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.

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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.

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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.

The Trannies of the Left Misgender, Conservatives Tell the Truth

 You can read about Megan Kelly's take down of one Benjamin Ryan who writes for the New York Times here. She is absolutely right about the use of preferred pronouns. They are dangerous, and we conservatives should never knuckle under and use them.

One thing she doesn't say, and it needs to be said loud and clear is that when we tell the obvious truth about some poor misguided soul who thinks he is a she or vice versa, we are not misgendering, or dead naming or whatever they holler at us. The so-called "transgendered" person is the one misgendering himself or herself. It's the standard game the Left plays on conservatives, accusing them of doing what they themselves are doing. So, they misgender themselves and then complain when we tell the truth.  Color me shocked.

A Win-Win For the Human Race

As we approach the 4th of July, and the celebration of our independence from Great Britain, how about some good news for a change.  No, not about politics, which always seems to be bad news.  Instead, how about some good news on the natural front.  At the American Thinker today, Vijay Jayaraj has a post entitled CO2 sustains greenhouse farming revolution.

Jayaraj asks if CO2 is such a dangerous gas that it is literally killing the planet, why would farmers deliberately pump it into their greenhouses at levels far greater than the atmospheric amount of 400 parts per million? What do they know that the climate alarmists clearly pretend not to know? Remember, the more crops, and the higher quality of those crops that a farmer grows, the more money he makes.

Carbon dioxide -- the gas branded as public enemy number one -- is not destroying the planet. It’s enhancing life on it. Across the globe, elevated CO2 levels are supercharging plant growth and delivering bountiful crop harvests at unprecedented rates.

Why does this matter? Because future generations could benefit from rejecting the hysteria and embracing common sense and well-established facts.

Since the start of the 20th century, atmospheric CO2 has risen from around 300 parts per million (ppm) to over 420 ppm. If you believe some headlines, this is tantamount to a death sentence. But if you're a farmer -- or a scientist focused on plant physiology -- this increase looks like a gift.

Gentle readers who are interested can read about the success of greenhouse farming around the world. China, it turns out, is a global leader in greenhouse farming. Israel has quite a bit as well. I just wanted to point out that even here in North Carolina, where agriculture is big business, greenhouse farming is also big business:

The Metrolina Greenhouses in Huntersville, North Carolina, consists of eight million square feet of heated indoor growing space, making it the largest single-site, heated greenhouse in the U.S.

The Meteorologists on the news keep telling us that we need to be careful because of the heat. I don't know though, I remember running in temperatures reaching into the 100 range in Huntsville, Alabama in my 20s, and I am here to tell you about it. It has been hot lately, I will give you that, but I have managed to keep up with my jogging. Meanwhile, the higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere make pasture and meadow grasses grow better, which feeds cows and sheep to provide tastey meals for us. Seems like a win-win to me.