2024 Election Eve Thoughts

We are now down to the final day of the 2024 election cycle.  I believe we are also hearing the dying gasps of the failed Harris-Walz candidacy - the most radically leftist ticket this country has ever seen.  Having neither a proven track-record of achievement, nor past positions they are willing to defend, or even discernible issues to run on (unless you count expanding the gruesome torture and slaughter of innocent unborn children at the hands of an abortionist).  Instead, they are forced to resort to desperate slander and dishonest attack ads funded by the globalist corporatist interests that find their home with Democrats these day

But the truth will prevail - Past, Present, and Future.  We saw Donald Trump's past record of peace, prosperity, and safety during his term.  We see what Harris and Joe Biden has been doing to this country in the past 4 years - inflation, war, and lawlessness.  And we know what a future of a Harris-Walz administration will continue to do to this country, if given another 4 years to extend the decline, misery, and malaise.  Their path to victory, if you can call it that, is predicated on ignorance.  It is based largely on convincing you not to believe your own eyes, forgetting how good we had it during the Trump presidency, or not noticing the shrinking buying power of your paycheck.

 

Thus, it is not to say there is no message there.  There is a clear overarching message - summarized in one word: IGNORE.

- Ignore her long history of Marxist economics and promised price controls learned from her Stanford economist father and her own studies at Howard University

- Ignore her unremarkable record of public service in CA, and how her career was only launched because of her adulterous relationship with Willie Brown - the most powerful man in California at the time

- Ignore her past hard left public stands on the issues and unwillingness to defend them

- Ignore her record in the Senate where she was ranked to the left of even the radical Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders

- Ignore her failed record as a Vice President, President of the Senate, and Border Czar

- Ignore her almost complete lack of positive accomplishments in all those years in government

- Ignore her wholehearted insistence that "the border is secure" and "Bidenomics is working"

- and ignore the fact that you can barely afford a gallon of orange juice, a 12-pack of Pepsi, a couple dozen eggs, or even a Big Mac.

Ignore all of this and vote for four more years of it, because of the man they want you to hate.  

First they tried to convince voters Donald Trump was a threat to democracy (despite the fact that we have a Representative Republic, not a democracy).  When that didn't work, it was that Donald Trump is a Fascist.  And when they still couldn't get traction for their failing campaign, it became Donald Trump is Hitler incarnate and his followers are Third Reich throwbacks and human garbage.

Frankly, this is as clear an example of psychological projection as you can find.  As cynical, as hysterical, and yes, as diabolical as the Democrats themselves are, anyone who actually understands the absolute horrors wrought by fascism in the 1930s and 1940s, would still hesitate to call them fascists.  And that is despite the fact that one can rather safely say that they exhibit similar lawless, heavy-handed and tyrannical tendencies. 

But since they are the ones so freely throwing around the words Nazi and Fascist, it is worth the effort to examine more deeply the basis of their disingenuous exercise in projection...

As you know, it was the Biden Harris regime - not Donald Trump - who actually weaponized the judicial system to persecute those who opposed them, be it parents at school board meetings, grandmothers peacefully protesting outside abortion clinics, Republican political opponents, and ultimately, targeting and attempting to imprison their chief political rival.  So, who is it that is effectively utilizing fascist tactics? 

You see, it was their corrupt DOJ, under the leadership of Attorney General Merrrick Garland which colluded with corrupt, partisan local and state prosecutors from hostile venues to bring multiple expired, frivolous, and unprecedented felony charges against the other political party's presidential nominee.  So who's actually employing fascist methodology?

It was her Orwellian-sounding Dept. of Homeland Security, under Alejandro Mayorkas, that perjured himself, violated his oath of office, and blatantly ignored the department's mandate by turning the border patrol into a welcome wagon for tens of millions of illegal aliens, including criminals, drug smugglers, human traffickers, and even would-be terrorists who were invited across the porous southern border.  Who are the lawless fascists?

They attempted to remove their political opposition - actually their opposition from both parties,  (Trump and Kennedy) from the primary and general election ballots. That certainly sounds fascist-like, doesn't it?

And it was she who was nominated - or more accurately coronated - by party insiders to head her political party's ticket, without appearing on any state ballot or the benefit of winning a single primary.  So who exactly is the Fascist?

They are opposed to voter ID laws and ballot drop box surveillance. Her administration has fought at every turn those states which attempted to clean up voter rolls and remove non-residents, illegal aliens, and even the dead.  Who's the fascist?

They also have a callous disregard for the Constitution.  For nearly 4 years, Kamala and Joe's lawless regime waged relentless attacks against the First amendment, the Second amendment, the Fourth amendment, the Fifth amendment, and the Tenth amendment.  That is a direct threat to our democratic republic.  So who's really the Fascist?

It was her Biden-Harris administration which strong-armed tech companies in an effort to censor important information about COVID from the public?  In addition, it was Tim Walz's administration which opened liquor stores and candy stores but closed churches in Minnesota.  Who are the Fascists?

On top of that, they also want to add two along states with four additional Senators, remove the filibuster, and pack the Supreme Court with judicial activists to ram through their agenda.  All of which sounds a lot like fascist tactics to me.

