“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”
–St. Augustine.
Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll has resigned. He issued a statement praising the leadership of, and changes implemented by, Secretary of War Hegseth. There’s a story you won’t find on cable news or in The Washington Post.
The U.S. House of Representatives censured Representative Chuck Edwards (R. N.C.) for inappropriate behavior towards his female staffers. Sigh.
The House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning socialism. All but 8 Democrats voted against the resolution. Sigh.
“I fear Senate Republicans are undermining congressional races across the country by refusing to fully embrace the movement that put them in power.
MAGA voters did not elect Republicans so they could manage the decline of America with slightly lower taxes.
They elected Republicans to secure the border. Deport illegals. Restore law and order. Rebuild the military. Protect religious liberty. Stop the transgender insanity. And dismantle the Deep State. We elected Republicans to secure the ballot box. We elected Republicans to put Americans first.
In other words, they elected Republicans to enact the Trump agenda.
So here’s my warning to the Republican Establishment: You had better decide which side you’re on.
Because if Republicans lose Congress and President Trump’s agenda is stopped dead in its tracks, MAGA voters are going to start asking questions.
And the first question will be this: Did the Democrats defeat President Trump — or did Republicans stab him in the back?”
–columnist Todd Starnes.
Hunter Biden said he was “48% gay”. I’m sure that his wife, Melissa Cohen, is thrilled.
Pamela Cisneros, 49, stabbed Erin Piacenti, 32, and Tak Kam, 68, Monday afternoon in New York City’s Times Square. Afterwards, video showed her being surrounded by police and threatening to kill them with a large knife in each hand. When she lunged at police officers with her knives, 2 officers shot her dead.
Erin Piacenti, a young mother, celebrating her 2nd wedding anniversary is dead. Tak Kim is hospitalized in serious condition, but is expected to survive. And Pamela Cisneros, the deranged attacker is dead. A senseless tragedy all around.
The reaction of Pamela Cisneros is . . . interesting. Her brother insists that she was not violent and would not have hurt anyone, all evidence to the contrary. Her mother criticized the police, wondering why they did not just grab her by the arm and take the knives from her. Why did they have to shoot her? Sigh. Because we already had enough dead bodies. We did not need to add to the body count.
San Diego, California City Councilwoman Marni von Wilpert (D.) is running for Congress, promising to return the country to China Joe’s Golden Age. She is in favor of DEI, claims that American oppresses women and minorities, and pledges to solve the problem of so many businesses being owned by white people. Good golly Bob!
Florida has banned Flock surveillance cameras on its highways. Good!
Private companies that wish to contract with the City of Chicago, Illinois are required to 1) provide data on the racial and sexual composition of their workforce; and, 2) any contracts, involvements, or dealings with ICE. Number 1 is illegal and unconstitutional. Number 2 is just obnoxious and stupid.
Senator John Cornyn (R. Tx.) continues to play the role of sore loser, refusing to support primary winner Attorney General Ken Paxton (R. Tx.). Texas Republicans are not pleased.
U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D. Tx.), speaking before the Sierra Club, said capitalism is an “oppressive system” that “contributes to climate change”, and supports “white supremacy”, calling for capitalism to be “dismantled”. The gift that keeps on giving.
All Saints Cathedral is an LGBTQ+-affirming congregation in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with an average Sunday attendance of about 70. Micah Cronin joined its staff as dean. And he is thought to be the first transgender dean of any Episcopal cathedral and also one of the youngest. Because “he” is a “she”.
Fun fact: There is no such thing as a “trans”. God made man and woman. You are one or the other, and you cannot choose to change your sex. But All Saints Cathedral thinks otherwise. Which is why it welcomed the mentally disturbed Micah Cronin as dean. It also explains why its Sunday attendance is so puny.
Canada is not happy about the U.S./Venezuela oil deal, as it lessens any leverage Canada has in trade negotiations. That is such a shame.
The United Nations said on Monday that countries are legally obliged to consider reparations for the transatlantic slave trade and other measures to address what it says is the enduring legacy of racial discrimination. The heck with the United Nations.
U.S. OUT OF U.N.! NOW!
The owner of the Los Angeles Rams has purchased baseball’s Los Angeles Angels. Interesting.
Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and current CBS announcer (?) Tony Romo plead no contest to drunk driving. He apologized, and was appropriately punished. He should not lose his job. At least not for that infraction.
Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick accused the National Football League of “performative racism”. He has a point.
The NFL’s social justice campaigns and messaging are performative. Painting “End Racism” in the end zones and approving “Black Lives Matter” on helmets were ways for the league to signal its virtue. They were public-relations decisions, perhaps even financial ones, designed to avoid potential backlash from sponsors and consumers.
But Colin Kaepernick is a hypocrite. The former quarterback has spent the past decade performing, pandering, and spreading propaganda. His entire claim to activism is fraudulent. Most notably, Kaepernick participated in a Netflix docuseries in which he compared the NFL scouting combine to a slave auction. Yet despite the slave auction comparison, Colin Kaepernick desperately sought to rejoin the NFL. Sigh. Colin Kaepernick and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell deserve each other. The NFL can do without either of them.
Eldrick Woods entered into a plea agreement involving his DUI charges. He was found guilty of reckless driving, and lost his drivers license for 5 years. The roads are so much safer.
Former N.Y. Jets assistant coach Kippy Brown has died at age 71. R. I. P.
“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.”
–St. Augustine.
On September 2, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur and his Japanese counterpart signed the official surrender documents of the Imperial Empire of Japan. The signing ceremony occurred on the U.S.S. Missouri battleship, anchored in Tokyo Bay. The Second World War was over.
There has been much hand wringing over the use of the United States’ use of atomic bombs to force Japan’s surrender. Most of the wailing comes from the Left, lamenting how we could not just use conventional weapons to win the war. Well, that is simply answered; U.S. military estimates were that an invasion of Japan would cause between 1 and 2 million casualties. That number dwarfs the number of casualties suffered at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Those Americans who speak apologetically over our nation’s use of the atomic bombs are ahistorical morons. The Japanese Empire started the war against America, bombing the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, and Wickham Air Base. The Japanese military was an incredibly dedicated force, willing to die in the defense of their homeland. They had already demonstrated their zeal through their suicidal use of kamikaze submarines and airplanes to strike at American warships. And when the Americans invaded Okinawa, a Japanese occupied island more than 300 miles from Japan, it became the bloodiest battle of World War II. The battle lasted 82 days, and more than 242,000 died. And this was at a time when the tide of war had turned, and the Japanese military was back on its heels. If the Japanese military would fight this hard to defend a rocky island so far from its homeland, how hard would it fight to defend its main island home?
Below is an insightful article by the esteemed Victor Davis Hanson, outlining the use and justification of the United States’ use of atomic weapons to subdue the Japanese Empire. I think you will find it informative.
Every August, debate renews over both the wisdom and the morality of dropping the two American atomic bombs, 81 years ago, on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). This August has been no exception.
As ever, many critics have faulted the United States for the bombings: two gruesome blasts — aimed at dual-use military and industrial targets in both cities — that may have caused some 100,000-120,000 immediate deaths among combatants and civilians.
And not all these critics are on the Left. Two years ago, podcaster Tucker Carlson blasted the Truman administration’s decision, alleging that the atomic bomb was not the result of decades of sophisticated nuclear physics research or the dividend of a two-billion-dollar Manhattan Project investment to rapidly develop an atomic weapon in a race to beat the Axis powers’ nuclear programs before they themselves developed such existential weapons.
Instead, Carlson claimed the atomic bombs were demonic, tools of innate evil, and thus apparently created through the supernatural intervention of dark powers. Unlikely — but perhaps Tucker was echoing themes from Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the Manhattan Project. After the first successful test of the bomb on July 16, 1945, Oppenheimer quoted (and mistranslated) a famously chilling line from the great Hindu epic, the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Why Did the U.S. Drop Two Atomic Bombs on Japan?
Indeed, from the moment the bombs were dropped, there has been an intense, 80-year debate, from which all sorts of conspiracy theories have since emerged.
No one denies that the two bombs, dropped within three days, shocked the Imperial Japanese junta into conceding surrender on August 15 — a decision ratified formally and officially on September 2, 1945, ending the Pacific War. Nonetheless, almost immediately, contemporary critics objected to their use on a variety of grounds.
Many claimed the bombs were unnecessary. They argued that the previous devastation of Japan by the U.S. Army Air Forces and the U.S. Navy had made a quick surrender inevitable.
Some declared that racism had prompted their use against the Japanese alone.
Of course, all these arguments were only offered with the benefit of hindsight, and they often failed to consider the dire conditions that U.S. military planners were confronted with at the time.
First, the bombs were originally envisioned to stop the Third Reich and end the costly conventional Allied bombing campaign over Germany (over 80,000 dead British and American airmen, along with some 15,000 bombers lost). But producing a deliverable bomb took far longer than anticipated and was realized only after Germany surrendered.
Second, the military, the Truman administration, and the American public were still in a state of shock over the devastating losses suffered at Okinawa, declared secure just six weeks before Hiroshima. The invading U.S. land, sea, and air forces had suffered 50,000 casualties, including 12,000 dead — in what had initially been expected to be the least costly of a half-dozen bloody American amphibious landings.
Before Okinawa, planners believed they had learned from the overconfidence that had nearly proved to be catastrophic at Iwo Jima, Peleliu, and Tarawa. Yet despite those lessons, a weakened Japanese military, and total U.S. air and naval supremacy, Okinawa became the deadliest island operation of the entire Pacific war. And because it was the last major land battle, stunned U.S. planners in summer 1945 shuddered about what might come from a planned invasion of the entire Japanese mainland. As a general rule, the closer the Americans got to the Japanese homeland, the more they died.
Okinawa had been defended by about 120,000 Japanese soldiers and Okinawan conscripts, most of whom fought to the death. The defenders had launched about 2,000 kamikaze suicide-attack aircraft — each a veritable cruise missile — sinking 26 ships and killing nearly 5,000 Navy personnel.
Given some 2.3 million Japanese troops on the home islands, fully mobilized for an American invasion and backed by 12,000 combat aircraft (including 9,000 kamikazes), as well as a militia of some 25 million combatants, American planners believed the invasion of the Japanese homeland would easily cost one million casualties — the equivalent of 20 Okinawas.
That fear of massive American casualties, combined with growing public weariness after four long years of Japanese diehard ferocity and atrocities — the Germans had surrendered three months earlier in May 1945 — prompted the Pentagon to explore alternatives against an enemy that, despite being almost entirely defeated, still had no intention of surrendering unconditionally. We now forget that 1945 — the last year of the war — was the deadliest to the U.S. military in the Pacific Theater of Operations.
Few now remember that, of all the belligerents in World War II, it was the Japanese military that achieved the highest kill-to-loss ratio. Japan suffered total fatalities of somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million combatants and civilians, but it caused the deaths of between 15 and 20 million Allied soldiers, Chinese, other Asians, and Pacific Islanders. By summer 1945, the Japanese military abroad was executing, killing, or starving 15,000 people a day.
There was therefore an understandable desire to end the war as quickly as possible, by any means necessary, to save thousands of lives. Each day of war was literally a matter of life and death for thousands.
Other postwar critics claimed the bombs were dropped only as a gratuitous signal to shock and awe and deter Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union from further communist aggrandizement.
But between Nagasaki (August 9, 1945) and the first Soviet atomic bomb test four years later (August 29, 1949) — when America alone had a viable atomic weapon — Stalin was certainly not deterred. By 1948, he had already broken his word and turned all of the Soviet-occupied nations of Eastern Europe, as well as North Korea, communist. And by summer 1949, it was clear that the USSR had helped ensure the impending communist takeover of China.
Moreover, U.S. intelligence and investigative agencies were already surmising by August 1945 that Soviet spies were embedded within the Manhattan Project and the U.K. government, along with captured German physicists sent back to Russia.
In other words, the Pentagon had already accepted that dropping atomic bombs would likely not deter its then “ally,” Joseph Stalin, from acquiring his own nuclear weapons. The U.S. therefore expected soon to face a deadly nuclear rival — and one eager to retaliate in kind if America had used or threatened to use its nuclear monopoly to thwart Soviet agendas.
Were the Bombs Really Necessary?
Still other critics claimed that the U.S. government should have frightened Japan into surrender by detonating one atomic bomb in Tokyo Bay. But earlier ideas to drop a demonstration bomb in an uninhabited area were scrapped over fears of what would ensue if the bomb proved to be a dud, leaving only a single bomb available for combat use. Would one atomic bombing of a Japanese target prompt total surrender? After the two available bombs, at most one additional atomic bomb was likely to be delivered to the Pacific before October or November.
Atomic bombs, in fact, did not simply emerge complete and intact from the head of Zeus — or Satan. Building and delivering still-experimental bombs to the front was not easy, safe, or assured. The tricky enriched-uranium Hiroshima bomb (“Little Boy”) had never been tested. It was so dangerous to handle that it was armed only in the air to prevent an atomic blast if the Enola Gay crashed on takeoff.
The later B-29 Bockscar that bombed Nagasaki almost ran out of gas because of a failed fuel-transfer pump, a 45-minute rendezvous delay, and the fact that the initial target was obscured by clouds. Nagasaki, the alternate but similarly cloud-obscured target, was a last-minute adjustment that almost ended in failure, if not total catastrophe.
The cruiser Indianapolis, which delivered components of the 9,000-pound “Little Boy” to the B-29 base on Tinian in late July, was blown up by a Japanese submarine just four days later on its journey back to the fleet — killing nearly 75 percent of the crew. Only luck had prevented the Japanese from sinking the Indianapolis days earlier, along with the atomic-bomb components on board.
Yet even after the moonscape at Hiroshima, the Japanese high command still argued over capitulation, with some generals convinced that the bluffing Americans might not have another bomb. And, in a way, they were right. After the second bombing at Nagasaki three days later, the tiny American nuclear arsenal was temporarily exhausted.
Nor had even the second atomic bomb convinced the Japanese military to surrender.
Instead, on August 15, 1945, disgruntled dead-ender officers launched an attempted military coup to prevent Emperor Hirohito from addressing the nation about Japan’s intention to surrender unconditionally.
Some of Truman’s top generals and admirals later expressed criticisms of the bombings. But often their objections arose because they felt their own forces had already doomed the Japanese. A dramatic atomic end to the war had thus overshadowed the hard prior work of their conventional forces in defeating the Japanese military.
Pacific B-29 forces commander General Curtis LeMay, hardly a dissident, objected that his B-29 fleet had already destroyed half of Japan’s urban areas and much of its industry — and could easily and rapidly force a surrender through further conventional incendiary bombing.
Indeed, LeMay had planned to supplement his then-current force of 1,000 B-29 bombers stationed on the Mariana Islands, some 1,500-1,700 miles distant from most Japanese targets, with a huge new force of additional B-29s — at war’s end, some 5,000 were on order. Veteran bomber crews from the Eighth Air Force, reassigned from postwar Europe, were to augment this massive force.
After the German surrender, the British, in Operation “Tiger Force,” also planned to send over some 150 to 200 heavy Lancaster bombers to join the Americans at their new bomber bases on newly conquered Okinawa — a mere 1,000 miles from Tokyo.
With such a huge bomber armada and flight times cut nearly in half, LeMay assumed that he could have ended the war within weeks without the atomic bombs, albeit at a far higher cost to the Japanese people and his own air crews.
LeMay’s March 9-10 firebombing of Tokyo remains the deadliest single day of warfare in human history, likely accounting for more than 100,000 Japanese deaths; moreover, it was far more lethal than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Indeed, the incendiary bombing campaigns killed at least twice as many Japanese as died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King also joined LeMay in regretting the use of atomic bombs. On similar personal grounds, he argued that his vast fleet of submarines, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, and carriers — by 1945 larger than all the navies of the world combined — had already blockaded all of Japan’s ports. They had mined its waters, sunk most of its merchant marine, and destroyed the Japanese navy. Thus, King believed his ships could starve the Japanese into surrender.
