Another Nonsense Leftist Term

 I have mentioned before that the notion of "Christian nationalism" doesn't make any real sense. Like so many Leftist labels, the term means whatever Leftists want it to mean at the moment they invoke it. But to make the point in a satirical fashion, Pastor Hans Feine presents This is Christian Nationalism. It seems sometimes like Leftists throw a dart at a dictionary, then turn whatever the dart hits into a pejorative to hurl at conservatives and Christians.

Oh, and if you want more satire try going here.

They Are Telling Us Who They Are

 At RedState today, Neil W. McCabe has a story entitled Bishop Barron on Paris Olympics Drag 'Last Supper': Would They've Dared Mock Islam in a Similar Way? The answer, in case you have to guess is 'No.' In Islam, there is a lot of killing. Family members can "honor" kill female relatives who bring perceived disgrace on their family. Then there is the constant and always admonishment to kill the Jews. And of course, along with the Jews, they are allowed to kill any so-called infidel they run into and which they can get away with killing. So, the French and the Olympic officials are rightly scared of the Muslims. Anyone who invites them into his or her country is either incredibly naive or a traitor.

Christians, on the other hand, should obey the Commandments of the LORD, so simply murdering a person is out. Self-defense is required, but if you can do it without killing, you should.  Revenge is never allowed. Otherwise, a Christian risks his eternal soul. So, of course, the French and the Olympic officials feel free to make fun of the central sacrament of Christian life, the last supper.

The bishop of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, who is one of the most Catholic media voices, called out the theatrical opening of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris for mocking Christianity and the Last Supper, and asked if the Olympic organizers would consider insulting the Muslim faith.

“A question I would pose--we all know the answer to it: ‘Would they ever have dared mock Islam in a similar way?’” asked Bishop Robert E. Barron, who is also the founder of the “Word on Fire” ministry, in an X-post.

...snip...

“They're telling us who they are,” he said. “We should believe them, but furthermore, we Christians--we Catholics--should not be sheepish. We should resist. We should make our voices heard.”

Elsewhere I have noted that the modern Left started with the French Revolution. During the reign of terror that followed, they killed and imprisoned priests, monks and nuns, and turned cathedrals into "temples of reason." They kicked God out of the public square and reaped the reward. This is, sadly, who they are. Bishop Barron is spot on.

Please read the whole post, and check out the embedded video.

Who Is the 'Wannabe Dictator' Again?

 D. Parker at the American Thinker today has a short piece entitled Who's the 'wannabe dictator'? The one who wants to take your guns.

What’s the first thing a dictator does when he takes over? Confiscate guns.

What does counterfeit Kamala want to do when she takes over? Confiscate guns.

What has always been the primary obsession of the Un-Democratic Party? Confiscating guns.

To quote the vice president at her first presidential campaign rally:

"We who believe that every person in our nation ... who should have the freedom to live safe from the terror of gun violence (applause) will finally pass red flag laws, universal background checks, and an assault weapons ban." (Applause.)

...snip...

Why is this important? The oft-repeated lie and insult is that President Trump is a “wannabe dictator.” However, he never wants to make the historical first move of a dictator — confiscating guns — while counterfeit Kamala is openly demanding this action. So who is the wannabe dictator?

This is why we need to have solid facts and talking points to refute the incessant lies of the left instantly. The right of self-defense is the canary in the coal mine, the freedom that is always struck down first. It is the demarcation issue between the pro-freedom right and the anti-liberty left.

I encourage gentle readers to read all of D. Parker's post today, and also check out the embedded articles and the Gun Owners of America video.

One Can Not Remain Neutral In the Culture War. One Must Pick a Side. Choose Wisely

 Yesterday at the American Thinker Jonathon Gault (a pseudonym, obviously) presented us with an article discussing the generational persistence of the belief in Marxist and Leftist theory despite the perfect record of failure of Leftist policy. In No Matter How Often Leftism Fails, True Believers Never Face the Consequences, Gault gives a short primer on the utter failure of Leftism to deliver on its promises. Instead, it delivers misery and death every...single...time. At the same time, the people who imposed the Leftist systems upon their neighbors never seem to suffer the consequences.

Perhaps the most significant factor contributing to the Soviet Union’s collapse was a resolute commitment to the infallibility of socialist ideology, coupled with its continued application long after its obvious failure. The failure to learn history and, by extension, internalize the lessons from this dark period is what enables our modern-day Marxists (whom we refer to as “leftists” or “progressives”) to believe that they can somehow avoid the consequences of the policies they promote.

Modern political history shows that these same people almost always avoid any personal liability for the destruction that they’ve wrought. In the Soviet countries, this mindset prevailed until the collapse of that abominable regime in 1991, but not before oppressing, enslaving, and murdering millions.

Unfortunately, this worldview persists even today. Adherence to ideological purity is valued above empirical evidence and objective truth, and is particularly prevalent among miseducated Western leftists who “identify as secular,” whereas those of us who believe in G-d are labeled “superstitious.” These are the archetypical “godless commies.” By traditional standards, they display appalling behavior. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who had experience with this, once said, “If there is no G-d, everything is permitted.”

It makes you wonder, what is the magic that makes people believe this stuff despite the evidence to the contrary? What makes academics cling to the philosophy, or is it a religion? And why are Marxists/Communist/Socialists/Leftists/Progressives so against Christianity and so antisemitic? You know the Democrats have an antisemitic problem among their voters, right?

I will venture a theory that I have had since I began studying Islam. Now, I don't read Arabic, so I have to take the word of people who do, but the Koran and the Bible say two very different things. How to explain this, if they are the words of the same elohim or god? Did God change his mind? Islam of course has an explanation; that those dirty Jews corrupted the Bible. But the Koran itself says that the Bible is true. Well, then...the most likely explanation is that they were written by two very different beings. I believe that the being dictating to Muhammad in that cave was the old devil in the Garden of Eden, the serpent who Jesus tells us is the father of lies and a murder from the start.

And do you notice that while Leftists supposedly find religion to be distasteful superstition, it is really Christianity and Judaism that they hate. But they seem to have a grudging admiration for Islam. Why? Grandmothers are arrested for praying on the sidewalk outside an abortion clinic, yet Muslims can squat down and pray anywhere at any time. Again, why? And why are there so many pro-Hamas supporters in this country? Hamas started the war against Israel, and the normal rules say that Israel has a right to defend itself however they see fit. So why are we trying to impede Israel, our ally?

So, what is my theory? It is that behind Leftism is an intelligence that outlives normal mortal lives. As anyone can see, Leftism has been an utter, unmitigated disaster. Yet it has been on the march in the West for at least 200 years, beginning with the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. We are in a cultural war on the on one level, and we must fight that in the here and now. But on another level, we are also in a spiritual war. That battle was won by Christ on the cross. But like any losing army, the Evil One is intent on doing as much damage as he can before he goes to perdition. In this spiritual war, no one can stay neutral. We must pick a side. Choose wisely.

Ultimately, leftism is a faith, allowing its proponents to believe there must be loopholes in the laws of human nature and causality that apply to a progressive society, allowing its members to “have their cake and eat it, too.” Their well-documented history of misery, deprivation, and abject failure is no bar to their promoting an anti-human, anti-freedom ideology in the belief that somehow, once implemented, they will magically be spared its consequences.

The most vexing aspect of this manifestly self-destructive behavior is the false perception that progressive intentions are somehow more virtuous. When their policies—which must inevitably be judged on their merits (outcomes, not intentions)—consistently fail, progressives will either hypocritically claim success or shamelessly place blame on rivals for “not letting you go far enough.”

