Hands Off Our Dogs

Today, at Townhall.com Guy Benson has an article entitled Stay the Hell Away From Our Dogs, Radical Environmentalists. It seems that dogs eat meat (clutching pearls and heading to fainting couch.) Radical environmentalists believe, contrary to science, that the production of animals for meat creates greenhouse gas. What the environmentalists apparently don't know is that rather than creating new carbon dioxide, ruminant animals like cows and sheep are merely recycling existing CO2. In fact, ruminant animals actually protect and improve the land if managed correctly.

Meanwhile dogs are indeed man's best friend. I have three of them.

Film critic Sonny Bunch observed years ago that radical environmentalists make excellent movie villains. They are fanatically ideological, they prize notions of green "justice" over the wellbeing, comfort, happiness, and even lives of human beings. And they are gallingly and insufferably self-righteous in their extremism. What's not to loathe? Beyond the fictions of the silver screen, it really does seem as though this category of real world ghouls and grinches go out of their way to alienate normal people as aggressively and obnoxiously as possible. Think about their pointless and performative "protests" that hurl food products at priceless pieces of art, or interrupt theater performances, or block traffic. The latter tactic is particularly grating and dangerous because it can keep people away from their jobs, their children, and even from needed medical attention. But the true-life villains don't care. They have tunnel vision, and they cannot be budged. They actively undermine their own cause in the process, but they also don't seem to care about that. It's a nihilistic movement, much like the "pro-Palestine" cause (there is, of course, large overlap within that dirtbag coalition).

Of all the off-putting stunts they pull, and lectures they deliver, I'm not sure any could match the self-destructiveness of telling human beings that they shouldn't have dogs as pets -- "for the planet," of course. I cannot imagine a faster way to get a wider array of people to extend double middle fingers than to come after Man's Best Friend, but that's what they're doing. Never change, enviros. You're doing great, sweeties. Also, stay the hell away from our dogs, you monsters:

"It turns out many Americans aren't great at identifying which personal decisions contribute most to climate change. A study recently published by the National Academy of Sciences found that when asked to rank actions, such as swapping a car that uses gasoline for an electric one, carpooling or reducing food waste, participants weren’t very accurate when assessing how much those actions contributed to climate change, which is caused mostly by the release of greenhouse gases that happen when fuels like gasoline, oil and coal are burned. The top three individual actions that help the climate, including avoiding plane flights, choosing not to get a dog and using renewable electricity, were also the three that participants underestimated the most. Meanwhile, the lowest-impact actions were changing to more efficient appliances and swapping out light bulbs, recycling, and using less energy on washing clothes.

Like Benson, I will not be complying with this nonsense. Probably, at least half of gentle readers have dogs, and know what I am saying here. Dogs are excellent companions.  When you come home, the dogs are already at the door, glad to greet you.  They, unlike your best friend, love you unconditionally.  They are around you and guard you when you are sleeping.  Of course, they alert you to the approach of strangers, which is very valuable out here in the country.  As Benson says at the conclusion, "keep your grubby, ideological hands of our dogs."

Choose Wisely

At the American Thinker Mike McDaniel reminisces about his career teaching English to high school and college students. He points to the obvious, that man can not prevent God from entering anyplace He likes, including schools in God has never left American schools. He calls out an aphorism that is both funny and true: "so long as there is algebra, there will always be prayer in schools."  His point though, and it is a good one, is that understanding religion is a part of a complete education.  You don't have to push any belief on students to give them such an understanding, but it is important to at least acknowledge the impact it has had on their lives.

Conservatives often complain that God has been removed from schools and demand He be reinstalled. Amusing that anyone might imagine the Almighty must allow leftists to do anything or that He can’t defend Himself. God is omnipresent; He’s everywhere always.

It is amusing. But as people, often caught up in the events of the day, it may seem that God has abandoned us. God, after all, doesn't need man, but man needs God. Don't believe me? Look to the Old Testament, particularly the books of 1 & 2 Samuel, the books of 1 & 2 Kings, and 1 & 2 Chronicles. For that matter, how many times did God get the Israelites out of scrapes in Exodus?

But McDaniel is correct that many school districts take these things too far, believing they will somehow avoid lawsuits by parents and crazy atheists.  For more on that, read below.  They can't, so stop trying and just obey the law.  McDaniel gives us a brief on just what can be taught in public schools and what cannot:

There’s no doubt most American educators tend to the left. Even some that don’t aren’t fully aware of the law and the Constitution, and out of an overabundance of caution are sometimes overly restrictive of student’s First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. Here’s what is lawfully proscribed in schools:

*Teachers can’t proselytize. They can’t advocate for religion or try to convert their students.

*Students can’t worship in disruptive ways. They can’t roll out their prayer rugs and begin to pray in math class, nor can they jump up in the middle of a class to call down the wrath of God on their evil English teacher.

*Teachers cannot mandate prayer or lead students in prayer. If they think that’s their job, they’re in the wrong profession.

Students can do pretty much everything else. They can certainly read the Bible or any other religious book as long as they’re not doing that instead of classwork. I maintained a small library in my classroom, which included at least four different versions of the Bible and multiple books on theology.

Schools can teach the Bible as literature, even history, but not as the one, true way. My Texas high school English Department offered an elective on the literature of the Bible. It never lacked for kids. In the mythology classes I taught, comparative theology was always a part. Teaching literature in general and American literature in particular, it’s essential to speak of the role of Christianity in the founding of Western Civilization and America. How can one understand the people of the past without knowing the beliefs that shaped them—and us? That’s true of any competent English or World History class, and it’s entirely lawful and appropriate, again so long as teachers don’t take the opportunity of a captive student audience to proselytize.

The Bible tells a story and you should understand that story in order to understand our founding. You don't have to believe it, though. The Koran also tells a story, and it is a different story than the Bible tells.  You don't have to believe that story either, but it explains events in our history.  I would point out as well that the God of the Bible, and the "god" of the Koran are two very different persons. Like voting, there is no middle ground. To choose not to decide is to decide. Everyone must choose. Choose wisely.

The Chicken or the Egg

Today, at the American Thinker Noel S. Williams has a post entitled Newsflash: Crazy people are drawn to leftism. This post answers the chicken and the egg question. I had always wondered whether leftism made people crazy or if crazy people were drawn to leftism. Now I have the answer.

Confounded leftism should not be elevated to the level of legitimate political philosophies ending with the “ism” suffix. The perennial political paradoxes from time immemorial have been addressed by great thinkers whose insights are often pigeonholed by some “ism”: liberalism, conservatism, capitalism, socialism, Marxism, etc. No matter where one falls on the spectrum, the ideas underpinning them were formulated by mostly rational minds -- even if their prescriptions don’t comport with human nature.

Leftism doesn’t come close to that. Other than being consistently anti-American, it is not a coherent or cogent ideology, although its inherent demagoguery is reminiscent of some aspects of fascism. Leftism isn’t intellectually potent enough to “make people crazy.” Instead, it is a loony mish-mash of anti-tradition and anti-Trump messages just for the sake of it. It rejects commonsense conventions born of experience that have often served humanity well in our inexorable pursuit of enlightenment (with notable exceptions).

In a sense, leftism is really “wrong-ism” insofar as it reflexively rejects what’s proven to be right on the right. Why, for example, would anybody want to radically transform our society (the last great hope of Earth) after attaining comfort in our Shining City on a Hill? Why not stay whence you came if we’re so bad (e.g. Soros, Ilhan, and others…) and transform your own dysfunctional societies (Somalia is a mess, for example, and Hungary has plenty of its own problems)? Leftism didn’t make them crazy; rather, they are crazy people who contribute to an ill-conceived and disjointed patchwork of leftist poppycock.

When I was in high school, I discovered that there were people here in my country who didn't want to be here, who would prefer to be in, say, the Soviet Union, or Cuba, anyplace but here. I wondered then why they didn't go and live in one of those other places. It seemed then, and even now, that the United States was unique.  There were plenty of places to go that would satisfy these people.  The United States seemed somehow to be blessed to be a "Shining City on a Hill" as Mr. Reagan put it.

Now, at 73, I have traveled the world, having lived in Panama, and been to Europe and Central America. I still wonder. Why does, for example, an Ilhan Omar come to this country where she is apparently unhappy, get herself elected to Congress, where she uses her position there to complain about how horrible America is? Why not return to Somalia? Williams answers that question. She is crazy.

Note that there are many leftist billionaires, who made the money here, using capitalist methods, but who decry the capitalist country.  Why is that?  They are crazy, that's why.  George Soros has been crazy since his youth, having helped the Nazis to bring genocide on the Jews.  Why do the Democrats cater to a small minority of obviously disturbed people, the LGBTQ, rather than the majority?  You guessed it.

