“I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.”

—Alexis de Tocqueville.

“Government is instituted to protect property of every sort.  This being the end of government . . . that is NOT a just government, nor is property secure under it, when the property which a man has is violated by arbitrary seizure of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.”

–James Madison.

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

—Alexis de Tocqueville.

The Trump Administration does not directly control The Smithsonian Institute. It does, however, directly control the sidewalks outside the Institute’s museums. So the President has ordered the National Park Service to erect signs outside the Institute’s museums, warning of inaccurate content within the museums. Let the Leftist outrage begin.

“I am pleased to announce my intention to run for a fourth term as President of the United States.”

–President Donald Trump, speaking at The White House Correspondents’ Dinner on July 24, 2026.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R. S.D.) is George H.W. Bush. Without the backbone. What a weenie!

Representative Nancy Mace (R. S.C.) is opposed to Congressional caucus organizations founded upon immutable characteristics such as race or sex (ex., the Congressional Black Caucus). These organizations are funded by taxpayer dollars, and she says that is wrong. She seeks the dissolution of these organizations. Huh. It took until almost the end of her 3 terms in Congress, but Nancy Mace finally found a good idea.

Federal judges in the Western District of Washington appointed Roger Rogoff to serve as acting United States Attorney, pending the Senate confirmation of a permanent nominee. Mr. Rogoff was sworn in, and began proceeding to his new office, when he received an email from President Trump. The President thanked Mr. Rogoff for his service, and informed him that he was terminated.

Mr. Rogoff served as acting United States Attorney for less than 1 hour. And he is not taking his dismissal well. He is now suing the Trump Administration, claiming his firing was unlawful. It was not. Mr. Rogoff really should brush up on the law.

It turns out that as bad as the China Joe immigration policies were, the situation could have been worse. In the last days of the China Joe Administration, there were plans to extend Temporary Protected Status to more than 3 million illegal aliens. Thankfully, China Joe’s minions ran out of time.

The Associated Press is blaming DOGE cuts to foreign aid for the plight of Nepal citizens. It seems that large numbers of social workers in Nepal were laid off when USAID was closed down. Now these former social workers–an unusually large number who seem to be “trans”–have become prostitutes. That damn President Trump! Forcing “trans” folks into prostitution!

“Today, we sent notification letters to property owners, letting them know that our new pied-à-terre tax is coming soon.  The best city in the world deserves the best parks, libraries, and schools in the world.  That’s only possible when we all pay our fair share.”

–Comrade Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D. N.Y.), gloating over yet another new tax on the “rich”.

Comrade Mayor Mamdani is calling on residents to publicly rally against the presence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he arrives for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in September. The Police Department is livid. Their officers are already overworked, and now the Mayor is calling for mass demonstrations, which will require a police presence, and likely a response to violence.

In Queens, New York [New York City], an early morning commute turned dangerous as a result of a minor collision. After being rear ended, an irate driver got out of his automobile and attacked the offending driver, slashing his head several times with a meat cleaver. A tad of an overreaction. And who carries a meat cleaver in their automobile?

“The Trump Administration has driven up the cost of gas, groceries and rent, pushing more families to the edge, and slashed critical safety net funding.  For two years straight, we drove down homelessness by historic margins, but as expected, last year our efforts ultimately couldn’t keep up with policies and funding cuts at the federal and state levels that pushed more people onto the streets.”

–Los Angeles, California Mayor Karen Bass (D.).

Homelessness is at alarmingly high levels in Los Angeles. And it is not President Trump’s fault. It is the fault of California Democrats. Like Mayor Karen Bass.

The Department of Justice opened an investigation into illegal voting in New Jersey, and Governor Mikie Sherrill (D.) is not happy. She condemned the investigation, condemned the President, invoked Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the January 6 rioters. She is angry. She also announced that New Jersey would not cooperate with the federal investigation. Hmmm. What is Mikie Sherrill hiding?

“Fighting and dealing with ICE since last year has f**ked me up in the head after trying to protect and defend hundreds and hundreds of our community members in Providence and across Rhode Island. Your day of reckoning will come mother**ker.  I swear to god.”

–Rhode Island State Representative Enrique Sanchez (D.).

What a potty mouth! How did we start electing public officials who speak like this? Sigh.

“Poverty is violence.  Pollution is violence.  And yes, prison is violence.”

–U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D. Tx.).

Uh, no, no, and no.

Tommaso’s is the oldest Italian restaurant in San Francisco, California’s North Beach neighborhood, having operated for 91 years at its Kearney Street location. But by the time this week is up, it may all end, as the landlord is evicting the restaurant. The business failed to pay its rent. Sigh.

Why is Amy Mickelson not wearing her wedding ring? Could it be she disapproves of Phil sexually harassing and hitting on women at the country club? Maybe.

Bryson DeChambeau said that but for the penalty on Friday during The British Open, he would have won the tournament. Not likely.

LeBron James is leaving the Los Angeles Lakers to play for the Philadelphia Seventy Sixers. Moving from one sh**hole city to another.

Former Vanderbilt University quarterback Diego Pavia threw a hissy fit after he finished 2nd in The Heisman Trophy voting. Then no NFL team drafted him. The Baltimore Ravens gave him a tryout, but have now cut him from the team. Huh. Maybe Diego Pavia is not as good as he thinks.

Former Dallas Cowboy quarterback Tony Romo was arrested for drunk driving in Wisconsin. Oh, my!

Holland reminded me of her experience with Tony Romo when she was working on the pro golf mini tour. Apparently he drinks a lot. It would appear, too much.

GFK

Today I am sharing more on socialism and communism. I realize that The Observations has been focused on this topic quite a bit recently, and there is a reason for this focus. Because it is here. In this country. The United States of America, a nation historically opposed to communism abroad, a nation who defeated the Soviet Union in The Cold War, liberating all of Eastern Europe without firing a shot, and a nation founded on the concepts of God given liberties and freedom, is entertaining the evils of collectivism.

The nation’s oldest political party–the Democrat Party–is effectively run by Communists. Bernie Sanders, Zohran Mamdani, Puddin’head, Elizabeth “Lieawatha” Warren are all communists. They are NOT Democratic Socialists. There is no such thing as Democratic Socialism. It is a euphemism for an ideology that has brought nothing but misery, poverty, failure, and death to those who have had it imposed upon them.

Well, it is no big deal, we can always vote them out. Really? Can you?

Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler were voted into office, and it took a world war to take them out. The Soviets initially had elections. How many Soviet leaders were voted out, before elections were cancelled for good. Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua announced that there would be no more elections. Cuba does not have elections. Neither do North Korea and China.

Well, these communists in New York, Maine, California, Michigan, and Minnesota, they are only a small number of elected officials. Well, yes.

But the Nazis were a minority party when Hitler became Chancellor. The same with Mussolini. Lenin did not rise to power as a leader of the majority of the Russian people. Mao Tse Tung led a guerilla operation, which represented but a small portion of the Chinese people.

And there is the example of our own founding. At the time of the American Revolution, less than 1/3 of the colonists favored independence from England. Forty percent (40%) opposed independence, and a little more than 1/3 did not care. Our own country was established with significantly less than a majority in favor of it.

So I write. Not because I am a doomsayer, or a conspiracy theorist, or the reincarnation of Joseph McCarthy. I write to warn. Because everyone needs to be informed. Because everyone needs to act, before it is too late.

____________________________________________________________________

The Smithsonian reeks of communist ideologies that our Founding Fathers would be ashamed of

BY:          Miranda Devine, The New York Post (July 22, 2026).

If you wondered how communism has grabbed a foothold in the United States of America of all places, look no further than the Smithsonian Institution.

The world’s largest and most influential museum has been hijacked by Marxist ideology to teach self-loathing anti-American woke propaganda to its 20 million annual visitors plus 20 million students a year.

The Smithsonian teaches that “politeness,” “punctuality,” “objectivity” and “hard work” is white supremacy, and that Mickey Mouse is a form of blackface, while devoting not one major exhibit to ­George Washington or any of the Founding Fathers.

The supercilious congressional testimony this week of Smithsonian boss Anthea Hartig shows that she has no intention of changing a thing.

It does teach that Benjamin Franklin was a vile slave owner who owed his discoveries to his slaves and that Christopher Columbus was a psychopathic killer and racist and that we live on ­stolen land.

Meanwhile, it celebrates transgenderism, bondage and sadomasochism in various sexually explicit exhibits. It says illegal migrants deserve the right to vote.

During the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, the Smithsonian’s woke Secretary Lonnie Bunch sent curators onto the streets to collect trash left behind by arsonists, vandals, looters and useful idiots as “historical artifacts that need to be collected and saved for posterity,” according to the Heritage Foundation, which has been chronicling the downfall of a once-great 179-year-old institution.

Generations of American children have been brought up to revere the Smithsonian.

Yet it abuses its $1.3 billion annual budget — 62% from the taxpayer — to persuade impressionable minds that everything about America is irredeemably racist and evil and must be dismantled.

‘Tool of social justice’

And the supercilious congressional testimony this week of Smithsonian boss Anthea Hartig shows that she has no intention of changing a thing.

A California transplant who once described herself as “propped up . . . by the cushions of whiteness and the pillows of the bourgeoisie” has described history as a “prime tool of social justice” and noted how “we work to reframe the traditional celebratory narrative of U.S. history for visitors.”

Grilled by Texas Republican Rep. Brandon Gill Tuesday, she dripped with arrogance, defiance and elitist contempt.

“Is Mickey Mouse racist?” Gill asked her.

“Mickey Mouse is not racist,” she replied.

“According to . . . one of your exhibits, Mickey Mouse represents ‘vestiges of long-standing traditions of blackface minstrelsy.’ Would you describe that as racist?” Gill asked.

Hartig then launched into a waffling mini-dissertation of Mickey’s “historical trajectory” to avoid the question before Gill forced her into admitting she believes that the beloved mouse is “rooted in minstrelsy [with] certain obvious racial overtones.”

There was a lot more.

“Is it important to be polite?” Gill asked her silkily.

“Yes, sir.”

“Your organization . . . references politeness as a defining characteristic of white-supremacy culture. Ma’am, are you a white supremacist?”

“Hmmm. No, sir,” she said snootily, as if his question were absurd, when it is her museum that she has turned into an expensive laughingstock.

“Would you say the goal of history is to be objective?” Gill asked.

Hartig waffled about “many goals of history.”

Gill then quoted from “a white-supremacy document your organization has promoted for many years under your leadership [that] references objectivity as a defining characteristic of white-supremacy culture.”

Hartig tried to feign ignorance about the document, despite the fact that the Smithsonian has adopted and promoted the MASS Action Toolkit in staff development and educational material since the start of her tenure in 2019.

The screed was developed by a left-wing activist coalition, Museums as Sites for Social Action, that is dedicated to using museums as platforms for social justice, “anti-racism” and “equity” and funded by the DEI-obsessed Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, among others. Smithsonian staffers were even ­involved in its inception.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Reeking of DEI

“It’s not our toolkit,” Hartig said.

Gill pressed her.

“We did not come up with the toolkit.”

Finally she admitted the document has been “used as a reference.”

It doesn’t get much more disingenuous than Hartig’s feigned surprise, unless she has the memory of a goldfish.

In July 2020, it was big news when she was excoriated by the first Trump White House for a Smithsonian exhibit that listed the evils of “whiteness” as “rugged individualism, self-reliance, hard work, objectivity, the nuclear family, progress, respect for authority, delayed gratification” and so on.

The nuclear family “father, mother, 2.3 children is another dreadful symptom of “whiteness.”

As is the “Scientific Method: Objective, rational linear thinking.”

Whiteness also holds that “Christianity is the norm” and “anything other than Judeo-Christian tradition is foreign.”

You get the drift.

And of course, the unspoken goal is that “whiteness” must be eradicated.

A more depressing or demoralizing message you could not imagine.

Poor James Smithson — the British scientist and 18th-century creature of the Enligthenment who bequeathed his fortune to the US to establish the Smithsonian Institution — must be rolling in his grave.

His instructions were that it be “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.” How Hartig and pals must hate that motto.

President Lyndon Johnson later expanded the Smithsonian to include the National Museum of American History in 1964 to focus on American achievement and ­patriotism.

Today it does the ­opposite.

Radical ideology

The Trump White House Domestic Policy Council issued a 162-page report saying the Smithsonian had been captured by a “radical, activist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to telling the noble, honest story of” ­America.

Hartig’s leadership was blamed for forcing Smithsonian exhibits to be all about “race/identity, gender/sexuality, climate change, immigration/migrations, economic inequality, technological change and nationalism/globalism.”

But nothing was done, and during the Biden years the Smith­sonian only further entrenched its sick wokery.

It’s beyond time that Congress defunds the Smithsonian unless it reverts to its founding principles.

____________________________________________________________________

Democrats are completely blind to the DSA’s brazen party coup — so the rest of us must step up

BY:          Karol Marcowicz, The New York Post (July 21, 2026).

Communists are taking over the Democratic Party, openly and swiftly — and the Democrats are letting it happen.

The Democratic Socialists of America’s newly posted platform starts with the idea of taking a day off.

Who could oppose a vacation day? Only capitalist monsters!

But it quickly pivots, turning the idea of a paid vacation day into a means of displacing capitalism — the most successful system ever devised for lifting people out of poverty — in favor of communism, which has failed every time it’s been tried.

“Imagine taking a day off from work in a future without capitalism,” the party writes.

And don’t worry about paying your bills, the DSA assures their gullible followers, because — you won’t have bills anymore!

Everything is paid for, your health insurance, housing, transportation, energy, retirement. All of it.

‘Abolish the Senate’

But why stop at bills?

Why not free Coachella for everyone?

Why not free (all-inclusive, obviously) vacations?

Who’s giving us a skincare and makeup budget at Sephora?

What kind of human rights are these!

The fact is the DSA has veered past socialism and gone straight for communism.