Ultimately—and this is something progressives willfully refuse to acknowledge—when the immutable natural laws you refuse to consider still make themselves known, you become trapped by the consequences of your actions. People who are not cultists will look at their failures and learn from them. The left’s cultists never learn, though. They just double down on their failures, even as the American experience collapses in ruins around them.

In Cultural Warfare, We Should Crush Our Enemies

I will start this post with a quote from Conan the Barbarian. But it is expressed many times. In this fallen world, it is human nature.

The Debate Over Whether To Crush Our Enemies Or Be Nice to them is an interesting one brought to us by Kurt Schlichter at Townhall.com. Schlichter is in favor of crushing our enemies, as am I. Schlichter has principled reasons for crushing the enemy. I have additional ones. On the other side are people like Peachy Keenan, David Harsanyi and Mark Hemingway who also have principled reasons. So they are not being soft, or pacifist here, but I think Schlichter's reasons are the stronger ones.

Some ghastly woman who was a clerk at a Home Depot decided to go online and cheer the attempted murder of Donald Trump, that is until conservative social media influencers exposed her to her bosses, and they kicked her malignant carcass to the curb. This cancellation counterstrike – and the growing default to retribution as a means to combat cancellation culture – created significant controversy in the conservative webosphere, with various internet personages taking to the Twitters to cheer or decry it. Many – and I am one of them – heartily support this crushing of our opponents, even puny smallfolk jerks who tweet hate from their basements while buzzed on Trader Joe's chardonnay and catnip. Others – not all for the same reason – see the avenger mode as a bad thing. They are wrong in their conclusion, but the ones who advocate mercy to the minor minions for tactical reasons instead of posturing about principles for clicks are still hardcore. They just disagree on tactics. They are not Jeb!s, goody-goody scolds mortified by the thought of fighting fire with firepower. It's good to disagree in good faith; it's bad to be weak. Regardless, we still need to use our power against even the little people on the other side. Failing to do so leaves the little people on our side defenseless. If we can't break our enemies' will, at least we can avenge the wrongs they did.

We must play by the New Rules, even when it is ugly and unpleasant. If you get off on canceling people, that's lame. But you should enjoy seeing justice done.

Schlichter, a retired Army Colonel, knows a thing or two about leadership. One thing he knows is that the people you are leading must feel that they will be defended, by you if necessary. When they are attacked, you must mount an effective counterattack which teaches any others that they do not want a piece of you. That is human nature. It has every been so. It is so even for God, which explains the story of Job.

It's nothing new. Payback is essential. Your own people need to know that they will be defended and avenged, or they will stop being your people—where are the people of Jeb! and the other softies of the 2000s GOP now? There aren't any. They left us undefended and unavenged, so we left them.

Here's the brutal reality. We must be willing to inflict pain on our enemies, and the refusal to do so ensures your own people are going to suffer pain because the other side is damn sure not worried about feeling bad for hurting us. We have seen our own people ruined and abused by cancel culture, and we need to use our power to stop it by any means necessary – including the means of being mean.

We have power, and we must use it ruthlessly to defend our people and defeat our opponents. That means no passes, granting no grace until grace becomes the norm instead of unilateral disarmament. There are three ways this goes—our submission to their will, their return to the pre-cancellation rules, or war. Option One is out. Option Two is my preference, but until they embrace it, Option Three it is.

We cannot pretend that human nature got repealed somewhere along the way just because some on our side have no stomach to deal the pain. Some pretend to not even understand how human interaction works and accept that you either wield power or get it wielded upon you – I'd recommend you ask a Melian about power but there are no Melians anymore. Some of Team Soft Cell recoiled from that during the Home Depo doofus debate, one child-pundit even labeling talk of power as "cringe." But if this person had been involved in politics for more than five minutes and to a deeper level than seeking mid-tier interweb clout, this person would be aware that politics is only about power.

The facts are that our enemies created New Rules that declared open season on conservatives who made conservative comments in public spaces, putting their livelihoods and – as we saw in Bulter, PA – their lives at risk should they say unapproved things. We opposed these New Rules. We argued against them. And we were ignored. They imposed the New Rules and launched a reign of terror against our people. Well, now we are fighting back. Ruthlessly. Mercilessly. Not because we get off getting some jerk fired from her job operating a cash register but because we know that the only way ever possibly to change the New Rules back is to make the consequences of the enemy – all of the enemy – so unpleasant for our enemies that they rethink their new rules. Will that work? Will they rethink cancel culture? Maybe, but the worst case scenario if we choose to fight every battle and strike every target is that they pay for what they did. We at least owe our own people whose lives they have ruined that piece of payback.

In addition to the above, which I fully endorse, by the way, I have still other reasons. In our daily lectionary, we have now read Genesis through 2 Kings. In addition to our salvation history, the other thing going on is spiritual warfare. In Exodus, God led the children of Israel out of Egypt, yes. But the 10 plagues of Egypt were a direct rebuke of the "gods" of Egypt. The people at the time recognized that their God, YHWH, was mightier that Egypt's gods.  Having done that, He led them out directly under the command of the Angel of the LORD, which angel carried the NAME of the LORD. When Joshua led the people of Israel into Caanan, again the Angel of the LORD commanded them. Certain cities were devoted to destruction. This was horrible to behold for every man, woman, child, even the livestock were killed. Not all the cities, mind you, but certain places. What to make of this?

The Bible isn't always clear preferring to use circumlocutions to get the message across. But some of the places devoted to destruction were centers of Baal worship. The demon Baal directly challenged the Most High claiming to be the actual creator and sustainer of the world. Certain other places were centers of worship of Asterah, who is said to have "sacred prostitutes," both male and female, as well as what we would call "trans." Drag queens anyone?  Then there was Molech. Worship of Molech involved tossing first born infants into the fire which was burning in the idols belly. A number of the Kings of Israel passed their children through the fire.  They did not just get their kids warm; they burned them up as sacrifices to Molech.  All such places and practices had to be destroyed.

These ancient "gods," really demons, are still around today. We have already discussed the worship of Asterah, with the sexual revolution, the 857 genders nonsense. Baal worship is more subtle. Money is not evil, nor is success in business. Rightly done, business that serves others is good, and in this world making a living for you family is also good. Any honest job is good. But the accumulation of money and power for its own sake is evil. Many of our so-called "elites" both here and at the global level are, whether they know it or not, worshipping Baal. One cannot be a Marxist and a Christian. The two are incompatible.

Well, then what about Molech? Nobody throws their infants into a fire do they? But in a way, they do. Abortion is the modern way of worshipping Molech. Listen as the people of Molech "shout their abortions." They are proud of the fact. Do they not hear themselves? Right now in North Carolina, one candidate for Governor, Mark Robinson, is being smeared nightly on the television because he opposes abortion. It is sadly a sacrament of the Democrat party, but there are some Republicans in favor of abortion too.

Jesus, who is God, who is the Angel of the LORD, commanded us to pray for our enemies. We should. But sometimes we have to do more. We are in a cultural war, sure, but it is also a spiritual war.

Donald Trump and Psalms 82

 I always enjoy listening to, and reading articles by, people who are more versed in the Bible and Christian theology than I am.  I am just an everyday Christian pew sitter who often wonders why everyone is talking about so much that does not matter, like what a certain celebrity said about another celebrity, or who is divorcing who.  In the end, the love life of Taylor Swift may fascinate but is totally unimportant, for example.  Ted Noel is such a person.  I barely manage to master the English language, much less Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.  But Noel is able to read the Bible in the Pre-Christian Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew circa the third century before Christ.