Now I am not saying that people like Omar should be institutionalized, though Williams hints at it. But at the same time, these people should be in some form of treatment. But what that form would be I have no idea. Psychiatry has not proved to be helpful, since so many leftists seem to already be seeing therapist regularly and are not cured. My solution would be to pray for anyone suffering from leftism, knowing that God alone can help these individuals, but remembering that His will be done. If God doesn't want these people in His Kingdom, why should we?

The Leftist End Game?

 Today, at Townhall.com Kurt Schlichter has an article entitled What Is the Democrats' End Game? It is filled with Schlichter's signature snark, but it also includes a very large portion of human nature and of history. I am utterly astonished by the young peoples' tolerance of Communism and socialism. Perhaps it is because they have been taught that socialism is a good thing and not taught all the evil that has been done under Communist rule. But every time Marxism has been tried, over and over and over again it has murdered millions of people and left societies in abject misery.

During COVID I was commenting on the scarcity of products and the emptiness of store shelves to a lady, and I said, "It's beginning to look like Venezuela or Cuba here." To which she replied, "What do you mean?" And these people vote. So let me at least pass on a bit of history.

When I was young, the Soviet Union put on a show of dominating the entire world.  Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev even said so by claiming that capitalists would sell him the rope to hang us with. During this time, the occasional piece would come out showing the misery of the Soviet people whenever a 5 year plan failed, and they all seemed to fail. The Russians would have to import grain from, horror of horrors, the United States. Then the Soviet Union collapsed. But China began to rise, again spurred on by the greed of international corporations (not to be confused with actual capitalists). China is looking like it too will collapse. Pol Pot has come and gone. Cuba remains a Communist hell hole, and it has been joined by Venezuela and to a lesser extent Brazil. Wherever Communism, socialism, Fascism, or Marxism goes, envy, murder, misery, and scarcity follow in its train. The Left always believes it can change man for the better and create a Utopia on earth. They only prove the Bible correct.

Schlichter writes:

Americans are more divided than we have been since the first time the Democrats started and lost a civil war, with every norm being tossed out and every legitimate exercise of lawfully attained power by us normals being shamelessly obstructed. The left rejects the idea that patriotic Americans have any moral right to participate in theirown governance, to pursue their own interests, or to assert their own rights. To them,we are nothing but thralls, tax-generating slaves who must feed them, fuel them, fight for them, and obey their commands while meekly accepting their calumny.

They are delusional. Things aren’t going to work out that way.

But things are going to work out some way, and you have to wonder what their endgame is. After all, the Democratic Party, which is entirely indistinguishable from the left, refuses to accept the legitimacy of Donald Trump or any of us and is doing everything it can to prevent us from exercising any self-governance. That specifically and notably includes enforcing laws that were passed through the proverbial Schoolhouse Rock “I’m Just a Bill” process. It’s not much of a democracy if democratically enacted laws are not enforced. We have very clear laws on illegal immigration, yet they’re doing everything they can, formally and informally, to prevent us from enforcing them to get rid of the millions of invaders they allowed into the country without our permission. We have very clear laws on racial discrimination, yet they’re doing everything they can, formally and informally, to prevent us from enforcing them, particularly when they might benefit people of pallor. We have very clear laws on crime, yet they’re doing everything they can, formally and informally, to prevent us from enforcing them to make our cities safe, like in Washington DC, where they’re perfectly happy to sacrifice hundreds of black lives, and a few white ones, to make sure Trump doesn’t score a victory by making that urban cesspool habitable again.

One of the things that is most apparent is that Trump is not doing anything that is against the law. Schlichter mentions here a few examples, but every executive order and every executive action is within the law. The Left participated in making these laws, but now that Trump is enforcing them, they screech "he can't do that."  There is no law allowing boys to play in girls' sports either, but they seem determined to make it so. As Schlichter notes, what can't go on will not go on.

What can’t go on won’t go on, and this can’t go on. You can’t have half of America denying that the other half of America has any kind of moral right to participate in Our Democracy, and believing that the other side is so morally flawed, so obviously literally fascist in its love of attractive women, blue jeans, law and order, and not being discriminated against because its ancestors came from Europe, that to even consider their interests or rights is to embrace Hitler.

...snip...

Will we just give up, shrug our shoulders, and decide to allow them to do whatever the hell they want? OK, here you go, here’s our hard-earned money to give to your deadbeat constituents and to launder to communist NGOs and your billionaire donors. Here you go, here are all our guns. We know how much you hate us having those. We’re not worried about what inevitably happens to people who disarm themselves. And we’ll just shut up now and not exercise free speech by pointing out how corrupt, stupid, venal, and ridiculous you and your ilk are. England can show us the way – if somebody hops on X (assuming it still operates after Elon Musk gets arrested for whatever made-up crime they make up) and points out that a dude with a penis can never be a woman, here comes the SWAT team! And we’ll just let you guys gerrymander your hearts out in the blue states, but we will make sure that every Jasmine Crockett-like borderline clinical moron in some bluish part of a red state gets a safe district. And we will stop expecting to have a say in everything, because of course, we’re not qualified to have a say in anything. We’re not qualified to raise our own kids. We’re not qualified to decide what injections we get. We’re not qualified to opine on weather policy, so take out cars, trucks and steaks. We’re certainly not qualified to decide whether or not we want tens of millions of Third World peasants invading our country and turning it into the kind of hellhole they fled from. So, yeah, you’re good. You pinkos take over and handle things. We’ll be here, ready to take your abuse, take the blame for anything that ever goes wrong, and obey all your commands.

But if you believe that, you’re gobbling more of your SSRIs and washing them down with more oaky Chardonnay than usual.

As Schlichter points out, we are not going to give up our right to worship our God, or our guns, or our rights to speak freely. Even if the Left stacks the Supreme Court with fellow travelers, they cannot legitimately take our rights because these were granted not by government of men but by our Creator. We will defend these and other rights because in the end it is better to be dead than to live on our knees to some tyrant.

Please read all of Kurt Schlichter's article, and of course, by guns and ammo. We all pray we will never need them, but you never know.

Remembering the Oath of Office

 Yesterday, John Petrolino had an excellent article at Bearing Arms entitled Virginia Sheriff: If Bad Guys Are Carrying Guns for Free, Why Should Good Guys Have to Pay? It is a good question. Most of us have come to accept that government at all levels acts much as the mafia. They extract taxes from their citizens by threatening them with overwhelming punishments for not paying. Supposedly they provide good roads and police and fire protection and schools. But if they don't, can you protest by deducting the parts they do not provide from your taxes? Well, good luck with that. Supposedly we get to elect our oppressors, though as we have seen lately, even that is called into question. Still, that is the system we have.

So, it is good to see a public servant who actually believes in serving the public and not himself:

How do licensing officials get away with charging for the Second Amendment? Sheriff Cline of Wythe County, Va. asked the same and abolished the Sheriff’s background check fee for CCWs.

Interim Sheriff Anthony Cline of Wythe County, Virginia recently stepped up to serve since the retirement of Sheriff Charles Foster. The first official public act that Sheriff Cline executed since taking office was the declaration that he’d no longer be collecting fees for concealed handgun permit applications. In the August 4, 2025 letter he sent to the county clerk, Cline said, “As Sheriff, I do not believe citizens should be charged to exercise their constitutional rights.”

Sheriff Cline’s move to no longer accept the sheriff’s portion of permitting fees is part of a growing movement. Cline does not attribute his action to what’s been seen in New Jersey with townships nullifying permit to carry fees. However, that does not change that this is starting to become a trend.

...snip...

“When I was sworn in by the Circuit Court Judge, I recited the following oath,” Cline said. “I, Anthony Cline, do solemnly swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties incumbent upon me in the Office of Sheriff, so help me God.”

Cline said that when he reflected upon that oath of office, “especially the part about upholding the Constitution of the United States,” he said he thought about what that truly means. “I consider myself an American patriot. While our country has its challenges, I still believe we live in the greatest nation on Earth,” Cline said.

Well, glory and halleljah. He is correct. When the state insists on a background check to issue a concealed handgun permit, it should fund that background check itself out of taxes already extracted from the people. Extracting yet another fee, which is ultimately just another tax has always felt like adding insult to injury to me. I hope he wins, and when he does, that he retains this attitude. It is refreshing.

Are You Listening, America?