US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D-MI) makes remarks at the “The People v. The Powerful Rally” in Grand Rapids, Michigan on July 19, 2026.

Leftists often herald Sweden as an example of the policies they want, but Sweden is a capitalist society; Swedes have bills.

It’s North Koreans who have subsidized rent and utilities.

They also have to eat grass and tree bark when the state fails to provide.

We have to call this madness for what it is.

A week ago, DSA co-chair Ashik Siddique openly declared, “Let’s start with abolishing the Senate.”

“We do believe that government should be proportional to the population,” he said. “We just don’t see the point of the Senate.”

Siddique didn’t say this during a rousing speech in the heat of the moment; he said it dryly on CSPAN’s “Washington Journal.”

In fact, the DSA’s latest platform shows its members don’t think there’s a “point” to much of the American system at all.

It’s not just the Senate; they want to get rid of the Electoral College and the Supreme Court, too — and, of course, American capitalism writ large.

DSA thought leaders include Hasan Piker, who on Saturday dressed up like Chairman Mao to deliver a speech to the 2026 Convention of College Democrats.

It isn’t subtle.

It’s not just the aesthetics they love, either.

Lefty streamer Hasan Piker dressed up like Mao Zedong to give a speech to the 2026 Convention of College Democrats.

“Mao Zedong is one of the great leaders of this world, a man who changed this entire universe,” Piker said on a stream last year.

Yes: changed it for the worse.

Mao Zedong murdered more people than Adolf Hitler and ushered in an era of misery and poverty from which China has yet to recover.

Yet every 2028 Democrat will undoubtedly be clamoring to appear on Piker’s livestream.

Where’s the line?

Fight back, Dems

Democrats have been far too weak in the face of this communist threat within their ranks.

No, they’re just riding the wave, foolishly hoping the shark won’t eat them.

These kids have enthusiasm that’s badly lacking in the party, and Democrats are hoping to harness that hype to boost their own election prospects.

Even though the DSA platform proclaims “both [parties] are funded by the same criminal class of billionaires and war profiteers.”

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Even though Piker last week openly talked about pushing out Democrats who won’t toe his communist line.

Someone has to be first up against the wall when their revolution comes — and it’s going to be the same Democrats who are refusing now to fight back.

It’s way past the time for Democrats to say: These are bad ideas that have harmed millions of people, and we won’t stand for them in our party.

The rest of us can’t wait around and watch them try communism just one more time because the Democrats are scared to come off as uncool.

These people need to be pushed back, hard — and if Democrats can’t do it, the rest of us must.

____________________________________________________________________

Fight communism now — or buy a parrot

If America fails, who will rescue us?

BY:          Don Feder, The Washington Times (July 19, 2026).

When I was a conservative student in the 1960s, I thought the war with communism was thousands of miles away in Southeast Asia and 90 miles off the coast in Cuba.

I was wrong.

The real war was here all along, in the strongholds of the New Left, especially in academia.

Now it has infected every aspect of American life and is on the verge of taking over what was once the party of Presidents Truman and Kennedy.

Precision of language is crucial. We are not fighting socialism. This is a war with communism. We had better wake up to that reality fast before we become the Russians, the Chinese or the Cubans of the 21st century.

The way to fight American communism is by exposing it and explaining it.

Talk about the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, which just won a slew of congressional primaries in districts in New York and Colorado, where winning a Democratic primary is tantamount to election. DSA commies also are or soon will be the mayors of New York, the District of Columbia, Seattle and Los Angeles.

In January, a communist contingent will be heading to Congress, including Darializa Avita Chevalier, a 32-year-old professional student who won the Democratic nomination in a deep-blue New York district.

Ms. Chevalier wants to abolish police and prisons, “literally demolish the border,” seize rental property and nationalize corporations. In past social media posts, Ms. Chevalier called the works of Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin “essential must-reads.”

The DSA platform calls for replacing the Senate, president and Supreme Court with “an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.” Illegal aliens will vote, further entrenching communist control.

Instead of a separation of powers, power will be concentrated in a single body.

This is a prescription for one-party rule. There were elections in the Soviet Union, and that is the type of sham voting we would have here.

We must expose what the DSA’s comrades have done in Cuba, Russia, North Korea and Red China.

At the time of the 1959 Castro revolution, Cuba was the most developed country in Latin America. Today, it has little fuel and is experiencing rolling blackouts. Garbage piles up in the streets. Cuban workers get half a pound of chicken and 10 to 12 eggs every two weeks. Workers of the world, eat hearty.

Havana says that although it would welcome aid, it will never compromise on communism.

Communism is by its very nature expansionist. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian President Vladimir Putin has fought five wars, including those in Georgia, Chechnya and Ukraine. In the Russia-Ukraine war, both sides have sustained more than 2 million casualties over the course of 4½ years. Talk about forever wars.

Besides Mr. Putin’s attempts to re-create the Soviet empire, China is planning to seize Taiwan. North Korea is waiting for the chance to send its army — the fourth-largest in the world — marching south.

We also need to explain the symbiotic relationship between communism and Islamism — the red-green alliance. These ideologies are drawn together by a fanatical hatred of Western civilization. Ms. Chevalier is both a Marxist and a convert to Islam.

There is no communist country or party that does not support the so-called Palestinians. Iran’s nuclear reactors were built with the help of Russia and China.

Knowledge can stop a revolution. At least Americans cannot say that we were not warned.

When I was in Cuba in 1998, I met with Gustavo Arcos Bergnes, who fought with Fidel Castro’s guerrilla army. When Castro came to power, he was rewarded with the ambassadorship to Belgium. When he saw the betrayal of his homeland, Arcos became disillusioned, was recalled from his post and was eventually imprisoned for his dissent.

Did he not know that Castro was a communist before he came to power? I asked. “Of course not,” Arcos replied. “When we were with him in the Sierra Maestra, he wore a crucifix.”

The DSA leaders don’t feign religion. They are far more open about their goals than Castro was before he came to power.

When I interviewed Arcos, he was living in a one-room apartment with his parrot, Michael Jackson. “The bird is freer than me,” he lamented. That is what the DSA’s future commissars have in mind for us after the revolution.

During the Cold War, America stopped the spread of communism in Europe and Asia. If America fails, no one will be left to rescue us.

Fight communism now — fight with everything you’ve got — or buy a parrot.

____________________________________________________________________

The Democratic Socialists of America flexes its muscles in the Democratic Party

DSA can bamboozle useful idiots because of ignorance

BY:          Robert Knight, The Washington Times (July 19, 2026).

The Democratic Socialists of America, riding high from primary victories in several Democratic-run states, have unveiled a “Workers Deserve More” platform.

It aims to dismantle the American republic, starting with the abolition of the U.S. Senate, the Electoral College and our national borders, and the subordination of the president and the Supreme Court to Congress.

Then there is universal ranked choice voting, public ownership of large companies, free childcare, “Medicare for All,” cancellation of student loans (to be paid by taxpayers), the transgender agenda and more benefits for the growing “free stuff” army. How do we pay for all this?

Who cares? Hit up the billionaires.

The DSA now claims 120,000 members and dozens of public offices. It is no wonder that so many young people are buying into the DSA and socialism in general. The public “education” system does not share the shocking, real-world track record of socialism and communism.

This makes young voters sitting ducks for a pitch like this one on the DSA’s website: “Imagine taking a day off from work in a future without capitalism. … You have no debt. You don’t need health insurance. You don’t pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right. Your retirement is publicly funded. Food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation aren’t for-profit businesses; they are common goods and utilities.”

Bottom line: You do not have to grow up or take responsibility for anything. Mommy government will do it all.

The DSA’s pixie dust masks class warfare straight out of the bloody French and Bolshevik revolutions. To understand what is going on, it is helpful to revisit an extraordinary essay drafted 176 years ago in Mugron, France.

In 1850, Frederic Bastiat published “The Law,” a slam-dunk refutation of “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It is a surprisingly accessible read.

Unlike Marx and Engels, who were atheists, Bastiat agreed with America’s Founders, who said rights come from God, not government. “Three gifts from God precede all human legislation,” Bastiat wrote, citing individuality, liberty and property — all protected by law.

In a free republic, people cede some liberties to government in return for law and order and protection of life and property. When a government fails to do this and instead takes money from Peter to pay Paul, it engages in a form of theft that Bastiat labels “plunder.”

A grasping government plunders as much wealth as it can and redistributes it to increase the power and wealth of those doing the transferring, he wrote.

I thought about this when watching Virginia Democrats take over Richmond in January. The fake “moderate” Gov. Abigail Spanberger immediately signed a measure to send consumers’ electric bills soaring. Democratic legislators, meanwhile, voted themselves a $32,000 salary increase, nearly tripling their pay in the name of “the people.”

Bastiat writes that despite socialism’s flowery promises, it is all about “naked greed” and “misconceived philanthropy.”

Gad Saad, a scholar at the University of Mississippi’s Declaration of Independence Center and professor of marketing at Concordia University, calls the latter “suicidal empathy,” a compassion so excessive that it harms the person, group or society engaging in it.

A prime example would be the Great Society welfare state’s destruction of the Black family.

Another would be the Biden administration’s importation of millions of unvetted immigrants, some of whom are now working to destroy America by advocating socialism or Islamism.

Each of these movements, which overlap to form a red-green axis, is using America’s constitutional liberties to attain power. If they get enough of it, they will tear up that document and replace it with their creed of choice.

Like communism, Shariah cannot be squared with the Constitution, especially the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty. Under it, converts from Islam can be punished with death, as can those convicted of blasphemy. Women have few or no rights. This conflicts with the 14th Amendment’s equal protection guarantee and the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

Criminal punishments can include amputation or flogging, which would violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Not all Muslim-majority countries impose Shariah, but in countries such as Iran, run by Islamists, women are forced to wear hijabs or even more concealment in public — or face beatings. How many college students who run around with signs backing Hamas and Iran while trashing Israel are aware of any of this?

The DSA is stoking hatred of Jews. Its platform calls for “a free Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital” and to “end all military and economic aid to Israel.”

On Wednesday, 103 — nearly half of 212 Democrats — voted yes on a failed House measure to end military aid to Israel. Only one Republican, bill sponsor Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, voted yes as the measure failed on a 104-314 vote.

The DSA has a Red Star Caucus, whose members vow to destroy America’s free market economics and impose communism. Its heroes are New York City’s Islamist/communist Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, a lifelong communist.

The DSA’s Red Star Caucus, of which DSA National Co-Chair Megan Romer is a member, states in its published platform: “We do not believe that capitalism can be reformed into socialism. It must be overthrown and replaced.”

Republicans must educate American voters before it is too late. They need to offer a positive agenda and remind people of the bad old Biden days of $5 gas and open borders.

They need to make clear that if the Democrats do not expel the DSA, then voting

Democratic at any level is enabling a growing red-green axis that threatens American liberty and prosperity.

____________________________________________________________________

Sliced White Bread And The American Dream

The Founders gave us a system that allowed us to create our own futures, but the Progressive federal government gave it away in 1913.

BY:          M.E. Boyd, The American Thinker (July 24, 2026).

Many respected national political commentators are breathless in their assessment of Marxism in all its forms as a national governing system. “It doesn’t work!” they say. When words fail, the mocking quips begin. The problem is, none of these commentators ever answer the logical question—“Why doesn’t socialism or communism, work?”

Perhaps it is because the answer is complex. The answer requires a sophisticated understanding of human nature, including its odd affinity for attaining the best and then substituting it for the worst. Fortunately for America, the Founders did tackle deep questions. About human nature, they concluded that: human beings are both good and evil; human beings respond to authority closest to their existence; and human beings require time to develop their full potential.

Though relatively young, many of the Founders were well educated in ancient, medieval, and then-modern governance systems and were determined to avoid mistakes made by civilizations that eventually declined. The chief error, they concluded, was a misunderstanding of the nature of man. The Founders, therefore, created a defensive system of diffused bottom-up power that they hoped would help lessen human evil and incentivize human good. Put another way, instead of simply controlling human beings through homogenization and brute force, the system the Founders created grants human beings a conditional “Liberty to Become.”

A socialistic or communist system, for instance, would not have the patience or the interest in an Otto Frederick Rohwedder (1880-1960).

Otto was the son of German immigrants to America and grew up in Iowa. He went to public schools and enjoyed the normal Midwest family life. Otto apprenticed to become a jeweler, got married, had a family, and eventually owned three jewelry stores in Missouri. He was very financially successful. Yet Otto had a dream. Having watched his mother and his wife buy and slice loaves of bread, he decided he wanted to engineer a bread-slicing machine. He was middle-aged by this time. Selling his jewelry stores to fund his idea, Otto spent years initiating various experiments developing his machine.

Then the unthinkable occurred. The warehouse with all Otto’s blueprints and prototypes burned to the ground. Nothing could be saved. He started over. In 1927, he finally completed his slicing/wrapping machine and sold it to a Missouri bakery. By 1930, Wonder Bread was introduced and America, with thanks, turned to sliced white bread. It takes time and sometimes initial failure for many individuals to reach their full potential. America’s system provides the stable social order, liberty, and room to help make it happen for those willing to take risks.

The bottom line is that socialism and communism do not work because these systems eventually relegate the individual to dependency and the state to tyranny. Promises of material security represent mere bribes, wrapped in baubles of verbal glitter, meant to lure the unsuspecting into a life of controlled subsistence ruled over by an elite few with lethal weapons and cringy prisons.

Why then, with proof positive over 100 years of the failure of socialist and communist systems, are some Americans willing to scrap liberty for slavery and prosperity for poverty?

The Founders would say it is the inexplicable vagaries of human nature. While human beings are both good and evil, respond to local authority, and need room to develop, they are also at times irrational, ungrateful, and easily manipulated. What may be unknown to many Americans is that the citizens rejected the Founding system in 1913. The following timeline helps explain.