So, Noel's take on Donald Trump And 'That Moment' In Time When He Was Saved seemed made for me to read. And I urge gentle readers to read it too.

The books that became the Bible were originally written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. After years of study, I can now pick my way through the original Greek text but don’t accuse me of being fluent. Unlike my older brother, who sleep-talked in German in college (he was studying it then), I don’t dream in Greek and only use it when I’m fully awake exploring a theological point. So why would I wake up with a Greek word— Ekeinos—ringing in my ears? (I’ll explain below the phrase’s import.)

And why would Esther 4:14 pop into my head?

"For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?" (NAS, emphasis added)

One can quibble over translations. He apparently likes the New American Standard Bible, while I prefer the New King James. But every English translation has its quirks. Our church uses the English Standard Version, but then we have to go through and mark out "offspring" and insert "seed" which was in the original Hebrew. The "seed" (singular) referred in the Hebrew was to the future Messiah. God didn't decide to send Jesus into the world when He did on a whim. He planned it from the foundation of the world.

During the reign of King Saul, God told him to utterly destroy the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15:2ff). Saul disobeyed this order. The prophet Samuel had to kill King Agag of Amalek himself.

Fast forward a few hundred years. The Jews had been taken to captivity in Babylon and were later freed to return home to Judea. Some stayed and lived under Persian rule, which is where the story of Esther (and Purim) fit. The villain in this story was “Haman the Agagite.” He managed to get a royal decree to kill all the Jews on a set date. An Amalekite had survived the divinely decreed judgment, and his descendant saw an opportunity for revenge.

Jewish Queen Esther’s uncle Mordecai gets word to Esther of what’s coming. She hesitates to go to King Ahasuerus to plead for the Jews because walking in on him uninvited while he was engaged in royal business could cost her life. Mordecai answers in the verse I quoted above. She was put in her position “for a time such as this.” The Jews are saved, Haman’s neck gets stretched, and the last of the Agagites are eliminated.

All this is interesting stuff, if you are a reader of the Bible and the Old Testament. We have just recently completed First and Second Samuel in our daily lectionary, and after wading through First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles, we will get to Esther. But what Noel is making note of is the fact that Trump is aware of the Divine miracle of his being rescued form an assassin's bullet, and the profound affect it has on his demeanor. Gone are the mean tweets. He seems to understand that he has a moment to perform a mission for the American people. He seemed at the RNC to be calmer, more resolute, more focused.

The nattering nabobs of negativism on the Left poo-poo any suggestion that Trump is truly a Christian. But when Dr. Phil asked him if he would forgive those who had done such evil to him, 45 demonstrated a more sophisticated Christianity than many seminary professors. “I’d like to be able to.” Donald Trump understood that his forgiveness requires repentance on the part of the wrongdoer. Trump was willing and able to forgive, but true forgiveness would have to wait.

Being a Christian, loyal to YHWH, is somewhat different from being a Christian who has been protected by the divine hands in a way that offers no other answer. They’re both Christians, but the latter has a much deeper personal appreciation for the divine. We saw that in Trump’s acceptance speech. It seemed to say that he’s done with mean tweets. He’s now totally focused on the mission YHWH gave to the fallen elohim in Psalm 82.

2 How long will you judge unjustly, And show partiality to the wicked? Selah.

3 Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute.

4 Rescue the weak and needy; Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked. (Psalm 82:2-4 NAS)

The Swamp has set itself up as the ultimate authority over everything in everyone’s lives. Donald Trump is an existential threat to its evil. But this time, he’s not coming in as a roaring Lion. He’s coming as a servant of YHWH, fully committed to the divine mission of showing true justice to those who have been harmed. His task is to eliminate the Amalekites in government so that we can live free.

Everyone must do what is necessary of course. At a minimum vote! But pray and trust in the LORD.

Has the Holy Spirit Come Upon Trump?

 Does the Holy Spirit currently rest on President Trump?  I happen to believe so.  But for those who do not believe, his close dodging of a bullet, that nonetheless injured him and killed a supporter and injured two others could just be a coincidence.  That's the thing about miracles.  They are seldom obvious.  But I am not alone in believing that Trump was rescued by divine Providence.  J. B. Shurk at the American Thinker certainly thinks so too. And then there is Joy Pullman at The Federalist who believes Jesus Christ Is Trump's Security Detail.

It’s clear by now that the U.S. Secret Service is not a very elite security detail. Random, weaponless rallygoers paid more serious attention to the would-be assassin before he fired than the allegedly professional team assigned to Donald Trump on Saturday. Trump’s security detail did not secure him. Someone else did.

The Person who saved Trump’s life — and our nation from dangerous social unrest — is Jesus Christ. It is not random that wind gusts were present in just the right amount to have shifted the bullet’s course from fatal to flesh wound. It is not accidental that Trump turned his head at precisely the right second to avoid sudden death.

...snip...

Saturday was not Trump’s day to die. His near-death experience was a very visible divine event displaying to all the world Who holds full power over life and death: Jesus Christ. It is a spiritual shock treatment to increase the faith of those who believe and ignite new faith in those ready to believe.

Please read the entire article. Maybe you already are a believer. Maybe you are just ready to believe. If you read the Gospels, the story seems so ridiculous on its face that it has to be true. Who would make up some of the details if they didn't actually happen? And if they did, that the Gospels are true.  That means the entire Bible is true.  What Good News that is for you and me, indeed all of us.

Changing Minds

Kurt Schlichter at Townhall.com today tells us, in his opinion, The Real Reason Trump Chose JD Vance. Schlichter starts out with exactly my own journey to voting for Trump. I was a Ted Cruz guy too. I didn't believe that Trump would do what he said he would do.

Why did Donald Trump select JD Vance? Obviously, their current policy views are simpatico, but JD Vance was not supportive back in 2016. He was pretty harsh about Donald Trump the candidate. You know who else was? Me. Dig back through my columns and you’ll see. I was never a Never Trumper. I was always going to vote for the GOP nominee, and I did vote for the nominee. But I was a Ted Cruz guy because I didn’t think Donald Trump was actually going to do the things Donald Trump said he was going to do and I said so. In fact, CNN used to have me on as the conservative Trump-doubter…until I had it with Don Lemon’s nonsense. I was a traditional conservative, and I thought Donald Trump was a NYC liberal and that he would govern like one. But you know what?

I was wrong.

So, I changed my mind about him. I’m now a ferocious Trump supporter. And so is JD.

Schlichter is talking about what any mature person does. It is the basis of the "scientific method," and it is how people adapt as they grow older. We have a belief, then evidence shows our beliefs to at least be suspect. More evidence convinces us to change our minds. Only people in thrall to an ideology cannot change their minds despite contrary evidence.

JD Vance is a very interesting VP choice. He was not my first choice to be the nominee for vice-president because I thought that Glenn Youngkin might bring more to the table in terms of building an electoral coalition. JD was, however, my first choice for actually being the vice-president. If and when he wins, I’m going to be thrilled.

But now I’m rethinking my initial assessment of his strengths as a candidate. I may have underestimated them. How? First of all, I have grown to trust Donald Trump’s instincts when it comes to politics. After all, this guy came out of nowhere and beat all the geniuses and professionals in 2016. Worst case, he nearly beat them all in 2020. And right now, according to all the polls, he’s beating that desiccated corrupt old husk. So, he had to have a reason for choosing JD Vance and it was probably a good one.

