“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.

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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.

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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.

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Mark Carney’s Smuggler’s Blues

Canada’s tariff tantrum has a China problem.

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.

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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.

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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!

GFK

“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.

Actor Tim Curry has died at age 80. R. I. P.

GFK

“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, THEY ARE 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.

Singer Dolly Parton has died at age 80. R. I. P.

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The article below relates to the topic of last Sunday. It concerns the value of life. Enjoy.

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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. 

GFK

“A warrior in the name of the Lord knows that divine assistance is all that matters.”

–St. Michael.

Today, we have more thoughts on socialism and communism. Enjoy.

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Private Property Confiscation

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.

Did someone say “Communism”?

God Bless America.

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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.

It was the first.

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Communism, McCarthyism, and the New Red Scare

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.

GFK

“Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of evil.”

–St. Michael.

I am playing golf with my mogul client this morning. We are gearing up for the Chamber of Commerce golf tournament later this week.

Today is the first day of class for the Dedman School of Law. Holland survived a lengthy orientation, and is now beginning the actual hard work involved in a legal education. Some of her classmates began panicking late last week in anticipation of today. There is nothing to panic about; after all, I graduated. Do well, little girl! Mommy and I are proud of you!

The War Department fired the leadership of the newspaper Stars and Stripes, for insubordination. Naturally the affected employees are claiming “censorship”.

Congressional Democrats have long insisted that illegal aliens do not receive any federal benefits, such as Medicaid. Okay. Then why are Congressional Democrats now demanding that the Department of Health & Human Services not share any information with ICE? Hmmmmm.

Chief Justice John Roberts lifted a lower court’s stay on the construction of The White House Ballroom. WINNING!

“DSA is committed to the full decolonization of all the occupied lands of the United States: self-determination and full sovereignty for Hawai’i; Puerto Rico; Amerika Sāmoa (American Samoa); Guåhån (Guam); Northern Mariana Islands; Virgin Islands; and to all indigenous nations whose ancestral lands are within current U.S. borders; as well as to the independence to all other overseas territories and dependencies controlled, occupied, or otherwise exploited by the USA.”

–Statement from the Democrat Socialists of America.

The Log Cabin Republicans–an organization of homosexual Republicans–announced that they would no longer advocate for “trans” issues. The group statement announced that from hereon, the Log Cabin Republicans would be an “LGB” organization.

“And folks often say, ‘Oh, are you gonna be able to work across the aisle with the Republicans?’  They are not trying to work across the aisle.  They are literally trying to kill us.  And they are doing it.  On camera.  And not being held accountable, like, actually state-sanctioned violence.  They’ve been doing it in the black community, and they’re doing it even more so now with ICE.  ICE is now a weaponized paramilitary force that is designed to terrorize us.”

–U.S. Senate candidate Angie Nixon (D. Fl.).

Oh, wow.  Just wow.

“Well, I’ve done a lot of work in the state house on justice reform, and right now we’ve got a system that doesn’t serve all Americans equally, and we know that black Texans have not gotten the justice they deserve in many cases.  I’m not an expert on this particular case, but I know that there were no black members of the jury, and to me that’s the only evidence you need to really prove that this system is not working for black Texans.” 

–U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D. Tx.) commenting on Karmelo Anthony’s murder conviction.

Huh.  So you are entitled to jurors of the same race as you?  Really?  I must have missed that in my law studies and practice.

“But I’m constantly getting asked, like, don’t you want to now make your move to run for Congress, right.  And I’m like, why would I run for Congress?  Like, I don’t want to do anything there, right?  Now, if you’re interested in immigration or foreign policy, those things would be done at the federal level, right?”

–James Talarico, addressing a Democrat audience in 2022.

Karmelo Anthony stabbed to death another young man.  The evidence was overwhelming.  He confessed to the killing.  And he received an unbelievably light sentence.  But according to James Talarico, the justice system did not work for Karmelo Anthony, because he was black.

U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D. Mi.) constantly claims that he is not a socialist. Then why is El-Sayed arguing for government control of businesses? And why is he stating that he would go further in this direction than Senator Bernie Sanders (I. Vt.)? Hmmmm.

The Detroit, Michigan public schools system is combatting chronic absenteeism by paying students $100.00 per week to attend high school. Middle school students are paid $50.00 per week. Sigh. W

Craft beer brewer Stone Brewing Company is moving its operations out of Southern California. The Golden State continues to hemorrhage businesses.

Cracker Barrel is adding 4 new chicken entrees to its menu.  The new additions are Maple Bacon Homestyle Chicken, BBQ Smokestack Homestyle Chicken, Nashville Hot Homestyle Chicken, and Honey Butter Homestyle Chicken.

The Hollies are disbanding after 60 years of performing and touring. Sad. But all good things must come to an end.

Great Britain will begin issuing pamphlets to Muslim immigrants, explaining to them that sex must be consensual, what rape is, and that rape is wrong. Would it not be a better idea to not import folks that do not understand that rape is wrong? Just a suggestion.

Portugal enacted a so-called “Burka law”, prohibiting the wearing of face coverings in public. Muslims are outraged. Maybe they should return to Iran.

Trade negotiations between the United States and Canada broke down. The United States imposed tariffs, and Canada is threatening retaliation.

President Trump is now imposing crippling sanctions on Iran which will not make our NATO “allies” happy. Essentially, if you want to do business with the United States, you must not do business with Iran. If European nations honor the sanctions, Iran will collapse economically, making conditions ripe for its people to rise up against the government. If European nations refuse to honor the sanctions, then their economies will suffer.

This is really a no brainer. Just last week Iran threatened to launch missiles at European countries. Iran is a threat to peace around the world. But then again, these are the same countries who condemned Russia in its war with Ukraine, but still purchased oil and gas from Russia, which in turn financed the war with Ukraine.

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert denounced those she claims are using the league to “sow divisiveness” over the topic of transgender athletes.  Really?  People who are trying to protect women’s sports are divisive?

“It’s a hard one.  I feel like I’ve kept my position consistent that LIV has never been a good thing for the game.  So, whatever 2.0 looks like, if it even happens, they say they’re trying to be more collaborative and all that. But this is the best platform for the top professional golfers in the world.

Were there some things at the start of LIV that the PGA Tour could have done better?  Sure.  But I think that the guys that went [to LIV] . . . you think back to the start with, say, Phil [Mickelson] was unhappy with some stuff.  Surely that just warranted a conversation instead of blowing the entire professional game up and doing something else.

I would argue, have they brought value to LIV?”

–PGA Tour professional Rory McIlroy, responding to a reporter’s question as to whether LIV golfers should be allowed to return to the PGA Tour.

Congratulations to Jeffrey Klatt on winning the 79th Virginia Senior Amateur Golf Championship at River Bend Country Club, in Great Falls. He bested Jason Pool 4 and 3.

Nancy Kissinger, widow of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, has died at age 92. R. I. P.

Former U.S. Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker has died at age 94. R. I. P.

GFK

“All of heaven rejoices when one sinner repents.”

–St. Michael.

Today we turn to S. Paul’s second letter to the Christians at Corinth. It may be helpful to review the difficult situation S. Paul faced in that Christian community.

We recall that S. Paul founded the Church at Corinth around A.D. 51 during his second missionary journey. Yet soon after his departure, the community fell into serious disorder. There was division among the Christians, grave immorality was tolerated, and the Corinthians were being influenced by outside teachers who claimed apostolic authority. S. Paul therefore wrote his first epistle to Corinth from Ephesus during his third missionary journey, calling the Church back to the truth of the Gospel and to a life worthy of those who had been baptized into Christ.

