This Is Exactly What I Said We Should Be Afraid Of

It’s Wednesday morning, May 24, 2023 and DeSantis is expected to announce his candidacy this evening. The mudpies are being crafted, the consultants and strategists, pundits and minions are all girding for battle. And we on the Right will be witness to a completely unnecessary duel that will make us look like fools, take the heat off the REAL fools in the Administration, drain economic and political capital resources, further polarize the Right and potentially result in some woke Leftist walking into the Oval Office in January 2025 without having to utter a word.

When, if ever, will anti-woke, patriotic Traditionalists, whether conservative, MAGA, moderate, reactionary, Old Guard or Populist America First realize that we’re in a wrestling match with pigs. None of the previous rules matter. Civility, truth, statesmanlike persuasion, FACTS, REALITY…all are out the window!

If this country is to be saved, we have to adopt the Jack Bauer persona FIGHTING LIKE HELL for what’s right NO MATTER WHAT!

Aren’t you as shocked as I that the country could go so far downhill SO FAST into the unrecognizable chaos and bizarro-world we now see? Yeah, well it has and I’m reminded of the old saying, “Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Some people wonder, “What happened”?

The wake up calls, the handwriting on the walls IN NEON LIGHTS have been here since Clinton came out of nowhere and started peddling recycled hippie tropes from the 60’s to the delight of the lazy, uneducated, brain-addled Millennials and Gen Xr’s. Like cancer, liberal became virulent WOKE and has now metastasized to every corner of our society such that now we actually need a counter-revolution to save the country.

Who best to lead this fight? I will vote for ANYONE who runs against the Democrat candidate.

But as one of my favorite authors, Kurt Schlichter put it:

“The GOP’s decision in 2024 is solely over the identity of the general who will take command. Will it be the cold, calculating, ruthlessly effective DeSantis, or the unstoppable juggernaut that is Donald Trump? Both will rain down destruction upon our enemies – Ron the precision Hellfire and Don the massive MOAB.

The real difference between the two is electability – that is, who is most likely to win in the general election? The polls are all over the place and useless 18 months out, but we do have some indicators. The 2020 election, and subsequent ones, show Trump has a sub-majority ceiling. That’s a problem and it’s not likely to change – he threaded the needle once and maybe he can do it again, but hoping to get lucky twice is not a plan. The fact is that some people, including Republicans who should know better, irrationally hate him and will never vote for him. Of course, some Republicans will never vote for anyone else. We know both guys hate wokeness, communism, crime and all the other aspects of the Democrat agenda. What we need to know is how they each propose to win in PA, GA, AZ, MI, and WI.

This race is about winning and only about winning.”

IMHO, while I viscerally dislike Trump’s style, his playground bully persona, his inability to string two English sentences together without repeating himself five times… in these perilous, no-holds-barred times, we need a STREET FIGHTER to lead the Counter Revolution. Trump has proven himself to be just that. DeSantis, so good in so many ways, doesn’t have the brawling prowess that Trump has. DeSantis has the potential to become the statesmanlike heir to the American Renaissance that is needed post the War that will have to be fought by a Republican in the White House in the next Administration. Either could defeat the Democrats in 2024 given a fair election (a critical caveat…see my earlier posts on the subject of Election Integrity), but not only do we need to defeat the Left, the SWAMP has to be dismantled, and a bully will be needed to accomplish that.

The moving parts, wild cards and potential Black Swans out there for the next 18 months are simply too numerous to allow a serious prognostication as to what WILL happen. What I hope DOES happen is that somehow the coming internecine battle sorts itself out without too much irrevocable damage such that we can unite, clean up the system and restore America to what it should be. My hope and prayer is that the coming battle between the Trump and DeSantis factions doesn’t destroy the Traditionalist army needed to defeat and cast on the ash-heap of history the evil, Leftist ideology threatening to take over our world.

Keep your seat belts fastened, and

“Illegitimi non carborundum”.

ELECTION INTEGRITY, ELECTION INTEGRITY, ELECTION INTEGRITY…NOTHING MATTERS MORE!