So when Democrats cynically say " 'Democracy' is at stake in this election," take it with a grain of salt.   Truly, our Representative Republic is at stake, but only if she wins.  It is true that they want the purest form of Democracy - mob rule - when it benefits them, as it did during the summer of 2020 or when Antifa was terrorizing Supreme Court justices.  But when popular sentiment is against them, they are not above ruling against the will of the people, subverting the law, and imposing their will by any method they can get by with.

So my advice on election day is to ignore the angry epitaphs these people are hurling about, things such as:  Donald Trump is Hitler, those who don't support Harris are misogynistic and racist, and patriotic Americans who don't support their unqualified puppet candidate are deplorables, garbage, and fascists.

 

These are the accusations of a power-hungry, wannabe tyrant.

Despising of our system of government, persecuting political opponents, and upending the Constitution are not things to fear from Trump, should he be elected.  Rather, they are the simple reality of the past four years of Democrat control that Kamala and Tim will double down on if they are given power.

Much is at stake on Tuesday, November 5th.  Choose wisely.

Who is this Tim Walz guy?

As difficult as it was, I forced myself to listen to a half hour of that Satanic Circus frequently referred to as the Democratic National Convention last Wednesday night (08/21).

I must admit that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz gave a well-constructed, and even engaging, speech.  Unfortunately, while it was long on style, it fell short on substance, and was almost completely devoid of truth. That comes as no surprise to those of us out here in 'Rocks and Cows' country - as the old bull, Tim Walz, derisively refers to rural Minnesota - the place where many of us live who have suffered under the Walz administration's reign of terror for the past 5 or 6 years.

 

Yes indeed, Walz certainly talks a good game - projecting himself as either grandpa, coach, socialist neighbor, Robin Hood or Santa Claus, depending on the situation.  But what he actually delivers... well that ranges anywhere from a steaming pile of bovine scatology to despotic tyranny.

As has become all too typical with the political party of the far left, the speech itself was a barrage of unsupported accusations, aspersion casting, psychological projection, and just outright lies - commonplace diversion tactics in the critical attempt to hide their radical views from the voting public. Truly, his speech was all that.  But he didn't stop there.

For starters, he claimed - actually implored us to "trust me on this" - that Trump and Vance have a playbook. I agree that they do - and making this possibly one of the very few times he actually told the truth last night.  Although they didn't write it, their playbook is most commonly referred to by patriotic Americans as the Constitution of the United States of America.  And as such, you can be sure it is utterly incomprehensible to either Kamala Harris or Tim Walz.

Truth be told, the Harris and Walz ticket also have a playbook.  No, they didn't write theirs either - that would assume a level of seriousness that neither of them possess.  But in their case, they didn't need to.  

 

Karl Marx already wrote their playbook (as updated by Gramsci) in 1848. According to Antonio Gramsci, no cultural revolutionary worth his salt is without his long march through the institutions and history.  Walz is no exception.

Walz may be a former high school social studies teacher, but he is first and foremost a prevaricating politician. As such, his attempts at historical revisionism are pathetic, but expected - believable only by sycophantic party members and the brainwashed masses in attendance.  One such example was when he straight-facedly said:  "We know what they'll do if they get back in the White House. They'll jack up costs on middle-class families."  A charge that is laughable on its face.

To make such a charge against his opponents, willfully ignores the indisputable fact that in their 3 1/2 years, the Biden/Harris regime ushered in the highest inflation rates this country has seen since Jimmy Carter.  Yet Walz had the temerity to accuse the Republican ticket of planning to raise costs on families - consumer costs that have risen steadily since Harris and Biden assumed office and implemented their inflationary economic policy.  Inflation, more precisely, that was fueled by the cynically-named Inflation Reduction Act and which was only enacted by means of Ms. Harris' tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

Given that inflation is widely considered by economists to be the cruelest tax of all - hitting hardest those with the least means - this nonsensical claim was both a show of his utter lack of factual integrity and a clear appeal to ignorance within the Democrat base.

 

His economic illiteracy is illustrated further, given that only days prior, his running mate had announced her economic plan - or more accurately her plan to institute an obtrusive centrally planned economy.  A key component of which was wage and price controls to combat, in her words, "price gauging."  We can only speculate, but their plan will likely include asking Congress to repeal the law of supply and demand. 

As an aside, he also accused his opponents of wanting to repeal Obamacare.  Which ironically, is an action that, if passed through Congress would most certainly reduce health insurance prices to working Americans.

He also attempted to stir patriotism by appealing to his dubious military service claims (a topic for another time and another person) and by declaring that freedom was a big part of "what this election is about."  That, in some strange way, may be one of the few statements he made that Republicans might possibly agree with.  But any illusory point of agreement ends upon further examination of what he means.

Again, this truth-shifting sophist leveled the ironic charge that it is actually Republicans - not Democrats - who would be the threat to our freedom.  Such a fantastical claim can only be understood when you realize that his definition of freedom has little to do with the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 10th amendments, parts of the Bill of Rights which he has big disagreements with, but primarily the so-called 'freedom' to kill babies - unborn and even newborn - via surgical and chemical abortions, for any or no reason, and by any method, however gruesome.

More interestingly, the freedom charge is rife with hypocrisy coming from a man who reigned as a little dictator during COVID - someone who shut down his state, who set up a snitch hotline for neighbors to turn against neighbors, who sent armed police forces to shoot paintballs at citizens who were sitting on their front porches, who fined and jailed small business owners for remaining open, ordered COVID-infected patients into nursing homes, and who shut down churches while opening up candy stores, liquor stores, and strip clubs, while continuing his unchecked Emergency Powers months after COVID was no longer a threat.  This is the charlatan accusing Republicans of being a threat to freedom.

