Is MAGA alive and well? Can America be great again, or are we a civilization in free fall?
MAY OUR BEST DAYS LIE JUST AHEAD.
UPDATE 4/10/24: Detailing the current, multi-pronged attack from the Left on America as we’ve known and loved her, we are reminded of just how much is at stake. Hard to believe, but we too can go down like all the seemingly indestructible great cultures of the past.
God willing, he and we will be looking back on this and shaking our heads, mightily relieved that BrandonWorld is over.
UPDATE 4/5/24: We are faced with frightening poll numbers strongly suggesting that a sizeable percentage of the American electorate believe cheating to avert a restored Trump presidency is justifiable. Only when these delusional fools suffer firsthand the full negative consequences of their Dem Party’s suicidal policies can there be a major turn-around. At that hopeful juncture, hard truth and rationality, not poisonous Woke ideology, must once again take absolute precedence in the lives of those currently voting themselves and the rest of us into serfdom.
We were warned by our forefathers, Washington preeminent among them, of how such commonly held bad judgment and worse choices would lead to our demise. God willing, a miracle rivaling the very founding of our country is at hand.
UPDATE 4/4/24: For Biden, destroying energy independence, threatening the most mundane necessities of daily existence, was literally the first order of business. For Trump, reversing it will almost certainly be his first step on the road back to Making America Great Again.
UPDATE 3/30/24: Although a Christian observance, Easter and the backdrop of eternally rejuvenating springtime provides much needed hope and inspiration to people of all faiths. Forces of light vs forces of darkness, the dramatic human story never changes.
From 2013, a musical repost that still movingly expresses this special moment of the year:
![EasterLilyApr10[1]](https://www.dittoville.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/EasterLilyApr101.jpg)
A Victorian musical masterpiece as simple, dramatic and moving as its majestic 2000 year old source. This particular performance is all the more touching for the sincere catch in Stanford Olsen’s fine tenor voice as this great Easter hymn approaches its climactic, heart-clutching moment:
“And once again the scene was changed,
New earth there seemed to be.
I saw the Holy City beside the tideless sea.
The light of God was on its streets, the gates were open wide,
And all who would might enter, and no one was denied!
No need of moon or stars by night,
Or sun to shine by day:
It was the new Jerusalem that would not pass away!
It was the new Jerusalem that would not pass away!”
Yet another beautiful rendition of “The Holy City” by the great American tenor Richard Crooks.
Easter morning, 2013, as if on cue, the first daffodils open…
If a larger lesson for all faiths is to be drawn from an observance of Easter, it is contained in these words of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this [collectivist tyranny] has happened.” Echoes William Penn: “”Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”
Dogs and Daffodils, Easter, 2024
UPDATE 3/27/24: This American patriot and sterling role model is the sort of everyman who should have been the first Black President, not the composite Trojan horse creation manufactured by those powerful forces intent on America’s “transformative” demise. Obama continues to be an instrument of evil demanding full exposure and assignment to history’s ash heap while this paragon of normalcy and those like him must be our political future if we are to have any decent future at all.
3/27/24: It will be nothing short of a miracle if Donald can get past the seemingly insurmountable obstacles desperately thrown in his way. Again, the metaphor of equal, opposite reactions is apt: a fiery force for good has brought out the worst and most ruthless in the power-mad totalitarians and the insensate masses blindly following them. God willing, he will prevail, and America, and the rest of the civilized world depending upon her, can be saved from perpetual darkness.
3/27/24: How does he do it? Answer: it is not in his characterological makeup to give up, ever.
LET ‘ER RIP!
UPDATE 3/21/24: One draws comfort and hope from what restored MAGA might look like. And one must contemplate what happens if they manage to magically produce…oh, maybe 40% more votes than ever cast before and effect the Big Steal once again. Despair comes to mind, but so does the American Spirit, the same force that buoyed Churchill in that darkest hour 80 years back. We pick our fights, and we must continue to pick the fighters most capable of leading us. Humans do their utmost, and God does the rest. Let it be.
UPDATE 3/11/24: The montage below will arouse only blind loathing among those who are passionately intent on destroying Trump and the MAGA wave of American spirit. We are “fascists,” “deplorables,” “Christian nationalists,” “Nazis,” “haters,” “racists,” “homophobes,” transphobes,” xenophobes,” and whatever else is sub-human and evil. In actuality, we are guilty only of feeling blessed to be Americans and to have a rare, fearless politician who speaks and fights indefatigably for us.
UPDATE: There are makers, and there are takers. What better illustration could there be than an Elon Musk who lives for creativity (and the opportunity for all to exercise it freely) and an Elizabeth Warren who lives entirely to shake down and steal from the Elon Musks of the world on behalf of the petty and envious? One more basic old story of good vs. evil.
UPDATE 3/2/24: Trump somehow doesn’t seem to age, look tired or beaten, and his fire on the stump remains at full burn. Yearning for a respite from what seems to be a tidal wave engulfing America and all she has stood for since her founding, are we due for a miracle? Stay tuned in, stay hopeful.
UPDATE 3/1/24: The fact that shrieking, Jew-hating hecklers harassed attendees at the 92nd St. Y in Manhattan, before and after Bari Weiss’ outstanding speech on FREEDOM, tells the whole worrisome tale of where we are.
UPDATE 2/23/24: “Christian Nationalism” is the currently invoked bogeyman of the Left, the first line of accusation against pro-Americans, realists holding fast to the ideas and concepts that make healthy, free life thrive. Minus these ideas and concepts, we are reduced to savagery and, in the inevitable chaos that ensues, totalitarian dictatorship.
UPDATE 2/20/24: American spirit is a universal gift animating all humans who thrive on freedom. The dark side of this ultimate goodness is evil which is most visibly demonstrated by individuals and whole political regimes that define themselves by their hatred of freedom. Putin is just the latest in at least a century-long line of Russian tyrants. His latest foray into unabashed evil is his murder of courageous dissident Alexei Navalny. Bari Weiss, of the adnirable Free Press, has paid eloquent tribute to him and recently interviewed celebrated refusenik Natan Sharansky in Israel only a month back. Navalny’s letters to Sharansky are now available.
“…a passage from one of Sharansky’s fellow dissidents and Navalny’s political ancestors: Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In his 1976 book Warning to the West, he wrote this: ‘Human nature is full of riddles. One of those riddles is: How is it that the people who have been crushed by the sheer weight of slavery and cast to the bottom of the pit can nevertheless find strength in themselves to rise up and free themselves first in spirit and then in body, while those who soar unhampered over the peaks of freedom suddenly lose the taste for it, lose the will to defend it, and, hopelessly confused and lost, almost begin to crave slavery?’
Navalny was in the darkest pit. And yet he remained free. May his example live for all time. God knows we need it in ours.
Last month in Israel I was honored to interview Natan Sharansky live in Tel Aviv. Watch our conversation here:
UPDATE 2/19/24: Our great American forefathers, targets of those who would erase mention and memory of them, continue to speak to us from two and a half centuries back.
UPDATE 2/19/24: Considering how his life began, he should have been a high-level race hustler like Claudine Gay at best or, at worst, a dead rap street artist. Instead Roland Fryer is an eminent Black economist. There’s room up there alongside Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Clarence Thomas and the swelling ranks of distinguished American Blacks whose success is a giant gut punch to those perpetuating their racism of “low expectations.”
UPDATE 2/20/24: The Democrat Party’s full message to the American people has devolved to a quick, easy slogan: GET TRUMP! Let’s call it “assassination by lawfare.”
UPDATE 2/12/24: It’s always timely contemplating perhaps our greatest President, there when the nation seemed destined to fall apart. Now a universal guiding beacon for the ages in the inevitable times of division and seemingly insoluble strife.
UPDATE 2/17/24: From a viral email. Excellent, uplifting advice for those unpleasant moments when confronted with TDS sufferers. It’s not Who; it’s What.
We all will have the same opportunity to vote . Perhaps one of the most important opportunities we have ever had or will have. Read this and think: “not who we are voting for but rather—what are we voting for”. The choice is ours. Don’t protest by staying at home and not voting. After all—voting is your ticket to complain.
That moment when someone says, “I can’t believe you would vote for Trump.”
I simply reply, “I’m not voting for Trump.”
I’m voting for the First Amendment and freedom of speech.
I’m voting for the Second Amendment and my right to defend my life and my family.
I’m voting for the next Supreme Court Justice(s) to protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
I’m voting for the continued growth of my retirement 401K and the stock market
I’m voting for a return of our troops from foreign countries and the end to America’s involvement in foreign conflicts.
I’m voting for the Electoral College and for the Republic in which we live.
I’m voting for the Police to be respected once again and to ensure Law & Order.
I’m voting for the continued appointment of Federal Judges who respect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
I’m voting for our jobs to remain in America and not be outsourced all over again to China, Mexico and other foreign countries.
I’m voting for secure borders and legal immigration
I’m voting for the Military & the Veterans who fought for this Country to give the American people their freedoms.
I’m voting for the unborn babies that have a right to live.
I’m voting for continued peace progress in the Middle East.
I’m voting to fight against human/child trafficking.
I’m voting for Freedom of Religion.
I’m voting for the right to speak my opinion and not be censored.
I’m not just voting for one person, I’m voting for the future of my Country.
I’m voting for my children and my grandchildren to ensure their freedoms and their future.
What are you voting for?
UPDATE 2/14/24: The all-out legal assault on Trump is now unfolding like a political thriller with a credible suggestion that the Mar-A-Lago raid was not about illegally kept classified docs but a search for one particular file that might very well connect the dots (and the major perps) to the Russian collusion business.
On the bright side, the man has a knack for forcing his enemies into the daylight to be seen for the wicked scoundrels they are. There’s always a chance that good people’s eyes, heretofore closed, will open wide to the evil and injustice at work.
UPDATE 2/9/24: Despite living in revisionist America, 2024, memory serves some of us that our first POTUS was and remains the model for what America can and should be…and has been.
UPDATE 2/7/24: Trump, never the stuff of Boy Scout perfection, has been and remains our best hope of recovering an America that thrives on individual liberty and the wondrous prosperity and security that is derived from that freedom.
UPDATE 2/2/24: America and the rest of the world dependent upon our historic moral standing is under attack. Naturally, in desperate projection, our opponents claim we’re the bad guys. If Trump comes out victorious in November and is able to force accountability from those who war against him and those who have chosen him to represent them, it will be one of the high points of our history, an authentic triumph of good over evil. At this point, we’re scraping the bottom of the septic tank.
UPDATE 1/25/24: Greatness, things consummately American, comes in many different forms. Here is just one timeless piece of stirring, all-American musical glory. A certain brassy belter from Astoria, Queens pays an 80th birthday tribute to Irving Berlin of Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Sutton Place on the Ed Sullivan Show, May, 1968.
UPDATE 1/23/24: Common sense is breaking out on 3 continents! A newly emerging era of political rationality rivaling Reagan/Thatcher? Dare we hope the pendulum is swinging to make this year’s election 1980 again?
And don’t forget Hungarian Viktor Orban, now in his 4th term.
UPDATE 1/26/24: Even with Trump at the helm again, we face tough times, a cold winter. But one can function even in freezing climes with the right seasonal apparel, and it’s reassuring to think of an uncowed leader like DJT as a well-worn winter coat and gloves.
UPDATE 1/23/24: DeSantis has exited and the Never Trumpers are in mourning. Not to worry. Nikki is still slogging away on the dime of the irrational Trump haters. Meanwhile, tens of millions remain sold on Trump, not as a lesser of various evils, but as a proven positive.
UPDATE 1/20/24: Despite rank insanity smacking us daily in the face from all directions, many of us remain hopeful that the America we love and for which we feel boundless gratitude is fully alive and destined for some of her best years still ahead.
UPDATE 1/17/24: Without an economic system that rewards people for competence, we are witnessing growing chaos. How better to frighten people into the arms of Leftist totalitarians promising to “make the trains run on time?” God willing, 2024 will be 1980 again, a genuine populist cry, not for control, but a free social order that rewards common sense and merit, not “equity” and hollow “compassion.”
UPDATE 1/16/24: BrandonWorld and its senile namesake are currently all about “saving our democracy” from MAGA. All such drivel is driven by the fear that their strategy of flooding the country with imported New Democrat Voters On The Dole is endangered by the fundamentals of a republic, set up to represent all regions and citizens, not just those deliberately cultivated and concentrated en masse in a few key areas. No wonder BrandonWorld thinks the Electoral College should be trashed.
UPDATE 1/29/24: “Trump has convinced average Republicans he will fight hard for them, take enormous punishment for doing it and refuse to buckle to establishment pressure.”
Roughly half (hopefully more) of the country eagerly look forward to a change in command that might restore America’s faith in its own government. And the Dems and RINOs wonder why so many good people are fully behind a man who has made a career building things and doing whatever was necessary to make his businesses run at a profit. And that includes those enterprises that didn’t work, decisively junked to allow attention and resources to be focused on what did work.
UPDATE 1/3/24: Unlike the Peronistas and their Socialist ilk, Argentina’s new President Milei promises to be a breath (nay a hurricane) of fresh air to counter the universally practiced poison of the Welfare State, (not so) “free” goodies for all! One hopes his public persona is just a racy style that sells the real substance of good political policy.
UPDATE 12/26/23: Not just American spirit, but that spirit that unites ALL good people. There are no words.
UPDATE 12/27/23: The story of Albert & Mary Lasker and their ongoing medical foundation is a great American story and a stark contrast to the evil, politicized turn establishment medicine & science has taken in recent decades, most shamefully demonstrated by the lionization of self-serving, bloodless frauds like Fauci and his equally hollow counterparts in the Green hoax industry.
UPDATE 12/24/23: Continuity is a blessing lost for many…until a single recovered lost item reconnects some forgotten threads of a family’s history.
UPDATE 12/29/23: It’s cheering to read about what we can expect (and wish for fervently) from a second Trump term.
I’ll have more of the same and then some, thank you.
UPDATE 12/27/23: Ben Carson is being touted as a possible running mate for Trump. Unlike the run-of-the-mill tokens being dropped without merit into high positions, this man is a competent, world-class professional who has fully earned the status he has based on his innate talent and character. His is an inspiring American success story, and there’s an unmistakable decency about him. Whether or not he becomes the candidate and (hopefully) Veep, we can predict he will be a prime target for destruction just as is Clarence Thomas or any renegade from the proscribed, Leftist political script.
The link between Trump & Carson made a lasting impression at the New Hampshire Presidential debate in 2016 when (according to TDS sufferers) the bombastic, egomaniacal, arrogant, selfish, crude, bad-mannered monster Trump showed the simple courtesy of not letting Carson go last onto the debate stage after the clueless hosts forgot to announce him.
UPDATE 12/23/23: Oh, my. How very impolite of him. So mean. But then, we wouldn’t need such a plainspoken leader if extreme circumstances didn’t demand it. Equal, opposite reactions and all that. As we’ve been applauding since 2016, it’s about time.
An American classic, Truman Capote’s A CHRISTMAS MEMORY (1966), starring the incomparable Geraldine Page. Warm, touching, achingly real, memorable, a special treat.
UPDATE 12/19/23: Among Trump’s notable achievements has been forcing principled conservative Republicans to look clear-eyed at their own Party and acknowledge the cowardice within. We were spoiled by the luminous presence of Reagan and have vainly lived in hope that his successors were equally dedicated to the same principles. In fact, RINOs have been playing passively for the other side, acting out a charade of offering an alternative to Dem/Leftist policy, politically and culturally. As Reagan’s elegant approach inspired us, Trump’s sharp-edged Pattonesque persona now challenges us to get real and stay that way. Fight and win wars decisively, demand American sovereignty and independence in all matters. Once again, be the presence of liberty and hope in this flailing world.
12/18/23: Trump and the populist MAGA movement he spearheads is the present-day incarnation of an 18th century British kindred spirit admired by Jefferson & Adams,
Henry St. John, Viscount Bolinbroke (1678-1751) was a free-wheeling firebrand and nobleman at war with the corrupt Elite Ruling Class of his time. Such ruggedly invincible prominences able to speak powerfully and fearlessly for regular decent folk are precious rarities ignored, persecuted and wasted at our own peril.
Henry St. John, Viscount Bolinbroke.
A classic of patriotic American prophecy.
UPDATE 12/7/23: It remains a source of cheer in this cheerless time that the hands-down winner of the latest GOP debate, as with all previous pointless displays, was Donald Trump. We can’t get to November fast enough.
UPDATE 11/30/23: Ayaan Hirsi Ali remains a model of moral integrity and courage.
UPDATE 11/29/23: Trump’s refusal to fold under the most punishing pressures is an act of heroism that merits our full support. The man is an unflinching phenomenon who’s giving true American patriots reason to hope for a tolerable future.
Kindred spirits, America and Israel. Imagine a world without America. Imagine a world without Israel.
UPDATE 11/23/23: A victory for freedom and social sanity anywhere is a boost for freedom and sanity everywhere. Thanks to a Dutch electorate awakening from Woke, the eternally maligned and threatened Geert Wilders seems to be on the path to becoming PM of The Netherlands, heretofore one of the most suicidally Woke nations of “multi-cultured” Europe. God (and a life forcibly spent in hiding) has allowed him to survive despite all efforts to kill him and the common sense of cultural self-preservation he espouses.
Sadly, things must get intolerable for the majority of people to wake up to what’s being done to them. At that point, fighting and risking everything is preferable to suffering in silence.
The truly courageous ones usually find themselves alone.
“I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)
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UPDATE 11/13/23: A much-needed jolt of adrenalin came our way directly from midtown Manhattan when Trump made an unannounced surprise appearance at a Madison Square Garden rally this week featuring Tucker Carlson and Kid Rock. The Big Apple is hardly MAGA country, and there is hope when DEEP Blue NYC and those in its orbit seem to be newly awakened to what’s at stake in our elections.
UPDATE 11/15/23: The Ukraine mess and 10/7 are but two of a multitude of disasters that most likely would have never occurred had real votes been counted in November, 2020. Thus, we live in hope for next November.
UPDATE 11/9/23: I had the honor last night of appearing on the same dais with David A. Christian at a Veterans Day tribute in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. This combat veteran and outspoken, eloquent patriot is now 75 years old, successful personally and professionally, his life and subsequent mission a great American story. In the first 15 minutes of the video below, he discusses the betrayal of the American people by the U.S. Government, veterans in particular. After sacrificing thousands of young American lives in Vietnam, suddenly our wise, trusted elders called a “time-out.” Afghanistan, anyone? And now, “leaders” of the same ilk are counseling freshly assaulted Israel to “make peace?”
Many thoughts are aroused by this man’s narrative, not the least of which is that here is a natural leader of the finest character who should have been in the vanguard of American politics. He did run for the Senate in Pennsylvania and lost at the primary stage. There is no justice when one of the worst, most corrupt humans ever to blight American soil named John Kerry has been a Senator, almost became POTUS and now spends his time jetting about the globe to confer with other equally empty, power-hungry frauds to control all humanity under the guise of fighting a non-existent “climate emergency.”
Christian’s testimony, imploring America not to make the same disastrous decisions that darkened the 60s and 70s, has fallen on deaf ears. Yet somehow, we must muddle through the present, continue to tell the truth however brutal and hope for the best down the line.
UPDATE 11/9/23: Home Depot co-founder and philanthropist Bernie Marcus lays out the only choice we have.
UPDATE 11/2/23: Predictably, Mike Johnson is now Target #1 for the MAGA-haters, characterized as the most dangerous (that’s Liz Cheney of course), fanatical (the usual religion-hating crowd) man in America. In reality, he is a model of self-possession and personal integrity, and his enviable grace under pressure marks him out for even greater things that being merely Speaker of the House.
A great conservative talent blessedly brought to the fore and a strong, hopeful hunch this is very big, very good news for our future.
UPDATE 10/25/23: Startling and delightful to hear news of Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) unanimously being chosen by the Repubs as the new House Speaker. As said last year in admiration and with strong intuition in the reposted entries below from 8/25/22 and 12/1/22, this is a very special personality. Now we are blessed to have him center stage alongside Trump, refreshingly strong leaders to restore sanity to government. The usual skeptics among the wobbly and self-righteous Repubs are already out and about, bewailing his inexperience and comparing him with no little contempt to Mike Pence, one particularly short-sighted ignoramus ascribing his election to desperation.
Whatever faults either the Left or Right may claim, Johnson will be pilloried. Like Trump and Reagan, he is guilty of not being a run-of-the-mill DC player but first and foremost a talented, thinking, principled human being and citizen reminiscent of the ordinary, honest men of practical, worldly experience who founded America. Such are the people who should be handed power, not the usual empty career politicians effortlessly talking out both sides of their mouths on an hourly basis. Now he is third in line to the Presidency and, one is buoyed by the real possibility that he may very well be POTUS one day.