Matters did not end there. S. Paul subsequently made a brief and painful visit to Corinth, during which a significant minority resisted his authority and teaching. He therefore retreated and wrote this second epistle in part to defend the authenticity of his apostolic ministry, to confront those who presented themselves as apostles while preaching another understanding of the Gospel, and, equally importantly, to strengthen his relationship with those Corinthians who had remained faithful.

In today’s portion of the epistle, S. Paul contrasts his ministry with those who sought to establish their authority with outward credentials and “letters of recommendation” (2 Cor 3.1). His authority does not rest upon human testimonials, but upon the work that God Himself has accomplished through him. As he says our sufficiency is of God who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament (2 Cor 3.5-6).

S. Paul then leads the Corinthians into the heart of the difference between the old covenant and the new. The Law was written upon tablets of stone; the new covenant is written by the Spirit upon the human heart. Here S. Paul is clearly drawing upon the prophecy of Ezekiel: A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them (Ezek 36.26-27).

This is the great promise of the new covenant: not merely that God will give us a new set of commandments, but that He will transform the human heart so that we may actually live according to His commandments. What was written externally upon stone is now written inwardly by the Holy Ghost.

This is why S. Paul can say, the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. The letter, when received merely as an external commandment, can condemn the sinner because it reveals the righteousness of God without itself giving the power to accomplish that righteousness. But the Spirit gives life because He does not merely tell us what God commands: He makes us capable of living in communion with God. Thus the new covenant is not a rejection of the Law but its fulfillment. Christ does not abolish the righteousness which the Law proclaimed; He brings that righteousness to completion and, through the gift of the Holy Ghost, begins to form it within us.

It is tempting to imagine that Christianity consists principally in obeying a set of rules. But the Gospel announces something far greater. God does not merely give us instructions from outside ourselves. In Christ, He gives Himself to us. The Holy Ghost is poured into our hearts, and we are made participants in the divine life.

This also guards us against another error. We cannot save ourselves by our own works, nor can we improve upon or supplement the saving work which Christ has accomplished for us. Salvation begins, continues, and reaches its fulfilment in the grace of God. But the grace of God does not leave us unchanged. The Spirit who gives life also transforms us.

The Christian therefore is neither one who attempts to earn salvation by keeping commandments, nor one who imagines that having received grace he may remain as he was. Rather, the Christian is one in whom the Holy Ghost is at work, healing what sin has wounded, restoring the image of God, and conforming the whole person to Christ.

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Foreign countries and some American States have made euthanasia legal, easy, and encouraged. It is a disturbing trend. Assisted living facilities are ubiquitously advertised on television. It seems that families are encouraged by society to separate, old from young. And I am not talking terminally ill, or physically debilitated people. The advertisements always show elderly folks eating gourmet meals, enjoying other residents, and engaging in activities at assisted living facilities. Without their families.

Obviously the terminally ill, people suffering from dementia, and the like, require care far beyond what family members can provide them on their own. These are serious medical issues, requiring medical care.

But assisted living is different. It is advertised as country club living for the elderly. And those families who place the elderly in these facilities are always portrayed as being relieved with not having to watch over their parents. They need a break. It is just too much. They have so much going on in their lives right now. Well. I respectfully dissent.

It is our burden to care for our families, our neighbors, our friends. The Bible teaches that the sick, and the needy, are to be cared for by individuals, by us. They are not to be farmed out to the government, or to “A Place for Mom”.

Societal trends are disturbing, but they need not continue. Families, friends, neighbors can (and do) come together for a common good.

The article below discusses the situation of caring for, and being with, older parents, neighbors, and friends. I think it makes good points, and it certainly offers a perspective you will not hear on television, either in advertisements or the news. I hope it speaks to you.

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“I Don’t Want to Be a Burden.” But What If That’s the Point?

BY:          Laura Rosenberg (August 18, 2026).

There is a phrase I hear all the time whenever euthanasia, assisted suicide, aging, or serious illness comes up:

“I would never want to be a burden.”

And I understand why people say it. I really do.

Nobody wants to imagine themselves unable to walk to the bathroom alone. Nobody wants their adult child helping them get dressed, their spouse keeping track of medications, someone changing their sheets or cutting up their food. We spend most of our lives learning how to be independent, and the possibility of losing that independence can feel humiliating.

But somewhere along the way, I think we started treating being a burden as though it were automatically an evil.

And I’m not sure that’s true.

In fact, from a Catholic perspective, sometimes a burden can actually be a good thing.

Not necessarily pleasant. Not something we go looking for. And certainly not something we deliberately dump onto other people when we are perfectly capable of carrying it ourselves.

But good in the sense that God can permit burdens in our lives for a purpose.

Because burdens change us.

Think about almost anything in life that has actually required you to become less selfish.

Children are burdens.

Again, that sounds awful written down, but it’s objectively true. They require enormous amounts of time, money, energy and sacrifice. Babies wake us up at night. Toddlers interrupt everything. Teenagers have needs at the least convenient possible moment. Parenting requires giving up things you wanted to do because somebody else needs you more.

And we don’t normally conclude from that that children are therefore bad.

Quite the opposite.

We recognize that loving another human being enough to rearrange our lives around his or her needs can make us better people.

It can teach patience where we had none.

It can expose selfishness we didn’t even realize was there.

It can teach us that our time isn’t entirely our own.

It can teach perseverance, tenderness, responsibility, mercy and sacrifice.

Why, then, have we decided that burdens become inherently bad when the person creating them is elderly, sick or disabled?

Maybe Grandma needing someone to take her to the doctor isn’t simply an unfortunate inconvenience that ought to be eliminated.

Maybe the inconvenience itself is doing something.

Maybe God is using it.

Maybe the adult son who would rather spend Saturday doing something else needs to learn that love sometimes means giving up Saturday.

Maybe the daughter caring for an aging mother is learning a kind of patience she could never have learned from a book.

Maybe the husband caring for his sick wife is being asked to live out, in an extraordinarily concrete way, what he once promised when he said, in sickness and in health.

Maybe the person who has always been fiercely independent is now being asked to learn humility by allowing someone else to wash her hair.

We don’t know everything God is doing through the burdens He permits.

And that’s an important distinction: God permitting something does not mean the thing itself is good.

Disease isn’t good.

Dementia isn’t good.

Disability isn’t a punishment sent by God to teach everybody else a lesson.

Death itself entered the world through sin.

But God is so sovereign that He can bring good even out of things that are not good in themselves.

And sometimes the good He brings out of them is what happens to the people who are called upon to carry the burden.

This is one of the things that troubles me so deeply about the phrase “I don’t want to be a burden” when it is used to justify euthanasia.

Because who told us that having to carry one another is something from which human beings ought to be protected?

Christianity certainly didn’t.

Christianity tells us:

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

That verse doesn’t say, Make absolutely certain you never have a burden for anyone else to bear.

It assumes there will be burdens.

And then it tells us what to do with them.

Carry them for one another.

There is something profoundly Christian about being inconvenienced by love.

We don’t like saying that anymore.

Modern life places enormous value on autonomy, convenience, efficiency and independence. We don’t want anybody interfering with our plans. We don’t want obligations we didn’t choose. We certainly don’t want someone’s needs rearranging our lives.

But sometimes those unwanted obligations are exactly where God does some of His most serious work on us.

Sometimes the thing I am calling a burden is the very thing exposing how selfish I still am.

Ouch.

I don’t particularly enjoy that thought either.

But holiness isn’t always convenient.

And love that never costs me anything isn’t much of a sacrifice.