Oh, and in case the headline didn’t get my point across, ELECTION INTEGRITY has to be the paramount subject! Not enough is being done about this, especially in the swing states which will determine the outcome of the 2024 Election.

Every day there’s another poll, another talking head explaining how there’s no way Biden could win next year. “Trump will win the Primary but lose the General” is another meme.

I can’t overstate what underlies all of this posturing and campaigning and polling, etc.

IT’S WHO COUNTS THE VOTES, NOT WHO VOTES THAT MATTERS!!!!

As Jay Valentine points out yet again in his straightforward, persuasive, common sense  and thoughtful way, (see article in American Thinker HERE), there isn’t ANY Republican candidate: not Trump, not DeSantis, not the Lord Jesus Christ, who can win in 2024 the way the Democrats have rigged the system.

If what happened in 2020 and in the Supreme Court of Wisconsin election this year doesn’t hit us in the face like the Binaca blast, we’re dreaming, in denial or have just been so ground down to the point that we’ve given up.

Can anything be done about this? Is there any way our election system can be repaired in a few short months so it reflects the will of the American people, not the will of the Leftist Cabal?

I honestly don’t think it can. No amount of money put into advertising, in pointing out the obvious, in trying to inspire the electorate…means a damn thing if the corruption is not rooted out of the election process.

I continue to maintain that either a Black Swan, Unknown-Unknown Event or Divine Intervention will be needed to neutralize the corruption, send the cheaters and criminals back under their rocks and repair our constitutional republic.

By definition, if we can speculate what that Black Swan might consist of it wouldn’t be an Unknown-Unknown. Truly, something monumental, a universal ‘tipping point’, a cataclysmic Paradigm Shift is what will be needed to save our country.

God help us if a woke or incompetent Democrat is seated in the White House come January 2025, if true conservatives don’t have supermajorities in the House and Senate. Even if the GOP controls both the Executive and Legislative branches It will still take a generation to reverse this slide down the slippery slope to ruin.

But we must not, we cannot, we may not stop fighting to retrieve what’s left of our sanity, our integrity, our humanity.

And what does “fighting” mean? It means sending letters to the RNC, to Trump, to DeSantis, to the other candidates, to our senators and congressmen placing Jay Valentine’s article in front of them.  It’s also sending letters to the major and minor media outlets giving them a piece of your mind. It’s attending Town Hall meetings and not just listening, but speaking up when woke idiocracy is spouted by those on the dais. It’s courageously speaking up in a restaurant or McDonalds when some green-haired snowflake begins acting out and telling them to “shut up”, sit down and behave themselves.

It also means preparing for the worst, placing our heads on swivels and being prepared to physically defend ourselves, our loved ones, our friends and our homes if the Leftist mob comes down our street to attack us.

Now is the time to prepare. If and when things go South, it will be too late.

The Topics Are Being Covered

I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks. It’s not because I don’t have anything to say. It’s because there has been a groundswell of commentary by others far more articulate than I who cover just about everything on which I might opine! Authors like Victor Davis Hanson, Brian C. Joondeph, Matt Vespa, Derek Hunter, Katie Pavlich, and so many others write superbly, say it like it is, and often take the words right out of my mouth, and before I can form them!

And it’s not just the conservative websites and blogs that carry their thoughts. Increasingly, and finally (!) even leftist media outlets are starting to react to the never-ending stream of BS that emanates from the mouths of the government and their lackies.

Actually, it’s the other way around. The lackies are running the government. The leftist demagogues in big tech, the media, academia, the Marxist implants in the judicial system, the use(less) idiots seeking their fifteen minutes of fame…all are formed into an assault on traditional values. Think the scene from the Battle of Helms Deep in Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers.

The topics are at this point, familiar. There is, like clockwork, an idiocy or atrocity or two or three stemming from the Left each and every day. It truly is like the scene shown above. The forces of good and evil are arrayed against one another, and for the moment, it’s as if evil has the upper hand.

Here’s the problem:

On the Right we have free thinking, self-governing, independent, solo practitioners of Life.

On the Left, we have lemmings, sheep, sycophants, utopian-fantasy, “can’t we all just get along”, head-in-the-sand, dumbed-down, addled and brainwashed followers led by power-and-wealth-hungry demagogues.