Saving, Not Destroying, More Lives
Yet, despite these even more ruthless alternative proposals, the real reason the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the Truman administration’s sincere belief that the new weapon was the only way to shock the Japanese into ending the war as quickly as possible and thereby prevent — as it had announced at the time — the likely horrific invasion of Japan that otherwise would have been needed. Indeed, it is likely that the two bombs saved tens of thousands of Allied and millions of Japanese lives by averting a two-pronged, two-year invasion of the Japanese homeland.
All controversies about the atomic bomb’s initial creation aside, in the 81 years since the end of World War II and its 70 million deaths, there has not been, as feared and often predicted, a World War III. The Cold War was not hot because shared fears of mutually assured nuclear destruction deterred the first use of the massive Russian arsenal.
The current worry about nuclear proliferation is not so much an inherent terror of these horrific weapons themselves. None of the current nine nuclear nations have used any nuclear weapons since their inaugural appearance in 1945. The real fear is instead that rogue states, autocracies, and dictatorships — without voter, media, or opposition oversight — will acquire or have already obtained them and are more likely to do something stupid by launching a preemptive nuclear strike.
In other words, the world does not actually believe that the democratic U.S., France, the United Kingdom, Israel, or India will start a nuclear war. It is more concerned that a nuclear-armed strongman in China, North Korea, Pakistan, or Russia — or a terrorist group that gains this unchecked power — will do the unthinkable. The problem, historically, has not always been the appearance of a new deadly weapon but rather the type of state or ruler who possesses it.
Still, despite all this, nuclear weapons are now seen as taboo and associated with national or even global annihilation. And so the world currently scorns even the mere talk of deploying them. But what is truly frightening at the moment is not so much the eight-decade-old nuclear age as what might follow from it.
In our globally connected, post-biolab-spawned-pandemic era — full of Star Wars-like lasers, AI-controlled drone swarms, nearly 17,000 active satellites overhead, and sophisticated biological and chemical agents — terrorists, rogue nations, and delusional autocratic governments may well conclude that nuclear weapons are just one deployable asset in their multifarious arsenals of mass death: sometimes vulnerable to antimissile defenses and often not unique in their lethality.
In short, we may consider nuclear weapons, along with other weapons that are just as deadly, to be Satanic, but they certainly were not first created by the devil.
Rather, on balance, good people sometimes invented bad weapons to stop far worse people from killing innocents.
“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” — St. Augustine.
August is gone. September is here. How time flies!
“September days have the warmth of summer in their briefer hours, but in their lengthening evenings a prophetic breath of autumn.” ― Rowland E. Robinson.
GOOGLE Maps has already renamed Lake Ontario Lake America. WINNING!
The United States Supreme Court ruled that President Trump could continue with building The White House ballroom. The vote was 5-4, with the always disappointing Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the 3 Leftist justices.
The Supreme Court’s decision was not on the merits. It was a recognition that the plaintiffs in the case lacked standing to sue. In other words, the plaintiffs did not suffer a concrete injury such that they could benefit from prevailing in the civil action. A usually simple analysis. Chief Justice Roberts is just a Trump hating buffoon.
“Let’s be clear: this isn’t a win. This is proof Trump put our service members at risk to get Venezuelan oil for his billionaire buddies. Putting our soldiers’ lives on the line for private profit is a gross dereliction of his constitutional duty.”
–Senator Chris Van Hollen (D. Md.), criticizing the United States plan taking majority control of Venezuela’s oil reserves.
Yes, what a loss. The United States takes down a communist led narco State which destabilized its neighbors, ran drugs into the United States, and worked hand in glove with China, and then we take control of their massive oil reserves. If only we had more such losses.
“Will prices come down for Americans? Who knows but likely not as much as Trump has forced them up thru his idiotic Iran War. But here’s a guarantee—this will pad the pockets of Trump family and Big Oil companies and delay transition to cleaner energy. Bottom line—Using our troops for a private oil grab is corruption at epic scale!”
–Senator Tim Kaine (D. Va.) bloviating about how horrible that having more oil will prevent Democrats from forcing everyone to drive an electric vehicle and put solar panels on their house roofs.
Tim Kaine is not just an awful Senator. He is an awful person. Just a despicable human being.
“If we elect a Democrat in 2028, I will do everything in my power, whether inside or outside of the government, to unravel Trump’s illegitimate oil deal with the illegitimate dictatorship in Venezuela. I hope CEOs of American companies tempted to get involved in this Trump deal instead think about the long term financial interests of their shareholders and the reputations of their companies. Exploiting resources of the Venezuelan people without their permission is both immoral and not a sustainable economic play.”
–former U.S. Ambassador to Russia under President Obama, Michael McFaul, clearly auditioning for a cabinet position in a future Democrat presidential administration.
Congressional Democrats are not just threatening to “pack” the United States Supreme Court if they regain control of Congress. No, no, no. Congressional Democrats are also discussing imposing term limits on justices (unconstitutional), ethics and recusal standards (unconstitutional), and holding hearings investigating nebulous and false charges against the conservative justices such as Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The Democrats are clearly committed to destroying our federal government.
Representative James Clyburn (D. S.C.) dismissed Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s long and distinguished service. Representative Clyburn believes that Justice Thomas is a race traitor. Mr. Clyburn is a disgrace. He is not fit to carry Justice Thomas’s briefcase.
Senator Rand Paul (R. Ky.) introduced legislation do deny ANY social welfare spending to, or for the benefit of, non-citizens. Naturally, the Democrats in Congress are melting down. If they cannot promise non-citizens the money of American citizens, how will they ever retain power?
“I’m good. I don’t miss them. I don’t. I love them. I’m going to see them tonight for dinner. I love them. But Barack cried when they went to college. I was like, ‘Bye, little — goodbye.’ Now I . . . now Friday nights aren’t wrecked with terror and fear about, ‘Where are you? Where are you?’”
–Michelle Obama, discussing her delight over her daughters leaving home for good.
What an absolute narcissist! She cannot be bothered to have her children around?
Holland went away to boarding school at age 13. She has been at SMU in Dallas for more than 4 years now. English and I made decisions which we deemed to be in her best interests–not ours. Because the truth is, we both miss Holland every day she is away. We love having her at home. But keeping her at home, that would be selfish, as it would not be best for Holland.
Michelle Obama is selfish, in a very different way. She cannot be bothered with the presence of her children. She is a horrible, terrible, no-good woman. Unbelievable.
California is poised to close schools for two Islamic holidays — Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha — and state employees and community colleges could also get those days off. Moreover, public schools will be expected to provide instruction into the positive aspects of Islam. There are positive aspects to Islam? Sigh. Welcome to the Islamic Republic of California.
California wineries are being hard hit. Adult drinking habits are changing. But there is a bigger problem than adults drinking more liquor and beer than wine. And that problem is government overreach. Like most everything good in California, Sacramento wants to regulate and tax it to death. Before taxes, regulatory compliance for vineyards and wineries amounts to more than 12.5% of all production costs. Then there are the taxes, which are sky high. And now the California government wants to impose more taxes, and restrict irrigation of grape vines. At this rate, your favorite wine will not come from Napa or Sonoma. It will come from France.
Baldwin Park, California is the home of the original In-N-Out hamburger restaurant. But Baldwin Park is also now known as the home of Councilman Ricardo Pacheco, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison for public corruption, as he took bribes for certain acts in his position of authority. Councilman Pacheco’s case was not helped by the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation found $62,900.00 buried in his backyard.
Governor Kathy Hochul (D. N.Y.) loves to lecture Americans on feminism. Then why did she recently don a hijab, a symbol of subjugation, in a meeting with Muslims? Hmmmm.
“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”
— Lavretiy Beria, Chief of the Soviet Secret Police under Josef Stalin.
A senior prosecutor in New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office announced that he was directed to focus his work on investigating and charging President Trump, his family, and those individuals and companies associated with him, with crimes.
On August 11, severe thunderstorms hit Gary, Indiana, knocking out power, leaving more than 100,000 in darkness. As of today, it is still dark in Gary.
Local Democrats are blaming the lengthy power outage on “storm racism”. What?
Gary is not experiencing storm racism. Gary is experiencing complete incompetence, and the storm laid it bare. Democrats run Gary, and have for years. There are a few reasons Gary remains in a position of suffering.
First, people literally shot at the power company. NIPSCO (Northwest Indiana’s energy provider) has reported that multiple bullets struck their vehicle as employees tried to navigate the streets of the city and make repairs.
Second, people are abandoning their homes in search of air conditioning, gas, and electricity, leaving property vulnerable to thieves and home invaders. Many refuse to leave their homes for fear there will be nothing to come back to. They must choose between suffering and theft.
U.S. Senate candidate Dan Osborn (I. Ne.) insists that he is a “conservative independent”. He’s not. His campaign is financed by Democrats. Democrats purposefully did not field a competing candidate. And on CNN, Mr. Osborn admits that he agrees with much of the Democrat platform and playbook. The mask is slipping. Dan Osborn is a big, fat phony.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro insists that the Democrat Party is the “party of freedom”. Well then why is Governor Shapiro having his Health Department enact regulations reminiscent of The former Current Unpleasantness? By Governor Shapiro’s directive, government officials would have the ability to enter your home without a warrant or obtain your private health information without your consent. The regulations would also give the Department of Health the freedom to enter a school and interview any student in private, without parental notification. It would also grant authority to institute mask mandates in schools or the broader community.
The question is . . . why? Why does Government Shapiro want to curb the liberties and freedoms of Pennsylvanians?
“Where we reside here at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, and Menomonie homeland, right on the southwest shore of Michigami. For more than 500 years, Native Americans have demonstrated incredible resilience in the face of violent attempts to separate them from their land, culture, and history. We acknowledge that we stand on land taken from its rightful stewards.”
–Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate David Crowley (D.).
Mr. Crowley is supposedly the “moderate” Democrat candidate. He sure does not sound very different from the far Left radical Francesca Hong, whom he barely defeated in the primary.
All these Democrats “acknowledge” that we reside on “stolen lands”. Well, again I ask, why do they not give the land back?
U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D. Tx.) is fond of promoting himself as a “true Christian”. He promises to represent Texas, and to legislate, based on his Christian beliefs. So what does Mr. Talarico’s church believe?
Mr. Talarico has gone to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian in North Austin since he was 2 years old, and he’s preached there himself while at seminary. St. Andrew’s calls itself “Presbyterian & Progressive,” which is putting it mildly. Pull up the homepage and there’s no scripture, no sin, no salvation, nothing that would’ve made sense to a Presbyterian fifty years ago. Just a pledge to “affirm the full participation of all ages, sex and gender identities, races, color, and ethnicities in all our endeavors,” like an HR seminar broke into the sanctuary and started redecorating.
St. Andrew’s is a “More Light” congregation, the PC(USA) label for churches that fully affirm and ordain LGBTQ clergy, and the church says outright it exists to help congregations “lead LGBTQIA+ service and advocacy.” It’s partnered with Out Youth Austin, an outfit built around “youth of all sexual orientations and gender identities.” So when Talarico told his own congregation in 2022 that “our trans community needs abortion care, too,” nobody there should’ve blinked. He was quoting the mission statement.
St. Andrew’s also holds a formal designation as a “Reproductive Freedom Congregation,” a badge abortion-rights groups hand out to churches that fall in line. It’s stapled right next to the LGBTQ material, same page, same self-satisfied tone, like unrestricted abortion access is just another item on the parish activity calendar.
So if anyone doubted The Observations’s prior writings about Mr. Talarico, this revelation should dispel those doubts. He is not a serious Christian, if he is a Christian at all. He is a radical Democrat who believes in murdering innocent children, sodomy, DEI, and, of course, socialism. James Talarico is a delusional and dangerous man.
Iceland’s voters rejected a referendum to begin negotiations on joining the European Union. Smart move!
The State of Alabama is in the top 10 of America’s poorest States. Canada–an entire nation–is poorer than Alabama.
The U.S. economy is superior, our form of government is superior, we have more freedoms and liberties than exist in Canada, we have the NFL, MLB, and the NBA, and a better health system. AND, the U.S. men’s and women’s ice hockey teams beat the Canadian teams in the last Winter Olympics. We beat them at their own game! So in the grand scheme of things, who gives a damn what Canadians think about the United States? We are great, and they are not. They are just jealous.
“The Archangels serve the will of God, bringing guidance and protection to all in need.”
–St. Michael.
The President signed an Executive Order directing the Secretary of the Interior to take all appropriate steps to rename Lake Ontario, Lake America. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Democrats are going nuts over the President’s Executive Order. House of Representatives Democrats are introducing legislation to reverse the naming of Lake America. Representative Debbie Dingell (D. Mi.) said she “deeply resents” President Trump for naming Lake America.
Representative James Clyburn (D. S.C.) told NBC News that if the Democrats retake the House of Representatives, they will focus on impeaching President Trump and packing the United States Supreme Court. Of course they will.
When we last visited Representative LaMonica McIver (D. N.J.), she was attempting to storm an ICE Detention Center, and in the process, assaulted and battered ICE agents. She was criminally charged, and sought to have the charges dismissed, claiming she was immune from arrest. The federal district court in New Jersey did not buy that claim, and so she appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She fared no better there. She should not even think of seeking reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court.
“It is bigger than Trump. Because whenever we do the work of ousting the occupant of the Oval Office, the Confederacy is still alive and well. That’s all my thing. White supremacy is still alive and well. Anti-blackness will still be alive and well. Xenophobia, anti-LGBTQ.”
–Representative Ayanna Pressley (D. Ma.).
Oh, wow. If you are a supporter of the President, you are a latter day Confederate, a white supremacist, a xenophobe, and you hate homosexuals. Did you know that?
Poor Representative Ayanna Pressley is so misinformed. She does not know that it was her party–the Democrat Party–that formed the Confederacy, defended slavery, created the KKK, created and enforced Jim Crow laws, voted against immigrants, and oppressed homosexuals. She just does not know what she does not know. Then again, there is so much that she does not know.
“Today’s arrest is the first of many to come. Unfortunately, because states like California allow non-citizens to easily register to vote and receive a ballot by mail, there’s no telling how many non-citizens are currently registered to vote.”
— First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli, announcing that Honduran national Darwin Jonathan Rivera Flores was charged with two felony counts and could face deportation if convicted, while criticizing California’s current voter registration safeguards and renewing DOJ demands for a voter roll audit.
Someone stole a tractor trailer hauling 34,000 cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer from a Montclair, California distribution center. That is a lot of beer.
“Street vending is a quintessential part of LA’s world-class food scene and a livelihood for thousands of hardworking Angelenos. Supporting LA’s street vendors is more important than ever given ongoing attacks by ICE.”
–Los Angeles, California Mayor Karen Bass (D.).
Mayor Bass directed the LAPD to stop enforcing the laws against illegal, unlicensed street vendors, largely because so many illegal aliens are involved in this trade. Because she is more concerned with illegal aliens’ welfare than she with law abiding citizens.
If you were a licensed, taxed, and regulated brick and mortar business in Los Angeles, how would you react to the Mayor’s directive? If you were a licensed, taxed, and regulated restaurant in Los Angeles, would you be happy?
“My thoughts are with his family and loved ones as they grieve this loss.”
–New York City Comrade Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D.), on the death of a murderer held in Riker’s Island correctional facility. Not a word from Comrade Mayor about the victim and his family.
Former Atlanta Mayor and current Georgia gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms (D.) is sponsoring a children’s Halloween event that will feature LGBTQ++ themes and drag shows. Sigh.