 Andrea Widburg has a post up at the American Thinker today entitled Understanding the plan that Hamas supporters have for America. Widburg notes that rather than a long post, she will just post a video of a rather attractive young woman spouting (in my words) leftist and satanic garbage.

I encourage gentle readers to read Widburg's post and to watch the embedded X video. Perhaps it is God's plan that only a few of us remain when He comes again in glory. I am sure that God wants no one to doubt that He alone is the victor, and that we fallible humans had nothing to do with it and can only watch and praise Him. Still, it may be that we can take some action now to stem the tide, if only we will listen.

Does the Shroud of Turin Capture the Resurrection?

On August 3, 2025, James Zumwalt had an interesting post at the American Thinker entitled What Moment in Time Did the Shroud of Turin Actually Capture? For anyone who has looked into it, the Roman Catholic Church seems especially enamored of relics and objects said to be imbued with spiritual power. Statues of the Virgin Mary, scapulars, crucifixes, icons of the saints, and of course true pieces of the cross. Most of those are don't have any power on their own. They are there as reminders to the Catholic faithful of who they are and how they are to act and behave. For Christians, every moment of every day is to be lived for Christ.  A rosary is a bunch of beads and a crucifix unless it is prayed with faith and purpose. Then it has power.

But the Shroud of Turin is a different matter. As you will find out from reading Zumwalt's article, the Shroud cannot even now be reproduced by modern technology.

The debate about the Shroud’s authenticity has led to extensive scientific scrutiny. Pieces of its cloth were subjected to carbon dating in 1988 suggesting its origin was between 1260 and 1390. However, the carbon dating tests have since been discredited not only because the Shroud’s exposure to the 1532 fire may well have impacted accurate testing, but also because its results conflict with other scientific methods.

Contributing to its authenticity is the fact that the three-dimensional image of Jesus appears to be a photographic negative. While linear perspective—i.e., three dimensional painting—was formalized around 1415, negative photography was not developed until the early 19th century. And, had the image been painted, the paint would have deeply penetrated the fabric, which it did not.

A new theory not only further supports authenticity, it suggests it was not the dead image of Jesus that was captured but rather that of a resurrecting Christ. It surmises the image is not one of a dead Jesus lying prone but one of Him in an upright position. Discrediting the former belief is that—consistent with the law of gravity—His hair falls directly down both sides of His head, covering His ears.

...snip...

In another surprising discovery, it is discernible as well from the Shroud’s image that the subject was not static, revealing some subtle signs of movement, typical of one still breathing.

While the image does not portray a supine Jesus, nor does it show Him standing or resting upon anything but, rather, “floating.” This begs the question why would He appear to be suspended in mid-air—unless it was the moment of the resurrection that was captured on the fabric.

As the image was not painted, the theory has emerged it was created by an intense burst of energy, similar to the vacuum ultraviolet radiation of lasers, that could have discolored the linen fibers, without scorching the cloth. This further supports a conclusion that the Shroud captured the resurrection itself.

Ultimately, everyone must decide for himself or herself whether the Shroud is real or not, and whether it depicts the risen Christ or not. For me, I don't need a Shroud of Turin to believe, but if someone's faith is perhaps wavering, it provides powerful reasons to believe.

The Eternal Battle

At The Federalist last Friday, Joy Pullman had a article entitled How Christians Can Engage In The Spiritual Warfare That Drives The Culture Wars. The first thing to wonder about is what indeed does that mean? What it means is that just as there is a culture war, that sometimes heats up, as on October 7, 2023 on our plane of existence, the same war is being waged on the spiritual plane. Thus we pray in the Lord's prayer "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Before you stop reading, hear me out for another little bit. When people study history, whether recent or ancient, they do have certain facts, of course, but generally people respond to the story line, the "great arc of history." Everybody remembers having to study dates and timelines, and how boring that is. But a good story, full of violence, romance, and great adventures by great heroes is also great reading. And the fact that these are real people who did real things that changed the world tells us that maybe, in our own small way we can do the same.

What I am saying is that good history should be read like a novel. It is the same with the Bible. It should be read as a loosely organized novel, but like history, it is real. God created man to have a relationship with Him, but man was deceived by the devil, let's call him Lucifer. At the Tower of Babel, God turned the governance of mankind over to members of his counsel, while he turned to bringing about a people from one man, Abram of Ur of the Chaldeans. Abram believed in God, and God made a covenant with Abram, renaming him Abraham and giving him a son in his old age. That people, children of Abraham became the nation of Israel. It is easy to lose the plot line, but the story isn't ultimately about Israel. The story is about how God built Israel so that they could tell His story, and at the right time He entered into history in the form of a son, born to a virgin, lived a perfect life, took on all the sins of the world, and was crucified for us.

But that was not the end. Three days later, he arose from the dead and was seen by many. He interacted with people. He ate with them; he let them touch him and he touched others. It is this event on which that the Christian faith hang. It really happened. It was God's secret plan to save all of mankind from Lucifer, the father of lies and murderer from the start. If Lucifer captures your soul, you will end up in hell, in eternal torment. God does not want you to go to hell, but if you reject Him, that is where you will go. The gates of hell are locked from the inside. Think of it like the Soviet Union, or East Berlin. Nobody wanted to get in those places, but at the same time, if they could most would have escaped. They were locked from the inside.

Here we are then, back to our own time, on the earthly plane of existence. Pullman is correct that our battles here are reflections of the spiritual war being waged by God and His heavenly hosts with Lucifer and the demons. In ancient times people sacrificed their first born children to Moleck by "passing them through the fire" of Moleck's belly. They literally threw their children alive into the fire stoked up inside a furnace in the shape of an image of Molock. Today people have abortions. It is the same thing, and by doing so people are worshiping Molock. In ancient times people worshiped Astarte. She was the goddess whose priestesses served as temple prostitutes. But gay men and cross dressers were also officials of Astarte. Today, Astarte, also called Ishtar is represented by the LGBTQxyz ad nauseum community, whose sexual perversions are their identity. They are worshiping Astarte.  Then there is Baal. Baal pretends to be the creator of the world and all in it. He tries to usurp God, who is the actual creator. Thus, he has unleased on the modern world Islam. Islam apes the true religion, as Baal apes the true God, and continues the fight started when he deceived Eve.

Pullman is correct though, that each of us should stay in our own lanes. Paul made this clear in 1 Corinthians. Some are called to perform exorcisms, but not everyone. However, each of us has authority over our own bodies. We can reject Lucifer and all his demons, and we should do so. For they are just as real as Jesus is. Saint Paul also writes in Ephesians:

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

There is a hymn, not sung often enough in our churches, Onward Christian Soldiers which expresses our place in a nutshell. We are all Christ's soldiers, He is our King and our leader. We are to fight His battles on this plane, not with guns and artillery, but with faith and prayer each according to our current station in life.  If you wonder about what God's plan for you is, well there you are.

Please read Pullman's article and please also consider reading the whole of the Bible. There are a number of apps that let you read a little a day, every day, such that you have read the entire Bible in a year. Moreover, read it not as a text, but as a loosely organized novel telling the story of Yahweh's plan to save mankind. Adam and Eve, Moses and Abraham play their parts, but the real hero of the story is Yahweh, who shows up numerous times directing people to change the world. He is always in control. Best to be on His side.

The Ball Is In Bondi's Court

Today, at the American Thinker Charlton Allen has the third installment in a piece entitled Anatomy of a Coup: The Obama Era Big Lie That Launched A National Delusion.

They didn’t just bury the truth. They built a monument to their Big Lie.

It’s a term the left loves to wield—usually against their enemies, never themselves.

But the real Big Lie was the con they ran on the American people: the Russia Hoax. And that monument? It’s now crumbling beneath a flood of declassified documents pouring into public view.

Yes, it matters in this moment. The truth matters. And despite the tired, flailing insistence that there’s “nothing new” here, there’s plenty we’ve learned—and much more still to come.

And so, Allen begins this installment. As to the "there's nothing new hear" part, there is everything new. We "knew" about the coup, but what we "knew" was constantly put down to conspiracy theory. "Where's the proof" they would say. And truthfully, there was no proof, only speculation, with the occasional whistle blower who was routinely shuttled off very quickly. It seemed the Left had won again, as it usually does.

So, with actual documents, and more to come, we see now the actual players, and what they actually did. And it is far worse than we thought.

The December that follows a presidential election is supposed to be a time of transition—especially after a hard-fought campaign. The American tradition holds that even in defeat, power is transferred peacefully and honorably. For years, the left has sermonized about the sacred duty of a “peaceful transition of power.”

