“But in the end, it’s still a game of golf, and if at the end of the day you can’t shake hands with your opponents and still be friends, then you’ve missed the point.”

–-the late Payne Stewart, winner of the 1991 and 1999 U.S. Opens.

The U.S. Open begins today at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on Long Island, New York. The best golfers in the world are gathered to compete for our country’s national championship. Television coverage begins at 6:30 a.m. on USA Network, and will switch to NBC at 5:00 p.m.

Rufe has been sitting in front of his television since yesterday, waiting for today’s golf coverage to begin. I doubt he will miss anything.

President Trump has long wanted to construct a Garden of American Heroes near the Washington Mall. It would have life sized statues of great Americans from all walks of life, accomplishments, and fields. But now a coalition of Leftist groups are suing the President to stop him from moving forward, because . . . Orange Man Bad. Of course!

The Federal Bureau of Investigation thwarted a planned drone and sniper attack on the UFC event held at The White House. Five (5) people were arrested, with more arrests expected. These dumba$$e$ thought that they could overthrow the federal government!

Hillary Clinton criticized China Joe’s decision to run for reelection, blaming him for Mr. Trump’s election. Why is failed 2 time presidential loser Hillary Clinton still talking? SHUT UP!

Deranged Trump hater George Conway, who begged President Trump for a job during his first administration, is now running for Congress as a Democrat from New York, promising to put Mr. Trump in jail. Wow. That is really powerful stuff. Elect me to Congress and I will put the President in jail?

The truth is, George Conway is a moron. He practiced law in Washington, D.C. for years, without distinction. The man has never accomplished anything, nor has he ever uttered an original thought. He is like so many who hang out in the nation’s capital; he is a leech. A barnacle on a ship’s hull contributes more than do those like George Conway.

Democrats are fond of claiming that the “rich” don’t pay their “fair share” of taxes. In a recent tax year, Elon Musk paid $11 billion in taxes. It seems to me that that is more than a “fair share”.

Daniel Grand is an Orthodox Jew living in University Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. He hosted prayer groups at his home; that is, until a neighbor complained. The local government told him that he could not host prayer groups without a permit. So Mr. Grand applied for a permit, only to learn that the requirements were onerous, and would turn his home into a house of worship, and under that scenario, he would not be allowed to live in his home. So he withdrew his permit application, and sued University Heights for religious discrimination.

And it most certainly is religious discrimination. Mr. Grand could have held a party at his home without a permit, hosted neighborhood grilling in is backyard, sat shiva in the event of a family member’s death, or even held–God forbid–a yard sale. But University Heights forbids him from hosting fellow Jews for a private prayer service. That is wrong. It is un-American. And it is unconstitutional. Shame on University Heights, and the complaining neighbor, for their bigotry.

“This type of enforcement is not welcome in Baltimore.  The presence of ICE has not made our city any safer, and in fact has led to greater fear and anxiety, especially for our immigrant neighbors.”

–Baltimore, Maryland Mayor Brandon Scott, reacting angrily to the arrest of an illegal alien who fled from ICE, and sought “sanctuary” in a public school.

One would think that Mayor Scott would welcome ICE’s arrest of a criminal illegal alien.  Are there not enough criminals in Baltimore already?

Colorado denied attorneys access to its electronic filing system unless the attorney pledged not to cooperate with ICE. The blowback from attorneys over this coercive stunt caused Colorado to back down.

Virginia Democrats have agreed on a plan to sell recreational marijuana at retail. The marijuana tax will initially be 6%, and eventually rise to 8%. Sigh.

The Observations opposes legalization of marijuana in any form. But that ship has sailed. What offends us most about this plan is that Virginia taxes cigars at 20%. Degenerates, hippies, and hipster doofuses can indulge in a harmful product with an 8% tax, but a refined consumer must pay 20% to indulge in a certifiable pleasure, with no mood or mind altering effects. This is just plain unjust.

There are other problems with the Democrats’ marijuana plan. Retail licenses will be awarded with racial preferences and quotas. Because . . . why?

Governor Abigail Spanberger (D. Va.) wishes all a happy “Pride Month”, and reassures us all that she will push for a Virginia Constitution amendment to enshrine a perverted redefinition of “marriage”. Why don’t I feel happy?

Make Abigail Go Away.

One of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s directors, Heidi Beirich, has been named in a superseding criminal indictment, alleging that she funneled around $1.2 million to a white supremacist. But wait! It gets better. It seems that the corpulent Miss Beirich was the lover of that white supremacist, with whom she shared a joint banking account. Oh, my!

The Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah opposes the construction of an ICE detention facility in that State. Fine. ICE should build a fence around a bunch of acreage, and just allow the detainees to be exposes to the elements–snow, rain, heat, wind. Agents can throw uncooked vegetables over the fence and let the illegal aliens scramble for their food. Sheesh.

What the Episcopal Bishop is really saying is that she is for open borders, and defying the laws of the land. And you know what? That is contrary to Scripture. Surprise!

The American Customer Satisfaction Index crowned a new fast food champion, Jersey Mike’s. The long reigning champion, Chick-Fil-A fell to #2. The Observations demands a recount.

On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina has closed all of its company owned restaurants. You are going to have to go elsewhere for your faux Mexican food.

YUM Brands is selling the Pizza Hut restaurant chain. Hmmmm.

McDonald’s is bringing back its fried apple pie in celebration of America’s 250th birthday. Hardee’s is introducing a Star Spangled biscuit with red and blue sprinkles, Burger King is introducing a Firecracker cookie pie, and Sonic is introducing a red, white, and blue slushie drink. My stomach hurts just writing this piece.

Southern Living magazine has judged Daisy Sour Cream to be the best commercially available sour cream. I was always a Breakstone Sour Cream guy, until my Mother switched to Daisy.

Social media rots your brain. It is a insidious and largely useless source of . . . something, I do not know. But adults can do what adults wish to do. Children, on the other hand, should not be exposed to social media, and it is up to their parents to police this behavior. Unless, of course, you are governed by Leftists, as is the case in Great Britain. There, Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the government would strictly enforce a ban on children under 16 accessing social media. You know, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc. BUT oddly enough, the Labour government is not enforcing the ban on Left wing social media sites such as Blue Sky. Hmmm.

“I first thought of, like, who are the artists John F. Kennedy brought to the White House.  It was like W.H. Auden, Robert Frost, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein.  And now we have got cage fighting.  Don’t anybody say America’s in cultural decline.”

–the oat milk latte sipping, faux “conservative” pundit David Brooks, complaining to MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart on PBS, about the President’s hosting of the UFC cage match at The White House.

I am no fan of UFC. That being written, if I had to choose between a cage match and listening to Robert Frost reciting one of his boring poems, or Jerome Robbins tap dancing in The East Room, bring on the UFC!

“This is degrading the White House, degrading the people’s house. And it’s just unconscionable that this has happened.”

–the flamboyant Jonathan Capehart, responding huffily to David Brooks.

Mr. Capehart was partial to events held in the China Joe White House, such as when the cast of Ru Paul’s drag show gave a press briefing, or when topless “trans” folks wandered all over the South Lawn at an LGBTQ++ event.

Congratulations to the Carolina Hurricanes on winning the Stanley Cup. Who’d think that a team from North Carolina would beat a team from Nevada for an ice hockey championship?

Robert was at all of the games, cheering on the Hurricanes. Well, Robert was at some of the games, played in Raleigh.

The Big 12 athletic conference is suing Texas Tech, seeking to sanction it for allowing quarterback Brendan Sorsby to play this upcoming season. Brendan Sorsby was found to have bet on football games involving his former teams, Indiana University, and the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Brendan Sorsby previously got a Texas State court judge to enjoin the NCAA from ruling him ineligible to play, due to his conduct.

Sigh. I used to love college sports, particularly football. But things are so screwed up. Texas Tech wants a quarterback who gambles on his own team? A Texas judge thinks such conduct is hunky dory, as does apparently, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton? Where will this idiocy end? When will it end?

Well, it ended. Kind of. After creating all of this chaos and havoc, Brendan Sorsby is leaving Texas Tech to enter the NFL supplemental draft. Go. Bet on the pros. Loser!

For years Major League Baseball has had a rule forbidding players writing messages and symbols on their hats. And for years, MLB has looked the other way, as players are always writing messages and symbols on their hats. Until now. Apparently, Commissioner Rob Manfred–the absolute worst baseball commissioner ever–is warning players against violating the rule. Why? Well, it is “Pride Month”, and teams will have rainbow adorned “Pride” hats. Some players have refused to wear them. And others have written Bible verses on their hats. All of which upsets the radical LGBTQ++ crowd. And we cannot have that, can we?

GFK

“Why have we had such a decline in moral climate?  I submit to you that a major factor has been a change in the philosophy which has been dominant, a change from belief in individual responsibility to belief in social responsibility.  If you adopt the view that a man is not responsible for his own behavior, that somehow society is responsible, why should he seek to make his behavior good?”

–Milton Friedman.

There is a lot of complaining in our society today. There is a lot of bad behavior in our society today. It is maddening to hear and see it, day in and day out. We are a rather ungrateful, impatient, greedy and envious society. The day after Elon Musk became the world’s 1st trillionaire due to SPACE X public offering, Democrats reacted by vowing to ensure that he would not be a trillionaire long, and that he would be the last trillionaire. Sigh. Sometimes it is hard to remember that we live in the freest, most prosperous society ever to exist.

Today, I am sharing 3 items. The 1st item was provided to me by a dear reader, and focuses on perspective and gratitude. The 2nd item concerns the Left’s willingness to sacrifice religious and property rights to the mob’s desire to express itself. And the 3rd item puts the lie to U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico’s (D. Tx.) supposed piety and Christian grounding. Enjoy!

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“ WE HAVE A PROBLEM: This is a well written and thought out article written by a 26 yr old college student by the name of Alyssa Ahlgren, who’s in grad school for her MBA. What a GREAT perspective . . .

My Generation Is Blind to the Prosperity Around Us!

I’m sitting in a small coffee shop near Nokomis (Florida) trying to think of what to write about. I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of presidential candidates calling for policies to “fix” the so-called injustices of capitalism. I put my phone down and continue to look around.

I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook’s, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it.

Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose.These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don’t give them a second thought.

We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty One Times!!!

Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful. ??

Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [Puddin’head!] recently said to Newsweek talking about the millennial generation, “An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity.”

Never saw American prosperity! Let that sink in.

When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I’ve ever heard in my 26 years on this earth. Many young people agree with her, which is entirely misguided.

My generation is being indoctrinated by a mainstream narrative to actually believe we have never seen prosperity. I know this first hand, I went to college, let’s just say I didn’t have the popular opinion, but I digress.

Why then, with all of the overwhelming evidence around us, evidence that I can even see sitting at a coffee shop, do we not view this as prosperity? We have people who are dying to get into our country.

People around the world destitute and truly impoverished. Yet, we have a young generation convinced they’ve never seen prosperity, and as a result, we elect some politicians who are dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism.

Why? The answer is this,?? my generation has only seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn’t live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, the Korean War, The Vietnam War or we didn’t see the rise and fall of socialism and communism.

We don’t know what it’s like to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don’t have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it’s spreading like a plague.” #pleaseshare”

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What’s a little mob attack on a church service?

St. Paul city attorney’s case dismissal reassures violent leftists

BY:          Robert Knight, The Washington Times (June 7, 2026).

If you are a left-wing activist living in St. Paul, Minnesota, you now have official state sanction to invade a church, scream at parishioners, terrify children and harass people on their way out of worship services.

All that happened at Cities Church on Jan. 18, when a mob invaded the Southern Baptist church during a protest because one of its pastors is an official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Protesters reduced children to tears by screaming at them, “Do you know your parents are Nazis? They are going to burn in hell.” Others accused the parishioners of being “rich” and “White.”

On Wednesday, because none of the 39 people arrested had committed physical violence or vandalism, St. Paul City Attorney Irene Kao dismissed all state charges.

“This decision should not be interpreted as an endorsement of unlawful behavior or public disorder,” Ms. Kao said. “The right to peacefully protest is protected, as is the right to exercise one’s religious beliefs. Balancing these equally important rights is paramount to our decision today.”

What part of shutting down a worship service and harassing worshippers constitutes “balancing”? Letting the mob get away with it?

“They had stormed into the house of God, a place of peace and refuge, and they defiled it with rage,” Lead Pastor Jonathan Parnell wrote in an op-ed in which he offered an olive branch to the protesters, writing that the love of Jesus “is a joy that opens wide its arms to our cities, even to those who raised their fists against us.”

Although the defendants still face charges brought by a federal grand jury, the city attorney’s dismissal of the cases sends a loud signal to heavily subsidized and coordinated left-wing protest networks: “Don’t worry. We’ve got your back, especially here in one of the most progressive sanctuary cities in the nation.”

The church was invaded after days of protests against ICE roundups of thousands of illegal alien criminals in Minneapolis, during which two anti-ICE activists were killed.

One of those in the Cities Church mob in St. Paul was former CNN news anchor Don Lemon, who had conferred with the activists and given them donuts before the church invasion.

Although he insists that he was merely a journalist livestreaming the protest, Mr. Lemon was arrested on charges of violating state and federal civil rights laws. The federal charges include “acts of oppression, intimidation, threats, interference and physical obstruction.”

Still, the church invasion was apparently no big deal to Ms. Kao, a longtime progressive activist who spearheaded diversity, equity and inclusion policies at the Minnesota Bar Association.

In practice, DEI means open discrimination against Whites, males, Christians and conservatives — and, increasingly, against Jews.

Catholic League President Bill Donohue wrote a letter Thursday to Ms. Kao, asking why the church invasion did not constitute a First Amendment violation.

“If someone organized a group of protesters to take over your office, would you find that acceptable?” he wrote. “There would be no violence — just in-your-face invective and intimidation. If this were to happen, you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, morally or legally.”

Mr. Donohue also wrote a letter Thursday to acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, asking him to make the Cities Church case a priority.

Noting that he himself had attended a rally a week earlier to protest hatred against Jews in New York City, Mr. Donohue wrote: “Today I am rallying to the side of our Protestant brothers in St. Paul who have been targeted by hate mongers. If people of faith cannot practice their religion without intimidation and interference, it means their First Amendment right to religious liberty means nothing.”

Antisemitic incidents are increasing in places such as New York, London, Paris and Sydney.

Mosques are not immune either. In San Diego on May 18, two radicalized teenagers driven by White supremacist and Nazi ideologies killed three people at an Islamic center. Evidence indicates the two shooters pretty much hate everyone, especially women and Jews, for which they blame even the rise of Islam.

After the Hamas invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent retaliatory attacks in the Gaza Strip, Jewish students on U.S. college campuses feared for their lives as pro-Hamas demonstrators erected anti-Zionist tent cities and told Jews they were no longer welcome.

College administrators were so worried about not appearing woke that they failed to crack down on the harassers, leading to congressional hearings and several high-ranking college officials forced to step down.

It is important to confront official indifference to attacks on religious liberty and law and order. Otherwise, it just metastasizes.

The same sort of mob that attacked Cities Church, led by paid agitators, has been rioting at the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey. The agitators are either confident that nothing will happen to them or hoping to trigger another fatality that they can exploit.

As of this writing, law enforcement officers in cities, states and the federal government have managed to avoid such an outcome.

As for the St. Paul prosecutor, Mr. Donohue finished his letter to her this way: “I hasten to add that your workplace does not merit the special protections afforded a house of worship. But that wouldn’t stop you from screaming to high heaven if protesters invaded your space.”

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Pastor’s open letter to Senate candidate James Talarico says it all

BY:          Everett Piper, The Washington Times (June 7, 2026).

The list of biblical absurdities from James Talarico, the Democratic Senate candidate in Texas, continues to grow.

In addition to his claims that God is “nonbinary,” that “the Bible is silent about abortion” and that there are “six different genders,” we now have his contention that Mary’s consent to the virgin birth is a story about her being “pro-choice.”

How should we respond?

Well, sometimes someone else has already said it better than you ever could. The following is an abbreviated version of an open letter written by Jeff Mullen, a pastor from Nevada, and posted to his social media on May 29.

If you are a faithful Christian (or even someone who is just curious about what the Christian faith is all about), this is the best thing you will read today.

“Dear Representative Talarico,

I do not write as a political opponent, but as a fellow citizen concerned about the growing confusion surrounding faith, truth, and Scripture. Because you frequently speak about Christianity, quote the Bible and present your views as expressions of Christian conviction, [many people] naturally assume they are hearing biblical truth.

My concern is that some of the positions you advocate may lead sincere people away from the clear teaching of Scripture and toward a version of Christianity that reflects the spirit of the age more than the Word of God. …

For that reason, I offer these thoughts — not as an attack, but as a pastoral appeal for biblical clarity and faithfulness.

Concerning your statement that God is nonbinary: Throughout Scripture, God consistently reveals Himself as Father. Jesus taught His disciples to pray, ‘Our Father in heaven’ (Matthew 6:9). Christ is the Son, and the Church is His Bride. These are not accidental descriptions but part of God’s self-revelation.

Every generation faces the temptation to reshape God according to its own values. Ancient cultures carved idols from stone. Modern cultures often carve them from ideology. Faithful Christianity begins by allowing God to define Himself rather than redefining Him according to cultural preferences. We do not improve upon divine revelation; we submit to it.

Concerning your statement that the Bible is silent on abortion: Scripture speaks clearly about life in the womb. David wrote, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). God told Jeremiah, ‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you’ (Jeremiah 1:5). John the Baptist responded to Christ while still in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:41).

The consistent testimony of Scripture is that unborn children are known by God, created by God, and valued by God. The question is not whether the word abortion appears in the Bible.

The question is whether the child in the womb is a human life bearing God’s image.

Scripture answers that question repeatedly and clearly. Christians have historically defended the unborn not because of politics, but because every human life belongs to God.

Concerning your use of Mary’s consent to defend abortion rights: Mary’s response to Gabriel was not an assertion of autonomy but an expression of surrender. When told of God’s plan, she replied, ‘I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word’ (Luke 1:38).

The entire story of the incarnation celebrates the acceptance and protection of life within the womb. … Mary’s example is not about the right to end life but the willingness to trust God with it. To use the incarnation as support for abortion requires reversing the very message the story proclaims.

Concerning your statements about biological sex: Scripture teaches that humanity was intentionally created as male and female. Genesis declares, ‘Male and female He created them’ (Genesis 1:27), and Jesus reaffirmed that truth (Matthew 19:4). The Christian understanding of sex is rooted not in cultural tradition but in God’s design. Our identity is not ultimately discovered through self-definition but through submission to the One who created us. … [Mr. Talarico], the deeper concern behind [all] these issues is [what appears to be your attempt to reshape] Christianity so it aligns more comfortably with [your culture’s values rather than God’s]. … Paul warned Timothy that a time would come when people would seek teachers who tell them what they want to hear rather than what God has said (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

The role of Christian leaders is not to make Scripture acceptable to the culture. It is to faithfully proclaim Scripture, whether the culture applauds or rejects it.

Politics is temporary. Elections are temporary. Legislative victories are temporary. Souls are not. Scripture teaches that those who influence others bear a greater responsibility before God. … Jesus warns against leading others astray. These truths should humble every pastor, teacher … and [politician] who [publicly] speaks in God’s name.

My concern is not your political party, [Mr. Talarico]. My concern is whether the Jesus being presented to the public is the Jesus revealed in Scripture. …

America does not need progressive Christianity or conservative Christianity. America needs biblical Christianity — faithful to God’s Word, centered on Christ, and unafraid to proclaim truth in love.

Respectfully,

Jeff Mullen

Pastor emeritus

Henderson, Nevada”

GFK

“In the end, legitimacy is not inherited.  It is earned. It does not arise from ancestry, mythology, chronology, or blood.  It arises from competence, justice, liberty, opportunity, and the rule of law.  The question is not who was here first.  The question has always been, and will always be, who governs well.”

–Tyler Durden, Indigenous Nonsense.

A dear reader sent me the most interesting article, from which the above-quote is excerpted. The main premise is that all these Leftist claims of the righteous claims of the so-called “indigenous peoples” is bunk. It deals mainly with the Aztecs and Mayans in Mexico, but touches on other countries in Europe, America, the Middle East, and Africa as well. And it makes its point well. You can rail against colonialism all you want, but do you really believe that the American Indians would have developed a great country such as the United States? Or how about India? If the British had not colonized the subcontinent, those folks would likely still be wandering around in the horrific heat, dressed in loincloths like Ghandi. Britain build both Singapore and Hong Kong into economic powerhouses with freedoms and liberties. Could the Chinese have done that? No. Indeed, look at what has befallen to Hong Kong since the Communists took over. I highly recommend Mr. Durden’s article. It is a short, but quite interesting read. And thank you dear reader, for sharing!

