" that give away the lie. Harder to spot are conflating false correlation with causation. There is a positive correlation with police being at the scene of accidents, but of course the police did not cause the accidents. Even harder still is when facts are conveniently left out of a story because they don't fit, or even contradict the narrative. If you or I did that, we would be accused of lieing.

Here is Colon again:

The real question is, how did anyone ever believe that Al Gore, who is not a scientist, had any credibility behind his monumentally successful film, An Inconvenient Truth?

It has always seemed to me the result of the dumbing down of America and the insidiousness of the academic community. Anyone with half a brain and the ability to reason would see through the massive holes in the film's premise, yet public schools were adding it to their curricula. Al Gore went on to become a mega-multi-millionaire snake oil salesman selling carbon credits to morons.

Mr. Moore's book not only documents the hardcore evidence that global warming is a not a threat to the planet, but argues that we are essentially still in an ice age. While he covers climate change, he also debunks all the other lies we've been fed by environmental charlatans such as Gore.

Do you really think the Great Barrier Reef is dying? Did you fall for the nonsense that the polar bear population is almost extinct? When filmmaker Sir David Attenborough was confronted about his film depicting walruses plunging off a cliff due to what he claimed was climate change, he answered that he was just a filmmaker. In fact, those walruses he filmed were being chased by a horde of polar bears that hunted and killed them for food. So many lies, and why are we being told so many fake tales? The answer is money and power. Greening is expensive and also useless.

Of course, I would ask gentle readers to read the entire article. And until Tucker Carlson decides to do a Tucker Carlson Today interview with Moore, get his book. It is a quick read packed with facts, charts, and puts it all together into one place. And as a founder of Greenpeace, Moore has the credibility to make these claims.

Is America a Democratic Republic Anymore or a Totalitarian State with a Stasi?

 As a Christian, one learns from an early age that the heart of man (and woman, wouldn't want to leave out you gals) is corrupt.  We can not do good on our own, only God alone can turn our blunders to something good.  But knowing this does not mean we should do bad in the hope that God will turn our badness into good.  That would be an entirely false reading of the Gospels.  None the less, I have resigned myself at times to accept a certain amount of corruption from those I vote for, knowing that it is to be expected.  They are human after all, and subject to all the evils humans are subject to.

Thus it was that I came face to face with a concentrated list of corruption and abuse of power in Dale Lowdermilk's post at the American Thinker yesterday entitled Federal government can't seem to get out of bed with China.

When it comes to the theft of intellectual property, some argue that the U.S. is its own worst enemy. Rather than being an unwitting casualty, the U.S. either squanders or surrenders its technical advantages.

In a recent example, as reported by NPR, ten years ago, American scientists in Washington State made tremendous advancements in the field of vanadium batteries:

The batteries were about the size of a refrigerator, held enough energy to power a house, and could be used for decades. The engineers pictured people plunking them down next to their air conditioners, attaching solar panels to them, and everyone living happily ever after off the grid.

(One scientist described the technology as "beyond promise.")

But then the U.S. Department of Energy gave the taxpayer-funded technology to the Chinese government. That wasn't an anomaly, as this seems to be the modus operandi of the federal government.

In 1998, the giveaway of rocket launch/development technology to China sparked an investigation, one that was undermined by President Clinton's subsequent actions — the move dwarfed any "aid and comfort" provided to foreign enemies since Benedict Arnold.

Lowdermild goes on to list 9 articles that described the giveaway of numerous technologies to the Chinese, this in addition to the theft of intellectual properties by the Chinese themselves. These, of course, were the Clinton Crime Family. The Obama and the Biden Crime Families have done much more, and all have profited handsomely for their efforts. 

But it hasn't been only them. Mitch McConnell seems to have had his hand in the cookie jar. Indeed, one wonders how someone enters politics with no real wealth of his or her own, and after a career making upper middle class salary, ends up as a multi-millionaire. It does boggle the mind. 

So, like Mary Shelly's story of Frankenstein, our government has been creating its own monster. If war is the health of the state, its opposite, peace, must be its death.  Can't have that,,,no, no!

All this was, of course, why We the People elected Trump in the first place. But our corrupt rulers, the scavenger class that is in control of this country is determined to keep Trump from doing what the people elected him to do: drain the swamp. They have raided his home, Mar-a-Lago, looking for something...anything...with which to frame him.