There was nothing peaceful about December 2016. What unfolded was a deliberate, coordinated attempt to undermine—and ultimately destroy—the incoming Trump administration before it ever took office. It was sabotage on a historic scale.

The outgoing Obama team sought to compromise Trump’s ability to govern from Day One. In their bitterness, they were willing to paralyze the government itself.

They wanted Trump to fail—and with him, America.

That’s why this may be the most nefarious political scandal in American history.

And so they did what they always do: they cooked the books, silenced the dissenters, and blamed their misdeeds on someone else.

The emphasis in the above quote is mine. I want you to mull over exactly what that means. By using Russia as the villain, they were willing to perhaps stir up the American people to war with Russia over a lie. Now Russia is a nuclear power and when pressed, is likely to use nuclear missiles rather than suffer defeat. Who could blame them. But these people risked that because they lost an election. Think about that.

It may be that Obama will never be prosecuted. Mrs. PolyKahr, unlike me, is against prosecuting an ex-president for things that may have been within his purview as president. I think these documents make it pretty clear that these actions were beyond the pale. But in any case, Brennan, Clapper and Comey were all guilty and do not have presidential immunity. They should have told Obama 'no.' They can and should be held accountable. The country needs to see that there is actual justice for betraying the American people.  Moreover, the country needs to see that Democrats too can be prosecuted.

Gentle readers, please read all of Allen's article, and if you are having a rainy day like I am, read parts 1 and 2 as well.

Trump Wins on Climate Change

 Chris Talgo at the American Thinker today has some good news. You may know if you are in the market for a new car that car companies and the media have predicted huge cost increases because of Trump's tariffs. As usual, the media tries to scare you. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Trump, and EPA chief Lee Zeldin have dumped the EPA's Endangerment Finding which has driven the cost of nearly everything up in an attempt to return America to the stone age. Talgo's post can be found at The climate industrial complex is on the verge of collapse.

The blunt reality is that climate alarmist fearmongering has jumped the shark. It is now a subject of ridicule. No one really believes the world is going to end in a few years if we don’t immediately abandon fossil fuels.

However, the climate change charade lasted a while and did extensive economic damage. It will take years, if not decades, to reverse all this unnecessary harm.

The good news is that one of the most fundamental elements of the climate industrial complex, the Endangerment Finding, seems to be on the brink of elimination.

Unbeknownst to most Americans, the Endangerment Finding, which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) put into effect under President Barack Obama, essentially labels carbon dioxide a harmful “pollutant” that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

Since it was put into place in late 2009, the Endangerment Finding has been used increasingly by the federal government to regulate fossil fuels.

“The Endangerment Finding is the legal foundation that underpins vital protections for millions of people from the severe threats of climate change, and the Clean Car and Truck Standards are among the most important and effective protections to address the largest U.S. source of climate-causing pollution,” according to Peter Zalzal, associate vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund.

...snip...

Under President Trump 2.0, the EPA is finally reversing course on Obama’s catch-all climate regulatory tool.

We can expect that all sorts of things will be deregulated as a result of this. For starters, the weather people, particularly the National Weather Service might stop pounding us over the head with climate change scare stories for every adverse weather condition. But stuff like your gas stove and gas water heaters, furnaces, and so on may be deregulated. Who knows, our power grid may be strengthened through coal and natural gas power plants rather than relying on wind and solar. It may buy time for electric vehicles to finally show their supposed superiority by winning the Indianapolis 500.

 In the meantime, enjoy the win. The climate has always been changing since the world was formed. Why should it stop now?

Are the Democrats Dehumanizing Conservatives as Maggots?

Also at the American Thinker today is an article by J.B. Shurk entitled Will Democrats Exterminate America's 'MAGAts'? Shurk's point is that Democrats are already attempting to dehumanize conservatives as "maggots," creatures so disgusting the only that to be done is to kill them all. It is not unlike the Jews in Hitler's Germany. If they succeed, we may well find ourselves in a civil war. This sort of thing must be nipped in the bud, or the republic is lost. Please read Shurk's article today. Oh, and by Guns and Ammo. We may need them.

Again, Pam Bondi, Please Do Your Job

This was a post that appeared yesterday, but I didn't get to the American Thinker until late. The article is entitled Perp Walks and Jump Suits by Ted Noel. Noel argues, and I tend to agree with him, that arrests and prosecutions are necessary if the Republican Party is to remain a functioning and relevant political party. Otherwise, too many, especially MAGA people, will lose hope and sit out elections in the future. The republic is staggering under the weight of communist/socialist/Marxist nonsense. If we are to remain safe in our homes, this must end.

We’re mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it anymore! That’s just the way it is. America is fed up. Every election cycle, Republican candidates tell us that, in my wife’s expression, they will “Do wonders and poop cucumbers.” And as soon as the polls close, all those promises go away.

The latest examples of this are the “Republican” senators who demanded that some foreign aid money be left on the table in Donald Trump’s tiny $9.4 billion rescission package. The fact that that amount of money is a rounding error in the federal budget angers the rest of us as well. If the keepers of the flame are just using it to light our tax dollars on fire, then they need to wise up.

...snip...

Fortunately, we have someone with a big shovel. No, it’s not Pam Bondi, although she may yet come up with the goods. It’s Tulsi Gabbard, our DNI, who frightened the Swamp so much. And even though she committed the great public relations mistake of releasing the first tranche of receipts of Obama’s seditious conspiracy on a Friday, they can’t be buried.

And wait! There’s more. Yes, DNI Gabbard told Newsmax’ Robb Schmitt that there are thousands more documents, and whistleblowers are coming forward.

This is wonderful! But still, it’s just noise. There’s no “there” there. No, I’m not saying that Obama and his minions didn’t do the horrific treasonous evil that DNI Gabbard revealed. Rather, simply revealing this seditious conspiracy only creates clickbait. What must be created is the click of handcuffs closing. Then we must see the conspirators, including Barak Obama, sitting in the dock answering the charges (orange jumpsuits optional).

I keep hearing that Barak Obama has blanket immunity. I especially was taken aback by the two chuckleheads that fill the former Rush Limbaugh's radio spot saying that alas, we can't try Obama. Really? According to the Supreme Court, Obama, like Trump, has blanket immunity only for things within the scope of his official business. Is staging a coup against his elected successor part of his official duties? Well, certainly not.

So, our first question is simple. “Does ordering his subordinates to create a fraudulent work product for the purpose of undermining Trump’s Presidency fall within his “conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority”?

The answer to that should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. HELL NO! The election was over, and this act is directly contrary to the “take care” clause. In fact, he was directing his subordinates to make it difficult or impossible for his successor to satisfy that specific duty. At a minimum, that’s sedition. We don’t need to worry about the fine legal line between sedition and treason here.

The second question is, “Was this an official act?” A directive from the President is an official order. This locates it within the “outer perimeter” of his duties and qualifies it for “presumptive immunity.” A lawful order will be treated as legally protected, but as any soldier knows, unlawful orders do not have to be obeyed. And this is where a finding of fact must be made.

“Presumptive immunity” means that a Court starts with the presumption that President Obama’s directive was legal. It’s up to AG Bondi to make the case that it wasn’t.

Because the documents released by DNI Gabbard indicate that the purpose of the order was to sabotage the Trump presidency, it was definitely unlawful. Our system depends on the peaceful transition of power. So said every Democrat candidate in recent memory. After the riot on January 6, that talking point got dialed up to max volume. At the same time, Trump’s apparent loss in 2020 has turned out to be one step in a massive conspiracy to remove conservatives from government “by any means necessary.”

These steps are necessary for both the health of the republic and the health of conservatives. Do I like it? Of course not. Doing this to one's opponent can be seen as simple revenge. It is not, and no one should think like that. It is necessary to have consequences sufficiently drastic that nobody ever thinks to do this again. If the Democrats get into power again, and there are no consequences, is there anything they won't do to keep that power?  Are conservatives anywhere safe?  We have already seen what they did to the victims of January 6th.  How much more brutal will they be if they get away with it.  That is why I ask again, Pam Bondi, Please Do Your Job. And to gentle readers, please go and read the whole article by Ted Noel.

The Origins of the Second Amendment

 Today, at the American Thinker Texas Hughes in a post entitled Keeping arms and militia service was historically mandatory gives us a lesson on the origins of our Second Amendment. I must admit I did not know that it went back to King Henry II. I did know that in England, able bodied men had to own a longbow and arrows and to practice at certain times on the town green for purposes of defense of the kingdom. But then he goes into more of the thinking that led to this development, which is where it gets more interesting.

The roots of the government’s recognition of our right to keep and bear arms began with King Henry II in 1181. It was, in fact, mandatory in England’s first American colony.