There he goes again, changing his mind based on evidence.

But Schlichter is right. JD Vance has a good story coming from a very poor background, becoming a Marine, then getting into Yale law school and editing the Yale Law Review. He has been successful in marriage, in business. He is also a faithful Catholic He is also solid on the Second Amendment, certainly sympathetic to the plight of the workers and middle class. This ties in with the first night speech by Sean O'Brien, president of the Teamsters Union. The elites may feel that they can have good lives even if their neighbors are struggling. But for the rest of us, that is not the case. If one is suffering, truly we all are suffering too.

Gentle readers should read the entire article by Kurt Schlichter.

Tucker Carlson Speaks to Heritage Foundation Policy Fest

 I happened upon this speech by Tucker Carlson at the Heritage Foundation Policy Fest. What I found very interesting is that Carlson pointed out that we are not in a culture war per se, but a spiritual war. More pointedly, he speaks of those who are representing another person, by which he means the devil, who wants to kill people, to cause chaos and lawlessness.

Please go and watch Carlson's speech. He is fundamentally right about what we face. I have stated that one cannot be a Leftists or Marxist and be Christian. Indeed, the Left wants to destroy Christianity, and they don't want to obliterate any other religion. The old airman's saying that when you are taking flak it means you are over the target. Christians are over the target. We know that the devil was already defeated 2000 years ago. The Lord is just conducting mop up operations. Christians wait on the Lord.

Vance is Solid As They Come on Second Amendment

Donald Trump has named Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate. According to Cam Edwards at Bearing Arms, Vance is as solid as they come on the Second Amendment. You can read Edwards' piece at Trump Names J.D. Vance As Running Mate. Where Does He Stand on the Second Amendment. I know that gun rights were left out of the Republican platform. I think there are more important issues for the next president to tackle, but having someone like Vance on board sends the message that gun rights are still important. In the same way, he has left abortion off the platform, even though it is a very important issue. It just is not a federal issue.

I've got to run, but wanted to leave gentle readers with these two things to ponder today.

A Lutheran Pastor Blesses the RNC

 The Republican National Convention began yesterday.  These things are usually incredibly boring, full of "hurray for our side" rhetoric.  This RNC was different, and interesting.  Interesting in that a union leader, the president of the Teamsters Union, no less, spoke at the convention!  And the announcement of J. D. Vance as Vice President on the Republican ticket was pure political genius!  The MSM were making out that it was a bone thrown to the next generation of leaders, but I took it at face value.  If something happens to Trump, Vance will continue with his agenda.  It is both smart, and fully recognizes the roll of the VP.

One other thing that made this RNC interesting was the invocation from a Lutheran pastor of a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod congregation. Gentle readers should just go to the linked article at twitchy and watch. The prayer and the priestly blessing from Numbers 6:24-26 were pure Lutheranism. But what made it stand out was the imitation of Trump's mannerisms that Trump found funny before the seriousness of the invocation. It will warm readers hearts, so go and watch.

Will the Real Insurrectionists Please Stand Up?

There has been an insurrection going on in this country, but it is not the MAGA people, or the Republicans. Instead, it is the elements within the Democrat party and their media and academic branches and deep state that have been conducting this insurrection, in the hopes of transforming the United States into a socialist dictatorship. The people who invented the "color revolution" have been using it on us.

At the American Thinker today, John F. Di Leo lays out this insurrection in an article entitled Insurrection and the Leviathan State.

The legal authority of the federal government of the United States is rooted in two things: elections and the Constitution. That’s it. There is nothing else.

Your local street lights may be controlled by local ordinances; your doctor’s medical license may be granted by your individual state. Your local park district runs the corner play lot and tennis courts, and may be operated by an elected park board or a commission appointed by the mayor. There are countless such configurations for our cities and villages, towns and townships, counties, parishes and states.

But the federal government is simple. The Constitution lays out the three branches, allocates their authority, and declares how the individual federal officeholders are elected.

Disobeying the Constitution -- by refusing to perform the duties it requires, by exceeding the clear limits it places on government itself, or by meddling with those aforementioned elections, constitutes an assault on our constitutional government, and would therefore be an actual takeover of the government -- a substitution of lawless tyranny for the legitimate government our Framers intended for us. The legal authority of the federal government of the United States is rooted in two things: elections and the Constitution. That’s it. There is nothing else.

To prove his point, that the actual insurrection has been going on under our noses, while the Democrats point to grandmothers touring the Capitol without proper tickets, Di Leo takes us on a trip down memory lane.

On January 6, 2021, following months of coordinated decisions by partisan and/or corrupted judges to dismiss legitimate suits concerning credible proof of election fraud, the Democrat leadership of Congress cut short the constitutionally mandated one-by-one consideration of the several states’ electoral college count under the supervision of the Vice President, the last chance to stop an illegitimate transfer of power in the executive branch, claiming that a group of unarmed tourists forced them to flee one of the most potentially securable public buildings in America, intentionally allowing that last possible safeguard to be skipped.

For eight years, politicized rogue employees of the federal government, primarily in the Department of Justice, knowingly fed an array of libels and slanders against Donald J. Trump, and simultaneously, discounted or denied evidence of Biden family corruption -- before, during, and after Trump’s time as President -- through such things as the faked Steele Dossier, the refusals to follow up on hundreds of private bank reports of Biden family corruption, and the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop.

Both rogue elements within the Department of Justice and several corresponding state and county “blue state” attorneys general and district attorneys spent much of these past eight years engaging in what is now called “lawfare” -- the use of either criminal or civil court attacks to falsely accuse, falsely prosecute, or otherwise falsely sue Donald Trump and his key aides and supporters -- not just high-level appointees like Mayor Rudy Giuliani but unknowns like the dozens of donors and party elders on several states’ delegate lists -- in an effort to personally immobilize and bankrupt them, and to scare other potential supporters out of going out on the limb to support President Trump themselves.

While purposefully importing millions of illegal aliens (not just by allowing our southern border to remain inadequately guarded but by sometimes going so far as to send planes to other countries to pick them up, to refuse to catch and deport them when found, and to entice them by providing these illegals with taxpayer-funded food, housing, healthcare, and education once here), Democrat politicians have doubled down on their automated voter registration efforts to include these non-citizens on the voter rolls, while continually voting against responsible bills (such as the SAVE Act) and disregarding existing requirements to protect real citizens’ votes from being thusly diluted.

For most of the past century, but especially in recent decades, Democratic operatives have engineered a method of illegal government expansion in which they would populate government bureaucracies and the judiciary with technocrats who would routinely exceed their agencies’ legal authority, growing the power and destructive capacity of the regulatory state far beyond what the Constitution allows, even far beyond what the congressional intent had been when creating these agencies, inflicting upon America a tyrannical and unpredictable government by people and ideology, rather than a constitutional government limited by written law.

Tell me again, who are the insurrectionists?

This Won't Be The Last Time Democrats Attempt to Assassinate Trump

At The Federalist last night, Eddie Scarry had a piece entitled This Won't Be The Last Time Democrats Attempt To Assassinate Trump. No, it won't. Indeed, I am surprised it took them this long. They have impeached him twice, conducted innumerable lawfare attempts, all to no avail. He seems to have escaped most of them. In New York they had to rig the law to create a crime out of a legal act to convict him, but he is likely to walk on appeal. What is left but to actually kill him.

As of this writing, there’s little to say about the assassination attempt against the former president other than thank God he’s reportedly okay and deep condolences to anyone at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania who may have suffered serious injuries.