REPOSTED from 8/25/22: This Congressman from Louisiana, Mike Johnson, bears watching, This is a public servant addressing the real, pressing problems of the day. Here on illegal immigration below questioning a double-talking, gibberish-spouting Immigration Czar Mayorkas regarding the Brandon administration’s wide open border policy. Likewise, his grilling of a brain-dead abortion advocate (see video 6/30/22).
REPOSTED from 12/1/22: Philosopher/pundit Jordan Peterson and Congressman Mike Johnson are two of today’s most worthwhile voices, one a crystal-clear socio-political thinker, the other a politician who thinks. What they have in common is a full awareness of our world and total dedication to conserving the best in it. [P.S. Peterson has brilliantly avoided being shouted down in public like other outspoken conservatives by delivering his live lectures at 8 am which is hours before most shrieky wastrels of Woke bother to wake up. The man has a rational response to everything.]
There is some confusion about Mike Johnson’s “adopted son” Michael who is Black. The younger of Johnson’s two biological sons is also named Michael. The story is that this much older boy was a wayward, 14 year old kid fostered by Johnson and his wife early in their marriage.
Watch the video interview below from 1:10 to 3:00 to get the full story (including other photos) of the young man, now 40, married and a stable father of four.
This is also the interview containing Johnson’s mistaken conclusions about George Floyd’s death only days after it occurred in 2020. He is not alone among countless millions (including myself) who first saw the viral image of Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck, drawing erroneous conclusions without subsequent revelations of the audio recording of the arrest plus the autopsy report containing the real causes of Floyd’s death. By coincidence, this is precisely the point of a post this week (10/22/23) under Mass Psychosis.
UPDATE 10/12/23: It has been difficult to write (or think) about anything other than the Gaza pogrom and ensuing Israeli War. With this wanton, unambiguous attack on the civilized world we’ve come face-to-face with the danger confronting us all. Those calling for compromise with or “understanding” for unalloyed evil are signing everyone’s death warrant. This darkness comes in 1001 shades, ranging from suppression of free speech in America to the uncontrolled savagery of the Israeli holocaust that just occurred. There will only be peace through strength, and not just bombing one another out of existence. There must be some permanent, forceful presence of deterrence, unshakeable will mixed with commonsense that gives the enemy long term pause. Ergo Trump. Who else is temperamentally willing and able to follow thru on this seemingly impossible mission?
UPDATE 10/11/23: Stephen Miller sums up where we have come since Trump was removed from the Presidency. If America and the world has any sense, he will be allowed to resume the only effective leadership we’ve been offered since Reagan.
In the perverse fashion of our times, giving credence and support to the POTUS most supportive of Israel is now painted as a call for an American Reich. This gigantic lie grows bigger in violent, equal-opposite reaction to real solutions put into effect as they were during Trump’s administration. His revolutionary presence remains THE greatest threat to the DC/Deep State establishment and tyranny around the globe.
UPDATE 10/4/23: Really noticed only last week and hailed as a hopeful, strong new voice in DC, Victoria Spartz is (understandably) disgusted with her spineless GOP colleagues and is threatening now to quit.
Perhaps the shakeup removing RINO McCarthy from Party leadership and replacing him with a committed, principled Repub like Scalise or Jordan may give her reason to reconsider.
UPDATE 10/2/23: RFK, Jr. running as an Independent could be just the monkey wrench in the UniParty works to lure the partially sensible away from the BrandonWorld sewer and return the White House to America’s best interests.
UPDATE 10/1/23: An Australian journalist writes about a certain vulgarian running for high office:
“Suppose [an Aussie pol] became somewhat foul-mouthed; became insulting of his opponents on Twitter (X); revealed a womanizing past; ate Big Macs; lied about his weight; and took on a rather grandiose view of himself. Yet, at the same time if he promised, and not idly, to take us off the road to perdition and onto the road of saving Western civilisation; of rediscovering and preserving traditional Australian values; of ditching net zero. I don’t know if he’d get [another Australian pol’s] vote but he’d certainly get mine.”
So much for those vaporous critics dismissing Trump for his lack of that enviable refinement so characterizing THEIR chosen candidate.
UPDATE 9/27/23: Tulsi Gabbard makes the irrefutable case for Trump and against the forces determined to destroy him.
“The political prosecution of Trump is an obvious attempt by Biden/Dem elite to drain Trump’s attention and resources. Their actions expose their utter contempt for democracy and the rule of law—and makes laughable all of their verbiage about ‘protecting democracies around the world.'”
UPDATE 9/26/23:
Do a good deed, a mitvah.
UPDATE 9/24/23: In Ukrainian-born Congresswoman Victoria Spartz(R-IN), we discover a stunningly welcome new voice.
UPDATE 9/29/23: The Republican debates are not producing an alternative to Trump. The Never Trumpers and Big Money control freaks may be fishing for the un-Trump, but sensible voters are sticking with him. Queries political adult Newt Gingrich, “Do you want to see Joe Biden re-elected or do you want to help Donald Trump?”
For anyone genuinely interested in turning back the dark forces overtaking us, Trump is the only choice.
UPDATE 9/20/23: Taking account of Trump’s negatives, he is still the best bet if individual freedom underpinned by the law remains the goal. The alternative is a host of “ideal” outcomes dictated by totalitarian Wokesters, all nullifying individual freedom.
UPDATE 9/13/23: Most who write about current politics, particularly the average, non-professional, concerned citizen/blogger, have few illusions about changing the ominous course of events. Nonetheless, it provides a healthy antidote to the silence being forced on each of us nowadays in even the most casual social situations, So we write and hope the truth somehow opens one more pair of blind eyes/deaf ears and the closed mind behind them. If nothing else, it makes our own forbidden thoughts audible to an indifferent universe.
With the recent embarrassing joke of speech given by Joe Biden at the recent G20 conference in Vietnam, thought this would be how a sane, coherent President acts.
This is Ronald Reagan delivering a speech in 1987. Keep in mind, he was shot 6 years earlier. pic.twitter.com/KCoWIMYoI0
— Veterans Taking Back (@VeteranTakeBack) September 10, 2023
UPDATE 9/4/23: A rare sighting of optimistic news is more than welcome, and what’s better than someone successfully carrying out a good idea to the benefit of thousands, perhaps eventually, by example, of millions? In this case, a Black man named John Singletary running for office in North Charleston SC is determined to take the money out of the hands of those DC Dems and their local operatives vested in exploiting and perpetuating the urban misery of poor Blacks and seriously redirecting it to their benefit.
The issue nowadays isn’t so much that news is often bad, but that there is so much active resistance to good people actively doing good deeds.
UPDATE 8/28/23: If these are not the worst of times, neither are they the best of times.
UPDATE 9/1/23L:There is an appeal and healthy inspiration to be drawn from a rural life. Some, probably confirmed urbanites, say it’s all just sentimentality and a romantic escape into unreality. Those of us living the rural life say otherwise and can vouch for the blessings of quiet, beautiful, natural surroundings, especially in circumstances like the Covid lockdowns. Is it any wonder there has been a dramatic, mass urban exodus in tandem with a boom in rural real estate sales?
UPDATE 8/31/23: Enthusiasm for Ramaswamy is understandable for someone so young, energetic and saying all [almost, think Israel] the right things. However, serious suspicions and red flags are sprouting up to give one pause. Admittedly, Donald Trump originally had a past that cast serious doubts on his conservative creds, but his record as POTUS and unshakeable resistance to those out to destroy him and all he represents to millions make him eminently believable. Only time can tell whether Ramaswamy passes that test.
UPDATE 8/22/23: Are we to remain Americans as we have identified ourselves since 1776 or are we doomed to extinction?
A corrupted legal system weaponized to persecute the current regime’s most powerful opponent and the ongoing existence of a J6 Gulag made up of his most vocal supporters make it alarmingly clear that we are living in the early stages of totalitarian, UniParty dictatorship. It all looks like nothing so much as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia and their subsequent imitators in the phase before the real mass terror of concentration camps and Cultural Revolutions began. What else could be the logical next step after destroying all political opposition?
Admittedly, this is about as dark a view as possible, but one has to consider what actually is taking place before our eyes. The hopes of real Americans lie almost solely in a legitimate election, and even there, word has it the regime is already planning Covid 2.0 to effect another stolen election via mass mail-in voting, no doubt extended for days, even weeks if necessary to get the desired numbers and electoral votes. They did it before, and they’ll do it again.
It’s hard to be cheerful, given the circumstances of the last 3 years and fanatic resistance to turning things around to the genuine benefit of Americans. Minus Trump, is there anyone else of sufficient mettle to lead the way back?
Babylon Bee reports that the Deplorable Subject of The Mug Shot has come off looking so heroically attractive that a fourth indictment has been handed down. May vengeance be his in the form of a second term of truly making American great again…and keeping her that way. Let his detractors rot in their impotent envy.
UPDATE 8/22/23: Rapidly replacing De Santis as the crown prince of MAGAdom, Ramaswamy is already creating controversy within conservative ranks issuing a statement about cutting aid to Israel within five years.
On the face of it, this places him in the camp of the Israel haters on the Left. Some supportive of Israel and familiar with the intricacies and flaws of our greatest and most productive ally disagree. And then there’s his peculiar, rather useless obsession with 9/11 conspiracy theories at odds with what most of us have taken away from that day.
His debate performance was good as predicted, and his presence dominant. Ultimately, all that matters is what he actually does, given the opportunity to serve in political office.
UPDATE 8/16/23: Ramaswamy’s 10 commandments provide more than adequate reason to vote for Trump and plan seriously on a political future for this forceful, young, new voice of MAGA.
1. God is real.
2. There are two genders.
3. Human flourishing requires fossil fuels.
4. Reverse racism is racism.
5. An open border is no border.
6. Parents determine the education of their children.
7. The nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to mankind.
8. Capitalism lifts people up from poverty.
9. There are three branches of the U.S. government, not four.
10. The U.S. Constitution is the strongest guarantor of freedoms in history.
Further to Vivek’s credit and common sense: he isn’t attacking Trump when baited to do so by Trump-hating journalists. He knows who’s leading the charge, and he is smart to look into the future for an alliance with his only real comrade-in-arms currently running for POTUS.
UPDATE 8/14/23: The powerful, silent undertow of MAGA is making itself felt in those quarters most fearful of it. There is still a chance to save the country, and no one is more capable or qualified to lead that fight in this pivotal moment than Trump. This is not an effete gentleman’s altercation but a real life-and-death struggle for what 250 years of true freedom lovers have defined as America.
UPDATE 8/7/23: Suppress free speech, and all is lost. Awaken the brainwashed, intimidated general public to this, and suddenly the insurmountable problems of the present become solvable. Time will tell whether American eyes will open again to their own advantage or remain blinded to enslavement by their own government.
UPDATE 8/2/23: Vivek Ramaswamy’s candidacy is now more than a symbolic gesture. Under the circumstances of the best candidate being under full siege, Ramaswamy must now be taken seriously.
UPDATE 7/23/23: Unlike Holland and most of its European neighbors, Italy seems to be recovering its sanity. Electing leadership that is putting a halt on unchecked immigration and banning men from female beauty contests is cause for hope.
UPDATE 7/27/23:
UPDATE 7/22/23: Few things express the unique brilliance of America better than the Great American Songbook that first sprouted and reached full blossom, unsurprisingly, in the Great American (20th) Century. It was all thanks to the creative talents of Cole Porter, George & Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, Johnny Mercer, Harry Warren, Dorothy Fields, Harold Arlen, Lerner & Loewe, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Ethel Merman, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby (to name just the most celebrated cream of that rich crop). Tony Bennett, gone this week at age 96, deserves to be recalled in their illustrious company as the last of that golden age’s great song interpreters.
Sadly, the opening lyrics of his signature tune tell the tale of decline; even the greatest of people and things in this life have their time and inevitably fade:
“The loveliness of Paris seems somehow sadly gay;
The glory that was Rome is of another day.”
So it is with both San Francisco and popular American song AND, perhaps, even America herself. How lucky for some of us to come of age when this music and that once-magical city were the commonplace fresh air we breathed and crystal clear water we drank. In those days, the whole world was only too glad to follow us, trying in vain to keep up.
Someone once wrote that a civilization can be judged by the music it produces. This speaks glowingly of the last century, dismally of the present and near future. God willing, subsequent generations somehow will wake up and embrace the glories, musical and otherwise, of the past, the essence of the American Spirit that will forever offer a blueprint and set the standard for human greatness.
Amen.
UPDATE 7/16/23: From this perch, recovering MAGA (and ideally its creator and strongest presence El Donaldo) is the ultimate wish for the country fulfilled. However, there are others vying for the chance to “move on” from The Donald. Judging from the forum staged by Tucker Carlson with the most prominent prospects, Vivek comes off best. The rest lack the vision and fire…or, like Haley and Pence, are part of the problem that Trump heroically started to expose and solve. See RINOS for reference.
Words brought to real life by accomplished deeds matter. So Trump remains the best hope for an American renaissance at the moment.
UPDATE 7/8/23: Despite the endless stream of bad news, we continue to enjoy free exchange of information and access to serious, clear thinkers with the ideas that will win this war. Jordan Peterson has emerged as one of our generals possessing the backbone of Patton and weaponized with the common sense that makes the world work.
UPDATE 6/30/23: The six reputedly conservative Supreme Court justices were apparently feeling brave as a group this week, voting in sync against the female trio of Affirmative Action Leftists on a trio of key cases.
Justice Gorsuch has nicely taken apart Justice Sotomayor’s hare-brained opinion that a graphic designer in Colorado should be forced to take on gay wedding clients against her will. Since when in a free society is an individual not allowed to say, “No, thanks. Please take your business elsewhere”?
In response to the Court’s Affirmative Action decision, the two Black Justices on the Court issued diametrically opposed statements that clearly illuminate the debate. While (Democrat) Jackson speaks for Obama’s relentless infusion of race and permanent division into American life, (Republican) Thomas reiterates (Republican) MLK’s dream of a color-blind society, giving preference to individuals based on their competence and character, not on their race or sex. Predictably, attaining equality both legal and actual, then moving on is not enough for those like Jackson whom (Republican) Booker T. Washington described in “Up From Slavery” more than a century ago:
Completing the good news is the Court decision striking down Biden’s proposed across-the-board Student Loan Forgiveness. Even quoting Pelosi, the Court has reminded Joe it’s not in his or any President’s power to promise such things to voters he hopes to bribe.
In junking the latter two giveaway schemes hatched to buy votes for the Dem Party, the Court may have just reduced both the current and projected federal deficits. Win/Win! And in answer to those on the Left, America HAS by necessity become a colorblind society, despite the best efforts of those social termites of the race grievance industry from Obama on down. Allow us to bring up the established wisdom of getting the best pilot to fly the plane, not necessarily a Black, female or one-legged one?
Speaking of which, this presents an awkward optic for those tokens clearly hired based on their intersectional race/gender/intractable Leftism like Sonia, Ketanji, Karine, Kamala and up-and-coming DEI enthusiasts hoping to follow in those unduly privileged footsteps. Bottom line: our entire society is better off when competence and character matter, not political fashions of the day.
UPDATE 6/30/23: Who’d have predicted a Kennedy leaping to the forefront of electoral politics as a wild card, a maverick outsider? A Kennedy? An outsider? Is he so clever that he’s really a Trojan horse, a garden-variety Kennedy Dem masquerading as Trump populist? The full force of hatred and suppression he’s inspired leads one to believe he’s authentic. Whatever he might be, RFK, Jr. is adding something valuable to serious discourse in these crazy times.
The MSM thinks he’s scary enough to link him to MAGA.
UPDATE 6/22/23: Nothing is forever, including great empires and nations. God willing we baby boomers who grew up in history’s greatest nation during one of its greatest eras are granted a reprieve in our lifetimes from what we are told is inevitable decline and fall. For us, MAGA is more than a catchy political slogan, and living well as staunch Americans remains the best revenge against the naysayers.
Proof through the night that the flag is still there.
UPDATE 6/11/23: Everything starts with an idea and, thanks to the freedom to act on that idea however preposterous, the unbelievable continues to become commonplace over time.
UPDATE 6/14/23: Assume Trump is allowed to win a second term uncontested. Surely the Left will throw in the towel and decide to stop its relentless drive for absolute UniParty dominance. Not in the cards even with the best possible outcome in November, 2024. The sharks have taken their bites, tasted the blood, and there will be no sating them. Average Joe/Jane Dem will passively continue to go along with the radicals running their Party and will never actively fight for free enterprise, patriotism, individualism over collectivism. Too “Republican.” Winning the election fair and square is the best scenario, but the bloody war will rage on.
UPDATE 6/11/23: It doesn’t take genius to see the folly of choosing an “electable” GOP moderate. Think McCain and Romney. And think Ford chosen over Reagan in 1976. Don’t forget Bush I without Reagan in 1992. Small wonder those UN-electable milquetoasts and RINOs hate an unambiguous, provably electable DJT with a white-hot passion rivaling his Dem detractors. Remember that warning about “moderation in pursuit of justice?”
Barry was up against the longing for a tragically martyred JFK, not the crude, corrupt LBJ.
UPDATE 6/11/23: Trump’s continued presence on the forefront of conservative politics remains the hope of millions and a source of anxiety for those supportive of his record but legitimately scared of the rain of poisoned arrows aimed at him…and them.
UPDATE 6/10/23: When Americans and all inhabitants of the planet realize the relative worthlessness and costly waste of a “higher education” compared to the solid trades, the quality of countless lives and society in general will take a quantum leap up. In truth, it will be a healthy step back into a superior past when real skilled work was valued, not college degrees.
UPDATE 6/9/23: Mr. Bean/Black Adder has something profound to say. Ignore him at your own peril.
UPDATE 6/10/23: To those fearful of another Trump candidacy because “he’s not electable,” the simple response is, “He WAS elected, twice.” The problem is not Trump but the corruption of our entire electoral process that robbed him of a second term and put us into the present BrandonWorld hell. The doubters would be wise not to shrink from his aggressive stance on essentials and remarkable track record of success in almost all areas. Certainly mistakes were made, particularly in his choice of delegating authority to bad actors like Bill Barr and, most destructively, Fauci. Look at his record, get clear that the ambivalence experienced comes from the unconscious sense of personal danger generated by the relentless campaign to destroy him and the entire MAGA movement. Take a stand with him and, in so doing, against those forces determined to enslave us and destroy whatever remains of essential America. It was clear even before the 2020 election that he was that precious, rare historical figure standing between us and that malignant agenda that never sleeps in pursuit of tyrannical control, and he still is.
UPDATE 6/1/23: Is the American Silent Majority quietly living and upholding tradition suddenly, finally starting to roar back? The active boycott of Woke Corporate-Bud, Target, Disney, MLB-is costing said entities tens of billion$. Perhaps the message is getting through that discarding reality and decency in favor of whimsical political crazes is bad for business.
UPDATE 6/1/23: Solemn observances (that are not “holiday celebrations”) like Memorial Day take on real meaning when experienced in small ways: modest, roadside monuments, freshly decorated, quiet gravesites, flags flying in front yards, personal testimonials online, not noisy parades and Big Events.
UPDATE 5/31/23: Optimistically titled articles claim the Woke operatives running BrandonWorld are “scared,” “panicked,” vulnerable to “a blueprint to beat the Left.” Are we prevailing?
UPDATE 5/27/23: The battle lines are drawn; the choice is between Trump or De Santis. Trump is a proven quantity and will give conservatives what they want and need. De Santis remains the untested national quantity and very possibly, a front for the old RINO network itching to get back in the game.
UPDATE 5/18/23: Despite having to face the daily firing squad of lies, evil and true madness of these particular times, one takes heart that this lust for power by certain types over our way of life is a panicky reaction to most of us living like free people. So, as wisely and humorously stated, “Living well is the best revenge.” And have faith.
UPDATE 5/12/23: Rod Serling’s classic “Twilight Zone” episodes remain some of the best television writing in the medium’s history. His gift was telling huge truths in wonderfully entertaining dramatic nuggets, each usually a half-hour long and still reference points for anyone with eyes open to the whole human story, good and bad.. Even the term “Twilight Zone” has come to mean “unbelievable, weird, shocking….but true.” Like Orwell, he was a great artist who communicated routinely from terrifying depths, and both died young from the exhausting rigors of prophetic creativity. Both laid bare the irrational human behavior that make us rightly fear “things to come.” But great art should also be a pleasure, and Serling’s achievements remain irresistible viewing. Major, enduring kudos to a smalltown American kid with a special knack for telling important stories.
UPDATE 5/9/23: The initial reaction from these quarters hearing the accusations months ago from this Carroll woman about being raped in a Bergdorf’-Goodman changing room by Donald Trump was, and remains, “Oh puleeeeez1”
And what is one to make of the “guilty” verdict of “Liable for rape” and Trump’s reaction (“I have absolutely no idea who this woman is!”)? It brings to mind the Brett Kavanaugh “victim.” As everyone recalls, that woman was a planted, delusional liar put up by Senate Leftists led by Dianne Feinstein to concoct a lurid fantasy of drunken high school sex.