It’s extremely difficult for individuals to stand up to the crowd. Especially when the crowd has megaphones and billboards the size of jumbotrons!

It’s not a matter of the Right “waking up”. We’re fully awake. It’s that INDIVIDUALS cannot beat the COLLECTIVE without HELP.

Where does that HELP come from? Is it a charismatic, righteous leader? Is it a conservative institution that rises above all others? Is it a Black Swan/Monumental event that draws us together by forcing us to concentrate on the traditional things that matter? Is it Divine Intervention?

I think nothing short of a catastrophic or tipping point event that compels the weak-minded Left to set aside their foolishness and return to level-headed basics together with the aggregate pleadings of millions upon millions of God-fearing individuals imploring Divine Intervention will break the back of the cancer that has affected our nation and the rest of the Western World.

Another 9-11. China invading Taiwan. The Israelis nuking Tehran. NORKO bombing Japan. Russia using tactical nukes in Ukraine or invading Poland or Finland. Or less likely: a CME (coronal mass ejection) wiping out our electrical grid or Ebola/Marburg exploding in Africa and spreading throughout the world.

These are all what we’d call “known unknowns”. Then there are the “unknown unknowns”. By definition, we can’t see it/them coming.

The situation is beyond “out of control” at this point. We can hope and pray that the consequences of “wokeness” keep materializing. Corporations (Disney, Anheuser Busch) and Schools (school board attendance/protests) are just a couple of examples of the swinging of the pendulum. Late-night comedians (Maher, Gutfeld) are picking up on it. Legislatures are putting their feet down in various red-districts. Churches are sheepishly (.sic) returning to traditional dogma.

Voices more powerful than mine are becoming more bold, more heard, more acknowledged and maybe, just maybe, the ground is being prepared for the final battle. We must win or perish.

El Paso or Kyiv? It’s Not One Or The Other!

So in order to deflect the narrative away from all his failings here at home, Brandon makes a surprise visit to Kyiv. As an aside, Kyiv was, arguably the ancestral home of Russia, where the Varangians (Vikings) set up shop in the late 9th Century and became the capital of the “Kievan Rus” people’s progenitors, thus, Moscow can fairly claim some attachment to the City and to Ukraine as well.

But everything is political with the Democrats, and staged, and calculated to advance power or money. With national security questions surrounding the Chinese balloon, the Ohio train derailment, the continuing border crisis, the price of eggs, chicken farms going up in smoke, power outages, the latest COVID variant and of course wokeness in all its forms dominating the headlines and exposing this administration as the bumbling idiots they are, what better way to divert attention than with a war (remember “Wag the Dog”?) or better yet, a surprise trip to a war zone!

Bonus points to the Democrats for finding yet another way to divide our people. I’m watching/hearing conservative talking heads arguing vociferously for and against helping the Ukrainians. On the one hand, what business do we have spending godzillions of dollars defending a two-bit, corrupt country’s borders while we don’t even defend our own? On the other, how can we not defend them and the breadbasket they represent to our NATO allies and halt the advance of an adversary (enemy, really) seeking to expand its territory under the maniacal rule of a thug?

The reason we have the controversy at all is that the wokesters in power have so weakened our economy, our international standing and reputation, have so poisoned our internal discourse, have so fractured our society and understanding of foreign vs. domestic affairs, and have so “fundamentally transformed” us that neither we nor the rest of the world know where the hell we stand on anything!

While Trump boasting that this Russian invasion would not have occurred on his watch doesn’t burnish his image or reputation in my eyes, there is truth in the boast. It is not, however, because of Trump but because of the unmatched power and influence that America had when we were energy independent, had the border relatively under control, exhibited strength and adherence to traditional and conservative principles – all which we began to return to when Trump simply reversed the prior eight years’ “progressiveness”.

The choice doesn’t have to be between spending money at home or spending it abroad. While a tremendous amount of damage has been done by the dysfunctional adolescents in this Administration to both the United States and the balance of power in the world, all we would have to do is abandon the environmental gods and restore our energy independence, invest in our military, seal the border, and act like the sole remaining superpower we are instead of like a bunch of sniveling transgender, victim-celebrating losers who believe in the utopian fantasy that somehow “we can all get along”!