During a campaign rally on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, video footage shows Donald Trump being struck by something — a bullet — while shots ring in the background and Secret Service agents huddle to protect the former president. He was ultimately carried off stage while pumping his fist into the air.

As this relates to the election — it certainly does — this was predictable.

Democrats and anti-Trumpers have spent the past three years calling the political opposition a life-or-death threat. They claim they’ll be imprisoned and people will die if their opposition gains power, while they themselves attempt to imprison and now kill the opposition.

They called him a fascist. They called him a dictator. They called him Hitler. Literally the front page of New Republic magazine — still influential in Washington, believe it or not — this month portrayed Trump with a tiny mustache to drive home the point.

Unfortunately, this is who these people are. "By any means necessary" is their motto and their byword. Any principle may be bent or broken in pursuit of their goals; in this case it is keeping Trump out of the oval office. Many have proclaimed that Trump is literally Hitler, and wasn't assassinating Hitler a righteous cause? My answer is no, it was not. Yes, Hitler was evil and in thrall to Satan. The German churches should have been more discerning and stood up against Hitler when he sought to harass and then to exterminate the Jews.  Hitler's attempts to create a state religion in his image mocked God.  They should have spoken out more forcefully instead of going along in hopes of being eaten last. But he was duly elected, and it was the people as a whole who should have deposed him.

In the current circumstance, Trump is not anything like a Hitler. He is not and will not be a dictator. Unlike Biden, he actually obeys courts and recognizes other authorities. He will not round up the ladies of The View and put them in camps. But hopefully he will prosecute those who have broken the actual laws. These people have been conducting an insurrection for years and need to be prosecuted. If those are the people the media is trying to protect, well shame on them.

The Re-emergence of the Church Militant

 The previous post, We can expect a repeat of 2020 is contained indirectly in John Daniel Davidson's article at The Federalist entitled America's Conflicts Are Not Primarily political or Ideological, But Religious. For if Americans were still mostly Christian, the majority would recognize the profound immorality of election fraud. It might be done, here and there, but it would surely be punished.

The thesis of Davidson's article is that the principles upon which our nation was founded are Christian.  The claims made in the Declaration of Independence are Christian claims.  They cannot be understood in any other context.   In our current situation, where there are so few believers, and where paganism is taking hold, there cannot remain an "America" as founded.

The conflicts roiling American society today are not primarily political or even ideological, but religious.

America is supposedly a secular country, with separation of church and state, free exercise of religion, and so on. Yet we find ourselves in the middle of what amounts to a religious war. How could this be?

Because America, like all nations, is founded on religious claims, and relies on those claims for its coherence. We’ve long been accustomed to talking about America as a “propositional nation,” a phrase taken from Abraham Lincoln’s famous line in the Gettysburg Address that America was “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

...snip...

And this is true. But nearly everyone who says America is a propositional nation is wrong about what the proposition is. America is not a collection of Enlightenment tropes at the intersection of Locke and Rousseau, a grab bag of philosophical sentiments about the rights of man. America is the creation of Christian civilization.

The proposition at the heart of America, undergirding our nation’s existence, is not just “all men are created,” but Christianity and all that comes with it. Without Christianity, you don’t get free speech, liberty, equality, freedom of conscience. All of it relies on the claims of the Christian faith, none of it stands on its own.

When speaking of the "belief" that our founders had, I mean more than intellectual assent that there is a God. Even the demons have that. What I am speaking about here is a profound trust in God, the Creator of all things. He to whom the founders placed their trust and vowed their lives and their sacred honor. Without a trust in God, the entire enterprise collapses.

...A few months ago the famous atheist Richard Dawkins wondered aloud in an interview why his own country, England, could not just go on having “cultural Christianity” without actual, believing Christians. He said he liked the cathedrals and the Christmas carols, and would like to enjoy them without the bother of actual Christianity. He wants fewer believing Christians and more cultural Christians.

It never occurred to Dawkins that you don’t get to keep the culture without the cult. The sad spectacle of modern England should suffice to prove the point. If there is no one to worship in the cathedrals, they will become concert halls or, in England’s case, mosques. If no one really believes what the Christmas carols proclaim, eventually people will stop singing them.

The same goes for us here in America. The American proposition that all men are created equal is a religious claim, specifically a Christian one. Not to belabor the point, but the American founders only ever believed that all men are created equal because they believed that we are God’s children, created in His image. Our entire system of government flows from that belief; without it the whole system collapses.

So, what happens when America is no longer a Christian nation? It does not become a secular nation where nobody has a belief in a god. There really are no true atheists. People may not worship a god per se, but then they worship themselves, their money, their identities. No, instead, the demons of old come in and take over. The new paganism may not look like it did in ancient times, but the ancient gods are returning, nonetheless. Recently, a statue of the goddess Asherah appeared at Houston University. But what can we expect when women are worshipping abortion?

So the Christian retreat in the West heralds something both new and old: a de-Christianized political order emerging from the ruin of Christendom. What comes at the sunset of the Christian era rises up from the distant past, appearing in new guises and names but nevertheless heralding the return of a pagan order, one based not on the reality of Christ but on the raw power of His fallen angels. Under its banners march the old gods, the lesser deities and principalities that were original enemies of Christ’s church since the beginning of time.

To fight this new paganism, Christians in America will have to shed the false notion that their religion is a purely private matter, that there must be a “wall of separation” between our religion and our politics. We have to argue, without apology, that public life in this country should be shaped by Christian morality and ordered by its dictates, as it was for most of our civilization’s history.

Indeed.

We Can Expect A Repeat of 2020

 Pete Conlan in a post at American Thinker today asks Will the Supreme Court stand up this time? Conlan believes the evidence for the stealing of the 2020 election is overwhelming. I believe it too. He cites some of the evidence gathered by Dinesh D'Souza in his film 2000 Mules. But there is also the article by Mollie Ball that bragged about the stealing of the election. We could all see that the statistics didn't add up. We could all see that we had gone to bed with Trump winning.  Then they stopped the counting in several battleground states at the same time.  When the counting resumed, Biden had won. It is not that there is no evidence.  It is rather that no court would look at the evidence, including the Supreme Court.

As most of you know, the Supreme Court declined to hear any of the 2020 election challenges put forth by Texas AG Ken Paxton and supported by 18 state attorneys general and 106 Republican members of Congress.

“The lawsuit sought to discard the presidential election results in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia, four crucial states won by Mr Biden. Texas alleged that the results in those states were unlawful because of changes to voting procedures to help Americans cast their ballots during the coronavirus pandemic… But on Thursday, the four states in a filing asked the justices to reject the lawsuit, which they said had no legal grounds. The Supreme Court agreed. "Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections," the court said in its ruling.”

How does a state not have a “cognizable interest” when it is clear that the outcome of the election would have a direct negative impact on the state(s) as we have seen, for example, with the massive unchecked illegal immigration into Texas and others because of Biden policies? Is the fact that 18 other state attorneys general supported the lawsuit a non-starter? What entity, or what circumstance would it have taken for SCOTUS to hear the case?

Conlan also notes, as have many others that: a) The Democrats don't have any other viable candidates and b) Election fraud worked before, so the probability of its use again seems near 100%.

What we see now is that the Democrats have no viable candidate for President, and this is likely going to have a significant down-ballot effect on the Senate and House. Many have posited that it doesn’t matter because this is not the last time the Left will successfully steal the election. Maybe we don’t know how, exactly, but they did it once so it is all but a guarantee they will try it again.