 

Indeed, quite a strange notion of freedom, these Democrats.

Despite all that, it would be a huge mistake to presume that Walz is a low IQ individual on par with his presumptive boss, Kamala Harris. Quite the contrary, he's probably better described as a diabolical genius, a master propagandistic rhetorician, and an opportunistic wannabe dictator.  In this writer's opinion, that's not 'Minnesota nice'.

 

 

 

 

A Costly 'Get Out of Jail Free' Card

There are two things I can say with near certainty about Joe Biden:

• Joe Biden is a crook
• Joe Biden will not be held accountable for any of his crimes

Most of us have seen the now-famous picture of a 60's era Corvette parked in the driveway, in front of an open garage.  Inside the disheveled-looking garage, are beat up boxes of papers - sitting there right out in the open on the floor in front of the open garage door.

Today we learned that the owner of that garage and the man who previously claimed that he was "surprised" when boxes of illegal classified documents were found in his house and garage, (while feigning outrage that Donald Trump had retained classified documents among his personal papers)  1  - has admitted under questioning by Special Counsel Robert Hur and his deputies, to knowing that he illegally held classified documents in his possession.

Hur's findings, outlined in a report which came out on Thursday, February 8, established that Biden, "willingly retained and disclosed classified materials," including "military, foreign policy, and sensitive national security secrets."  Additionally, Biden "knew he kept classified information in notebooks stored in his house and he knew he was not allowed to do so."  

Proving yet again how this corrupt Justice Department maintains a two-tiered justice system, Biden will not be charged (much less, impeached by the House of Representatives) for his illegal activities. In fact, Mr. Hur refuses even to prosecute the theft of classified documents from a secure SCIF while Biden was a U.S.Senator.  Meanwhile Merrick Garland moves forward with the Trump indictment for far less serious circumstances.

Nope.  Instead, doing his best impersonation of Jim Comey protecting Hillary Clinton, Special Counsel Hur declined to prosecute, even after authoring a 388 page report laying out the legal grounds for such a prosecution.

The Special Counsel did, however, throw at least one bone to Biden's conservative critics.  Hur laid bare Biden's drastic and severe cognitive decline when he revealed that Biden's memory had "significant limitations" and that he failed to recall such significant milestones as the time of his Vice Presidency or the date of his older son's death.  The report says, "Mr. Biden's memory also appeared to have significant limitations."

In fact, one excuse given for not charging Biden with these felonies was that after his presidency ends, Biden's legal team would likely present him at his trial as "a sympathetic, (I would say 'pathetic') well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."  Funny, but that sounds to me more like a consideration to be left for the sentencing phase of a trial, instead of the legal basis for blanket prosecutorial immunity from serious crimes.

Not that logic and reason count for much with this bunch, but, it certainly does put Biden and his handlers in a rather difficult logical conundrum.  As Victor Davis Hanson points out, how exactly does he argue against the report?  No, I'm not cognitively challenged and therefore should be indicted after my terms ends - or - He's right to not prosecute because I am in cognitive decline and therefore no longer qualify under the 25th amendment to be president. 2

In the final analysis, however, if we desire to protect our country from another four years of this tyrannical and lawless regime, if we wish to spare the country from increasing international embarrassment, disrespect, and scorn, and if we hope to save the United States from this mentally diminished, bumbling Mr. Magoo-like character in the oval office, we can't count on the news media, the 25th amendment, or the courts.  To do that, patriotic citizens like you and I will have to vote him out of office.

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1. When asked for his thoughts upon hearing that President Trump had kept classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, President Biden replied, "How that could possibly happen?  How could anyone be that irresponsible?" (60 Minutes interview, 09/18/2022)

2. U.S. Constitution.  Amendment 25. Section 4 - "Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President..."

 

 

A Dream Interrupted

 

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.  ~  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some 60 years ago (and just months before I was born), Martin Luther King gave what became one of the most heralded speeches yet to have been delivered in the English language.

At the time, hopes that this dream laid out by Rev. King would become widely accepted were largely aspirational.  His words that day hearkened back - in more than one way - to those of a similarly gifted orator, Abraham Lincoln.  You may recall, in urging for reconciliation how President Lincoln had appealed to "the better angels of our nature," in his first inaugural address.

In both cases, the nation moved forward, however imperfectly, until both of these great men's visions advanced from aspiration to realization.

 

In fact, not that many years ago, acceptance of the notion that all people should be judged by the content of their character was nearly ubiquitous among both conservative and liberal constituencies.

More recently, however, a worrisome trend has emerged.

This troubling new vision substitutes reconciliation with Balkanization.  It is a vision of division instead of unity.  No longer is the appeal to our nature's "better angels", as it once was, but to something far less noble:  tribalism, avarice, and retribution.

This vision pushes back against the very notion of good character as a virtue.  Such ideals have been watered down, redefined - or rejected outright.  No longer is the vision one of character qualities over superficial appearance, but rather tribal affiliation based on skin color over all else.

So in our current political climate, while the conservative cause has fully embraced King's colorblind creed, it seems that the political left has gone in a new and dangerous direction.  In doing so, they have abandoned the dream, and embraced a nightmare.