"In the nearly five hundred years since King Henry II issued his Assize of Arms in 1181, the citizens of England and, later Great Britain had for the most part assumed communal responsibility for military defense. … Within two decades of the landing at Jamestown, for instance, the fledgling Virginia legislature passed laws requiring all able-bodied freemen between the ages of seventeen and sixty to own weapons and be ready to serve in the dominion’s militia." — Blood and Treasure by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin

This is the deep root of our Constitution’s Second Amendment. It combines the obligation to keep and bear arms with the duty of military service. It mandates that able-bodied male citizens endure the harshness of military service, and the bodily risks of fighting and killing our enemies.

844 years establishes a long history of keeping and bearing arms for militia service and in fact goes back further still. But what about the philosophy behind King Henry II edict? This is where Hughes clarifies exactly the purpose of the Second Amendment. Note that while one of the Second Amendment's purposes was defense of the United States, that other lawful purposes were also included. Those other lawful purposes include training with arms, self-defense and defense against wild animals, target shooting, sports shooting and hunting. The keeping of guns has been called by anti-gunners a "hobby." And while some aspects of keeping guns, such as collecting may be a hobby, the basic right it is not a "hobby" at all, but a civic duty of all men who are citizens.

Keeping guns is a key legal right because it serves our nation’s needs. Fighting to defend our nation is the just, obligatory duty of men who enjoy the benefits of living in our nation.

This is a core civic duty among citizens — to fight for what we have. That requires weapons and military service.

Those trying to disarm free men want to enslave us with the tyrannies that thrive over unarmed people. Wannabe tyrants will have to whip us in combat to have their way.

Please note that the obligation to defend our nation does not include illegal aliens. They violated our laws to steal a share of the bounty created by a free citizenry operating a capitalistic meritocracy arising from our Western values.

Illegals want to steal wealth and safety they did not create. Better for us, and humanity, that they stay home and fight the battles necessary to create what we have where they came from. I’m happy to give them some weapons and aid to do so.

To the last point, I am happy to sell them arms, but they must do the fighting for their own society. No "color revolutions" with CIA, and no taxpayer funds. As far as I am concerned, we have no business getting into other country's affairs. We have enough problems of our own.

Pam Bondi, Please Do Your Job

 Let me start by saying that there is a huge difference between what are accurately termed "liberals" and Leftists.  Liberals may differ with conservatives on the means, but both share the same goals.  Not so with Leftists, who do indeed want to end the United States of America as founded and take over as a faux "dictatorship of the people" by which they mean to make themselves our rulers.  Tusi Gabbard is a liberal and I would not agree with her on most political topics, but I respect her, and I believe she wants to make America great again.

On Friday, Tulsi Gabbard unleashed a tsunami of documents relating to the Russia hoax and subsequent coup against the Trump administration and Hooboy! The reason these documents had been classified became instantly apparent.

At the American Thinker today, J. B. Shurk has an article entitled Obama's Real Legacy Comes Into Focus that goes into more detail on the effects of Gabbard's document declassification.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard set off fireworks on Friday when she accused former president Barack Obama of organizing a coup d’état against his successor. Summarizing the damning evidence in her possession, Gabbard concluded, “These documents detail a treasonous conspiracy by officials at the highest levels of the Obama White House to subvert the will of the American people.”

Treason is a capital offense with no statute of limitations. So consider how explosive Gabbard’s allegations are. The senior official in charge of all American Intelligence is stating unequivocally that Obama and his loyal subordinates sabotaged the peaceful transfer of presidential power in 2016, betrayed the American people, and made war against the legitimate government of the United States. Gabbard just dropped the “Mother of All Bombs” on Obama’s White House syndicate, the Intelligence Community, and the globalist Deep State.

...snip...

In other words, Obama and high-ranking members of his administration — including the Intelligence chiefs responsible for safeguarding the nation from foreign and domestic threats — fabricated evidence meant to convince the American people that Russia stole the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, this cabal of conspirators fabricated evidence meant to incriminate President Trump, convince Congress to remove him from office, and perhaps even convince a future jury to convict him for espionage and treason.

Obama and his people damaged America’s reputation in the world by pretending that Russia “hacked” the 2016 election. Along with Hillary Clinton and her campaign (the original plotters who paid for the Steele Dossier and its public dissemination), the Obama administration defrauded the American people by squandering time and resources on a figment of their seditious imaginations.

With all this evidence available, surely even a bumbling prosecutor in Washington, DC should be able to secure a grand jury indictment of the principles in the conspiracy. And if not, what does that say about the Democrats (read yesterday's post.) So, yes, Gabbard has presented us and the Trump administration with evidence of treason. And Trump must make an example of these officials including Obama himself.

Why, you ask? Why not let it go? They are all out of power now.

It comes down to the effect of this treason. The American people voted for Trump. In setting this coup in motion, the perpetrators attempted, indeed did in fact, cancelled the will of the people in favor of the will of the Democrats. It is a direct subversion of the Constitution and of the idea of a democratically elected representative government. It also imperiled our relationship with Russia and risked global nuclear war.

Consider all the real foreign and domestic threats that were entirely ignored because the U.S. government was dedicating substantial resources to an Intelligence operation meant to frame President Trump as a Russian spy.

Consider how much harm Obama, Clinton, and their allies in government offices and corporate newsrooms caused to America by fomenting social division and political strife based on abject lies.

The Obama administration and Clinton campaign essentially conducted a “color revolution” against the United States. It was their intention to instigate a mass public uprising that would force President Trump from office. They conspired to overthrow the U.S. government and install a new one more amenable to their interests. What these “untouchable” elites did was textbook treason and sedition.

We will never have a full accounting of the toll Obama and Clinton’s lies had on America. It seems reasonable to assume that their lies cost lives. How many terrorist attacks could have been prevented if Intelligence agents had been working on things that mattered? Who really murdered Seth Rich? How many Republicans have been bankrupted in courtrooms while defending themselves against malicious prosecutions arising from the Russia Collusion Hoax? All of the treasonous criminals who perpetrated this fraud upon the American people made the United States weaker, more divided, and more vulnerable. That’s Obama’s real legacy.

The Epstein business was, in the end was criminal. The crimes were of course Epstein's abuse of minor girls.  That is tragedy, and I don't mean to make light of it.  The other crimes were committed by Democrats to protect their president. But the Russia Hoax and subsequent lawfare against Trump and his supporters is perhaps the greatest scandal in American history. Now we expect Pam Bondi to do her job.

A Party of Corruption

 In an article today at the website Sultan Knish, Daniel Greenfield exposes, for those of us to blinded to see, Who Really Backed Epstein. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. And it should have been obvious all along. I think it may not have been because most of us wanted to believe our so-called "leaders" were better than they turned out to be.

Greenfield builds his case piece by piece showing that Epstein was given a pass and special treatment time and time again by various prosecutors, judges, and law enforcement personnel who apparently had nothing in common. Equally, they had nothing in common either with our CIA or Mossad. On the other hand, these people went after Republicans who had done far less with gusto. So, who was protecting Epstein?

Democrats in different states didn’t just collude to aid Epstein, but other Clinton and Democrat donors, and they also colluded to target conservatives including Trump. This was not an intelligence operation, but a partisan political campaign much like Russiagate.

9 years ago, I assembled lists of sexual predators associated with the Clintons and Democrats. Epstein was just one of the names on that list. Rather than being a unique phenomenon, Jeffrey Epstein was part of a pattern of sexual crimes surrounding the Clintons and the Democrats.

Conservatives used to know that, but social media grifters have overrun the movement, some of them in the pay of foreign governments, and they obsessively push their agendas. Many are millennials who don’t even remember the Clintons. And the Clintons are less exciting now that Bill is a doddering old fool who can barely finish a sentence and defeat reduced Hillary to a bitter powerless shrew. But the Democrats have not become any less corrupt for it all.

Surprise! It's the Democrat party. It is well known that the Republicans have been called the "stupid" party. The Democrats, on the other hand have been called the Evil party. I have wondered aloud if the Democrats shouldn't be tried under the RICO law. But that doesn't really fix the problem, though it may make some reconsider their actions. No, the problem at its core is peoples' desire to see their will implemented at any cost. Indeed hell is filled with people who said to God "my will not thine shall be done." So if the leader desires underaged girls, so be it as long as the supporters get their pet policies implemented. It has been so since 1828, and it needs to end.

Please go read the whole article. But don't read it too close after eating, stay close to the bathroom incase your stomach turns.

Buy Guns and Ammo. We May Need Them.