None of this means caregivers shouldn’t need help. Of course they do. Caregiving can become physically, financially and emotionally overwhelming. People need respite.

Families need support. Sometimes professional care becomes necessary. We should never romanticize exhaustion or suggest that asking for help means someone has failed to love enough.

In fact, maybe that’s another place where the burden spreads outward and calls more people into love.

Perhaps one person was never supposed to carry it alone.

Family.

Friends.

Neighbors.

Parish.

Doctors.

Nurses.

Hospice.

The Christian answer to “This person has become too much for one person to carry” should be:

“Then more of us need to help carry them.”

Not:

“Then perhaps that person should die.”

Because once death becomes an acceptable solution to dependency, something frightening happens.

“I don’t want to be a burden” can slowly become:

“I shouldn’t be a burden.”

And eventually:

“Maybe I am selfish for staying alive.”

Think about what that does to an elderly person.

Imagine lying in a hospital bed knowing your children are rearranging their schedules around you. They’re spending money. They’re tired. They’re missing work.

And now imagine living in a society that has told you death is an acceptable way to relieve them of you.

Is the choice to die really happening in a vacuum?

Or have we quietly created a moral pressure upon vulnerable people to justify continuing to exist?

Human dignity cannot depend upon how convenient we are.

The Church teaches that euthanasia is morally unacceptable because intentionally causing the death of an innocent human being cannot become the solution to suffering or dependency.

That doesn’t mean Catholic teaching requires us to use every imaginable medical intervention to keep a body functioning indefinitely. It doesn’t. There is an important difference between accepting the natural approach of death and deliberately causing death.

But there is an even deeper Christian principle underneath all of this.

We belong to one another.

St. Paul describes the Church as a body. When one member suffers, the others suffer with him.

That means sometimes I will carry you.

And sometimes you will carry me.

And perhaps one of the hardest things about that is that most of us would much rather be the person doing the carrying.

There can even be a strange kind of pride hidden inside generosity.

I’m the strong one.

I’m the helper.

I’m the one everybody depends upon.

Being the one who needs help requires something completely different.

Humility.

Trust.

The willingness to receive love without being able to repay it.

Maybe that’s part of the sanctification too.

The caregiver may need to learn sacrifice.

The person receiving care may need to learn humility.

One person learns how to give.

The other learns how to receive.

And God may be working on both of them at the same time.

Even Our Lord allowed Himself to be carried and cared for.

He entered the world as a helpless infant. The Blessed Virgin fed Him, dressed Him and carried Him. St. Joseph worked to provide for Him and fled with Him into Egypt to protect His life.

And at Calvary, when Christ physically could not carry His Cross any farther, Simon of Cyrene was made to carry it with Him.

I’ve always found that detail striking.

God could have arranged things differently.

Instead, another human being was permitted to help carry the burden of Christ.

Maybe that should tell us something.

We were never promised lives in which nobody would need anything from us.

Quite the opposite.

Christ repeatedly placed the hungry, the sick, the poor, the imprisoned, the widow, the orphan and the stranger directly in front of us and told us that what we do for them, we do for Him.

Those people are going to interrupt our plans.

They are going to require things.

Sometimes caring for them is going to cost us something.

That’s rather the point.

So yes, I understand the instinct behind saying, “I never want to be a burden.”

I don’t particularly want to be one either.

But maybe I shouldn’t be quite so afraid of it.

Because if someday I need someone to carry me, perhaps God will be doing something in that person’s soul through the carrying.

And perhaps He will be doing something in mine by making me humble enough to be carried.

The goal of the Christian life was never to reach the grave having inconvenienced as few people as possible.

The goal is holiness.

And sometimes God gets us there through the people we love.

Sometimes through the people who love us.

Sometimes by giving us someone to carry.

And sometimes by allowing us to become the one who needs carrying.

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

Maybe we should stop being quite so afraid of having burdens.

God may have put something holy inside the carrying.

GFK

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”

–St. Michael.

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From the Texas Democrat who just cannot help himself. James Talarico wraps himself in The Bible tighter than a faux patriot politician wraps himself in the flag.

“I always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity.  [Despite my misgivings,] I always get drawn back into it.”

U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, a Presbyterian minister, once delivered a sermon titled “God is not a Christian” as part of a fiery rebuke of conservatives whom the Democrat accused of trying to transform America into a “Christian theocracy.”  Therein, Mr. Talarico distanced himself from Christianity, claiming that “[t]here is a cancer on our religion.”

According to Mr. Talarico:

“God is so much bigger than our human categories.  God is not a Presbyterian.  God is not a Christian.  God is not a noun at all.  God is a verb.  God is not a being.  God is being self. God is love . . .

That’s why Jesus is against anything that gets in the way of that love between neighbors, including religion.  That’s why he’s always breaking religious rules.  That’s why he says sinners will see the kingdom of heaven before religious people do.”

Mr. Talarico also touched on the boogeyman that is, of course, “Christian nationalism”:

“Christian nationalism is a sectarian movement based on mutual hate.  Jesus came to transform the world.  Christian nationalism is here to maintain the status quo.  They have co-opted the Son of God.  They’ve turned this humble rabbi into a gun-toting, gay-bashing, science-denying, money-loving, fear-mongering fascist.  And it is incumbent upon all Christians to confront it and denounce it.  Christian nationalism is on the rise.  We are closer than we think to a Christian theocracy.”

Mr. Talarico rejected the idea that America is a Christian nation and slammed those who weren’t open-minded towards other religions.

“If this was truly a Christian nation, we would make sure every child in this State and in this country was housed, fed, clothed, educated, and insured.  If this was truly a Christian nation, we would never make it a Christian nation, because we know the table of fellowship is open to everybody, including our Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and atheist neighbors.”

Jesus Christ said render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which  belongs to God.  That is not what James Talarico means.

When Mr. Talarico talks about housing, clothing educating, and insuring others, he is not talking about Christ’s teachings and commandments, which made caring for others an individual responsibility toward our neighbors.  Mr. Talarico is talking about outsourcing our Christian duties to the government, to Caesar.

Mr. Talarico even managed to fit an unfunny joke into his sermon about why beer was better than religion:

“Number one, when you have beer, you don’t knock on people’s doors trying to give it away.   Number two, there are laws against forcing beer on minors who can’t think for themselves.   Number three, nobody’s ever been burned at the stake because of their favorite brand of beer.  And number four, if you’ve devoted your life to beer, there are groups to help you.”

I am loathe to judge another man’s soul. It is way above my paygrade. But I also cannot ignore someone who is clearly blasphemous, and who is using a false narrative of Christianity to advance his personal ambitions and his Leftist, socialist ideology. James Talarico is not advancing a Christian viewpoint. He is doing the work of Satan.

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The U.K.: All in for Islam, forget Christianity

The U.K. is at it again, blocking a Finnish parliamentarian, Päivi Räsänen. from entering the United Kingdom based on a ‘hate speech’ conviction for defending the Bible.

BY:          Eric Utter, The American Thinker (August 20, 2026).

The U.K. is at it again, blocking a Finnish parliamentarian, Päivi Räsänen. from entering the United Kingdom based on a “hate speech” conviction hung on her for quoting the Bible and defending Scripture, according to Alliance Defending Freedom CEO Kristen Waggoner.

According to LifeSite News:

Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen was once again blocked from entering the United Kingdom due to her “hate speech” conviction for defending Scripture, according to Alliance Defending Freedom CEO Kristen Waggoner. Räsänen is a member of Finnish Parliament’s “Friends of the United Kingdom” group.