What I don't really see in all this is a way for conservatives to fight the fraud in the courts if the courts won't see the evidence, or if they take the case, throw out all the relevant evidence. Like Conlan, I don't have any answers, and I wish I did.

How Long O Lord...

 Andrea Widburg today at the American Thinker has several excellent points to make in her post The pro-life opposition to the new RNC platform is painfully naive. First, let me say that I believe that abortion is murder. A pre-born child is a person, no matter what you call him or her. Pro-aborts have called him a "clump of cells," indicated their extreme irreverence.  Medically, he is called a fetus. But each one of us is made in the image and likeness of God, according to Genesis, and the 5th Commandment states that you shall not murder. Killing an innocent person, whether pre-born or born is murder. It is to take a person's life without due process of the law.  Furthermore, claims of "my body my choice" are specious, because the child inside the mother is a different person, with a different set of DNA.  Abortion is simply unjustified murder, period.

Andrea Widburg starts out with the fact that the Republican National Committee (RNC) has just released its platform and there is no mention of abortion in it. Some Evangelicals are screaming about that fact. But the truth is that abortion is not a federal issue. It never was. In repealing Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court sent the issue back to the states where it belongs. Some states, where Christianity is strongest, strictly limited abortion. Unfortunately, no states have outlawed it completely.  Some states, where Satan reigns, have allowed abortion up to the moment of birth. Sad. But it needs to be fought at the state level. In a country as big as the United States is, we cannot fight out everything at the national level.  Indeed, we already have too many federal laws (but that is a topic for another day).

You can read the 16-page, small-font 2024 Republican platform here. However, if you don’t want to, Wayne Allyn Root summarizes the core principles in the platform under the heading “Trump chose the issues a huge majority of American voters agree on”:

-Seal the border and stop the foreign invasion (Trump already did it once before).

-Deport tens of millions of these foreign invaders, rapists, murderers, terrorists and welfare addicts out of America.

-Create prosperity for middle class families by ending inflation (Trump already did it once before).

-Slow massive out-of-control spending and debt.

-Drill, drill and keep drilling until we are energy independent and the largest energy producer in the world (Trump already did it once before).

-Cut taxes for workers and no tax on tips for service workers!

-Make America the manufacturing power of the world.

-Prevent WW3 and produce peace around the globe (he already did it once before).

-Protect free speech, freedom of religion and the right to own guns.

-Never again allow government to censor, ban, or persecute the American people.

-Lock up violent criminals and deport illegal alien criminals.

-Protect the U.S. dollar and our status as “world reserve currency.”

-Kill regulations strangling our economy- like electric car mandates.

-Keep men out of women’s sports.

-Cut federal funding for any school, college or institution that brainwashes students with CRT, DEI, and transgender ideology.

-Deport pro-Hamas protestors on college campuses who preach violence, hate Jews, and chant “death to America.”

-Secure our elections with Voter ID (just like Mexico has) and proof of citizenship.

-Strengthen our military, protect Social Security and Medicare at all costs, and rebuild our cities that have been destroyed by Democrat policies.

-Unite our country.

Root is right: These are issues that appeal to most Americans, including their dislike for the Hamasniks and the alphabet-soup people taking over American education. It’s a pro-American platform that cuts across racial, geographic, and economic divides. It’s a broad-based MAGA winner, and anyone who wants to see the Democrat party harried (politically) from pillar to post should be happy with it.

The next point Widburg makes is that there seems to be no strategy with specific goals for each state to win the fight to end abortion.

I think this speaks to a deep political naivete that characterizes conservatives on so many issues. They have goals but lack both strategy (the big plan to achieve the goal) and tactics (the specific steps in the plan). In this, they differ greatly from Democrats who, up until they painted themselves in a corner by backing a puppet with dementia, have proven to be exemplary strategists and tacticians.

May I suggest that the people who want to get abortion out of the United States take a look at the gun lobby that has over the years first made concealed carry "shall issue a permit" under certain circumstances in an overwhelming number of states and are now making "Constitutional carry" available in a majority of states. But it has taken decades.  The first "shall issue" laws were passed in Indiana in 1980.  While the National Rifle Association has stood as the lightning rod for the anti-gunners to rail against, it was state organizations like the Virginia Citizens Defense League and Grass Roots North Carolina that carries the ball in each state. The NFA is often at odds with state level organizations, sad to say.

Each state organization has specific goals, tactics, a lobbying arm. Most are manned (and womened) by committed volunteers. We work tirelessly to maintain and expand the rights of citizens to carry and use guns for self defense. But one must realize that God does the actual work. So it will be with those fighting to rid the nation of the scourge of abortion. We can pray every day, do what we can do, but ultimately it is the LORD who will push it out from among us. As the Psalmist says in Psalms 13 "How long O LORD..."

Kevin Costner the Fudd

 Kevin Costner suffered a box office flop according to David Codrea of the War on Guns at Ammoland and Costner's Box Office Flop Should Be an Example for Hollywood Gun Hypocrites.

“Warner Bros. may have to change its plans for the August sequel to Kevin Costner’s ‘Horizon,’” Showbiz 411 reported Friday. “This weekend, the Civil War adventure made just $11 million in four days of wide release. Critically panned, “Horizon” is a financial disaster for Costner personally and for Warner’s.”

This might be where a gun owner or a Republican might say, “Gee, that’s too bad.” And reflect on why they have no intention of spending hard-earned dollars to reward a celebrity who uses his fame to work against their interests…

Always willing to perform fake cinematic feats of derring-do with guns to thrill audiences into accepting that using them to save the day is good when an “action hero” does it, Costner has proven to be a real-life Fudd extraordinaire, winning the T. Boone Pickens Lifetime Sportsman Award – while calling for “stricter gun laws”:

“I’m a hunter, I hunt but I think there should be gun laws. I think there should be a lot of gun laws. I don’t want to lose my shotgun but there’s a real good reason why I use my shotgun. It came from my grandpa. His cheek was on it. My dad’s cheek was on it and I go out and hunt with my dogs… But, even though with the connection that I have to my gun, can I look at the NRA (National Rifle Association) and say, `I think you’re out of line?’ I can say that.”

It has always amazed me that people who use guns in the movies are so quick to denounce guns in real life. Look at Alec Baldwin for an example.  Of course, they have security to protect them and their families. But Costner is a special breed of hypocrite. He is a hunter who believes that guns should be taken away from us, but not them. He is a Fudd, referring to Elmer Fudd the ridiculous rabbit hunter in Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Now, I don't hunt, but I respect those who do. And I expect that they will respect folks like me who carry to protect ourselves and those around us. Too bad Costner doesn't see it that way.

Toward A Greater Appreciation of Human Life

 Anthony J. DeBlasi has an interesting article at the American Thinker today entitled Can Reason Change Reality? that touches on topics that have occupied volumes. Indeed, if you want to hear more about this topic, watch the three part video series of conversations between Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller and Dr. Gregory Schulz. But be prepared to spend around 4 hours, so have a cup of coffee or two or three ready.

What is being discussed is the "enlightenment" (and I put the term in scare quotes for a reason) notion that reason trumps the word of God. Reason and intelligence are necessary to discern the meaning of the Word, but they are supposed to be subordinate to it. On the other hand, when we place reason above the Bible, thereby placed ourselves on the Throne of God. I do not exclude myself from this, but I have repented of it. The hard part about properly using our reasoning abilities is that we have been living in a culture of shaped by the enlightenment.  It is like a fish swimming in water, that is unaware of  the water.