 In his article at Townhall.com entitled Can We Get Out of This Without a Civil War? Kurt Schlichter explains his purpose in writing his latest book: American Apocalypse: The Second American Civil War. He is at pains to tell us that he does not want this to happen, and indeed he is writing his book as a warning. Schlichter has seen what a country in conflict with itself looks like up close and personal. It is not pretty. And he points out that for those on the right who think that we can just go back to being the America we were, the one we grew up in, that will not happen. America will be forever changed. The only way we can achieve something like the America we grew up in is through Constitutional means, and forcing the Left to follow it too.

Schlichter starts by laying out what he believes to be the current situation in which we find ourselves.

America is in crisis, with the left battling the ascendant right, a clash of visions between a socialist nightmare in which America becomes either a feudal, feral combination of California and a communist college campus or we re-make it into something like the glorious, golden country it once was. How does all this end? Leftists in America— and the Democrats are a leftist party that is eagerly embracing admitted communists— seem to be under the impression that normal patriotic Americans have no right to engage in their own self-governance. That’s unsustainable. We’re not giving up our self-determination. The question is whether America resolves this peacefully, as we should, or whether the Democrats spark another civil war, something I write about in my new novel American Apocalypse: The Second American Civil War, released on July 17th.

It’s time to face the question forthrightly. After all, the last time we patriots tried to deprive Democrats of their servile class, they chose war. We’re depriving them of another now, and they are losing their minds. Right now, they are choosing obstruction, having halfwit left-wing federal judges— they weren’t confirming them because they were legal geniuses— essentially declare that anything Donald Trump does is unlawful. Legally speaking, his actions are not unlawful. They are not even close to being unlawful, and the Supreme Court has been swatting these judicial ankle-biters down left and right. But there are hints that leftist frustration at not being able to force us to submit via lawfare is pushing them toward violence. We know because they say so. The Democrat base is demanding more radicalism in the face of their political losses. We’ve seen the polls that say over half of them think it’s morally OK to murder the president. Their street thug catspaws are shooting at cops enforcing our democratically enacted immigration laws, as well as murdering citizens.

Schlichter paints paragraph after paragraph of the uncivil way that the Left treats normal Americans and their elected representatives. They do not fight by the rules, and in fact change the rules to gain a short term political advantage.  The Democrats (read socialists/Marxists/Communists) encourage radical activism through their speech which stays just this side of the line, while their donors maintain paid protestors and looters who can be bussed into any location, complete with professionally made signs, piles of bricks stockpiled in place, gas masks and bail money already available along with a full command and control organization. The purpose of these paid protestors is to provoke a reaction that can be used to spark a revolution. The Left is getting more and more desperate as we keep stacking up wins.

The question is whether there will be a next time – will there be violence to resolve this seemingly resolvable status quo? Will it be low-grade terrorism? Will there be another civil war? That’s not a crazy question. It’s sadly not insane to talk about it anymore. It might’ve been whacko 20 years ago, but things have changed. The Democrats not only embrace a platform that despises America, but they despise Americans and consider them morally unfit and unworthy of having a voice in their own government. You and I are not human to them. We’re kulaks, wreckers and looters, literal Nazis, and therefore unworthy not only of the right to participate in our own governance but of basic civil rights like the right to speak freely, to worship freely, and, heaven forbid, to own guns – and you should most definitely buy guns and ammunition to lawfully defend yourself, your family, your community, and your Constitution.

The leftists don’t have power now, but they may have power in the future. Things change. Voters can be stupid – I know because I sometimes live in California. But there’s a very real possibility that a combination of their arrogance, stupidity, and downright evil will lead to the kind of catastrophe that I write about in American Apocalypse. I’m already prepared for the stupid people who will fulminate that by writing this book, I somehow want our country to tear itself apart. Those people are liars. I saw a country that tore itself apart when I was stationed in Kosovo, and I’m desperate to show that violence is not the answer; the Constitution is. I’m not going let the left and their garbage fellow travelers stop me from warning about what the left intends to do – American Apocalypse includes a bitter, femmy blurb from Bill Kristol regarding the People’s Republic books as a badge of honor.

Some of us, in our frustration, are too cavalier about the consequences of civil conflict. We need to understand that even if our side wins, which I think it would for various reasons that American Apocalypse describes, we’re not going to emerge on the other side with anything like the America we grew up with. It’s going to be poorer and authoritarian. It can’t be otherwise. You can’t have millions of dead – make no mistake, a real civil war, as opposed to the kind of Weathermen/SLA low-key insurgency of 50 years ago – would destroy the infrastructure and systems that keep people alive. You would see death and destruction on a scale that would boggle your imagination, and it should turn your stomach.

I have not seen, up close and personal, what happens in civil wars. But as a college student in ROTC, I studied the American Civil War, and I came away then with an aversion to it. I don't want a civil war, but I recognize that I and others may not have a choice.  War may be thrust on us.  I have since read about other civil wars. Schlichter is absolutely correct that the non-combatant population would suffer immensely. People who don't deal with such things do not know the chain of things that make their daily power a reality, their water systems, sewage systems, communications and so forth. They take them for granted, but these systems will all be destroyed in the process of a civil war. Just getting food will become a hit or miss, usually the latter, thing. In one spot in his book a character estimates the number at 50 million dead. I would think it would be closer to 100 million dead from disease and starvation.

Some may ask "why can't we go back to the way it was?" The answer lies in the level of anger that a civil war would necessitate. Right now, we are frustrated with idiot judges and their nation-wide injunctions attempting to thwart the will of the people. We are mad at the paid for street thugs obstructing ICE and other law enforcement. We even hold a cold fury at the so-called "journalist" and "historians" and "experts" who distort the truth and gas light us with lies and half-truths and try to defend the indefensible. Most of us recognize that these are useful idiots to the left, and those who read history know what happens to useful idiots who have lost their usefulness. We want these people to repent. But once a civil war starts in earnest, all bets are off. The winning side will be full of righteous anger. When we defeat them, we cannot allow them to just return to business as usual as we did the last time. We will have to either banish them or hold Nuremburg style trials and execute them. As unpleasant as it may be, that will be necessary.

I pre-ordered the book from Amazon and it arrived on the 17th. I have read several chapters so far, and if the rest of it is like those first chapters, it is well worth your money and time. I suggest you read it as well.  Oh, and pray for the United States of America.  She will need much grace.  One more thing, buy guns and ammo.  We may need them.

A Sad Day in History

 Today is July 14.  It is my birthday and therefore I have always been sensitive to the fact that it is also in France celebrated as Bastille Day, the beginning of the French Revolution.  While the American Revolution turned out well, the French Revolution was a bloody affair and began the modern socialist movement that plagues us to this day.  S. David Sultzer has the story at the American Thinker entitled On Bastille Day we must distinguish the American Revolution from the French Revolution.

Today, July 14, is celebrated as Bastille Day in France. It should be a day of mourning across the rest of Western civilization.

Ten days after we celebrate July 4 as the symbol of the American Revolution, the pinnacle of the Enlightenment Era, the French celebrate Bastille Day on July 14 as the symbol of the French Revolution, an event that marked the end of the Enlightenment Era. These were the two titanic events of the 18th century, and all of world history since then can be analyzed as a competition to see which will win out, the Christianity and liberalism of the American Revolution or the atheism and socialism of the French Revolution.

There is no doubt that the Roman Catholic church in France was corrupt. According to St. Paul, the love of money (and power, one thinks) is one of the roots of all evil. And the church was very greedy, soaking the people in both rents and tithes. It laid a heavy burden on people, something Christ himself spoke against. The government was also too greedy, and in cahoots with the church, never a good arrangement. All this corruption gave an opening to the atheist revolutionaries to rile up the people to revolt. Like all socialists, they promised much, but delivered little relief to the people. It was a sham designed to grab power for themselves. As always, there are useful idiots to help spread the "message" but when they have done their work, they are disposed of. And we even have evidence of the revolution eating its own, for eventually Maximillian Robespierre lost his head to lady guillotine.

While the American Revolution rightly saw government as a necessary organization whose role was to protect the life, liberty and property of the people, the French Revolution sought to replace God with itself. In doing so, the revolutionaries committed the original sin, the sin of pride, of wanting to sit on God's throne.

It is not an overstatement to say that all the ills of modern society were born in the crucible of the French Revolution, just as it is not an overstatement to say that the American Revolution was the culmination of the best of the Enlightenment. All history since 1792 has been a competition to see which will win out in the West, the French Revolution or the American Revolution. Let us hope that it is Independence Day, not Bastille Day.