“It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations.”

–Walter Bagehot.

For so many years, Republicans in Washington, D.C. have made great promises to the American people about what they would do if given power. And yet, they never seem to do those things. Never.

People who claim to be “conservative” are really not. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R. Oh.)? Nope. Representative John Kasich (R. Oh.)? No, no, no. Former Presidential nominee Mitt Romney (R. Ut.) claimed to be a “severe conservative”. Do not make me laugh. Senators Mitch McConnell (R. Ky.), John Thune (R. S.D.), John Cornyn (R. Tx.), and the late John McCain (R. Az.)? Ha, ha, ha, ha! C’mon, man!

One can expect Democrats to attack and undermine President Trump. They do so on a daily basis. But Republicans? Supposedly “conservative” Republicans? Why?

“Will we remain the party of conservative principles or embrace progressivism in the guise of populism?”

–Former Vice-President of the United States Mike Pence (R. In.), writing in The Wall Street Journal, in criticism of President Trump.

Mike Pence is a seemingly good man, faithful to his God, family, and country. He served as a decent Vice-President, after lackluster stints as a U.S. Representative and Indiana Governor. Mr. Pence touts himself as a “conservative”, and ran briefly for President in 2024. But is Mike Pence really “conservative”? Whatever did Mike Pence accomplish while in government? And is Mr. Trump really “progressive”?

Let’s look at some things. Mr. Pence accuses President Trump of being an “isolationist”, and claims that this antithetical to being a solid conservative Republican. But is Mr. Trump an isolationist?

Here is a partial list of things Mr. Trump is working on that help the world, including the United States:

• Working to finish Iran’s 47-year threat to the U.S., Israel, and the world.
• Destroying Iran’s terrorist proxies.
• Completing several peace agreements.
• Helping Nigeria destroy terrorists and protect Christians.
• Giving the people in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran the opportunity for freedom and prosperity.
• Getting NATO countries to pay up.
• Reducing China’s influence in South America and Africa.
• Taking away China’s ability to control 90% of rare earth minerals.
• Taking away China’s control of both ports of the Panama Canal. 
• Telling Europe to produce more oil and stop relying on Russia.
• Making U.S energy products available throughout the world.
• Working and completing trade deals.
• Destroying Mexican cartels.
• Destroying Venezuelan drug-runners.

President Trump is achieving things that career diplomats and traditional conservatives have failed at or didn’t even attempt; he is by no definition of the word, an isolationist.

And here is an abbreviated list of policies President Trump is working on domestically which most Republicans and/or “traditional conservatives” never tackled:

• Closed the border and is building the wall. Most Republicans just looked the other way as China Joe and his autopen flooded America with illegals.
• Working to hold sanctuary cities and states accountable thus reducing murder and other crimes.
• Trying to follow the law by making sure that illegals are not participating in entitlement programs.
• Trying to get rid of ridiculous birthright citizenship and birth tourism.
• Made the 2017 tax cut permanent and expanded the law to include tax reductions on tips and overtime, along with immediate expensing of factories. Tax revenues continue to rise faster than inflation. (That bill included scholarships for poor children to have school choice.)
• Implemented Trump accounts, which will show the joy of capitalism over government dependence and socialism to poor- and middle-class children.
• Mr. Trump tells the truth that dire climate predictions by green pushers were always a scam. Most traditional conservatives just caved to the left’s agenda (albeit at a slower pace) as Biden and others set out to destroy oil, natural gas, coal production, and the economy. They were too scared of being called climate change deniers.
• Mr. Trump has achieved energy independence and is exporting because of his aggressive energy policies.
• Mr. Trump gave people freedom to buy vehicles they choose instead of the government dictatorially taking away choice.
• Mr. Trump is finally addressing massive fraud throughout the government. Most Republicans allowed the government dependence to grow. Sadly, the leftist media rarely reports all the fraud because they don’t care. They should stop pretending they care about deficits.
• After decades of just throwing money at higher education, the Trump administration is limiting the amount of loans.
• Mr. Trump is requiring mentally and physically able people to work part-time for welfare benefits. 
• Mr. Trump gave people back freedom of choice on health care when he got rid of the individual mandate and eliminated generous subsidies for high income workers that Biden implemented. There is massive fraud in Obamacare which has made large companies extremely rich and harmed the rest of us.
• Cut 300,000 federal workers in 2025. Where have the traditional conservatives been?
• Mr. Trump is trying to pass sensible rules for voting. Anyone with a brain can look at the California primary and see how easy it is to cheat.

Mike Pence also complains that Mr. Trump isn’t pro-life enough, but the traditional conservatives allowed massive funding of Planned Parenthood, and Mr. Trump pardoned pro-life people who were imprisoned by the politicized China Joe Justice department.

The Mike Pences, John Thunes, Mitch McConnells, and John Cornyns accomplished nothing while in office of any conservative consequence. Neither did Presidents George H.W. Bush nor George W. Bush. All claimed to be “conservative”. But their records belie that claim.

By contrast, I submit that while President Trump is not a “conservative”, he has accomplished more things on the conservative agenda (or attempted to do so) than any other President, or politician, since President Ronald Reagan. He is certainly not a “progressive”. For that, we should be grateful.

Mike Pence is not a deep thinker. And he is not a doer. He is a man that would not row a boat for fear of disrupting a placid lake surface. He prefers the status quo, the false admiration of the mainstream media and his colleagues, than to actually risk anything to accomplish something.

President Trump is not a “conservative”. President Trump is not perfect. And President Trump has a style that rubs the establishment the wrong way. So what? President Trump is accomplishing things that others merely promised. Results matter.

Below I have included a recent article from The American Thinker, which addresses the failure of the spineless members of The Stupid Party, whose timidity put the country in its current position. It dovetails nicely with the above commentary.

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The Calamitous Legacy of the GOP’s Civility Caucus

While the Democrat Party was stealthily being taken over by the American Marxist movement, the Republican Party wing of the Washington Establishment was wallowing in political civility. 

BY:          Steve McCann, The American Thinker (June 2, 2026).

Why does the United States find itself in a political environment wherein the ruthless and fully radicalized Democrat Party was, before Donald Trump’s second term, well on the way to transforming the country into a Marxist “paradise”? It is because until Donald Trump effectively took over the Republican Party in 2024, after soundly defeating the two-party Washington Establishment and the unrelenting and vile machinations they unleashed against him from 2015 to 2024, there has not been a viable, determined, and equally ruthless opposition party.

While the Democrat Party was stealthily being taken over by the American Marxist movement and subsequently employing the tactics used by the Nazi Party during the 1920s and early 30s, the Republican Party wing of the Washington Establishment was wallowing in political civility and its corollary, obsequious compromising, choosing to not only be nonconfrontational but to bend over backwards in order to continuously accommodate the Democrats regardless of the absurdity of their demands.

How did this situation evolve? While it had its beginning during the 1930s, it accelerated dramatically in 1988 with the election of George H.W. Bush. He won, not on his own merits, but almost solely because he was the beneficiary of being the vice-president during the two terms of Ronald Reagan, in many ways the most successful and popular president of the twentieth century, but who also was vilified by the Washington Establishment as being an oblivious racist who was an uncivil, uncouth, and senile warmonger.

On the other hand, the Bush family dynasty exemplified the patrician attitude of holding oneself above the fray and fulfilling their preordained obligation to society while assuming those who may disagree or are political adversaries are equally honorable people. Among the archives at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library are the texts of 27 major speeches he delivered during his presidency referencing the importance of civility in our discourse and politics.

During the 1992 presidential election campaign, George H.W. Bush, in keeping with his penchant for civility, ran a lackluster campaign against Bill Clinton relying on the belief that his litany of compromises with the Democrats would buy their goodwill. The Bush campaign and the Republican National Committee, upon his instructions, never responded to a parade of false accusations and never went for the jugular with Clinton, who was saddled with innumerable scandals.

Clinton, not shackled by the niceties of civility, unabashedly attacked Bush’s character and integrity, accusing him of being an inveterate liar and conman. He falsely implied that Bush, despite not a shred of evidence, was not only complicit, but a major player in the Iran-Contra scandal while vice president.

This charge was seemingly coordinated with Lawrence Walsh, the Special Prosecutor for the Iran-Contra Affair. A mere two weeks before the election, he indicted Caspar Weinberger,  Bush’s Secretary of Defense, for a second time while obliquely mentioning Bush in the footnotes. Four weeks later, a federal district court judge threw out the indictment, but the damage was done and Bill Clinton was president for the next eight years.

While George H.W. Bush opened the door to political civility as being applicable to Republicans only, his son George W. Bush cemented that premise as being the foundational underpinning of Republicans not only running for president but Congress as well.

In his Inaugural Address in 2001, George W. Bush stated the following as he committed himself to adhering to the ideal of political civility:

Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos.

These are fine and noble sentiments if both political parties endeavor to follow them, but not if one party is hellbent on overturning the foundational tenets of the country by any means possible.

During his eight years in office, Bush was incessantly and falsely accused by the Democrats and their allies in the media of being the worst human being on earth as he was a genocidal warmonger, one of the most racist presidents in history, a prevaricator, as well as a misogynist. Therefore, he was someone who should be assassinated for the benefit of mankind.

But in keeping with his dedication to civility and reverence for the office, Bush, following in his father’s footsteps, consistently compromised with the Democrats while refusing to respond or allow his subordinates to defend him in public against any of these vile charges, thus by default cementing the caricature of a malevolent buffoon in the public psyche. By the end of his presidency, Bush’s approval rating of 22% was the lowest ever recorded.

Not having learned their lesson from the George Bush experience — that the Democrats and their allies in the media would never again campaign on issues but instead focus on personal destruction and incivility — the Republican Establishment in 2008 orchestrated the nomination of the next man in line and a member of the Civility Caucus, John McCain, who ran his campaign as the model of civility and decorum against the neo-Marxist Barack Obama. Predictably, the opposition went scorched earth.