The Franklin County, Ohio Municipal Court judges issued an order preventing ICE agents from arresting illegal aliens in or near the courthouse. That is not going to work out well for the judges.
U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D. Tx.) believes that Christians are “villains” and “mean people”. Of course he does!
Representative Jasmine Crockett (D. Tx.) refuses to campaign with or for Mr. Talarico. That is how bad he is as a candidate.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D.) called a press conference to announce 2 measles related deaths in Lancaster County, and to denounce the Trump Administration as the cause of these deaths. One (1) problem; the Lancaster County Coroner announced that there had been NO measles related deaths in the country for more than 35 years. Huh. Who do you believe, a Democrat Governor possibly running for President, or a doctor who sole job is to investigate deaths and their causes?
The Franklin County [Virginia] Sheriff’s Office arrested Mexican national Jorge Gilberto Zamorano-Burciaga on August 12 in Rocky Mount after an investigation. Zamorano-Burciaga has been charged with nine counts of possession of child pornography, six counts of produce/make child pornography with a child less than 15 years old, three counts of reproduce/sell child pornography, two counts of possessing obscene material using minors, and one count of reproduce/transmit/sell child pornography. ICE has lodged a detainer with Virginia, and asked Governor Spanberger (D. Va.) not to release him, but to turn him over to it, for deportation. Will she comply? I’m not holding my breath.
Virginia State Senator Louis Lucas (D.) sponsored a bill raising Virginia’s minimum wage to $15.00 per hour. She said that the State requiring employers to pay employees more was the right thing to do. EXCEPT, Senator Lucas is quite disturbed that construction companies building data centers are paying their workers more, attracting construction workers from building things that Senator Lucas prefers, such as low income housing. Hmmmm.
What arrogance. What makes elected officials think that they are the ones to determine who works where, and how much they should be paid to do the job? Politicians create nothing, run nothing . . . all they do is make things worse by interfering with those in the private sector who do create and run things.
In Harrisburg, Missouri, locals used to gather at a local gas station/restaurant for breakfast and to socialize. But the local gas station/restaurant closed. So grandmother Katie Kite started serving coffee and breakfast for her neighbors who wanted to stop by and visit. Eventually, much of the town of 300 wandered by, some regularly, some occasionally. Katie Kite did not sell coffee or food, though many left her tips to help her pay for the groceries. It sounds like a lovely situation, kind of like Barney regularly stopping by Andy’s house in the morning, when Aunt Bea would fix him coffee and food. Actually, it was a lovely situation. The Boone County Department of Health got wind of the locals enjoying each other’s company and Katie Kite’s hospitality, and threatened her with jail if she did not become a licensed restaurant. Remember–Katie Kite was not selling food, she was providing it to her neighbors. But unless she submitted her home to licensing, health inspections, regulation, and installed a commercial kitchen (est. price, $100,000.00), she would lose her home and her freedom. So Harrisburg locals no longer have a place to gather in the mornings. But the Boone County bureaucrats are patting themselves on their backs for shutting down this grandmother as a threat to good public order.
Christ Episcopal Church in Dearborn, Michigan is partnering with Mother of the Savior Lutheran Church, to fight alongside Muslims for social justice and against “xenophobia”. Wonderful.
Southern Living magazine has once again named Duke’s Mayonnaise as the very best. Of course it did! The competition cannot come close to Duke’s!
“It is the practice of the CBC to exercise extreme caution before using the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism.'”
–Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Public Affairs Director Kerry Kelly, defending the network’s editorial decision to not refer to the 9-11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center as a terror attack.
It is a &#^$! wonder that more Americans do not hate Canada. What a useless &#^$! country.
“Economic sanctions by the United States against Iran, regardless of their name or title, are completely illegal and illegitimate actions that violate the United Nations Charter, international humanitarian law, and human rights. On this basis, all countries are obligated to refrain from implementing such sanctions. In continuation of its hostile and illegal policies against Iran, the U.S. government unveiled a new wave of economic terrorism under the title ‘Operation Economic Outcast’ against Iran on Monday . . . which amounts to U.S. state terrorism against Iran and the world. While condemning U.S. economic terrorism, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasizes the determination of the Iranian nation to utilize all capacities to defend the homeland against military, economic, and hybrid aggression.”
–Statement by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Iran–the world’s largest State sponsor of terrorism, since 1979–is accusing the United States of being a terrorist? Ha, ha, ha, ha. Good one!
The United States struck a deal with Venezuela, giving America control over 65 billion barrels of oil. WINNING!
The Venezuelan oil deal will significantly lower gasoline prices in the United States. Everyone should be happy, correct? No, no, no. The Democrats are outraged over the deal. Representative Ro Khanna (D. Ca.) took to the airwaves to denounce the deal as “colonialism”. Sigh.
There was horrible flooding in Nepal, killing hundreds with thousands missing. It was a horrific tragedy.
Of course the Left took the occasion of the Nepal flooding to blame it on “climate change”. Of course.
The United States Treasury Department cut off Egypt’s 2nd largest bank, Banque Misr, from access to the U.S. financial system. Maybe Banque Misr should not have been supplying Iranian connected companies with funds. President Trump warned them.
U.S. military trial judge Lt. Col. Michael Schrama ruled that 9-11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s 2007 statements made to FBI investigators were not voluntarily given, citing “severe coercion”. Sigh. Let’s just hang the S.O.B.
The WNBA continues to spiral out of control over the issue of men playing in the league. The WNBA commissioner claims that “no man has ever set foot on a WNBA court.” Well, not so fast. Layshia Clarendon played in the league for 11 seasons. Layshia Clarendon is a man, who thinks he is a woman. Huh.
College football is back. WOO HOO!
The Tarheels football team went all the way to Dublin, Ireland, with everyone expecting them to lose to TCU’s Horned Frogs. ESPN’s Paul Finebaum was pondering how long UNC head football coach Bill Belichick would keep his job. Well UNC beat TCU, to avenge the beating it took last year in the season opener. How ’bout that? Gus Barber and Bill Sibbick are ecstatic.
Stanford beat Hawaii. Virginia dominated N.C. State. Florida State beat the Little Sisters of the Poor.
USC began its football season as usual, playing a cupcake in San Jose State. And USC beat the Spartans into the ground. Before an empty stadium. How embarrassing! Hmmmm. Here’s a thought; if you want to draw the fans through the gates, try scheduling a quality opponent.
Memphis beat UNLV. Sacramento State lost its first ever Division I FBS game to Eastern Michigan. But North Dakota State won its first ever Division I FBS game over Jacksonville State.
Congratulations to Scottie Scheffler on winning the Fed Ex Cup. He won the Tour Championship at East Lake Country Club in Atlanta, Georgia, edging out Viktor Hovland.
Martinsville, Virginia Sheriff Steve Draper has died. He joined the department in 1973, and following his election as Sheriff in 1994, he became the longest serving Sheriff in the Commonwealth. R. I. P.
Former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Larry Christenson has died at age 72. R. I. P.
Former Boston Red Sox catcher Rich Rowland has died at age 62. R. I. P.
BY: Noel S. Williams, The American Thinker (August 28, 2026).
Canadian politicians wallow in multiculturalism; they want to be all things to all people. The leftist idiot Justin Trudeau, for example, said it was a “good thing” that Canada has no core national identity.
Their current Prime Minister, the effete wussy Mark Carney, could also use a thorough regimen of testosterone replacement therapy. Then, maybe he could grow a pair and effect some “muscular liberalism” as expounded by ex-U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron.
Lacking identity, Canada is a confusing hodgepodge of cultures. In addition to the indigenous natives, their roots are mainly British, but also French. The last is particularly problematic.
About 22% of Canadians speak French. Many live in the province of Quebec. Another heavily French-influenced area is Ontario, particularly around Ottawa, where the federal government is situated. This is very problematic — it’s bad enough we have to deal with the French in France, but the Frenchies in Canada are equally supercilious.
By contrast, the regions of Canada that enjoy more British influence are relatively more sensible. Alberta and Saskatchewan, for example, benefit from early British and Commonwealth settlement patterns. Alberta in particular has strong cultural and economic ties to the U.S. The province is widely considered the most U.S.-friendly and culturally American-leaning province in Canada.
There is a non-binding vote pending on whether Alberta should secede. Current polls indicate secession support could be as high as 30%, and after decades of Alberta subsidizing the rest of Canada, one can understand why.
The Canadians are testing the rationale of sovereignty in the nation-state era. After all, how can a nation be a nation if it has no national identity (or border)? They may thumb their noses at us for political expediency (they have upcoming elections and also want to influence our midterms), but they’ve got another thing coming if they think China will be a reliable trading partner.
Today we direct our attention to S. Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia. This was a region in Asia Minor (now modern-day Turkey), just west of Cappadocia. S. Paul had evangelized this area, along with S. Barnabas, during his first missionary journey around A.D. 46. Soon after, so-called Judaizers came in and began to distort S. Paul’s teaching. S. Paul held that salvation was open to all people – both Jew and Gentile – freely. While practicing Jews, who also came to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, could maintain their Jewish rituals and practices, these were not necessary to salvation, according to S. Paul. Gentiles turning to Christianity could do so without any Jewish preconditions.
Certain Jewish adherents to the Christian faith taught that it was necessary for Gentiles to conform to the essentials of the Jewish faith. Before a Gentile could become a Christian, he first must be circumcised and follow the precepts of the Mosaic Law. This sect of Jewish Christians was known as Judaizers. They were both zealous for the Law and also feared losing their Jewish identity should the Law ever be superseded. Most likely, they were centered in Jerusalem, and came under intense scrutiny from the Sanhedrin (Jewish leadership).
The apostolic leadership, along with S. Paul, met in council at Jerusalem to discuss this important matter around A.D. 50. Their conclusions are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles (chapter 15). Here they concluded that it was not necessary for Gentile converts to first convert to Judaism, but required of them only that they adhere to four basic tenets devised to avoid scandalizing potential Jewish converts to Christianity: 1) to abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols; 2) to abstain from eating the blood of animals; 3) to abstain from eating meat from animals that have been strangled; 4) to abstain from fornication (sexual immorality). These precepts seem to have been based on the provisions of the Noahic covenant (found in Genesis, chapter nine) that reach back before Moses and therefore apply to humanity generally. The Apostles were making a distinction between Mosaic coventental obligations and universal obligations belonging to all of humanity under God’s primordial order.
As mentioned last week, several serious problems arose out of the Judaizer controversy. The first and foremost was that it voided the principle that our salvation was given by and through God’s grace towards man, not by anything man might do. Given the reality that it was impossible to keep all the precepts of the Law, if not by action at least by intention, this became an unattainable undertaking. This is why God needed to intercede and provide a means of salvation that stood outside of this conundrum by Christ Himself fulfilling the Mosaic Law faithfully and fully.
The second concern was the matter of table fellowship. Practicing Jews could not enter into the home of a Gentile, nor could they dine with Gentiles without becoming ritually unclean. How could the Church – Jew and Gentile – come together in the Supper of Our Lord, or even practice ordinary hospitality, if this standard was to be maintained? This would necessitate two churches, one Jewish and one Gentile, the very antithesis of both Our Lord’s teaching and the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures. This is why S. Paul fought so vociferously against this distortion of the Gospel.
S. Paul makes the point in today’s Epistle that our salvation is not dependent upon adherence to the Law, but manifests itself in our lives through faith. He uses Abraham as the example. Abraham lived centuries before the Law was given to Moses but yet entered into a covenant with God – through faith. Because this covenant precedes that at Mt Sinai, S. Paul argues that it is superior. It isn’t that the Law is of no value, for God gave the Law for our good – it instructs us in the particulars of sin – but adherence to the Law is not what saves us.
What relevance does this have to our lives and the struggles we experience in our attempts to be faithful Christians? Sometimes we simply need to acknowledge that we are broken by sin. We cannot live as we ought, just as those under the Law could not fulfill perfectly all of its 613 precepts. We have only two precepts – to love God with all our heart, mind and soul, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, as expressed in this Sunday’s Gospel. Yet we consistently fail.
When we rely on our own efforts to win favor with God, we must admit failure. But this is no reason for despair. When we acknowledge our failings and openly confess our sins, we then experience – when we act in faith – a renewal of our covenant with God. Man is incapable of fulfilling perfectly the terms of this covenant. But the perfect man, Jesus Christ, has done just that. So when we live in Christ, that is, when we place our trust in Him, He gives us confidence to stand before the Father.
This is the good news S. Paul desires to share, not just with the Galatians, but also with us. While sin breaks our relationship with God, when we come to Our Lord in faith and with a contrite heart, we can be confident that we will be restored to the Father. Not through anything we have done, but through our faith in the mediation of Christ, our only Mediator and Advocate.
In this period of St. Michael’s Lent, it is particularly appropriate to reflect on the legacy of St. Augustine. The article below sheds light on his effect on Christianity.
The 75-year-old bishop’s condition was worsening. He was trapped inside the Vandal-besieged city of Hippo, for three months. He was struck by a fever and confined to his bed. Fellow bishop St. Possidius, writes about his final moments. His excellency Augustine (354–430 AD) withdrew, allowing only physicians and those with food to enter. Sources provide no precise modern diagnosis beyond fever and progressive decline. He remained mentally clear, with his sight and hearing intact. Today, this North African city is Annaba in Algeria.
5 Key Effects on Christianity
Doctrine on Grace and Original Sin. In his debate with Pelagius, St Augustine split the hairs to show human vulnerability and dependence on divine grace. His life and teachings evidence how—salvation is impossible without God. This has become central to Christian theology as demonstrated in CCC 1996-2005.
Theology of the Church. St Augustine contrasts the City of Man with “The City of God”. He writes of pilgrim souls, journeying together toward the eternal city. In 1684, St Augustine’s concepts were hijacked by the anti-Catholic protestant preacher, John Bunyan in The Pilgrims’ Progress. One of Bunyan’s cruel. elderly giants is named “Pope.”
Integration of Faith and Reason. St Augustine used orthodox interpretations of Plato which helped later theologians like St Thomas Aquinas. Augustine demonstrated that faith and reason are allies, not enemies as referenced in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Examination of Conscience via Spiritual Biography. “Confessions” is a compilation of 13 books. Not only is it a theological masterpiece but it pioneered the way for Western autobiographies. It models the Catholic practice of conscious examination and seeking God’s mercy in the Sacraments. This free spiritual therapy is not offered by any other faiths.
Pastoral Leadership. He was made a doctor of the church because he used his authority as a bishop, to address heresies, guide his flock through political turmoil and leave behind sermons and letters that inspire Catholic preaching today, see Augustine’s Sermons. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI,
St Augustine remains, “a man of passion and faith, of the highest intelligence and tireless pastoral care,” whose voice still echoes in the life of the Church today.
Summary. St Augustine did not only write abstract theology—he wrote from the heart, wrestling with questions of sin, grace, and the human longing for God. His ability to articulate the inner life of the soul have made his works timeless. St. Augustine’s legacy is not just in the doctrines he clarified, but in the way he demonstrated how the “human heart is restless until he rests in God.”
Annaba, Algeria—August 28, A.D. 430
Spending his final days in prayer with the penitential Psalms of David, St Augustine’s soul was taken by the angels. The last recorded prayer associated with him was his plea that God would either:
deliver Hippo from the Vandals,
give His servants strength to endure or
“take me from this world unto Himself.”
As they watched and prayed, St. Possidius wrote that the bishop now “slept with the fathers.” At that time, this giant-among-men’s headstone, was inscribed as below.
“Wouldst know that poets live again, O traveller, after death? These words thou readest, lo, I speak! Thy voice is but my breath.”
People need meaning in their lives, and the decline in faith and uptick in socialism mark a very dangerous shift in that search
BY: Allan J. Feiffer, The American Thinker (August 26, 2026).