This one is on record saying “It was an episode. It was an action. It was a fight. It was not a crime. It was, I had a struggle with a guy.” She added in the same interview, “I am not — I have not been raped. Something has not been done to me. I fought. That’s the thing.”
Huh?
As we’re being reminded more each day, we now live in an age where, when politically expedient, we’re lectured that all women are to be believed, and all aggressive men are presumed to be rapists. No doubt the ambiguous verdict as announced has been met with cheers from Trump-haters everywhere, BUT what the hell des “Liable for Rape” mean? Apparently, it’s one thing to rape a woman and equally bad to say, “Sorry, you’re not my type.”
All women are to be believed and their assailants punished unless they’re Juanita Broadrick or Tara Reade or Mary Jo Kopechne. Two credible allegations of rape, one verified case of leaving a young girl to die needlessly. No indictments, no full legal investigations of the prominent Democrat men involved. Or even mild outrage from those cheering the Trump/Carroll verdict. 50% Kafka, 50% “Twilight Zone.”
5/9/23: Hungarian PM Viktor Orban states what more than half the American electorate knew when NOT voting for Joe Biden: “If Trump were President, there would be no war in Ukraine.” Nor would a tidal wave of other nightmares have come to pass. Elections have consequences.
Volodymyr once upon a time, fretting that those endless billions in aid he hopes to get might have to be accounted for…and that they would NOT be limitless.
UPDATE 5/5/23: Vivek Ramaswamy is emerging as a potential conservative voice of the future, if we are to have a future. Young, perfectly articulate and, to the dismay of the Left, he is a dark-skinned man with a foreign-sounding name who may turn out to be a more formidable foe to the CRT/DEI/ID Politics/Woke plague than Trump himself. Naturally, dirt is already being dug up; in this case, a Soros fellowship connection. Time will tell.
UPDATE 5/2/23: It’s odd, but this is the second week in a row celebrating the American spirit by paying tribute to a recently late, great artist from the British Commonwealth, not an American. Last week, it was recently departed comic actor Barry Humphries from Australia and now Canadian balladeer Gordon Lightfoot has left us. Both were transcendently great artists who had something uniquely uplifting to offer all humanity. From Humphries, there was the mysterious miracle of deep laughter; and from Lightfoot, folk music in the true sense, telling musical stories of universal, timeless significance.
Lightfoot used his hauntingly beautiful baritone voice backed principally by 12-string acoustic guitar to paint vivid pictures of epic human achievement. His love songs (:Early Morning Rain,” “If You Could Read My Mind”) express the dark night of the lonely male soul, perhaps rivaled only by the meditative classics (“One For The Road,” “In The Wee Small Hours”) of Sinatra in his prime. “Wherefore And Why” is the potential joy of life on the horizon with each new sunrise.
Lightfoot’s “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” recounts the settling of Canada in panoramic detail, really a universal story of all peoples (Americans, Israelis among others) steadfastly carving civilization out of pitiless nature. Those of us who take pride in American history can easily, gratefully relate. Godspeed, Mr. Lightfoot, from an old, teenage fan from the 60s.
UPDATE 5/3/23: Remember when you got sent to the principal’s office for pulling on some girl’s braids? Now it’s for making other kids feel “unsafe” by wearing a T-Shirt stating “There are only two genders.” To his credit and that of his supportive father, a 12 year old boy finds himself on the front lines of the culture wars and disports himself like a hero.
UPDATE 4/23/23: Few entertainers have made the world laugh harder and more than Barry Humphries’ masterpiece creations, Dame Edna and Sir Les. Edna was every inch the international…nay…intergalactic superstar, and now, inexplicably, she is gone along with Barry’s mortal coil, shuffled off just this last week. She was the brilliant embodiment of freedom, ambitiion and true individuality (ergo her place here in “American spirit”) with each graciously delivered insult, every polite crooked crack scowl, the mock-shocked gaze from behind those iridescent cat glasses. Here was a genius actor coiffed and dressed like the world’s most outrageous British Panto star, lovingly riding herd over everyone and everything worthy of ridicule in her path.
Unsurprisingly, this former housewife turned Grande Dame from Melbourne’s boringly provincial Moonee Ponds suburb found her real-life alter ego/creator canceled for poking totally sensible, neat little holes in the whole grim politicized transgender movement with which Barry Humphries adamantly claimed no kinship. (“It’s pretty evil when it’s preached to children by crazy teachers,”)
Alas, comedy is serious business for the supremely talented and just silly drivel in the hands of the easily forgotten stupid. Edna/Les/Barry was an entertainer without equal, not a politician or polemicist, and no performer on the planet generated more laughter or will be more missed.
Myself onstage with the Great Lady, Broadway, 1999. Invited up from the audience to bask in her glow and eat inedible spaghetti and tasteless wine. And laugh.
GOODNIGHT, POSSUMS!!
UPDATE 4/25/23: It’s politics, not beanbag as the old saw goes; but Trump does himself a major disservice attacking De Santis by denigrating Florida, of all places, Trump’s own chosen home state! This is desperation he needn’t have, considering the strong lead he enjoys on the basis of his own positive record, not the claimed deficiencies of his chief rival.
De Santis, by contrast, continues calmly apace, nary a word or step amiss, with his record as governor and now a campaign book and outstanding interview with Hillsdale College’s Larry Arnn.
Conservatives are faced with a dilemma, picking one of two solid spokesmen. “Who will win?” Is the question. The ideal would be a resounding landslide for Trump in 2024, decisively slaying the hydra-headed persecution campaign against him, illuminating the corruption and massive assault on him and the country. Following thru on Making America Great Again-the economy, energy, the border, the military-the path is clear in 2028 for two terms of De Santis.
Anything less guarantees the unthinkable end of America as we’ve known her. At the moment, we resemble nothing so much as Russia or France on the brink of suicidal revolution. God help us.
UPDATE 4/18/23: For those conservatives fearful of another Trump candidacy, Barry Goldwater’s timeless quote on “extremism” and “moderation” should provide focus. With the notable exceptions of Ronald Reagan (1980-1988) and Trump (2016-2020), Republican candidates-two Bushes and losing candidates Dole, McCain and Romney-all studiously pursued moderation to their own detriment and that of the country. We have a proven fighter available and lusting for battle, and that battle requires a warrior’s mentality and constitution. For some, that killer drive to win is a deterrent, but realism dictates that it would be folly to waste him in these worst of times.
UPDATE 4/22/23: Andrew Breitbart accurately pointed out that “Politics is downstream from culture.” Someone else said, (and I paraphrase), “Different generations are to be judged by the music and art they make.” The old movies, the old songs speak glowingly of earlier Americans and their reverence for that thing called “beauty.” The present generation should worry how history will judge them.
UPDATE 4/16/23: MAGA and all it represents has a real future as long as it’s pro-American, not anti-(fill in the blank).
UPDATE 4/16/23: There’s a new face on the scene. He has an Indian name (Vivek Ramaswamy) and a refreshingly all-American point of view. Let’s hear more! (And there’s plenty more on the way.)
.UPDATE 4/21/23: Trump is going for broke, vowing a new GOP, not the conciliatory RINO outfit that has been as desperate to destroy Trump and MAGA as the Dem Party. We are at the same crossroads as that facing us in 2016. Are conservatives willing to take that path once again that Trump proved to be THE way back to free markets, strong borders, American self-interest and a way of life that defines MAGA?
Do we have a choice when it’s become clearer than ever that both Parties are actively bringing on a collectivist society once thought impossible in America but very much Lenin’s idea of paradise.
UPDATE 4/18/23: Plain talk is the best talk
UPDATE 4/15/23: Fox News is clearly no friend of Trump & MAGA when claiming “48% of Americans think Trump should suspend his presidential campaign following the indictment, up 5 points from last week.” Make careful note this is based on an ABC poll of 566 respondents.
UPDATE 4/15/23: The argument currently invoked against Trump, that he cannot be elected in 2024, is weakened if one reasonably assumes that he already won re-election handily in 2020. The problem is not Trump’s popularity; it’s a corrupted election process.
There is also the matter of millions of votes already cast by those fleeing blue states for the liberties of red ones. Given a clean electoral process, those emigrants voting with their feet and the tens of millions enraged by a blatantly stolen election and Trump’s Deep State persecution comprise a real Silent Majority primed to vote him back in.
UPDATE 4/11/23: Arguments abound for junking Trump in order for a “kinder, gentler” Republican to win in 2024. So, the argument seems to go:: run someone every Republican AND independents supposedly can get behind like, for instance, De Santis.The problem is, what happens to MAGA and all its proven, concrete accomplishments? Is De Santis his own man like Trump, more capable of withstanding the murderous wrath of the Deep State that will be unleashed on him if he is the nominee? And what happens to the question of a deeply corrupted electoral process which in the end, is THE ISSUE that must be addressed if the country is to be saved? If, in fact, the electorate actually did vote in the Brandon disaster fairly and legally in 2020 and really wants to do so again in 2024, the fight is already lost. Assuming otherwise, that our elections are now easily, routinely stolen and that MAGA and Trump accurately reflect the true American spirit, it’s “game still on!” Pick your hill to die on. History has given us no choice.
Oh dear. We don’t want to upset anyone, do we?
UPDATE 4/9/23: The most visible and loudest of Deplorables is hitting the links, having fun at the football game, enjoying a tripled lead over De Santis and carrying on like an American enjoying his basic rights. According to some, this is unacceptable, uppity of him and anyone else doing likewise.
A polite way of saying F-U to his detractors.
REPOSTED 4/9/23: FROM EASTER SUNDAY, 2013.
A Victorian musical masterpiece as simple, dramatic and moving as its majestic 2100 year old source. This particular performance is all the more touching for the sincere catch in Stanford Olsen’s fine tenor voice as this great Easter hymn approaches its climactic, heart-clutching moment:
“And once again the scene was changed,
New earth there seemed to be.
I saw the Holy City beside the tideless sea.
The light of God was on its streets, the gates were open wide,
And all who would might enter, and no one was denied!
No need of moon or stars by night,
Or sun to shine by day:
It was the new Jerusalem that would not pass away!
It was the new Jerusalem that would not pass away!”
Yet another beautiful rendition of “The Holy City” by the great American tenor Richard Crooks.
Easter morning, 2013, as if on cue, the first daffodils open…
If a larger lesson for all faiths is to be drawn from an observance of Easter, it is contained in these words of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this [collectivist tyranny] has happened.” Echoes William Penn: “”Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”
UPDATE 4/6/23: In San Diego, California still retains a bit of its golden glitter.
UPDATE 4/5/23: The true meaning and significance of Passover-the celebration of liberty and the fight to preserve it-embodies the deep bond between Israel & America.
UPDATE 4/4/23: Trump’s travails and his persecution is an assault on America and of her citizens. This rare, unforgiving character remains the obstacle between his persecutors and us. The level of hatred for him and specifically what he has actively promoted as President, say all one needs to know of his/our enemies and their rejection of those American guideposts, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The perversion of our founding principles by the opposition Party and the spineless RINO refusal to stand behind them calls for some unifying re-Declaration of American ideals.
Do any of them see or care about the consequences of this wanton wreckage, once only thought possible in tin pot Latin American or other Third World regimes?
We have entered new, dangerous territory. Yes, it is happening here.
The weakness and ridiculous content of the charges are a light at this dark tunnel’s end, but what fearsome damage can be done by a few simple, repetitive lies.
One can be realistically optimistic that this “trumped-up” nonsense will not play while turning the tables on Democrat corruption should be easy if hard evidence of seriously illegal activity still matters in a court of law.
This is the stuff of totalitarian regimes. In Joe’s case, it’s a case of an embarrassing moral midget perversely longing to attain a place beside modern history’s worst mass murderers.
UPDATE 3/31/23: Celebrating and living the American Dream is not a guaranteed feel-good, happy-ending Hollywood movie. It is the privilege of living a free life of one’s own choosing, a brilliant idea unrivaled in human history. Ironically, being grounded in objective reality, fully aware of bad ideas and the bad individuals who promote them is necessary to preserve and enjoy the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness we crave.
UPDATE 3/28/23: We are in trouble when only 38% of Americans think patriotism and love of country matter. That is down from 70% a quarter century ago. Obama’s “transformation” seems to be well underway.
UPDATE 3/31/23: The Deep State has made its move and indicted Trump. Should we be surprised when his very presence on the political scene from the start has drawn out and exposed this long-range war on America declared from within? All the more reason he should be re-elected and slay this dragon he has aroused on behalf of Americans who take life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness seriously. Who better to slow the threat that has always been there and will remain a cancer in our body politic long after he’s gone?
UPDATE 3/28/23: Despite every effort to stop/destroy him, Trump continues to surge past De Santis because the public wants an unowned man of action who’ll stop at nothing short of the positive results he promises.
UPDATE 3/24/23: Now they’ve really got him!
UPDATE 3/19/23: Trump’s enemies have made it clear they’ll stop at nothing to destroy him. This undying hatred of the man and his movement discourages many, but to abandon him is to give up on what American conservatives have always claimed to champion. On the bright side, Elon Musk thinks the threatened indictment could simply grease the works toward a landslide victory in 2024. A cheering thought!
UPDATE 3/18/23: Suggested: a worthwhile series of essays, attractively entitled “The American Spirit vs. The Great Awokening.”
UPDATE 3/18/23: For those still interested in a conservative candidate actively intent on making mere ideas concrete realities, Trump remains the best bet.
UPDATE 3/12/23: One of several video versions first available this morning of a choir of actual J6 prisoners in the DC Gulag, interspersed with DJT reciting The Pledge. The choir of 20 different prisoners was recorded individually by phone. The final visual message is “SUPPORTING CERTAIN PRISONERS DENIED THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.”
UPDATE 3/9/23: “Comedy is under attack because it is probably the last bastion of truly free speech.” Amen. Chris Rock and his mining of gold from The Slap is a case in point. Too bad no-longer-funny Whoopi Goldberg lacks the talent and intellect to use her own free speech rights and undeserved platform more intelligently when she actually calls for outright censorship on recent news reports she happens to dislike. Doesn’t that beautifully sum up the wasteland that is Leftism? First amendment rights for me, not for thee.
UPDATE 2/27/23: For those of us Americans fortunate enough to be born before 1960 (and then some), there are memories of safe, friendly neighborhoods and schools; books held in hand taking us to all corners of the universe; Main Streets, colorful entertainers and artists; American family, friends and acquaintances and the firsthand, concrete experiences attached to it all that make up a rich tapestry of the free, secure life. Such truly diverse, sensory memories are becoming rarer and lost to the young, now captive exclusively to those desk top/hand-held robots that provide only a two-dimensional version of reality, good and bad, that we lucky oldsters have known through 5 (6!) senses and in 3 dimensions. We live in satisfaction knowing that old things and old friends are the best.
UPDATE 3/2/23: No, living with the lingering pall of lockdowns, mandates, masks, toppled statues, Woke revisions to classic literature, language and history itself, I’m not freer than I was two years ago. Or certainly 50 years ago.
UPDATE 3/4/23: There is an antidote to the deadly victimhood malaise saturating young and old alike today. Remember Reagan and his positive message about all that’s possible in a free America? And, recall just a bit over two years ago, a sitting President governed and led with the attitude that our best days are still ahead? He’s still here and available, and some of us refuse to stop believing him and living accordingly.
UPDATE 2/16/23: What sends a stronger message than visual humor? The satirical caricatures of the amazingly prolific A.F. Branco are daily treasures, each, at a glance, doing the work of a thousand printed editorials. For more of Branco, go to COMICALLYINCORRECT.com.
UPDATE 2/16/23: Whether an observant Christian or Jew, consciously religious or not, each of us is guided by the Judeo-Christian tradition as laid down in both the Old & New Testaments. Historically and in practice, the two books are complementary, and one is incomplete without the other.
Contrary to the cynical claim that religion is the cause of all strife, the basic shared values of Judeo-Christianity laid out in both Bibles still provide the common force that unites and stabilizes a flawed humanity, albeit tenuously at this moment on the historical timeline.
We are currently witnesses to a society that seems determined to abandon those codified values, and increasingly normalized insanity is the result.
UPDATE 2/8/23: We need more Congressional representatives like Brian Mast, R-FLA. He lost both legs in Afghanistan, but obviously he has not lost his fire or soul. Only 42 years old, this is someone to watch.
UPDATE 2/8/23: In response to Joe’s SOTU dribbling drivel, a commonsensical statement grounded in reality and displaying the focused leadership America deserves.
UPDATE 2/7/23: Particularly in these fluctuating times when good can suddenly revert to terribly bad, it is reassuring to re-examine the enduring legacy of one of the all-time good guy class acts of American politics.
UPDATE 2/8/23: Trying to slime De Santis with the teenage girls/beer bottle photo from 20 years back is cheap politics and gives credence to the TDS crowd. Nevertheless, Trump remains the one who says what needs saying best and loudest. His record on the job between 2016-2020 also proves his strong words are backed up by concrete action which only speaks in his favor. It may also be a good sign that De Santis’ record is so promising and even comparable to Trump’s that Don has been driven by purely political desperation to create some distance between himself and Ron. That would mean win/win for conservatives, whichever of these two prevails.
UPDATE 2/1/23: Liberty is showing serious signs of fraying at the edges. When America is considered the 23rd of 160 nations on a freedom index, something is seriously amiss.
UPDATE 1/30/23: Imagine seeing and experiencing things as they are today through the shocked eyes of our country’s founders. To sane liberty-loving folk, this should be a wake-up call, but disturbingly, reality has yet to dawn on a sleepwalking half of adult Americans.
The Founding Fathers share their concerns after dropping in for an eye-opening guided tour of 21st century America. The conversational tone is rather somber.
UPDATE 1/24/23: Recently deceased historian Paul Johnson provided easily readable scholarship informed by a love of liberty. He was always a pleasure to read and now, posthumously, never more so than when praising America: “No other country represents so clearly the current wishes and long-term aspirations of the human race.” To those America-haters outside and especially within, he provided this damning retort: “To hate America is to hate humanity.”
UPDATE 1/18/23: For those of us not seduced by the Left’s candy-flavored poison, life is pretty much about being left alone to pursue life, liberty and happiness where, when and how we individually choose. Stay out of my way, I stay out of yours. Simple enough yet for too many it has become a crime to live by that fundamental directive. Those prone to take their directions from other humans rather than a Higher Power will go to any lengths to freeze free, independent life around them. So it is. And we will continue to live and flourish despite them. Where has one been given a greater opportunity for this approach to life than America?
UPDATE 1/21/23: Hard to believe he has to say it, but Trump is warning the GOP not to cut old-age benefits, particularly when there is a bottomless pit of other waste in government worthy of junking.
UPDATE 1/17/23: As McCarthy has been forced to act like a Republican and not a RINO, it’s become increasingly clear how important that stand-off requiring 15 ballots for Speaker was. And how Dems are kicking themselves for not voting for him on the first ballot to have a spineless RINO to carry on Nancy’s agenda.
UPDATE 1/12/23: Admittedly things in the long run for America are looking rather grim, what with the normalizing of stolen elections and the successful open savaging of serious reform demonstrated by Trump vs. the Deep State. Our republic is faltering, yet we have no choice but to stand steadfastly on what our Founders gave us and trust in the Divine Providence that gave it to them.
UPDATE 1/12/23: The sudden death of Lynnette ‘Diamond’ Hardaway (of Diamond & Silk) is a loss to those of us refreshed by truthful, outspoken Americans in these challenging times. She certainly made her time on earth worthwhile, and we wish her eternal rest and reward for her part in keeping us on the freedom trail. God bless and keep her.
UPDATE 1/12/23: The usual naysayers (plus short-sighted Republicans like Crenshaw, Hannity, and even Trump!) were both appalled (or thrilled) by what seemed to be a totally divided GOP during the McCarthy voting drama. Thank God for such a debate, and special admiration is owed those 20 hold-outs who brilliantly used the leverage available to ensure a much more conservative agenda than the usual accommodating RINO cave-in.
UPDATE 1/5/23: In line with Breitbart’s observation that politics is downstream from culture, one can take heart that daily devotion to beauty and truth in one’s family and professional life is the strongest antidote to the prevailing ugliness of the present. It’s quiet but must be looked upon as being as powerful as the winds, sands and water of eternity that have slowly forged the highest mountains and deepest valleys.
UPDATE 1/6/23: The intra-Party Speaker snafu in the House is nothing compared to 1856’s drama which required 133 votes and took 2 months sorting out 21 different candidates scrambling for the job. 9 votes? 10 votes? 11 votes? Ho-hum. [Update: it took 15 votes and some deals brokered and concessions made. Read them and be cautiously optimistic as with all things in politics. Dare we think of these conceded demands as an anti-RINO vaccine with likely boosters to follow thanks to the new Freedom Caucus spirit in Congress?]