In other word, WE CAN DO BOTH, but no under this Administration! A trip to Kyiv by THIS President isn’t going to convince Putin to withdraw, or the Chinese to stop spying on us, or halt their Taiwan invasion planning, or the North Koreans from further developing their missile and nuclear technology, or the mullahs in Tehran to stop trying to figure out how they can wipe Israel off the map, or the Venezuelans from plotting how they can assimilate their neighbors, etc. etc.!

The chaos wrought by Biden and his Obama-inspired henchmen makes it impossible to predict what the outcome of this latest shiny object effort will be. The MSM are going to extol Biden’s ‘courage’ in the face of extraordinary danger (like Hillary coming under Bosnian sniper fire or similar nonsense) and continue to regurgitate the Democrat talking points, further confusing, dividing and pushing us all down the slippery slope.

Please keep your seat belts fastened, think skeptically and critically on EVERYTHING you read, hear or watch. We live in a Post-Truth world. Don’t parrot the media’s talking points from either the Right OR the Left. Ask yourself whether it makes sense, how it affects you, and PREPARE for a continuation of this Bizarro World.

The State of the Union Address

I admit. I didn’t watch it. I am so disgusted by the continuing marionette show I prefered to simply review the commentary afterwards. Others far more informed than I have already pointed out all the lies and distortions that spewed forth from the mouth of the puppet-in-chief. I’m going to, rather, address the peripheral question as to whether the GOP over-reacted and/or inappropriately reacted to the deliberate, pre-meditated misrepresentations and accusations hurled at them. Should they have sat quietly shaking their heads as Kevin McCarthy did, or should they have stood and yelled, “liar”, as Marjorie Taylor Greene did?

I’ve listened to both sides of the argument. Some on the Right say that not only was it uncharacteristic of members to shout out their opposition, but unseemly at best, rude and obnoxious at worst. They suggest that having done so, the GOP descended into the mud pit and acted no better than the Democrats. “Take the high road” has more often than not been the admonition of the Right.

What good has taking the high road done? I’m all for nobility and decorum, but when your opposition elevates their game from name-calling to defamation, censorship and character assassination (not to mention threat of REAL assassination – e.g. Kavanaugh), i.e. nonsensical speech to verbal kinetics, and has destroyed all means of civil undertakings to oppose him, the decision has to be made whether to take off the gloves and fight back, or not. The Democrats have so destroyed the principles by which we as a nation have governed ourselves for over three hundred years, so twisted and perverted the vocabulary, the rules of engagement, our history, even FACTS, that we have no choice, really, but to fight fire with fire.

This does not mean that we should simply resort to the kind of perverted antics so cherished by the Alinsky/Cloward and Piven brainwashed Left. Throwing the BS flag onto the floor of the House as was done during the SOTU isn’t a duplication of their style. Rather, it was a transparent, for-all-the-world-to-see return of fire akin (but more honest) to the ripping up of Trumps SOTU speech by Pelosi.

While some on the Right have argued that we gave the MSM a golden opportunity to castigate us further, I could almost hear the unified voices of the Traditionalists and Conservatives in America joining MTG, in unison!

Just as the Chinese push and push to see how far they can go, what our limits are, the Democrats have pushed and pushed to determine how far THEY can go. And once our limit is reached, and we push back, they cry, “See, you’re pigs and fascists and racists and anti-democracy and insurrectionists and threats to America.”

This is projection of the first order! Their banal vituperations are so childish, so outlandish, so petulant, so descriptive of precisely what THEY are and what THEY do, it would be laughable if it were not so destructive.

Shouting “liar” may be rude, but it’s factual, and for many brain-addled, MSNBC/CNN/NBC/CBS/ABC-watching Americans, it’s the first time they’ve ever seen any opposition to the BS spewing forth from their “leaders”.  The MSM has so distorted and censored the truth, they have created an alternative reality that millions of our fellow Americans actually believe! They are shocked to see the Right stand and call “BS”. They are puzzled when the MSM is forced (follow the money!) to cover the Democrats’ patently obvious treachery and deceit, their attempts to hide their failures and the results of their destructive policies and actions.