 

 

The Biden Referendum: Tuesday, November 8

Joe Biden is a really bad President.

That's not just a statement from an admittedly partisan blogger, but it is empirically confirmed by the citizens and voters across the country.  There can be no question that, despite the advantages provided by a fawning and shilling news media, Joe Biden - with his 38% favorable rating - is one of the least popular U.S. presidents since such statistics have been tracked. (1)  However, that's not to say he hasn't been effective.  The trio of executive orders, selective non-enforcement of existing law, Congressional legislation, combined with a constant stream of propaganda from the presidential teleprompter have been very effective in dividing us along political and racial lines, undermining the shared social fabric, and destroying the country's economy.  Effective yes, very much so.  But popular, absolutely not.

As such, tomorrow's election - despite the President's objections - has turned into a referendum on the dangerous and destructive policies being imposed on us by the unpopular Biden Regime.  Many of us have come to the conclusion that the best way to stop or at least slow the consequences of those policies - at least in the short term - is to deny his political party the Congressional and state majorities which exist to enable his lawless regime and its policies

With this in mind, I have been compiling a list of a few of the most obvious reasons to vote against Democrats at all levels in Tuesday's election.  Below, I offer you my Top Ten Reasons to vote GOP on November 8:

 
Reason #1 to vote GOP on November 8: 
Intentional human Chaos created on the southern border - For fiscal year 2022, we had an all-time record number of criminal and illegal aliens flooding across the border.  Under the intentionally chaotic misrule of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, we have suffered through:
- 2,378,944 illegal alien 'encounters' in 2022 - the worst on record.  Most of these unscreened, undocumented, unvaccinated, uneducated, and acculturated aliens were ushered into the country posthaste by the Biden regime.
- Another 600,000 illegal alien known 'got-aways'
- 856 reported deaths at the southern border, another record - not including the deaths south of the border
- 98 known or suspected terrorists apprehended - 4x more than the previous 5 years combined (for reference, only 19 terrorists were involved in the Sept 11 attacks)
In an attempt to conceal the bad border news which reporting requirements forced them to publicly reveal, Homeland Security dumped the Sept. and fiscal year end data at 11:30 pm Friday (10/21) night. (2)

Reason #2 to vote GOP on November 8:
Intentional drug Chaos on the southern border - During his first two years in office, Biden oversaw record drug overdose numbers, much of which was fentanyl-related.  As a consequence of Biden's lawless border policies, enough fentanyl was seized while being smuggled in fiscal year 2021 to kill every US citizen 7 times, which begs the question how much of the deadly drug wasn't intercepted at the porous and virtually undefended southern border.  If the Biden regime isn't deliberately cooperating, hand-in-glove, with the Mexican drug cartels which are flooding our country with illegal drugs, it is hard to fathom what more they could be doing to assist the effort.

Reason #3 to vote GOP on November 8:
National security - A Surrender in the fight against Terrorism.  After the ill-planned and hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan, literally billions in armaments were gifted by Biden to the Taliban.  This included vehicles, planes, night vision equipment, small arms, and parts.  Even the lowest estimates of the value ($7-8 billion) of what he left behind is 2 to 3 times the amount the Biden regime requested for Israeli defense in fy2022 - in other words, Biden's policies provide more support for Taliban terrorists than our best middle eastern ally.

It's no better on the home front, where his inexplicably stubborn refusal to enforce the law, finish the border wall, or beef up the U.S Border Patrol, means that would-be terrorists are literally pouring across the southern border (98 of whom were stopped in fiscal year 2022 alone, according to DHS statistics, which do not speculate how many terrorists made it through)

Reason #4 to vote GOP on November 8: 
National security - Projecting Military weakness.  Undermining our military strength has been a hallmark of Biden's defense policy.  Not only did his unceremonious and haphazard surrender in Afghanistan signal weakness to our global enemies - and thereby greenlighting Putin's invasion of Ukraine - but by not consulting with our allies before his pullout there, he jeopardized their future cooperation.

He has further undermined our military by:
- Draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve needed to defend the country in wartime
- Injecting woke, politically correct, and divisive racial theories into the officer corps and enlisted ranks
- Implementing politicized COVID and speech policies to thin the ranks and deter recruitment.  (For instance, the army has fallen 25% below its recruiting goal in 2022). (3)

Reason #5 to vote GOP on November 8: 
Fuel prices - Biden's war on the energy industry.  While our Commander-in-Chief has generally favored the funding of - rather than fighting against - terrorism, Biden was quite quick to declare war on our domestic energy industry, and by proxy, the American people.  On his first day in office, he revoked the existing permit for the new pipeline bringing oil in from Canada, enacted a moratorium on oil and gas leases on Federal lands, and placed our entire economy hostage to the whims of Obama's unratified treaty known as the Paris Climate Accords.

In addition, he reinstated restrictive permitting & drilling rules while cancelling leases & lease auctions.  Among the most debilitating effects of all these America-punishing efforts included doubling and even tripling, the cost of heating oil, gasoline, and diesel.  This, in turn, led him to order the draining of the strategic petroleum reserve prior to the 2022 midterms, in an attempt to ameliorate the electoral impact of his misguided energy policy.