URGENT: My friend Päivi Räsänen—a doctor, grandmother, member of Finnish parliament, and devout Christian—was invited to speak at a religious liberty conference this week in Northern Ireland.

The UK will not let her enter the country.

This is due to her recent “hate speech”… 

— Kristen Waggoner (@KristenWaggoner) August 18, 2026

Ironically, Räsänen is apparently a member of the Finnish Parliament’s “Friends of the United Kingdom” group. With friends like today’s U.K., who needs enemies?

This is the second time in as many months that Räsänen has been denied entry to the U.K.

Last month, Räsänen — a doctor, grandmother, member of Finnish parliament, and devout Christian– was informed that she could not travel through London’s Heathrow Airport after speaking at an ADF conference.

I will leave it up to you to decide which one of those attributes U.K. authorities were uncomfortable with.

Räsänen was recently invited to speak at a religious liberty conference in Northern Ireland, but the U.K. refused to let her enter the country, due to her “hate speech” conviction for authoring a church pamphlet on Biblical marriage back in 2004.

But, Quran O.K. “Allahu Akhbar” no problem. Translation: Oppressing women and murdering infidels such as gays and lesbians is fine, but quoting a Bible passage or two suggesting that same sex encounters may be sinful is right out. Better to just throw gays and lesbians off rooftops or stone them to death. (Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity baby! DIE!) Seems like quite a bit of toxic masculinity for such a weak tit country, doesn’t it?

The U.K., once the greatest military power on Earth, can no longer effectively defend itself. And it will not defend its young lasses from Muslim rape gangs.

I bet those two things are related.

Christendom, as evidenced by the U.K.’s abject surrender, is not long for this world, praise be to Allah.

No wonder the most popular name for a baby boy in the U.K. in 2025 was Muhammad.

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Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed says he and Jesus Christ are cut from the same cloth because they’re both ‘radicals’

Have you ever seen “logic” so faulty?

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

Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, the Democrat nominee in Michigan’s senate race, recently made a comparison between himself and Jesus Christ, because Jesus was “radical in his time too.”

Have you ever seen “logic” so faulty? Yes, Jesus was radical for his time, and He’s radical still today…but in a good way. He preached radical love, and made the claim that He was the Christ—a pretty bold and radical proclamation—the Son of God who came to Earth to offer a free gift of eternal life, purchased only by His death in the sinner’s place, to any who might take it.

El-Sayed’s brand of radicalism though—if you can ever consider one more Muslim terrorist that “radical” because it’s an entirely unoriginal and overused trope—is radical in a bad way.

Radical like Vladimir Lenin, whose goons slaughtered a Christian ruler and his young children in a basement, whose Bolshevik regime executed thousands of Christian priests because of their faith, and whose underlings tortured so many innocent people by forcing their hands into boiling water until their skin peeled off in an intact skin glove, the torture method became known as the “Soviet Glove.”

Radical like Joseph Stalin, who robbed from the poor (then murdered them) in what he called “collectivization,” to subsidize himself and the political elites. (In contrast, Jesus took great compassion on the poor, and perfectly obeyed the Eight Commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.”)

Radical like Pol Pot, who oversaw a regime that murdered people based on whether or not they wore glasses because it was an indication that they were readers, and therefore educated and informed as to how bad “radical” leftism was (and is).

Radical like Che Guevara, who waged warfare on teenage boys and pregnant women, like the time his “radical” comrades pumped bullets into 15-year-old Carlos Machado and his twin brother because they tried to resist the theft of their family farm and Juana Diaz Figueroa and her in-utero baby, who was just six months old.

These people hate Jesus and they hate His teachings, but they’ll call on His name for political points? The arrogance is disgusting.

As a Christian, I’m supposed to desire that all would drink from the water of life freely, but in my flesh, I look forward to the day that Jesus will tell some: “I never knew you.”

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Hamas or Israeli Values?

BY:          Victor Davis Hanson (August 20, 2026).

Israel dominates the daily news in this 2026 midterm election year — almost always in a boring, fatiguing, negative light. Tens of thousands of innocents may be slaughtered, ethnically cleansed, butchered, and tortured by the world’s dictators, yet an overwhelming and obsessive abhorrence is reserved for tiny, democratic Israel.

Such perverse asymmetry is strange, since, at least privately, most Americans would concede that of the 18 Middle Eastern nations, only Israel is a genuine consensual democracy.

As far as tolerance goes, in the entire region, only in Israel is it legal to criticize political or religious figures. Only there can one choose to adopt an openly gay or trans lifestyle. Only there can an apostate renounce one’s religion or urge others to do the same. And only there can Christians establish a new church almost anywhere they choose.

Some of Israel’s fiercest feminist critics who wear miniskirts and halter tops, some of its most severe gay opponents, and some of its more virulent trans adversaries would in all likelihood be summarily arrested in most Middle Eastern countries if they dared to speak, act, or wear clothes as they do in the West — except, of course, in democratic and free Israel.

In terms of protest, scream publicly in Tel Aviv, “I no longer believe in the Jewish faith, and I hate the current government of Israel”–and there is little chance of being arrested.

Chant the same publicly in any Muslim country in the Middle East–“I no longer believe in Islam, and I hate our current government”–and the loud critic would be either jailed or beaten by a street mob or worse.

The New, Old Hatred

On the Left — whether that is defined as the ossifying Democrat Party or the ascendant Democratic Socialists of America, or both — it is now a general rule that no candidate can win a primary election in a blue state if the candidate is on record supporting Israel.

In practice, no Jewish American can now be nominated on any national Democrat Party ticket.

Once extreme but now mainstream Democrat candidates, officeholders, and influencers, from Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-MI, and Ilhan Omar, D-MN, to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and podcaster Hasan Piker, call for the virtual end of Israel as we currently know it. Most Democrat candidates prefer to be seen on the stump with the antisemitic, America-trashing Piker rather than with their own Senate Minority Leader, Senator Chuck Schumer.

On campuses, left-wing students, along with foreign student visitors from the Middle East, openly cheered on the Hamas massacre of 1,200 civilians and soldiers (including 46 Americans) on October 7, 2023.

Some 80 percent of the once pro-Israel Democrats now view Israel unfavorably. Their hatred explains why once strong nationwide support for Israel has fallen from about 80 percent to 60 percent.

On the extreme Right, not a day goes without podcasters Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, or Candace Owens charging Israel and its supporters with some nefarious conspiracies, from secretly directing U.S. policy in the Middle East and suppressing the Epstein files, to orchestrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk and having advanced knowledge of, or at least a hand in, the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Now orphaned, but once hyper-MAGA, politicos like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent, and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie (KY-4) blame much of their own estrangement from the Trump administration and their now inert political careers on the influence of Jewish money and pro-Zionist Jews.

On examination, their accusations make no sense. But they do reveal a sudden recrudescence of a reductionist and ancient hatred.

Irrational, Unhinged Venom

Is America really a captive of Jewish influence?

Since its founding, Israel has contributed about $300 million, adjusted for inflation, to U.S. universities and nonprofits.

In contrast, the Gulf states alone have given more than $12 billion.

Our chief rival, a hostile China, has donated more than $6 billion. Yet somehow Israel is accused of buying and leveraging U.S. institutions.

Members and close associates of the Bush, Biden, and Trump families have partnered in lucrative investments with rich Gulf-state entities. Yet we hear that pro-Israel American lobbying groups like AIPAC — whose money comes exclusively from American citizens or residents — pose an existential threat to the U.S.

Since the beginning of the Ukraine War in February 2022, the U.S. has sent Ukraine nearly $200 billion in aggregate military and economic aid.