Is vocal opposition such as that witnessed during the SOTU enough to turn the tide? Does it help push the pendulum back? Will the probes by Comer and Jordan and the continuing exposure by what remains of conservative media start to repair the damage done to the hearts and minds of so many Americans who have fallen for the Leftist “alternative reality”?

I fear not. As good as it felt to hear someone voice what I would have said in the House chamber that night, it’s all talk. Until the GOP uses its power to halt the idiocracy created by the Democrats, until it garners and uses every tool at its disposal to pierce the dark fog of BS with which the Democrats have filled the airwaves, until more MTG’s, Gaetz’s Jordans, Kennedys, etc. create enough headlines with truth bombs to get the lemmings to break from their rush to the precipice, we will continue to simply hurl invectives at one another and continue sliding down the slippery slope.

As I have come to conclude, it’s going to take something monumental to wake America up. Not a balloon, not the Hunter laptop, not yelling “liar”. Something truly nasty may need to happen that will cause us to apply chemotherapy combined with radiation to kill the cancer that has metastasized. The Democrats have skillfully exploited the ratchet effect to incrementally destroy our values, our principles, our country.

We need to strip the ratchet.

A Black Swan May Be The Only Thing That Will Stop This Madness

In my previous post I concluded that it may take a cataclysmic event to restore sanity to our nation. I’m not talking about the price of eggs or gas skyrocketing, or store shelves being empty for a few days. I’m talking about something that will cause even the most dumbed-down, brain-addled, handheld-screen-addicted person to pick his or her head up and say, “Wow, maybe some things are more important than what the Kardashians are up to this week!”

I’ve long said that Economics is the dismal science, an academic exercise in futility, and while it may be fun and may earn a whole raft of propeller-heads an income, even wealth, it’s really only mental masturbation of the highest order.

Why do I say this? Because economics deals with building “models” that describe what the panoply of pulled levers have caused in the past with the hope that those models will help us predict the future. The fundamental problem with these models, however, is that they depend on two flawed assumptions: 1) the “rational man” and 2) the “absence of an outside shock”.

In case you haven’t been paying attention let me state the obvious:

First, there is no such thing as a rational man (or woman). All human beings are driven, at least in part if not entirely, by feelings, perceptions, etc., what I’d characterize as “squishy stuff”, NOT rational, analytical thought.

And, as we have all seen, “outside shocks” OCCUR ALL THE TIME! They differ in magnitude, of course, but they destroy models’ explanations of the past and their usefulness as predictors of the future.

Nevertheless, thousands of economists and bureaucrats pontificate endlessly on the overarching topics that impact our daily lives and GET PAID TO DO SO! Sometimes they’re right, more often they’re wrong, but they persevere.

In his famous book, Nassim Nicholas Taleb defines a Black Swan as an improbable event with three basic characteristics: it is unpredictable, it has massive impact, and after the fact, explanations are concocted to make it appear less random.

Examples of past Black Swan events include: the 2000 Do-Com Crash, 9-11, the Fall of Lehman Brothers, the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear Disasters, BREXIT, and most recently, COVID.

None of these were severe enough to wake people up. The effects, though severe, were not of such duration that people got serious about paying attention to things that matter.

Now we’re sufficiently far down the slippery slope, there is sufficient chaos, there is enough “information” flak in the air, that only a really BIG Black Swan of significant duration will, in my opinion, bring us back to REAL Reality!

So, what might such a Black Swan consist of?

China invading Taiwan
Israel nuking Tehran
The North Koreans launching a nuke at Japan
The San Andreas fault creating Nevada beach-front property
Tactical nukes get used in Ukraine
NATO deploys troops to Ukraine
The Stock Market crashes
The Yellowstone Volcano erupts
Biden resigns and Harris becomes President and Michele Obama becomes Vice President (threw this one in because it is such a frightening nightmare!)
A terrorist attack on the 9 key substations takes down the electrical grid for from 3 months to a year
Another, more deadly virus gets out of a lab
A coronal mass ejection REALLY hits Earth and wipes out much of what is electronic

I could conjure up more… These are just some “known unknowns”. A Black Swan is by definition an “unknown unknown”!