UPDATE 1/4/23: Trump’s (and Elon Musk’s) backing of establishmentarian McCarthy for Speaker is a desperate call for Party unity and an end to self-destructive bickering. However, there are those understandably sick of such compromise as evidenced by this Tweet: “The fact that Trump is still advocating for Kevin McCarthy for Speaker and his base is ignoring him proves two things. 1. His base is not a cult 2. He is very out of touch with his base.” Conservatives are looking for a move toward the policies that made them MAGA supporters, not GOP business-as-usual. Their message is: give us a hardline conservative leader in Congress to continue the movement Trump created.
UPDATE 12/30/22: Greeting the new year, it would be preferable if the sky were sparkly blue and the punctuation an enthusiastic exclamation point rather than a big, fat, doubtful question mark. However, engagement in real life more often than not involves stormy skies and doubt; but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. So against the universal, age-old challenge of life itself, we wish you a new beginning fired by determined purpose and cheerful outlook despite it all. Happy New Year! As Mr. Berlin exulted:
12/29/22: Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, is 93 and still the model of that precious breed of American businessman fully aware and appreciative of the source of his success.
UPDATE 12/28/22: The GOP is heading for major division as the MAGA base wants Trump while those running the Party have other plans.
UPDATE 12/25/22: The war on America takes in all things worthwhile, and that includes Christmas, this most anticipated, magical, happiest day of the year. If nothing else, we conservatives are realists and well-versed in finding and CONSERVING the best of an imperfect life despite the Woke grinches at work 24/7/365. So may we be cheerful and draw inspiration on this and all days despite…things. “It’s always something,” as the great Gilda sighed, and we’ll just handle it. Merry Christmas!
UPDATE 12/24/22: How different our lives would be but for the astonishing heroism of Washington and his men crossing the Delaware on Christmas Eve, 1776 and turning the tide of the war toward American victory. As great a gift as was ever bestowed on humanity.
12/21/22: There’s a price for everything of value, and nowadays the price for speaking up and out loudly for America and its freedom-based values is costing even brave billionaires dearly. The first obvious hero is Donald Trump, and now Elon Musk is drawing the same threats to his very being. After releasing the Twitter Files dynamite, he has drawn criticism for taking down posts of malicious doxxers including one that tracks his exact location, an open invitation to any potential assassin. Seemingly in response, Musk proposed a poll to Twitter users to determine whether he should step down as the company’s CEO and vowed to go with the poll results. It makes no sense for the man who forked over $44 billion for a company to ask the public permission to run the thing. The only explanation is that he is seeking an excuse to lay low, and now it looks as if the majority vote against him is providing that excuse. One only hopes he remains the man behind the curtain to keep the revelations coming and the channels of communication open and free. He has every reason to fear for himself and his family, and we pray he uses every resource to protect himself while continuing to blast open the corruption that genuinely threatens America as we’ve always known her. He, like Trump, is one of those rare characters that this historical moment demands if we are to survive as a nation.
UPDATE 12/19/22: Santa has a list, so why not the American public? Here’s a list that should be the talking points of every candidate for high public office. Not by chance, it is also a list for anyone who wants the best life for themselves in America.
Among many conservatives lost in 2022, we will particularly miss P.J. O’Rourke and Lucianne Goldberg for the gold of humor and fun they brought to the big debate.
UPDATE 12/21/22: Donald Trump and MAGA came along at a troubled stretch on the American timeline that really began on November 22, 1963. Things were never the same after that indelible shock to the system, that psychological earthquake that marred everything idyllic, invincibly optimistic about post-WWII America. If we’ve learned anything, it is that things both good and bad are transitory, but the basis of the country, our God-given fundamental rights, must stand firm and out of reach from human mischief. Otherwise, all is truly lost.
UPDATE 12/16/22: The spirit of Christmas and Chanukah meld happily with the American spirit at this time of year. We Americans are particularly fortunate to have enjoyed the lives we have and rejoice quite naturally in all things good and true.
UPDATE 12/15/22: Elon Musk has burst forth as an American hero with the Twitter revelations and the major corrections that can result from newly freed speech, a free press. Will those on the moderate Left begrudgingly admit the dangers of their beloved Woke corporate culture? Do they know they too can be swallowed whole by the monster they have helped bring into being?
UPDATE 12/8/22: Virtually every article praising Trump is prefaced with a qualification or insistence that the man isn’t perfect or not that writer’s cup of tea. Nevertheless, goes the typical apologia, his record as President speaks volumes in his favor. The latest of these begrudgingly pro-Trump articles is no exception, actually recommending him for the Nobel Peace Prize! We couldn’t agree more! His commonsensical antipathy toward Iran and China and creation of an unprecedented stability in the Middle East justifies such an honor. Sadly, such prizes have been discredited by the Leftward Wokeness of recent (the last 50 years) recipients, so we’ll settle for the prize of a second term for the best POTUS thus far of the 21st century.
UPDATE 12/5/22: Trump’s vindication, sooner or later, must come if the reality of what’s happening to the country ever dawns on the general public. At what point, does the collective mind focus and rational self-interest kick in? It’s a great misfortune that there will be no move in this direction by the incoming Republican establishmentarians as the top Repub Intel chief trashes Trump, hails Zelensky calling for yet more Ukraine funding and generally sounds like a member of BrandonWorld.
UPDATE 12/2/22: Defining oneself and general outlook as “conservative” is quite the opposite of reactionary stagnation as those on the Left would claim. Conserve what’s worthwhile in service to letting free life bloom and grow in every direction.
For example, Christmas. Who’d have dreamed that freely celebrating Christmas as we always did was dependent upon which Party was in power? That saying “Merry Christmas” would become an offense?
UPDATE 12/1/22: Philosopher/pundit Jordan Peterson and Congressman Mike Johnson are two of today’s most worthwhile voices, one a crystal-clear socio-political thinker, the other a politician who thinks. What they have in common is a full awareness of our world and total dedication to conserving the best in it. [P.S. Peterson has brilliantly avoided being shouted down in public like other outspoken conservatives by delivering his live lectures at 8 am which is hours before most shrieky wastrels of Woke bother to wake up. The man has a rational response to everything.]
UPDATE 12/1/22: It’s a handful of big-mouth bullies dictating the Woke culture, dividing each against the other, blackening the mood of the country. Corporations and individuals must talk back, call out the lies and absurdity and become the prevailing winds of our culture.
UPDATE 12/1/22: It’s going to be Trump & De Santis. The others are just inserting themselves to make anti-MAGA mischief and/or create distraction.
UPDATE 11/29/22: Both a credit to their home state of Louisiana, rising Repub stars in Congress Steve Scalise and Mike Johnson bring class and clarity to the GOP.
UPDATE 11/27/22: This post’s obvious comparison last week of Trump to Gary Cooper in “High Noon” is evident to others who also view him as the unbeaten lone warrior refusing to go down while fighting on our behalf. It should also be noted this is not a personality disposed toward martyrdom, however determined his enemies are to crucify him. Whatever the outcome, let the record show we’ve had a rare fighter in our corner.
UPDATE 11/24/22: Wishing each and all a Happy distinctly AMERICAN Thanksgiving! Without this particular holiday, those other special days and everyday reasons for celebration would not exist.
UPDATE 11/22/22: Granting ourselves an “AWWWWW!” moment to enjoy the story of 53 rescue doggies miraculously surviving a plane crash and finding forever homes. It’s generally a harsh world for both humans and dogs, but life at moments can be like the happy ending of an old Disney movie.
And then there’s this heart-tugging expression of Mother Nature at Her kindest and best:
UPDATE 11/22/22: One of many personal reasons for gratitude in this life granted me is the presence of books, physical, dog-eared books with pages and print that sit on my shelves. along with recordings and sheet music. They are more than abstract data and information as the digital world presents them, invisible, two-dimensional in cyberspace. They exist, alive, in real space like the people who wrote them and, for that matter, myself.
UPDATE 11/21/22: De Tocqueville is always illuminating and offers a prescient Big Warning of what NOT to do that IS being done to us.
UPDATE 11/20/22: There are now doubts about De Santis thanks to his RINO backers, but unsurprisingly little doubt about Trump and his plans for 2024. The Great Naranjo is not going anywhere, is BIGLY going for a THIRD Presidential election victory in order to serve the second term denied him in 2020. Helping this drive for restoration is Elon Musk’s reactivation of banned accounts including Trump’s with 80 million followers suddenly pouring in for him. The Donald is still very much in the picture thanks to his refusal to concede defeat and the wave of emboldened citizens he inspires. We have no other comparable figure fighting fiercely on the conservative side within memory, and tens of millions are convinced more than ever that such a personality is still necessary to push back against the indefatigable Left’s drive for total control.
UPDATE 11/20/22: DJT is back on Twitter which is at least a sign that free speech still exists in Brandon’s America…despite Brandon. But did you get the dire update from Babylon Bee? 13 billion dead after Donald was unbanned from Twitter!
UPDATE 11/17/22: We still live in colonial Salem, the 21st century witches condemned to burn at the stake being those uppity high-volume voices thumbing their noses at the Woke Establishment high priests. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Kanye West, even with their personal flaws, stand out admirably among those leading this righteous insurrection, and to bring the current pandemic of repression to a halt, we must continue to back them up and take no soft-sold substitutes. Without free speech, there is no freedom. These are Ibsen’s Enemies Of The People, Gary Cooper standing alone against the Miller gang arriving at High Noon, Ayn Rand heroes defying and laughing at the pygmies, the Galileo heretics who take the blows for speaking on behalf of truth-lovers everywhere. They will ultimately prevail or, at worst, go down fighting.
UPDATE 11/16/22: Conservatives find themselves stretched uncomfortably in a tug-of-war between an immensely attractive, proven De Santis and DJT, the indomitable force who still intends to win the war for us and settle for nothing less. His first address to the public as a 2024 candidate has proven to be a refreshing reminder of what has brought at least half the country into the MAGA movement. De Santis has a record that is persuasively solid and worth supporting, but does he really have the autonomy enjoyed by Trump who, unlike De Santis (if reports of his prominent Trump-hating backers are to be believed), is beholden only to himself?
This is high drama that isn’t make believe. Trump is at the forefront of a moment of truth, and the outcome could well be both tragic and heroic for him personally and for an American republic we’re struggling to keep.
In the meantime, President Schmesident. Will the Republican-controlled Congress lay bare and fully address the Covid travesty, the illegal immigration disaster, the inflation monster, the Biden Crime Family (aka Hunter’s laptop), the normalizing of “Climate Change” and “Gender Spectrum” horsepucky now respectively terrorizing and mutilating the young? Kurt Schlichter sensibly proposes NEW, effective, kick-ass GOP leadership that is never to come from the tepid trio of McConnell, McCarthy or McDaniel. He suggests Matt & Mercedes Schlapp or almost-NY Governor Lee Zeldin perhaps? There’s plenty of long overdue do-or-die stuff to handle as of yesterday without worrying about 2024.
UPDATE 11/11/22: Some of us are observing Veterans Day with a special emphasis on the character of an era when young people grew up directly into adulthood, not into prolonged, sometimes lifelong adolescence. Hats off to those willing to sacrifice, serve and display those qualities for the rest of their days as spouses, parents and citizens.
UPDATE 11/10/22: The forward-looking confidence of three days ago has been somewhat compromised by the unexpected Wave That Didn’t Happen. De Santis’ unquestioned triumph and Florida’s decisive Red Wave should be heartening, but there are warnings that he could be a tool for those Never Trump RINO/Globalist types too eagerly backing him, not to mention Far Leftist media lining up likewise. Legitimately, De Santis may very well be right on the issues in thought and deed, more electable, less divisive than Trump; but the relentless campaign against the Man From MAGA, now gone viral post-Election, bodes no good.
Reports of Florida’s Breakers Hotel suddenly canceling David Horowitz’ Freedom Center conference after 20 years (“too controversial”) adds worrisome intrigue to an ever-thickening plot. Who/what is behind that? Is anything what it seems? Most disturbing is covert corruption of the voting process nationwide the piling on Trump, major ingratitude for his bringing the Republican Party to purposeful life, now signaling the extreme likelihood of a Return Of The RINOS as the future GOP.
Rampant crime, wide open borders, exploding inflation, consumer costs out of sight, energy dependence upon Russia and the Arabs, subverting Israel in favor of blatant Middle Eastern villains Iran and so-called “Palestinians,” a neutered military, CRT and Gender Spectrums fast replacing the 3Rs…This is America? Forget about the Dem policy creating all this. One is faced with the reality of A DEEPLY UNSERIOUS and malignant strain running through the exiled RINO leadership ranks determined to make a return and carried along by an easily indoctrinated GOP electorate with only NEVER TRUMP stamped on their lazy brains.
Acknowledging our disappointment, let’s grant ourselves a little much-need levity and relief that this clownish figure among SO many has, for the moment, been removed from the stage and relegated to harmless limbo.
UPDATE 11/7/22: As the midterms approach, the tremors of fear are slowly becoming a high-pitched scream for “SHAMNESTY” and “Never mind!” throughout the higher-up ranks responsible for the obscenities of the last couple of years. First there was last week’s plea for mercy from The Atlantic. Now, it appears that certain members of the formerly untouchable Deep State and Swamp are rushing the gates of the embassy hoping for a free helicopter ride out. One could elaborate, but the only rational thing to demand is lay out the cases, one by one by one by one and “Let Justice Be Served.” This will take years, but there needs to be an omnipresent fear of retribution to head off those contemplating a Re-do of BrandonWorld, 2020-2022. For the good of us all, no more appeasement and capitulation.
UPDATE 11/12/11: Trump’s recent tirades against De Santis originally have appeared imprudent, but can one blame him after 6 years of being the one who seriously has taken on the corrupt DC establishment of both parties and gotten nothing but grief for his tireless bravery? Will he turn out to be, when and if the dust ever settles, the only David truly serious about taking on the Goliath of Deep State/Swamp corruption? Now that it’s clear that much of De Santis’ backing is of the Never Trump variety, a Trump/De Santis reconciliation can never come about. This is the thanks he gets, and it’s a bitter pill for the MAGA movement.
UPDATE 11/4/22: Has the gigantic fraud on every imaginable front been exposed, and is our upside-down nation about to be righted? Are we on the brink of a seismic shift all freedom-loving, commonsensical Americans will celebrate?
Our sanity and physical survival demands eradication of the Party of lockdowns, vax/mask mandates, suicidal Green New Deals, runaway inflation, wide open borders, CRT and gender counseling in grade schools…One could go on, but this simply cannot go on.
UPDATE 11/2/22: The Red Wave is hitting social media as well as (hopefully) the halls of government. Much to the regret of the totalitarian Left (now in full control of the Democrat Party), Musk’s move to Free The Bird promises a resurgence of free speech. What a relief but how tragic to ponder the very notion of “the comeback of free speech in America.” Without free speech, America does not even exist.
UPDATE 11/5/22: Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has become a national phenomenon thanks to her fearless approach to her critics and clear expression of MAGA ideas. Her political history is all over the place, from Republican to Obama to MAGA. Like any politician and even Trump himself, she is to be assessed for what she ultimate DOES. At least she has given it all serious thought and is able to discern what works and what is folly. Then, as with all politicians, we wait to see if those good ideas are put into action.
UPDATE 10/27/22: Sad to report, our great friend Lucianne Goldberg, she of the wickedly amused Cheshire cat grin and doyenne of Lucianne.com, has passed on at age 87. For the last couple of decades, this wonderfully humorous, rock-solid great dame presided over the Conservative Internet as its undisputed grande dame. She will be sorely missed as a friend and heartening presence who now takes her place in history alongside other departed champions of the American essence like Rush Limbaugh and Andrew Breitbart. God bless and keep her.
Time Magazine described her here in 1998: “With her gold cigarette holder and her swampy voice, she seemed a cross between Angela Lansbury and Jimmy Cagney. She made straight for the bar, and conversational clusters parted like the Red Sea as she passed.” Hee hee….
This video will make you smile and find that life is still worthwhile as she was eminently able to make her friends and admirers do.
UPDATE 10/29/22: What’s potentially big about Musk’s Twitter takeover is that free speech unencumbered by fear of reprisal spreads like wildfire which poses a serious problem for the PC/Cancel Culture/Progressive scoundrels. Not incidentally, it’s very, very, very good for decent, liberty-loving folk.
UPDATE 10/27/22: Combined with a hoped-for midterms election sweep for Repubs, will Elon Musk’s promise of free speech on Twitter herald the beginning of the end of BrandonWorld?
UPDATE 10/23/22: Dare we share the hopes of a pundit or two that we are looking at an American voting public happily possessed by the spirit of common sense and a healthy instinct for self-preservation, resulting in a conservative landslide beyond our wildest dreams?
UPDATE 10/27/22: Despite every imaginable obstacle presented short of literal assassination, Trump remains the most important, effective figure in American politics.
UPDATE 10/9/22: It’s a brighter future when the legal system is working in favor of rationality and basic American rights on a host of contentious fronts.
Sitting judges in growing numbers are coming to their senses and refusing to hire Woke Yale law graduates. That Yale J.D. degree used to be the fast track to the cushiest jobs until (like everything else it touches) the Left ruined it. Adding to the woes of the perverted Left, a Federal judge has ruled workplace pronouns and unisex bathrooms unlawful. Equally worrisome for those nostalgic for universal lockdowns and masks is a Florida ruling against forced vax mandates in private businesses.
MAGA underpinned by our legal system is truly becoming a reality, not just a hopeful slogan!
UPDATE 9/27/22: The Left is supposedly all for Strong Women, but one senses Italy’s newly elected Giorgia Meloni, Britain’s Liz Truss and American-spirited, liberty-minded counterparts everywhere (including America!) are not what they have in mind. Already the hyenas are howling worldwide about Meloni in predictable unison: Fascist! White Supremacist! Mussolini!
“Everything that defines us is now an enemy, so they attack national identity, they attack religious identity, they attack gender identity, they attack family identity. I can’t define myself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother, no. I must be citizen x, gender x, parent 1, parent 2. I must be a number, because when I am only a number, when I no longer have an identity or roots, then I will be the perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators.”
The enemy is also accurately termed globalists, the EU, WEF totalitarians who rightly view such moves toward national sovereignty and independence as THE threat to their dreams of absolute power.
UPDATE 9/25/22: The heroic actions of a principled individual refusing to be silenced here, another one there, is the stuff of history’s few worthwhile revolutions. And it appears we are overdue for such a turnaround.
UPDATE 9/25/22: As in the Obama days when the leader of the Free World was Netanyahu, the new British PM Liz Truss, speaking at the UN, is said by hopeful sources to have assumed that presence in the absence of anything honorable at the American helm.
Not so promising are reports Truss intends to step up mass migration into the UK despite an overburdened treasury and a notably bad record of criminal activity among the new arrivals.
UPDATE 9/28/22: Is Trump the only one with the mettle to turn back the overwhelming forces allied against him and what he has come to represent?
9/21/22: America was built on a can-do foundation of common sense. Our future depends upon the mass survival of that trait, the ability shared by all rational people to know and remain in command of what is good for them vs. what isn’t. Not touching a hot stove is one example. Letting those deemed “smarter” (like a Barack, Hillary and their Ivy League ilk) do your thinking for you is another. Sadly, the all-too-willing prey for these control freaks and purported intellectual giants are those individuals who have lost faith in their own reasoning. The good news is that such “smart” types find themselves helpless morons when faced with common sense from their targeted victims.
Read Jason Hill’s open letter to the lifeless embarrassment occupying the White House for reliable guidance to common sense conservatism and rational thinking. And then, there’s always Jordan Peterson.
9/16/22: America, in its first 200 years the incomparable model for a society based on individual liberty underpinned by law, owes its existence to the equally incomparable legacy of Great Britain when she ruled the waves and genuinely civilized the world. Queen Elizabeth II was the last living vestige of that rich history, and her passing leaves one with a sense of loss, not simply of a person but possibly of an entire civilization.
UPDATE 9/8/22: QEII was an attractive, calm presence whose post-WWII reign coincided with both the peak of American greatness and her own country’s slide into socialist levelling. The long “special relationship” enjoyed between America and Britain also included a shared inclination in that discouraging direction periodically stalled both here and there by bursts of relaxed governmental regulation, lower taxes and resultant economic prosperity. Throughout all these cycles, the Queen stood away and above politics, keeping her opinions to herself, expertly filling the rather more spiritual role of monarch, matriarch, living embodiment of Britannia herself. Knowing as much as we do about her successor, he will never enjoy the authority and respect she commanded. (See THE GREAT RESET, 9/9/22)
All the heartfelt tributes pouring in, even from self-described socialists and champions of “equity,” dramatize a universal longing for stability, continuity, reassurance that basic things hold together and don’t change. She remained a steadfast object of admiration and source of confidence, a regal presence going quite seriously through all those ceremonial gestures miraculously devoid of bombast, mother of the family, simply There. Quoting one of the better tributes, “She never made the mistake of thinking that she was an interesting or remarkable person in herself, and thereby became remarkable.