As Kurt Schlichter notes at Townhall.com, we must Stop Assuming the Legitimacy of the Corrupt Establishment's Actions. Schlichter is up to his usual sardonic commentary, and really, at some point it is impossible not to comment sarcastically about what one sees goiing on around you:

You are right to want to heave when you see some Republican poobah in the year of Our Lord 2022 respond to the illegal, immoral, and utterly catastrophic stormtrooper raid on President Trump’s home with a tepid, noodle-spined soliloquy along the lines of “Well, we need to not jump to any conclusions and wait to see what the facts are before we act like free men and call out this grubby Democrat fascism.” Of course, the last part about being free men and calling out grubby Democrat fascism would never be uttered by one of these saps, because the idea of being free men and calling out grubby Democrat fascism would never occur to them.

Let me save them some time, since they are no doubt still waiting for those elusive and secret facts that are going to make this latest round of targeting our president A-OK. This was an atrocity, a disgraceful, disgusting, and dangerous escalation of the War on the Normals by our enemies designed to frame Trump and send a message to his supporters that we are second class citizens.

There’s no hidden, secret Trump crime that the garbage FBI and the garbage DOJ are investigating. They spent the last six years trying to frame Donald Trump, but right – this time it’s for realsies!

It would only be too perfect if it really was over possessing classified info, which apparently is illegal again now. Here’s the truth – it’s all a lie designed to make sure President Trump can never be elected again and finish what he started.

While Biden is giving away billions of dollars worth of equipment, with no accountability, and saying we must "save democracy," Tucker Carlson asked on numerous occasions whether a country that jailed its political opponents could actually be called a "democracy." It may be worth asking whether our own country is a democrattic republic anymore, or just another totalitarian state with a secret police like the Stasi?.

The Real Green New Deal

 I have to go to work.  I may have more to say this evening when I get back, but in the meantime, please read James Bascom's piece at the American Thinker today entitled The Green War on Ductch Farmers Should Concern Everybody Without making too much of it, this is literally Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse type stuff. If it was really about saving the planet, 70% Nitrogen efficiency would be remarkable, something to promote world wide. That is what the Dutch farmers achieve. That is what U.S. farmers achieve. But the West's efficiency is not good enough, while China's and India's must be protected.

If Green activists really cared about the environment and human flourishing, they would try to replace wasteful and dirty practices in poor countries with technology from rich countries. But the Green war on agriculture has little to do with pollution and the environment. Rather, radical Greens want to destroy private property, drastically increase government central planning over the economy, and “de-develop” Western economies to subsistence level. Green activists want to reduce agriculture just as much as they want to reduce the human population, which they see as a threat to the planet.

Please read Bascom's article. I will have more to say later,

Edit:  I have wondered what it is about Trump that makes the deep state and politicians want so badly to keep him out of office that they put the Russia hoax into play to keep him out of office  But he won anyway.  Now, they keep trying to find something...anything...to keep him from running again,   because they know that we didn't believe the 2020 election was free and fair, and they can't pull the same stunt again. Well, I finally found out.  One of Trump's first acts as president was to "unsign" the Paris Climate Agreement, and then get the U.S. to be energy independent to the horror of the global scavenger class. They had intended to reduce us to serfs by now.  It is also why we need to elect Trump again. 

We the People are up to our necks in deep kimchee

 August is usually a slow news month.  People take off for August vacations, recharging and preparing to come back in September as they say "hitting the ground running."  This has so far not been a usual August.  At yesterday's American Thinker Andrea Widburg had a post entitled Pay attention to what's happening to Dutch livestock farmers. The global "elites" really do want us to eat bugs. I am not sure who has cornered the market on grasshoppers, but one of Klaus Schaub's cronies clearly intends to make a few billion on it.

The beauty of climate change, if you're a wannabe totalitarian, is that, because carbon is one of the building blocks of life, if you control carbon, you control everything. To understand how this works, you must pay attention to what is happening in the Netherlands, where the government is planning to seize 20% of livestock farms, all in the name of climate change.

...snip...

Now, livestock farmers are up in arms because they've finally realized that their government is about to seize their land, all in pursuit of "nitrogen reduction." We've heard about the protests, but Peter of Sweden is the first person I've seen who breaks down the numbers and explains what's really happening (and it's about power more than "climate change"):

According to calculations done by the Finance ministry, a whopping 11 200 livestock farmers will be forced to shut down by the government to reduce nitrogen emissions in order to meet European environmental rules. Another 17 600 farmers would need to reduce the amount of animals they keep to meet these climate goals.