During the Age of Reason, men began to think that they knew better. As DeBlasi notes, it was and is an awful failure.

DeBlasi starts with the Acceptance prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

It is a prayer I first heard maybe ten years ago or so. But as I have lived with it, and prayed it many times, the meaning of it keeps getting deeper, for I realize that there is very little I can control or can change. Indeed, the only thing I really can change immediately is my own attitude. That is the wisdom of the prayer.

DeBlasi then goes on to explain the simple Acceptance prayer in more detail

Scrawled upon a college blackboard before the start of class, back around 1950, I saw the words “Damn the Absolute!”

I wondered if this was the outcry of a soul lashing out at evil or the condemnation of the objective reality from which we draw our very existence.

How do you separate yourself from the generating principle of life without condemning yourself to a dark and lonely limbo? How does anything form or function without constants? And how can anything form or function when destructive variables are included?

How do you win a game with no rules? How do you get from A to B when both A and B are moving? How do you separate yourself from your body (e.g. “trans” mania)? How do you have a life if you meddle with its fundamentals?

Perhaps I misread the message. But if banishing what can’t change did not mean turning against even the source of life, what did it mean? I suspected that this was a desperate effort at “doing something positive” about the ills of the world by invoking Reason.

But is it “reasonable” to reject or condemn the creative force that forms and sustains life because it appears incapable of bringing about a perfect order? Is it the Absolute that needs to be indicted or is it the abuse of Reason?

The emphasis above is mine. Rousseau got this whole notion going with romanticism. Then the French Revolution and Reign of Terror that turned churches into Temples of Reason. No doubt the devil was laughing hilariously at us. Then there was Kant, and Hegel, and finally Marx. Marx of course divided the world into the owning class and the worker class and then set them against each other. Our identity politics is just taking this idea and dividing us even finer. Then there are the theories of Jacques Derrida that nihilistically teach that a text can mean whatever the reader wants it to mean. Stupidly, Derrida writes a lot of books trying to convince us of theory of deconstruction, though if he is correct his writings have no meaning.

The logical end of this line of thinking is nihilism, the belief that life is meaningless, coming from nothing and going nowhere.  In such a world, we have no hope, and nothing we do really matters.  In search of something to give our lives meaning, people adopt "woke" causes to stave off self-destructive behavior.

Besides dividing people and setting them against one another, Marx was a materialist, and all who follow him are similarly materialists. One can apply reason to the material world, but what about the spiritual world. Materialists, of course, don't acknowledge that there is a spiritual world. Therefor their prescriptions for human happiness do not recognize human nature. Materialists always think they can change human nature with enough laws, threats, and ultimately killing enough of us. They are always wrong.

Diehard materialists scoff at such “spiritual stuff.” Objective reality has no place in their brains. Unwittingly they have settled for a game of chance as their default method of action in life, top choice of hardened gamblers, with one big difference: for hardened materialists, the game is won by changing the rules.

This inevitably knocks on the door of relativism. I suspect this is what the author of the blackboard indictment against the Absolute did. But making everything relative is an ever-shifting non-position about what in fact may really be best. In the game of relativism, just say “who’s to say,” and the answer instantly becomes “whoever’s on first.” And the player holding most of the chips wins.

Recently, we have been treated to yet another bit of technology called Artificial Intelligence, or AI. We have seen media try to scare us with the though of computers becoming self-conscious. And yet nobody knows what our consciousness actually is, nor why we have it. May I suggest that machines will never achieve human consciousness. If we read the Bible, God created man, and breathed life into him, such that man can have a relationship with his creator. Why is a mystery, that the Creator, who is Holy in himself, loves us a desires such a relationship, but that is what the Bible as a whole says.

Please read DiBlasi's piece and contemplate DiBlasi's point: that we have been fooled into placing our reasoning ability above the Word. But doing so limits our persecective to the material, and to understanding ourselves to be no better than the other animals. Perhaps if we understand what the Bible is trying to tell us, we will have a greater appreciation of human life.

The American People Deserve and FBI That Acts Within the Scope of the Constitution

 Mike McDaniel has an eye-opening post on the FBI at the American Thinker entitled FBI fidelity, bravery, integrity? After noting that per the Navy, it is incurring 2 to 3 attempts by foreign actors to gain entrance to its basis every week, and we can expect the other services are seeing the same, that the FBI ignores these apparent espionage attempts. Each one should be thoroughly investigated. But the FBI is too busy busting grandmothers for praying on a sidewalk outside an abortion center.

Obviously, President Biden, or more accurately, his handlers, are to blame for this state of affairs. But what about the FBI? They have some small responsibility for detecting, intercepting and suppressing espionage and terrorism. One would think their response to this mounting threat would be all-hands-on-deck and damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

One would think wrongly.

...snip...

But what about rank and file agents? Shouldn’t they all speak up, rise up, put a stop to what are clearly practices that threaten national security? Shouldn’t they all stand strong for the Constitution and the “fidelity, bravery, integrity” of the FBI motto?

Witness what has happened to whistleblowers and even to agents FBI brass merely suspected of political unreliability.

I’ve long maintained should a desperate government direct the FBI and our military to “pacify” fellow Americans, they wouldn’t get quite the response they expect. To be sure FBI agents are even now going forth to intimidate Americans for daring to speak out against the government. But if things got western, I’d like to believe most FBI agents wouldn’t play along. I’d like to believe that.

Unfortunately, the FBI is limited to recruiting from the human race, and agents have families, mortgages, and pensions about which to worry. It’s clear many of them are appalled by what they’re expected to do, but they do it anyway. They go along to get along in the hope they can eventually retire and be done with it. Some do it because they think they’re going to be on the winning side. Some hang in there in the hope of tempering the worst excesses of their superiors. Some just like having power over others.

McDaniel doesn't say so, but it seems fairly clear that something needs to be done. Either the FBI needs to be disbanded, or it needs to be rebuilt with people whose fidelity to the Constitution is undisputed. Indeed, the American people deserve to have all of their federal officials acting within the scope of the Constitution. That is what we signed onto in 1788. As for the FBI, it is no less that the American people deserve. Please read the whole post. Meanwhile, I have to get ready for church.

Gun Grabbers Let the Cat Out of the Bag

 During a recent meeting of the Virginia Commonwealth Senate Courts of Justice committee, two gun-grabbing groups inadvertently gave away the whole game.  The let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, without realizing their mistake. At Ammoland yesterday, Tred Law had the story at Gun Control Groups Say the Bad Part Out Loud: 'Screw Public Safety'. I urge gentle readers to view the video link and watch as several women from Moms Demand Action and Brady oppose harsher sentencing for criminals using guns to commit crimes. Why would these women want to disarm law-abiding gun owners, yet mete out lighter sentences to criminals? It makes no sense, does it?

This raises a critical question: Do these groups truly care about public safety, or is their agenda primarily about disarming law-abiding citizens?

The Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) has long argued that gun control advocates use crime as a pretext to push for stricter gun laws, rather than genuinely aiming to reduce crime. The testimony presented by these groups at the hearing seems to support this claim. Representatives from organizations like Mom’s Demand Action and Brady opposed the bill, arguing that mandatory minimum sentences do not effectively reduce crime and disproportionately affect minority communities. While these concerns are not completely without merit, they overlook a fundamental reality:

…repeat violent offenders pose a significant threat to public safety, and keeping them behind bars protects innocent people.

One can see in the video that several Republican Senators get it. These gun-grabber groups including Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, the Brady Campaign, and Giffords wait for a mass shooting to hit the news, then dance in the blood of the victims pretending that it was the gun that did the killing, and not the poor misunderstood miscreant. In fact, some of the people are useful idiots who actually believe that. Sad.