The stark contrast between this unassuming, comforting presence and her politicized, pompous, puppet heir is a blunt reminder of how far Western Civilization has strayed and will continue to break loose from its majestic foundations. With or without Elizabeth, it’s long been apparent that something has been slipping away, something has been lost. No longer are common sense and self control the norm in human affairs. Where is the reverence for the proven genius of the past without which America and Europe have no future? Something is now missing thanks to the mainstreamed attraction to worthless ideas. We knew there would be an void when she was gone, and it is about to become obvious what that is.
When we say, “God save the Queen” we are really asking, “God save the best that is in us.”
UPDATE 9/4/22: Yes, America can be fixed. Just scale back government and useless laws, get people off welfare by freeing the markets and all the jobs and consumer choices that come with that: beef up border security; and leave me the hell alone unless I invite you over.
UPDATE 9/4/22: One American, an uppity Black one as Democrats would view him, lays it out eloquently for the skinny little Adolf aspirant. Likewise another Black African immigrant.
UPDATE 8/30/22: It’s hard to argue with Trump’s singular power to create and sustain MAGA, a true conservative movement. The desperate fury that his enemies will unleash upon his re-election will be matched and surpassed by the triumph of American principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. No Left-leaning candidate or electorate will produce that simply because, on all counts, it is the antithesis of what they want.
UPDATE 8/24/22: The victory of parents over Leftist schools boards in Florida is an encouraging reassertion of the family and parental authority.
UPDATE 8/22/22: It has become evident that the war on Trump is the war on you: the intimidation and silencing of the individual living and thinking independently of a cabal of self-appointed Global Masters. The mask/vax narrative is a call to mass obedience, not health. and has provided the foundation for this Great Reset now exponentially stepped-up since the illegal installation of BrandonWorld, November 2020.
For realists, fear is a rational response: BUT there is also a widespread belief that we are witnessing the forced exposure of a tyrannical claque of elitists that can no longer hide its motives or designs of transforming all of humanity into a One World nightmare under their control. This international Mafia of billionaires and totalitarian ideologues has desperately gone a step too far publicly in their reach for absolute power . One writer identifies them optimistically as a “dying establishment” while another observes elitists on a suicide trajectory, American leadership in “hellish ruins” (bright Brit Melanie Phillips) with the ever-reliable Victor Davis Hansen hailing the self-immolation of the “worst and the stupidest.”
There IS cause for hope when the evil in this world ultimately ends up being the principal party to its own destruction.
UPDATE 8/21/22: It is a fool who doesn’t fully appreciate something precious before he suffers the shock and pain of finding it gone. This is an apt description of America and the freedoms we enjoyed before the Covid plot was crashed into us like those flying 9/11 bombs. There can and must be recovery, and if a true American spirit has survived, we can never take any of this for granted again.
UPDATE 8/20/22: Hello, Hurricane Harriet!
UPDATE 8/17/22: The lockdowns and a renewed appreciation of self-sufficiency has sent a number of enterprising Americans back to the farm.
UPDATE 8/17/22: By setting up ESAs (Empowerment Scholarship Accounts) usable at any school of choice, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey joins the growing crusade to put parents fully back in charge of their children’s education.
UPDATE 8/17/22: Alas, poor Lizard. We knew ye too well. Even the NY Times this morning has been forced to admit “He has become the rare defeated president to wield enormous sway over his party, with the ability to end careers (like Cheney’s, perhaps) and to turn once-obscure candidates into winners.”
No wonder the Dem/RINO alliance has taken to such desperate measures as early morning jackboot raids and as many trumped-up (!) charges and indictments as it will take. They certainly don’t intend to let the average voting American decide.
UPDATE 8/16/22: Anyone writing favorably and admiringly of America these days is considered suspect by the usual suspects. For them, anything reducing America in status among history’s nations is to be applauded. David McCullough told the story of a country he unabashedly admired without overlooking its flaws as one would in describing a great person. Perhaps that was his appeal: he saw America herself as he would a totally human, imperfect yet undeniable hero. And that is the reason he is to be admired and continually read, hopefully for generations to come.
UPDATE 8/15/22: The hypothetical has been posed that Trump could decide against running in hopes of getting the NeverTrumpers in both parties to stop their relentless assault on him and his family. However, unlike Bush, Romney and McCain, eager to appease and even accommodate their former enemies, Trump is by nature unlikely to give them an inch. His post-raid statement confirms his determination to continue his mission and rid us of The Swamp. This persecution is also solidifying his presence as the real leader of the Republican, conservative movement, not those RINOs “meeting in the middle” to avoid any unpopular policies that truly advance a free market and strong defense, ie, a traditionally AMERICAN way of life.
UPDATE 8/10/22: It’s hard to argue against Trump’s Truth Social statement that we are “A Nation In Decline.” Hate him (and us!) as they do, they cannot refute a single claim made in his statement. We are slipping into unchecked tyranny, and those currently too blind to see, will find themselves wondering how they suddenly lost all the rights they took so blithely for granted. Perhaps experiencing a sudden loss of mobility, livelihood, liberty will bring some to an inner resurgence of American spirit. Cynically and realistically, it’s more likely they will rationalize their predicament as a good thing. “Anything’s better than having Donald Trump as President!” God sees all things, including fools incapable of seeing themselves.
8/11/22: UPDATE 8/13/22: Looking forward to the political obliteration of the odious opportunist Liz Cheney with phenomenal firebrand Harriet Hageman. Listen to this woman and cheer hopefully for the future of the country.
8/11/22: As Ruth King accurately states, the popular David McCullough books and tv appearances are the best available antidote to CRT and the other Hate America propaganda poisoning curricula via the Left’s Long March through our entire educational system.
UPDATE 8/9/22: Living the American spirit goes inseparably with the willingness to fight and die for it. Short of bloodshed, rational people build movements, and it behooves us to know about how that has been done successfully throughout our history. Bayard Rustin and his part in cementing a real civil rights movement during the 60s has never been so worthy of study as the present.
UPDATE 87/22: Medal of Honor winners reflect on the heroism that earned them their richly deserved acknowledgment. “It’s about men and women who value something so strongly that they’d be willing to die for it.”
UPDATE 8/19/22: Fundraising for The Donald is through the roof after the Gestapo raid at Mar-A-Lago. For those J6ers and their cronies hoping to see “the noose tightening,” “the walls closing in,” he has a word for them: sad. Another word for them: boomerang.
UPDATE 8/2/22: These dozen minutes of pure American spirit bring all of life’s mundane difficulties into perspective.
UPDATE 8/1/22: The original Constitutional concept of states being largely independent of the Fed is central to disabling the toxins of power metastasizing in Washington. The Electoral College is the most obvious example of this, the Supreme Court’s recent decision returning a major issue to state legislatures another. A hopeful development is the new initiatives being taken by the states to oversee and enforce election laws.
UPDATE 8/1/22: Calvin Coolidge provides a reminder of what our leaders are supposed to be. Typically, our elected class gives the term “politician” an obscene name. Note that Silent Cal’s success was based on the wisdom, “Less is more.”
And then there’s this wonderfully persuasive argument for NOT remaining silent.
UPDATE 8/2/22: Doing everything possible to destroy and erase Trump & MAGA from view is THE Dem (and RINO) Party platform and promise for Americans. Unbeknownst to them, this is of less than no benefit to most decent people who want to live prosperous, free lives, and it has to come back to haunt them not only in the upcoming election but for the long haul.
UPDATE 7/28/22: Heartening news to see through Bruce Bawer’s knowledgeable eyes that Britain’s Tory Party currently resembles Trump’s MAGA. Bad Hair Boris seemed to be the British Trump which proved illusory. Instead, we are gifted with young, formidable presences like Kemi Badenoch who needn’t be the “new/next” anything, just themselves: common sense conservatives.
UPDATE 7/27/22: The bad news is everywhere, and this post serves as the place to stress the positive. Russian-born satirist Konstantin Kisin expounds with Epoch Times and expands humorously “with Sebastian Gorka on his “An Immigrant’s Love Letter To The West.” His voice is both an appreciation and a warning to the blind and deaf taking our way of life for granted.
UPDATE 7/27/22: Whether or not he’s the candidate in 2024, he has come to represent the battle lines now more clearly drawn (by him!) than any time within memory. We would cheer to see him be the one to continue leading the charge. If not him, De Santis will do nicely.
UPDATE 7/19/22: Free speech mixed with comic genius informed by deep insight into human nature added up magnificently to Joan Rivers. She was kindred spirit to her equally outrageous friend Donald Trump both of whom said what we would have loved to say and, in his case, in heroic service to preserving our vibrant American way of life. Oh what she would have made of Biden, Harry & Megan, Kamala!!
UPDATE 7/19/22: One man against the world. Jonathan Issac. A true inspiration and role model for anyone forced to confront the Woke/Covid mob these days.
UPDATE 7/18/22: The bad news continues to pile up to such a height that one is forced to dissociate by habit. Grim daily tidings added to very real personal woes are so real that it seems no one is immune to misery or entitled to a moment’s relief to enjoy the blessings most of us have enjoyed throughout our lives.
Nevertheless, we must. Paraphrasing the Bible, you are commanded to be happy or die. It’s counsel well taken and undoubtedly at the heart of what allowed this country to be born and thrive so miraculously against all odds for these 250 years.
No Pollyanna pretense here. It’s a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down on a daily basis.
UPDATE 7/16/22: A new school like University of Austin offering a truly LIBERAL arts education to young people stands out in 2022 America like a beautiful garden in a South Side Chicago shooting gallery.
UPDATE 7/14/22: Hillsdale College’s Larry Arnn finds himself in hot water correctly describing American teachers in general these days as “trained at the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.” Naturally, the unions and other Progs object to such legitimate criticism since they believe participation trophies are all that matter, not excellence and positive results.
UPDATE 7/15/22: America is not finished so long as people retain their vision of what it should be. This boils down to finding and voting for the most electable, conservative candidates, not for symbolic figures of protest as in the case of Ross Perot in 1988 which gave us the Clintons. On an optimistic note, the Democrats have gone so far around the bend and damaged so many lives that even the average voter has to feel the negative effects and vote for common sense, not unicorn fantasies and outright lies.
UPDATE 7/14/22: We find ourselves at a crossroads of history and America’s fate as “the last best hope.” We temporarily found a leader who made good on his promises and is weathering the entire established power structure crashing down on him. In his absence, we continue the eternal search with our lanterns for the next “honest man” to keep afloat the American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
UPDATE 7/10/22: Trump has made his indelible mark, and Sarah Palin is among those who saw that he was worth the risk from the start. Whether or not he returns to office, he has set the standard for what we must demand from our leaders (not to be confused with “politicians.”)
UPDATE 7/8/22: The Babylon Bee brings surprise glad tidings by anonymously leaking the first dozen things on Donald’s to-do list upon returning to the White House. Crystal balls and loose lips are a godsend!
UPDATE 7/7/22: For millions of Americans, the Fourth is just one more of 365 days we wake up and give thanks for the rare, unique blessings of being born and living here.
UPDATE 7/7/22: There is an optimistic take on Gen X-ers (also known as 13ers born 1961-1981) possessed of the can-do, maverick spirit embodied in (oh, no!!) Donald Trump. Oh, yes! And God willing it’s true for the sake of a recognizable, desirable American future. Meanwhile, it looks like the man himself is not ready for retirement, and we’re all aboard if for no other reason than to effect a mass explosion of Never Trumper heads.
UPDATE 7/5/22: Take a tip from Popeye. Spinach and its fellow members of the veggie family are good for muscle development and strength, even without exercise!
UPDATE 7/5/22: Those who love our country thrive on her colorful history and culture as bequeathed to us by such quintessentially American artists as Washington Irving and Norman Rockwell. Losing either one of them to the ignorance of cancel culture or simple neglect would be a tragedy. Knowledge and appreciation of both belong in the essential education of every American child. Without them and their like, we have lost everything.
UPDATE 7/3/22: For those intent on enslaving or simply ruining the world for the long term, converting the young to the religion of Leftism tops their agenda. Too many parents have proven lax in being alert to this and preventing it in their children’s upbringing. Fortunately, Britain’s better leaders are at work countering the infiltration of “Wokery” into the educational mainstream. Likewise, Florida has partnered with Hillsdale College to provide real history for students. No wonder similar moves toward protecting the young from hypersexualizing in De Santis country have met with such rage from the Left. This is the frontline battle for the future.
UPDATE 7/3/22: In looking back and taking in what has worked for 250 years, Americans sincerely devoted to our founding principles of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness can look ahead with optimism.
UPDATE 7/3/22: The Donald remains THE bogey man for the Left and almost anyone not firmly grounded in conservative principles. Now they’re trying to shut him up by destroying his social media platform Truth Social from a legal angle. Even Joe Rogan has caught the Never Trump bug and “doesn’t want to help him.” That’s another way of saying, “I know he gets good things done, but all the right people hate him, and I’m not up to convincing anyone that positive results count way more than style.” With Musk’s withdrawal from the Twitter deal, it looks like Trump will continue to get the same discriminatory raw deal on mainstream social media.
Sadly, an incredibly effective POTUS has been forcibly (and illegally) retired for no other reason than positive results are not the first priority of a good half of the country, now including a rather spineless Rogan. So much for a robust free marketplace of ideas, letting all voices be heard. Luckily, there’s someone else eminently electable coming right up as the reality of 2024 looms. And Rogan supports him which redeems him. Sort of.
UPDATE 7/1/22: The regrettable passing of Dr. Vladimir “Zev” Zelenko brings up the contrast between what his life as a dedicated healer has been compared to that of Anthony Fauci who will be remembered by the serious-minded as the soulless bureaucrat/profiteer/dissembler at the forefront of the Covid Response nightmare in America. In these two men, we have before our eyes the best, noblest human qualities on display alongside the inevitable corruption of uncontrolled power.
You can contribute to the Zelenko Freedom Foundation, inspired and set up by the doctor in full knowledge of his terminal cancer.
“The purpose of the Zelenko Freedom Foundation is to find the next brave generation of medical professionals committed to keeping their patients safe without doing the bidding of big pharma.”
UPDATE 6/29/22: Most would agree that one of the worst things imaginable would be to drive up to see your property on fire. Losing one’s loved ones and/or everything one has worked for and accumulated over a lifetime is a test everyone would rather avoid. One unlucky enough to face that situation is an English archivist who recently lost hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable historical clippings and pamphlets in a fire set by drug dealers allowed to flourish in his area. His admirable ability to get hold & get up to keep going is well worth a read and serious contemplation. This site and its concerns are all about the fears of losing our freedom and the country that has provided it to hundreds of millions over the last quarter millennium. Perhaps for the genuinely hearty, there is always something left even when all seems to be lost.
UPDATE 6/29/22: There is a message of universal importance in the Canadian truckers’ protests and the vicious crackdown on them by the Pouty Boy Tyrant of MapleLeafLand. The story needs full, detailed retelling, and the Canadian people need to throw off the chains they’ve foolishly manacled to themselves.
UPDATE 7/1/22: As desirable as it might be to many, Trump/De Santis in 2024 somehow seems strategically unlikely. One highly attractive scenario for both Florida and America would be Trump/Someone Terrific Who’s Not De Santis in 2024, then 8 years of De Santis. Then again, time’s a-wastin’, and De Santis in 2024 would be an overdue end to BrandonWorld…and the most likely path to a Republican landslide a la Reagan in 1980. The country literally cannot afford anything less than a full conservative turn at this point.
UPDATES 6/24/22: It turns out, according to another self-declared genius, that the declaration of principles from the Edmund Burke Foundation posted last week smacks of “fascism!” Who knew that the principles underlying the freest country in the history of the world were so dangerous and near & dear to the hearts of Mussolini & Hitler? Once again, the word “fascism” has reared its empty head again among the emptier heads of Progressives & Woke scribes as the catch-all description of “anything I don’t like.”
UPDATE 6/24/22: Up against the country’s drug epidemic, it’s somewhat cheering to hear that parents are in many instances gaining the upper hand in what the Leftist schools and their teachers are forcing on kids.
UPDATE 6/23/22: Those “nice” types who insist we must all “meet in the middle” only mean that conservatives must accommodate the Leftists’ desire to see all opposition to them disappear. They are welcome to their ideas (and their easily documented, horrible consequences), and we’ll continue on with ours (and the positive results verifiable over the last 250 years of America’s existence.)
UPDATE 6/20/22: Nobody clarifies the immeasurable damage done by collectivism and encourages the benefits of free market capitalism more convincingly than the late, great Milton Friedman.
UPDATE 6/21/22: The only thing that matters in our politics at this juncture is the restoration of MAGA as made real by the remarkable tenure of DJT. Those of us who are fans of both the man’s outrageous style as well as his genuine substance hope for four years of recovery leading to at least eight years of the immensely gifted and principled Ron DeSantis. That said, there is a strong case to be made for De Santis taking the reins from Trump beginning in 2024. Either way, Americans must choose what is genuinely in their best interests, not what the Leftist fabulists and liars of the Dem Party promise them.
UPDATE 6/17/22: The Edmund Burke Foundation has just drafted a Statement of Principles for National Conservatism. One can benefit mightily from getting reacquainted with such seditious things as national sovereignty, rule of law, free enterprise, the Ten Commandments…you get the drift. Great ideas! Conversely, we must discard the bad ideas now creating mass havoc and get ourselves back on track. We’re long overdue for an awakened New Majority of Americans who will permanently embrace the eternal verities.
UPDATE 6/14/22: We are now in the midst of a hostage crisis impacting many, many millions more people than Carter’s Iranian 1979-80 disaster ever did. The light at the end of the tunnel then turned out to be Ronald Reagan. The worst case scenario now is more of what we’ve been forced to endure since November, 2020. The dream of at least half the country would be the return of Donald Trump which would a hoot and a major sharp stick in the evil eye of the Swamp cyclops singly focused on eliminating any trace of him since he routed Hillary back in 2016.
HOWEVER, for all the fun and solid achievement Trump promises, DeSantis could just as well be the man for the long run: young, durable and already fully proven to be the future of the conservative movement and currently our best hope for the country’s survival. The sensible and sane will rejoice at either Trump II or DeSantis I. All depends upon an overwhelming majority of Americans being as fed up as they should be and that this hostage crisis goes into its final death rattle in 2022 and 2024.
UPDATE 6/11/22: There are compelling arguments for Trump stepping aside in 2024, but there are even better reasons to cheer him on for four more years, paving the way for 8 years of De Santis. If the honest electoral process can be retrieved, we will get America back for another generation…and keep it. Dare we hope that the electorate reacts rationally to the multiple, undeniable miseries of BrandonWorld and brings this about?
UPDATE 6/4/22: Where are Gary Cooper and John Wayne? For that matter, whither Barbara Stanwyck and Katharine Hepburn? They do, in fact, still live large in all those “good guys and gals with guns,” civilians armed, trained and prepared to risk life & limb to protect themselves and others in the line of fire. Uvalde cops were ordered to abandon their sworn duty to protect the public, and those in command went so far as to order forcible restraints on parents determined to save their children in the absence of any police action. One woman named Angeli Rose Gomez, initially handcuffed, defied those orders, climbed a fence to enter the school and rescued her own children and now faces repercussions for talking to the media.
This travesty is the result of a deliberate dismissal of the individual’s primal instinct to protect one’s self, family, property, country as the highest of virtues. Coop, Duke and other heroic figures of the cinema were just actors and all-too-human as people, but the images and the noble qualities they once projected from screens out to countless millions as the norm are the bulwark of a civilized, lawful society. Men AND women of this caliber are now excoriated as purveyors of, among other insults, “toxic masculinity.” Without them, we face conquest by the ever-present barbarians (within and without) who will destroy us in the absence of armed resistance.
UPDATE 6/4/22: People in touch with reality ultimately have only themselves to consult when taking on this world. The loss of the individual’s own sense of value and importance is society’s greatest problem, the basis for those mass movements that enslave and kill. David Mamet, a true maverick, is one of the few worthwhile intellectuals of prominence actively confronting the dangers of collectivism/socialism/communism and the conformity that allows the Marxist cancer to fester. Predictably his departure from mindless Leftism draws the ire and contempt of his fellows in the intelligentsia, but, being a true individualist, he doesn’t care. Who else would be the author of “Why I Am No Longer A Brain-Dead Liberal?”
UPDATE 5/22/22: It’s not just tea leaves or entrails. Authentic signs signal that sanity is making a comeback. And no one has been harmed by the presence of the world’s richest most newly-famous man making rationality cool again.