Reason #6 to vote GOP on November 8:
The lawless Justice Department. - Since his confirmation as Attorney General, Merrick Garland's partisan conduct has only proved that he was rightfully spurned as a Supreme Court justice nominee.  During his short time as A.G., the FBI has lost what was left of it's tattered credibility, while being remade into a bludgeon of political persecution. He has turned the Justice Department as a whole into little more than a partisan tool of the far left to target the Biden regime's ideological opponents.  At his direction,we saw:

- Targeting school board attendees by raising the specter of FBI investigations of parents interested in debating school board policies
- Refusing to enforce federal law against those engaged in intimidation of Supreme Court justices
- Personally approving an unprecedented armed Raid on a former President's residence over a document storage dispute
- Charging pro-life protestors with Federal crimes under a spurious interpretation of the FACE Act (while still ignoring BLM/Marxist/Antifa rioters who burned down entire city blocks and government buildings)

Reason #7 to vote GOP on November 8:
Stop a Lawless administration - Insomuch as he is actually capable of being in charge, Biden presides over a profoundly lawless and corrupt administration.  We had previously discussed the Dept. of Homeland Security and the Justice Department:
- Under Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security is blatantly ignoring it's mandate and allowing literally millions of would-be terrorists, drug smugglers, human traffickers, and illegal aliens to stream across the porous southern border.
- Under Merrick Garland, we have seen the continuing radical politicization of the Justice Dept. and the FBI - including targeting of parents attending school board meetings and peaceful pro-life picketers, armed predawn raids and arrests of political opponents, and a refusal to prosecute Democratic political allies.
The only way such lawless public officials can be impeached and removed from office is when the Democrats who protect them don't control Congress or block Congressional inquiries.

While those examples are truly bad, there is much more dereliction of duty and outright corruption that requires probing by the Congressional oversight committees that Democrats currently control, including:
- The self-inflicted war on domestic energy production, that enrich our enemies (such as Russia, Iran, and Venezuela), spurred by his adoption of the radical Green New Deal policies
- The reckless draining of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a pre-election attempt to temporarily lower fuel costs caused by his energy policies
- The leaving of Billions - if not tens of Billions - of armaments and the renovated Bagram airbase to Taliban terrorists during his hasty surrender in Afghanistan
- An IRS which is literally arming up its agents and requiring them be prepared to use deadly force against taxpayers, while at the same time filling 87,000 new positions
- An attempted politicization and demoralization of our armed forces
- The Unconstitutional spending of $500,000,000 in unappropriated funds to forgive and transfer the college debt of potential wealthy supporters in a bold attempt to buy votes before the election. (The Brookings Institution says one-third of student debt is held by the wealthiest 20% of households.  By comparison, only 8% is owed by the bottom 20%)

Reason #8 to vote GOP on November 8:
Economy and Inflation - Biden's 8.2% inflation.  The Biden team's level of economic incompetence seems to be only rivaled by that of Jimmy Carter, and chasing hat of Weimar Germany.

Plainly put, Democrat policies have pushed our economy into a recession.  Despite the left's desperate attempts to rewrite the classic definition of recession or blame everything bad on Putin, a recession is defined as "two consecutive quarters of negative growth."  Biden delivered negative economic growth for both the 1st and 2nd quarters of 2022, and it is expected to go negative again for Q4.  Despite labor market shortages, inflation has now outpaced wages for 18 consecutive months.(4)  Fuel prices have doubled, and even tripled.  Pinching you even more, home mortgage rates have went from under 3% to over 7.5% under Biden's watch.

Although Biden had promised not to raise taxes on the middle class, keep in mind that this inflation itself is a cruel 8.2% tax - in fact, it is a flat tax - one that both erodes the value of our savings and increases the cost of goods and services we need to survive.

Reason #9 to vote GOP on November 8:
COVID-19 Policy - While COVID-19 was clearly a serious threat, in retrospect, one has to wonder if the threat to individual liberty was by far the greater peril.

The Wuhan/COVID virus quickly became an excuse for all sorts of mischief by those (almost exclusively Democrats) with totalitarian instincts, such as:  inflexible vaccine mandates, travel bans, lockdowns, vaccine work requirements, shutting down schools, locking in seniors, eviction moratoriums, banning church services, emptying prisons, student loan interest forgiveness, student loan debt cancellation and reassignment, the abrogation of election laws, unmonitored ballot drop boxes, etc. - and don't forget those economic stimulus checks they paid to inmates - all of which empowered the bureaucracy and endangered individual liberty.

Reason #10 to vote GOP on November 8:
Abortion - While it is probably unfair to characterize Democrats as godless, it is fair to ask the question - exactly which god it is that they worship?  Especially so as almost every other ad they've run during this campaign cycle is in support of unfettered, unrestricted abortion.  It does seem to me that this spectacularly cruel form of child sacrifice has become the most important sacrament required in the worship of their diabolical gods.

Indeed, their leader has pledged to turn bad Constitutional law (which was overturned by the Dobbs vs. Jackson ruling) into bad Congressional action.  Joe Biden has already promised that the first bill he sends to Congress next year will be one that legally codifies - and likely exceeds - the Roe vs. Wade decision, in the unlikely event that Democrats somehow control enough seats in Congress to pass it.  This threatened violation of everything good and holy in itself, seems to me to be the only reason one needs to justify denying them a ruling majority.