That sum is about 10 times the amount given to Israel in the same period, during which Israel was likewise at war. In that same timeframe, Israeli cities were targeted by more than 30,000 drones and missiles launched from terrorist entities in Iran, Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza, and Yemen.

Characteristic of the current revulsion toward Israel and its supporters, Jews especially, is a barrage of untrue, selective, and hypocritical charges.

Israel is accused of “genocide” for waging war against Gaza, from which the October 7 massacre was launched, and killing tens of thousands of civilians — according to Hamas’s manipulated figures.

What is conveniently left out of those numbers: 1) Israel counters that some 20,000 or more of the fatalities were Hamas fighters, with thousands more abettors; 2) the total death figures are supplied to Western authorities solely by Hamas, a designated terrorist organization or its prejudicial UN affiliates; 3) Hamas deliberately uses its own civilians as shields, both above ground and in its massive billion-dollar tunnel labyrinth, paid for by misappropriated aid funding from naive Western groups and a corrupt UN.

The tunnels’ entries and exits were located, by design, beneath hospitals, schools, and mosques. That choice was itself a damning indictment: Hamas expected Israel to be far more careful to avoid collateral damage to Gazan civilians than Hamas itself, which deliberately put them in the line of fire to save its own fighters.

Hamas’s logic was clear: the Israelis may spare us because they value Gazan lives more than we terrorists do, who use them as human shields.

Selective Venom

Hating Israel is a selective syndrome.

Israel’s critics conveniently ignore the genocidal efforts of Islamic terrorists in Nigeria who have killed thousands of innocents.

Did any of our protesting students cite the genocidal former Somali dictatorship of Siad Barre, which killed more than 200,000 fellow Muslim Somalis?

Do they remember the murder of 3,000 Americans on September 11 by the Islamists of al-Qaeda?

Did the protesters at Stanford, Harvard, or Columbia ever blast the Sudanese Islamic killers who butchered more than 60,000?

Unlike the IDF, Turkey, a fierce critic of Israel, never phoned or texted Kurdish civilian apartment dwellers or small villages during its urban anti-insurgent operations, urging them to evacuate before the terrorists hiding among them were targeted.

John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, has found that in urban combat operations the combatant-to-civilian fatality ratio in Gaza runs between 1:1 and 1:2 — far lower than the 1:9 ratio used by the UN.

Scholars have noted that the U.S. bombing campaigns against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II — campaigns that by early 1945 were destroying the Axis wartime economies and shortening the war — as well as the bombing of urban areas in North Korea and Vietnam, killed far more civilians.

We should remember that more than 2,000 Gazan civilians enthusiastically joined the October 7 murderers, drawn by the gleeful news of easy opportunities to kill, rape, and steal from mostly unarmed Israeli women and children.

When Israeli hostages were bound and brought back to Gaza, even the Hamas terrorists had to protect their captives from Gazan civilian mobs who, in a bloodthirsty frenzy, tried to dismember them in the street.

Hypocrisies and Libels

Many other countries and peoples far better fit the left-wing/Islamist slur “settler colonialists” or “apartheidists” than do Israelis, who can claim that Jews have lived in their present-day homeland for at least 3,500 years.

In the parlance of the current Left, Arab Muslims “stole” their present homelands in the Middle East and North Africa from Romans and Greeks, who had predated them by some 800 years.

No one dares call President Xi of Communist China a “settler colonialist” for absorbing and colonizing Tibet after World War II.

Is China an “apartheid state” for putting a million Muslim Uyghurs in veritable concentration camps? What about Qatar? Should not such an “apartheid” nation be condemned on American campuses for ordering Christians to worship only in a few officially registered Christian churches, physically segregated and confined to a single, patrolled government enclave, Mesaimeer?

Who are the real apartheidists of Uganda — the hyper-rich Indian colonial overclass that chooses to cluster and segregate in upscale, separate neighborhoods, or the Ugandan majority who likely prefers they do?

No one accuses Zohran Mamdani (who promises to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war criminal” if he sets foot in New York City) of being a late-arriving “settler colonialist” from Uganda, part of the “one-percenter” Indian community that somehow still controls 60-65 percent of that nation’s wealth.

As for the charge of “war criminal,” why does Mamdani not arrest any of Iran’s UN delegation who venture to New York, given that their government butchered more than 40,000 of its own citizens as recently as a few months ago? Does he define “war criminals” as Jews only?

Would Mamdani have arrested Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (MN-5) own late father, a former Somali colonel in the genocidal Siad Barre military? Remember, he fled to the U.S. to escape the revenge of his victims and to find sanctuary for his family in Minnesota.

As for “occupied lands” and “ethnic cleansing,” those charges better fit Azerbaijan, which just ethnically cleansed 150,000 Armenians. Does Harvard protest that atrocity, or Vladimir Putin’s rounding up of people from Russia’s own ethnic minority regions in Siberia to be wiped out and used as cannon fodder in Ukraine? Does Muslim Turkey get a pass for ethnically cleansing northern Cyprus of its ancient and indigenous Greek population and sending “settler colonialists” from Turkey to replace them?

Is tiny European Denmark a “colonialist” power for owning the underdeveloped, impoverished, vast, and far-distant North American territory of Greenland?

Are socialist Spain and its neo-communist prime minister Pedro Sanchez “settler colonialists” for retaining by force Spanish colonial enclaves on the Moroccan coast?

True and False Middle Eastern Friends

Survey the Middle East as allies — and weep.

One cannot find a single country that is more pro-American or pro-Western than Israel.

Iran has been a terrorist monstrosity for half a century; it has killed thousands of Americans with shaped charges in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Syria was run by a genocidal Assad-kleptocratic regime for decades.

Qatar hosts the rabid anti-American propaganda organ Al Jazeera that hosted all sorts of anti-American terrorists.

Fifteen of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian.

Our “ally” Turkey cannot be trusted with American weapons, still less with American nuclear weapons, for fear it will share our technology with Russia, Iran, or China.

American diplomats have been butchered in Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, and Sudan.

We have waged war against Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.

The USS Cole was nearly sunk in Yemen, which continues to fire missiles at American ships.

Pakistan sheltered a mass murderer: Osama bin Laden.

And on and on.

The U.S. and Europe have suffered more than 200 major terrorist attacks from Muslim jihadists, both as immigrants and foreign residents, often with support from radical Islamists in the Middle East.

So it seems surreal to turn instead on our only time-tested ally, Israel. The new tolerance for hating Jews explains why they are now targets for more than 50 percent of all hate crimes reported in Mamdani’s New York. Armed guards now protect most synagogues in America from antisemitic terrorists, who turn out most often to be Muslim residents who, or whose forebears, originally stem from the Middle East.

American tourists were kidnapped in Egypt’s Sinai, while American oil-company employees were murdered in Algeria.

After 9/11, few American tourists felt safe in the Middle East. But none feared Israeli or Jewish terrorists.

The October 7 Hatred Surge

Three recent chapters in the long history of antisemitism remain inexplicable.

First, hatred of Jews and Israel peaked immediately after the greatest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust — weeks before Israel entered Gaza, and only after Hamas refused to surrender the masterminds of the slaughter or the 251 hostages. The Jewish crime, apparently, was being so easily murdered by Hamas.

The clearest sign of that Pavlovian hatred was the jubilation on the far Left and among Islamists — and the strange new alliance these seemingly disparate groups were already forming — over the ease with which so many mostly unarmed Jewish civilians had been butchered and the prospect of even more killing to follow.