During the campaign and using the playbook established to tear down George W. Bush, John McCain, an American military hero, was smeared as warmonger, an unapologetic racist, of having an affair with a lobbyist, of being a phony POW in Vietnam, and too old and scared by his POW experience to be president.  

Like Bush, McCain refused to aggressively fight back and take the offensive. Unsurprisingly, he was soundly defeated by Barack Obama, thus opening the door for the American Marxist movement to fully take over the Democrat Party. Further, during his presidency, Obama unabashedly exploited the political civility and compromise mindset of the cowering Civility Caucus in Congress, who were further intimidated by Obama’s unabashed exploitation of his skin color.

The Tea Party Movement of 2010 was a direct response not only to the efforts of Obama and his henchmen to transform America culturally and economically, but more importantly, it was a gut reaction to the Republican Party Establishment and its presidential candidates, as well as the vast majority of Congressional candidates continuously surrendering while waving the white flag of civility and accommodation. Particularly as the Democrats were free to wage scorched-earth campaigns without compunction, consequence, or pushback, knowing that if the Republicans won, their dedication to compromise would allow them to still achieve their objectives.

The Republican Party Establishment not only chose to ignore this grassroots movement that was the primary catalyst in the 2010 mid-term election of an historic 63 new Republican seats in the House, but mocked and belittled the Tea Party while remaining mired in their civility and compromise mindset.

In 2012, the Establishment stage-managed the nomination of Mitt Romney, another member of the Civility Caucus. As he had no skeletons in his closet, they assumed he could avoid or weather the character assassination tactics of the media and the Democrats.

As expected, Romney chose to utilize the same bland and civil campaign tactics of his predecessors instead of exploiting Obama’s character flaws, radicalism, and the underlying factors in his historic defeat in the 2010 midterms (causing Obama to openly admit that he suffered a “shellacking” in the election).

However, it took little time for the left-wing forces arrayed against Romney to fire their volleys. A new and previously off-limits accusation was hurled as the Democrat machine compared Romney and the Republican Party to Nazis. Romney was also portrayed as a right-wing extremist, a congenital liar, a warmonger, and a corporate elitist whose only interest was protecting the wealthy. Further, he was a sexist bordering on being a misogynist. And he, of course, was a racist as were all Republicans.  

By the end of the campaign, Romney, like both Bushes and John McCain before him, was portrayed as being among the most reprehensible men on earth and the Republican Party as the personification of evil.

Yet these gentlemen and the party establishment never responded and accepted these caricatures with civility and grace. Meanwhile, the congressional members of Civility Caucus continued to unabashedly promote compromise while the country inexorably fell into the hands of the neo-Marxists and radicals in the Democrat Party.

Rank and file Republicans and conservatives instinctively knew that 2016 was a watershed election. The future of the nation as founded was hanging by a thread. When Donald Trump declared his intention to run for president, he immediately vaulted to the top of the Republican field because he made it clear he would not follow in the footsteps of the recent spineless nominees by not only confronting the Democrats but, more importantly, purging the Republican Party of its nation-destroying “civility caucus.”

Overshadowing Donald Trump’s historic second-term accomplishments in international affairs and the restoration of the American culture and economy will be the potentially dramatic transformation of the Republican Party into a formidable and determined opposition focused on defeating the American Marxist movement while permanently disbanding the “civility caucus” that aided and abetted the evolution of the Democrat Party into being America’s most dangerous adversary.

GFK

“Go ahead and do the impossible.  It’s worth the look on the faces of those who said you couldn’t.”

–Walter Bagehot.

As I drove to Mass yesterday morning, I passed Boss Freeman’s Folly in downtown Winchester, Virginia. For more than 10 years, there has been the most unsightly and expensive vacant lot in front of The George Washington Hotel. The Winchester city government bought an old building, demolished it, and promised to develop it into a multiuse property, including an events center. Like most government projects, Boss Freeman’s Folly is a failure. But it is the perfect reminder of government incompetence, and profligacy.

President Trump speculated that the federal government would take over the management of Washington, D.C. if socialist Janeese George (D.) were elected mayor. D.C. Democrats are fuming at the threat.

Congress failed to renew FISA, a national security law promoted as necessary to stop international terrorism. The renewal failed because Democrats threw a temper tantrum over the President’s naming of William Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence. The temper tantrum was led by Senator Mark Warner (D. Va.), a rather petulant child masquerading as an adult.

Assuming arguendo that FISA works, and is necessary, Democrats are willing to expose the American people to terrorist attacks because . . . Orange Man Bad. Think about that.

“Equity policies are only a threat if your ideals are grounded in white supremacy.”

–Representative Summer Lee (D. Pa.).

Do you follow that? Unless you are in favor of racism, you are a racist. The wrong kind of racist, but a racist to be sure.

“So right now, we fight for reparations because it’s owed us. It is owed us, so we’re not going to back down on that one way or another.”

–Representative Summer Lee (D. Pa.).

Representative Lee warns that if black Americans do not receive reparations now, they will refuse to vote, and drop out of participating in the American political system. Go ahead. Make my day.

A former girlfriend of U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner (D. Me.)–a self-described Leftist–claims that Mr. Platner bragged about his Nazi SS tattoo, and told her he got it to remind him that the United States was the world’s “evil, bad guy”. Wow.

In Alaska, Daniel J. Sullivan filed to run for the U.S. Senate as a Republican. The incumbent U.S. Senator is Daniel S. Sullivan (R.). Confusing, right? Well, following an investigation into “J.’s” candidacy, the Alaska Division of Elections has disqualified him from the ballot. Because he is not a Republican. He is a Leftist, contributing to Democrats, including Senator Sullivan’s Senatorial opponent, Mary Petola (D.). This was all a ruse to aid Mary Petola’s campaign. The Democrats must be plenty worried about the upcoming midterm elections if this is what they are stooping to doing.

Hempstead Township, New York is resisting the State legislature’s move to eliminate “mother” and “father” from the legal code. There is some sanity in The Empire State.

“Juries should represent the diversity of this country, and if a white kid was convicted of murder and it was an all-black jury that did the conviction, people would say this is patently unfair.  So why should it be fair if it’s the other way around?”

–Representative Christian Menefee (D. Tx.).  He is lying about the Karmelo Anthony jury’s composition.  It was not all white.

The Karmelo Anthony trial continues to spin out of control, along racial lines. Now members of Congress are getting into the act. But the key point is that this trial had nothing to do with race. Karmelo Anthony stabbed Austin Metcalf in the heart, unprovoked. He murdered him. And he confessed to police that he did so. Despite those facts, he received a rather lenient sentence of 35 years. The only people making this case about race, are the usual suspects who use race to their own advantage. Shame on them!

A new phenomenon erupted on social media, where racist black men video themselves urinating on the grave of Austin Metcalf, the murder victim of Karmelo Anthony. Words fail me . . . .

U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D. Tx.) is undergoing “political reassignment surgery”. The man is revising and rejecting his longstanding positions in an attempt to fool the electorate. First, he was all for “gender affirming care” (i.e., genital mutilation surgery). Now he is against it. Second, he sought to ban all semi-automatic weapons in Texas. Now he claims to be a big supporter of the Second Amendment. Third, he was a radical vegan, insisting that a plant based diet was necessary to save the planet from “climate change”. Now his campaign shows him nibbling on barbecue at every opportunity. Fourth, he wanted to transition America’s economy to a “green energy” economy, again to save the planet. Now he vows to protect Texas’s oil and gas industry. Fifth, James Talarico was for open borders, and even criticized President Obama for his “draconian” border policies. Now he calls for border security.

James Talarico is a lying Leftist. Whatever he is claiming today, if elected, he will immediately revert to his previous positions. Don’t believe me? Ask a Virginian about Governor Abigail Spanberger (D.), who ran on a “moderate” platform.

Welcome to Berry Bros. & Rudd! The longtime supplier of spirits and wines to British royalty, Winston Churchill, and others, has opened its 1st store outside of London in . . . Washington, D.C. The store is located at Farragut Square, just North of The White House. I’ve got to go check this out, even though it means going downtown.

Chick-Fil-A is adding a kid’s mac-n-cheese meal to its menu. Woo hoo!

The United States has been quietly moving oil tankers out of the Persian Gulf, through the Straits of Hormuz, under the cover of darkness. Iran cannot detect the ships’ movements, since all of its radar installations have been destroyed. Once in the Gulf of Oman, the oil is released to other tankers, and then shipped to market. This might explain how the world barrel price is under $80.00 and falling.

The Ipswich High School [Massachusetts] boy’s lacrosse team had to forfeit its State semifinal playoff game, after the school suspended the team. It seems that the recent graduates had posed for a picture in their caps and gowns, with unlit cigars. And that was enough to cause school administrators to hyperventilate, and impose the suspensions. What a . . . !

“A lot of them [Republicans are fascists], yeah.  Certainly, the President is.  I wish he was [sic] out here playing, hopefully run him over when I’m sliding home.”

–the afore-mentioned Representative Christian Menefee (D. Tx.), fantasizing about the Democrat team beating the Republican team in the annual Congressional Baseball game.  It did not happen, as the Democrats lost for the 6^th year in a row. 

The California Democrat Party issued a statement that if you have ever criticized DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), you are not permitted to watch the World Cup. Sigh. I do not even know what that means. I doubt California Democrats do either.

But in the spirit of comity, and because I constantly criticize DEI, I shall refrain from watching the World Cup. Also, because soccer is a boring sport, imposed on American audiences by European and Third World socialists.

As an aside, USA beat Paraguay in the first round of the World Cup, 4-1. I did not watch it.

Today begins the Virginia State Golf Association Senior Stroke Play tournament at Wintergreen. Jon Hurst is looking to become the 1st back to back winner since Keith Decker accomplished that feat in 2013-2014.

2024 VSGA golfer of the year Logan Reilly qualified for the U.S. Open this week at Shinnecock Hills. He shot 68-67 over 2 rounds at Woodmont Country Club to advance to the tournament. Earlier this year, Logan Reilly helped Auburn University claim the NCAA Division I men’s golf championship.

Phil Mickelson is threatening to sue his former golf club, insisting that there is no video showing his actions, therefore no proof, and he claims that he did not do it, so there. Way to keep an unflattering story alive, Phil. You are really not helping yourself.

Congratulations to the New York Knicks on winning the NBA championship, the team’s first since 1973. Remember that, Governor Hochul (D.). It was 1973, not 1993.