The West is losing faith in God, individual responsibility, and the institutions that restrain our worst tendencies. In their place, an increasingly secular culture is bending the knee toward collectivist ideas. Collectivism falsely promises to solve problems that neither human beings nor traditional institutions have. In doing so, it completely forgoes history’s lessons.
As a belief in God declines, people are not abandoning a desire to believe in something larger than themselves; instead, they are looking to the collective—in a misguided belief that government, society, or some other institution will magically deliver equality, justice, security, belonging, and moral order.
This ongoing transposition is accompanied by a loss of faith in individualism and institutions built on individual liberty, private property, voluntary association, and personal responsibility. Increasingly, individualism is viewed not as the cornerstone of a free society, but as the source of inequality, injustice, and social disorder. The collective, by contrast, is portrayed as society’s savior.
Western civilization did not achieve its wealth and power accidentally. Our best features—individual liberty, private property, limited government, and the rule of law—are bedrock requisites for a civil society, developed through centuries of painful trial and error. Human beings are imperfect, and the power of the state is an omnipresent danger to our essential freedoms.
Our founders did not assume perfect individuals would lead us. To the contrary, they assumed that leaders would frequently pursue their own self-interest, that governments might become oppressive, and that even the best of us might abuse their position. Our system is not perfect; however, it was designed to be realistic: intended to prevent imperfect people from acquiring too much power over one another. These are the classic checks and balances collectivists wish to dispose of.
Collectivism is diametrically opposed. For socialists and communists, the collective claims control over economic resources. It’s rational—economic equality is essential; labor is central to economic justice; capitalism is exploitative and ultimately fosters inequality; economic decisions should be subject to collective control; individual freedom is subordinate to collective objectives.
Socialism is Communist lite; fundamentally, it’s only a question of scale that ultimately tilts toward harsh and repressive communism as the means to enforce edicts humans will ultimately reject when they discover they’ve been enslaved.
But underneath the economics is something more fundamental: a different conception of the individual. Collectivists don’t care a whit whether individuals are good or bad. Collectivists simply lack confidence in an individual’s ability to govern themselves. Individual choices are seen as heavily influenced by economic circumstances, culture, class, institutions, and other factors. The individual therefore becomes someone who must be managed, corrected, indoctrinated, and protected from his limitations.
The collective became that answer. This is where the relationship between socialism and religion becomes important. Marx’s intellectual framework was fundamentally materialist. He viewed religion as a false truth arising from human social and material deficiencies. Communist regimes subsequently went further, frequently treating religious faith as a competing source of authority and allegiance to be eliminated.
There is an intriguing contemporary parallel. In a 2021 survey of nearly 13,000 members of the Democratic Socialists of America, roughly 60% identified as atheist or agnostic. The broader ideological divide is striking as well. Gallup found in 2022 that 94% of conservatives said they believed in God, compared with 62% of liberals.
This doesn’t prove that secularism causes socialism, nor that every socialist has rejected God. It does, however, raise a more interesting question:
What happens when people lose faith in God but desire to believe in something larger than themselves?
They still want meaning, moral purpose, and to believe their lives matter. The collective claims it can provide these things by fooling people into believing they are part of a historic struggle and that they, and only they, understand how to produce a superior and just society. It can then justify demanding sacrifice from the individual in the name of the greater good.
In that sense, collectivism can become more than an economic theory.
It becomes a substitute for faith.
However, there is a fundamental difference between religious faith and secular collectivism. Traditional Judeo-Christian traditions start with the concept of imperfection.
Man’s burden is the duality of being capable of extraordinary good as well as extraordinary evil. We therefore place moral limits on everyone—including those who govern us.
Collectivism places its faith in institutions rather than the individual. That distinction matters. If the problem is human nature, changing the economic system doesn’t eliminate it; it merely shifts who has the power to impose it.
The Soviet Union did not abolish human selfishness by abolishing private property, nor did Mao’s China eliminate inequality by collectivizing agriculture. Communist regimes never believed in individual freedom, yet they produced new elites, new privileges, coercion, and enormous human suffering.
Yet those failures have not killed collectivism. Collectivism itself is extraordinarily resistant to a reckoning with its own failures. When socialism or communism fails, believers blame corrupt leaders, insufficient commitment, hostile outsiders, poor implementation, inadequate planning, or something else, but the essential belief lives on like Count Dracula. This time will be different. This time the right people will be in charge. This time the lessons of past failures will finally be applied.
For many adherents, the problem isn’t that the experiment has repeatedly failed. It is that they don’t know—or don’t want to know—how often it has failed and why. And that is where the misunderstanding of history becomes existentially dangerous.
We were never ignorant of inequality or indifferent to suffering. Our systems were constructed because earlier generations understood something that modern collectivists seem to have forgotten: the greatest threat to freedom is not simply inequality; it is concentrated power.
Private property gives each person a stake in the system, while economic independence provides political independence. Voluntary association allows us to separate ourselves from the state, while religious institutions provide moral authority outside it. At the pinnacle of society, the rule of law constrains those who govern us.
Remove these restrictions on wanton power, and the individual becomes nothing more than a subject. That is the paradox of modern collectivism: by seeking to address economic inequality, it gives institutions control over people’s lives and concentrates the power to allocate resources, assuming whoever receives that power will use it wisely. History reveals this fallacy.
The real danger is not simply that Americans might become socialists. Eight percent of Americans describe themselves that way, but most Americans remain far from embracing collectivism. Today’s danger is that the intellectual foundations that kept collectivism in check are being undermined.
When a majority of people desire to give up their independence in favor of the state, no longer understand the importance of private property and individual responsibility, forget why institutions were designed to restrain power, and replace faith in God with faith in government’s ability to perfect mankind, the American experiment will end.
We’ve been down this road before. The destination has not changed simply because a new generation has lost its way.
Faith, science and free enterprise gave the world prosperity that collectivism never could
BY: Robert Knight, The Washington Times (August 23, 2026).
For thousands of years, people typically had short lifespans and were at the mercy of bad weather, crop failures and tyrants. By modern standards, life was “nasty, brutish and short,” as philosopher Thomas Hobbes put it in 1651.
Today, we can barely imagine life before electricity, indoor plumbing, air conditioning, jet travel, automobiles, smartphones, modern medicine and dentistry, and the internet.
All of these things came out of the free market West, which for centuries after the Greco-Roman period was simply called Christendom. None of it came from socialism, which was born during the atheistic and murderous French Revolution in 1789.
Fifty-nine years later, socialism was given monstrous force by Karl Marx’s and Fredeich Engels’ “The Communist Manifesto.”
A perversion of Western philosophy, socialism operates like cancer in otherwise healthy tissue.
Socialism was weaponized by Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Kim Il-sung, Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro, Daniel Ortega and others who used it to tyrannize their fellow countrymen and spread misery.
Socialists refuse to acknowledge their debt to Western civilization. Beijing now has electricity thanks to Michael Faraday, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse. Much of the world has air conditioning thanks to John Gorrie, Willis Carrier and General Electric. Cars are affordable (at least, they were) thanks to Henry Ford. And so on, up to computers and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The free West’s inventions have benefited billions of people. Socialism does not create wealth or spawn original discoveries. It is why the Soviet Union had to steal and adapt. It is why the Chinese communists work so hard to hack Western technology.
At the heart of socialism, Nazism and communism is hatred of God. The Bible sacralizes life and marriage, defends property ownership and truth, and puts government under the authority of heaven.
The Old Testament proclaims the sovereignty of God over man and the promise of a messiah. The New Testament teaches that redemption flows from the wounded hand and side of Jesus Christ, not the grasping hand of government.
To this day, leftists portray Christianity as the enemy of science and equality. That view filters down to schoolchildren via Marxist-educated teachers. It is one of the main reasons that so many young people have benign views of socialism and negative views of Christianity and capitalism.
What the students are not told is that Christianity, far from being a hindrance, has been the key to progress, as explained by Stanley L. Jaki in his 1988 book, “The Savior of Science.”
Jaki was a Catholic Benedictine priest and physicist who earned his Ph.D. at Fordham under the tutelage of Nobel laureate Victor Hess, who discovered cosmic rays. The book explains that the biblical concept of a God-created, predictable order laid the groundwork for the scientific method.
Other societies, such as China, India and Egypt, excelled at some early discoveries such as algebra, architecture, paper and fireworks, but they hit a theological wall at some point.
“They all were dominated by a pantheistic concept of the universe going through eternal cycles,” Jaki wrote. In other words, why bother if it is just an endless cycle of rinse and repeat?
“The pattern is the stillbirth of science in each of them in spite of the availability of talents, social organizations, and long periods of peace,” Jaki said.
Islam, he noted, preserved Greek math and science, such as from Euclid and Archimedes, and created elements of beauty. However, Muslims became content with a capricious reality conferred by Allah — a God whose creation, according to some Islamic scholars, cannot be predicted.
As such, Muslim science began declining in the 11th century, never to recover.
By contrast, the biblical concept of an ordered, discoverable universe has propelled science, with Christians such as physicist Isaac Newton opening up new worlds.
Over the centuries, the West evolved, birthing the Industrial Revolution. In 1776, America’s founding was grounded in the understanding that people are created in the image of God and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
Against this, what did socialism offer? Divisive envy harnessed to political power aimed at making government a virtual god. This diabolical doctrine appeals to man’s vices, including sexual excess, while punishing virtues, such as forming God-centered families and self-governing communities. It hates independent thought and life.
Socialism is sold as fairness and compassion, but in practice, it spreads misery while enriching a few at the top. It operates like a man who watches another man build a house, then taxes him out of it, giving the home to people who hail the tax man as a hero.
It is also prone to violence. From the 2020 George Floyd riots to ongoing acclaim for Luigi Mangione, who murdered Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, in cold blood on a Manhattan street, the left hums with an undercurrent of savagery.
How else can you explain the coven of Democratic women happily applauding Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, as she signed a law allowing the killing of unborn babies right up to the moment of birth?
It is only by God’s grace that any of us can escape the urge to blame our problems on others and take what is not ours.
To the extent that it interferes with our growing in the admonition of God and opening our hearts to his offer of mercy, socialism is doing the devil’s work, and Americans need to put it behind them.
“The Archangels serve the will of God, bringing guidance and protection to all in need.”
–St. Michael.
Our golf team accomplished all our goals yesterday. We finished, very important. We all had fun, extremely important. And no one got hurt. What a great day!
“I’d like to propose that Los Angeles consider a pilot program for free hygienic sexual relief clinics, primarily serving the homeless and unhoused. This means equality, it means private sexual relief through masturbation or where appropriate and consensual with a partner, all funded by public tax dollars and managed with professional oversight.”
–An unidentified speaker at a Los Angeles, California City Council meeting.
California is on the verge of passing legislation that would allow sex offenders to hold public office, including on local public school boards. Who does not want a sex offender serving on their local public school board?
“In about 10 to 15 years, we are all going to be sitting here with smiles on our faces. And I’m going to have a paperweight sitting on my desk. And do you know what that paper weight’s going to be? It’s going to be a piece of the [White House] ballroom after we blow it up.”
–Philadelphia, Pennsylvania District Attorney Larry Krasner (D.).
These people are sick. They are pure evil.
William Lawrence (D. Mi.) is a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. He believes that the U.S. should not be a global power. He also believes that the U.S. human rights record is far worse than that of China. He believes that the U.S. should permit China to eclipse us both militarily and economically. So, of course he is the Democrat nominee.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court has blocked the city from installing two 10-foot statues of St. Michael the Archangel, the patron saint of police officers, and St. Florian, the patron saint of firefighters, outside its new public safety building. The Left demands that God be banished from the public square, in order to satisfy its atheistic following.
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger (D.) admitted that there are more than 300,000 illegal aliens living in Virginia. She laments the fact that federal changes will make them no longer eligible for Medicaid. And she lamented the fact that so many lacked compassion for these “Virginians”.
First, these illegal aliens are not “Virginians”. They are illegal aliens. Second, why should illegal aliens be given government benefits, paid for by hard working Virginia taxpayers?
More than 1/2 of all murders committed in Fairfax County are committed by illegal aliens. Governor Spanberger, and her ally, Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano (D.), protect these illegal aliens, refusing to cooperate with ICE, dropping or lowering criminal charges, and allowing them to roam the streets at will, until finally someone dies. “Someone” is a U.S. and Virginia citizen, who deserves better from their State government.
Make Abigail Go Away!
“I applaud the Greene County sheriff for working with ICE to make that we don’t have illegals on our roads, illegals out here committing crimes and things of that nature, unlike our attorney general, who’s the chief law enforcement officer of our state out here picking fights with sheriffs over illegal immigrants.”
–Virginia Delegate Terry Kilgore (R.).
It seems that Attorney General Jay Jones (D.) is investigating the Greene County Sheriff for cooperating with ICE agents, in rounding up illegal aliens in the Commonwealth of Virginia. How can this possibly be construed as a bad thing?
The Smithsonian Institute’s National Zoo has been pushing a radical Leftist agenda for years. Instead of educating visitors about animals and their habitats, the administrators have been pushing the “climate change” agenda, even configuring in DEI, insisting that a lack of cultural diversity in society contributed to “climate change”, which was man-made, which would destroy the planet. And what would a radical Leftist agenda be without an obligatory shout out to the LGBTQ++ crowd? Sigh.
Sometimes, it is nice just to walk around and look at the pandas, elephants, tigers, monkeys, and penguins. I used to do that regularly, smoking a cigar, and just relaxing. Sadly, the National Zoo banned smoking some years ago, even though it is outside.
I tried the Chick-Fil-A chicken and waffles sandwich. It is a chicken breast filet between 2 tasty waffles. It comes with maple syrup and bacon. And they put the sandwich in a napkin so that your fingers to not get sticky from handling it. It was quite tasty, and I heartily recommend that you rush to your nearest Chick-Fil-A and try it out. You will not be sorry.
The P.F. Chang’s restaurant at Fashion Island shopping mall in Newport Beach, California, is closed. That was the very first P.F. Chang’s restaurant I ate at, and I recall it being delicious. It is hard to believe that that was more than 30 years ago.
Meta (Facebook, Instagram) agreed to pay more than $17 billion to several States over claims it designed systems to “addict” young users. Meta also agreed to implement technical safeguards in its programs. Sigh. Yet another shakedown of business by government.
Why are children on Facebook and Instagram? Because of their parents. The parents purchased the phones. The parents fail to supervise their children’s use of the phones. This is not a Meta problem. This is not an injury to government. This is a parenting failure.
Ontario, Canada Premier Doug Ford threatened to cease electricity exports to the United States. Huh. How about if the United States bombs the sh*t out of Ontario? What do you think, Doug?
The National Football League has finally, mercifully, terminated the annual Pro Bowl game. Thank you!
PGA Tour Champions golfer Matt Gogel has been suspended for 6 months, for gambling on PGA Tour sponsored events. To be clear, Matt Gogel never bet on any event in which he played. He cooperated with the investigation, and has apologized for his actions. Still . . . .
Bill Maher exposes J.D. Hall’s nonsense about Muslims and Christians
Young Americans need real history, not TikTok myths and Ottoman revisionism
BY: Everett Piper, The Washington Times (August 23, 2026).
Recently, comedian Bill Maher, in discussing the history of Israel and the Middle East, said the following on his show: “Young people [are learning] everything about Israel on TikTok. They don’t know s—-, and their leaders are not standing up and saying, ‘Kids, you don’t know what’s going on here.’”
Of course, Mr. Maher is right about all this, with one exception. Everything the burgeoning political class knows about the Middle East is not learned just on TikTok. Unfortunately, much of it is derived from pseudo-intellectuals such as disgraced Baptist minister J.D. Hall.