The ghoulish celebrants were not concerned about mass murder, torture, or mutilation of the women, children, and elderly. Instead, they grew ecstatic at the prospect of still more medievalism and blood to come.

Hamas, the darling of American campuses and Muslim communities, issued Arabic-to-Hebrew phrase books to the invaders with instructions for the rapist-killers on how to say in Hebrew, “Take off your pants,” “Take off your clothes,” “Raise your hands and spread your legs.”

Second, none of the Israel-haters ever offers any alternative course that the Israelis should have taken to retrieve the hostages and punish the murderers.

Much less do they imagine what other nations might have done — the U.S., France, or the United Kingdom — had terrorists conducted such a mass slaughter at numbers proportional to their far larger populations.

I doubt any other nation would have petitioned the beloved International Criminal Court to bring the Hamas killers to justice.

Its chief prosecutor, the Israel-hating Karim Khan, refused even to examine Israeli evidence and instead rushed to condemn Netanyahu as an international war criminal.

Perhaps Khan’s hatred of Israel was aimed at hiding the fact that the now-fired Khan was being accused by his own legal team of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. Who will police the police? Will Mamdani arrest the ICC predator if he lands at JFK Airport in New York City?

Third, when 6,000 Hamas terrorists and Gazan “civilians” invaded Israel, it was during an agreed-on peace. Indeed, take away October 7, and Israel would never have entered Gaza; indeed, even after the slaughter that took place on that day, Israeli officers dreaded walking into such a subterranean ambush. And prior to the mass murder, it was Israel, not the Muslim nation and adjacent Arab neighbor Egypt, that had supplied almost all of Gaza’s water, electricity, fuels, and telecommunications.

For years Israel had invited 20,000 Gazans to work inside Israel at two to three times the wages available in Gaza. Gaza itself had been “ethnically cleansed” of all Jews in 2005 by the Israeli government under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was generally considered a “hawk.” Any valuable infrastructure they left behind was immediately looted and destroyed. After the departure of all the Jews from Gaza, the grifting Hamas government shook down roughly $20 billion of the more than $40 billion in international aid given to the Palestinians in general.

Had Hamas simply sought to create a multiparty democracy, held regular elections, created a bill of rights, and adopted a Western economy, it would have garnered hundreds of billions of dollars more in foreign investment. And its privileged seaside location could have made it the next tourist hub like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, or Oman.

Instead, the nihilist Hamas preferred to make Gaza an impoverished, violent, and pariah terrorist enclave, to rip off its own people, and to expose Gazan civilians to death on a regular basis to save its fighters’ skins and further its fanatical cause.

Hamas was never dedicated to bettering the daily lives of its own population, developing Gaza’s Mediterranean coastline or putting its enormous foreign aid to productive use. Instead, it had only a single homicidal agenda: to kill as many Jews as possible and to destroy the state of Israel.

Hating Israel while championing Hamas and its thousands of terrorist killers is a referendum not on Israel and its supporters, but a window into the mind of a sick, sick West — and an even sicker Middle East.

GFK

“In the face of evil, we must stand firm and rely on God’s strength.”

–St. Michael.

The federal government’s indebtedness increased to $40 trillion. We have a Congress with a spending problem.

And it is not due to tax cuts. Letting people keep more of their own money is not spending.

Of course, it is always overlooked that tax cuts incentivize productive behavior, which in turn results in more revenues to the federal treasury. But the problem is that no matter how much revenue increases, Congress always spends more.

And it is not defense spending. But, but, but . . . the President wants a huge increase in defense spending, and there is the Iran “war”, and, and, and . . . . Defense spending currently is less than 5% of the federal budget. Under President Kennedy, it was 50%.

So what is driving the debt? Social welfare spending. Taxing some, in order to transfer the money to others. More than 2/3 of all federal spending is unconstitutional. Defense, by contrast, is actually mentioned in the Constitution. Healthcare, housing, and education are not.

Senator Darline Nordone (R. S.C.) admitted in a debate that she knew nothing about foreign affairs and national security. Sigh. She is not qualified to serve in the U.S. Senate. Bless her heart!

Former Representative Eric Swalwell (D. Ca.) was detained briefly by FBI agents at the San Francisco International Airport, who confiscated his phone and computer. At the same time in Washington, D.C., FBI agents executed a search warrant at Mr. Swalwell’s Washington, D.C. residence, where they seized all his electronic devices. Hmmmmm.

“Like, people get annoyed when I say this, and you’ve said, I’m sure, a version which is: Yes, there’s a far right, and yes, there’s a far left.  The far right wants Nazism and ethnic cleansing; the far left wants Medicare for All.  That is not the same thing.”

–British journalist and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, describing the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats.

Governor Gavin Newsom (D. Ca.) announced his intention to spend $96 million on new electric vehicle charging stations. Huh. California has no money, cannot keep the lights on as it is, and now wants to spend money it does not have to use electricity it does not have. Way to go, Governor Hair Gel!

California is enacting new regulations that will effectively ban more than 70% of automobile tires currently sold in that State. Government bureaucrats insist that the new standards will provide consumers with more choices and lower prices. Whoa! What law of economics teaches that banning 70% of available products will result in more choices and lower prices?

California continues to press forward on slavery reparations even though California was a “free State”, and never had slavery. Currently the legislature is advancing a bill related to that effort which would require major corporations doing business in California with annual worldwide gross receipts over $100 million to review their historical records and submit sworn affidavits disclosing any past ties to chattel slavery. Why? What is the point? Other than to paint a target on these corporations and establish them as subjects for financial shakedowns in the future.

The horrible California couple who demanded that surrogate McKenna West abort her baby, are now suing her for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Apparently, the horrible California couple is so traumatized by the fact that McKenna West gave birth to her son–a baby that the California couple is now fighting to retain custody of, in court–that they want to be paid more than $100,000.00. Huh. Let’s think about this; couple wanted child to die, child lives, couple demands custody of child that they wanted to die, and now couple wants to be paid for having custody of the child that they wanted to die. Let’s hope the courts are paying close attention, and do the right thing by baby Gabriel.

“Our goal is to drive them out.  We want their business to not exist.”

–LGBTQ++ activist and communist party member Tyler Schillings, justifying the daily protests against a Christian owned coffee shop in Denver, Colorado.

The brothers at the Sigma Chi and Delta Upsilon fraternities at Penn State University have been charged with running a massive cocaine distribution ring. What happened to keg parties?

U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D. Tx.) is the gift who just keeps on giving. Yesterday we pointed out that Mr. Talarico was “pro-choice” on some medical decisions, but not on others. Today, we can report that there is another area where Mr. Talarico opposes choice; that is, Mr. Talarico opposes “school choice”. Why? Why should not parents be able to choose where their children are educated? Why should not poor families be able to escape the failing, sub-standard government school monopoly, and be allowed to use their tax dollars to find a better education for their children? Well, because Democrats are indebted to the teachers unions. And in Mr. Talarico’s case, he claims “school choice” is “rooted in segregation”. Get that? Seventy-two (72) years after Brown v. Board, Mr. Talarico is pushing the bogeyman of racism in public schools. Never mind that the very children who would benefit the most from school choice are black and brown children. No, no, no. They will stay in government schools, because . . . that is what the Democrats demand. Complete control over all.

Mr. Talarico claims that black voters are too dumb to provide photo ID to vote in elections. All over the United States, black folks drive automobiles, tractor trailers, check into hotels, fly on commercial airplanes, and imbibe adult beverages. All of those activities require photo ID. But when it comes to voting? Well that is a bridge too far for “people of color”.