Following the Knicks’ victory, riots broke out in Times Square. Vandalism ensued, fights broke out, Palestinian flags were waved, police cars were destroyed, 5 buses were set on fire, and one person was shot. Sigh. Those New Yorkers sure know how to celebrate.

Long time NBC’s Today show movie critic Gene Shalit has died at age 100. R. I. P.

Actor and comedian Ronnie Schell, best known for his role as Duke Slater in the television series Gomer Pyle USMC, has died at age 94. R. I. P.

GFK

Thursday marked the end of the Octave of Corpus Christi, and Friday began a new octave, that of the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Today, Trinity II, is the Sunday within the Octave of the Sacred Heart.

Some think of this feast as a saccharine devotion to an anatomical organ. And such might be the case in certain parts of the world. However, in the history of the Church, there is a long and distinguished catalog of reflection upon the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Perhaps the greatest theologian to reflect on this sacred mystery is S. Bernard of Clairvaux (A.D. 1090-1153), who helped to establish the Cistercian reform of the Rule of S. Benedict. As an aside, the Cistercians had a profound influence in the life of the medieval English church. The great abbeys of Rielvaux in Yorkshire, Melrose in Scotland and Revesby in Lincolnshire were all founded by Cistercians in the 12th century. Others were later added to this number, including  Fountains Abbey in Ripon. 

S. Bernard was a gifted preacher and writer, and most of his sermons and commentaries are still extant. We sing one of his more famous prayers during Passiontide: O sacred head surrounded, the Passion Chorale. Meditating upon the piercing of Our Lord’s side while He was suspended upon the cross, S. Bernard sees past the vindictive act of sinful man to God’s loving and merciful response. Whereas the Roman soldier acted out of malevolence, God manifests forth the saving grace whereby we are brought back into communion with our Maker. The water and the blood flowing from Our Lord’s sacred heart, signifies the grace to be found in the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, grace that brings us into fellowship with the Blessed Trinity! 

Pierced by the Roman soldier, the heart of Christ becomes a fountainhead of mercy and love. Through those flowing graces, man, once estranged from his Creator, finds his way back to the source of his being. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the fount of God’s infinite love made manifest on the cross.

In the Epistle for today, S. John considers the state of our hearts. We are either living in a state of love towards others, or we are in a state of spiritual death. There is no in-between for S. John. Once we have reflected upon the love of God revealed in Christ, we will be forever changed: Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us…

We perceive God’s love most clearly in the Cross. This is why the crucifix is such an important sign for Christians. As we meditate upon the love of God for us, we begin to appropriate that love in our relationships with others. If we find ourselves resentful of others, or ill-willed or short-tempered with those we come across, never mind truly wishing someone evil, we know that God’s love has not penetrated our hearts as deeply as it ought. We are living in a state of spiritual death: He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.

The life of the Godhead is the life of love, an infinite and self-giving love. This truth has been the basis of our meditations upon the Blessed Trinity. God Himself is love. So when we participate in that love, we are in union with God, with His purposes and intentions. May we strive to open our hearts to the Sacred Heart, as the Psalmist says: Teach me thy way, O Lord, and I will walk in thy truth: O knit my heart unto thee, that I may fear thy Name.

____________________________________________________________________

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Tygh Bailes and John Whitlow.  Two (2) very fine gentlemen.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE UNITED STATES ARMY!  Founded by Congress in 1775, it is 251 years old today.

“It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.”

–Donald Trump

“I stand fearlessly for small dogs, the American Flag, motherhood and the Bible.  That’s why people love me.”

–Art Linkletter

“The American flag is the most recognized symbol of freedom and democracy in the world.”

–Representative Virginia Foxx (R. N.C.)

Say, can you see
By the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight’s last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watched,
Were so gallantly, yeah, streaming?

And the rockets’ red glare
The bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave

–Francis Scott Key (author, The Star Spangled Banner)

TODAY IS FLAG DAY!  Fly Old Glory with pride, today and every day.

Our current flag is the 27^th version.  The 13 red and white stripes represent the 13 original colonies which  fought for and secured  their independence from Great Britain.  The 50 white stars represent each of our States.  The color red represents valour and hardiness, blue represents vigilance, perseverance and justice, while white represents purity and innocence.

The American flag was adopted by resolution of the Second Continental Congress on June  14, 1777.  The first official commemoration of the flag’s adoption was on June  14 in 1916, by proclamation of President Wilson. 

I realize, and accept, that the desecration of, and protest against the, flag is protected by our freedom of speech.  Still, I hate to see anyone engaging in such behavior.  And it angers me no less, and perhaps even more, to see American citizens protesting our symbol  of national  unity (I have gotten over the Iranians daily burning of the U.S. flag; old news).  Be it a highly paid professional athlete, or an ignorant Leftist professional protester, denigrating the flag, a symbol of the freedoms you are exercising, to me, is abhorrent. 

America is truly different, a country founded upon  the notions of equality of all men before the law, and that the government’s power flows from the people, and that that power can always be revoked.  The natural state of rule on Earth was at our founding, and is today, that government is omnipotent, and the people receive their rights, in reality, privileges, from the government.  Not here.  Our rights emanate from God, and  the people, not the government is sovereign.

America is not perfect.  It never has been.  It never will be.  But if there is a better place on Earth for men to live free, I urge the dissenters to move there.  They, and we, will be happier.  May God always bless the United States of America.

GFK

“The mark of a great player is in his ability to come back. The great champions have all come back from defeat.”

–Sam Snead.

“The most important shot in golf is the next one.”

–Ben Hogan.

“The more I practice, the luckier I get.”

–Gary Player.

President Trump nominated former SEC Chairman and current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton to be the next Director of National Intelligence. Huh. If I were Jay Clayton, I would stay in Manhattan. A much better job.

It has gotten very little press coverage, but the Southern Border Wall is being built, and at an aggressive pace. Hundreds of miles of Wall are under construction, with more to come. Oh, when the Democrats figure this out . . . . WINNING!

The Department of Justice is investigating Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D.) and Attorney General Keith Ellison (D.) for criminal fraud. GOOD!

The Department of Justice is suing Virginia and Governor Abigail Spanberger (D.) for its anti-ICE legislation and executive orders. ALSO GOOD!

Make Abigail Go Away!

The Congress finally funded the Border Patrol and ICE, with all Democrats opposed. The funding runs through the end of President Trump’s term. MORE WINNING!

Actress, traitor, and extreme Leftist Jane Fonda claims that Trumpism is more dangerous than McCarthyism. Huh. Someone please tell Miss Fonda that Senator Joseph McCarthy (R. Mn.) was right; there were communists infiltrating American government and society, aided by willing and naive Democrat allies. Read a book, Jane.

Republican Steve Hilton will face off against Democrat Xavier Becerra for the California governor position. The odds are long against a Hilton victory. But then again, what have Californians got to lose? A vote for Becerra is a vote for continued decline.

Los Angeles, California voters chose continued decline, putting 2 Democrats into the mayoralty run-off. One is a communist, and the other is a socialist. Oh, wow! So many choices? How do you decide between far Left and farther Left?

Graham Platner (D. Me.) won his primary, and will be the Democrat U.S. Senate candidate this Fall. Democrats have been fixated on Nazis and misogynists for years. Now they have finally found one, and wholeheartedly embraced him.

Representative Nancy Mace (R. S.C.) finished 5th in the South Carolina Republican primary for Governor. Good-bye!

Nancy Mace is not taking her loss well. She is vowing revenge on all those who opposed her. Given her 5th place finish, that will be a tall order.

Senator John Cornyn (R. Tx.) will not campaign for U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton (R. Tx.). Sore loser. Typical Washington establishment jerk. Takes his ball and runs home to mommy.

Senator Cornyn is also predicting a midterm election “disaster” for Republicans, and he is blaming President Trump for opposing politicians such as him. Senator Cornyn is a large part of the problem in Washington, D.C. He is not a “conservative”, though he pretends to be every election cycle. Can anyone identify any major accomplishments of his during his VERY LENGTHY tenure in government? Anyone?

A jury convicted Karmelo Anthony of murder. Karmelo Anthony had stabbed a fellow high school student in the heart at a track meet. Karmelo Anthony was then sentenced to 35 years in prison, eligible for parole in 17.5 years. I’m sorry, but that is not enough punishment.

Despite Karmelo Anthony’s confession to the crime, a mob of black rioters massed everyday outside the courthouse, claiming . . . “racism”. What a crock. The murderer was black, the victim was white, and there was no racism. Just a brutal crime that called for punishment.

Court TV melted down over the guilty verdict, outraged at the jury’s action. A commentator who was also a criminal defense attorney insisted that the verdict made no sense. Really? The evidence was overwhelming, the accused confessed; what about a guilty verdict makes no sense?

Representative Jasmine Crockett (D. Tx.) weighed in, going full racist on the jury, the judge, the prosecutors, and, of course, the victim. Enjoy your last days in Congress, ma’am. You will not be missed.

Papa John’s is closing dozens of restaurants across 12 States. Hmmm.

In Las Vegas, Nevada, a massive 8,000 square foot In-N-Out Burger opened. The restaurant is 2 stories high, and overlooks the famed Strip, with an all glass side. One hundred-seventy guests can dine at 1 time. It must be glorious!

Congress wants the federal government to regulate college sports. NO! This is one of the worst ideas ever.

Yes, college sports are in disarray. NIL, conferences stretching from coast to coast, the transfer portal, etc. But if you do not think Congress can make it worse, then think again.

Professional golfer Phil Mickelson was kicked out of the Farms Golf Club near his San Diego, California area home, for sexually assaulting a female employee. Club officials terminated Mr. Mickelson’s membership, and escorted him off the property, in the middle of his round. Wow.

Author and professor of history, Gordon S. Wood, has died at age 92. R. I. P.

GFK

“Read history, works of truth, not novels and romances.”

–Robert E. Lee.

“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”

–William F. Buckley, Jr.

“Writing a book is an adventure.  To begin with it is a toy and an amusement.  Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant.  The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.”

–Winston Churchill.

“If you cannot read all your books…fondle them—peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are.”

–Winston Churchill.

“The education of a man is never completed until he dies.”

–Robert E. Lee.