That's the ten, but there's still so many more, which I will lump under the title:
Return to sanity - I recently heard a GOP congressional candidate say something to the effect that this election "wasn't about Democrat versus Republican, but crazy versus normal."  I think he was on to something.

Consider the following "crazy" ideas being promoted by the left:
- Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools
- Drag queen story hours and pornographic literature for small children
- Mutilating minors with so-called 'transition' surgeries
- Girls/women forced to compete against boys/men in sports.
- Criminalizing political dissent
- Decriminalizing drug crimes
- Defunding the police
- No cash bail for repeat offenders
- Millions of criminals crossing southern border
- 401k plan-destroying inflation
- DEI and ESG
- Promises from a figure-head president to shut down power plants and "no more drilling"

A return to a Republican Congress, your statehouse, and legislature is the best check on their "crazy" brand - the crazy, leftist policies of Biden and his Democratic enablers, led by Pelosi and Schumer.  It could even open a path to impeachment proceedings against their worst offenders - including Garland, Myorkas, and Biden.

Meanwhile, we keep in mind their sneering arrogance and refuse to forget the utter contempt these people have for us.  Obama called us 'bitter clingers', Hillary called us "the deplorables", CNN's Rick Wilson sneers that we are the ignorant "boomer rube demo", Biden thinks he insults us by saying we are "ultra MAGA", and more recently, the View's Sonny Hostin accuses us of being cockroaches.  But considering the source of the insults, those of us patriots who are their targets either laugh or perhaps take it as a compliment, while we vote them out of office at the polls on Tuesday!

But above all, remember to fight, finish, and keep the faith.  As goes the encouragement the Apostle Paul gave to his understudy, Timothy, while speaking to his fortitude and personal conduct:  " I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." (5)

 

 

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1 - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/10/20/bidens-job-rating-is-similar-to-trumps-but-lower-than-that-of-other-recent-presidents/ 

2 - https://nypost.com/2022/10/22/record-856-migrants-die-at-southern-border-in-fiscal-year-2022-cbp/

3 - https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/10/13/is-the-military-too-woke-to-recruit/

4 - https://www.statista.com/chart/27610/inflation-and-wage-growth-in-the-united-states/

5- II Timothy 4:7

A Short and Harsh Memorial Day Assessment

In their relentless assault on our rights, the tyrannical left rarely waits until the bodies are cold before they seize upon what must certainly be viewed in the dark quarters of their leadership as yet another fortunate opportunity to capitalize on the emotions surrounding the victim's deaths.

Yes, as harsh as that sounds, I do believe there is neither sincerity, nor honest acknowledgement with them of the brutal truth behind why the 2nd Amendment is the cornerstone upon which all other rights that free Americans possess are secured.  For the truly astute observer would take note that it was hardly a week ago that they were proclaiming the virtue of and insisting on the Constitutional necessity of ensuring the legal slaughter of millions of innocent children - if done at the bloody hands of the trained abortionist.  And yet this week, in a remarkable reversal, an awful and illegal slaughter by a lone psychopath is held up as the sufficient and sole reason to gut the amendment that underpins the entire Constitution and to place the liberties of all citizens in the hands of so-called enlightened tyrants.  This sort of duplicity is exactly the reason why their endless pursuit of the disarming of the American citizen cannot just be chalked up to ignorance of our founding documents.

No, it would be overly charitable to assume that the American left is ignorant of the importance of the Second Amendment to the preservation of liberty.  Rather, the Bill of Rights in general, and the right to bear arms in particular, remain the greatest and perhaps last obstacle to their goals of perfecting upon the many failed and bloody attempts by their ideological soulmates, ranging from the past to the present - be it Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Ceausescu, Chavez, or Maduro.  These goals were and are of a desire to rule over us, born of extreme arrogance, combined with an exceptionally dangerous belief in the perfectibility of man and the woeful misreading of the sin nature inherent in mankind.

Thus, the calls for still more laws heaped upon more laws, under the guise of gun control, gun bans, ammo bans, or whatever the latest registration and licensing schemes, are not the end in themselves, but another step toward your ultimate enslavement.  It will come at a great cost, and will be imposed - if not opposed - with or without your consent.

That is a tragic lesson Ukrainian citizens almost learned too late.  So when you hear calls for 'reasonable restrictions' and 'compromise' over issues concerning gun or ammunition rights, learn from the past and consider carefully the motives of those making such proposals.

I implore you to remember again this Memorial Day how it was that the hard-fought and blood-bought freedoms we enjoy were earned, who paid the price, and how quickly they could be squandered if the left is allowed their way.

"I would remind you that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice."  - Barry Goldwater

 

 

The Fragility of Freedom

 

“Freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” ~ Ronald Reagan (January 5, 1967)

In the weeks since President's Day and George Washington's birthday, I have been thinking about the history and the office of the Presidency. Washington is a president admired by all but perhaps the most extreme elements of our society. Presidents Adams, Jefferson, and Lincoln are others who are similarly respected. Some would add Coolidge, FDR, and Reagan to that list. These great men brought qualities to the office such as: extraordinary courage and vision, inspirational leadership, recognition of our country's unique & Godly heritage, and a healthy respect for the Constitution and the rule of law.

At the same time as one ponders these Presidents past, it's difficult to think of these great men without at some point making the inevitable comparison to the current inhabitant of the Oval Office. And that comparison, in my estimation, isn't a favorable one.