As I wrote two weeks ago in this column, Mr. Hall is a former pastor from Sidney, Montana, who was indicted in 2024 on charges of drug abuse, domestic violence and felony embezzlement. As a result of pleading “no contest” to these charges, he received a reduced sentence and an expunged record if he complied with all the conditions of his probation.
Today, Mr. Hall boasts of never “technically” being convicted of any of these crimes (again, because of the terms of the plea deal). This is the “theologian” Tucker Carlson featured on his show to discuss all things related to Islam, Israel and the Middle East and how Muslims have historically treated Christians.
Although the dialogue between Messrs. Carlson and Hall lasted an hour and 44 minutes, it can be summarized as follows. After spending about 54 minutes describing the evils of evangelical dispensationalists (people Mr. Carlson has said he “despises more than anyone else”), Mr. Hall began to laud how “kind” the Ottoman Empire was to Christians versus the “hostility” and “violence” perpetrated against believers in the modern state of Israel.
Mr. Hall’s curious example of Jewish animus versus Islamic love was his claim that Tel Aviv taxes the Christian church while Muslims have never taxed it.
In fact, here is exactly what he said: “The Muslim rulers didn’t tax churches. During the Ottoman period. They were very kind to Christians.”
Is this true? Were Muslim rulers in pre-British Palestine and its ancillary region very kind to Christians? And is it accurate to say that the Ottoman Empire never taxed the church?
The answer is unequivocally no. This is not true.
First, any fair reading of history quickly dispels the notion of Islamic “kindness.” Even Muslim artwork depicts the barbarity of the Ottoman reign. Beheadings and crucifixions were common practices. Christians who refused to renounce their faith were also impaled, drawn and quartered and burned at the stake.
Women were raped, and children were conscripted into slavery. Even as recently as the 1860s, the “kindness” of the Muslim massacres in Lebanon and Damascus resulted in thousands of men and women being summarily executed simply because they were followers of Christ.
What about Mr. Hall’s claim that Islam has never taxed the church? Well, that is also pure fabrication.
Take, for example, the practice of Islamic apartheid, otherwise known as the “millet system.” This was a segregationist scheme dreamed up by the Ottomans to abuse, humiliate and subjugate all the non-Muslims they had, for whatever reason, chosen not to kill.
Under this caste system, these “very kind” Muslim rulers essentially forced all Christians into ghettos (i.e., “millets”), where they were required to pay three kinds of taxes in exchange for being allowed to live.
First, there was the jizya tax. This was imposed on all non-Muslims (otherwise known as “dhimmi”) who refused to convert. The jizya was a “poll or tribute” that Christians were required to pay in exchange for being allowed to live in their now-conquered towns and villages.
Failure to pay this tax resulted in serious penalties up to and including fines, imprisonment, even death.
Second, there was the kharja tax. This was a tax on all private property held by Christians. It was often so overwhelming that it led to foreclosure and the confiscation of property so that it could be redistributed to local Muslims as a result.
Third, there was the devshirme, otherwise known as the “blood tax,” and it was the most pernicious of all. This was a “levy of children” imposed by “kind Muslim rulers.” It forced Christian parents to “pay a tax” of one (or more) of their sons to the Ottoman state so these little boys could then be marched off and trained to become jihadis for the Muslim empire.
Refusing to pay the devshirme was considered an act of treason and punishable by death.
As a former minister (defrocked though he may be), Mr. Hall surely knows that the church is not the four walls of any given building. Rather, it is the collection of believers otherwise known as “Body of Christ.” Furthermore, he must know that his claims about Ottoman rulers being “very kind” and “never taxing” it are patently absurd.
Mr. Maher’s basic premise is spot on. The “kids” today don’t know anything about Israel, Islam, Christianity and the Middle East, and for two reasons: Either their education is no deeper than TikTok or, worse, they are getting their information from discredited men such as J.D. Hall.
DSA and late-term abortion reflect the same depravity
BY: Don Feder, The Washington Times (August 23, 2026).
In Luigi Mangione — who confessed in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — we see the grinning face of evil staring at us from the abyss.
Pleading guilty in federal court to interstate stalking resulting in death, Mangione said he knew that what he was doing was “illegal,” a word better suited to describe littering or jaywalking. He did not say that it was immoral or evil because he did not believe it was wrong.
He also expressed no remorse for taking a man’s life, making that man’s wife a widow or making the man’s children fatherless.
An alarming segment of the population condones Mangione’s malevolence.
According to an Emerson College poll, among 18- to 29-year-olds, 41% believe the murder was either somewhat or completely acceptable.
America’s sane center is eroding. A CloudResearch survey showed that 20% of Democrats thought the murder of conservative leader Charlie Kirk was justified. That figure rose to 32% among Democrats younger than 30.
The week that Mangione pleaded guilty to cheering onlookers, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a far-left Democrat, signed a bill allowing abortion up to the moment of birth. Late-stage abortion involves either poisoning the baby in the womb or crushing its skull and extracting the pieces — depravity committed in the name of a woman’s right to choose.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat and an enthusiastic proponent of late-term abortion, said of Mangione’s crime, “Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far.” Still, if people are pushed so far — say, by high insurance premiums or companies not responsive to claims — why can they not push back, and why can that response not involve violence?
This is the left’s standard rationale for bloodshed.
Israel’s presence in the Gaza Strip is deemed repressive, so the murder of 1,200 civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, is either somewhat or completely acceptable. The death of George Floyd was an outrage, so burning down whole city blocks is either somewhat or completely acceptable.
The left believes morality is shaped by ideology. God has no place in its universe.
In the 1946 drama “Dragonwyck,” set on a 19th-century estate in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York, Gene Tierney, whose character was raised in a devout farm family, asks her husband plaintively, “Don’t you believe in God?”
Vincent Price, the powerful landowner, replies, “I believe in myself.”
We later learn that he murdered his first wife and is planning to murder Tierney in pursuit of an heir. An unrestrained ego leads to a morality of convenience.
Ideological killers such as Mangione and Tyler Robinson (currently at the preliminary hearing stage of a trial for Charlie Kirk’s murder) believe there is no law higher than themselves. The Unabomber and Charles Manson would concur.
The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky warned, “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.” He meant things like the Reign of Terror, the Holocaust, dismembering a child in the womb and shooting an innocent man in the back to protest “the deadly, greed-fueled health insurance cartel,” in Mangione’s words.
The Ten Commandments ordain “Do not steal” and “Do not murder.” One logically leads to the other. That is what makes the Democratic Socialists of America so dangerous.
Socialists start with theft and often end in mass murder.
If you can take a man’s property, why not take his life too? The Bolsheviks, Nazis, Maoists and Khmer Rouge followed the logical progression from robbery to murder.
The blood-drenched 20th century is a testament to the relationship between the two.
Under the Bolsheviks, correcting the “unequal distribution of wealth” led first to confiscation, then to collective farms, then to planned starvation and finally to gulags.
The heroes of the DSA include Hamas and Fidel Castro.
In a recent interview with The New Yorker, DSA co-Chair Megan Romer called the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel by Hamas “the inevitable backlash” to Israeli policy. You can push people only so far, right?
On the 100th anniversary of his birth, the DSA website called the late Cuban tyrant “a stalwart symbol of the anti-imperialism struggle and self-determination.” Castro brought untold misery — including starvation and brutal repression — to Cuba.
Given half a chance, the DSA will do the same to America.
When asked what a sinner was, St. Bernadette of Lourdes said that “a sinner is one who loves evil.” In America today, there is a lot of love in the air.
In a way, we should be grateful to Luigi Mangione for putting a human face on the evil that pervades our society.
“Never underestimate the power of prayer in the fight against evil.”
–St. Michael.
Today’s the local Chamber of Commerce golf tournament. My mogul client has put together a powerhouse of a team. Our goal is to finish. Even if we are last. We just do not want to be stranded on the back 9 with no way to get home.
The President has imposed retaliatory tariffs against Canada, effective January 1, 2027. Canada responded by claiming it was “attacked” and that it was not at “war” with the United States, and would impose additional tariffs effective this September. Naturally, the Democrats, mainstream media, and the Never Trumpers are blaming all this on Mr. Trump. Is that fair? Is that accurate? No, and no.
Today I present several commentaries on this dispute. I submit that if you read these pieces, you will see how very deceitful Mr. Trump’s critics are being in their arguments.
Trump’s Canada Tariffs Aren’t the Betrayal Ottawa Claims
Mark Carney says Washington ambushed an ally. But Canada’s protected markets and dependence on US trade tell a different story.
BY: Brabim Karki, The American Spectator (August 23, 2026).
Every diplomatic breakup produces two stories, and the one Ottawa is telling that Washington ambushed a trusted partner at the negotiating table has already won the sympathy of most of the press. It is a good story. It is also incomplete.
What actually happened last week is that trade talks fell apart because the United States asked Canada to accept terms Canada found uncomfortable, and Canada refused. Prime Minister Mark Carney called the American position “unfair” and “uneconomic.” He may be right that it was tough. He is wrong to suggest that toughness, on its own, is grounds for outrage. The United States has run a trade relationship with Canada for decades that gave Ottawa nearly unrestricted access to the world’s largest consumer market while Canada kept its own protections, most notoriously its dairy supply management system firmly in place. Donald Trump’s blunt framing on social media, “Canada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one,” is crude. It is not wrong.
Trade relationships built on one side’s permanent tolerance of the other’s protections were never going to last forever.
Trump’s tariffs are not an act of aggression against an ally. They are the predictable consequence of a negotiation in which one side finally stopped accepting asymmetrical terms it had tolerated for years.
The asymmetry Trump is pointing to is real, not invented. Canadian dairy tariffs on U.S. products have run well above 200 percent under the country’s supply management regime, even as Canadian goods flow south with comparatively modest friction. American dairy farmers in Wisconsin and New York have complained about this for a generation, through Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Trump did not manufacture this grievance. He inherited it and, unlike his predecessors, chose to act on it rather than manage it quietly. Carney’s own advisers have not seriously disputed that the tariff wall exists; they have argued only that dismantling it now would be politically costly at home. That is an argument about Canadian domestic politics, not about whether the American complaint is legitimate.
The walkout itself weakens Canada’s position more than it strengthens it. Carney told reporters the American side “asked too much and offered too little,” then pulled his negotiators from Washington and out of what by his own account had been a week of real progress. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s account is less charitable: Canada, he said, backed away from terms it had already agreed to. Whichever version proves closer to the truth, walking away rewards Ottawa’s leverage only if the United States needs a deal more than Canada does. It does not. American exports to Canada matter, but Canada sends a far larger share of its own economy south than the reverse. A negotiating partner who breaks off talks from the weaker hand is making a statement, not a strategy.
Canada has spent the past several months hedging toward Beijing, and that context matters more than Ottawa would like to admit. A new trade arrangement with China, cutting tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for agricultural access, landed in the middle of a fragile American relationship already strained by years of tariff threats. One can defend Canada’s right to diversify its trading partners. One cannot then act surprised when Washington treats that diversification as evidence that Ottawa is playing both sides, and responds accordingly.
The escalating tariffs on both sides will likely raise costs for consumers in both countries, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is not wrong that supply chains built over 30 years under NAFTA and its successor don’t unwind painlessly. Businesses in Michigan and Ontario alike will feel this fight before their governments do. That is a genuine cost, and it should temper any triumphalism about the tariffs themselves.
But a cost is not a refutation. Trade relationships built on one side’s permanent tolerance of the other’s protections were never going to last forever, and someone was eventually going to test whether Canada’s dairy walls and Washington’s patience could coexist indefinitely.
Trump tested it. Carney blinked first, then called it an attack.
Alliances endure disagreement. What they cannot survive indefinitely is one partner mistaking the other’s patience for permanent policy. Canada is about to find out how much of that patience is left.
BY: Scott McKay, The American Spectator (August 24, 2026).
Brabim Karki’s piece here at The American Spectator on Monday about the breakoff in trade talks between the U.S. and Canada is a must-read, though it’s a little incomplete (and this column is an attempt to fill in a gap). Karki notes, and quite accurately so . . .
Trump’s tariffs are not an act of aggression against an ally. They are the predictable consequence of a negotiation in which one side finally stopped accepting asymmetrical terms it had tolerated for years.
The asymmetry Trump is pointing to is real, not invented. Canadian dairy tariffs on U.S. products have run well above 200 percent under the country’s supply management regime, even as Canadian goods flow south with comparatively modest friction. American dairy farmers in Wisconsin and New York have complained about this for a generation, through Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Trump did not manufacture this grievance. He inherited it and, unlike his predecessors, chose to act on it rather than manage it quietly. Carney’s own advisers have not seriously disputed that the tariff wall exists; they have argued only that dismantling it now would be politically costly at home. That is an argument about Canadian domestic politics, not about whether the American complaint is legitimate.
The walkout itself weakens Canada’s position more than it strengthens it. Carney told reporters the American side “asked too much and offered too little,” then pulled his negotiators from Washington and out of what by his own account had been a week of real progress. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s account is less charitable: Canada, he said, backed away from terms it had already agreed to. Whichever version proves closer to the truth, walking away rewards Ottawa’s leverage only if the United States needs a deal more than Canada does. It does not. American exports to Canada matter, but Canada sends a far larger share of its own economy south than the reverse. A negotiating partner who breaks off talks from the weaker hand is making a statement, not a strategy.
Karki has the tone of the negotiations correct. Canada has stoked anti-Americanism among its population for years, and now Canadians hate Americans as though we’re enemies. It’s hardly a surprise that Mark Carney, the Davos stooge currently running Canada, is treating these trade talks similarly to how Iran treats peace talks with the United States.
Yes, we’re told, but the fresh round of hostility coming from the U.S. side is an abrogation of trade deals that Donald Trump negotiated.
Is that true? Well . . .
Is Canada a transshipment hub for Chinese products into the U.S. market to avoid tariffs? That isn’t an accusation from somebody on X you haven’t heard of (no insult intended to the “Department of Deportations” account, of course); it’s the position of the U.S. government, which two weeks ago issued a report on this very problem.
From the Executive Summary . . .
The United States faces a growing challenge from the illegal transshipment of goods through third countries to evade applicable tariffs and other trade remedies. Exporters in higher-tariff jurisdictions can abuse differences in U.S. tariff treatment across countries to route goods through lower-tariff jurisdictions before entering the American market. Illegal transshipment may involve relabeling, repackaging, re-invoicing, minor processing, false country-of-origin claims, or other actions intended to secure tariff treatment that would not apply if the goods’ true economic origin were declared.
President Trump’s tariff actions have helped to protect U.S. workers and industry, and his Administration has taken stronger actions against countries that pose larger economic challenges. However, the expansion of differentiated tariffs in 2025 has significantly increased the importance of effective transshipment enforcement. Tariff differentials are necessary to address differences in trading practices and levels of reciprocity, but they also create opportunities for arbitrage and evasion. Any higher-tariff country may seek access to the U.S. market through a lower-tariff country, and any lower-tariff jurisdiction may benefit from serving as a production, processing, warehousing, or logistics intermediary for higher-tariff countries.
China provides the most developed historical example of this conduct. Following the imposition of Section 301 tariffs in 2018, the direct U.S. trade deficit with China fell in 2019 and 2020. Even today, imports of a number of Chinese products subject to these original duties, like electric vehicles, are much lower in the U.S. than in places like the European Union. But the overall success of these tariffs co-exists with the abuse, by exporters, of the tariff differentials that they contribute to. After their imposition, Chinese exporters increasingly routed goods through third countries. Products that previously moved directly from China to the United States were shipped through jurisdictions where limited assembly, finishing, repackaging, relabeling, or documentation changes could create the appearance of a different national origin. Over time, these practices contributed to the development of a global network of production hubs, logistics platforms, free trade zones, bonded warehouses, processing corridors, and re-export centers.
And from Page 6 of the report . . .