This is a take-no-prisoners fighter like we were delighted to discover in The Donald. No accident he shows welcome signs of becoming an authentic American hero in our time. (But don’t be a pothead, Elon. It will “blunt” your edge and is definitely a bad example for the young and stupid.)
UPDATE 5/25/22: There are sane voices, even Trump enthusiasts, who convincingly opine that he shouldn’t run again and let De Santis take over leadership of the MAGA fight.
UPDATE 5/20/22: America has thrived as a meritocracy, founded and sustained on countless individual “jobs well done.” There is no greater gift available to anyone than being free to fully utilize one’s inherent talent. If “doing good” for others is a serious goal, what’s of greater benefit than recognizing, encouraging, helping talent along as the roadmap to a satisfying, productive life? Do-gooders (of a certain political Left-leaning persuasion) constantly push for permanent infantile helplessness and dependency. In so doing, they are the destroyers and sworn enemies of self-reliance, the basis of a prosperous, civilized society.
UPDATE 5/16/22: Freeing Twitter from its Kafkaesque cage is meeting bumps in the road. According to DJT, Twitter is damaged, corrupt goods not worth buying, and he predicts that Musk will back out.
UPDATE 5/22/22: Biden’s attempt at insult has backfired bigtime. “ULTRA-MAGA” is proving to be the new rallying cry of the conservative base. Make that ULTRA-MEGA-MAGA.
UPDATE 5/14/22: Irving Berlin is not called our Songwriter Laureate for nothing. “God Bless America” still leads a distinguished pack of songs that continue to capture, express and spread the American Spirit.
UPDATE 5/14/22: American Spirit is synonymous with Can Do. This week’s example is cool-headed, professional flight controllers talking a totally untrained passenger through regaining control of a plane with a disabled, unconscious pilot and landing it. God may be one’s co-pilot in life and in the air, but man is obliged to utilize every possible resource available to humanity to finish the job.
UPDATE 5/9/22: Since Elon Musk’s new prominence is based entirely on his interest in free speech, mention of him currently belongs in the optimistic AMERICAN SPIRIT post. He is a person of great interest, and the more we know of him, the better. Let’s hope he doesn’t go the control freak way like billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
UPDATE 5/14/22: Is it possible the string-pullers of BrandonWorld have actually taken on the mental deterioration of their nominal figurehead and gone along with foggy old fogey Joe’s brilliant coining of the term “Ultra-MAGA” as their campaign theme? You know. The thing we’re against. Make America Great Again. Sheer genius. And TrumpWorld thanks you for the continued plug.
UPDATE 5/7/22: For most of us, who is worthier of honor than our mothers?
UPDATE 5/5/22: Free speech has always been under official threat by BigGov and unjustly punished, even in America as early as 1798. The good old days were not uniformly good, reminding us that fighting for and proteceting freedom has always been ongoing, never a finished task.
5/2/22: It’s exciting to contemplate a freed Twitter bird, and curiosity and questions surrounding Elon Musk are to be expected. Is he good, bad or a bit of both? Perhaps merely human with a real taste for freedom.
UPDATE 4/30/22: Despite skepticism in some quarters about Elon Musk’s motives and long-range plans for Twitter, complaints about the real possibility of a freer social media ring hollow. The positive consequences of moving in that direction still belong center stage. One recalls a similar skepticism about one Donald Trump, allayed swiftly for millions by his insistence on keeping the promises he made. It would be foolish not to take the same calculated gamble on Musk. This is about our threatened free speech, the dismantling of the censorship plague taking over American thought waves.
Is this, at long last, the comeuppance for Silicon Valley’s unchecked hubris? A lethal body blow to the digital totalitarians?
UPDATE 4/25/22: Trump candidate and firebrand Kristina Karamo’s star is rising as Michigan Republican primary voters choose her over GOP establismentarians.
UPDATE 4/25/22: Trump won’t be returning to Twitter even after Musk takes over but will be using his own Truth Social to communicate. His new media platform is still under development. Stay tuned.
UPDATE 4/18/22: Musk’s attempt to take over Twitter could spell the end of the Left’s domination of our national narrative, a rebirth of free speech. Clearly, the Twitter Board’s desperation to fend off this takeover despite profiting hugely in dollars is the giveaway that lost power supersedes anything to do with mere money. There is also conjecture now that Twitter is not a private company out to profit its shareholders but actually a heavily subsidized platform/mouthpiece for the Deep State.
DY-NO-MITE! Another dazzling voice for the restoration of common sense and renewed conservatism put into action.
4/18/22: Every country feeling the leaden weight of Woke could benefit from its own Trump to get the lead out. France appears to have one. And it’s a pleasant surprise that Australia boasts Clive Palmer, its own version. Hang on, it’ll be a bumpy ride but well worth the bruises on your bum.
UPDATE 4/23/22: Coupled with Elon’s possible restoration of free speech on major social media, Trump’s media platform Truth Social would be an answered prayer. The possibility of a permanent media platform and presence for The People, not simply Trump himself, could be his greatest legacy.
REPOSTED 4/17/22: FROM EASTER SUNDAY, 2013.
A Victorian musical masterpiece as simple, dramatic and moving as its majestic 2100 year old source. This particular performance is all the more touching for the sincere catch in Stanford Olsen’s fine tenor voice as this great Easter hymn approaches its climactic, heart-clutching moment:
“And once again the scene was changed,
New earth there seemed to be.
I saw the Holy City beside the tideless sea.
The light of God was on its streets, the gates were open wide,
And all who would might enter, and no one was denied!
No need of moon or stars by night,
Or sun to shine by day:
It was the new Jerusalem that would not pass away!
It was the new Jerusalem that would not pass away!”
Yet another beautiful rendition of “The Holy City” by the great American tenor Richard Crooks.
Easter morning, 2013, as if on cue, the first daffodils open…
If a larger lesson for all faiths is to be drawn from an observance of Easter, it is contained in these words of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this [collectivist tyranny] has happened.” Echoes William Penn: “”Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”
UPDATE 4/15/22: Will Elon Musk make free speech cool again by buying Twitter?
UPDATE 4/2/22: What topic could be of greater interest to Americans than freedom and its history as a philosophical concept that evolved into glorious practice on these shores?
UPDATE 4/2/22: Among William F. Buckley’s greatest insights is his statement that “I’d rather trust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” Are we Normals a dying breed self-governed by our own common sense (rather than “experts?”) Or are we the re-emerging Silent Majority that will save America?
UPDATE 3/26/22: Using existing legal statutes, real resistance to race/sex discrimination is growing on college campuses against unfettered, ILLEGAL Woke tyranny. Take it to court! Make the culprits think twice!
UPDATE 3/25/22: VDH optimistically predicts a gigantic Reversal Reset to the Great Reset. Do the super-rich & privileged Bidens/Clintons/Obamas/Pelosis/Zuckerbergs/Gates honestly believe they can continue to enjoy their mansions and millions undisturbed while their interference in everyone’s lives won’t allow the average Joe and Jane to fill up their gas tank or even go to work without a mask/vax card? Cue images of prissy, parasitical French aristocrats hauled away on tumbrils. Faced with real, justified insurrection, perhaps today’s Michelle-Antoinettes will have the sense to hole up behind their walled, moated palaces and leave the rest of us (and free market forces) the hell alone.
UPDATE 3/22/22: Suddenly everyone is touting Miami as “The City Of Tomorrow.” Considering all those Commie-wise Cubans and the exceptional individual in the Governor’s mansion, why should we be surprised? Thanks to De Santis, the spirit of liberty currently drives every aspect of governing the state; and to the continued denial and frustration of Lefties, people thrive in freedom, not collectivism.
UPDATE 3/14/22: Reagan was the right man for his time as Trump was in his. Both demonstrated that the real purpose of good government is to get the hell out of the way, to clear the path and keep it clear. We’ve been lucky to have both, and we’ll get lucky again. Circumstances and history demand it.
UPDATE 3/14/22: Tom Sowell suggests 3 questions to keep the upper hand in any debate:
Compared to what? At what cost? What evidence do you have?
UPDATE 3/12/22: Thank goodness it’s not Thanksgiving because there would be turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce flying akimbo over and around the table after Trump sits down and holds forth publicly with Joe Rogan.
This is certainly of interest for those of us still interested in what the Dem Left/RINO Right loathe and what all advocates of free speech welcome. Will Neil Young try another withdrawal from his empty Spotify account?
UPDATE 3/8/22: Seems there’s a convoy around DC. Unsurprisingly, DC habitues are less than hospitable or supportive of basic American populism, so it’s not making the headlines (or backlash) its Canadian counterpart created, Nevertheless, the spirit animating it lives with the same intensity in every free-thinking person.
UPDATE 3/1/22: DJT singles out NY Congresswoman Elise Stefanik as someone to watch for the future. “At this rate she’ll be POTUS in six years.”
UPDATE 2/28/22: Trudeau’s winged monkeys took a bit of the fun out of the Truckers Convoy, but the spirit has spread and is literally on the road here in the States. Support it wherever, whenever and however you can.
UPDATE 2/28/22: In active opposition to lockdowns, mandates and an unusually oppressive political climate, some have managed to maintain some normalcy and now are rebuilding the disrupted parts of their lives. Few have been untouched by the compulsory caging and wedges intentionally driven within marriages, families, friendships and professional relationships.
UPDATE 2/27/22: Is it unwarranted pride that we Americans are blessed to speak and communicate through all existing media in English, the language that has given the world its greatest documents promoting human liberty and progress?
UPDATE 2/25/22: The weakness demonstrated in the face of violent Russian expansionism (and the Chinese AND Iranian versions almost certain to follow) is not just something happening “over there.” Our ongoing, growing dependence upon the world’s two most powerful Communist regimes impacts every American. Continuing on this suicidal path, we are doomed to be relegated to second class power or, worse, a nation of obedient robots in the image of China as Canada and Australia have proven to be. OR we can choose leadership informed and fired by a genuine American spirit of liberty. That’s what we saw for four years with MAGA, and if enough of the populace wises up to freedom’s advantages over centralized control, we’ll be back. It happened with the right leader in 2016, then just as quickly vanished in 2020. God willing, we are due for a dramatic renaissance in 2024, beginning in 2022.
UPDATE 2/22/22: Trudeau has acted as expected, but the spirit of the Freedom Convoys must go on. What of the idea that they remain an undeniable, vocal presence without giving the Trudeaus of the world opportunities for tyrannical measures?
UPDATE 2/21/22: Never was George Washington’s birthday (no, not “Presidents Day”) so charged with significance as we ponder the full significance of “the indispensable man” in the founding of America.
UPDATE 2/20/22: Freedom should be the unifying force for all good people, but for too many the security of quiet obedience to punitive authority overrides freedom. This explains the (no longer mysterious) accommodation of a large percentage of Australians, Austrians and now Canadians to tyranny, neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, brother against brother. God willing the champions of freedom ultimately win while the sheepish collaborators in their own enslavement spend the rest of their days hiding out in the darkness of shame away from the light of brave people winning this fight, working, raising their families, going to their chosen places of worship, enjoying the fellowship of others like themselves, left alone to live their lives as they please. The optimists say that day is not far off.
The challenge is anything but a new story, and inspiration abounds from many sources. This passionate Canadian from Romania knows firsthand the impossible difficulties freedom fighters face, having suffered under the vicious oppression of the Ceausescus and lived to see her whole nation rise up as one against them. The last resort of a dictator is violence…
For now, the truckers are withdrawing, sensibly choosing not to be punching bags for Trudeau’s goons. But their cause is not going anywhere. We all live for the day when the innocent live freely and the guilty pay dearly.
UPDATE 2/22/22: Encouraging news that investment in Trump’s alternative social media company Truth Social has exploded from its inception this week with a waiting list of prospective investors itching to get in on the ground floor.
UPDATE 2/17/22: In dramatic opposition to the Vatican establishment including the Leftist Pope, Archbishop Vigano, truly a man of God and himself worthy of being Pope, wishes the Freedom Convoy well and illuminates for all of us that this is about much, much more than the right to go into a supermarket or refuse an inoculation. This is about the courage to resist those forces determined to encase the entire world in a globalist monolith of totalitarian control.
UPDATE 2/18/22: Good news that parents continue to make their voices heard, demanding school choice and apolitical curricula for their kids. They are a front-line force holding back the tyranny looming over all of us. Ditto the Canadian truckers who are making it more evident by the day that they represent the essential best of the American spirit.
The arrogant politicians and media hailed truckers as heroes when it burnished their own phony image of themselves as “leaders.” But no longer as those heroes now demand basic rights, not a patronizing pat on the head.
2/16/22: Government’s response to the so-called Plague was a curse to the small business owner and individual citizen. By contrast, BigBiz in bed with BigGov pols enforcing the lockdowns grew like Topsy at the expense of any competition it couldn’t destroy in the free marketplace.
UPDATE 2/16/22: It’s a start. DJT Jr. has posted what is said to be DJT Sr’s first post on the new Trump Media site. We are paying bigly for letting them steal the election.
UDATE 2/11/22: Rumor has it from the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) that a trucker’s convoy may descend upon America during the Super Bowl. We are expected to believe that this growing number of free men and women pose a threat to national security as serious or even greater than Islamic terrorists or the millions of illegals pouring over our wide open southern border.
UPDATE 2/10/22: The Canadian people speak, directly, in their own words, of what all the hubbub is about. And it’s about what all liberty-loving people want.
UPDATE 2/6/22: Extraordinary and underexposed national monument for Veterans Day. In Arizona!
- The five pillars represent the unity of the five branches of the United States military serving steadfast together.
- Staggered in size with their appropriate military seal placements on each pillar, the pillars are arranged in Department of Defense order of precedence.
- At precisely 11:11 a.m. each Veterans Day (Nov. 11), the sun’s rays pass through the ellipses of the five Armed Services pillars to form a solar spotlight on the glass mosaic of The Great Seal of the United States.
- The brick pavers within the Circle of Honor are inscribed with the names of U.S. servicemen and women, symbolizing the ‘support’ for the Armed Forces. The pavers are red, the pillars are white, and the sky is blue to represent America’s flag.
- The circle, flanked by two “Soldier Rows,” represents an unbreakable border.
UPDATE 2/6/22: The Donald holds forth, and one feels braced by his clarity and proven commitment.
All continuing developments in l’affaire Rogan moved to CANCEL CULTURE.
UPDATE 2/4/22: There’s always bad news galore when Leftists are in a hurry to ruin whatever they can before pushback. Alas for them, good news abounds in the form of major pushback and the gradual lifting of dissembling fog surrounding the Big Lies driving the madness.
Canadian Bad Seed Prince Justin, versed in Orwellian projection, states that Canadians are “disgusted” by the truckers’ convoy. In addition we are advised by Sir Nibs that our world is now blighted by a 16 wheeler basket of Deplorables. “AntiSemitism, Islamophobia, Anti-Black Racism, Homophobia, and, [of course not to shortchange anyone] Transphobia.” Who knew?
Sadly for him, those people for whom he claims to speak say otherwise. And engaged, freedom-loving Americans and kindred spirits worldwide concur.
These are the real people who do real work and live real, responsible lives against one wretched little tyrant devoid of any positive qualities while living large the delusion that he is the most significant person on earth.
The best news is the growing support for the truckers’ universal message from the citizenry and business community as the chimes of liberty around the world drown out fear. Despite the blue states whimpering in their cages begging not to be robbed of their chains, America can’t be far behind. We eagerly look forward to a torrential cascade pouring over the dam about to be permanently breached and washed away.
It’s happening. Be not afraid… May this be the final straw for all the “safety measures” that have proven to be nothing but cover to assert dictatorial powers over free people. The real WORKERS of the world are uniting, much to the dismay of the communists.
It’s not what you THINK you see. It says “Let’s go, Justin!” Or maybe it’s the imperative “Let go, Justin!!!”
2/2/22: After praising Joe Rogan for his open mike policy few weeks back, it’s disturbing to hear his fearful reaction to the threatened boycott by brain-fried former rock-and-rollers longing for 1969 again. Instead of framing himself and his show as a forum for free speech (which it is) open to all comers and letting listeners decide, he’s making conciliatory noises, promising to qualify and neutralize anyone who might upset the Neil Youngs of the world. Fair and Balanced in LeftLibWorld means obfuscation by propaganda, not factual rebuttal. Say it ain’t so, Joe!
UPDATE 2/2/22: A bit of good news for the persistent Colorado bakers tormented, fined and driven out of business by the Gay Mafia. The judgment against them holds but the $135K fine has been waived. Although years of their lives and peace of mind cannot be reimbursed, the money saved and the partial sense of victory for the most basic Constitutional rights supposedly accorded Americans offers some satisfaction.
UPDATE 2/1/22: Don Feder offers a tribute to Norman Rockwell and the America many of us think we should still be inhabiting.
UPDATE 2/5/22: An interview with former Congressman Devin Nunes, new CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) which includes TRUTH Social. What’s this? A real alternative to the crony capitalists Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube that doesn’t censor what they deem politically incorrect? Bring it on!
UPDATE 1/28/22: The forces of darkness using “Covid” mandates to suffocate healthy life in the name of saving it are meeting their match in the rousing, rollicking truck caravan North Of The Border, 43 miles (so far) of free people determined to override the mandates of our self-appointed jailers in BigGov. Beginning in Canada, the spirit is spreading to America. As always, the problem is not the evil gluttons for control but the passive acquiescence of those they wish to control. These truckers and their refusal to accommodate their slave masters provide the model of determination needed to recover our liberties. Can this be our Gdansk Solidarity moment?
UPDATE 1/27/22: There is no moral certainty more powerful than that of a parent fighting for his/her child. That spirit should imbue any and all resistance to the poison we’re being forced to swallow. Lacking any moral standing or beneficial ideas, our political opponents on the Left can only resort to character assassination, the term “racist” being their favorite means of silencing dissent. One gutsy Virginia delegate is having none of it, and his Dem opponents in the State House are left with only their malicious dishonesty to show for it. Let it be so for the 1001 nasty personal exchanges most of us have endured of late.
UPDATE 1/26/22: Music expresses the essential spirit of a culture, and it is encouraging to read that online song requests in 2022 (meaning dollars and cents accrued) are overwhelmingly for those going back (gasp!) to the 80s & 90s. Good news for those of us cringing at what passes for “music” nowadays.
Our suggestion for this and future generations is to go further back to the 20s/30s/40s/50s/60s when Broadway/Hollywood/Tin Pan Alley thrived. When good music also makes big money, we are gifted with a golden age; and the era of Gershwin/Porter/Kern/Rodgers/Berlin sung by Frank/Ella/Tony/Jo/Nat/Lena/Judy/Perry/Peg remains 24K. Complementing that extraordinary era, Rock/Pop in the 50s/60s thru Woodstock (’69) still provides endearing youthful nostalgia for us baby boomers. One hopes that in the absence of anything remotely comparable at present, the youth of today will seek out what permanently sustains millions of us old timers who remember what truly great songs were…and are.
UPDATE 1/29/22: Project Veritas is alive and well, going and still graphically exposing abuse of power more convincingly than anyone.
UPDATE 1/27/22: Any mention and move toward the continuation of MAGA via young, dedicated Americans seeking public office and accompanying mass media alternatives is cause for good cheer. Admirable former Congressman Devin Nunes has just given a first interview as CEO of “Trump Media & Technology Group.” What could sound better?
UPDATE 1/23/22:
UPDATE 1/11/22: America is a whole history of lost causes that somehow came out of the hopeless dark into the permanent light. One cannot despair if there is even a glimmer of hope and the willingness to forge on. Our forbears have repeatedly, nobly set the example.
UPDATE 1/8/22: Admiration in abundance watching this incredible rescue of a downed pilot seconds before a speeding commuter train smashes into the wreckage of his plane. Kudos, bravos, hats off and thanks to the courageous American cops who wasted not a moment and saved a life.
UPDATE 1/14/22; Trump’s future in political office remains a question mark. Meanwhile, the spirit of MAGA thrives robustly in the person of Joe Rogan. Just a guy online (with eclectic political tastes to be sure) who asks commonsensical questions and gets equally clear, truthful answers from his guests. We miss Rush, but Rogan is helping to fill the void in communicating the MAGA message by virtue of his curiosity and devotion to the truth.
UPDATE 1/3/22: From the reliable American Heartland:
UPDATE 1/1/21: There was a time when American movies (like IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE) reflected an optimistic America in touch with the eternal verities. Every individual was encouraged to be the ever-hopeful master of life’s brutal game granted the gifts of courage and persistence against the odds to realize a unique personal vision. Even in these cynical times, box office receipts indicate that people reject the prevailing negatives vomited out by clueless Woke Hollywood and still want what’s genuinely best for themselves, their families and friends.
UPDATE 1/1/22: PRAGER U continues apace providing the best online media resource for learning about and communicating the American Spirit to both young and old. Simple, clear, serious, entertaining, inspiring. No one does it better.