America signed on to global central banking in 1913. No audit of our central bank is allowed. Global bankers insisted America enter WWI to secure their war loans. Prior to 1913, America had rejected central banking as a transfer of financial authority and a weakening of national sovereignty. The political arm of global central banking is the United Nations.

Wall Street supported the Bolshevik revolution in Russia with many American academics romanticizing the communist system. Prominent international intellectuals wrote about subverting Western culture. The Soviet Union was recognized by the United States in 1933. America succumbed to Stalin’s war aims in an unnecessary WWII; Eastern Europe was enslaved.

Files released by the Soviet Union after its fall in 1992, the Venona files, reveal widespread communist influence in major arms of our federal government. America allowed China to become a communist state in 1949.

Communist Korea attacked the south in 1950. 36,000 Americans died. The Cold War became serious, but academic America began to slowly turn its intellectual power toward Marxist concepts, and today, the Founding system and its philosophical underpinnings are taught in only a few schools of higher education. Public primary and secondary education is now an indoctrination, not an education system.

In a final blow, Islamism was allowed to recover from WWI and is now attempting to subvert America from within and militarily control her allies from without. The solid institutions of American culture—the family, the church, the schools—that at one time kept the social order stable for the likes of an Otto Rohwedder have now been perverted, and the final stages of the Revolution of 1913 are upon us with otherwise sensible Americans voting for their own demise.

Why do human beings have an odd affinity for attaining the best and then substituting it for the worst? No one knows. What the Founders would say is that it is better to take a chance on the human ability to “figure it out and fast” even if humans don’t, than to deprive them of that chance. We came up with “sliced white bread” at the Constitutional Convention of 1787—if we can keep it.

GFK

Today is the Feast of S. Anne (also known as Anna or Ann – all derived from the Hebrew name, Hannah) with a commemoration of the 8th Sunday after Trinity. We might wonder why on occasion the usual pattern of Trinity Sundays is interrupted. Depending on the ranking of the feast day, it may displace the usual Sunday celebration. 

The ranking of feast days in the traditional kalendar is rather complicated. Most Sundays are ranked as semi-doubles, the exceptions being the Sundays in Advent, Lent and Passion-tide as well as Easter Day, Low Sunday and Pentecost. In this week’s case, the feast of S. Anne is a Double of the II Class, so we celebrate the day as the Feast of S. Anne and commemorate the 8th Sunday after Trinity.

The modern kalendar combines S. Anne and S. Joachim on this day, and celebrates the Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The traditional kalendar, which we follow, celebrates them separately. S. Joachim’s feast day will be celebrated the day after the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that is on 16th August. One can argue the rationale, but I think more dignity is accorded by separating the two parents. I also believe that there was a concerted effort in the revision of the kalendar to simplify and to consequently weaken the teaching aspect of the liturgical kalendar.

Scripture does not record the names of the Blessed Mother’s parents; their names come to us from tradition. Some have the attitude that if something is not found in Scripture, than it is to be discarded or at the least, discounted. But we forget that the New Testament is itself part of the Holy Tradition handed down from the early Church. We might recall the Dominical admonition from S. Paul as recorded by S. Luke in Acts: ...remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20.35). This saying is nowhere to be found in the Gospels so S. Paul must have received it from a tradition other than that used by the Evangelists.

The Catholic Encyclopedia gives us this account: All our information concerning the names and lives of Sts. Joachim and Anne, the parents of Mary, is derived from apocryphal literature: the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, Pseudo-Matthew and the Protoevangelium of James. Though the earliest form of the latter, on which directly or indirectly the other two seem to be based, goes back to about A.D. 150, we can hardly accept as beyond doubt its various statements on its sole authority. 

In the Orient, the Protoevangelium had great authority and portions of it were read on the feasts of Mary by the Greeks, Syrians, Copts, and Arabians. In the Occident, however, it was rejected by the Fathers of the Church until its contents were incorporated by Jacobus de Voragine in his “Golden Legend” in the thirteenth century. From that time on, the story of St. Anne spread over the West and was amply developed, until St. Anne became one of the most popular saints also of the Latin Church.

The Protoevangelium gives the following account: In Nazareth there lived a rich and pious couple, Joachim and Hannah. They were childless. When on a feast day Joachim presented himself to offer sacrifice in the temple, he was repulsed by a certain Ruben, under the pretext that men without offspring were unworthy to be admitted. Whereupon Joachim, bowed down with grief, did not return home, but went into the mountains to make his plaint to God in solitude. Also Hannah, having learned the reason of the prolonged absence of her husband, cried to the Lord to take away from her the curse of sterility, promising to dedicate her child to the service of God. 

Their prayers were heard; an angel came to Hannah and said: “Hannah, the Lord has looked upon thy tears; thou shalt conceive and give birth and the fruit of thy womb shall be blessed by all the world”. The angel made the same promise to Joachim, who returned to his wife. Hannah gave birth to a daughter whom she called Miriam (Mary).

The fact that this story parallels that of the birth of Samuel to Elkanah and Hannah, does not, in and of itself, invalidate its truthfulness. We see repeatedly parallelisms between the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. They exist to help us more deeply understand the mystery of our faith.

What is important here, is to recognize the hand of God at work in bringing about our salvation. His Providence was at work throughout the generations leading up to the nativity of Our Blessed Lord. The piety of the Blessed Mother’s parents is implicit in the angel Gabriel’s greeting: And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

While being “full of grace” of necessity is an act of God, it still required a willing spirit. The role of her parents in teaching the Blessed Mother about God and the ancient Hebrew faith cannot be underestimated. This story should make parents more aware of the role played in the raising of Christ-oriented children. And this story should make all of us aware of the fact that God desires to use each one of us for His purposes. When we fail to cooperate with His will for us, we may very well thwart His purpose of bringing salvation to those around us.

S. Anne was clearly a women open to God’s grace, and allowed that grace to work through her in the raising of the Blessed Virgin. May we allow the same grace to live and work in our lives, so that we, like the Virgin Mother, may allow the Word to reside within us and to grow to Its full maturity.

____________________________________________________________________

Catholic politicians and the weeds in the wheat

Christians must forgo convenience in order to avoid selling out Christ for politics.

BY:          Kevin Finn, The American Thinker (July 21, 2026).

The Gospel reading at Mass this Sunday was Matthew 13:24-43, the parable of the weeds among the wheat.  In the story, an enemy has sown weeds in the wheat crop.  Workers ask the farmer if they should pull them up, and the farmer says no, as they may damage the wheat by doing so.  Instead, at harvest time, they should first gather the weeds and bundle them, then throw them into the fire.  This is a clear warning to unrepentant sinners.

Our parish priest is a staunch Democrat, and his homily warned us of the dangers of the weeds in our community and our nation — those who are uncharitable, who persecute migrants and commit acts of violence.  But although no reasonable person wants to see anyone subjected to neglect, unjust persecution, or violence, the fact remains that the majority of these actions are coming from the political left.  He gave no homilies on the riots during the summer of 2020, and he never preaches about the evils of abortion or unrestricted illegal immigration.

His homily got me thinking, as homilies should.  If someone claims to be a Christian, whether Protestant or Catholic, yet condones, enables, and even celebrates policies that are antithetical to Christianity such as abortion, assisted suicide, homosexuality, and gender ideology, is he still a Christian?  We’re all in need of forgiveness, grace, and salvation.  But at what point does a person move from being a “bad Christian” to an actual heretic?

Though I’m not qualified to speak authoritatively on the doctrines of the various Protestant denominations, a cursory search reveals a wide range of tolerance towards issues such as abortion, gender ideology, and assisted suicide.  As a Catholic, I am more familiar with the teachings of the Catholic Church on these matters.  Nevertheless, shouldn’t Protestant and Catholic teachings both conform to Scriptural truths?

When political loyalty overrides fidelity to Church teaching, it creates scandal and erodes the moral witness of the Catholic Church.  It requires an honest examination through the lens of the “five non-negotiables” consistent with Catholic social teaching.  These non-negotiable positions are abortion, euthanasia/assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and homosexual “marriage.”  While the Catholic Church does not yet have an extensive body of teaching on the topic of transgenderism, she has always taught that every person is to be respected and treated with consideration, and every form of violence and aggression is to be carefully avoided.  Nevertheless, the Catholic Church is against any “gender ideology” that separates psychological gender from biological sex, and opposes chemical or surgical interventions that alter the body in absence of any valid medical need.

The Church considers the “five non-negotiables” to be intrinsically evil and gravely disordered.  As such, a politician who supports and promotes any of these has rendered himself ineligible as someone for whom a Catholic may legitimately vote.  To my way of thinking, that pretty much eliminates the entire Democrat party, as well as a not insignificant number of Republicans.

The Democrat party has enshrined abortion as part of its platform, referring to it as “reproductive freedom” and sometimes as “reproductive justice.”  This directly conflicts with core elements of Christianity.  The ostensibly Catholic New York governor Kathy Hochul signed gender ideology and assisted suicide into law, despite bishops’ opposition, which views it as a “grave moral evil,” a direct attack on human life.

Hochul’s LGBT law is forcing the Dominican Sisters’ hospice to violate their orders’ beliefs on sex-segregated care, causing her to be accused of anti-Catholic bigotry. The Little Sisters of the Poor in California are likewise being pressured to provide funds for contraceptives and abortion for their lay partners — in direct opposition to their religious beliefs.

On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision that the Fourteenth Amendment requires all states to grant same-sex marriages and recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states.  Catholic justices Scalia, Roberts, Alito, and Thomas dissented.  In 2017, then-president and alleged Catholic Joe Biden took it one step farther by officiating at a same-sex “wedding.”  The records of Catholic leaders such as Joe Biden, Kathy Hochul, and Gavin Newsom causes me to question their sincere adherence to their faith.

Many if not most Catholic Democrats in Congress support their party’s platform on these issues while simultaneously claiming adherence to their faith.  They sometimes say they are personally opposed to them, but they remain publicly supportive.  They are not alone.  Roughly half of U.S. Catholics prioritize politics over Christ.  They compartmentalize their faith or misapply the “seamless garment” philosophy to equate prudential issues (e.g., immigration, poverty) with intrinsic evils.

This shift may be attributed to cultural inertia, identity politics, and secular influences in media and academia.  The Democrat party’s shift toward wealthy, secularist donors and activists has also played a pivotal role.  The results have been repeated scandals to the faithful, a weakening of religious exemptions, and a “culture of death” that undermines hospice care, conscience rights, and the common good.

So far, the Catholic Church’s response has been weak.  There are some Catholic leaders among the clergy and laity who are calling for repentance, a consistent ethic of life, and prioritizing the non-negotiables in voting and in public life.  Among such leaders are Cardinal Robert Sarah and Bishop Joseph Strickland.  Reading their letters and social media posts is refreshing, and I wish more Catholic leaders would speak out so forthrightly.

Some of the more vocal among them, like Bishop Strickland, have been censured for daring to criticize the leftward shift in the Catholic Church.  Meanwhile, Pope Francis gave permission to openly bless same-sex unions, thus promoting homosexuality.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which summarizes Church doctrine, has this to say on the topic:

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

I am unable to reconcile the actions of Pope Francis in granting permission for priests to bless same-sex unions with the official teaching of the Catholic Church, just as I am unable to reconcile the words and actions of ostensibly Catholic politicians who promote and enable these practices.

In Matthew 13:24-43, Jesus alludes to how those who cause others to sin will be judged.  We are all sinners, and we must avoid the path taken by the proud Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14.  For Catholic individuals, a daily examination of conscience using the Catechism and encyclicals rather than party loyalty is needed.  Catholics must support policies that align with human dignity, from conception to natural death.

The cognitive dissonance seen when Catholic politicians and even some in Church leadership support policies antithetical to teachings of Scripture and Tradition stems from elevating politics above faith.  But truth (John 8:32) demands daily alignment with Christ and His Church.

Catholics must choose fidelity to prayer and a return to tradition, forgoing convenience in order to avoid selling out Christ for politics, fostering authentic justice rooted in unchanging moral truths.

______________________________________________________________

Candace Owens keeps driving the Jew-hating bandwagon

Stop ‘just asking questions’

BY:          Everett Piper, The Washington Times (July 19, 2026).

The preliminary hearings for accused Charlie Kirk killer Tyler Robinson are over, and Candace Owens continues to “just ask questions.”

Why were Egyptian planes in American airspace at the time of Kirk’s shooting? Was Erika Kirk somehow involved in the plot to kill her husband? Are all those campus security videos of Tyler Robinson really Tyler Robinson? Was the accused assassin’s confession legitimate, or are the police, the accused’s parents and former roommate colluding to make all this up?

Then there is the ubiquitous granddaddy question of them all. Were the Jews behind the entire thing? Candace Owens asks, as her hordes of sycophantic, antisemitic trained seals sit up and clap in unison.

Responding to this line of inquiry, Christian apologist and pastor Samuel Sey posted the following on X: “Candace Owens and the growing number of demonic people like her on the Right should be a reminder that Satan isn’t just a leftist. He’s also a Christless conservative.”

“But we just want to get to the bottom of all of this,” shout the acolytes of Conspiracy Candy. “We’re just asking questions that need to be answered. What’s wrong with that?”

Well, the answer is simple: It is because the “questions” being asked are slanderous and/or completely nuts.

For example, Candace Owens is on record saying she is “just asking questions” about the Earth being flat. Is that “investigative journalism”? Is that “just asking questions”? No, it is dumb, and frankly, if I were doing the same, many would rightfully conclude that I am a little crazy.

The same goes for when Candace Owens “just asks questions” about dinosaur bones being manufactured in some factory in the Appalachian foothills, whether men have really landed on the moon or whether Brigitte Macron is really a man, not a woman. Candidly, these kinds of “questions” are delusional at best.

Then there are Candace Owens’s ongoing “questions” about Israel. Well, all that is nutty too. After all, what is her deal with “the Jews”? Why is she so fixated on these people, and why does she think a Mossad agent is hiding behind every bush just waiting to jump out and kidnap Christian children and then sacrifice and drain their blood for the Jewish Passover matzo?