Tariff arbitrage lies at the heart of modern illegal transshipment, the Great Reallocation, and the Shadow Transshipment Network. When a Chinese product facing a high U.S. tariff can be routed through a country with a lower tariff rate, the difference becomes a profit pool. That spread is what turns transshipment from a marginal customs abuse into a global business model.
For example, ship $1 billion of Chinese goods directly to the United States, and the applicable China-specific tariffs can generate hundreds of millions of dollars in duties, depending on the product mix. Route those same goods through a lower-tariff country and falsely claim a new origin, and much of that duty can disappear. Route them through Mexico or Canada and improperly secure United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) treatment, and the China-specific duty can fall to zero.
Such tariff arbitrage creates the financial engine behind the Great Transshipment Scam. The savings are more than sufficient to finance the capital equipment, logistics infrastructure, light assembly plants, repackaging operations, and “screwdriver factories” needed to support the scam across Southeast Asia, Mexico, India, and Eastern Europe. These facilities are designed less for true manufacturing than for origin-shifting, tariff evasion, and tariff avoidance.
Now from Page 8 . . .
China’s Shadow Transshipment Network is a distributed system of finishing hubs, logistics platforms, processing corridors, free-zone operators, and re-export centers that allow Chinese goods to enter the U.S. market under new national identities. The roughly 40 countries identified as participants in the Great Transshipment Scam can be grouped loosely into three tiers, as shown in Table 1 on the following page.
For purposes of this report, “China-linked goods” means goods that are not necessarily declared as Chinese-origin at entry but carry substantial indicia of Chinese economic origin, control, or content. These indicia may include China-origin inputs or components, Chinese ownership or financing, relationships with Chinese suppliers or manufacturers, China-based production steps,
China-origin routing histories, or other trade-flow evidence suggesting that the goods may be part of a China-origin illegal transshipment or origin-shifting scheme.
Tier 1 consists of the Diversified Scale Leaders: countries and trading blocs that account for large absolute volumes of China-linked goods while maintaining diversified industrial bases and major U.S.-bound export platforms. In these jurisdictions, illegal transshipment risk is embedded within broad legitimate trade flows. Tier 1 includes Canada, the European Union, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Yes, you are reasonable to ask why Canada is being singled out among several Tier 1 countries participating in this scam, which the White House refers to as “smuggling disguised as trade.” But consider that this is going on at the same time the Canadians are running a slew of anti-competitive trade practices across a host of industries. Canadian dumping has more or less destroyed the U.S. timber industry, for example, and the attacks on dairy products, alcohol, and a number of other industries have been meticulously documented. That Canada is a poor trade partner is hardly in dispute.
Even so, but for Canadian oil exports, the U.S. would run a trade surplus with Canada. That gives you the relative position of the two.
And yes, Canada is threatening to stop the flow of oil and gas to the U.S. as part of this trade war. But there is a problem with that . . .
They could have built a west-to-east pipeline such that stopping the flow of oil and gas to the United States wouldn’t destroy their own economy. They didn’t. And unless they want to pack the rail lines with oil trains, this is a very hollow threat.
It should be remembered that the tariffs President Trump is threatening against the Canadians don’t kick in until Jan. 1. He’s deliberately building a long runway to allow Carney and his minions to quietly return to the table and negotiate something acceptable to the U.S. position. Perhaps both sides are guilty of more bluster than is necessary.
But Canadian behavior is a real issue which does deserve address. Allowing Canada to become China’s transshipper of choice, whether it’s for steel and aluminum or for fentanyl and birth tourism, is not something our interests can allow.
Better a hot summer of angry talk and cooler heads prevailing later this year than continuing to permit Chinese smuggling through ports run by hateful, deceitful, anti-American Canadian leftists.
The illusion of leverage in Canada-US trade negotiations
Mark Carney chases Canada’s businesses to the U.S., and Trump welcomes them with open arms.
BY: Christian Vezilj, The American Thinker (August 25, 2026).
The latest failure in the trade talks between Canada and the United States has revealed a basic mismatch between political rhetoric and economic reality. Although Canadian officials, such as Prime Minister Mark Carney and the country’s trade negotiators, are still expressing confidence and maintaining that Canada has real leverage in arriving at a future agreement, the basic economic situation paints a completely different picture—one which Canadian businesses understand far better than the political leadership responsible for representing them.
The imbalance starts with a simple and inevitable fact: around 75% of Canada’s exports go directly to the United States, whereas only a small part of American exports go north. This imbalance is a fundamental characteristic of the Canadian economy. Since one country relies so heavily on access to the other’s market, the position of leverage becomes inherently unequal. Although Canada may be a worthwhile partner, it is not on an equal footing when it comes to bargaining power. The United States can endure trade tensions much more easily than Canada can, and Canadian companies know it.
Yet the Canadian government acts as if that imbalance does not exist. Political figures talk about staying firm, resisting pressure, and negotiating from a position of strength. While this approach might be acceptable within the country, it fails to account for businesses’ incentives, since they produce Canada’s economic output. The gap exists because politicians have no personal stake in the outcome. Whether trade improves or worsens, elected officials and bureaucratic negotiators do not see their income, investments, or market access suffer. The risk they face is political, not financial. At most, a wrong move could cost them the election several years in the future. For Canadian manufacturers, on the other hand, the effects are immediate, tangible, and possibly disastrous.
The gap between political posturing and economic reality is evident in the way companies are behaving. A recent report by The Globe and Mail on a survey carried out by KPMG found that almost 20% of Canadian manufacturers have already moved some of their production to the United States, and over 30% intend to do so in the coming years. Their reasons are clear: they want to avoid tariffs, gain access to a bigger and more stable consumer market, take advantage of favorable U.S. tax and regulatory conditions, and ensure their long-term competitiveness. These firms are not making ideological declarations; rather, they are reacting to incentives. They are acting rationally in a situation where the United States offers greater profits, more stability, and more opportunities than Canada does at present.
All companies that shift production south of the border decrease Canada’s manufacturing capacity, job opportunities, tax income, and its future ability to negotiate. At the same time, the United States gains jobs, investment, and control over its supply chains. The Canadian government’s continued emphasis on appearing tough has no effect on this trend; in fact, it accelerates it. If businesses think political leaders are disregarding economic realities, they will take action and move to places where incentives align with long-term survival.
Behavior, not political statements, determines leverage. Even though Canadian negotiators assert that they can set the terms, their companies are responding by moving production, limiting capital spending, and altering investment plans in ways that reveal the real balance of power. These actions prove what the market has always known: the United States has the stronger economic position, and Canada’s negotiating stance is becoming more dangerous.
It doesn’t mean Canada has no influence at all; rather, it means Canada should bargain from a basis of reality instead of relying on empty words. A mutually beneficial agreement is still possible and worthwhile, but only if Canadian leadership admits the structural dependence that shapes the relationship. Trying to impose terms on a partner that is ten times larger in size is not a sign of strength; it is damage to Canada itself. The companies moving from Canada to the United States are not disloyal to their country; they are reacting to incentives set up by a government unwilling to acknowledge the limits of its own influence.
In the end, the difference is clear: politicians can afford to have illusions, but businesses cannot. And as long as Canada’s leadership does not adjust its strategy to match the economic realities its companies already know, the country will continue to lose investment, jobs, and negotiating power—step by step, with each factory that is moved.
Canada Chooses Climate Change, Censorship, and China
The U.S.-Canada Trade War takes off.
BY: J.B. Shurk, The American Thinker (August 24, 2026).
Central banker Mark Carney is doing that peculiar Canadian thing again — acting tough while exuding weakness. Just before midnight on Friday, the former governor of the Bank of England and King Charles III’s current prime minister in North America announced that trade talks with the United States had collapsed. This was expected, even though the Canadian and American trade delegations had publicly expressed optimism on Wednesday that a mutually beneficial framework for future trade relations was within reach.
The British Empire’s “climate change”-obsessed central banker announced the official start of the U.S.-Canada Trade War on his X account. That’s ironic because the Canadian government considers Elon Musk an enemy, restricts what information Canadian citizens can see on social media platforms, and seeks to tax and regulate all online communication. Because of the Canadian government’s censorship/propaganda machine, most Canadian citizens have no idea how economically vulnerable their British vassal state really is. Carney’s public memorandum makes it sound as if Canada’s economy is the envy of the world, when it is nothing more than a plaything for Chinese smugglers and European bankers who use the country as an entry point into U.S. markets. The average Canadian is about to learn how dependent Canada has always been upon the unreciprocated generosity of the United States.
Canada is a weigh station for moving products into the United States. Its value for other nations lies in its uniquely favorable trade agreements with the U.S. Canadian banks and manufacturers act as middlemen for foreign nations skirting American trade laws. For its trade- and money-laundering services, Canada receives a cut of the profits. China takes advantage of this arrangement by “snow-washing” their goods through Canadian shell corporations and hiding their commercial transactions within Canadian financial institutions. Over the decades, this “Trojan horse” operation — in which American adversaries use Canada as an economic workaround for hollowing out vital American industries — has greatly profited our neighbors up North.
In fact, the leftist-globalists running Canada have been able to generate enough revenue by stamping Chinese products, “Made in Canada,” that they have become emboldened to get on their “global warming” high horse and lecture the United States about the imaginary “climate apocalypse.” Even though the U.S. has actually reduced its so-called “climate emissions” by a larger percentage than Canada over the last twenty-five years (a feat accomplished through industrial innovation), the Canadian government pretends that the country’s poorly managed forest fires are the outcome of U.S. capitalism. (This is akin to blaming Thor for thunder.)
While sitting on some of the largest energy reserves on the entire planet, Canada has insisted upon throttling its own hydrocarbon output in the name of “fighting global warming.” By waging war against its own energy industry, Canada makes itself economically and militarily vulnerable. It cannot build things anymore. It is not self-sufficient. It depends upon kickbacks from communist China and military protection from the United States. These dual dependencies are mutually exclusive in a world in which China and the U.S. are already engaged in various forms of hybrid warfare.
Britian’s man in Canada, Mark Carney, is globalism personified. As the former governor of the Bank of England, he spoke regularly about a future in which central bankers managed the planet’s resources and economic activity. He has been a lifetime proponent of using the “global warming” bogeyman as a justification for controlling all human behavior. Carney is afflicted with the same narcissistic disease that grips all of Europe’s political and economic “elites”: He does not believe in the value of free markets, free speech, or human liberty. He is, at heart, a totalitarian committed to the proposition that a small cabal of central bank oligarchs and political aristocrats should exercise complete power over everyone else.
Two centuries ago, the great energy revolution began. Hydrocarbon energies trapped in coal, oil, and natural gas changed the world. Productivity skyrocketed. Industrial innovation skyrocketed. Material wealth, lifespans, and population growth skyrocketed. It seems no coincidence that as these free market innovations exponentially increased the world’s wealth and population, some of the most wealthy and powerful families in Europe and the Americas began to work earnestly on the best ways to arrest both trends. In different committees and associations formed since the nineteenth century, Western “elites” have strategized how to put the Industrial Revolution back into Pandora’s box. Among their “solutions” to population growth, globalists have fantasized about famine, war, and pestilence while promoting abortion-on-demand, homosexual lifestyles, and the dissolution of families and marriage. The “global warming” canard has been with us at least since the beginning of the twentieth century, and propagandists posing as “academics,” “journalists,” and other assorted “experts” have put it to great use.
The idea is simple: If people can be scared into believing that so-called “fossil fuels” are leading to Armageddon, then they will consent to government bureaucrats managing all economic transactions. Free markets become entirely controlled markets. This is the model that exists throughout the world today. That’s why we have central banks that manipulate our currencies and “free trade deals” that micromanage every element of trade. This kind of system limits the economic mobility of the average person while ensuring that wealthy “elites” maintain long-term control over society.
Old Europe prefers this model because it appeals to the aristocratic sensibilities of the noble houses that ran Europe for more than a thousand years. Empowering political and economic “elites” to regulate all economic activity is just a modern form of feudalism and a complete rejection of the wealth-accumulating mechanisms of truly free markets.
This is Mark Carney’s economic model, too. Using Chinese slave labor to build necessary things while taking advantage of complex international banking rules that allow the “right people” to take their economic cut has nothing to do with “free” trade or “free” markets. Carney is a leftist-globalist who craves totalitarian control.
Carney insists that President Trump is acting unreasonably by “[p]utting tariffs on [America’s] closest allies and charging for access to its vast market.” What he doesn’t tell Canadian citizens, though, is that the United States has long allowed European and Canadian businesses to profit from American markets while their governments restrict American producers from reciprocal trade. Through this one-way arrangement, American citizens subsidize Canada and countries across Europe at great personal expense. Instead of thanking Americans for propping up their economies since WWII, these same “allies” have allowed themselves to become conduits for communist China and multinational investment firms to bleed America dry. The North American Free Trade Agreement started a thirty-year global campaign that has destroyed American industry and manufacturing from coast to coast.
President Trump, Treasury Secretary Bessent, U.S. Trade Representative Greer, and a whole army of other “America First” economic thinkers have decided to end this self-inflicted American decline for good. Canadian and European officials are shocked that their parasitic free rides on the backs of Americans have finally come to an end. Because both feudal jurisdictions embrace propaganda and censorship, they will lie to their citizens and claim that President Trump is breaking all the “rules” and acting “unfairly.” What they will not say is that their economies are unsustainable without continuing American welfare.
In his midnight missive to the Canadian people, Britain’s prime minister in North America finishes with this thought: “And we will not allow any nation to determine our future. We will set our own course to keep building Canada strong for all.”
Great. That’s exactly what we Americans want — a future in which national sovereignty means something. Good luck, Canada. No hard feelings. And, Alberta, if you ever get tired of being treated as second-class citizens, you’re welcome to join your American friends!
“A warrior in the name of the Lord knows that divine assistance is all that matters.”
–St. Michael.
On this day in 2003, I asked English Griffith to marry me. She was quite excited. She loved me. I loved her. She was bowled over by the engagement ring I had made for her by a custom jeweler in San Francisco. We were sitting in a quiet corner of Morton’s on Connecticut Avenue, NW in Washington, D.C. English immediately got out her cell phone and began calling friends and family to inform them that she was engaged. I just sat there with an amused look on my face, sipping wine.
Eventually, we went to sit at the table and enjoy dinner. She was glowing. I was still smiling. And finally she asked me what was on my mind. I then asked her what her answer was to my question. Because in all the excitement, English had neglected to actually say “yes”. But she did. And she says it every day, some 23 years later. I am one lucky man.
The President mused over changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. The Left is apoplectic. Ha, ha, ha, ha!
The U.S. State Department paused all visa applications worldwide. Good!
Three (3) high ranking Secret Service officials were placed on leave, and are being investigated for leaking security information. Good golly, Bob!
Last Sunday, the nation’s capital hosted the Freedom 250, a grand prix race through Washington, D.C.’s main streets in the Mall area. More than 100,000 people watched in person, and many more watched on television. It was a grand event, celebrating our capital city and our nation’s 250th birthday.
But not everyone was on board with the merriment. Senator Adam Schiff (D. Ca.) managed to issue disparaging comments about the event, and criticizing the “spending of taxpayer dollars” on the race. We cannot help but chuckle about a big spending Democrat getting the vapors over spending taxpayer dollars. But the chuckle erupts into raucous laughter, as sane people pointed out to Senator Schiff that the race was entirely funded by private dollars.
Maybe Senator Schiff should lighten up a bit. Perhaps he should have attended the race, enjoyed a hot dog and a beer, as well as the sight of so many ordinary Americans having fun.
Hillary Clinton thinks that the Democrats’ flirtation with socialism is “healthy”. What a horrible American.
Socialism is the antithesis of Americanism. It is an evil, discredited philosophy which is at odds, not only with our freedoms, liberties, and Constitution, but also with the teachings of The Bible and The Torah. There is nothing “healthy” in embracing socialism. Indeed, history demonstrates that embracing socialism is quite unhealthy, for all but the privilege few at the top.