That one about a protracted blackout is the one that worries me the most. Three weeks without electricity and we’re in trouble. Three months without electricity and we’re in a shit-hit-the-fan, possibly even TEOTWAKI (The End of the World As We Know It) situation. I urge my readers to think about this stuff. The time to prepare for a Black Swan walking up your driveway isn’t after it’s already at your front door. It’s not as if we haven’t been forewarned and as if we don’t see how vulnerable our country and society is.

No Silver Bullets, No Easy Answers

Since the election, through the Holidays, now well into the New Year, I’ve been thinking about the answer to the question, “What now?”.

Sorting through the “news” each day, I can’t help but see more and more confusion over what is true, what is falsehood, what is sensationalism, what is understatement. The one word to describe our state of affairs is: CHAOS.

I don’t see any cohesive strategy, any clear direction, any comprehensible plan to either ‘make our country great again’ or ‘take it back’ or ‘drain the swamp’ or ‘root out corruption’. I see little to no consequences for malfeasance, for lying, for theft, for waste, for self-abusive destruction of what has since its inception been the greatest country in the world.

‘Common sense’ is no longer common.

Demagoguery,, self-delusion, obsequiousness and self-centeredness are common.

Psychologists call it ‘other-directed’. Fewer and fewer people think critically much less skeptically. Individualism has given way to herd instinct. Emotions rule – no one spends the time to think rationally.

What was fringe is now mainstream. Pushbacks against what would in other time be considered lunacy are met with overwhelming, crushing condemnation. It’s as if the one reasonable person standing in the middle of a valley is being charged by thousands of buffalo. Just read the responses on Twitter or any other social medium to a ‘traditional’ statement or viewpoint.

I’ve long thought that the way to change the course of our national ship is with good leadership, with the development of new Hollywood heroes who successfully fight and win against the encroaching and increasingly pervasive evil infecting our society, with ‘reality’ hitting Gen X and Gen Z such that they awaken from their folly.

It ain’t happening! The megaphone afforded by the Internet puts power in the hands of the deleterious, the destructive, the Evil. On one hand it improves lives. On the other hand, it destroys them.

It’s not just artificial intelligence that has supplanted real intelligence. Social media and the ubiquitous handheld phone/tablet/computer combined is now an addiction.

Pew Research tells us:

  • 46% of teens say they use the internet “almost constantly”
  • 48% of teens say they go online several times a day
  • 48% of teenage girls say they’re online “almost constantly”
  • 43% of teenage boys say they’re online “almost constantly”

Look around you. It’s not just teenagers. So long as our society continues to descend into an artificial reality, fundamental human priorities will be back-burnered, what’s important neglected, what’s moral diminished, what’s good scoffed at.

No hero, no charismatic leader, no game of whack-a-mole is going to turn this around. Artificial reality has become Real Reality!

Thus I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it will take some kind of cataclysmic event to wake up society and get people serious again. A Black Swan. Something that completely shatters what I will call Artificial Delusion and return us to basics.

It’s long past time to prepare for that Black Swan event.

An Exceptional Article Worth Reading

As I have often said, there are many who say it like I wish I could have said it. The following article, found on American Thinker January 11, 2023, is an example. J.B. Shurk expertly lays out the case for “we the people” pushing back on government. I strongly urge you to read the full article which can be found here. Some excerpts:

“Ordinary people have extraordinary power. Don’t believe me? Watch what happens if tens of millions ever decide to close their bank accounts all at once. Or critical sectors of the workforce decide to stay home for weeks. Or a sizable percentage of the population refuses to obey arbitrary and capricious government orders. When citizens become fed up enough to take matters into their own hands, those with government-bestowed titles learn quickly how little power those vaunted titles actually have.”