It is a proven Nazi trope if ever there was one.

When someone continues to traffic in this kind of junk, they are either an unhinged lunatic or simply a very evil person who intentionally commits slander for profit. “Asking questions” that do harm to innocent people when zero evidence supports your rhetorical claims betrays either your stupidity or your vile bigotry.

You want proof? Just replace “the Jews” with “the Blacks,” “the Mexicans” or “the European White males,” and the obvious bias of what Candace Owens is asking is exposed.

Here is another test. The fact that all these “questions” are little more than a grifter’s shameless slander becomes obvious if we just personalize it a bit.

Let us say your neighbor dies today and I immediately start “asking questions” about your possibly having killed her. I have zero evidence other than the fact that you happen to live next door. But, of course, that means you must have done it.

Or, let us say every time you work late at the office, I start “asking questions” about your having an affair. Again, I have nothing other than the fact that you are not home by 5:30 p.m. for dinner. But that is clear you must be cheating on your wife, right?

These are not legitimate questions. They are slanderous and sinful. Pure and simple.

The bottom line is that Candace Owens’s “questions” are evil and wrong and Samuel Sey’s appropriate scolding should strike fear in the hearts of many so-called conservative Christians who continue to peddle her vile nonsense. Frankly, the lack of discernment from such a large swath of those claiming the banner of Christ is stunning.

Using the Candace Owens dodge of “I’m just asking questions” should be beneath any rational human being. Anyone with any moral sense knows that when the question assumes malicious intent and a false premise, you should not ask it.

There is a simple definition for all this. It is called gossip, and Samuel Sey is in good company in condemning it. As St. Paul said: “I urge you to … stop paying attention to myths. … [These people] have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy … strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips [and] slanderers, [and] they have no understanding, no love, and no mercy. … They not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

The take-home is this: Everyone who continues to parrot the “myths,” “malice” and sin of Candace Owens should read these words and repent.

GFK

Today is going to be a beautiful day. Actually, every day is a beautiful day, if you look at it from the proper perspective. It’s raining? Rain nourishes the Earth. Hot? It’s Summer. You will look back fondly on this day come January. Plans disrupted? Make new ones. Enjoy today, and every day.

Below I am sharing 2 very different articles. One may shock, and the other may inform. I hope both provoke thought. Enjoy!

__________________________________________________________________

Women shouldn’t be cops and they shouldn’t be in the military—and we need to bring back adultery laws

It really comes down to a cost-benefit analysis and the reality of net outcomes.

BY:          Olivia Murray, The American Thinker (July 20, 2026).

Listen, I know this is controversial, and it’s going to ruffle some feathers. And do not take this in any way as an effort to discount all the heroism and selflessness we have seen from women in uniform (a true and sincere thanks)—but women should not be cops, and they shouldn’t be in the military. It really comes down to a cost-benefit analysis and the reality of net outcomes.

I had the thought when I read a story in the New York Post about a married female cop (and the mother of three young children) in Nashville who filmed herself having “depraved sex” with a cop coworker “inside the middle school where she worked—while students and staff were just outside her office….”

The sordid details came out during an investigation into her conduct, which also revealed that this wasn’t a one-off: She’d also filmed herself hooking up with her affair partner inside his cop car on “at least two occasions while on duty.”

She was immediately decommissioned and resigned shortly afterward, and it’s not exactly clear what happened to her adulterous paramour, who’d been on the force for 18 years (though he was decommissioned, too).

Now, if only men were allowed on the force? This never would have happened. (Or, the chances of it happening would be infinitesimally small.)

We wouldn’t be reading about “depraved sex” going on mere feet away from where our children are supposed to be learning, in what’s supposed to be a safe environment. We wouldn’t have one more broken family (probably two), with more children whose innocence has been stolen because they’ve been shoved into a world where adults couldn’t act like adults. 

Our trust in our law enforcement wouldn’t have taken yet another hit. We wouldn’t have wasted who knows how many tax dollars paying the salaries of people who lack the character to be in civil service and investigating their bad behavior after the fact.

Are all those costs really worth it to have a person who’s objectively physically inferior in a world where physical superiority is a matter of life and death, not only for them but for citizens as well? I just can’t justify it.

The same goes for the military (which has a high rate of cheating). Women do offer benefits in these worlds, but the net results as a whole are negative.

There are countless historical examples of how great the fallout of adultery and illicit sex is and how far it ripples—David and Bathsheba (their child’s death and the collapse of a kingdom), Cleopatra and her Roman men, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Alexander Hamilton and Maria Reynolds (blackmail), and Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah (murder) are just a few. A comprehensive list would read like an encyclopedia set, so I’ll stop there.

Yes, there are women who could join law enforcement or enlist in the military and not be shameless attention-seekers (read: whores), but because too many can’t, we all have to be excluded.

I’m being hard on women, I know, and it’s not one-sided. Yes, too many women can’t be professional, but too many men lack the self-control and discipline to deny sexual temptation right in front of them—Joseph turned and literally ran from Potiphar because he knew staying meant a guaranteed breach of trust and morality. 

Men can’t just hightail it from the cop station or a patrol car when confronted with the same reality, though, so the solution is to remove the temptation, since someone has to do the job. Someone has to do the job of law enforcement and national security, and if it can be only one of the sexes, to remove all the dysfunction that comes with a mixed-sex environment, it needs to be the men.

And here’s my last point: We need to bring back adultery laws (where they’ve been struck from the books) and start prosecuting affairs as criminal offenses once again. Making immorality illegal means criminal punishment for violations, which does deter behavior. 

Adultery rates have risen dramatically since the pain of the consequences is no longer a metaphorical burning at the stake but more of a rubber-band snap on the wrist. Now, the only person I’ve really heard talking about this is Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback, who proposed changing the state’s divorce laws to punish an offending spouse. I think that’s a great start, and I applaud his position.

History shows that the disastrous consequences of just one affair can truly alter the course of history in an incomprehensible way, and it’s time we reject the normalization of affairs and infidelity and treat them with the gravity they demand.

____________________________________________________________________

The Constitution is not a mood ring

Originalism, constitutional stability, and the danger of chasing political fashion.

BY:          George P. Brooks, The American Thinker (July 21, 2026).

Over the last several days, I’ve found myself going down a rabbit hole studying a constitutional philosophy known as originalism. I’ll admit, it wasn’t something I had spent a great deal of time researching before. Like many Americans, I’d heard the term thrown around in political debates, usually as either praise or criticism depending on which side was speaking. But once I actually sat down and read what originalism is—and, just as importantly, what it is not—I began to appreciate why it has become such an important part of our national conversation.

At its core, originalism is fairly straightforward. It holds that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original public meaning of its words at the time they were adopted. That does not mean America must somehow return to the eighteenth century, nor does it require pretending that modern technology or contemporary problems do not exist. It simply means the meaning of the Constitution should not change because our politics do.

That distinction is important.

I am fully aware that society changes. Technology evolves. New legal questions arise that the Founders could never have imagined. The internet, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and social media were obviously beyond their comprehension. But I believe there is a meaningful difference between applying an enduring constitutional principle to a new circumstance and redefining the principle itself.

That is where my concern begins.

As a black conservative Christian, I often hear people speak about the Constitution as though it should be molded to fit whatever political movement currently enjoys cultural momentum. Whether the issue is on the left or the right, I find that way of thinking unsettling. A Constitution that changes its meaning according to the passions of the moment eventually ceases to function as a Constitution at all. It becomes little more than a mirror reflecting whichever ideology happens to be winning at the time.

That was never its purpose.

The Constitution was written to place limits on government—not simply to organize it. It was designed to create stability in a nation that understood political passions come and go. Elections change. Presidents change. Congress changes. Public opinion changes. The Constitution was intended to be the stable foundation underneath all of it.

If that foundation begins shifting every time society develops a new political preference, then constitutional rights stop being rights and become temporary privileges dependent upon judicial philosophy and cultural trends.

History gives us plenty of reasons to be cautious about allowing rights to fluctuate with popular opinion. Majorities are not always wise. Cultural consensus is not always moral. Public sentiment often defended ideas we now recognize as profound injustices. One generation may celebrate something another generation later condemns.

That is precisely why constitutional government matters.

Its purpose is not to eliminate disagreement. Its purpose is to establish enduring rules that survive disagreement, ones rooted in objective morality.

One example that comes to mind is the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act addressed one of the greatest moral failures in American history by prohibiting discrimination in employment, education, and public accommodations. It represented an extraordinary effort to guarantee equal treatment under the law, particularly for black Americans who had long been denied rights already promised by the Constitution. That original purpose should never be forgotten.

At the same time, it is fair to ask whether every modern interpretation of civil rights law reflects the intent of the legislation as it was enacted. Reasonable people disagree about that question, and they should be able to do so without immediately being accused of bad faith.

Some argue that broad statutory language naturally applies to new circumstances that Congress could not specifically anticipate. Others contend that certain interpretations have expanded the law beyond what Congress intended, effectively creating new legal obligations that legislators themselves never debated or approved.

Whether one agrees with either position is almost secondary to the constitutional principle involved.

Who is supposed to make those decisions?

Should sweeping changes in public policy primarily come through elected representatives accountable to voters? Or should they emerge through judicial interpretation that extends existing statutes into areas Congress never explicitly addressed?

Constitutional republics function best when major policy questions are answered through legislation rather than judicial innovation, and it’s exactly how ours was designed to work. If Americans believe new legal protections are necessary, then our elected representatives possess both the authority and the responsibility to debate those proposals openly. If constitutional change itself is required, amendments can be added in one of two ways—a process which is intentionally difficult.

Some view that as a weakness, but I view it as wisdom.

The Founders understood that liberty requires stability every bit as much as it requires freedom. They intentionally made constitutional change difficult because they recognized that temporary passions often produce permanent consequences. That principle remains just as relevant today as it was more than two centuries ago.

Too often, we have become comfortable asking not, “What does the Constitution say?” but rather, “How can the Constitution be interpreted to support what I already believe?” Those are fundamentally different questions. The first seeks truth. The second seeks validation.

A constitutional republic cannot survive if interpretation becomes little more than political preference dressed up as legal reasoning.

That concern applies regardless of who occupies the White House or which party controls Congress. Principles that allow one side to stretch constitutional meaning today inevitably allow the other side to do the same tomorrow. If we celebrate constitutional elasticity only when it produces outcomes we personally like, we have abandoned constitutional consistency altogether.

That is a dangerous precedent for any free people.

Perhaps that is why originalism has become increasingly compelling to me. Not because it promises conservative outcomes in every case—it doesn’t—but because it begins with a simple question that every judge, lawyer, legislator, and citizen should ask before anything else:

What does the Constitution actually say?

Everything else should come afterward.

GFK

English and Holland did make it back to Berryville from South Carolina. I am happy. Dudley is happy, and back to ignoring me (other than during cocktail hour). All is right with the world.

English and Holland brought me some Buc-ee’s Beaver Nuggets (among other surprises) from their travels. I love Beaver Nuggets. They are very addictive.

Did you know that the General Manager of a Buc-ee’s store can make almost $300,000.00 a year? Food managers can make almost $200,000.00 a year. No college degree required. Huh. I am confident that these positions carry a lot of responsibility and hard work. But still. That is not chicken feed. Surely a measure of Buc-ee’s success is their willingness to hire talent, and reward them for their efforts. Only in America!

Congratulations to Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R. La.). Through his leadership, the House just passed the defense spending authorization bill, a reconciliation bill, and a ban on Congressional stock trading. And all this was done with a razor thin majority, as the Democrats support nothing.

The U.S. House of Representatives also voted to ban boys from competing in girls sports at schools operated by the Department of War. All Republicans voted for the ban. All Democrats, but 5, voted against the ban.

Meanwhile, while Speaker Johnson was accomplishing much, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R. S.D.) accomplished nothing positive. Nothing. He did, however, announce that he would work with Senate Democrats on a spending bill. Sigh. What a buffoon.

“Let me be clear.  The people that were here are the indigenous folk.  And you know who ICE has been rounding up?  They’ve been rounding up indigenous people.  The people that originally came.  Not the colonizers!  But the original people.  So what this is about is whiteness!” 

–Representative Jasmine Crockett (D. Tx.).

What in the world is she talking about?  She is not “clear”. She makes no sense.

Senators Rick Scott (R. Fl.) and Marsha Blackburn (R. Tn.) introduced legislation to create a memorial to the victims of Chinese communism. The proposed memorial would be located across Connecticut Avenue, NW, from the Chinese embassy. A capital idea!

The Obama Presidential Center stiffed Adamson Plumbing, failing to pay more than $4 million for work done by the company. Now Adamson Plumbing has been forced to lay off 30 employees, and is on the verge of bankruptcy. All because Barack Hussein Obama will not pay his bills.

A group of landlords are suing Comrade Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D. N.Y.), challenging his rent freeze. Let’s all hope that they win.

Comrade Mayor Mamdani continues to discuss arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even though he now admits that he has no authority or power to do so. When recently asked why, Comrade Mayor Mamdani insisted that arrest warrants should be honored. Really? Then why did Comrade Mayor Mamdani condemn the arrest and prosecution of former Venezuelan communist dictator Nicolas Maduro? He was seized pursuant to an arrest warrant.

Apparently, some arrest warrants are more equal than others.

Representative Rashida Tlaib (D. Mi.) promised to help Comrade Mayor Mamdani to effect a “citizens arrest” on Prime Minister Netanyahu. Gosh, she is stupid. And a really bad person.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, Ethiopian national Tsegaab Binessu murdered 3 staffers working at the apartment complex in which he lived. Mr. Binessu was angry because they would not let him cancel a parking contract he had just renewed. After being arrested, Mr. Binessu railed against the United States, calling it “bad”. Hmmm. Okay, well after his conviction, and he serves perhaps 1/10 of his sentence, before Governor Tampon Tim (D. Mn.) or his successor pardons him, the “bad” United States government should deport him back to Ethiopia. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Georgia gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson (R.) recently dined at a local Atlanta restaurant, owned by a black woman. At her request, Mr. Jackson posed for pictures with the owner. What followed was a burst of criticism by the Left, with calls for a boycott. Mr. Jackson’s opponent, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D.) weighed in, on the side of the boycott. Sigh. According to the former worst Mayor in Atlanta history, the black woman “asked” for the negative attention by allowing Rick Jackson to patronize her restaurant. Unbelievable.