Lawrence, Massachusetts Mayor Brian DePeña, 61, was arrested after an investigation into his alleged misuse of more than $1.5 million of Economic Injury Disaster Loans, a program administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration under the CARES Act to assist struggling businesses during the former Current Unpleasantness.  As Mayr DePena was led away in handcuffs by police, reporters shouted questions, to which the Mayor merely smiled, and his accompanying attorney informed them that the Mayor does not speak English.

How is this possible?  How is the mayor of a town in the United States not fluent in English?

In Minnesota, Salman Ahmed Elmi is facing three counts of aiding and abetting by swindle and five counts of aiding and abetting by false representation as part of an alleged scam to bill Medicaid for over $1 million in fraudulent services.  The charges also allege that two members involved in the fraud scheme were tied to a sex-trafficking ring involving brothels.

Kenneth Voyles broke into a Portland, Oregon store, and began the process of stealing goods in the middle of the night. The store owner was asleep in the backroom, and when confronted by Voyles, shot him. Now Kenneth Voyles is suing the store owner for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, to the tune of $10 million.

Who is Mr. Elmi? An illegal alien, claiming to be a “refugee”. Governor Tampon Tim’s (D. Mn.) Administration once honored him as “Refugee of the Year” (there is such a thing?). But Mr. Elmi should not worry. No doubt Tampon Tim will pardon him. Then ICE will deport him. Good-bye.

Virginia experienced a budget surplus in the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2026, thanks to the leadership of Governor Glenn Youngkin (R.). Notwithstanding the surpluses accumulated under Governor Youngkin (yes, there were several), General Assembly Democrats insisted on raising taxes on hardworking Virginians. And Governor Abigail Spanberger (D.) not only egged on the spending, but rushed to the cameras to claim credit for Virginia’s government’s strong fiscal position. A position she had nothing to do with in the first place. Sigh.

In Great Falls, Virginia, Alexis Antonio Cedillos-Campos, was arrested in connection with the murder of a young woman. You will not be surprised to learn that Cedillos-Campos is an illegal alien from El Salvador who was let in the country under Joe Biden.

King Charles III upset many Britons after “Defender of the Faith” was replaced in this year’s Sovereign Grant Annual Report in June with “His Majesty is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and protects the space for Faith within the multi-faith nation.” This is a big deal, as Great Britain has long been a Christian nation. What is it now? Because believe it or not, not all religions are equal. Indeed, some “religions” are not actually religions.

Mr. and Mrs. Megan Markle are moving back to England. Huzzah! Britain’s loss is our gain.

Pizza Hut is temporarily changing its name to “Hut”. No pizza. The name change is scheduled to coincide with this Fall’s football season. At the end of football season, it the chain will become Pizza Hut again.

ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard has died at age 77. R. I. P.

GFK

“The light of faith is a treasure that protects us from the darkness of sin.”

–St. Michael.

Representative Eric Swalwell (D. Ca.) not only confessed to his long rumored sexual affair with Red Chinese spy Fang Fang, but also accepted illegal campaign contributions from Red Chinese sources. Sigh. Why is this man not in prison?

Representative Nancy Mace (R. S.C.) who flipped and flopped enough to destroy her political career, has now found something permanent. Miss Mace recently got 9 tattoos on her body. They are not going anywhere.

Puddin’head is whining that she has received negative criticism over her decision to freeze her eggs. Well, maybe–just maybe–she should not have published pictures of her injecting hormones, and talked about the decision with reporters. If she had kept her private affairs private, then no one would know. People used to know things like that. But in the age of Facebook and Instagram . . . .

“I know we have efforts to increase diversity in district, so I’m wondering . . . are there financial incentives for black and brown people to work here? It’s an extra burden, quite frankly, to a black or brown teacher or administrator in the district, so I think we should start thinking about that, financially.”

–West Hartford, Connecticut public school board member LaToya Yagaloff.

I am pretty sure that paying someone more, or less, based on their skin color, is illegal. But maybe those laws do not apply in Connecticut.

In Maine, Minnesota, and Kentucky, government created “alternative financing programs” provide “Sharia law compliant” loans to Muslim applicants. What in the world . . . ?

Senator John Cornyn (R. Tx.) is still not over losing the Republican primary to Attorney General Ken Paxton. Senator Cornyn refuses to campaign for Mr. Paxton, is working to oppose closed party primaries in Texas (Senator Cornyn loves Democrats choosing Republican candidates), and suddenly opposes naming a Texas highway after President Trump, after previously coming up with the idea as his own. John Cornyn is a bitter, vindictive old man.

Why is ANTIFA merchandise being sold at U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico’s (D. Tx.) events? Hmmmm.

James Talarico is pro-choice (i.e. pro death) when it comes to abortion, because he “trusts Texans to make their own healthcare decisions”. But when it comes to vaccines, James Talarico believes in government mandates. He wants to remove all exemptions, including religious exemptions, for vaccines. Apparently James Talarico does not trust Texans to make their own healthcare decisions.

Jacob Smith, Senator John Cornyn’s long time deputy legislative director, has resigned to go to work for . . . James Talarico. Well, how about that? How is it that a Democrat (let’s face it, no real Republican, not even a liberal Republican, would work for Mr. Talarico) worked so long for Senator Cornyn? What does that say about Senator Cornyn? Perhaps it illustrates why Texas Republicans rejected him as their standard bearer.

Fatana Karimi, owner of a women’s beauty shop in Alexandria, Virginia, kicked out a Jewish woman from her salon upon learning that she was Jewish. She refused to finish the work she had begun, would not refund the woman’s money, and repeatedly insulted and threatened her. Fatana Karimi is from Afghanistan, and is Muslim.

Abdulloi Toshpulodzoda murdered his Northern Virginia landlord, but was found to be insane, and committed to the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute. Someone there thought it a good idea to give him a 48 hour furlough. Shades of Michael Dukakis! Abdulloi Toshpulodzoda fled the United States on a Turkish Airlines flight out of Dulles Airport, and is now safely ensconced in Tajikistan. Good going folks!

The College of William & Mary is under federal investigation for conferring scholarships and other benefits on the basis of race. Mr. Jefferson, a graduate of what became the George Wythe School of Law at William & Mary, would not approve.

Make Abigail Go Away!

Former Baltimore Ravens linebacker O.J. Brigance has died at age 56. R. I. P.

ESPN co-founder William Rasmussen has died at age 93. R. I. P.

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Below is an article by the esteemed Dennis Prager, touching on how much things have changed since I have been alive, and not for the better. Read the article carefully, and you may well understand why this country has become so polarized.

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Why I Am Not a Liberal

BY:          Dennis Prager (August 12, 2008).

The following is a list of beliefs that I hold. Nearly every one of them was a liberal position until the late 1960s. Not one of them is now.

Such a list is vitally important in order to clarify exactly what positions divide left from right, blue from red, liberal from conservative.

I believe in American exceptionalism, meaning that (a) America has done more than any international organization or institution, and more than any other country, to improve this world; and (b) that American values (specifically, the unique American blending of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values) form the finest value system any society has ever devised and lived by.

I believe that the bigger government gets and the more powerful the state becomes, the greater the threat to individual liberty and the greater the likelihood that evil will ensue. In the 20th century, the powerful state, not religion, was the greatest purveyor of evil in the world.

I believe that the levels of taxation advocated by liberals render those taxes a veiled form of theft. “Give me more than half of your honestly earned money or you will be arrested” is legalized thievery.

I believe that government funding of those who can help themselves (e.g., the able-bodied who collect welfare) or who can be helped by non-governmental institutions (such as private charities, family, and friends) hurts them and hurts society.