“Nothing is so certain as death and taxes,” the old proverb goes, but it might just as accurately be said of almost all governments throughout history that those in charge will extract from those under their thumb either death or taxes — and often both. Force is the only language most governments know, although that force is often disguised as being performed for the people’s “own good.” As it turns out, force is generally sufficient for corralling humans into their government-controlled pens, especially if there are carrots or other treats inside to keep them content, if not particularly happy. When those pens have nothing attractive to offer and become overrun with filth, however, then those doing the corralling must resort to more and more force in order to make their captives obey.”

“It is not the American way, however, for citizens to live higgledy-piggledy under the ambiguous reign of one government dictate to the next. It is not American for an unelected bureaucracy to create rules out of thin air and enforce them upon the people through agency prerogative and regulation. It is not American for presidents to legislate through executive order.”

“It is not American for congresses to conduct show trials against American citizens or to demand that tech companies censor points of view. It is not American for courts to scribble over the Constitution whenever expedient. It is not American for the Department of (in)Justice to persecute citizens for their political beliefs or for the FBI to act as a lethal enforcer against the regime’s political enemies.”

“It is not American for there to be so many criminal statutes that no American could possibly know them all, let alone confidently act without fear of sanction. It is not American for there to be so many government agencies and divisions that no American could capably draw a diagram listing their roles and functions.”

It is not American for the government to champion its secular religion over the moral tenets of Americans’ spiritual faiths. It is not American for the government to ignore the will of its citizens and subvert immigration law by leaving its borders unprotected and wide open. It is not American for an amorphous Intelligence Community to spy on American citizens with neither warrant nor probable cause. It is not American for the news media to be so co-opted by the State that they almost universally support the government’s talking points — no matter how ludicrous and unsupported — while taking aim at dissenting citizens’ debate.

It is not normal for a “government of the people” to regularly denigrate its citizens as racists, extremists, deplorables, terrorists, misogynists, bigots, and rubes. It is not normal for any government claiming to be “for the people” to declare half the nation “enemies of the State.”

“These are the acts of a government committed to using intimidation, violence, and other forms of coercion in order to get its way.”

On The House Speaker Circus

I watched Hannity last night excoriate Lauren Boebert, referring to the sixth failed Kevin McCarthy vote, endlessly repeating “It’s 200 to 20”! No Sean. It’s 0 for 6! The issue isn’t whether there are more votes for McCarthy than against him. The issue is binary: either he has sufficient votes or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, an alternative is needed.

I come down on the side of the rebels in this clash. If the Republican Party doesn’t change its leadership, strategy and tactics, it will continue to fail to take back the country, drain the swamp and prevail against the Leftist onslaught.

One of the phrases I keep hearing about Kevin McCarthy is: “He’s done the work. He’s raised the money. He’s recruited good candidates.”

THAT’S THE PROBLEM! THE REPUBLICANS RAISE MONEY AND RECRUIT CANDIDATES. THE DEMOCRATS ARE FIGHTING A WAR, COLLECTIVELY, FOR THEIR PRINCIPLES, WRONG AS THEY MAY BE! There’s a huge difference in approach to governing!

As I’ve noted previously, our Speaker doesn’t have to be, nor should he or she be, another Nancy Pelosi. Couldn’t happen anyway – Republicans wouldn’t follow a demagogue or someone as corrupt as she was/is.

Our Speaker must do more, however, than eat rubber chicken, raise money and recruit candidates who will kowtow to “Leadership’s” diktats. Our Speaker needs to FIGHT, INSPIRE, MOTIVATE, LEAD, not just espouse, but TEACH and PROMOTE conservative principles (as Reagan did!). He or she needs to do more than just talk. The GOP Speaker needs to rally the Silent Majority who overwhelmingly support the conservative agenda and PUSH that agenda. And at the moment, while Biden controls the Senate and Executive Office, the Speaker needs to BLOCK, TACKLE and CLIP the Democrat agenda at every opportunity.

Kevin McCarthy lacks the most important of the necessary leadership qualities: the ability to inspire and motivate! He is, in fact, an archetype of the Old Guard (a.k.a. Swamp)!