Should the black restaurant owner have refused to serve Mr. Jackson because he was white? A Republican? Both? This is absolutely ridiculous. This is the Left.

First, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill (D.) blamed President Trump for the presence of aliens on the State’s voter rolls. Then Governor Sherrill blamed her predecessor, Phil Murphy (D.). Finally, Governor Sherrill blamed the presence of aliens on the State’s voter rolls on the software company that provided the data systems, calling it a “glitch”. Well. The software company was having none of the blame, and explained that all its data was transmitted to the New Jersey elections office, and that that office–under the Governor’s control–was responsible for reviewing and implementing the data. Stated differently, it was not a software “glitch”.

Of note, Governor Sherrill announced that there would be no investigation or prosecution of the hundreds of aliens who illegally voted in New Jersey elections. Why not?

Left wing influencer, radical communist, and all ’round loudmouth Hasan Piker announced his support for Puddin’head for President in 2028. “It’s not even close”, said Mr. Piker. Oh, please. Please, please, please let the Democrats nominate Puddin’head as the party’s 2028 presidential standard bearer. Pleeeeease!

“All told, the statues dating to his second term are of negligible artistic value. President Trump’s embrace of an official classicizing style in art and architecture finds its closest equivalent in authoritarian regimes.”

–Maxwell Anderson, former president of the Association of Art Museum Directors.

Mr. Maxwell is reacting to a statue of Thomas Jefferson sitting on a bench, using his traveling writing desk. Mr. Maxwell is alarmed that Mr. Trump has placed statues of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Christopher Columbus in various locations on The White House grounds. The Founding Fathers?!?! Oh, my!

Listening to music, a movie, or your favorite podcast on a flight? You better be using headphones. If not, United Airlines announced it will boot you off your flight, and perhaps ban you in the future.

Congressional Democrats want to ban cellphone use on airplanes. It does not matter that all U.S. domestic airlines already ban cellphone use. The Democrats want this to be a law. WHY? Why must everything be a law? Is there nothing that our “betters” in Washington do not want to dictate? Anything?

That Saudi/U.S. nuclear deal? One of the conditions is that Saudi Arabia joins The Abraham Accords. WINNING!

GFK

English and Holland return today. I think. I hope. I am not going to tell Dudley until they actually walk through the door. I would hate to get his hopes up, and then have them dashed. Then he would pout.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s department stopped the payment of more than $100 million to . . . dead people. Do you think that the China Joe Administration would have caught and stopped those payments? OF COURSE NOT!

While testifying before a Congressional Committee, Smithsonian Museum of American History director Anthea Hartig testified that Mickey Mouse was not “racist”. When confronted with the fact that one of her museum’s exhibits claims that Mickey Mouse arose out of black-faced minstrel shows from the ’20s, she admitted that the minstrel shows were racist. Director Hartig then admitted that Mickey Mouse was racist. Sigh. These people are not happy unless they can make everyone else unhappy.

The Observations submits that Mickey Mouse is not racist. Neither are Donald Duck, Goofy, Minnie Mouse, or Pluto.

Director Hartig was also asked if it was important to be polite. She answered in the affirmative, and then was confronted by the fact that one of her museum’s exhibits labeled politeness and manners as hallmarks of “white supremacy”. Director Hartig denied that she was a white supremacist.

Director Hartig is not very bright. But then again, she is a Leftist, so . . . .

The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the Justice Department must release the China Joe tapes, pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request. Oh, my! The tapes make China Joe look bad. But the tapes make China Joe’s supporters and the mainstream media look far worse.

“MAGA is the closest thing to the modern version of the Nazi Party.  This is America’s version.  It’s the closest thing, without the Holocaust and all that stuff.”

–former CNN host Don Lemon, unwittingly revealing that he has no idea what a “Nazi” actually is.

Brandon Ortiz-Vite is an illegal alien who had been deported from the United States, only to reenter the country illegally, again. He made his way to Michigan where he brutally murdered Ruby Garcia. While campaigning for President in 2024, Mr. Trump highlighted this case as an example of the China Joe Administration’s incompetence, and the need for a more secure border.

Well, Mr. Ortiz-Vite is offended that others know of his crimes. He is suing President Trump and the United States of America for $75 million for “humiliation”. He is also demanding an official apology, and a grant of U.S. citizenship. Mr. Ortiz-Vite is going to be a very disappointed litigant.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison admitted that Democrats are importing voters from the Third World. He did not mean to do so, and he probably does not even realize he did, but he did. He absolutely did.

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill (D.) admitted that the State’s voter rolls contained almost 7,000 illegal aliens, and that hundreds voted in the last election. Surprised?

Governor Sherrill blamed President Trump for the illegal aliens’ presence on the voter rolls. She went on to excuse her Administration, attacking the President, and insisting that Mr. Trump “has zero credibility on the issue of election integrity.”

New York Democrat Socialists insist that no one should be allowed to make double digit returns on investment. Truth be told, Democrat Socialists do not believe that one should be allowed any return on investment.

California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra (D.) is openly advocating that people patronize illegal, unlicensed, street food stands. Because they are operated by illegal aliens. Seriously. I cannot make this stuff up.

The Episcopal Church USA is decrying the end of Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian aliens. Another Leftist group whose leaders do not understand the meaning of the word “temporary”.

Manufacturing has increased in all 50 States. WINNING!

Candymaker MarsWrigley, a subsidiary of Mars, Inc., will lay off hundreds of workers, and move its Newark, New Jersey headquarters to Chicago, Illinois. Smartly, Mars, Inc. will remain in McLean, Virginia, where conditions may not be idea, but are far better than either Newark or Chicago.

“There won’t be any more elections here for them to try to seize the government and seize power.”

–Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

Once a communist, always a communist.

The Nicaraguan people are so foolish. They ousted Mr. Ortega and the communists, but allowed them to return via elections in 2007. And the communists have not left since. Previously, elections were held, but rigged. Now there will not even be a pretense of elections. You can vote the socialists/communists in, but you will have to fight with guns to get them out. It is an old story.

The Yemeni Houthis are threatening to block commercial traffic in the Red Sea. I think that the Israelis, Saudis and Egyptians will have something to say about that. President Trump has already vowed retaliation if the Houthis make such a stupid attempt.

The United States and Saudi Arabia reached an agreement which will enable the Kingdom to build a civilian nuclear power program. The agreement will benefit American companies to the tune of billions of dollars.

During the playing of the National Anthem at a recent Chicago Cubs baseball game, a young man sitting in the cheap seats remained sitting. An older man standing behind him, reached down, slapped the young man on the head, and told him to stand up. The young man looked up angrily, but stood up and faced the flag. Who are this guy’s parents [the younger man]?

Representative Jasmine Crockett (D. Tx.) claimed that people who rooted for Argentina to win the World Cup were “racist”. How is that?

Former CIA Director James Woolsey has died at age 84. R. I. P.

GFK

“One of the criticisms you sometimes hear of communism, for example, is that it sounds good in theory, but it never works in practice.  That’s actually not true.  Communism does not sound good in theory.  The world it envisions for all of us is small, flat, grey, leveled of all exception, drained of all that is good and noble in the human soul.  The world it envisions is a world without courage, a world without creativity or ambition, a world without heroes or glory or great causes to strive towards, a world without miracles, without myths, without men who rise above the rest to do incredible and extraordinary things.  And the world communism envisions is a world without God.

For these architects of revolutionary violence, the towering achievement of our civilization, for them, it’s an unbearable humiliation, a reminder of what they cannot do and a reminder of what they cannot be.  So they choose instead to destroy.”

–United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

In New York City, anti-ICE terrorists were arrested after setting off a bomb outside a federal building. This movement has gone way too far.

President Trump’s Immigration Czar warned anti-ICE terrorists and activists that ICE would not be deterred. He promised sweeping actions in New York City, and warned Comrade Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration to not interfere with ICE operations.

“This is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  This is ‘America’s birthday,’ and the question historically is going to be what were we doing on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence?  Do we have the audacity to sit around and say that we want to build a document that is our values and our principles and bring millions of Americans around it?”

–“Palestinian” activist and communist Linda Sarsour advocating for the replacement of our founding documents with . . . what?

The Minnesota Star Tribune backed Governor Tampon Tim’s pardon of an illegal alien child rapist to the hilt. Of course it did! But the newspaper’s rationale was interesting. According to the editors, if President Trump could pardon the January 6 rioters, then Tampon Tim was more than justified in pardoning an illegal alien child rapist. Yeah, that follows, rioters=illegal alien child rapist. Got it!

This month, Con Edison has been imposing rolling black outs across parts of New York City and the surrounding suburbs. How are those “green energy” mandates working out?

And why is The Observations the first news outlet to inform you of these blackouts? Could it be that the mainstream media does not want you to know? Why yes! Of course, that is it!

Maine Democrats are poised to choose Troy Jackson as their replacement for former U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner (D. Me.). Mr. Jackson believes in the same things Mr. Platner does–abolishing ICE, packing the Supreme Court, and imposing socialized medicine on the American people. And the cherry on top of the sundae? Now Mr. Jackson has been credibly accused of federal mortgage fraud. But worry not; Mr. Jackson said it was not his fault. He is, instead, blaming his wife.

Well at least Mr. Platner was not accused of a federal fraud crime! Well . . . it seems that Mrs. Platner may have been involved in Medicaid fraud. Close enough.

Alameda County [Oakland], California is facing a $91 million budget shortfall. Nevertheless, the Board of Supervisors is pushing ahead with a “comprehensive reparations plan” for black residents. Wow. Stupid and racist.

Senator Darline Graham Nordone (R. S.C.) has not been in Washington, D.C. a week, and already she has decided to run for her brother’s seat for a full term of her own. A word to Senator Nordone; South Carolina is a much nicer place to be.

Representative Nancy Mace (R. S.C.) announced that she would not pursue the Republican Senate nomination. Good. That will spare her the embarrassment of finishing last in the primary.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland has clarified what could constitute a criminal violation of a law providing safe access for abortion. If you carry a Bible into a hospital, or in public near any medical facilities, if you engage in prayer, out loud or silently in a “sensitive area”, reading Scripture, or engaging in any obvious religious practice in a “sensitive area”, can lead to arrest, prosecution, conviction, and punishment, under the law. No intent is required to violate the law, just that you violated the prohibitions. And there are no exemptions for priests or ministers performing their duties.

I guess if you are an Irish Catholic dying in a hospital, your parish priest will have to decide if providing you Last Rites is worth going to prison. Sigh.

Professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau implored President Trump to intervene with the R&A over his assessed 2 stroke penalty during the 2nd round of the British Open. The President did not intervene. He never was going to do so. Bryson DeChambeau is such a big fat baby.

Both Scottie Scheffler and Max Homa defended Bryson DeChambeau, declaring that he was “not a cheater”. Yes. But no one accused him of cheating. The R&A went to great pains to state that it believed that the rules violation was inadvertent. No R&A official accused Bryson DeChambeau of cheating. His actions simply violated a rule, whether he acted purposefully or inadvertently. The rule does not require intent for the imposition of a penalty. Sigh. Let’s move on, please.

ERRATUM: Mark Lawrence, not Larkin Gross, won the 2026 Virginia State Open. Our apologies.

__________________________________________________________________

Mamdani and his DSA comrades have one goal — a communist revolution in America

BY:          Miranda Devine, The New York Post (July 19, 2026).

Our preening mayor, Zohran Mamdani, says his administration’s legal department is examining how best to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli prime minister visits New York for UN week in September.

“He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court,” Mamdani told The New York Times in an interview published over the weekend.

Well, Marco Rubio has thoughts on that and much more.

The formidable secretary of state last week announced a campaign to “dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary.”

“The ICC’s interfering with American military and law enforcement operations . . . would mean the death of the US as a sovereign and independent nation,” he said.

“But this is America . . . Independence is our birthright. We don’t intend to trade it for rule by a self-appointed priesthood of ‘international law.’ ”

Mamdani’s belief that, as a minor municipal functionary, he wields some imaginary international power to subvert American sovereignty just shows the delusions of his ideology.

His authority extends to fixing potholes and collecting garbage, neither of which he does competently.

DSA’s real aim

But his delusions of grandeur are shared by the misfits, ignoramuses, and foreign interlopers who make up his rancid branch of the Democratic Party — the DSA.

The Democratic Socialists of America know nothing, have built nothing and don’t understand the country they live in, yet they imagine they have the moral authority to tear it down.

Their aim is to import foreign conflicts and alien ideologies that are the antithesis of America’s founding principles.

The DSA’s intellectual buffoonery was on full display last week when Mamdani’s party capo, Peruvian-born Gustavo Gordillo, told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum that his family was forced to come to America because of “capitalism and American imperialism,” despite having left Peru during the Maoist Shining Path’s revolutionary reign of terror.

“That doesn’t make much sense,” MacCallum said dryly.

No, it doesn’t make sense, to a normal person. But when you look at the ideology behind the DSA, there is a twisted internal logic.

Leftists are motivated by envy and a “poisonous resentment” that makes them hostile to everything that has made America successful, as Rubio said last week when opening a State Department conference on combatting left-wing violence, something his Cuban emigre family knows a thing or two about.

Like Gordillo, Ugandan-born Mamdani and so many of their DSA comrades — from Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar to Ecuador-born Assemblywoman Diana Moreno — came to America, or in some cases were born here, after their families fled countries crippled by socialism, authoritarianism or economic failure.