Put down your iPhone.  Shut off your computer.  Read something on printed pages you hold in your hand.  Lose yourself in another world and another time.  Read The Bible, ancient Greece and the founding of democracy, our country’s founding, The Late Unpleasantness, the California Gold Strike, World Wars I and II, the lives of Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and Ronald Reagan; read anything that interests you.  Including, of course, The Observations.

GFK

“Islam is not a religion, but an imperialist ideology like communism or fascism.”

–Geert Wilders.

“Saudi Arabia is militant Islamic extremism, Wahhabi Islam is extreme and violent.  These are the people that execute gays.  These are the people that stone women who show their face in public.  You don’t hear much about it, but it happens.”

–Rush Limbaugh.

“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities.  Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.  No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.  Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.  It has already spread through Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”

–Winston Churchill.

“That is a simple rule, and easy to remember.  When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters.”

–Mark Twain.

Today’s topic is Islam. For years, The Observations has warned that Islam is incompatible with our Constitution, our society, and with any notion of freedom and liberty. We have been at war with Islam, on and off, since Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States. Yet as a society, we never seem to learn of Islam’s dangers. We have Barack Obama, whom I am convinced was, and is, a Muslim. We have George W. Bush, who as President witnessed the attacks on the Pentagon and The World Trade Center, proclaiming that Islam is “a religion of peace”, all evidence to the contrary. Below are 3 articles discussing Islam, and its dangers to the United States.

The West Owes Islam Nothing

There is unending propaganda about an Islamic Golden Age of the past that today’s Islamists want to recreate. 

BY:          Frank Friday, The American Thinker (June 5, 2026)

I don’t know what’s worse, junk science or junk history. There is unending propaganda about an Islamic Golden Age of the past that today’s Islamists want to recreate. Much the same as a century ago, fables about an “Aryan super-race” long before Western Christianity motivated a lethal totalitarianism. Neither is true, of course, and obscures the amazing story of how Western Civilization got us to where we are.

A good example is a recent podcast by Tharik Hussain, a Muslim travel writer praising the contributions of Muslim Cordoba to Europe. The best evidence this chap offered was an odd paean from an amateur historian a century ago — that in Cordoba’s prime it had street lighting, public baths, paved streets, arabesque decorations on palaces, schools for children, and an “Alexandrian library,” while Christian Europe was dark, dirty, muddy, and its monks and rulers unlettered.

Sorry, that’s all wrong. A few of the wealthiest Muslim cities in the Middle Ages did manage to hold on to the benefits of the Roman world they had conquered, including architecture and street layouts. But the vast majority of Islam was illiterate and impoverished.

Cordoba’s streetlights were just some oil lamps hung along the central arteries. Big deal. Public baths, another legacy of the Romans, were much more common in Europe. Only in the 16th century, with waves of new diseases, did they decline, when some Tony Fauci in that era decreed that hot water spread disease.

Far from being uneducated, Europe’s Christians led the way past the fall of Rome and into the future after the barbarian invasions. Unlike Muslims, Christians have always believed the pen is mightier than the sword. For its first 500 years, the Church didn’t fight — it preached, argued, evangelized, and published its teachings on a scale the world had never seen. Then, it began a process of previously unimagined formal education, based in churches and tens of thousands of monasteries and convents. Monasteries ran local schools, assembled libraries, published books (before the printing press, everything had to be hand-copied), advanced agriculture and technical research, cared for the poor and elderly, conducted trade fairs, and often protected locals with their massive stone walls.

Compare that to just a few big Muslim towns like Cordoba and Baghdad that had libraries, while in their hands, the greatest library of all, the one in Alexandria, Egypt, fell to ruin.

Similarly, the great Roman canal that linked the Red Sea to the Nile and the Mediterranean was neglected, then demolished. Most of the achievements of Islamic scholars descend from the great Persian and Byzantine schools, persisting under their new Arab masters.

Raymond Ibrahim and Goldie Ghamari have many podcasts on just that. The question is not what Islam gave Europe, but just how far Europe and the rest of the world might have advanced without Islam.

Anyway, Christian Europe recovered from the barbarian wave because it had the secret sauce. The rule of law, based on the Imago Dei. The rights of all mankind because we are made in His image.

Ordinary people got to live more freely than in any previous society, and they even got to vote on their government — at towns and cities, often with strong written charters; and judicial officers like the Saxon hundred, in trials by juries; and professed monks and nuns even voted for their leadership.

Beginning with St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, the modern concept of natural law emerged. As St. Augustine explained, an unjust law is no law at all, while King Alfred and his monks created the English common law by merging Saxon custom with the teaching of the Decalogue and New Testament. Concepts like natural rights, limited government, and separation of powers were already laid out in the Middle Ages and flourished in the centuries to follow, while the Muslim world never got past the simple hierarchy of tribal chieftains.

The Church also prohibited close cousin marriage, so detrimental to the health of Muslims over the centuries, and ended polygamy and most divorce in the West — a vast step forward in the life of women and families. The Church also steadily abated the institution of chattel slavery in Europe, while the Arab world raided Europe, all the way to Iceland, for millions of slaves. Not to mention the many millions more black Africans enslaved and sold to the Middle East or the New World.

Unsurprisingly, the Muslim world decayed under its authoritarian ways, but once Europe got the Muslim and Viking invaders under control, and its economy took off in the Commercial Revolution. Later era Catholic Scholastic thinkers like Pacioli, Eck, Molina, Suarez, Bellarmine, and Lessius invented modern finance and economics, and the West raced ahead permanently.

Europeans were also happy to get whatever they could from the Muslims: ancient texts of the Greek philosophers, new works by scholars such as Avicenna, or things Muslims imported from China and India, such as gunpowder and advanced mathematics.

On the whole, though, trade with the Muslims was dangerous and unreliable for outsiders. So, Europeans built new types of ships and mastered the world’s oceans, just to get around the troublesome Muslim lands.

One might ask, then, how did the Muslims ever get as far as they did? Here, we do have to credit Muhammad and his companions. They were resourceful and charismatic leaders.

They led their powerful desert army into the Levant and North Africa, just as the Byzantines and Persians were exhausted from 20 years of war following a lethal plague that killed a large percentage of the population. The Rashidun Caliphs who succeeded Muhammad were very clever. They kept educated Christians running the civilian government for over a century and, by many accounts, lowered taxes. A public welfare system was set up with Muslims paying the zakat and non-Muslims the jizya to support this. Jews and Christians were largely left alone to pursue their interests. In fact, for over 600 years, Muslims were likely a minority in their own lands.

But the weak foundations of Muslim civilization and government became more obvious with time, leading to a millennium of decline. Beginning with the Mongol invasion, their armies entered a losing streak that, aside from a few highlights during the Ottoman era, continues to this day.

Interestingly, what we never hear about in the West is so-called Islamic Modernism. By the 19th century, the Muslim world could no longer deny its obvious failings. This led in two different directions. Militants wanted a “purer” form of Islam and called for more violence and destruction — what they show on TV every day. Others, such as the philosopher Syed Khan of India, called for western education and wanted a complete rethinking of the Islamic texts. Other Muslims agreed. Many have come to question the whole idea of hadith.

We even see the Saudi crown prince leading modernization in that once forbidding country.

One can only hope the modernizers prevail. That a real exegesis of the Quran comes about, and average Muslims begin to comprehend all the strange and contradictory passages in their sacred texts.

Islam teaches that the Jewish Torah and the Christian Gospel are authoritative, just like the Quran. When it was finally discovered by Muslims in the 11th century how these books differed from the Quran, Ibn Hazm and others asserted that the Bible must have been corrupted and extensively rewritten, a claim found nowhere in Islam until then, and an historical absurdity. Sadly, this is the infantile understanding of many Muslims. We would have a real Islamic Golden Age, however, if more Muslims summoned the intellectual honesty of a Syed Khan and began a genuine re-examination of their religion.

____________________________________________________________________

Are Americans Enabling Our Enemies?

Naïve and uninformed Americans are surrendering to a system that is hell-bent on the destruction of this country and our freedoms.

BY:          Eileen Toplansky, The American Thinker (June 5, 2026)

Islamic influence continues to expand in the United States. Adam Hamawy, an Egyptian Muslim, won the House primary in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. In the past Hamawy, not only accompanied Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the ‘Blind Sheikh’ linked to the World Trade Center terror attacks, he also volunteered for an Al Qaeda-linked group. A newly formed pro-Palestinian political action committee spent more than $1.5 million to boost his candidacy.

Then there is niqab-clad Lakeshia M. Alston, who has snagged the Republican nomination for North Carolina State Senate District 22.

Indeed, Election Jihad is on the rise in America. This 2024 article documents the growth of Islamist political power. In 2020, CAIR released a “Strategic Election Plan” for mobilizing one million Muslim voters. Consider that Nihad Awad is one of the featured speakers at CAIR events. CAIR and Muslim Brotherhood money run thousands of Muslim candidates in the U.S.

In 2025, 42 Muslim Americans were elected to public office across the U.S. in the off-year elections.

In 2019, U.S. congressman Andre Carson, a Muslim convert, highlighted the role of Muslims elected to the U.S. Congress.

“It’s more than just about having three Muslims in Congress… but I won’t rest until 2020 [when] we have five more members of Congress; 2022 and 24, we have ten more Muslims in Congress. In 2030 we may have about 30, 35 Muslims in Congress.

Each and every one of us has a directive to represent Islam, [emphasis mine]… to represent Islam and let the world know that Muslims are here to stay, and Muslims are a part of America. And we will, we will have a Muslim caucus that is sizable, that is formidable, and that is there for you.

Stephen M. Kirby, Ph.D. unpacked the ramifications of the above quotation in his booklet titled “Islamic Doctrine versus The U.S. Constitution.  In the book’s preface, Clare Lopez, Vice President for Research and Analysis at the Center for Security Policy, writes:

“Increasing numbers of Muslim candidates for office are entering the U.S. political system at every level from local to state and federal; and, while we applaud civic engagement by all citizens in our democratic system, we also are mindful that Islam is a faith like none other in the obligation levied on its followers to place Islamic Law (shariah) above any other law, including the U.S. Constitution [emphasis mine].

“Such declarations set up a direct challenge to Article VI Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution, to which each and every Member of Congress, House and Senate, is pledged under oath to uphold.