Please remember; before there was Obamacare, there was Hillarycare. This is not Hillary Clinton’s first foray into the evils of socialism. She will never be President, but she still wants to control your lives.
“When the President of the United States orders military action against foreign countries, absent an emergency scenario, where American interests are under imminent, dire threat — as was done with Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran — that’s an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’ authority, and a violation of the War Powers Clause. These violations resulted in the deaths of 13 service members, and injuries of hundreds more. For this, the president and vice president must be impeached, convicted, and removed.”
–Air Force Major Jason Watson, standing on the U.S. Capitol steps accompanied by Representative Al Green (D. Tx.).
There are consequences to actions. Major Watson is now facing multiple violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
“If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone is going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.”
–Democrat influencer and consultant, Hasan Piker.
In Los Angeles, California, every dollar donated by a city resident to Mayor Karen Bass’s reelection campaign will be matched by 6 additional dollars from the city treasurer. That is actually the law. And it is insane.
“Bring it on!”
–Governor Kathy Hochul (D. N.Y.), in response to 12 New York State Sheriffs suing her over a New York State law preventing them from cooperating with ICE agents.
Governor Hochul’s disdain for law enforcement, the safety of New Yorkers, and her in your face attitude are just unbearable. She needs to go.
“We have seen that the Democratic Party establishment that we have has to be ripped out. We can actually start to grab hold of the ship of state and steer it in our direction, but it’s going to be a, you know, violent process.”
–Democrat Socialist of America activist Michael Beyer.
Senator Darline Graham Nordone (R.) won the South Carolina Republican Senate primary. Interesting. What does it say about the South Carolina Republican party? More importantly, what does it say about Representative Ralph Norman (R. S.C.), whom she defeated?
“You are only 1% of this nation. We are not a nation of Muslims. I want you to prove to me that we’re not up under Sharia law.”
–Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, addressing the Dearborn, Michigan City Council.
ICE arrested more than 1,300 illegal aliens in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Governor Abigail Spanberger (D.) is not happy. Those are her “constituents”.
Make Abigail Go Away!
Well something is finally being erected on the site of Boss Freeman’s folly in downtown Winchester, Virginia. A decade and millions of dollars later, the vacant lot will have a structure. It will not be a success for city planning. Will it be a success for the private developer?
U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D. Tx.) called voter ID “un-American”, and said he opposes it with “every fiber of his being”. Are you paying attention, Texas voters?
The Highline [Washington] public school district is facing a federal lawsuit after North Hill Elementary School officials searched a Christian child’s backpack for religious materials, confiscated her Bible and later told her she had “no choice” but to participate in school programming that violated her family’s faith. School officials repeatedly searched the girl’s backpack and confiscated her Bible and Gospel tracts because she had been talking about her Christian faith with classmates.
More Americans smoke marijuana than smoke tobacco. Sigh. That is so sad.
Somewhere in suburbia America, there is a child who attends elementary school, and whose mother packs only “healthy” foods for lunch. Carrot sticks, granola, yogurt, etc. But this child really, really wants Oreo cookies. But mother will not permit the child to eat Oreo cookies.
One day the child came home sad, because other children ate Oreo cookies at lunch, which their parents had packed. Well, mother decided to do something about it. Did mother go to Safeway and buy her child a box of Oreo cookies? Oh, no. Instead, mother contacted all the other mothers in her child’s class, and demanded that they not provide their children with Oreo cookies, because her child could not have them, and other children eating Oreo cookies made her child sad.
In Northern Virginia, there are lots of folks just like the No-Oreo Mom. I know some of them. I do not like any of them.
There are a number of Girl Scout programs around the country that incorporate Muslim prayer, Ramadan observance, mosque visits, hijab instruction, and other explicitly Islamic activities. Sigh. When Girl Scouts start offering badges for learning Islamic doctrine, visiting mosques and participating in hijab-related programming, the organization is no longer merely accommodating Muslim members. It is helping institutionalize Islam inside the Girl Scout experience itself.
Jed York, owner of the San Francisco 49ers football team, was arrested in a prostitution ring located in an East Palestine, Ohio trailer park. Oh, my!
The WNBA has decided that former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White are not eligible to play in the women’s league. Does this mean that the WNBA now knows the definition of a “woman”. Not necessarily. We shall see.
“He has demonstrated to us, unequivocally, that he has the potential to be a threat.”
–Michael Alter, the owner of the WNBA Chicago Sky, stating Tuesday that former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom is banned from Wintrust Arena following Sunday’s confrontation with guard Natasha Cloud.
Let’s be clear what that confrontation was about; Sophie Cunningham made a jump shot, prompting Enes Kanter Freedom to stand up and cheer. Natasha Cloud, running back down the court, saw Freedom, rushed over to him, and began berating him in most profane terms. Enes Kanter Freedom was not taunting her, did not respond in kind, it was all Natasha Cloud. But, according to Michael Alter, it is Enes Kanter Freedom who is the problem.
“Never underestimate the power of prayer in the fight against evil.”
–St. Michael.
The FBI set up a secret unit in 2019 to label allegations of corruption against China Joe and his son Hunter as “Russian disinformation” at a time when the former vice president was running for president. The unit tagged prominent Republicans, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Representative Devin Nunes, as channels for supposed Russian lies. The FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force-Russia assembled a special group of analysts, code-named “Round River,” in December 2019, just as House Democrats were impeaching President Trump. Round River’s task was to compile years of intelligence information gathered from confidential human sources on Mr. Biden’s diplomatic dealings in Ukraine and then brief Congress that any anti-Biden reports were Russian fakes.
But, but, but . . . these are “career” public servants! They are non-partisan! NO, THEYARE NOT! But, but, but . . . Orange Man Bad! He’s a “threat to our democracy”! “Literally Hitler”!
Puddin’head has completed the egg freezing process, and promises to keep us all updated as events occur. Sigh. And she wonders why people criticize her.
Senator Chris Van Hollen (D. Md.) told NBC’s Kristen Welker that he was considering a run for President in 2028. When asked about the Democrat Socialists of America, Senator Van Hollen stated that he would not reject their endorsement. Huh.
If Chris Van Hollen runs for President, will Kilmar Abrego Garcia be his running mate? Hmmm.
Washington Post columnist Tamar Haspel wrote a column advocating that Americans stop eating lettuce. Actually, she attacks most vegetables, such as radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and broccoli, as being nutritionally useless. She thinks that it makes more sense to stop planting vegetables, and erect solar panels on farmland. Dumbest column I have read all Summer.
FYI, I like lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and broccoli, as well as most other vegetables. And I am not going to stop eating them.
Goleta, California residents are up in arms about a gun store opening up next to a daycare. Color me unsurprised.
Would Goleta residents have been happier if a vape shop had moved into the commercial space? It is not like the gun shop is going to sell guns to toddlers.
Senator Jon Ossoff (D. Ga.) is a hipster doofus. He has accomplished nothing of note during his term in office. He consumes more make-up than Puddin’head (seriously, his Congressional expense sheets revealed this fact). He is an empty suit. Yet, Democrats are positively orgasmic over speculation that Jon Ossoff might run for President in 2028. Why?
“Me and Graham were pretty aligned on our policies. I believe Medicare for all . . . I’ve been fighting for that forever.”
–U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson (D. Me.).
Senator Susan Collins (R. Me.) should send Troy Jackson flowers. He is really a help to her reelection campaign.
Kansas gubernatorial candidate Cindy Holscher (D.) thinks that Jesus was “trans”. Gracious!
Is it possible that Cindy Holscher is related to James Talarico?
Southern Living magazine editors judged Carbone the best tasting jarred commercial marinara sauce. Victoria White Linen was runner-up. Ragu was an also-ran.
Canada is outraged that the United States imposed tariffs on Canadian goods, and the American press is running with the story that the U.S. “attacked” Canada. The truth is very different. For decades, Canada has had unfettered access to American markets, while maintaining severe restrictions on U.S. goods entering Canada, most notably dairy products. President Trump told Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney that this had to change. Mr. Carney told Mr. Trump that this would make things “politically uncomfortable” for him. Huh. Too bad.
A Louisiana State court judge ruled that NFL players who had not exhausted the NCAA’s new 5 years of eligibility could return to college football. Cleveland Browns tight end Dae’Quan Wright (what kind of name is “Dae’Quan”?) was waived by the team, and he entered the NCAA transfer portal and is now part of the LSU football team. From the NFL to college. This is insane.
Actress Shelley Fabares has died at age 82. R. I. P.
Our society’s Christian foundations are why we value life
The utilitarian atheists among us can’t comprehend that, without those biblical values, their lives would be worth only the price the state assigns them.
BY: Andrea Widburg, The American Thinker (August 23, 2026).
One of the problems with young atheists, who are often socialists and are invariably utilitarian, is that neither they nor their loved ones are near death. Yes, I know that sounds ghoulish and macabre, but the reality is that one of the greatest blessings of living in a country that still clings to its biblical foundations is that it values all life, not just life with some monetary worth to the state. We viscerally feel that as we and those around us age, something young socialists can’t even imagine.
I mention this because two things recently clarified this divide: A friend’s illness and a discussion with a young, utilitarian atheist.
First, my friend. This is an older woman with a genetic, debilitating, and ultimately fatal disease that’s akin to, but not the same as Parkinson’s (so new Parkinson’s treatments won’t work). In addition to her disease, my friend has made very poor life choices that have contributed to her body being completely unequipped to fight back against the disease’s ravages.
The combination of disease and self-created weakness meant that my friend caught a minor cold that quickly ended with her spending two days and nights in the ICU before settling in for a long stay at the hospital. By the time this whole treatment cycle is over, she’ll have spent three weeks in the hospital.
Second, my discussion with the young, utilitarian atheist. He says that a belief in God is just any other belief system, and is worried about the rise of “Christian Nationalism.” He believes that will mean a Handmaid’s Tale world, in which everyone is forced to be a Christian. He couldn’t grasp the idea that America was a foundationally Christian nation for two centuries without that happening.
More than his inability, thanks to modern education, to understand American history without a leftist filter, he also believes that the Western morality from which he admittedly benefits is possible without a Christian foundation. He thinks that murder will continue to be frowned upon if we live in a society in which each life isn’t valued because God created it.
His philosophy boils down to “practical morality” (aka “applied ethics” or “practical ethics”). The founding director of Harvard’s Ethics Center explained (or rather, bloviated about) it in a boring, complicated 1,200-word essay that boils down to this: “Practical ethics studies how people and institutions should make morally responsible decisions when abstract ethical principles collide with complicated real-world circumstances.”
In other words, what do you do if you have the power to control whether a train crashes into one baby or twelve nuns, and there are no other options? Ironically enough, I think that the nuns’ profound morality would say, “Save the baby,” while a utilitarian atheist would say none of them have inherent value and walk away, letting fate decide. (With “fate” also being a belief system, of course.)
In essence, for the young man, it all came down to the greater good. He’ll accept that a life has intrinsic value only if that value can exist without a cost to him. Once the costs start piling up, the accounting begins to weigh that life’s value against competing interests.
This atheist could not grasp that what he described was a straight line to the Nazi’s philosophy. Nazis had taken his ideas and run them all the way down to the bottom of the slippery slope. Because they disconnected from the biblical belief that each life has value, they gave the state the power to decide what lives matter—in other words, this was his anti-religious practical ethics in action, because some strong force in society must always make that utilitarian call.
And of course, as history shows, the Nazi state was able to assign value according to its needs: And it needed to get rid of the Jews, the homosexuals, the mentally ill or physically handicapped, the old and the very young who would not be able to contribute slave labor, etc.
The same thing is happening in Canada and across Europe. What started as a movement to shorten agonizing suffering in people on the verge of imminent death has become a way to save money for socialized healthcare systems. The practical morality is that the needs of the socialized healthcare system outweigh any individual’s claim to life.
Why pay to treat an old man who draws on retirement benefits rather than pays into them? He may claim that his prior payments entitle him to those benefits, but the state is hurting for cash, so he can go. And that cancer patient? Is it really worth treating her when there’s a substantial likelihood the cancer will return? And as Chelsea Clinton famously said a few years ago, abortion keeps women working, which really helps the economy.
In the UK, Stephen Hawking was worth saving because, while the fact of his aging meant he’d probably never again replicate the insights that made him famous, killing him would look bad. (In the field of mathematics and theoretical physics, it’s mostly the young ones—younger than 40—who have the insights.)
But thankfully, we’re still functioning on that old “individual life has value” system. That’s why societal pressure at both the legislative and economic levels means that my friend, despite her age, disease, and personal choices, is getting very good care.
My friend’s life has value—to her, to her husband, and to her friends. If she had children, they would value it, too. But the young man doesn’t see that because he doesn’t know and love her. To him, she’s just a valueless husk, sucking up resources that really should go to him, because, as a practical matter, he is the greater good.
Since Franklin Roosevelt, federal and state governments have slowly but surely claimed that property is a privilege, not a right. The wealth tax is the next step.
BY: Allan J. Feiffer, The American Thinker (August 21, 2026).
Americans traditionally understood that what they owned was theirs, not the government’s. Yet, over the last century, that principle has steadily eroded—from gold confiscation to civil asset forfeiture to proposed wealth taxes. The emerging principle is stark: Your property is yours only to the extent that the State allows you to keep it.
Preliminarily, what does it mean to own something? In America, the traditional answer was straightforward: it meant that the property was yours—not the government’s—and that the State had no claim to it unless you forfeited it through a criminal act or the government seized it through eminent domain for the public good.
Private property was understood as an extension of individual liberty, protected by right and law rather than being a privilege that the government granted at its discretion. That principle was deeply embedded in the American tradition and helped distinguish a free citizen from a subject of the State. That relationship changed dramatically in the 20th century.
Perhaps the most well-documented exercise of government power over private property occurred in 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, requiring Americans to surrender most of their monetary gold to the government at the then-fixed price of $20.67 per ounce. Those who failed to comply faced criminal penalties.
The following year, the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 placed monetary gold under federal ownership and raised the official price of gold to $35 an ounce—a nearly 70 percent increase from the $20.67 price at which Americans had been required to surrender their gold. Whatever the legal justification, the episode demonstrated something deeply unsettling about the power of the State: It could declare lawful property impermissible to own, compel its sale to the government at a price it dictated, and then change the official value of that property after acquiring it. By any ordinary understanding, that is confiscation backed by the power of the State.
The next expansion came with the institutionalization of modern civil forfeiture. Civil forfeiture originated in an old maritime and customs doctrine and has become a powerful and controversial domestic instrument of government.
Federal forfeiture authority expanded significantly in 1978 and 1984, when Congress broadened the government’s ability to seize the proceeds of alleged drug crimes and property used to facilitate them. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 also established the Department of Justice’s Assets Forfeiture Fund and authorized the Attorney General to share forfeited property with state and local law-enforcement agencies.
This created a profound change in the incentives driving police and regulatory agencies. Property could be seized and forfeited without the government necessarily obtaining a criminal conviction against its owner, and law-enforcement agencies could benefit from the property they seized, much as pirates did.
Owners who had not been convicted of—or even charged with—a crime could find themselves fighting to recover money, vehicles, homes, and other property in proceedings in which the government was pursuing the property rather than proving the owner’s criminal guilt.
America is a country of precedent. Once the government established the precedent that it could seize private property without first convicting—or even charging—the owner of a crime, and sometimes without even obtaining a warrant, the process felt like an illegal taking. Today, federal forfeiture alone is a multibillion-dollar enterprise. In fiscal 2025, the Justice Department’s Assets Forfeiture Fund received $2.287 billion in forfeiture proceeds, following $2.422 billion in 2024 and $3.339 billion in 2023.