You would think they might appreciate better than anyone the freedom and prosperity secured by America’s constitutional system of self-government and ordered liberty.

That used to be the case. Refugees from the killing fields of Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Communist Vietnam and Pol Pot’s Cambodia were the canaries in the coal mine, warning us about the destructive evils of communism.

They did not seek to replicate the fatal mistakes of their homelands in the generous country that had offered them refuge.

But that is the mission of the DSA. To use the Democratic Party as their Trojan horse to foment a communist revolution in America.

_________________________________________________________________

Thou Shalt Not Covet: Why You Cannot Love Your Neighbor and Embrace Socialism

BY:          Erick Woods Erickson (July 21, 2026).

To summarize the Ten Commandments, Jesus gave us two: love God, and love your neighbor. The first four commandments govern our vertical relationship, our duty to God. The final six govern the horizontal, our duty to one another. Honor your father and mother.

Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. And, last of all, do not covet your neighbor’s house, his wife, his servant, his ox, his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

That final commandment is the strange one. The other five in the second table forbid actions. Honor, murder, theft, adultery, and perjury are things you do. Coveting is the only sin on the list that lives entirely in the heart. God, who searches the heart, understood that every outward evil against a neighbor begins as an inward disorder of desire. You do not steal what you have not first coveted. You do not commit adultery with a spouse you have not first coveted. Covetousness is the seed; the other transgressions are the fruit. And so the American Left, which loudly proclaims that it alone truly loves its neighbor, has in fact built its entire political theology on the one commandment that poisons all the rest.

Consider how casually the modern progressive movement violates the second table of the law even as it claims the moral high ground. It bears false witness whenever the truth becomes inconvenient. Watch a candidate scrub his own record the moment the electorate turns against it. In Michigan, Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed spent years aligned with the “defund the police” movement, only to insist in 2026 that he never said any such thing, right up until surfaced audio and video contradicted him and CNN’s own Manu Raju confronted him with the receipts on camera. In Texas, James Talarico, who once suggested that concerns about border security were rooted in racism, has reinvented himself as a border hawk, unveiling a security plan and lamenting that the Biden administration “failed to secure our southern border.” These are not evolutions of conviction arrived at through prayer and reflection. They are the ninth commandment traded for a poll number. When the border and the police were fashionable causes, they embraced them; now that voters have recoiled, they simply deny the past ever happened. That is bearing false witness, and it is done in service of power.

The Left is soft on the eighth commandment as well, treating theft as a matter of perspective rather than of moral law. Shoplifting under a certain dollar threshold is decriminalized in city after city. Bail is eliminated for the very offenses that terrorize working neighborhoods. And they are soft on the sixth, murder, tolerant of the violence that follows when the rule of law is treated as an instrument of oppression rather than a shield for the innocent. But all of this, the lying, the leniency toward theft and violence, rests upon a deeper foundation. It rests upon the tenth commandment, and its systematic inversion.

Socialism is covetousness organized into a governing philosophy. It takes the private envy God warned against and dresses it in the language of justice. Where the commandment says do not desire what belongs to your neighbor, socialism answers that your neighbor’s house, his business, and his savings were never truly his to begin with, that they are the ill-gotten spoils of a rigged system, and that the righteous thing is to take them.

This is why Zohran Mamdani, now mayor of New York, has waged open war on the city’s landlords, freezing the rents on stabilized apartments and surrounding himself with advocates who speak candidly of the desire to “seize private property” and who denounce homeownership itself as a species of white supremacy. Rent control is not compassion. It is a slow-motion confiscation of what another person built, dressed up as mercy for the tenant. It has failed everywhere it has been tried, from Vienna to San Francisco, producing housing shortages, decaying buildings, and the very scarcity it promised to cure. But its economic failure is almost beside the point, because its animating spirit is not the desire to build. It is the desire to take.

You can hear the same spirit in the rhetoric of the movement’s national voices. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have made careers of demonizing the wealthy, of teaching Americans that a billionaire’s existence is itself a policy failure and a moral affront. The message is not let us lift the poor; it is let us tear down the rich, and there is a world of difference between the two. The first is charity. The second is covetousness with a press secretary. And the hypocrisy is total.

Sanders is a millionaire several times over with multiple homes. Warren built a personal fortune in the millions. El-Sayed, who ran denouncing the wealthy, filed tax returns placing his own household in the state’s top one percent. Meanwhile, the progressive donor class, the tech billionaires and hedge-fund heirs who bankroll these very campaigns, are quietly exempted from the moral fury. The envy is aimed downward and outward, never at the friendly rich who fund the machine. It is a selective, performative resentment, useful precisely because it never threatens the people writing the checks.

This is why the two great commandments and the socialist project cannot be reconciled.

To love your neighbor is to will his good, to rejoice when he prospers, to protect what he has built rather than to eye it as plunder. Covetousness does the opposite. It looks at a neighbor’s success and feels not gladness but grievance. It would rather see the world turned upside down, wealth destroyed, and lives dismantled, than tolerate the sight of someone else possessing what it does not have, so long as it, and not the neighbor, ends up in charge of who may have what. A movement built on that foundation may speak endlessly of justice and compassion, but at its root it has enthroned the one desire God specifically forbade. You cannot love your neighbor while coveting everything that is his. The tenth commandment forecloses it.

The Left must subvert the tenth commandment in order to strip our virtue from us so that they may strip our liberty. The founders understood that a free people must be a self-governing people, and that a nation incapable of governing its own appetites will inevitably be governed by force from without. Socialist and communist states grasp this too, which is why they set out to replace God with government and to replace virtue with mere value to the state. A citizen is no longer judged by his character but by his usefulness to the cause.

And as our virtue erodes, secular authoritarianism does not arrive all at once; it creeps in, filling the vacuum that self-government leaves behind. To hollow out a people’s virtue, they must first be turned against one another, and that process always starts in the same place — by teaching a man to covet his neighbor’s portion instead of tending his own. It ends in enslavement to the state.

This is not speculation. It is the recorded pattern of every communist regime in history.

Each one turns man against man through jealousy and envy, cultivating grievance until the citizens themselves demand a referee. Then the state steps forward as the arbiter of fairness, the great equalizer that alone may decide who deserves what. And in that moment the founding promise is quietly reversed. We are no longer endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights that no government may touch. Instead we have a state that grants rights, and revokes them, on the basis of fidelity to the cause. Rights become privileges, dispensed to the loyal and withdrawn from the dissenter. That is the terminus of the road that begins with covetousness, and it is why this is finally a question not of economics but of the soul of a free people.

The socialist advance is not theoretical. It is winning primaries, capturing city halls, and setting the intellectual weather inside the Democratic Party. Stopping it requires the GOP to stay relentlessly on its A-game. That means keeping the President focused, channeling his energy toward the argument that actually persuades persuadable voters rather than toward the distractions and self-inflicted controversies that hand the other side its talking points. Every day spent defending the President’s latest shenanigans is a day not spent prosecuting the case against a party drifting toward the hard left, and toward the ugly strain of anti-Semitism that has crept from the campus fringe into the mouths of elected officials and mainstream candidates. Discipline is not glamorous, but it is the difference between winning and losing.

The message, then, must be simple, unified, and unrelenting. Republicans should keep the spotlight fixed where the contrast is starkest: on Democrats who tolerate or excuse anti-Semitism, who scrub their radical records the moment voters notice, and who preach compassion while building a program on envy and confiscation. The GOP should deny the opposition the gift of a defensive crouch. The choice before the country is not between two ordinary governing philosophies. It is between a tradition that honors what a neighbor builds and a movement that covets it. If Republicans keep their eye on that ball, stay on offense, and refuse to be dragged off message, they can win. The alternative is to let the socialist advance continue unchecked.

_________________________________________________________________

Does the Filibuster Still Serve a Purpose?

We’ve lost the noble goal of preserving legislative debate. The filibuster has become nothing more than a bludgeon.

BY:         John Green, The American Thinker (July 20, 2026).

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) has ripped the scab off of the festering wound we call the Senate filibuster.  Requiring proof of citizenship to vote is favored by over 80 percent of the electorate — at least of those voters who can legally vote.  Its passage should be a no-brainer.  But apparently the Senate lacks the brains for a no-brainer — or else our dedicated “public servants” have some motive they’re not sharing with us.

On prime-time television last Thursday night, President Trump announced the declassification of documents related to the 2020 election.  Now we’re getting a glimpse into those burn bags Director Patel discovered, and our suspicions are confirmed: The 2020 election was not as advertised.  No wonder ABC, NBC, and CNN refused to air the president’s address.  They were the chief advertisers of “THE MOST SECURE ELECTION IN HISTORY.”

Was there a Chinese cyber-attack on our election infrastructure?  Yes.  Were there hundreds of thousands of illegal voters on the rolls?  Yup.  Did the Deep State hide the evidence of election-tampering?  You betcha.  Was a president kept in the dark about a foreign attack?  Gulp…yes.  Was the election too compromised to know who actually won?  It seems so.  Was an investigation of the election “back-burnered” by the Biden administration?  You better believe it.

The evidence President Trump presented highlights the need to take corrective action, and Americans have given his party the legislative majority needed to do it (just barely).  Just one thing stands in the way: the Senate filibuster.

In spite of the obvious need for election improvement, the resistance Democrat party has invoked the filibuster to prevent any election integrity measures from interfering with their midterm “drag a commie across the finish line” plans.  Having experienced the thing that the Dems say never happens — three times — The Donald is demanding that the filibuster be eliminated to save the SAVE Act.

The excuses for not overhauling the filibuster rule are both insulting and mind-numbingly stupid.

The Democrat party insists that broad swaths of the electorate are too stupid to acquire government ID.  That they can levy that insult, without the insulted taking offense, is a testament to the effectiveness of academic indoctrination.  Expect the chants of “most secure election in history” to increase in the coming weeks — along with the rioting and assassination attempts.

The current Senate majority party — i.e., the Republican party — seems to be more concerned about the sanctity of the Senate rulebook than the sanctity of our method of self-governance.  Maybe it’s me, but that sounds a bit backwards — in an intellectually rather than directionally challenged sort of way.

The establishment Republicans are worried that nuking the filibuster will look like autocratic overreach and jeopardize their fawning coverage on CNN (snark intended).  They’d prefer to let the Dems nuke the filibuster after they’ve “mail-in balloted” AOC into the Oval Office, so the Grand Old Party can spend the next generation in the political wilderness whining about the unfair socialists who packed the Supreme Court and created seats for four more communist senators.

But as with all Senate debates, the argument over the filibuster is missing the point.  Forget the politics and ask this simple question: Is the filibuster serving its intended purpose, or has the rule become a hindrance to our self-governance?

First, some background on this annoying Senate rule.

The Constitution empowers the Senate to create its own rules for how it will do business.  In 1806, the Senate inadvertently created the filibuster when it dropped its “previous question” rule — which had enabled a simple majority to end debate.  The change was intended to eliminate redundancy but instead helped make the Senate the government’s “most deliberative body” by preventing the majority from silencing the minority.  Nobody votes until everyone has had his say.

When endless talking became a tool of obstruction, the Senate tweaked the rule a bit.  In 1917, it implemented the “cloture” rule as a means to end debate.  Cloture allowed two thirds of the Senate to say, “Enough already, let’s vote.”  (Note: Cloture was lowered to 60 votes in 1975.)

That’s how things went for a little over five decades, until the government’s most deliberative body decided that deliberation is for chumps.  In 1972, the Senate changed its rules again to adopt a “two-track” legislative system, and the “silent filibuster” was born.  It’s just like a talking filibuster, but without all the annoying debate.  Now a minority of 41 Senators can simply declare a filibuster and skip the tedious requirement of explaining their concerns.

With that little tweak, the Senate quit being our most deliberative body and became our most obstructive body.  The minority can just declare a filibuster, and unless the majority has a super-majority, it stops the bill in its tracks with no vote, and everybody can make his 6:00 dinner reservation.  No fuss.  No muss.  No movement.

Now the resistance party is free to ignore why it’s in the minority.  It can block the will of the people, with little or no downside, as long as it keeps the SNAP benefits flowing to its tent cities.

So whenever a bill comes up that the commies don’t like, such as the SAVE Act, the minority leader just says the magic word — “filibuster” — and abracadabra: All debate ends, and the Senate moves on to other business, which will also be filibustered.

Hence, the rule intended to ensure full and complete debate now prevents any debate at all.

Should the filibuster be eliminated or revised?  Given that it is currently used to resist our self-governance, I would say so.  It no longer serves its intended purpose of ensuring complete debate.  It has become a bludgeon, wielded by the minority to resist the will of voters.  It’s time for an overhaul.

Majority Leader Thune should whip (and I wouldn’t be opposed to “literally”) his caucus to either eliminate the filibuster, or return it to its 1806 permutation, forcing senators to take to the floor and talk, until they have nothing else to say.  I suspect that our “dedicated public servants” (snark intended) would rather eliminate the rule than put in any OT debating the business of the country.  Heck, they might even have to start reading the bills before they vote on them.  The horror.

GFK

Dudley and I enjoyed a pleasant, quiet weekend. Since English and Holland left, he has been surprisingly pleasant, cheerful, and agreeable. He has eaten his dinners nicely, and there has been no pouting. Hmmmm. He must be up to something. He may be lulling me into a false sense of security.

During the recent hearings on the confirmation of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to be the Attorney General, Senator Adam Schiff (D. Ca.), a serial liar, got into it with a witness, former Senator and Attorney General John Ashcroft (R. Mo.). Senator Schiff was clearly outclassed:

Adam Schiff:      “Mr. Blanche has said that he believes the President has both the right and the duty to use the Justice Department to go after his enemies.  Do you subscribe to that view?”

John Ashcroft:   “I believe that the Attorney General of the United States has the right and responsibility to enforce the law uniformly, and if the law has been broken by the President’s ‘enemies,’ he has a duty.  They do not become exempt from following the law merely by their enmity to the president of the United States.  As a matter of fact, the people who break the law are in enmity with the people of the United States.  We used to call people who break the law, ‘public enemies.'”