What we have seen thus far, as he stumbles and bumbles about from one domestic and foreign policy misadventure to another - reminiscent of Mr. Magoo - is a lack of coherent policy combined with an inability to articulate any discernible vision to the American people. We see in Biden, a dazed bewilderment, rheumy-eyed perplexment, and dithering indecision on the domestic front, combined with a dangerous projection of spineless weakness and dithering on the international stage. There is a demonstrable propensity to side with the leftist fringe elements of his political party, on issues such as the 2^nd amendment, the southern border, COVID policy, crime policy, or energy policy, even though these unpopular policies severely punish the American people. Sadly, there is also a clear willingness to flaunt the rule of law to consolidate executive power, restrict individual liberty, and silence dissent – as evidenced by their authoritarian response to the Chinese COVID virus.

That said, I don't want to divert into a discussion of the many and obvious failures of the Biden regime, but rather, to keep the focus on how swiftly hard-earned liberty and freedom can be taken away, when not vigorously defended.

In the past two weeks, we have all been shocked to watch the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, invading without provocation the sovereign nation of Ukraine (a country that I can trace some of my family roots through). While Ukraine has some of the world's richest farmland, energy and mineral stocks, it lacked robust military alliances and had previously ceded it's defensive nuclear weapon capability, leaving itself a tempting and vulnerable target for the neighborhood bully – Putin's Russian Confederation. The attack came by sending in tanks and troops, along with the indiscriminate shelling of cities from land, sea, and air in an attempt to terrorize civilian populations. Since the initial hostilities, we heard rumors of the use of internationally banned thermobaric and cluster bombs. We also saw reckless attacks on operating nuclear reactors, hospitals, schools, and a maternity hospital in acts of cold, calculating war crimes.

The Ukrainian army, air force, and navy found themselves hopelessly out-manned and outgunned. For example, their tiny naval fleet of 20 warships – left decimated, but unreplenished after the Russian seizure of Crimea in 2014 - proved completely unable to defend their own Black Sea port cities. Early in the attack, they were forced to scuttle their own flagship frigate to avoid its capture by the Russians.

With a history of highly restrictive firearms licensing and magazine limit laws (there is only one firearm per ten Ukrainian civilians), only a very small percentage of the population were adequately prepared to defend themselves and their families, while the rest of the world watched on the sidelines.  Only after the Russian invasion, did the Ukrainian parliament finally decriminalize gun ownership for self defense, allowing the people to protect themselves and their loved ones. Hopefully, the Ukrainian people didn't come to realize too late how fleeting the freedom of a naive and unarmed people can be.

The words of the Ukrainian-born congresswoman, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN), serve to remind Americans of the importance of not allowing politicians or political parties to erode that precious right:

I'm so proud that strong, brave Ukrainians are willing to fight, again and again, to be free. It should inspire all of us in their bravery and actions – unbelievable. It should teach us and, maybe remind us, what it means to be a free country and how hard it is to get your rights and freedoms back when you lose it. We've had so many people die for our freedoms, so lets value and cherish them.

Indeed we should!

Before you say, "Yeah, but all that's over there," - we don't have to look as far away as Europe to see how quickly a formerly free people can be subjugated by a tyrant.  In fact, we only have to look to our northern neighbor.

While Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may appear to some to be a harmless “leftist wimp,” (as former CIA officer and radio host Buck Sexton called him), he has in fact proved to be the heir-apparent of Saul Alinsky and a wanna-be dictator.  Like so many opportunistic socialists-turned-fascists before him, this little man has mastered the art of verbal subterfuge and political propaganda – by demonizing his detractors and accusing his opponents of being the very detestable thing he has himself become – which is, quite honestly, a fascist.  

Unfortunately for the targets of Trudeau's tyrannies, Putin's even greater brutality has - if only temporarily - caused the eyes of the world to turn elsewhere.

When faced with peaceful protests against what they considered his onerous COVID-related restrictions, Trudeau refused to meet or talk to them to hear out their concerns. Instead he and his fellow Liberal Party members first hid and ignored them, then demonized them, and finally dismissed these sympathetic and plain-spoken Canadian truckers – as laughable as it seems – as being terrorists, racists, Confederate sympathizers, and white supremacists.

Yes, you read that right. Trudeau literally compared the Canadian Freedom Convoy truck drivers, their families, and their supporters to terrorists and Confederates, while one of his Parliamental allies claimed the trucker's horn-honking was the equivalent of chanting “Heil Hitler” – simply because they opposed his onerous vaccine mandates and his other restrictions on their freedoms.

Using this false narrative as a pretext, and aided by a docile and fawning state-controlled Canadian media, Trudeau declared a marshal law-like state. By utilizing existing anti-terrorist statutes – the Emergencies Act – a statute intended for threats to national security and territorial integrity and designed for wartime and terrorist attacks, he aimed the full power of the police state against his own citizens. He froze the private bank accounts of both middle class truck drivers and their financial supporters, intimidated non-state-controlled reporters, shut down businesses and seized private property without the benefit of a warrant, and even subjected crowd-funding organizations to money-laundering and terrorist rules - all too reminiscent of Stalin starving Ukrainian peasant farmers.

In a final act of brutality, seen in a widely circulated video, we saw his shock troops beating a truck driver who was already on his knees with his hands behind his head and watched Ottawa mounted police forces violently charging in and breaking up the crowds whereby trampling an elderly woman on her mobility scooter (and reportedly joking about it later).