I could be wrong on this, but isn’t is just possible that the Rebel 20 opposition to McCarthy is based on a sincere desire to change the way the GOP does business in Washington? Could it be that while they may not have a specific “hero/heroine” in mind as an alternative, that first they have to win the argument that electing McCarthy won’t help us win but set us back further? Could there be personal antipathies and hidden agendas, yes, but fundamentally, is what the Rebel 20 are saying, “This is our chance to change how the GOP will fight Leftism in the Future, and it begins on this hill.”?

Some pretty terrible labels are being attached to the Rebel 20: “terrorists”, “obstructionists”, narcissists, etc.

I, on the other hand, think they’re behaving the way they are because they fundamentally recognize the following:

Republicans are ill-equipped to take back the country, drain the swamp and fight the Left. If we don’t change, we’ll continue to atrophy and die.

The Left, lemmings and brain-addled followers that they are, coalesce whenever the music comes up and they “feel” righteous in their pursuit of the “Can’t we all get along” utopia they dream about. Like proper sheep, they follow the demagogue leaders who have written and pronounced the words of the hymns. No original thought. No concern for what’s best for America. Concern only for power and money, and I might add, celebrity.

Republicans, on the other hand, are the inheritors and keepers of the rugged individualism that built this country. They are skeptical, thinking, opinionated but generally more altruistic and freedom-loving, self-reliant, subscribe to the notion that “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem”, and are unwilling-to-be-dominated and refuse to be told what to think or do.

So, with those solid principles in their ideology, of course they’re opposed to Kevin McCarthy’s business-as-usual approach to leadership!

Let it play out.

The Christmas Story

I am dismayed by how many people do not know the story of the birth of Christ. Sure, there are cartoons and videos and picture books that depict the sequence of events, all with high production values to capture the attention of young and old in a world of instant gratification, shiny objects (.sic) and eye-popping visuals, but even I had to stop and think about the main points as I prepared to recount the story to my grandkids this Christmas. They’re still too young and squirmy for me to read it to them from the Bible but I take a few minutes, have their parents hold them down, and remind them of what the Christ is Christmas is all about.

We can lament how commercialism has overtaken the significance of what happened over two thousand years ago, but unless we pause at some point during the next few days and think about it, another year will rush by.

So for those of us with short attention spans or those who wish to recount the story to others without a PowerPoint presentation… here goes:

  • Joseph and Mary are living in Nazareth when one day an angel, Gabriel, appears to Mary and tells her she is going to have a baby boy who is the Son of God and that she is to name him Jesus.
  • Mary travels to visit her cousin Elizabeth who is also going to have a baby (John) and when Mary enters Elizabeth’s house, Elizabeth’s baby jumps in her womb and Elizabeth immediately knows that Mary is carrying the Holy Child. Mary spends three months with Elizabeth, then returns to Nazareth.
  • Caesar demands a census be taken so he can tax everyone, and everyone is to head to their traditional home city which for Joseph and Mary was Bethlehem, about 70 miles south of Nazareth.
  • When they arrive in Bethlehem, there is no room available for them in the “inn”.
  • They are told to spend the night where the sheep were kept. Mary gives birth to Jesus, wraps him in swaddling clothes, and places him in a manger.
  • Shepherds living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks at night are terrified by an angel that appears to them.
  • The angel says to them, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
  • Suddenly a great company of additional angels appear praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
  • When the angels retreat to heaven, the shepherds decide to go find the baby the angel spoke of.
  • The shepherds head to Bethlehem where they find Joseph and Mary and the baby lying in a manger. They tell everyone about what the angels had told them about the baby, and they go back to their flocks praising God for all they had seen and heard.
  • Mary had been told by the angel Gabriel that she was to name her son Jesus, but when he was eight days old, according to Hebrew tradition, the baby was officially given the name Jesus.

So what does this have to do with the price of eggs or gas, or the open border, or the election shenanigans, or the crises in our cities, or government corruption? In truth, it has to do with ALL of it. The Lord’s prescriptions really aren’t complicated or ambiguous. They’re straightforward and virtually all of our current problems can be traced to either violations of the Ten Commandments or Gospel Law.

As for me and my house, this year and every year I will insist that we pause to reflect on the real meaning of Christmas.

Hope yours is merry and that 2023 will be better for all of us. Hang in there and may God bless us all!