Adam Schiff:      “If you do have a problem with that, please say so.” 

John Ashcroft:   “I believe the president needs to be an advocate of strong law enforcement, and that includes enemies of his.  If an enemy of the President goes out and conducts a violent crime, there’s nothing wrong with the President calling the Attorney General and saying, ‘I hope you do something about this violent crime.'”

Congratulations to the Vice-President and his lovely wife on the birth of their son. He joins his other 3 siblings, and everyone is healthy and happy.

Vice-President J.D. Vance and his wife are renting a house nearby, in Loudoun County. Sigh. There goes the neighborhood. Who doesn’t want the Secret Service, caravans of government vehicles, and circling helicopters in their daily lives?

“MAGA is the closest thing to the modern version of the Nazi Party.  This is America’s version.  It’s the closest thing, without the Holocaust and all that stuff.”

–former CNN host Don Lemon.

One of the young commies from New York decided to go on FOX News, and be interviewed. It did not go well.

Martha MacCallum: “Your family came here from Peru really in the middle of the heat of the Shining Path.  They were Maoist communist guerrillas in Peru.  So why did your family come to America?” 

New York City DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo: “The economic situation in South America and Peru was in a really bad place . . . much of what we could say was responsible for that actually was the imposition of capitalism and American imperialism.  In many cases, it is actually what brings immigrants to the U.S. coming out of Latin America.” 

Martha MacCallum: “They come here because they don’t like the imposition of American imperialism in the country that they’re in.”

Gustavo Gordillo: “Yes . . . .” 

Martha MacCallum: “That doesn’t make much sense.”

No. No it does not. But then, neither do socialism and communism.

“The Roberts Court sees only white.  It refuses to acknowledge who the Equal Protection Clause was written to protect.”

–Hawaii State Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins.

Justice Eddins wrote a 91 page opinion in a simple State criminal case, using 8 pages to blast U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts over the ruling finding Hawaii’s law restricting citizens’ ability to “keep and bear arms” unconstitutional. The subject of the State case had nothing to do with federal issues or guns (it was a rape/kidnapping case). But Judge Eddins went off on the U.S. Supreme Court, going beyond the keep and bear arms decision to pontificate on abortion and race, accusing the Court of favoring slavery and Jim Crow decisions and jurisprudence. It was a bizarre and most injudicious opinion. Justice Eddins may be suffering from TDS.

In San Francisco, California, there is an increase of bicycle thefts. And small wonder, as bicycles can go as high as $14,000.00 retail, and a run of the mill model favored by cyclists can cost $3,000.00. But the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is urging its members not to report bicycle thefts, or cooperate with police investigating any crimes relating to bicycles or bicyclists. The stated reason–it is on the Coalition’s website–is that we should “minimize harm” to black and brown people. My goodness!

Comrade Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D. N.Y.) keeps vowing to have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested should he step foot in New York City. Comrade Mayor wants to turn Mr. Netanyahu over to the International Criminal Court for prosecution of war crimes. Huh. Here is why that will not work:

1. The United States is not party to the Rome Treaty that created the ICC;

2. The UN Headquarters Agreement grants diplomatic protections to visiting heads of government; 

3. head-of-state immunity applies; and,

4. federal authority trumps any local mayor’s wishes. 

Comrade Mayor Mamdani is a clown. His antics are purely performative politics aimed at ginning up his commie supporters.

Congratulations to Larkin Gross on winning the Virginia State Open at the Independence Golf Club. Larkin Gross shot 194–16 under par–over 54 holes. He bested Charlie Hanson and Connor Burgess by 7 shots.

Congratulations to Spain on winning the World Cup. You have won the tournament, and had plenty of fun in America. Now please go back home.

___________________________________________________________________

Leftists Should Want America to Be a Christian Nation

BY:          Amy Curtis (July 12, 2026).

Democrats not only hate America, but they also hate the Judeo-Christian foundation on which it, and Western civilization, was founded. That’s why, when they’re not calling them Nazi symbols, they claim Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s tattoos are a symbol of ‘Christian nationalism,’ as if that’s the worst thing that could happen to a nation.

Christianity makes the Left uncomfortable not because it’s oppressive and wrong, but because it’s the truth. So they lie about it, attempt to oppress it, and elevate ideologies like socialism and Islam in the hopes they can eradicate Christianity from the fabric of America.

Vice President J.D. Vance recently laid out the arguments for our shared Christian heritage, which deeply offended Obama appointee and MS NOW contributor Barbara McQuade.

Here’s some of what Vance said:

“The decline of Christianity has left us without a shared moral language,” Vance contends. In its place, the right has worshiped the marketplace, while the Left has embarked on an endless quest of self-indulgent self-discovery. “Each of us, in our own weird ways, is guilty of casting aside the Christian inheritance of our civilization,” he writes.

Vance looks upon the men who won the Second World War as civilizational models. They weren’t just defending ideas — “not ‘liberalism,’ not ‘freedom,’ not even ‘democracy,’” he writes. “It was Western Christian civilization, and the values particular to it: the concept of natural rights, including freedom of speech; a sense of duty to one’s neighbors; an obligation of the strong to protect the weak; a belief in free will and individual conscience.”

Where is he wrong?

He’s not. The Left has argued for years that White Americans have no culture while they’ve worked tirelessly to demonize, erase, and undermine our shared cultural heritage, which includes Christianity.

The opening of that Treaty reads:

In the Name of the most Holy & undivided Trinity.

It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the Hearts of the most Serene and most Potent Prince George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick and Lunebourg, Arch-Treasurer and Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire …

The Declaration of Independence says we are ‘endowed by our Creator,’ and numerous writings from the Founding Fathers, while they do not establish a religion, recognize the influence and importance of Christianity to Americans.

Benjamin Franklin said the Constitution could only be maintained by a moral people, and where does that morality come from? Not from the state. Much like our rights, which do not come from the state, morality comes from the Creator.

McQuade hopes that by saying she’s a Christian and that she’s offended, she’ll have the moral authority to be the arbiter of Christian ethics in America. 

I hate to disappoint her, but it doesn’t.

I’m a Christian and I’m offended by what the Left is doing in this nation. I doubt McQuade would give me the same moral authority she demands from her proclamation.

I have long argued that the Left is aligning itself with socialists and Islamists to try and destroy any and all vestiges of Christianity because they, as Vance said, understand Christianity underpins our cultural history and fabric. By removing that, along with other shared cultural history and experiences, the Left can erase America. That’s their express goal.

They hope the socialists and Islamists will put the final nail in the coffin of Western civilization.

And that’s where the danger lies. The Left should welcome a nation founded on Christian ideals. It’s what’s made possible the nation that makes McQuade a free woman. As I wrote about twice this week, Islamic nations are not concerned with the separation of mosque and state. Both Turkey and Egypt refused to dock a gay cruise on the grounds of morality.

It’s woven into their laws and government, and it is not tolerant or open. When we bought our plane tickets, Delta warned us that passports with transgender identification would not be accepted by Egypt. At the Cairo airport, I had to stand in a separate, women’s-only security line.

In other places, gays are thrown in prison or off of buildings. Women are treated as second-class citizens, if that, and denied access to schooling, jobs, healthcare, and basic freedoms women in the West take for granted. There is no sexual freedom under Islam; there is no abortion on demand. The Left parades around in Handmaid’s costumes, pretending MAGA will oppress them, while they look at burqas and hijabs and applaud. I’ve seen them compare the nun’s habit to the Islamic garb, acting like they’re the same thing.

They’re not.

I used to work at a college founded and populated by the School Sisters of St. Francis. For a time, they were also my neighbors, as we lived in an apartment near campus. None of those women wore the habit, which the order had eschewed. None of them were raped, beaten, or murdered for bringing ‘dishonor’ on their families. Islamic women and girls don’t get to say the same thing.

If McQuade is offended by the thought of a Christian nation, she has no idea how bad it can actually get.

GFK

“Any time you leave the U.S.A., you’re just camping out.”

— Sam Snead, on his losing streak at the British Open.

“Would I have to learn the rules and all that crap?”

— John Daly, after being asked to join the Royal and Ancient on winning the 1995 British Open.

“How can they beat me? I’ve been struck by lightning, had two back operations and been divorced twice.”

— Lee Trevino, on his prospects for winning the 1983 Open.

Congratulations to Ryan Fox on winning the British Open. He birdied the 18th (only the 3rd birdie on that hole yesterday) to post a -10 under par score. He faced some setbacks in his final round, rebounded after every one, and seemed unflappable. A true champion.

Finishing 2nd was Cameron Young, who shot a blistering 64 in his final round. Beginning the day 7 strokes off the lead, Cameron Young was the leader in the clubhouse for most of the afternoon. At the end, it looked like a playoff was imminent. And then it was not.

Sam Burns, Lucas Herbert, and Si Woo Kim played well. At one point, Si Woo Kim was alone in the lead, and looked to be in command. Alas, it was not to be.

Scottie Scheffler surged, faded, and surged again, just to come up short. He made a valiant effort. Some days, it is just not your time.

Bryson DeChambeau imploded in his final round. It could not have happened to a nicer guy.

The Trump administration moved on last Thursday to tighten the duration of visas for foreign students, cultural exchange visitors and journalists.

The new final rule from the Department of Homeland Security creates a fixed time period for F visas for international students, J visas that allow ‌visitors on cultural exchange programs to work in the U.S., and I visas for members of the media. Those visas are currently available for the duration of the program or employment in the U.S.

Under the new regulations, the student and exchange visa periods would be no longer than four years. The visa for journalists – which currently can last years – would be up to 240 days or, in the case of Chinese nationals, 90 days. GOOD!

Senator Ruben Gallego (D. Az.) has been former Representative Eric Swalwell’s best friend for years. And during that time, it seems that he picked up some of Mr. Swalwell’s habits. It is now known that while he served in the House of Representatives (with Mr. Swalwell), Mr. Gallego engaged in inappropriate “relationships” with female members of his Congressional staff. Huh. How ’bout that?

“If I see a reconciliation bill come from the House with another failed attempt to confuse this election, I will use every device I have available to slow down the wheels of government until people cop a clue and do the math.”

–Senator Thom Tillis (R. N.C.), vowing to block any effort to pass legislation requiring voter ID. 

You cannot fly home to North Carolina from Washington, D.C. without a photo ID. You cannot check into a hotel without a photo ID. You cannot purchase an alcoholic beverage without a photo ID. You cannot drive a car without a photo ID (drivers license). So what in the world is Senator Tillis’s problem? What an a$$!

ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked Senator Mark Warner (D. Va.) why he and his fellow Democrats were against photo ID requirements for voting. Senator Warner protested vigorously, insisting he was pro voter ID, and that the Commonwealth of Virginia required voter ID. EXCEPT . . . it does not. Because Democrats eliminated the requirement for voter ID. Mark Warner is a liar. Always has been. Probably always will be.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit struck down New Jersey’s “assault weapons ban”, which outlawed semiautomatic weapons and large capacity magazines, finding the ban violated the United States Constitution. Are you paying attention Governor Spanberger (D. Va.)? You’re next.

Make Abigail Go Away!

The New Republic magazine, once a respected middle of the road publication, has really gone off the rails. The magazine claims that there is only Left wing political violence because conservatives and MAGA folks deserve it. Yep. If you oppose Leftists policies, this is what you will get.

“We’re going to do something to get rid of ICE, we’re going to do something to get rid of the people who that support them.”

–U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson (D. Me.). 

“[G]et rid of the people who” support ICE? Really?

Maine Democrats are scrambling to replace their failed candidate, Graham Platner. A recent debate amongst the hopefuls resembled a clown show more than a serious political event. Candidate Ashley Webb–a man who believes he is a woman–told the audience that all he desired was to “go to the bathroom [of his choice]”. When queried on his credentials, he offered up that the wrote music and read his own books. Now before anyone thinks that The Observations is picking on Mr. Webb, rest assured that we are not. Mr. Webb was actually far more impressive than the other candidates, and he is our choice to run against Senator Collins (R. Me.) in November.

“Sleep out on the street a couple weeks and tell me you’re not using something to stay sane . . . or use meth so you don’t go to sleep to protect yourself!”

–Los Angeles, California Mayor Karen Bass (D.).

Did not Commiela tell us that Mayor Bass had solved the homeless problem in Los Angeles? Why yes! Yes she did!

At Marvin Ridge High School, in Union County, North Carolina, seniors are allowed to have dedicated parking spaces, and to have preapproved designs painted in the spaces. Luke Anderson is planning to join the Marines after graduation from Marvin Ridge High School (he has already enlisted), and submitted his design of an American flag, with the words Luke, Class of 2027 below. School administrators rejected his design, explaining that the American flag might offend some people. Words fail me.

Virginia’s new governor has been in office only 6 months, and already her disapproval numbers are higher than her approval numbers. Small wonder why, since she is governing like Gavin Newsom, and has all the charm of Bernie Sanders.

Make Abigail Go Away!

William Upham, the Republican Congressional candidate from Florida who called President Trump the anti-Christ, and vowed to kill him, has been arrested. Probably should not have threatened to murder the President of the United States.

McDonald’s is adding a new Caesar salad dressing to its menu, and you can get it on the following new sandwiches:

• Bacon Caesar McCrispy: A McCrispy filet topped with Caesar-style sauce, applewood smoked bacon, shredded lettuce, Roma tomatoes, crispy onions, crinkle-cut pickles, and served on a toasted potato roll.
• Caesar Snack Wrap: A McCrispy Strip topped with shredded cheese, shredded lettuce, and the new Caesar sauce, all wrapped in a flour tortilla. The snack wrap will be available nationwide for $2.99.
• McCrispy Strips with Caesar Sauce: McDonald’s recently updated McCrispy Strips with crispier panko breading, and the new Caesar sauce joins the lineup as a limited-time dipping option.