Just a reminder, this wasn't Chechnya, Syria, or Somalia - this was Canada.

Will Americans take heed before it comes here?  Or will we stand by complacently as our freedoms are taken from us, bit by bit, or in large bites?  Sadly, the verdict is still out on the question.

Post Inaugural Musings

Just this past week, the DC establishment deployed literally tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of miles of concertina wire to defend their presidential inauguration against a reportedly grave security threat. This impressive mobilization of more than 25,000 National Guardsmen and women, plus an untold number of active duty service members, were all there to defend Washingtonian elites from a motley band of smelly buffalo-horned and coonskin cap-wearing malcontents, mixed in with a handful of mask-less confederate flag-waving buffoons and Antifa agitators. Before you chastise me for downplaying the threat, consider this. For comparison purposes, that's 3 or 4 thousand more troops than President Lincoln required to defend the city against the very real threat of a military siege at it's peak in 1863 by Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. (1)

Homeland Security's Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli even revealed that Speaker Pelosi wanted to further play up the police state imagery by requesting the deployment of machine guns in the Capitol. Apparently in this bold new age of one-party rule, Democrats are of the opinion that nothing says national unity quite like belt-fed M2 .50 caliber machine gun nests on every street corner.

Does it really take more than two divisions of armed National Guard-members, being transported at great expense to Washington to sufficiently enforce Biden's inaugural themes of and 'healing' and 'unity'?  Or did they leave jobs, communities, and families behind, only to serve as expensive pawns in a dystopian photo op designed to stigmatize the previous administration?

It has been widely reported that a military presence was needed for security... perhaps so.  Please don't misunderstand me.  The events of January 6 were abhorrent.  I'm all for maintaining law and order.  It is a sad reality that given the current state of cultural decline, there was and will be an ever-increasing need for enhanced security - and in the current political divisiveness, that need shows no signs of lessening.  So in a practical sense, some measure of military presence certainly served a deterrence purpose. (2)

This sudden and newfound repudiation of political violence by elected Democrats is refreshing - albeit 8 or 9 months too late. (As was their confession that fences and walls really do work.) But for whatever was accomplished to deter a real or potential security threat, I humbly suggest that deploying the equivalent of more than two military divisions of armed troops may have been a bit of overkill to subdue a rather pitiful mob of unruly thugs.

And yet, evoking images of Cold War-era Leningrad or current-day Pyongyang during our national day of ceremony did serve other purposes, albeit ones that are at odds with the stated goal of American Unity. Far more insidious ones, I fear.

For one, the dark militaristic theme served very nicely to advance their disingenuous narrative that the 75,000,000 Trump voters are to be feared. Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, advocates of free markets, and the Midwestern working class people are “dangerous”, “enemies of the state”, “fascists”, and “insurrectionists”. Every sort of ad-hominem label has already been applied to Trump, his appointees, and his devotees going on four years now, so the obvious next step is guilt by association: Trump is evil, those several hundred insurrectionists are evil, therefore you people who supported Trump are evil, capable of anything, and can't be trusted. So we had to call in the troops.

Mark my words, those images of Capitol Hill ringed by armed troops and surrounded with razor-wire topped fences will be used by Democrats to smear their opponents in election ads for years to come.

Of course, it also sets the stage for their bogus impeachment and subsequent Senate trial proceedings. Look there, Trump and his devotees are so dangerous to the Republic that we now have more troops defending Washington D.C. than we did during the Civil War.  Of course, this sort of political theater on the Democrats part also reinforces the view of National Guardsmen serving as mere political props in their perverse melodrama.

Perhaps worse, the over-the-top reaction is just another intimidation tactic clearly intended to send a signal to their political opponents. It can't be properly viewed without considering the history of FISA abuse by the Obama administration against their political enemies, the self-censoring of news damaging to Democrats by the institutional news media, and the current talk by the political left of unleashing the mechanisms of the state against its own citizens with amped up domestic spying operations.  And it all combines to create a rather chilling effect against political speech.

All the more so, given the present context of the throttling and deplatforming of conservative voices and media-sponsored news censoring during and after the 2020 campaign, along with all the post-election talk of a need for the 'deprogramming' of Trump supporters, this extraordinary show of force was a subtle warning to any who don't want to unify under the boot of Biden's “very dark winter” agenda:   that of oppressive regulation, job-killing environmental extremism, and unchecked hordes of illegal aliens streaming into our country.

It was an in-your-face proclamation, saying, "We are in charge now!"

If you don't join them and forsake your support for the policies of the past four years, you will be shamed, demonized, doxxed, silenced, deplatformed, unfunded, and perhaps even fired. You better watch yourself. It's Unify... or else.

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1. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/washingtons-civil-war-defenses-and-battle-fort-stevens

2. Tangentially, it also significantly boosted attendance far above the usual dozen or so attendees we had become accustomed to see at Biden's campaign events.

3. Katie Couric on Real Time with Bill Maher, January 15, 2021. Steve Hassan on CNN January 19, 2021. Eugene Robinson and Nikole Hannah-Jones on Morning Joe - on MSNBC January 12, 2021.  https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/12/washington-post-columnist-donald-eugene-robinson-trump-supporters-cult-deprogrammed/