And this is bad. Because there are about 54 000 farms in the Netherlands, meaning that around 1/5 of all farms will be forced to shut down and almost 1/3 of farms forced to scale down and reduce livestock.

Quite obviously, the government's move will severely constrict food supplies, which are already likely to diminish due to fertilizer shortages resulting from the Ukraine war. I'm assuming that those who complain will be told that they need to learn to eat grasshoppers. The irony is that grasshoppers need to eat, too — and what they eat is the greenery best fed by CO2 and fertilizer.

If it is not obvious to you yet, this is an attempt to set up collectivized farms. It has been tried in the Soviet Union, in Communist China, and other places. It has never worked as advertised. Oh it works for members of the scavenger class, of course, but everybody else goes humgry, and often starves to death. But that's a feature, not a bug.

Then, last night, we learned that President Trump's Mar-a-lago estate had been raided by the FBI on the pretext of obtaining records from his presidency. This is, to say the least, unprecedented. But I will let Patricia McCarthy tell you what we know so far in her post, also at the American Thinker entitled The complete Sovietization of the Democrat party. 

For those of you who don't remember the old Soviet Union, it was awful if you were a commoner, a peasant and serf. The Soviet Union didn't have citizens, for that would mean the people could revolt, and that could not be allowed.  If you joined the Communist party, and if you worked very hard, said all the things the Communist party told you to say, blieved all the Communist party told you to believe, and informed on you neighbor who said unapproved things, you might...might...be granted a license to purchase an "automobile." The Lada was a no frills, stripped down little box. When it worked, it would get you around, but repairs were difficult and supply chains nonexistant., kind of like America these days.

With the wholly illegal and unconstitutional FBI raid on President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, in search of documents they have long had access to, there can no longer be any doubt about the full communization of the American left.

The thorough weaponization and politicization of each of our law enforcement institutions is now undeniable; the left has crossed Caesar’s Rubicon.

...snip...

The globalists have captured every Democrat in Congress, every single one of them. Chances are each and every one of them has been bought…by China. There is not one of them who has or will put the American people before their own personal power and wealth.

Every Democrat voted against prohibiting China from buying U.S. farmland. Every Democrat voted against a ban on selling our strategic oil reserves to China; Biden has nearly emptied our strategic reserves. Every Democrat voted against a bill stating that pregnancy is unique to biological females. Every Democrat is on board the for the sexualization of very young children, the authorization of pornography in elementary school libraries and the pharmaceutical and surgical intervention of gender transition even for children under twelve. Democrat-run states seek to mandate gender-identity education for young children. Biden has made his support of gender transition abundantly clear. They all support unrestricted abortion up to and just after birth; they are in favor of infanticide.

Every Democrat has voted against protecting those who refuse the COVID vaccine. They voted against stopping the government from monitoring and prosecuting the unvaccinated. The Democrats approve of the DOJ labeling parents who attend school board meetings as domestic terrorists. The Democrats all signed onto the entirely Clinton-fabricated Russia hoax. In short, the American Democrat party is in favor of the destruction of any and all traditional Judeo-Christian American values. As President Trump remarked the other day, prayer in school is banned but drag queens are de rigeur. Our newest Supreme Court justice cannot define the word “woman” because she and her ilk insist men can become pregnant. Our left has gone the way of Orwell’s 1984, of Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon. Our world is upside down.

Reading the whole post, I know Ms. McCarthy sounds hysterical. I know exactly how it is to go about your normal day and think "this can't be happening. But it is." One thinks oneself insane. And what about the Constitution? The truth is that the Democrats have ceased, if they ever cared at all, to care about the Constitution. Congressman David Cicilline said the quiet part out loud "Spare me the bulls**t about constitutional rights.  And in truth, it is not just the Democrats, many Republicans are in on the scam.  We the People are up to our necks in deep kimchee.

The Democrat party has revealed its evil tendency toward totalitarianism. Every American should now be well aware that there are two distinct systems of justice in this country, one for conservatives, quite another for favored leftists. The Clintons, the Pelosis and the Bidens are among the most corrupt political families in American history. They and all of their partners have used their positions of power to enrich themselves and must be held countable for their many, many crimes against the American people. Our media is corrupt, deservedly known for their fake news in service of the far left. “All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.” -Frank Herbert.

Surprise of surprises! Trump is the least corrupt politician in modern history.