For anyone unfamiliar with this phenomenal site and movement, there is a new 20 minute documentary just out to enjoy.
UPDATE 12/25/21: Evil is running amok in our world, and for Americans, that world has provided us with blessings beyond the wildest imaginings of our predecessors, going back millennia. These blessings now are seriously threatened by those currently in political power determined to suffocate freedom and install permanent controls. 21st century versions of Stalin, Mao and Hitler and their only-slightly-less-proficient imitators blight our beautiful skies.
How can God exist when such fearful misery perpetually looms? Maybe it’s the principle that our blessings come with responsibility. Nothing is free and easy but must be earned constantly, sometimes at the dearest cost. We must summon up the courage to fight every day, each of us in our individual way, to eradicate evil and doubt from our lives and our country. Therein lies the essence of our political differences: one faction thinks things should be guaranteed and fixed; the other is grounded in the reality of flawed (since Eden) human nature and knows that things must be eternally tended. It’s the hard way but the only way.
May God grant Americans and people worldwide the wisdom to choose the challenges of liberty over the “peace” of obedient enslavement. And may Longfellow’s classic Christmas Day lament and subsequent hope for a better world uplift your spirits and grant you the unencumbered blessings of freedom…which include the magic of a very Merry Christmas!
UPDATE 12/20/21: There are solid economic, political and spiritual reasons why a majority of Americans love Trump and want the benefits of MAGA back. No one knows better than David Horowitz the enemies of freedom, prosperity and human goodness.
UPDATE 12/18/21: Admittedly, we’re in very bad patch right now. But, given a love for life and freedom, there is no choice but to carry on. Things could be worse, so in the words of all tried, true and tested warriors of the past, PERSIST, PERSIST, PERSIST!
UPDATE 12/17/21: A nice distinction.
UPDATE 12/16/21: He was the Republicans’ default candidate in 1996 missing the inspired spark that would rally America away from the charmingly corrupt Clinton (and his thoroughly dislikeable spouse). Nevertheless, his convention acceptance speech reflects essential America, the eternally admirable principles of individualism, self-reliance, community, freedom that will outlast the self-serving superficiality of the Billarys, Baracks and Bidens, all destined to be unpleasant historical footnotes.
UPDATE 12/7/21: Wilfred McClay’s “LAND OF HOPE: An Invitation To The Great American Story” appears to be that rarity among U.S. histories that satisfyingly and honestly answers the question, page to page, “compared to every place else.” Those foolish destroyers pushing the Zinn/CRT anti-American line will fume while honest truth-seekers capable of embracing the benefits and responsibilities of freedom will be inspired.
Other promising sources of genuine education about the American story: an extensive online library called AMERICAN CIVICS and THE AMERICAN IDEA podcast.
UPDATE 12/5/21: Each day, each stomach-churning development from BrandonWorld continues to make 2021 the year of vindication for Trump.
Don’t expect any turnaround from the Party which claims to champion the Little Guy while ignoring the indisputable fact that tax cuts as implemented by Trump benefited the middle and lower classes the most, not the rich. Little Guys independent of the public trough are of no political value to today’s Democrat.
UPDATE 12/4/21: One gutsy American restauranteur named Tony Roman has taken a stand against Covid tyranny, barring entrance to his establishment by anyone wearing a mask. Naturally, he has become the focus of outrage from the usual suspects, worthy of condemnation on national TV. Admirably, he persists and should be hailed as yet another hero in stemming the spread of the deadly Covid tyranny virus. Another tale of courage that demands emulation if we are to survive this political plague.
UPDATE 12/3/21: America’s survival depends on the principle of individual freedom, free association, free markets-not on centralized Master Planning by a self-anointed Elite who thinks it knows best what’s good for the Little People. No one thinks, feels and lives this more passionately than responsible parents, and any political force allying and identifying with parents will triumph. In addition to fighting the political indoctrination of children through the wildly racist CRT, this must also include resistance to the forced infliction of an untested “vaccine” on babies and children by a BigGov/medical bureaucracy gone mad.
The GOP must remain the Party of Parents, and a tough agenda must be formulated and enacted to win the war.
UPDATE 12/3/21: Kayleigh McEnany speaks eloquently for those Americans decrying the Brandon administration’s betrayal of the American military and its supporters left behind in Afghanistan.
UPDATE `11/26/21: In Kyle Rittenhouse, every freedom-loving American sees himself as a potential Kafka character facing the very real forces of destruction, body & soul. His highest elected officials (Rittenhouse’s Wisconsin governor and the execrable PINO [President In Name Only] publicly pronounce him and all of us guilty villains in exercising our Constitutional rights and protecting ourselves and our property against real criminals.
On yet another front of this war, Sarah Palin and James O’Keefe of Project Veritas have pitted themselves against a slanderous, lying MSM.
Somehow, a realistically hopeful outlook has gained traction with the young American hero’s acquittal, and the truth as rendered by our severely compromised legal system may yet be on the comeback trail. Is the tide turning at last against the anarchist Dem Left?
UPDATE 11/20/21: Parents and intact families are still the indispensable building blocks of a free society, and the recent elections indicate that the Democrats’ craving for political indoctrination of children disqualifies them as the Party of the Parents. Mothers and fathers fighting for their children’s best interests in our schools have a long history in the courts; and we’re going to see more and more references to legal precedent as this war escalates.
UPDATE 11/20/21: Tucker Carlson’s exchange with Edward Durr, the NJ truckdriver David who slew the Garden State corruptocrat Goliath, continues to elicit smiles, warm the heart and enliven hope about American elections. Is government once again beholden to ordinary citizens again as it always was meant to be?
UPDATE 11/20/21: The double gift of free markets and free speech are bearing fruit in the form of alternative social media platforms, independent of the out-of-control control freaks/Leftists at Facebook & Twitter and their monopolistic comrades. For clarity, check out the original meaning of that misused, overused term, “fascism.”
UPDATE 11/11/21: It’s becoming clear that parents will be at the forefront of moving America back to sanity. Force feeding CRT to the kids has only been the match lighting the prairie fire.
UPDATE 11/10/21: A heartening number of conservatives seeking public office are called “outsiders,” but their appeal is their insider cred with real Americans. We like them because they’re NOT “seasoned” (ie, “corrupted”) politicians. Trump has set the tone, and we can only wish for more, of him and those emulating him. Let’s hear it for genuine populism!
UPDATE 11/9/21: At last a bursting forth of alternatives to the MSM and Woke social media! RUMBLE has just moved to Florida from increasingly oppressive Canada and provides a platform for videos without censorship that now restricts YouTube posters. On the academic front, hearty welcome to the newly founded UNIVERSITY OF AUSTIN, an anti-Woke school-in-the-making already boasting a stellar faculty lineup: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Niall Ferguson, Bari Weiss, David Mamet…Class is in session!!
UPDATE 11/3/21`: A harbinger of very good news for all 50 states from the Commonwealth of Virginia for 2022 and 2024. Somewhat dampening this good cheer is that New Jersey suddenly flipped back to Prog/Covid tyrant Murphy after 40,000 Murphy votes suddenly, out-of-nowhere appeared post-election overnight in already 100% counted Bergen County. To no one’s surprise and adding to the travesty, dozens of voting machines suddenly shut down in the middle of the night without votes being counted, now supposedly being examined.
Perhaps some aggressive counter-action in court determining the exact source of those miraculous votes is in order. This jaw-dropping Project Veritas video of NJ poll workers giving an unregistered, self-described ” Irish citizen” a ballot offers a hint of something a wee bit amiss. We are living the disastrous consequences of the stolen November 2020 election, THE ISSUE most in need of legal investigation if we are to have legitimate elections ever again in this country.
To accent-tchu-ate the positive, there was the astonishing routing of the powerful Dem NJ Senate leader by a plainspoken Republican truck driver operating on a whopping $150 budget. Virginia provides more breaking sunlight on the horizon. Part of that hopeful glow is the election of Winsome Sears as Youngkin’s Lt. Governor, a female Black former Marine and conservative. Best of all, the Youngkin-Sears victory was all about sane, anti CRT parents spearheading the recovery of America for the rest of us. Welcome to America’s comeback, perhaps most accurately described as The Year Of The Parent.
UPDATE 11/4/21: Winsome Sears is one more Black conservative giving lie to the White Supremacist meme poisoning our body politic. She is someone for patriots to watch and for the Left to fear.
UPDATE 11/3/21: Speculation runs through every hopeful thought about turning back the tsunami currently engulfing us: will Trump run again? If polls are to be believed, and considering what we face and what sort of outlandish, fearless leadership this war requires, we can only hope so.
UPDATE 11/3/21: Though untested in these quarters, one can bank on new social media platform Gettr being a step up from the social media currently available. One suspects this is the first of many similar alternatives to the FB/TWIT/INSTA axis. Is Gettr better? Anything would be an improvement. 
UPDATE 10/30/21: Remarkably like in Frank Capra’s “Meet John Doe,” a healthy populism has taken root in the form of MAGA. Hardly the laconic, shy character played by Gary Cooper, Donald Trump has more than proven himself the driving force of a movement that offers Americans a choice between a life of servitude to Big Government or life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ensured by rational, minimal government as our Founders intended. Judging by a definitive statement from Trump himself, the long-awaited Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) appears to be approaching actuality as serious financial investors are now all in to “launching a social network, named “TRUTH Social.”
UPDATE 10/30/21: Supporters of Biden (and his disastrous train wreck of a Presidency) unwelcome! And cheers and money fly in from all over to a Florida diner fussy about the core values of its clientele. 
UPDATE 10/28/21: A conservative MAGA rapper named Bryson Gray has beaten out one musical version of “Let’s Go Brandon” (and the veddy vapid Adele) with HIS version of “Let’s Go Brandon.” Read all about him and take heart that young people (or whoever drives hip-hop sales) are getting the unWoke other side of the story. Naturally, his version has been cut by YouTube, only boosting sales.
UPDATE 10/28/21: Aroused parents are becoming the great hope for dispelling the deadly fog engulfing us. And take heart that there are highly vocal representatives in Washington like Tom Cotton fully on their side. One Illinois mother’s artfully focused rage is fortified by medical facts and irrefutable documentation of financial corruption surrounding vaccine/mask mandates for children. Hell hath no more righteous fury than a mother fighting for her children. Ditto an outraged, principled father.
UPDATE 10/26/21: A staunch Trump supporter is getting fined $50/day for hanging a 3-story TRUMP WON sign from his beach house. He’s so intimidated by his punishment that he’s planning a “LET’S GO, BRANDON!” banner to keep TRUMP WON company.
UPDATE 10/23/21: It’s an encouraging sign that that the execrable National School Boards Association has blinked and apologized for joining Merrick Garland in villainizing anti-CRT parents as “terrorists.” Perhaps even awakened Democrat parents will be, in the long run, part of the most effective resistance we have against the Woke totalitarians. In the natural order of animals, vegetables & minerals, there is no more powerful force with which to reckon than angered Mama & Papa bears.
UPDATE 10/21/21: Anti Woke Biden backlash at last, long overdue. And though it will come to nothing during Pelosi’s malevolent tenure, justifiable articles of impeachment have been filed in the House against this WPE (Worst President Ever) for “dereliction of duty by leaving behind thousands of American civilians and Afghan allies, along with numerous taxpayer-financed weapons and military equipment, endangering the lives of the American people and the security of the United States.” It’s a start in the right direction and ripe for repetition if Republicans can recover House majority in 2022…and their collective spine in the bargain.
UPDATE 10/20/21: Cole Porter it’s not, but one version of “Let’s Go Brandon! The Song” is at the top of the charts. And right up there AHEAD of it is another song by the same name from a stalwart MAGA rapper named Bryson Gray. Being the work of a Trump supporter, the latter version has been axed by YouTube making it go viral! Deplorables can only smile.
UPDATE 10/18/21: Parents (and all rational Americans of whatever Party) have found a banner under which they can march in authentic unity: “NOT DOMESTIC TERRORISTS.” And they’ve done just that yesterday in Washington, hopefully for the first of many more such gatherings.
UPDATE 10/17/21: America is only a free nation when the INDIVIDUAL’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are the bedrock of its existence. To quote Thoreau: “There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.”
UPDATE 10/16/21: Heartening news: the Biden Mafia has overplayed its hand, and the people are getting a bit uppity.
UPDATE 10/9/21: Staying sane and overcoming fear in this Orwellian Twilight Zone is THE great challenge for those who put freedom over mythical, malignant “equality” as the highest human value and the bedrock of any civilized life.
A Silent Majority of freedom-lovers, not wishy-washy centrists , are those who will eradicate the forces that engineered the stolen election resulting in the tsunami now engulfing us. They can’t win if we won’t surrender.
UPDATE 10/4/21: America is finished? America is “broken?” America is fundamentally racist and evil? Only to those who have no real core values and think nothing is worth fighting for.
UPDATE 10/4/21`: For freedom lovers it is imperative to understand the difference between a democracy and a republic, both in what each offers and how each operates. Spoiler alert: democracy is a surefire risk; a republic is the way to go if individual liberty is to prevail.
UPDATE 10/1/21: What are the outstanding characteristics of those of us who love America? Among many things, it’s reliance on the solid common sense embedded in our DNA that puts freedom and the truth above all else. Conversely, it is the erosion of our trust in that common sense within ourselves that leads us dangerously astray. G.K. Chesterton lamented “The only thing surprising about common sense is how uncommon it has become.”
Fortunately, we still have some noble examples of that uncommon sense in public life-Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Tucker Carlson-who still speak out and act fearlessly on behalf of all free Americans. They lead and inspire by example. God save and protect each individual one of us from betraying what is best in ourselves.
UPDATE 9/26/21: A video floating about revisits the intriguing ambiguities of “Bye Bye Miss American Pie (The Day The Music Died)” Contrary to the gloomy spirit of the famous song, it brings up my own sense of gratitude for having realized a personal American Dream that has NOT gone wrong,
In my series of 75 musical programs on American Popular Music, I have one devoted to Rock/Pop of the 50s & 60s. My narrative interspersed among the songs makes a point of saying that the post-WWII American Dream for millions started to go awry with the Kennedy assassination, relieved only temporarily by the Beatles and all the fun that followed.
By decade’s end Vietnam, socio-political upheavals, the MLK & RFK assassinations, Altamont and Kent State marked the end of the Woodstock Nation delusion. Too many turned to drugs and self-destructive (Leftist/Utopian) politics. I turned to the miracles of great American popular music & culture that flowered in the really trying times of Depression and World War. In stark contrast to the later Baby Boom era, optimism, grit, romance and great art dominated the mainstream back then, not despairing self-destruction. My choice of the earlier era’s music as a profession and general outlook has served me wonderfully well, so no American Pie disillusionment here. The music did not die but lives robustly on.
UPDATE 9/25/21: An admirable Democrat, Tulsi Gabbard touches all important bases with accuracy and style. She’s also shrewdly positioned politically in that she can never be a RINO! Honest, decent Democrats, take full notice. And she happens to be beautiful and was never more so than when she took apart the stunningly superficial (and dull-witted) Kamala Harris like an expert angler gutting a fish. Hey, Woke Dems: don’t say you weren’t warned!
What a photogenic and intellectual pleasure it would be to have a Presidential race between Gabbard and Ron DeSantis! Talk about refreshing!! THAT would be America.
UPDATE 9/23/21: One of our best thinkers and writers, Angelo Codevilla, is suddenly, senselessly gone, thanks to (reportedly) a drunk driver. He was one of those, alongside Victor Davis Hanson, invariably easy and engaging to read for an authoritative, multi-tiered grasp of whatever issue he was tackling. His identification and use of the words ELITIST and RULING CLASS as the underlying reality behind America’s so-called “most educated” being our own worst enemies is landmark. His most recent article on the Ruling Class’ dismal failure in waging War On Terror will have to serve as his final wise words of warning. R.I.P.
UPDATE 9/13/21: The photo of the POTUS Pretender in Shanksville PA (one post below) superimposes the indisputable worst of America on the best: young MAGA kids near the final resting place of Todd Beamer and other authentic heroes to be revered for all time for their extraordinary American Spirit.
9/13/21: Guaranteed smiles seeing MAGA kids trolling oblivious Make Believe POTUS.
UPDATE 9/12/21: A hopeful sign is a TRUMP SIGN. So say Americans across the land who are unwilling to “move on” and accept the Biden steal and its guarantee of lost liberty as their future. It’s encouraging that people are not afraid to display their allegiances despite the dreaded, steady progress made by those intent on putting an end to America as we know it.
UPDATE 9/10/21: Things go in cycles, day to night and back again, and we are due for a move back toward MAGA after the present nightmare of BidenWorld. Win or lose, Larry Elder’s presence in California is illuminating the crisis not only of that state but of a whole country spinning down the Progressive drain. Personalities like Tucker Carlson, Dennis Prager, Candace Owens and Greg Gutfeld masterfully occupy the prominent Conservative pulpits once occupied by William Buckley and Rush Limbaugh. As long as information and ideas fueled by an optimistic realism abound, there is hope.
UPDATE 9/10/21: Redefining what is American and most importantly “un-American.” As Communists relabeled themselves anti-Fascists, the new fascists of Big Gov (and Big Tech) are slyly relabeling themselves “pro-Americans.” Naturally, everything they don’t like is “un-American” like refusal to take untested “vaccines,” being pro-life, voting for Donald Trump and protesting corrupted elections.
UPDATE 9/6/21: Ultimately, the light at the end of this dark tunnel enveloping us at the moment is parents taking full charge of their children’s educations and futures out of the hands of a culture and government that only sees people as pawns in their quest for absolute power. The dramatic rise in home schooling-from 13,000 in 1973 to 5,000,000 in 2020-and the proliferation of charter schools (and legislation promoting tax-deductible education savings accounts) should be as encouraging a sign as any that America has a real future.
UPDATE 9/4/21: Without the chance of switching leadership through honest elections, Americans are up against it as we’ve never been before. We’re living the scary results of the Democrats’ strategy of ginned-up crisis/lockdowns/open-ended mail-in/absentee voting. It was there for all to see and predict as November, 2020 approached. If we cannot take back the electoral process, we are headed for communism, Chinese-style: the basic amenities granted (or withdrawn from) us provisionally by a dictatorial Big Brother into LOTS of surveillance and control. Is our American Spirit still strong and widespread enough to fend this off?
UPDATE 8/26/21: As the brisk stream of catastrophes emanating out of BidenWorld/Twilight Zone morphs into a tidal wave, things look less and less like incompetence and more like the deliberately destructive agenda of those whom absolute power has corrupted absolutely.
Unfortunately, the solution to this grim state of affairs does not not lie in the removal of one senile robot from power. The real problem remains the mass stupidity of our fellow inhabitants of this planet and their age-old talent for messing up a good thing. The original European idea of representative governments that resulted in America was the premise that ALL men and women are the MASTERS of themselves and their PUBLIC SERVANTS in government (s)elected to safeguard their freedoms, not the obedient, dependent charges of those SERVANTS. This would come as a shock to the likes of Biden, Obama and Pelosi…and to those voting citizens who foolishly insist on investing such power in these bloodless scoundrels.
UPDATE 8/21/21: The image of Afghani parents handing their infant child up to an American soldier over a barbed wire fence brings home the power and presence of American freedom still offered to the world. These parents, facing the possibility of extinction at the hands of the Taliban, were willing to part with their child that it might grow up in freedom. The baby was reportedly reunited with its parents at the Kabul airport, but the final fate of the family remains unknown.
We dream of the day when those now in power intent on destroying America from within find themselves banished to the ashbin of history. If and how that can ever come about remains to be seen, but the wish burns brightly within anyone still animated by the American spirit.
UPDATE 8/17/21: Rekindling and refreshing the American spirit is not just for comfortable, feel-good times and contemplation. At the moment, Americans are suffering humiliation and very real impending disaster on multiple fronts. Not the the least of these disasters is the corrupted election process that has allowed a zealously anti-American administration to subvert us from within, fronted by an inanimate puppet/doll remote-controlled by forces yet to be fully identified.
It’s crisis time, and there is action that can and must be taken by our passive representatives in DC. Control our borders, build The Wall. Restore our free market economy and domestic energy independence and curtail putting able-bodied Americans on the dole. On the international front, clean out the Pentagon of Woke ideologues and restore a military force whose first duty is to protect Americans here and abroad.
Admittedly, all this amounts to a very modest proposal, but it’s a start.
UPDATE 8/16/21: The raison d’etre of Democrat politics from moderate to Woke is now the repudiation and suppression of anything resembling unabashed pro-Americanism. Trump’s rekindling of the America First spirit, MAGA, is considered a gigantic reproach to John Lennon’s imaginary “Imagine” utopia of globalism: no borders, no possessions, no religion that now totally informs the mainstream Democrat ideal. So, naturally Trump has to go and all his supporters with him. What has panned out in a breathtakingly short time is the beginnings of One World dominance and control, not only in America but in other formerly stalwart bastions of freedom such as the U.K., New Zealand and Australia.