The Priestly Blessing

 When I started high school, my mother signed me up for the A Cappella Choir.  The very first piece of music we began working on was Peter Lutkin's The Lord Bless You and Keep You. The choir sang it at the end of every concert that we did, so it was the first thing we learned and the last thing we sang as seniors three years later. Today, our church choir sang this piece and it brought up so many memories. I remember Park Cooley, who has passed now, quite well. He managed to get more out of us than we knew we could do.

One thing I didn't think about as a pimple faced high school kid was how special it was. The piece puts to music the ancient priestly blessing from Numbers 6:24-26 as commanded by Yahweh Himself. We were blessing the audience, and each other in the name of God. Today, no doubt, the school would be sued by some woke busy body. But back then teachers occasionally discussed God and felt no requirement to include Muslims or atheists in their discussion, for one is the religion of Baal-Zebub and the other isn't true.

Gentle readers are invited to listen the priestly blessing set to Peter Lutkin's beautiful music above and receive a blessing.

The Artist Who Captured Light

 I have often thought that those who can do, do, while those who can not criticize.  These thoughts occurred to me as I read the post today, at the American Thinker by Gregory Smith entitled Renoir derangement syndrome and the cult of obscurity. Gregory takes the art world to task for its belief in something called "high art" and the "difficult barriers normally raised" by it. For by being consciously obscure, so-called "artists" claim a status that they don't deserve. The truth is that the average Joe can see right through it.

A long time ago, I painted as a hobby. In the process of learning about the craftmanship of painting, I studied a number of styles and methods stretched my own canvases and applied gesso. One of the styles I studied, and which I attempted to imitate in philosophy of work was the Impressionist style. Renoir was not the leader of this school but was the most recognizable and longest lasting practitioner of impressionism.

Impressionists, influenced by the new art of photography, sought to capture a scene at a particular moment in time. Thus, the rushed brush strokes as they strived to capture the light before it changed. It was an exciting but short-lived time in art, and impressionism inspired artist such as Cezanne who is considered the father of modern art. I encourage gentle readers to investigate the impressionists because I think you might find it exciting too in its use of realistic colors and their ideas about how light interacts with matter.

Renoir had honed his craft painting porcelain plates and other products at a porcelain factory starting at the age of 13. He did not come from wealth, as did some of his contemporaries, and he had a wife and children to feed. He, unlike the picture painted of him by Kermit Champa, was a rather humble man. His idea of art was as something to decorate a wall. His true genius lay in his finely honed craftmanship. Renoir could say more with a single brush stroke than all the fake "arteests" making obscure mishmashes today. Today's art is filled with ugliness and all the inspiration of grey, Soviet style apartment blocks. Uggh.

I owe a big thank you to Gregory Smith for reminding me of my favorite impressionist. Renoir's art was innocent, approachable, and for the everyman.

Don't Worry. It's All In His Hands

 I publish a lot of stuff on this blog that I feel gentle readers need to know about, I know.  There's the fact that it appears that nobody is ever going to be charged with the crimes committed against conservatives.  Then there is the growing violence against law enforcement with police being murdered.  Indeed 10 people have been charged with ambushing ICE agents.  The Left grows more dangerous daily, and the Muslims are threatening to impose their own form of justice on us.  The list of bad news, horrible news, sad news and sometimes outright evil news is long.  What I don't do often enough is point out that the world is firmly in God's hands, and that (spoiler alert) He ultimately wins, and that means we do too.

But, J. B. Shurk does remind us that all will be alright in a post at the American Thinker entitled Do Not Fear the Future. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:25:

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

It is good advice. Of course, if you can prepare for something you should. But we don't worry about things we can prepare for. Instead, we tend to worry about things over which we feel we have no control. Shurk reminds us that we have more control than we think we do.

What is more important — wealth or health? Do you prefer to be loved by adoring strangers or by close members of your family? When you depart this world, would you rather be remembered for your political power or moral courage? Is the cultivation of a virtuous character more valuable than the accumulation of material things?

I ask these questions to highlight how much power you have over your own life. I often receive messages from people who are worried about the future. Some sound despondent about the challenges ahead. Some are happy that President Trump did this and unhappy that he did that. Some seem so engrossed in the turbulent world of politics that they struggle to be upbeat about more important things.

I am an ordinary sinner with no special knowledge about our existence, and my intention is not to lecture others. I do wish to remind people, though, that they are in control. No matter how coercive governments and corporations are, we are still masters of our fates. We decide what we believe. We decide how we will act. We decide what costs we are willing to bear in defense of our principles.

There is something liberating in the acknowledgment of these simple facts. Surely our principles aren’t really our principles until we are willing to suffer in defense of them. Our earthly struggles are the grindstones that sharpen our moral virtue. Adversity is as much a blessing as it is a burden.

Shurk takes one item that is scaring people right now, AI, and breaks down why most of the things the media tries to scare us about it won't really happen. Shurk's reasons are based on human nature and human needs. The problems AI presents have been encountered before, and we have prevailed. We will prevail again. Shurk concludes with this:

For millennia, a good sword was expensive and required time and skill to wield well. Big, strong swordsmen had a distinct advantage. The handgun, however, quickly leveled the playing field. As was often said of Samuel Colt’s famous revolver, “God created men; Colonel Colt made them equal.” A lightweight AR-15-style rifle provides a small woman with the power to defend herself against a large man. Firearms have democratized self-defense.

Similarly, the printing press, radio, television, and personal computer have democratized communication. Although governments have had varying success in using these innovations to maintain power, there is no doubt that the information revolution of the last five hundred years has narrowed the knowledge gap between the wealthiest and the poorest more significantly than during any other period in history. And whatever happens with A.I. over the next few years, there is no doubt in my mind that a similar democratizing effect will accompany its proliferation — irrespective of the wishes of today’s “ruling class.”

In the midst of great change, certain things remain constant. We humans love and seek to be loved. We are remembered for our virtues and moral failings. We find sustained purpose in our relationships with God and our families. Let us hold fast to these truths.

Please go read J. B. Shurk's piece and stop worrying.

Make America Accountable Again

 Today, at the American Thinker Todd Gregory and Erik Gregory in a post entitled Axis of irrelevance express frustration with the recent announcement that the government doesn't have any Epstein client lists. They point out that this is only the latest frustration for conservatives who long for justice. But it is increasingly clear that there will be no justice.

The late billionaire pedophile and former FOB (Friend of Bill) Jeffrey Epstein had no client list, according to Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice and Kash Patel’s FBI.

Really? No three-ring binders, no Rolodexes, no paper trail, no computer records, no emails or phone numbers, nothing pertaining to any clients?

The DOJ does acknowledge that it has thousands of hours of lurid, revolting video depicting underage girls being sexually abused by men.

So are we to understand that none of the men’s identities can be made out on video?

...snip...

All talk of finally holding malefactors accountable is cheap when we can all see that nothing is being done.

No predawn raids with guns drawn. No frog marches in leg irons with the media’s cameras rolling. No indictments. No convictions. Nobody going to prison.

It’s why an incitement-minded Stalinist like James Comey can play “8647” games with his seashells on social media. He knows he has nothing to fear from the DOJ, FBI, Secret Service, or anybody else.

The FBI’s surprise announcement on July 8 of a possible criminal investigation into Comey and Brennan invites skepticism when viewed in the context of similar empty public relations gestures in the past.

The conservative base is exhausted by all the broken promises and losses on the legal front. Tired of moving in for a breakaway dunk only to have our coach call a timeout to undercut our success. Tired of the useless complaining about the unfair officiating (district court judges with their universal injunctions, for example), but doing little about it.

No matter the happy talk and spin, we can all plainly see that Democrats are not being held accountable for their brazenly insurrectionary crimes over the past decade and more. In some cases, we also notice that the statute of limitations is being allowed to lapse without a charging decision.

Then there is Fast and Furious, for which no one has been held accountable. What about Ruby Ridge? The list of Democrat crimes is long. They can't get them all. But clearly there must be SOME people held to account. Otherwise, this will keep on happening.

The Bible Makes Clear Accepting Foreigners Should Not Be a Suicide Pact

 I want to highlight today a post by Andrea Widburg at the American Thinker entitled No, the Bible does not say conservatives must support illegal immigration. Whenever I have encountered Leftists attempting to use the Bible against conservatives, it is usually by taking an isolated verse disconnected from the whole passage around it and from the rest of the Bible itself. In this case, it is an isolated verse in the book of Leviticus. Widburg does a masterful job of taking into account the entire context and placing the verse in question into that context.