It’s not just the Feds, either. States have developed their own civil asset forfeiture systems, allowing law enforcement agencies to seize property alleged to be connected to criminal activity and, after forfeiture, retain or spend the proceeds.
Florida provides a particularly revealing example. Its Contraband Forfeiture Act expressly authorizes law-enforcement agencies to use forfeiture proceeds as “supplemental funding.” State law directs forfeiture proceeds into law-enforcement trust funds, while federal asset-sharing programs provide another avenue for state agencies to receive proceeds from federal forfeitures. What began as an extraordinary power to take property associated with crime has evolved into a nationwide system in which government agencies have a vested financial interest in the property they seize.
Not every exercise of forfeiture or taxation is unconstitutional or illegitimate. The government has always possessed some authority to take property under the law. The question is where the boundary lies—and whether each expansion of that authority comes close to an extra-judicial taking.
Even with all this hanky-panky, the government’s reach apparently isn’t broad enough. Now states and the federal government are contemplating the next rung up the ladder: outright wealth confiscation.
There is a fundamental difference between government taking property because it claims the property was involved in a crime and government taking property simply because someone possesses it. The former at least purports to rest on an allegation of wrongdoing. The latter rests on the government’s assertion that it has a legitimate claim to something you’ve earned.
Once government moves from taxing what we earn to taxing what we own, ownership itself becomes the taxable event. The government no longer must point to a transaction, an offense, or even a particular act that generated the property. The mere fact that you possess it is enough to establish a first lien on your wealth.
And this is no longer theoretical. In March 2026, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna introduced legislation imposing a 5 percent annual tax on billionaires’ wealth. California voters will also decide in November whether to impose a one-time five-percent tax on the net worth of qualifying billionaires. California’s Legislative Analyst describes the measure as a tax on wealth, defining wealth as the value of what a person owns, less his debts.
Remember our discussion of precedent earlier? We’ve now arrived at the heart of the matter.
Whether government takes 5 percent, 50 percent, or ultimately 100 percent, the amount is a question of degree. The underlying concept that property is only conditionally yours is the more important issue.
The fundamental question is whether government has a legitimate claim to property simply because a citizen possesses it. Once the answer becomes yes, the government—not the owner—ultimately determines how much of that property the “owner” is permitted to keep.
Calling it a tax does not change the underlying assertion of power: the State is effectively placing a lien on property that you own.
And history suggests that the government rarely leaves a newly established power confined to its original boundaries. The justification will always be that the next confiscation is different, that the next group is different, or that the next need is greater.
The government does not have to begin by taking everything. It merely must establish the principle that it can take something that was previously understood to belong entirely to the individual and declare that a portion of it belongs to the State.
Once ownership is deemed conditional, private property ceases to be a protected right. That is the real issue. It is not how much wealth the government takes; it is whether we are willing to accept the proposition that the government has a claim to wealth simply because we possess it. Because once that principle is accepted, the question is no longer whether the government can take your property; it is how much of it the government will allow you to keep.
When Lenin Lost An Election, He Abolished Democracy
When revolutionary socialists tell us who they are, perhaps we should take them at their word.
BY: Charlton Allen, The American Thinker (August 21, 2026).
History remembers revolutions for their explosions.
Think of the French Revolution, and the storming of the Bastille comes quickly to mind. The American Revolution has Lexington and Concord. Russia’s revolution is remembered through darker images: armed Bolsheviks in Petrograd, the cruiser Aurora and the fall of the Winter Palace, the slaughter of the Romanovs at Ekaterinburg, Perm, Alapayevsk, and the Peter and Paul Fortress—and then the Red Terror.
One of its most consequential moments, however, came with almost no drama at all.
In the early morning of January 19, 1918, exhausted deputies sat inside Petrograd’s Tauride Palace after a session that had stretched through the night. Millions of voters had elected them to a Constituent Assembly charged with determining the political future of a state emerging from war, revolution, and imperial collapse.
Suddenly, an armed sailor informed them that the proceedings were over.
The explanation attributed to Anatoly Zheleznyakov became famous: the guard was tired. It seemed innocuous enough. Tomorrow was another day.
The deputies gathered their papers and left.
But there was no tomorrow.
The Constituent Assembly—the former empire’s grand experiment in representative democracy—had survived for a single day.
This quiet shuttering of Russia’s parliamentary experiment deserves to rank among the defining events of the Russian Revolution.
The Bolsheviks had already demonstrated that they could seize power. Now they confronted a more important question: having taken power in the name of workers and peasants, would they permit the people themselves to determine who governed?
The answer was an emphatic no.
The Constituent Assembly was not a Bolshevik invention. For decades, opponents of Romanov autocracy had demanded an elected body empowered to determine the country’s constitutional future.
Liberals wanted it. Socialists wanted it. The Provisional Government promised it. The Bolsheviks themselves demanded it. As late as December 1917, Lenin acknowledged that no institution then known was better suited to “determining the will of the people.”
Even the monarchy’s final prospective ruler deferred to it.
When Nicholas II abdicated in March 1917, the succession passed nominally to his brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich. Michael declined to exercise supreme authority unless a popularly elected Constituent Assembly determined the new political order.
There is a constitutional irony here almost too extraordinary to ignore.
The last prospective Romanov was willing to make his authority contingent upon an elected assembly.
Ultimately, Lenin was not.
A brief note on terminology matters. Historians conventionally call these events the “Russian Revolution,” but the old Russian Empire was already disintegrating. Its electorate encompassed Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Baltic peoples, Georgians, Armenians, Tatars, Jews, Muslims, and many other communities—some of which were already asserting or declaring independence.
The same complexity existed on the socialist side. Lenin’s Bolsheviks were only one faction competing for the revolutionary future. Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries had their own constituencies, programs, and claims to speak for workers and peasants.
The election itself was extraordinary by the standards of Russian history. Women cast ballots—before nationwide women’s suffrage in the United States. So did soldiers, peasants, and workers. Millions who had lived as subjects of the tsar were suddenly being asked, however imperfectly, to help decide what political order would replace him.
The result was disastrous for the Bolsheviks, who had seized power only weeks earlier.
The Socialist Revolutionaries emerged as the largest political bloc, while the Bolsheviks received roughly a quarter of the national vote. Bolshevik strength was considerable in Petrograd, Moscow, and among important urban and military constituencies.
Before the Assembly even convened, the Bolshevik government had outlawed the liberal Constitutional Democrats, or Kadets, formally branding the party an “enemy of the people” after the moderate party had won more than a third of the vote in Moscow.
There was, however, a problem with the result.
The Socialist Revolutionary candidate lists had largely been prepared before the widening rupture between the party’s Left and Right wings had fully crystallized. Left Socialist Revolutionaries would initially align with the Bolsheviks, while their former comrades on the Right opposed Bolshevik rule. Lenin pointed directly to this mismatch between rapidly changing political realities and the older candidate lists.
But if Lenin believed voters had been deprived of a meaningful choice between Left and Right Socialist Revolutionaries, the democratic remedy was obvious: return the question to the people.
Hold another vote.
Let the factions campaign separately. Let the Bolsheviks argue that events had vindicated them. Let workers, peasants, soldiers, and the rest of the electorate decide again.
Or let the factions sort matters out in the Assembly and see whether a governing majority could emerge.
As late as December 1917, Lenin publicly dismissed as “absolutely false rumours” reports that the Constituent Assembly would not be permitted to convene.
Yet Lenin—never one to let a crisis go to waste—chose something else altogether.
He did not merely challenge the election’s mechanics. He challenged the authority of parliamentary democracy itself.
In his These on the Constituent Assembly, Lenin declared the Soviet republic a “higher form of democracy” than the parliamentary republic elected by the people. His argument placed the interests of the socialist revolution above the ordinary claims of parliamentary legitimacy.
Representative democracy rests upon an uncomfortable proposition: voters have the right to choose badly.
Politicians may believe the electorate misguided. They may regard their opponents as foolish, dishonest, dangerous, or ruinous. But democratic government requires that political power ultimately answer to the people.
Lenin reversed the relationship.
The revolutionary vanguard claimed to understand the authentic interests of workers and peasants, even when those workers and peasants cast ballots producing an inconvenient result. The Party represented the people because it understood their true historical interests. If the electorate chose differently, its verdict could not be allowed to obstruct those interests.
The less the electorate’s actual verdict mattered, the “higher” the democracy became.
It was democracy usurped.
When the Constituent Assembly convened, Socialist Revolutionary Viktor Chernov was elected its leader. The Assembly refused to ratify Bolshevik supremacy. The Bolsheviks walked out. The Left Socialist Revolutionaries followed.
The remaining deputies kept working.
That was the problem for Lenin and his allies: the Assembly was exercising authority independent of the Bolshevik government.
By morning, the guards ended the experiment.
The great institution demanded for decades by opponents of autocracy was gone after a single sitting.
The destruction of the Constituent Assembly illuminates something fundamental about revolutionary Marxism.
Marxism was never a platform for change at the margins. It is a revolutionary project on a grand scale: the transformation of property relations, class structures, political institutions, and the existing social order.
Such a project does not readily yield to an electoral setback.
What happens when voters say no?
January 1918 supplied an unmistakable answer.
The Bolsheviks placed revolutionary legitimacy above electoral legitimacy. Once that principle was established, political opponents could cease to be fellow citizens who might win the next election and instead become enemies of the Revolution.
Soon Left Socialist Revolutionaries became enemies. Mensheviks became enemies. Later, Trotskyists became enemies. Eventually, veteran Bolsheviks themselves would be accused of conspiring against the state.
Independent religious authority would meet the same intolerance. Clergy and the devout were prosecuted—even executed—as counterrevolutionaries. Churches, monasteries, and convents were seized, closed, repurposed, or destroyed.
The regime eventually backed a compliant “Living Church” as a rival to traditional Orthodoxy. Its very name carried the revolutionary conceit: if this was the “living” Church, the old Church—and the old ways it embodied—were expected to die.
None of those later developments was inevitable in January 1918. Civil war, assassination, foreign intervention, and conspiracies—genuine or not—would shape what followed.
But the precedent was firmly established: the Revolution recognized no independent authority with an inviolable claim to stand in its way.
There is a lesson here that should resonate in our own age. Marxist movements have long spoken the language of democracy.
Lenin certainly did. So did governments that followed in his ideological tradition.
Communist constitutions invoked popular sovereignty, elections, “people’s democracy,” and government in the name of workers and peasants. Even the names of one-party states frequently appropriated the vocabulary of democratic legitimacy: Democratic Republics, People’s Republics—governments claiming to embody the authentic will of the people.
The conundrum was not the absence of democratic rhetoric. It was what happened when actual voters, institutions, churches, political parties, or other independent centers of authority refused to validate the revolutionary project.
Democracy was celebrated when it advanced the Revolution. When voters challenged the consolidation of Bolshevik power, democracy was swept aside.
If voters rejected the Bolsheviks, the problem was not necessarily the Revolution—it was the voters. The vanguard claimed authority to distinguish the people’s “true” interests from the choices the people actually made.
Once those in power reserve the right to decide when voters’ expressed wishes are authentic, democracy ceases to constrain government.
Instead, government constrains—or eliminates—democracy.
For decades, revolutionaries had demanded that the peoples of the old Russian Empire be permitted to determine their political future.
The Constituent Assembly would not be the last independent institution to discover that the Bolshevik Revolution recognized no authority higher than itself.
James Burnham saw how communist tactics turned criticism of communism into an accusation of political extremism.
BY: Francis Sempa, The American Spectator (August 17, 2026).
As outspoken socialists gain more influence by winning elections at all levels of government in the United States, the Left and its media allies warn of “McCarthyism” and the “new red scare” whenever conservatives recount socialism’s dismal history in power. This is an old communist tactic that the great student of communism James Burnham recognized at the height of the anti-McCarthy frenzy in the 1950s.
Burnham broke with communism in 1940 and began writing for Partisan Review, a journal of the anti-communist left. In 1953, Burnham cut his ties to Partisan Review over the issue of domestic communism and communist infiltration of the U.S. government and society. In his resignation letter to his former colleagues at Partisan Review, Burnham wrote that the term “McCarthyism” was “an invention of … Communist tacticians” who wielded it as “diversionary semantics” to undermine congressional efforts to investigate domestic communism.
Socialism, to borrow F.A. Hayek’s phrase, is the “road to serfdom.” The Left’s invocation of a “new red scare” is designed to disguise that truth.
The next year, Burnham wrote a compelling book titled The Web of Subversion that detailed the revelations of congressional committees and witnesses such as Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley about communist activities in the United States. Today, as openly socialist candidates seek political power at the ballot box with some success, the far Left runs interference for them using similar “diversionary semantics.”
Professor Theodore Zorn in The Conversation warns that “another Red Scare” may be taking over America. Zachary Wolfe on CNN’s website claims that the “modern-day Red Scare is officially here.” The Nation headlines Chris Lehman’s recent piece, “The GOP’s New Red Scare,” complete with a photo of Sen. Joe McCarthy. Columbia Magazine featured a story about a panel of descendants of American communists who warned that today’s “‘enemy of the state’ rhetoric” is reminiscent of the Red Scare of the 1950s. Terrence Petty, writing in the Forward, claims that President Trump is fomenting a “new red scare,” which endangers us all, but especially American Jews. Qian He, a sociology professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, invoked “McCarthyism” to describe a “pervasive climate of fear” being stoked by the Trump administration and directed at China. Not to be outdone, MS Now’s Michael Steele, in an article featuring a photo of McCarthy and Trump, accuses the president of trying to start a “new Red Scare.” The staff of the Democratic Strategist contends that the “Red Scare has returned to America.”
Of course, the so-called Red Scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s was based on the reality of extensive communist infiltration of our government and other institutions. Burnham’s The Web of Subversion detailed some of it. Whittaker Chambers gave us an inside view of domestic communism in his masterpiece, Witness. Harvey Klehr and Ronald Radosh revealed the extent of communist infiltration of the State Department in The Amerasia Spy Case. Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel explored the revelations of the Venona papers in The Venona Secrets. M. Stanton Evans showed the truth underlying McCarthy’s and the FBI’s investigations of domestic communists in Blacklisted By History. Diana West’s American Betrayal further exposed communist penetration of our government and institutions. Even liberal Washington Post writer Nicholas von Hoffman acknowledged in 1996 that Sen. McCarthy “was … closer to the truth than those who ridiculed him.”
During the so-called Red Scare, it was revealed that communists and communist sympathizers and agents of influence included high-level Treasury Department officials, OSS officers, high-level State Department officials, and even a White House staffer or two.
There were many more in the bowels of federal agencies. Communists infiltrated union, as then-Screen Actors Guild president Ronald Reagan discovered. Meanwhile, as Paul Hollander detailed in his book Political Pilgrims, non-communist leftist intellectuals envisioned a utopian future under communism.
Today’s socialists, of course, don’t embrace being linked or likened to communists, but we should all remember that shortly after Vladimir Lenin seized power in Russia in 1917, he exclaimed, “We shall now proceed to construct the socialist order.” And we should also remember the words of Winston Churchill in 1945:
[T]here can be no doubt that Socialism is inseparably interwoven and the abject worship of the State … liberty in all its forms is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of Socialism … Socialism is, in its essence, an attack upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without having a harsh, clumsy tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils … [N]o Socialist system can be established without a political police.
The most powerful “socialist” country in the world today is the People’s Republic of China, ruled since 1949 by the Chinese Communist Party. It is also the most murderous regime in human history and the principal threat to the security of the United States. Socialism, Lee Edwards wrote, is a “pseudo-religion grounded in pseudo-science and enforced by political might.” Socialism, to borrow F.A. Hayek’s phrase, is the “road to serfdom.” The Left’s invocation of a “new red scare” is designed to disguise that truth.