Hence, “…it becomes possible to assess Islam and statements of loyalty to it by elected officials such as Andre Carson not only in the context of the First Amendment to the Constitution (which protects freedom of religion), but in light of Article VI Clause 2, which would allow an accurate assessment of Islam as an alien legal system (Islamic Law or shariah) [emphasis mine] that is antithetical to the U.S. Constitution in many respects.”

Indeed, “Dr. Kirby has elucidated the very direct conflicts between Islamic Law and the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 8th, 13th, and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.

The obvious dichotomy between the Constitution and Sharia law begets a logical question.

Aren’t all members of Congress obligated to swear or affirm an oath to support the Constitution (Article 6, Clause 3)? So, how could a Muslim official take such an oath and yet remain true to both his faith and the Constitution he has pledged to uphold?

“Dr. Kirby turns next to a brief review of what Islamic doctrine in fact consists, including the actual obligation… to lie to infidels (non-believers in Islam) under certain circumstances.

Critically, he notes that there is no such concept as individual liberty, right to government by consent of the governed, or equality before the rule of man-made law under Islam.

Consequently, “The glaring incompatibility of shariah with the Supreme Law of the Land in this country is obvious and perhaps shocking for some who may not have considered it before.

In fact, Kirby set out to determine which Muslim public officials and candidates (over 200) would express support for the Constitution over Islamic doctrine. He inquired whether these Muslim officials would:

• Condemn anyone who threatens death or physical harm to another person who is exercising the First Amendment right to criticize or disagree with the prophet Mohammad?
• Go on record and state that in the United States, a Muslim has not only the freedom to leave Islam, but to do so without fear of physical harm, and also go on record to condemn anyone who threatens physical harm to a Muslim who is exercising that freedom?
• Agree with Allah and your prophet Muhammad that amputation of a hand is an acceptable punishment for theft in the United States, or do you believe that our man-made laws prohibiting such punishments are true laws and are to be followed instead of this 7th-century command of Allah and teaching of Muhammad?
• Agree with Allah that it is legal for a Muslim man in the United States to be married to more than one woman, or that our man-made laws prohibiting bigamy are true laws and are to be followed instead of this 7th-century command of Allah?

The results are alarming, as the list of those who expressed support for the Constitution is considerably smaller when contrasted against those who would not express support for the Constitution.

In 2020, “it would appear that 93% of the Muslim public officials Kirby contacted gave more credence to Islamic doctrine than the United States Constitution and their oath of office.”

As of May 5, 2026, seventeen Muslim officials expressed support for the Constitution, while 250 would not express support for the Constitution.

One puzzling piece in all this is the reaction by Dr. Zudhi Jasser, who is running for office in Arizona. In this interview, he explains that he is “an American who happens to be Muslim, that [his] faith identity is important for [his] relationship with God, but [his] community identity is primarily related to being an American and having a faith and loyalty to the U.S. Constitution and our system of government.” On the other hand, he has twice refused to support the Constitution as per the Kirby questions above.

In 2019, Andre Carson asserted that in time Americans would see “Madame Chair Rashida… Madame Chair Ilhan. Hell, we could be saying Speaker of the House Ilhan, Speaker of the House Rashida, Senator Rashida, Governor Ilhan, President Fatima, Vice President Aziza, Inshah’ Allah.”

These people mean business. And, I fear, that virtue-signaling faux feminists, as well as naïve and uninformed Americans, are surrendering to a system that is hell-bent on the destruction of this country and our freedoms.

____________________________________________________________________

Western civilization will not survive ‘suicidal empathy’

Open borders, socialism and cultural surrender threaten America’s future

BY:          Don Feder, The Washington Times (May 31, 2026)

I recently saw the wonderful 1962 movie “How the West Was Won,” which dramatized the westward expansion from the Erie Canal to the closing of the frontier.

The cast included trappers and homesteaders, prospectors and railroad men, sheriffs and outlaws.

Imagine a movie that celebrated White men bringing civilization to a savage land. How hateful! Quick, somebody call the Southern Poverty Law Center!

Americans were optimistic then — a big, brawling, confident lot who lived in an eternal spring. Now, winter is closing in fast. British historian Arnold Toynbee observed,

“Civilizations die from suicide and not by murder.”

The barbarians are not at the gate; they are inside. We let them in.

The foreign-born population of the United States is now 14.8% of the total, the highest ever recorded. This includes millions who invaded under President Biden, aka, the Welcome Wagon lady.

Many of these gate crashers don’t speak English. Most receive government benefits. The overwhelming majority are from Third World countries. Among their numbers are murderers, rapists and pedophiles. The left is fighting to keep them here.

Arrivals from the wonderful world of Islam pose a special danger. The number of mosques in America increased 32% from 2010 to 2020.

It is worse in Europe. The continent once known as Christendom is being colonized by the Religion of Rest in Peace.

Islam is the world’s fastest-growing religion. From 2010 to 2020, the number of Muslims worldwide grew by 347 million, versus the growth of 122 million for Christians. In Britain, the most popular name for baby boys for the past 16 years has been Muhammad.

It is difficult to imagine a religion less compatible with Western civilization than Islam. Tolerance? Pluralism? Seriously?

If you would like a taste of the creed’s modus operandi, then look at Britain with the regular rapes of “infidel” women and grooming gangs. If you have a strong stomach, read the full report of the horrors inflicted on Israeli women on Oct. 7, 2023.

Besides Judeo-Christian values, the West rose to greatness through capitalism, which brought us the Industrial Revolution and a booming middle class. Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” was published the year the Declaration of Independence was adopted. One provided for a republic based on limited government and human rights; the other established the rationale for free markets.

Both are imperiled. A 2025 poll found that 62% of Americans younger than 30 support socialism. New York and Seattle have socialist mayors. Collectivism is a forced march backward to a world of serfs and lords. The great free market economist Friedrich Hayek titled his 1944 opus “The Road to Serfdom.”

The family is also on the decline. Although not a uniquely Western institution, it provides the foundation of Western civilization. In 1970, married couples were 70% of U.S. households. Today, they are 47%. Nearly 40% of children are born to unmarried couples. In 2024, the United States reached a record-low fertility rate of 1.6 children per woman, below the 2.1 needed to maintain population stability.

No industrialized nation has a fertility rate anywhere near the replacement level. Cradles are not empty in the Third World. In sub-Saharan Africa, the fertility rate is 6.0. Civilizations that are confident about their future have children. Those that lack confidence do not.

The West is also afflicted by what psychologist Gad Saad calls “suicidal empathy.”

On April 2, a liberal woman was accosted by a career predator on a New York subway train. She did not report the incident because she “didn’t want to put another Black man in jail.”

On May 7, her attacker was charged with murdering a 76-year-old man.

Look at the assault on immigration detention centers and street takeovers by juvenile gangs and see a society devolving into chaos. We are putting radical judges on the bench, electing George Soros-backed prosecutors and installing Marxist mayors. The sheep have put the wolves in charge of protecting them.

It took centuries to build Western civilization. It is taking decades to demolish it. We were not paying attention to what our children were being taught in school and how the public was misled by media. We slumbered while America burned.

Winston Churchill wrote a book called “While England Slept” about how Western nations ignored the rise of Nazism. As prime minister, he spoke of a German victory leading to a new dark age.

If the West is lost, then a new dark age will descend in the blink of an eye. Instead of barbarians on horseback, Muslims with Shariah and Marxists calling themselves progressives will dance on the ruins.

GFK

“If you pay people not to work and tax them when they do, don’t be surprised if you get unemployment.”

–Milton Friedman.

“The essential notion of a capitalist society . . . is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force.”

–Milton Friedman.

“Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government–in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the costs come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.”

–Milton Friedman.

Today the topic is socialism. Below are articles by former New York Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey, and former Chief Counsel for the House Judiciary Committee–and a sane Democrat–Julian Epstein. Enjoy!

Don’t laugh off Bernie Sanders’ communist AI-heist attempt — young voters are falling for it

BY:          Betsy McCaughey, The New York Post (June 6, 2026).

Far-left politicians want to annihilate property rights — and a large share of young voters are buying into it.

That’s a red flag: Our school systems have become socialist indoctrination factories.

This week Sen. Bernie Sanders (I.Vt.), a leftist agenda-setter, called on the federal government to confiscate half the value of the nation’s largest artificial intelligence companies.

He’s targeting OpenAI, Anthropic (creator of Claude) and xAI, for starters.

Making his announcement on Facebook and in a New York Times opinion essay, Sanders said he’ll introduce legislation to slap these companies with a 50% “ownership tax” — literally grabbing company stock without paying anything for it, in shocking defiance of the US Constitution.

That’s expropriating private property for government use, an idea straight out of Vladimir Lenin’s or Fidel Castro’s playbook.

His flimsy justification: “Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity.”

Sorry, senator — all inventions and breakthroughs are built on the knowledge that’s come before. 

The same argument could rationalize demanding half the stock of a biotech company that produces a cancer cure, or a musical composer who writes a hit.

Who would invest or invent if the government could swoop in and take half?

Sanders’ bill is going nowhere while there’s a Republican majority in Congress — but ignore it at your peril.

It’s a warning: Outright confiscation is the left’s latest scheme to remedy inequality and pay for ever-expanding public benefits. 

Sanders lifted the idea from two law professors, Jeremy Bearer-Friend of the George Washington University School of Law and Sarah Polcz of the University of California at Davis School of Law. 

Lawyers, can you believe it?

You’d think they’d recall that the US Constitution’s “takings clause” — Bill of Rights, Amendment Five — bars the government from grabbing property without “just compensation.”

Ivory-tower universities tend to reward faculty for their imaginative proposals, and Polcz and Bearer-Friend have admitted their unconstitutional plan would be challenged in federal court.

Sanders couldn’t care less.

And New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani agrees: He warned us at his inauguration that he’d introduce New Yorkers to the “warmth of collectivism.” 

His new Block by Block housing plan proposes seizing apartment buildings from their owners to give them to what he calls “responsible stewards,” including tenants — another outrageous attack on property rights.

Pay attention to how fast Democratic Socialist candidates spouting collectivism are making headway.

This week’s primaries produced outright wins or runoff advancements for more than a dozen Democratic Socialists-backed candidates in five states.

Who likes these ideas? Young voters.

Members of Generation Z in particular have a rose-colored view of socialism, communism and collectivism. 

According to a recent Heartland Institute/Rasmussen Reports poll, nearly 60% of likely voters age 18 to 24 want a Democratic Socialist in the White House in 2028.  