For a limited time only.

Olive Garden is selling Pasta Passes for $100.00. The Pasta Pass permits the holder to enjoy unlimited pasta dishes w/proteins and sauces, as well as unlimited salad and bread, for 13 weeks. There is a catch, however. The Pasta Pass holder must also present photo ID when ordering, to ensure he is the Pass holder. Someone needs to alert Senator Thom Tillis to this situation.

Imagine that. In the United States we don’t require a photo ID to cast a ballot. But to consumer a bowl of fettucine alfredo? Show your photo ID!

United Airlines is “clarifying” its policy concerning passengers not wanting to fly into Donald J. Trump Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida. Yes, United will rebook you upon request. But United will also charge you extra. Apparently United had a flood of travelers wanting to make “free” changes.

Fly American. Better airline. And not so catering to the perpetually aggrieved crowd.

The Canadian wildfires have made life in the Midwest and Northeast United States rather miserable, due to poor air quality. Even as far South as Northern Virginia, a heavy smoky haze had descended. On last Friday, a person standing at the Lincoln Memorial could not see the Washington Monument, due to the poor air quality.

But Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is on the case, pointing fingers of blame at . . . the United States. According to the inept Mr. Carney, if the United States took “climate change” seriously, these wildfires would not have happened.

But, but, but . . . “climate change” does not cause wildfires. People do, though sometimes lightning strikes cause conflagrations. But the reason these wildfires are so bad is because Canada has the forest management skills of California. In other words, Canada does not manage its forests, at all. Dead and dry brush accumulates, and once lit, burns out of control.

Moreover, this year’s Canadian wildfires are not a one off. This is the 3rd year that they have broken out in recent times. And out of control Canadian wildfires occurred under China Joe, whose administration did take “climate change” seriously. So, Prime Minister Carney, you are full of it.

“The country surrendered control of the essentials — housing, water, energy, transport — and left people exposed to higher costs.”

–Incoming British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, vowing to reverse completely the policies of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the greatest Prime Minister since Winston Churchill. 

According to the Adam Smith Institute, under Margaret Thatcher’s leadership, the top rate of income tax fell from 83% to 40%, the basic rate dropped from 33% to 25%, and corporation tax was reduced from 52% to 35%.  Inflation declined from a peak of 21.9% in 1980 to 2.4% in 1986, while the number of working days lost to strikes fell from 29.5 million in 1979 to 1.9 million in 1990.  The Institute also said homeownership rose from 55% to 67%, the number of individual shareholders increased from 3 million to 11 million, and national debt fell from 47% of gross domestic product to 28%.

Can socialism do better?  It did not do better before Mrs. Thatcher.  There is no reason that Labour’s return to the 1970s will be better than the 1^st time.  The Observations predicts it will be worse.  Much worse.

GFK

“At the British Open, I had my opportunities, but the ball just didn’t want to go in the hole on the back nine.”

— Fuzzy Zoeller.

“When Ballesteros triumphed at the British Open in 1979, for his first major win, he hit so few fairways off the tee that he was often mistaken for a gallery marshall.”

— Dan Jenkins.

Ryan Fox shot to the top of the leaderboard by shooting -8 under par 62. He is the 3rd player to shoot a record tying low round in the tournament. He and Si Woo Kim are tied for 2nd place, 2 shots behind Sam Burns, who finished the 3rd round at -10 under par.

Lucas Herbert, Tommy Fleetwood, and Jackson Suber are lurking. So is Scottie Scheffler who cannot make a birdie putt if you place his ball on the cup’s rim. All day, he was so close, yet so far away.

Bryson DeChambeau did tee off. He made few friends among his fellow competitors, the R&A, and the volunteers after his behavior on Friday. But he was well received by the fans, which proves there is no accounting for taste.

Today’s television coverage begins at 4:00 a.m. on USA network, and moves to NBC at 7:00 a.m. Someone will be named The Open Champion at the end of the day. But will yet another golfer shoot 62? And if he does, will it matter?

____________________________________________________________________

Today we continue reading S. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, and in fact, from the same chapter as last Sunday. 

Last Sunday, S. Paul outlined the principles of the sacrament of Holy Baptism. When we enter the waters of baptism, we are buried along with Christ: the “old man” dies. Our former way of life, enslaved to sin and ruled by disordered passions, is put to death. Then, rising from those mystical waters, we are raised with Christ to a new and transformed life.

All of this happens objectively, and is a solemn promise from God. Thus the term “sacrament.” This word was adopted in the early Church from its use in Roman society; sacramentum meant “solemn oath.” This term was used both in the military, when a soldier pledged his loyalty to the consul or emperor, and in the legal system when an amount of money was deposited with the courts as a pledge or bond. In the Christian life, the sacrament is God’s sure pledge to us, and our pledge of faithful obedience to Him.

The challenge is how to live into the objective reality brought about by our baptism into Christ, and to understand its practical implications in our day-to-day life. 

To bring this point home, S. Paul uses the analogy of slavery. We are either enslaved to sin or we are slaves in the service of God. Our experience bears out the truth of this analogy. We know that when a particular sin has its grip on us, it seems we can do nothing to shake it. Think of someone who suffers from an addiction to drugs or alcohol. He lives for that addiction. So it is with us when our besetting sin begins to dominate our lives. Whether avarice (greed), gluttony or lust, it’s hard to shake off their demonic hold.

S. Paul reminds us that sin is never content to remain where it begins. For as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity. Sin has a way of deepening its hold. Before we were restored in Christ, we naturally drifted from one vice to another, often into sins more grievous than those with which we first began. What begins as idle gossip may eventually become malicious slander and the destruction of another’s good name.

Once again, we are reminded of the twofold work of our salvation. First comes the saving work accomplished by Christ upon the Cross, made present to us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This is wholly His work, to which we can add nothing. As S. Paul writes elsewhere: “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” Christ, the spotless Lamb of God, confronted our ancient enemies of sin, death, and the devil, and triumphed over them by His Cross. Through His victory, we are given both the power and the freedom to live as God created us to live.

Yet the Christian life does not end there. The Holy Ghost continues His work within us, the work of sanctification, or growth in holiness. This divine life, first bestowed in Holy Baptism and strengthened in Confirmation, is nourished through the sacraments and grows within us as the Holy Ghost prepares us for eternal communion with God.

This work of sanctification, however, calls for our willing cooperation. God never forces Himself upon us—not even in the matter of holiness. As we hunger and thirst for righteousness and long to be more closely united to Him, He responds by pouring out the grace we need through the sacramental life of the Church. Little by little, our hearts are conformed to His own, until, as the Psalmist says: “our hearts are knit unto Him.”

The Collect for Trinity VII beautifully gathers these themes into a single prayer: Graft in our hearts the love of thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same. May that prayer become the sincere desire of each one of us, that, having died and risen with Christ in Baptism, we may daily walk in newness of life.

____________________________________________________________________

J.D. Vance gets it right: Christianity belongs in government

Faith provides the moral framework secular politics cannot replace

BY:          Everett Piper, The Washington Times (July 12, 2026).

Recently, Vice President J.D. Vance granted a series of interviews to The New York Times, USA Today, Fox News and others in which he openly acknowledged that his Christianity influences every aspect of his life: his politics, sense of duty, ambition and moral priorities.

In one interview, he said, “My Christian beliefs encourage me to concentrate on the positive.” He went on to explain how his faith in Christ helps him resist the temptations of “power” and redirect his carnal impulses toward service rather than self.

In another appearance, Mr. Vance stated that he believes he has providentially been placed in office “for a brief period of time to do the most amount of good for God and for the country” that he can.

Yet in another, the vice president said history shows clearly that the United States has a Christian foundation and that “Christianity is America’s creed,” one that has provided the “moral language” for America’s public and private life for the past 250 years.

In all these interviews, the vice president was consistent. For him, Christianity is not just a Sunday affair or a “private matter” that he keeps to himself and confines to the four walls of the church. To the contrary, Mr. Vance’s religion is an all-consuming, life-transforming, culture-changing worldview that, if pushed out of the public square, will leave a moral vacuum for both individual citizens and our body politic as a whole.

In summary, Mr. Vance sees the Christian faith as the foundation of America’s moral and social order, diametrically opposed to the radical secularism of the left. He argues that our nation is dramatically weakened by excluding it.

He is right, and he stands in good company.

James Russell Lowell, 19th-century abolitionist, Harvard professor and first editor of the Atlantic Monthly, once said, “The worst kind of religion is no religion at all, and these men living in ease and luxury, indulging themselves in the amusement of going without religion, may be thankful that they live in lands where the gospel they neglect has tamed the beastliness and ferocity of the men who, but for Christianity, might long ago have eaten their carcasses like the South Sea Islanders, or cut off their heads and tanned their hides like the monsters of the French Revolution.”

He went on: “When the microscopic search of skepticism, which had hunted the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has turned its attention to human society and has found a place on this planet ten miles square where a decent man can live in comfort and security, supporting and educating his children unspoiled and unpolluted; a place where age is reverenced, infancy respected, manhood respected, womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard — when skeptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe, where the gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundation and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for the skeptical literati to move thither and then ventilate their views. But so long as these men are dependent upon the religion which they discard for every privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate a little before they seek to rob the Christian of his hope, and humanity of its faith, in that Savior who alone has given to man that hope of life eternal which makes life tolerable and society possible, and robs death of its terrors and the grave of its glooms.”

Hilaire Belloc, the early 20th-century essayist, poet, polemicist and historian, agreed with Mr. Lowell. He said: “The modern world imagines that it has outgrown religion. It has done nothing of the kind. It has merely forgotten it. And because it has forgotten it, it no longer understands itself. Men do not realize that the whole framework of their moral judgments, their political habits, and even their intellectual methods [were] formed within a Christian society and cannot exist long outside it. When that framework breaks, they will not find themselves enlightened, but bewildered; not free, but enslaved; not rational, but confused.”

Belloc, Lowell and Mr. Vance are essentially saying the same thing John Adams said in the earliest days of the birth of our nation: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”

We should all be thankful that our current vice president is willing to suffer ridicule and mockery from our culture’s political intelligentsia and educated elites by reminding us of the obvious: Religion should never be a private matter.

Without Christianity in the public realm, our country — indeed, every country — will inevitably become a hell on earth.

____________________________________________________________________

Islam has no place in America’s public life

Our nation was founded on the Judeo-Christian ethic

BY:          Don Feder, The Washington Times (July 12, 2026).

What starts in California usually does not stop in California, sad to say. An effort is underway in the state to make two Muslim holidays — Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha — state holidays and to teach Islam in public schools.

Breakout sessions on infidel beheading are optional.

AB 2017, which passed the California Assembly by a 64-1 vote late last month, would allow public schools to close for these holidays and hold “exercises” celebrating some of the holiest days of the Muslim year.

Compare this with the treatment of Christmas and Easter, which have been secularized by transforming them into winter and spring breaks. Hanukkah and Passover? Forget it. Islam is the left’s pet religion.

If the bill passes, an “Arabian Nights” version of Islam will be taught to gullible schoolchildren, who will be told exactly what groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations want them to learn.

There will be no discussion of how Islam was spread by the sword from India to Spain in the century after Muhammad’s death. Today’s holy war against African Christians will be strictly off limits.

In his 1996 book, “The Clash of Civilizations,” historian Samuel Huntington spoke of “Islam’s bloody borders,” meaning that wherever there is religious conflict anywhere in the world, it invariably involves Islam versus another faith: Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism. The outcome often is not pretty.

Absent will be any discussion of the 2001 World Trade Center attack, the 2009 Fort Hood massacre, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the 2016 Pulse nightclub shootings or the 2025 New Orleans pickup truck attack.

The rise of attacks on Jews parallels the growth of the U.S. Muslim population. According to the FBI, 69% of religion-based hate crimes are antisemitic, while only 2% of the U.S. population is Jewish.

The California public school push is part of a broad-based effort to normalize Islam in American life. There were 1,200 mosques in America in 2001. Today, there are 3,100. I guess demolishing the World Trade Center was not bad for business.

There are Muslim planned communities in Texas. Boston and Buffalo held flag raisings for Somali Independence Day this year. Without Somalis, who would have stolen $1 billion from federal aid programs in Minnesota?

There are currently four Muslim members of Congress, including the rabidly anti-American Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Democrat.

They will soon be joined by Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Haitian convert to Islam who just won the Democratic primary in a deep-blue congressional district in New York City. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayad — who refuses to say whether he believes Israel has a right to exist — is running to become the first Muslim senator in U.S. history.

Ms. Chevalier led the Columbia University boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign. Her platform calls for abolishing police and prisons and ending deportations, even for convicted murderers.

On the other hand, in Iran, protesters are hanged from cranes and women are lashed for appearing in public without a hijab.

Religious tolerance is unknown in the Muslim world (witness Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gaza Strip under Hamas). Dissent is brutally repressed.

There is no room for Islam in America’s public life. Our nation was founded on a Judeo-Christian worldview handed down at Sinai and interpreted in Jerusalem, Rome and Geneva.

Some of our earliest settlements were religious: the Pilgrims and Puritans in Massachusetts, the Quakers and Amish in Pennsylvania, and the Catholics in Maryland.

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were overwhelmingly Orthodox Christians. The Constitution was dated on “the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven.” “Our Lord” does not refer to Allah.

Christianity has played a central role in shaping our national identity. In the 18th century, Colonial churches preached revolution against the British crown. In the 19th century, Northern churches were bastions of abolitionism. In the 20th century, they worked to end segregation.

Many of the young men who landed in Normandy on D-Day carried pocket editions of the Christian or Jewish Bible, not the Quran. They wore crosses or Stars of David. They did not carry prayer rugs.

To endure, a nation must have a shared vision. In America, that vision comes from our biblical heritage: human dignity, equality before the law and the protection of civil liberties.

Islam is as alien to American life as sexual morality is to Graham Platner.

GFK