Widburg sums up the analysis with:

What’s fundamentally important here is that the Bible makes it clear that welcoming foreigners into one’s land must not be a suicide pact. Old Testament-era immigrants are welcome only to the extent that the Jewish nation thrives.

That’s the same way that conservatives, including those who take the Bible very seriously, feel about immigration to America: It’s not a suicide pact. Just as God told the Israelites that sojourners were to be treated well if they were not a threat to the institutions, we conservatives accept legal immigration, which, when properly applied, ensures that America is not conquered.

Thus, legal immigration means that we’re not swarmed by 10 million unvetted people in four years. It means we don’t give student visas and green cards to people open about their loathing for America and their loyalty to other nations and values. And it most certainly means that we don’t give people like Zohran Mamdani citizenship. Criminals, freeloaders, communists, caliphate-seeking Islamists, etc. all threaten our values and national security and today, as was the case approximately 3,400 years ago, they need to leave.

Just so. People who want to come here, pursue the American dream, and follow the Constitution are welcomed here with open arms. People who come here with the intent of destroying the United States, people like the anti-ICE rioters waving foreign flags, or, frankly, like Mamdani who is an avowed communist, should leave. One could argue that these people have loyalties to other nations and therefore should be deported. There are plenty of places in the world to practice their particular politics. In fact, anywhere else. America is the one last hope for humanity. It is truly exceptional, as was ancient Israel.

Please go read Widburg's post as you may encounter such stupid arguments yourselves.

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Note: There are certain sects, for lack of a better word, of "Christians" who famously use isolated texts as so called "proof texts" for their own peculiar doctrines. One should not read the Bible this way. Instead, one should take the whole of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments together to determine God's will for us. Understand that He seldom directs people specifically. Thus, asking Him to tell you what to do is not the way to go about it. Instead, as an intelligent human being, you are to derive the right course of action from the whole text of the Bible.

For this reason, I suggest that one takes the entirety of the Bible and break it into bite size chunks every day such that at the end of a year, one will have read the entire Bible. There are many apps that will give you each day's reading, though of course you have to actually read it. Pick one and begin. I unfortunately started my journey late in life, but better late than never.

One other thing. The Bible is not a scientific text, nor is it a historical book in the sense of modern history, though archeology continues to show that the things mentioned in the Bible did truly happen. Rather, the Bible is a theological text, a narrative wherein Jesus truly is the main character and the hero of the plot. To make sense of the Bible, one must read it through the lens of faith. It makes no sense otherwise. And there are many odd things about daily life in ancient times that are not mentioned, so finding a church and a pastor who can fill you in on the social context can be important.

Americans Need to Wake Up

 Today, at the American Thinker Richard C. Crandall asks a very good question, to wit: When It Comes To Islam, Are We In The West Too Stupid To Survive? It often seems so as we keep electing Muslims to offices where they can more easily discriminate against those they consider "infidels." It must be understood that Islam is not the "religion of peace" for Jews, Christians, or for people who don't believe in any god. All of those are to be destroyed, or converted at the point of a sword. Even other Muslims are to be destroyed if they don't adhere to the Koran as interpreted by some. Thus, Islam is at eternal war with the rest of the world. And Islam, which means submission, is not compatible with the Constitution. How stupid, then, are we to allow another ideology that wants to destroy us into our country.

Putting aside the damage leftism does to American culture, we are also at risk from Islam, about which we still remain appallingly ignorant 24 years after 9/11. Instead, we have adopted the myth of “Moderate Muslims.” Before elaborating on Moderate Muslims, we must ask, “What other groups get to use the prefix “moderate?” During WWII, were there moderate Nazi members of Congress who claimed to only believe in the “good” parts of Mein Kampf, such as free health care. Were there moderate members of the KKK who only went out occasionally lynching, burning, and raping? And where are the moderate wife beaters who avoid hitting the face and who don’t leave visible bruising?

Crandall goes on to show how the supposed "moderate Muslim" does not really exist because to be what he calls "cafeteria Muslims" will bring death upon them by more observant Muslims. Throughout, he uses the term "Islam's god," which is entirely appropriate. For the "god" of Islam is not the same person as Christians and Jews worship, the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. I do not know enough of demonology to be sure, but I suspect that the god of Islam is the ancient demon Baal, called Baal-Zebub the god of Ekron in 2 Kings and later Beelzebub in the New Testament. He is the snake who tempted Eve in the Garden and pretends to sit on the Throne of Yahweh.

Muslims say prayers because no one likes to be praised more than the Islamic god. Humans were only created so they could worship the Islamic god.

This is in contrast to what we find in Genesis, where God created the world and man in the world in order to have a relationship with us. Too bad that we broke that relationship by listening to that evil snake. But God has not abandoned us, no. He sent his only begotten son to repair that relationship. That is the Christian faith, and how joyous it is. In comparison, how miserable it is to be Muslim.

Exposing Islam’s evil is complex because it has splintered into many branches and schools, each of which accepts its version of the Quran, school of sharia, and specific hadith. According to Muhammad, Islam would splinter into 73 sects, only one of which would go to paradise, so the right choice matters. In his last speech in Mecca, Muhammad said that if Muslims looked to and followed his behavior and words, they would never go wrong, and reiterated the necessity of a jihad until there a global Islamic conquest. His own behavior in Medina showed that he meant it. The Arabs were forcibly converted. The ancient Jewish tribes ere slaughtered, enslaved, and expelled.

Islam is following Muhammad’s behavior and words. Moderate Muslims are either apostates going to hell or engaged in Taqiyya, which forgives their sins.

There can never be peace between God and the devil, between God's people and the devil's minions. If we do not wake up, the Republic is lost. Either we must convert them, or they must be deported to somewhere else. The same goes for Europe, which seems lost now.

Why July Should Be Firearm Freedom Month

D. Parker, at the American Thinker today reports that the American Revolution began because of an attempt by the British government to confiscate our firearms in Celebrating the firearms freedoms that made independence possible. Parker sets the stage for his discussion using the recent stripping of the Hearing Protection Act and the SHORT act from the Big Beautiful Bill as a point of departure:

It should be clear by now that we're fighting an uphill battle against the fear and falsehood tactics of the gun-grabber left.

These were their go-to techniques in defeating legislation that would help protect people's hearing and right a wrong in the arbitrary regulation of barrel lengths.

It didn't seem to matter to this ghoulish lobby that they were lying outright in several instances or that they exploited fear to defeat these measures.

It only matters to them that they maintain their power over the people.

So, consider the case for celebrating our firearm freedoms in July and start reclaiming our rights.

Remember that they want to boycott or even cancel the holiday, so they shouldn't mind if we make it about guns for the whole month, right?

After setting the stage for his essay, Parker starts by recounting the history of the shot heard round the world in Concord, Massachusetts and its immediate after effects. Let's just say that the Redcoats retreat to Boston was, shall we say, unpleasant, as it should have been. He then notes that the Revolution started over firearms freedom, and that firearms freedom has remained as the guarantor of the rest of the Bill of Rights.

The revolution was sparked by firearm freedom, and these were essential in the attainment of independence. It's vitally important to remember that firearms made independence and the 4th of July possible in the first place, as well as keeping us independent and free.

Firearms are the backbone of the Bill of Rights; they put the steel in a document that could easily end up being ignored. This is why it's incessantly attacked on every level of government by the left.

Strangely enough, they don't even know of this constant assault on freedom. For example, a leftist recently posted a short video, with full-on TDS and talking of some of the rights she thought were being threatened, when she then blurted out something on what if they 'started' coming after the Second Amendment.

Started? As an old fart I well remember the lead up to the 1968 Gun Control Act (GCA) and have studied the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA). The Left has been coming for our firearms at least that long, and as these two laws have proven, they have succeeded far beyond what they should have done. The Bible tells us that Beelzebub (actually Baal-Zebub the god of Ekron in 2 Kings) rules this world, so it should not surprise us that he is always trying to undermine our ability to defend ourselves.

Noting that the revolution that brought us independence and eventually the Constitution started because of gun confiscation, and our Second Amendment was written expressly for the purpose of keeping our Bill of Rights under the Constitution, Parker proposes that July be firearm freedom month. I can't think of anything better.

Showing that the left knows that our firearm freedoms are the backbone of the Bill of Rights. They know that if these were gone as in other nations, the Bill of Rights would be nothing but flowery words on old parchment, and they would ignore them as they do elsewhere

.

Therefore, it's time that we start pushing back on the culture and the fear tactics, and the lies of the left to maintain and advance our freedoms.

Thus, the point of celebrating our Firearm freedoms in July.

Note that this started as 'gun pride month' but we're way beyond that now.