Mandani captured 78% of under-30 voters in November, per an ABC News exit poll.

The Democratic Socialists of America, once the haven of radical retirees reliving their 1960s glory days, is now powered by the young: DSA saw its membership’s average age plunge from 68 to 33 in the last decade.

Blame the leftist indoctrination in K-12 schools and in universities for this socialist and communist enthusiasm.

A staggering 62% of voters age 18 to 29 hold a favorable view of socialism, and 34% favor communism.

That’s what they’re being taught.

CoolKid Facts, a popular education website aimed mainly at elementary-age students, teaches kids that communists believe “the state should provide every citizen with their basic needs . . . and no one is above anyone else.”  

Sounds utopian. 

No mention of the brutalities, starvation and mass murders committed in the name of communism by Lenin or Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot, Castro or Che Guevara.

In New York state social studies classes, communism and socialism are presented as two economic systems that make things more equal and fair — again without discussing the atrocities that go hand in hand with property confiscation.

Some states are wisely pushing back.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new law last year requiring his state’s public schools to teach “the brutal realities of life under communism.”  

Texas has passed a similar law. 

That’s one way to counter heavy-handed teachers’ union indoctrination.

While they’re at it, these states should also teach students about the Takings Clause, and explain to them why property rights are the engine of economic growth.    

Confiscating capital is the fastest way to kill an economy, as history has proven again and again.

Sanders’ AI-theft scheme is just the beginning. 

The best defense — the only defense — is an educated electorate.

Considering the misguided attitudes of many Gen Z voters, there’s no time to waste.

________________________________________________________________

Graham Platner and ‘New Wave left’ detest Western exceptionalism

BY:          Julian Epstein, The New York Post (June 7, 2026).

How many scandals can beset a major party Senate candidate before the party jettisons him or her? How extreme can such a candidate become before he or she is dumped?  

If you’re part of the Democrat party apparatus in Maine, the answer seems to be that nothing is too extreme. Nothing is too scandalous.  

By this point, everyone has heard the sordid stories of Graham Platner. The allegations that he twisted an ex’s arm and yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument (he has denied this). The admittance of sexting women shortly after getting married. The mocking of Purple Heart recipients. Calling army soldiers fat, lazy trash, and seemingly wishing their death. Slandering rural Americans as racist and stupid, and blacks, because they “don’t tip.” The porta-john masturbation cringe musings and much more.   

Candidate Platner writes off all these personal misgivings as trivial foibles and says it’s his politics that count. The mindless groupthink Democrats fall right into line. “Maybe we focus on the issues facing the American people,” squirmed his patron saint, Sen. Bernie Sanders.   

But the real obscenity of Graham Platner is not his personal misdeeds. Rather, it’s his politics. 

He has openly embraced communism, which slaughtered 100 million people in the 20th century while oppressing and impoverishing many more. He sported a tattoo like the ones worn by Hitler’s SS at death camps that killed 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

Sleepwalking Democrats have leveled charges of fascism so habitually, in such zombie-like fashion, that they don’t even recognize real Nazism when in their midst.  

In short, Platner is part of the New Wave left, making common cause with extremists, socialists, and Islamists. It sports an empty form of political narcissism, the con job of a Robin Hood movement pretending to rescue us from fake oppression scenarios. This so it can moralize its way into office on a platform of failed ideas that build nothing other than race and class resentments and government dependency. The substance of civilizational failure. 

This new left seems to detest Western exceptionalism — an exceptionalism that has enriched and liberated billions of people, more than any civilization ever. Even our poorest today are wealthier than over 90% of the rest of the world.  

Graham Platner would have been dismissed as unacceptable in the Democratic Party just a decade ago. So what does his embrace tell us about modern-day Democrats and where they are headed? 

This tells us that the party has a weak bench. It’s no secret that working-class voters — the core base for Democrats since the New Deal — are abandoning Democrats, as are many other groups. Seven in 10 voters think the party is too extreme and out of touch.  

To rebuild, the party could go back to the center or lunge to the socialist left. Led by its activist class, it’s choosing the latter.  

But very few on the socialist left have ever built a business, or anything else for that matter. AOC was a bartender before her election to Congress in 2018. 

Bernie Sanders is a career politician, suckling on the taxpayer teat nearly all his career. To paraphrase Thomas Sowell, the far left knows nothing about creating prosperity; its leaders just think that it somehow exists and that the only interesting question is how to redistribute it. 

This means the New Wave Democrat movement doesn’t really know much about building through discovery, innovation, and growth — the hard stuff that grows the economic pie and secures our future. Many on the left are like nepo-babies, knowing only how to take from government payrolls, government-funded NGOs, and George Soros-like ideological philanthropy. 

First, this is why the new breed Democratic bench will be a thinner one, attracting novices, activists, and extremists like the terrorist-linked Adam Hamawy, who won the Democratic nomination in New Jersey with the backing of Democratic socialists in Congress. This toxicity will deter more serious candidates.  

Second, the Platner conundrum also tells us this New Wave Democrat is myopic. Democrats across the country will be badgered all fall with questions about supporting the Nazi-tattooed, Hamas-supporting, self-described communist. When they try to dodge, as Sen. Chris Murphy clumsily did last Sunday, they will be seen as weak, cowardly, and out of touch by normie voters. 

Third, Platner conveys that Democrats are situational, insincere moralists, whose collective heads exploded at every one of Trump’s transgressions but who stared at their shoelaces when it came to one of their own. 

Finally, the Platner phenomenon tells us of the cowardice of the party’s moderates. When I worked years ago at the House Judiciary Committee alongside Senator Schumer, then a proud centrist, he would always talk about the importance of saying “no” to the hard left. Who would have thought that years later he would be so intimidated by online activists that he would coddle a candidate cheering the genocidal Hamas today.   

Ultimately, it is this cowardice of party leaders who know better that is leading to the party’s decadent decline.  

GFK

“A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”

–Walter Bagehot.

A Democrat aligned non-profit organization is suing to stop the planned UFC match at The White House on June 14. Sigh. Of course they are! Democrats want to ensure that no one, no where, at any time, is having fun.

“Homosexuality has no place in America. Happy Nuclear Family Month.”

–Representative Andy Ogles (R. Tn.).

Representative Ogles is right. Wait; was right. Because after issuing that statement, Representative Ogles was roundly criticized by his fellow members of Congress, including many Republicans. So Representative Ogles did what every politician in Washington, D.C. does; he retreated, flip flopped, and blamed a staffer for the statement. Sigh.

Now you could certainly argue that Representative Ogles could have phrased his comments differently. But the basic sentiment is correct. So what does Andy Ogles really believe? We do not know. Because Andy Ogles does not have the courage to stand by his principles, whatever they may be.

“Iran has won this war.  Its indigenous military industry has produced phenomenal results.    This is having a huge toll on the capacity of the US empire to impose its will . . . We need to bring the empire down by any means necessary.” 

–Professor Corrina Mullin, who teaches at the New York City College.

Professor Mullin is a Democratic socialist. She was speaking at a Democratic Socialist forum. Do you know who else are Democratic Socialists? Senator Bernie Sanders (I. Vt.), Comrade Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D. N.Y.), Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson (D.), Representatives Greg Casar (D. Tx.), Rashida Tlaib (D. Mi.), Summer Lee (D. Pa.), Jerrold Nadler (D. N.Y.), and, of course, Puddin’head. Chicago, Illinois Mayor Brandon Johnson (D. Il.) and Montgomery County, Maryland County Executive Marc Elrich (D. Md.) are also Democratic Socialists. Incumbent Los Angeles, California Mayor Karen Bass (D. Ca.) is not a Democratic Socialist. She is an avowed Communist. So too is U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner (D. Me.). These people hate the United States. They want to impose their socialist tyranny on their fellow citizens. And they want to “bring down the [American] empire by any means necessary.”

The Virginia State government’s fiscal year ends at midnight on June 30. Democrats control the Governor’s mansion and both houses of the General Assembly. So why does Virginia not have a budget, 20 days before the end of the fiscal year? Hmmmm.

There are more cattle in Texas than in any other State in the Union. That notwithstanding, James Talarico (D. Tx.) has been a fanatical advocate for a vegan existence. Until now, as he desperately wants to be a United States Senator. So Mr. Talarico is eating barbecue at every available opportunity. My goodness! That boy is going to have to have his stomach pumped many times before November if he keeps this up!

The most expensive pizza in the United States is found in Hawaii and California. The least expensive pizza is found in Indiana.

Southern Living magazine has named Sweet Baby Ray’s as the best store-bought barbecue sauce. The Observations demands a recount.

McDonald’s restaurants are introducing World Cup 2026 Happy Meals, in adult and children’s versions. You can also order a side of Big Mac sauce for dipping. Pass. Not a fan of either McDonald’s or soccer.

The meals preparation company, Hello Fresh, wishes all a happy “Pride Month”. And the company is offering a “Pride Month” discount. For all those interested, the “Pride Month” discount code is “BOTTOMSUP”. Seriously. This is not a joke.

“The bottom line of Milei’s economic policies is that they work and can benefit from a similar playbook and so make the world richer and better. Inflation collapsed, and that single change has fed into other things in a positive way.  That’s one of the greatest gifts to the rest of the world, and they can see that it works; It’s all grossly positive.”

–Pete Earle, American Institute for Economic Research.

Argentina, once the economic basket case of South America, due to its extreme socialist policies, is resurging, the economy growing, and the populace prospering. President Javier Milei’s implementation of, and commitment to, free market policies, is yet another slap in the face to experts who warn of “late-stage capitalism” and call for governments to begin socializing the economy.  He is proof to the rest of the globe that free markets remain the best way to advance not only human flourishing, but human freedom. 

Too often, the economic issues people complain about today are not the result of capitalism, but of government intervention in markets (think healthcare in the United States), and when those interventions fail, the entire system is blamed as inherently capitalist.  True free markets, in the tradition of the late economist Milton Friedman and President Javier Milei, remain the most effective path to prosperity, accountability, and long-term stability.

The United States Department issued visas for all members of the Iranian national soccer team. It denied, however, visas for IRGC members who claimed to be needed to provide “security” for the team. No terrorists in the USA!

Stacey King, who played on 3 NBA championship Chicago Bulls teams, and then went on to become the Bulls’ broadcasting voice, has died at age 59. R. I. P.

GFK