Now, I read the Bible every day, and I can tell you that before the gun was invented, people were killing each other by the thousands with swords, knifes, axes, spears, bows and arrows, rocks and stones-you name it. Guns are a more efficient way to kill, but it is not the guns that cause people to murder. It is, as it has always been, the evil in the human heart.

The Prophet Isaiah in chapter 11 forsaw the day we can dispense with our weapons:

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,

The leopard shall lie down with the young goat,

The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;

And a little child shall lead them.

7The cow and the bear shall graze;

Their young ones shall lie down together;

And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole,

And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.

9They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord

As the waters cover the sea.

That day will be when Christ comes again. Until then, we better hang onto our guns

Please go read the whole article, and the links as well. Law notes that the debate on guns is tiresome. That is true. But as Jefferson note, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

The Democrats Have Gone Off the Deep End...Again

 A little late, I know, but I wanted to highlight a post by Andrea Widburg at the American Thinker on the Democrats take on the SCOTUS ruling regarding presidential immunity from prosecution. The Supreme Court made the very reasonable ruling that a president, acting within the scope of his Constitutional duties has absolute immunity. The post can be found at According to Democrats, Biden has immunity to kill Trump and Supreme Court justices. In fact, no he does not because ordering the extrajudicial killing of Americans is not within the scope of his duties. And if a president acts outside the scope of his duties, he is like any other citizen subject to prosecution and punishment.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court came out with a logical opinion that follows centuries of American jurisprudence: A president has complete immunity when he acts within the scope of his express and implied constitutional powers. Within hours, the Democrats were saying that Biden now has absolute immunity to kill his political rivals, from Trump to the conservative justices on the Supreme Court. I want to say that these are not serious people, but they are—they’re dead serious.

...snip...

This immunity exists because no one else has the constitutional authority to challenge those acts, neither the legislature nor the judiciary, and certainly not the bureaucracy, a non-constitutional entity that merely works for the president. It also exists because a president cannot fulfill his unique responsibilities if he’s worried about being second-guessed or attacked. Sure, it may be an imperfect system, but the alternative is worse.

Alternatively, if a president acts outside of his express and implied powers, he’s an ordinary citizen and is still constrained by all the other prohibitions expressed in the Constitution and the laws of the United States, both federal and state.

As a lawyer, this ruling made sense to me because I’d see the general principle all the time in tort cases in which someone tried to sue a business for the acts of its employee. The question, always, was whether the employee was acting within the scope of his duty when he committed the wrongful act or outside the scope of that duty.

Gentle readers should read Widburg's analysis of the SCOTUS ruling highlighted, as well as reading her longer analysis on July 1, which is linked in the article. The Democrats have once again gone off the deep end, led in this case by Justice Sotomayor, whose dissent is a disgrace.

The Democrats Want to Take More of What You Earned

 Jeffery Folks has an article today at the American Thinker entitled Progressives Shalt Steal that discusses the proposed tax policies of the Biden administration and the Congressional Progressives. There are legitimate reasons for taxes, such as public infrastructure and the payroll of legitimate government employees. But much of what our government spends money on is not legitimate. One could rightly say that when government does this it is theft from We the People. Progressives thus impoverish the American people while enriching themselves and increasing their own power.

It’s election time, and you will hear a lot about “corporate greed” and “greedy billionaires” from the Democrats. Already, Joe Biden has unveiled plans to raise corporate taxes by one third and slam billionaires (and those making as little as $75,000) with higher tax rates, wealth taxes, and taxes on unrealized gains. A good word for this is “stealing.”

For his part, Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to restrict drug companies on the prices they charge for weight-loss and diabetes drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic. Granted, these drugs are expensive, but the cost of drug development, partly as a result of government policies and FDA approval delays, averages $350 million, and most drugs fail to gain approval. So drug companies invest literally years and hundreds of millions for each drug that makes it through. It’s necessary to charge high prices in order to defray this cost and make a profit. The alternative is to produce no new drugs and allow Americans to be a lot sicker.

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What Biden and Sanders are doing, in effect, is attempting to steal the profits of drug companies — and, truth be known, of every other company and person who has money, so as to put it under their own control to use for political power. That is the playbook of all socialists and all progressives.

Biden’s proposed taxes would be crippling to the U.S. economy. The immediate effect would be to shift capital overseas, where it already enjoys lower rates. By reducing re-investment in our own economy, the Biden plan would lower America’s growth rate and reduce job creation. It would also depress wages for ordinary Americans.

Folks provides some statistics to show the effect of the tax proposals on ordinary Americans. These can be tedious, but they are necessary to understand the full effect on our economy.

Above all, by slowing the economy over years and decades, Biden’s tax increases would punish workers seeking better wages. That slowdown has already begun. The U.S. economy is now growing at less than 2% (CBO estimate for 2024 is 2% but currently running at 1.6%). One point six percent is far below the long-term growth rate of 3%. Over just one decade, that divergence compounds at 16% — a decline in average standard of living of 16% over what it would have been, just at average growth of 3%. During Trump’s last year before the pandemic, the growth rate was 4.1%. That means that over a decade, relative to MAGAnomics, Bidenomics would lower the standard of living for ordinary Americans by 30%.

As for “greedy corporations,” one should not imagine that corporations simply funnel all the profits they earn to billionaire investors. Nor should one imagine that billionaires and others who invest spend the money on themselves: most earnings of wealthy Americans are re-invested, thus creating more jobs and productivity. And most corporate profits go into running and expanding the corporation, thereby maintaining and creating jobs.

It is not corporations or billionaires who are particularly greedy. It is progressives in government like Biden and Sanders who are envious of everyone else’s wealth and are obsessed with putting all wealth in their own hands so as to extend their control over the people of this country.

Years ago, I was reading a balance sheet for a petroleum company. The profit the company earned was 6 cents on each gallon of gasoline and diesel fuel sold. But the government at the federal and state levels took 60 cents on each gallon. One has to ask, who are the greedy ones? Please note that was the just at the corporate level. Then each employee of the corporation paid income taxes on the wages and salaries they earned. In addition, each investor paid taxes on the dividends received. Indeed, the government seems more like the Mafia, taking money from each and every corporation and person involved in the petroleum industry to make a "profit" for itself, while pretending to provide protection. So, why are they now trying to kill that industry? At least that industry provides a useful product, unlike the wind and solar energy scam they are pushing.

When progressives “deploy capital,” they do so in order to buy votes and gain power. None of their “investments,” as they call them, like investments in wind and solar, produces a profit, and none of them makes life better for the average American. I can think of only one major government program that made life better — the interstate highway system — and even that was carried out under the guidance of a wise Republican president who had thought deeply about the project’s importance for national security and the economy.

Progressives are enraged by the idea that anyone except themselves can deploy capital and make a profit, even if by doing so they make life better for everyone. Elon Musk is a hero for many, and he should be, because he has deployed capital to create many things of value, most recently via xAI, an investment that has the potential to improve health care research by speeding clinical workflows, and Neuralink, a Musk startup that aims to improve daily life for paraplegics. As he demonstrated with Tesla and Starlink, Musk is able to innovate where government cannot.

Folks points out that the Progressives (read Communist and Socialists, hiding behind the Democrat party label) want to impose the largest tax hike in American history. It is one more reason to not vote for any Democrat, or anyone who sympathizes with these people. Please read Jeffrey Folks whole piece.