UPDATE 8/13/21: The Woke Left’s war on boys, men and masculinity in general must be won, or we are literally a neutered civilization. For those of a certain generation and before, some of the best guides and touchstones remain Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and their many wonderfully rowdy, unruly, untamed, adventurous, brave compadres in classic literature. Is it any accident that such a real-life figure recently occupied the White House to the utter delight of one political demographic AND, simultaneously, the utter despair and rage of another part of the electorate?
UPDATE 8/8/21: Solzhenitsyn’s memoir, BETWEEN TWO MILLSTONES, offers fractured America hints of healing and resurgence from a great poet who looked with unblinkered eyes at his own land’s hellbent self-destruction and still found hope.
UPDATE 8/7/21: Let’s face it: we’re currently trapped in an asylum being run by Leftist lunatics. Some of them are “scientists:” some of them are our elected (hmm) “leaders;” some are prominent media “influencers” upon whom lots and lots and lots of really mush-headed people rely on for “thinking” and the stupid choices that follow. What they have in common is that all are working in service to evil, determined to rob us of our most precious possession: American freedom and prosperity.
What those of us opposing them have in common are lifetimes and souls enriched by that American freedom and prosperity gifted us that we have no intention of losing. Who doesn’t fear what that may cost us as individuals and as a nation? Time will tell.
In the meantime, take inventory and fully enjoy what is yours. No privilege or right is more sacred or satisfying than ownership.
UPDATE 8/7/21: One way to Own Your Life is to be prepared for emergency shortages in the event of mass power failures or the ugly specter of more lockdowns and restrictions on “the disobedient.” Here’s a start to becoming a Prepper.
UPDATE 7/20/21: No surprise that The Hologram-in-Chief and his programmers haven’t thought to make Guantanamo a Caribbean Ellis Island gateway to America. Can’t have all those communist-hating, liberty-loving immigrants turning Florida and the rest of America the good kind of Bright Red.
UPDATE 7/17/21: What are the essential underpinnings of America? Most would probably be at a loss to articulate precisely what American essentials need to be saved and preserved for the ages.
Freedom as a God-given right is the first word that comes to mind, the idea put forth first in the Declaration of Independence, then shortly thereafter detailed and codified into rule of law with the Constitution. Underpinning this concept of a free republic, has been the notion of The People and an innate Common Sense being sovereign in our own lives, not subject to the whim of a figurehead or ruling cabal of totalitarian regimes. As our Founders feared, America’s greatest peril lies in our elected leadership actively behaving more like our masters than our servants. Worst of all in this scenario is the willingness of too many Americans to acquiesce to and even applaud this development. The sane & civilized always live at the mercy of fools, one of many terrible consequences of centralized power, the autonomy of individuals sacrificed to a so-called “noble collective.”
That’s where we are. Now where are we going? The hopeful answer always goes back to the continuous rekindling of our American spirit, however it manifests itself. Time (and a mass resurgence of Common Sense) will tell.
UPDATE 7/15/21: It’s tough being conservative and having to work with Republicans who still think they are dealing with honorable, patriotic opponents. T’ain’t so, and let us list the ways.
UPDATE 7/7/21: MAGA is the future, not the dynamic personality who made it a rallying cry for a restoration and enduring triumph of American freedom. He made many mistakes of omission but actively reinvigorated the American economy and, more importantly, the American Spirit. Any future candidates representing Americans valuing their independence and freedom in lieu of dependency and the chains of Leftist government must be willing to go to full war against the Deep State that was outed for all to see, thanks to DJT. We owe him that, and we’re still fortunate to have him and his unique presence. Nonetheless, the battle is long term and needs new leadership. That fresh start is there if the individual American is willing to support it. That Republic Ben Franklin mentioned? Let’s keep it.
UPDATE 7/3/21: Getting down to bedrock basics in this life, there is first and foremost God. The Founders of America had the genius to recognize that individuals with free will and innate human talent can only thrive in a freedom tempered by responsibility, a reverence for and obedience to a Higher Authority. Without that concept of Deity, an Absolute, a final Judge, we humans wander lost in an amoral world devoid of values to guide and contain us, prey to those who would play God themselves.
For America, the final sentence in its founding document is “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Inspired directly by America’s Declaration, Israel included the omnipresence and omnipotence of God in its own Declaration of Independence. In both instances, 175 years apart, God’s inclusion came after vigorous debate between believers and secularists, both agreeing that only with the moral framework of religious faith could human progress truly flourish. Echoing Thomas Jefferson, Israel’s Declaration of Independence concludes, “With trust in the Rock of Israel, we set our hand to this Declaration, at this Session of the Provisional State Council, in the city of Tel Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the fifth of Iyar 5708, the fourteenth day of May 1948.”
There was a time for those of us lucky enough to grow up in the 1950s when people strongly disagreed on political viewpoints yet felt united by “something” that in the end made those heated disagreements relatively insignificant. First was the idea of “being American,” and now it is becoming more and more apparent in hindsight that the acknowledged presence of one God overseeing all lives provides the essence of “being American.”
Even more apparent are the perils of God’s absence in mainstream American life, leading to the globalist mentality, John Lennon’s “Imagine” fantasy of utopian unity, no religion, no private property. Standing in for God are self-appointed, self-anointed tyrants seeking to replace freedom of the individual (and God as guide) with the totalitarian collective.
On this Independence Day as we Americans find ourselves in the throes of moral chaos and confusion, we look with special reverence and hope to that “Divine Providence” and “Rock Of Israel” that originally inspired and continue to inform America and Israel’s priceless legacy of freedom.
UPDATE 6/26/21: Who these days doesn’t experience the unsettling fallout from our new Civil War of deep divisions within families, friendships, work environments, political parties originally sown and Progressively deepened by Obama’s 2008 vow to transform America? One of the most devastating of all divisions is that between those admirable individuals, young and old, really still believing in the American Dream of freedom, opportunity, hard work adding up to a satisfying life and those in government intent on thwarting those ambitions via high taxes, senseless regulations and, in the case of enforced lockdowns, the outright destruction of small business. There is also the threatening chill of political correctness and cancel culture casting a wide, dark pall over all forms of free expression that depart from the prevailing Leftist/Woke mindset.
One could easily shrink in fearful despair, but hope springs eternal when the tried-and-tested ideas that made and continue to make America great are brought out again and put into action. Reading Brit pol Nigel Farage’s description of an animated, unbowed, invigorated Trump at Mar-A-Lago provides a vivid portrait of renewed hope and absolute refusal to give up. Contrary to all the MSM propaganda and dismissive comments of our fellows, this is still the man to watch, the force to lead us back onto the MAGA track.
UPDATE 6/22/21: A Canadian pastor facing down the nightmare of senseless tyranny against him and his church is visiting America, warning us. “This is not about a virus! It’s about control.” Yes, Hanoi Jane, Covid is “God’s gift to the Left” as control, absolute control is what you on the Left are all about.
America, wake up.
JUNETEENTH-Celebrating Liberty or just more rancor?
UPDATE 6/18/21: IF (BIG IF) Juneteenth, the anniversary of the final Emancipation of slaves in America, celebrates a triumph of liberty for all Americans, what’s not to like? What IS not to like is the almost certain use of this new “holiday” as a Woke Black alternative to July 4th, another occasion to grind the ax and shake down guilty Whitey. For some, liberty has never been the goal but, in fact, is the enemy. Sowing discord, misery, fear, bitterness, exchanging one set of chains for new ones has become a profitable way of life for the Social Justice Warrior (SJW) set.
Don’t expect any framing of the day as a celebration of the courageous foresight of abolitionists. For the race-baiters, conflict remains the order of the day, and anything that opens the wound of past wrongs such as slavery is a godsend! Without civil strife, they would be robbed of their very reason for existing. This is what makes sense of their refusal to consider real, proven solutions to poverty such as free market capitalism. What would the PLO be if they actually had that State of their own that they claim to want? Substitute BLM for PLO and ask what would they be if they totally subjugated White America? In both cases, the answer is “obsolete.” Prosperity and success for the masses would be the worst nightmare imaginable for these Marxist parasites deprived of their hated hosts.
UPDATE 6/17/21: Going back to our historical roots is as timely as it ever has been. Without the fight and sacrifice of our forefathers at Bunker Hill and Gettysburg (to name just two major points on America’s timeline), there would be little to fight for now.
UPDATE 6/13/21: To survive and prevail, MAGA must be a movement, not an individual, but it’s rather advantageous to have a certain individual around to be the messenger. And he’s back, albeit as a private citizen. It’s still his Party, and he’ll laugh if he wants to. Not his nature to sulk.
UPDATE 6/8/21: An outstanding 16mm Kodachrome video making the rounds evokes such emotion and nostalgia for my parents’ 40s/50s world that baby boomers were lucky enough to be born into. It is also that quintessential America that fires the MAGA spirit.
That spirit is everything palpably, provably good for Americans that Trump began to restore and Biden has set out to erase without a trace. To the dismay of those all up and down the Woke spectrum, that America is still not dead but simply waiting in crouch position, ready to spring back. That includes a vibrant, free market economy and energy independence, so at odds with a regime now besotted by REAL Russia and China collusion.
MEMORIAL DAY AND D-DAY
UPDATE 6/6/21: To add to the stirring Memorial Day/D-Day tributes linked below from 2019, an equally powerful recollection from 2007 by late great American character actor Charles Durning, D-Day veteran and survivor. When the heroism of ordinary young Americans was mainstream.
UPDATE 6/2/21: One must seriously worry about the state of a country now in the act of turning its military against itself, making force-fed Marxist Critical Race Theory indoctrination a part of its training. And going so far as dismissing a high-ranking air force commander (Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier) for publicly criticizing this policy.
One’s discomfort at the present-day corruption of our military is almost unbearable when watching this moving Memorial Day tribute to two young America brothers who stormed the Normandy beaches and survived D-Day and that of five equally brave American brothers who managed the same miracle. Think again about the likelihood of future American soldiers winning a war on behalf of a country they’ve been trained to hate.
Read Lt. Colonel Lohmeier’s book. And to assure future young American heroes do not die and sacrifice in vain, two honorable voices (and military veterans) in Congress are on the case: Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw and Alabama Senator Tom Cotton. “We’re going to expose you.”
UPDATE 5/31/21: Have all those lost lives been worth it? What has it been for? No simple answer. That America is not under the heel of the British, that slavery is abolished, that we don’t speak German, Japanese, Russian, Chinese or Vietnamese (and all that those might-have-beens imply) has to provide some consolation and make sense of the horror of war. In the last analysis, we are the Land of the Free because we are also the Home of the Brave.
UPDATE 5/31/21: Despite cancellation by the perverse (and illegitimate) Biden administration, the 1776 Commission will be reinstated, authentic American history and tangible monuments to its heroes preserved for ourselves and our descendants.
UPDATE 5/31/21: Calvin Coolidge, long overlooked as an outstanding, eloquent American voice among our past Presidents, delivered a memorable speech on The Destiny Of America, Memorial Day, 1923. A moving contribution to any literary compilation of The American Spirit.
UPDATE 6/3/21: “Can do” has been the driving spirit of history’s freest, most prosperous country while the newly arrived Woke Unconsciousness of BidenWorld is all about “Can’t do.” Ultimately, it has to fail; and from the ashes, Can Do America with the assistance of young up-and-coming new leadership will rise and restore life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
UPDATE 5/9/21: From a Kiwi, some good common sense pointers to help worried Americans stay on track and dispense with despair, starting with “1. Face Reality.” It’s the departure point if we are to keep our troubled Republic and not slide into ruin.
UPDATE 5/9/21: The calm, clear-headed Jordan Peterson prevails through hysterical Cancel Culture and his own personal demons. One good reason: he won’t apologize for stating his piece.
UPDATE 4/17/21: Churchill’s immortal call to action never dates, and to make the best use of it can take as many forms as there are individuals. Some ways maybe be less dramatic than others, but every positive action against tyranny begins within each of us, however quiet or seemingly undramatic the resolve. Never give in! Never give up!
Do I/we have the grit and foresight to say GET OUT! as an individual, aa a community, as a city, as a state, as an American as the Poles did in the 1980s with their successful Solidarity movement against the brutal Soviets? Ask the Calgary pastor Artur Pawlowski whose extraordinary story begins in Communist Poland and who just routed Covid Nazi cops from his church on Easter. GET OUT! should be on the lips of millions every day until this madness recedes into oblivion.
UPDATE 4/11/21: The bedrock of our American lives is contained in our founding documents, declaring to the Ages that an unerring Deity has entrusted us with the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These gifts can either be protected for ourselves and the countless individuals yet to live OR squandered in man’s pursuit of power over his fellows. We are witnessing the results of a godless educational system and society taught to reject the idea of one Divine Creator and the aforementioned gifts in favor of an Elite of self-anointed gods forcing their “progressive” rules down our throats. Behold the frailty of man, a foundering America as “a republic, if you can keep it.”
Without God, there is no truth, just a random, chaotic universe with everyone scrambling for power. We must continue to choose our leaders carefully and be wary of those straying from the most basic principle of individual liberty in all matters.
Right now the best prospects are those with the best track records and results, not the best rhetoric. Naturally, those best prospects have targets on their backs and must be able to withstand the unceasing assault that Trump endured. Right now, Ron DeSantis and a few other stalwart notables appear to be the best ones to take up MAGA where Trump was forced to leave off. In them, MAGA continues, God willing.
UPDATE 3/28/21: “When you simply allow people to run their own darned lives, the results tend to be closer to Utopia than any socialist’s fever dreams. This has been the lesson of the past several centuries, and we should pay attention to it now. If we don’t, I imagine God or the universe, will patiently teach it to us again, and again.”
Musing optimistically, a handful of vocal political leaders continue to speak and act for those of us wishing freedom and established fact (aka The Truth) to be the guiding principles for our American lives versus those now in power moving at Mach speed toward the nightmare of a Compleat Managed Society a la China.
In opening his state and standing firmly by it, Florida Governor Ron De Santis has fully exposed the disastrous lockdown lie that has led to economic ruin for millions and an unprecedented suspension of the most basic American rights. Likewise on a different front in the cultural/political wars, Senator Rand Paul has bravely challenged the sinister dangers of Identity Politics in his examination of the perfectly ridiculous HHS nominee Richard/Rachel Levine, citing the latter’s criminal advocacy of puberty blockers and special hormonal treatments for sexually confused young people, even going so far as ignoring parental consent. Unfortunately (and surreally), Identity Politics has prevailed, Levine has been confirmed, but the opposing argument is fully in the open thanks to Paul.
South Dakota Governor’s Kristi Noem finds her admirable anti-lockdown performance ( and her conservative credentials) seriously tarnished with an inexplicable reversal of her stance against the ID Politics allowing men to compete in women’s sports. She has hastened to explain herself, claiming questionable long term solutions outside the legal system. Lose the battle, win the war? Meanwhile, female athletes are being cheated out of the running (literally) with further likelihood of losing the war too. Additional evidence of Kristi’s purplish voting history on issues when in Congress may further disqualify her as a reliable MAGA candidate in 2024.
UPDATE 3/21/21: The future of a free America depends upon the preservation of free speech and an uncorrupted ballot box. Our best hope rides on those all-too-rare politicos in State Houses and DC spearheading the fight for our most basic American rights in both word and deed. While the MSM lionizes those State House scoundrels like Cuomo and Newsom guiltiest of ruining state economies and keeping businesses closed and millions unemployed, we have their nemeses like Noem and DeSantis successfully fighting freedom’s fight within their own states. Will enough Americans think for themselves, assess real results and allow this fight to go national?
UPDATE 3/7/21: Without or without Trump, the MAGA spirit has taken root and is sprouting fresh new shoots aplenty. The challenge is formidable, but the fight is more than worthwhile.
UPDATE 1/3/21: Leading up to the MAGA March on Washington, American patriots await to see if their collective voice is heard. The big question: does my vote still count?
UPDATE 12/13/20: The American spirit firing the 70 million Americans behind Donald Trump persists and will ultimately prevail. This is the human passion for freedom, and it will not go away. It must re-emerge and reassert itself, perhaps not tomorrow but inevitably in the nihilistic vacuum left by the false promises of Leftism. God bless America, stand beside Her and guide Her.
UPDATE 11/4/20: It is morning, and this is America. Obviously, we of the Conservative persuasion would prefer a more celebratory feeling in place of the great uncertainty that faces us this Day After. The “peaceful transfer of power” apparently will not be peaceful but predictably bumpy as the Dem Left almost certainly has its not-so-secret wish of dragging things through the courts. For those conniving fans of litigation, there’s always that 50/50 chance even the guiltiest party can have its way.
So we shall see. Meanwhile, real Americans will go to work and freely carry on their individual lives without interference…which is the whole point. Others are only comfortable under the watchful, paternalistic eye of that protection racket known as Big Government and demand the same of everyone else. Our task ahead is to continue our free lives while fending off those controls imposed upon us by our fellow citizens. That’s been the American story since its founding, and it hasn’t always been a cakewalk.
Fortunately for us, our chief chosen representative in Washington feels the same and will fight with all his considerable clout and spirit to win this latest battle for American liberty…for himself and for us. God willing.
UPDATE 11/3/20: Choosing and praying for the America we recognize and love. MAGA!
UPDATE 10/27/20: “Remember Poland circa early ’80’s when it was said: “we took to the streets and realized for the first time there were more of us than them”? Yes, we remember. And we’re living it now, right here. God bless the American people who love their liberty and wish only the same for their fellow Americans, not Big Brother control. MAGA! MAGA! MAGA!
UPDATE 11/1/20: The Spirit grows and grows and grows! Even in Jerusalem!!
Butler PA! A cold autumn night in western PA doesn’t deter the MAGA spirit!
Unlike American Jewry, Israel knows its friends, knows its enemies.
UPDATE 10/25/20: More parades, flotillas, car rallies, even in Woke Hollywood Beverly Hills! Hope springs eternal.
UPDATE 10/11/20: A Trump caravan of 30,000 cars in Latino, anti-communist FLA! The heart leaps.
UPDATE 10/6/20: The flotillas, the parades, the unfettered display of American Spirit continues apace, even in De Blasio’s deep blue Manhattan. This is movement, free healthy life, the alternative to the chains of our opponents’ dark vision of a SafeNewWorld. If politics is about permitting the best of humanity to thrive, bring it on.
ORIGINAL POST 10/4/20: Leading up to any election (this election in particular), tensions rise, tempers flare, nasty accusations fly, and with what are we left? Hopefully, at the end, a country where individuals can still walk around and pretty much do as they please, commune with whom they please, buy what they need, staying out of each other’s way and living out dreams, however grand or modest. This is indeed a vast rightwing conspiracy, but not the one of which Hillary spoke: it’s called American liberty.
Do both Parties offer that vision? One vision is dominated by a fanatic zeal for centralized control, correcting/rewriting our history right down to its founding roots, revolution, a fantasized righting of all wrongs, equalizing all inequities. Perfection! Utopia! The other vision offers the risky uncertainty of freedom, laissez-faire, letting things and people be what and who they are.
The latter has yielded a society of limitless opportunity, vitality, creativity, diversity, progress, wealth, prosperity for those willing to take things into their own hands. The former has always ended badly: yet one more failed socialist/communist regime pumped up on empty promises and collapsing as the free human spirit is crushed out in service to The Collective, The Big Lie, The Great Terror. Shared Misery For All!
There is AOC/Bernie/Hillary/Obama/Sleepy Joe’s America, and there is Trump’s America, a stark choice growing ever more defined as things heat up. One is the America of angry, enslaved souls, hating our nation as it fundamentally is, shaking an impotent fist at the sky, waiting for rescue by The State/Big Brother. Never satisfied, never content. More! More! More! Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! The Sixties brats have not grown up or wiser, only older.
The other is the free human spirit, chin set, sleeves rolled-up, defenses at the ready as it goes on the offensive, takes on the world, makes dreams real, overcomes obstacles, enjoys the fruits of its labors, beholden ultimately only to that God dwelling within all people.
In a matter of weeks, we shall see if there is indeed a heretofore silent, growing majority made up of people of all backgrounds, classes and colors who prefer freedom as expressed by the MAGA car parades, boat flotillas, waving, cheering roadside crowds…to the depressing doomsayers and Trump haters. The confirmed haters will never change and will only exchange their objects of contempt and loathing for new ones down the line. They have no positive vision, only resentment and bitterness that can never abate. Families and friendships have suffered because of them; we are a house deliberately divided.
There are, blessedly, tens of millions imbued with the American spirit, including perhaps even those most blindly committed Trump haters whose own rational self-interest will prevail over the poison pumped daily into their systems by the MSM and its sinister comrades in high places. If so, the America we love with all its true diversity can go on.
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