I believe that the United States of America, from its inception, has been based on the Judeo-Christian value system, not secular Enlightenment values alone, and therefore the secularization of American society will lead to the collapse of America as a great country.

I believe that some murderers should be put death; that allowing all murderers to live does not elevate the value of human life, but mocks it, and that keeping all murderers alive trivializes the evil of murder.

I believe that the American military has done more to preserve and foster goodness and liberty on Earth than all the artists and professors in America put together.

I believe that lowering standards to admit minorities mocks the real achievements of members of those minorities.

I believe that when schools give teenagers condoms, it is understood by most teenagers as tacit approval of their engaging in sexual intercourse.

I believe that the assertions that manmade carbon emissions will lead to a global warming that will in turn bring on worldwide disaster are a function of hysteria, just as was the widespread liberal belief that heterosexual AIDS will ravage America.

I believe that marriage must remain what has been in every recorded civilization — between the two sexes.

I believe that, whatever the reasons for entering Iraq, the American-led removal of Saddam Hussein from power will decrease the sum total of cruelty on Earth.

I believe that the trial lawyers associations and teachers unions, the greatest donors to the Democratic Party, have done great harm to American life — far more than, let us say, oil companies and pharmaceutical companies, the targets of liberal opprobrium.

I believe that nuclear power, clean coal, and drilling in a tiny and remote frozen part of Alaska and offshore — along with exploration of other energy alternatives such as wind and solar power — are immediately necessary.

I believe that school vouchers are more effective than increased spending on public schools in enabling many poorer Americans to give their children better educations.

I believe that while there are racists in America, America is no longer a racist society, and that blaming disproportionate rates of black violence and out-of-wedlock births on white racism is a lie and the greatest single impediment to African-American progress.

I believe that America, which accepts and assimilates foreigners better than any other country in the world, is the least racist, least xenophobic country in the world.

I believe the leftist takeover of the liberal arts departments in nearly every American university has been an intellectual and moral calamity.

I believe that a good man and a good marriage are more important to most women’s happiness and personal fulfillment than a good career.

I believe that males and females are inherently different. For example, girls naturally prefer dolls and tea sets to trucks and toy guns — if you give a girl trucks, she is likely to give them names and take care of them, and if you give a boy trucks, he is likely to crash them into one another.

I believe that when it comes to combating the greatest evils on Earth, such as the genocide in Rwanda, the United Nations has either been useless or an obstacle.

I believe that, generally speaking, Western Europe provides social and moral models to be avoided, not emulated.

I believe that America’s children were positively affected by hearing a non-denominational prayer each morning in school, and adversely affected by the removal of all prayer from school.

I believe that liberal educators’ removal of school uniforms and/or dress codes has had a terrible impact on students and their education.

I believe that bilingual education does not work, that for the sake of immigrant children and for the sake of the larger society, immersion in the language of the country, meaning English in America, is mandatory.

I believe that English should be declared the national language, and that ballots should not be printed in any language other than English. If one cannot understand English, one is probably not sufficiently knowledgeable to vote intelligently in an English-speaking country.

Finally, I believe that there are millions of Americans who share most of these beliefs who still call themselves “liberal” or “progressive” and who therefore vote Democrat. They do so because they still identify liberalism with pre-1970 liberalism or because they are emotionally attached to the word “liberal.”

I share that emotion. But one should vote based on values, not emotions.

GFK

“Let us pray, reflecting upon the grace of the Archangel, as we too are called to fight for the truth.”

–St. Michael.

The U.S. is actually moving in the right direction. You would not believe that if cable news and The New York Times were your sources of news, but it is true.

Moreover, because of Leftist cheerleading in the mainstream media for the Democrat Party, the U.S. is also on the verge of being irreparably damaged. If the Democrats regain power, believe them when they tell you that they will open the borders, “pack” the Supreme Court, enact wealth taxes, enact socialized medicine, and curb the military. If you think that the labor participation rate is low now at 61.4% (and it is), then just wait until there is a national minimum income guarantee. If you think the debt is unsustainable, what do you think it will be if the Left gets their wish list of $200 trillion in increased spending over the next 10 years?

Below I have shared commentaries on the current and emerging situation. I hope you find them informative.

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You Can’t Have Democracy Without Free Markets. Why ‘Democratic Socialism’ Is an Oxymoron.

BY:          Dimitri Bolt (August 12, 2026).

Free markets are a prerequisite for political freedom. That simple truth is too often forgotten across the United States, and has become especially urgent amid the rise of so-called democratic socialism

. 

Over the weekend, Daniel Di Martino, an economist, Manhattan Institute fellow, and immigrant from socialist Venezuela, reminded attendees at Young America’s Foundation’s National Conservative Student Conference why. Political freedom, whether under a democracy or a constitutional republic, cannot endure without economic freedom: the ability of individuals to own property, build businesses, and exist independently of the state.

“Democratic socialism is an oxymoron,” Di Martino said. “You cannot have a democracy and a socialist economy. You can live in a country without democratic freedoms and with economic freedoms. It’s true, I mean, think about the Arab Gulf nations, right? Think about Dubai, you know, Kuwait. Think about UAE, right? Think about Singapore. You know, Singapore has much more political freedom than the Arab countries, but, you know, the same party has been in power for like 60 years. But in those countries, people don’t starve to death. In those countries, people actually immigrate. All those countries are actually richer on average than the United States.”

“But there is not a single example of a socialist economy that is democratic,” he said. “You see, economic freedom, capitalism, free enterprise is a precondition to democracy. It’s not a sufficient condition, but it’s a requirement. Socialists know this, and that’s why they implement socialism.”

How do economic freedom, and free markets lead to a politically free society?

What too many people take for granted is that private enterprise serves as a powerful check on government authority. It keeps a nation’s wealth creation, productive capacity, and economic decision-making from being concentrated in the hands of the state. Instead, it disperses power among millions of workers, consumers, investors, entrepreneurs, and business owners, allowing individuals to pursue innovation, creativity, and opportunity in ways no centralized government can replicate. 

That dispersion of power matters immensely. When the government controls the economy, it can easily control livelihoods: who receives a license, a loan, a job, a contract, or the ability to start and sustain a business. A society with independent businesses and private property creates institutions that exist outside the state that resist political pressure and give citizens a significant measure of genuine freedom.

Free markets also cultivate a belief in the power of individual agency, the conviction that people should be free to make choices, take risks, build something of their own, and keep the rewards of their hard work. That belief is not separate from political freedom; it is one of its very foundations. A public accustomed to economic independence is far less likely to accept a government that claims the power to direct any other part of life.

When a political movement like the DSA seeks to centralize economic power, it attacks one of political freedom’s essential pillars, based on the belief that wealth creation is inherently evil. In reality, private wealth, enterprise, and economic independence are tools for resisting the tyranny of the state. 

When the DSA claims to fight for the people, it does so in a narrow sense. Its vision reduces politics to mob rule: the tyranny of the majority, backed by the power to force its preferred vision on the rest of society.

Too many Americans ignore the free market’s role as the backbone of our constitutional republic. And it’s time to give capitalism its rightful credit, for without it, the United States ceases to be the country it was founded to be.

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The Doomers Can’t Deny Trump’s Big Wins

BY:          Kurt Schlichter (August 13, 2026).

No, everything isn’t perfect, and we patriots should keep demanding more and more from the Trump 47 administration. Keep the pressure on. Keep the heat on. Don’t let anyone in Washington think that we’re just ready to settle. But on the other hand, don’t spaz out like a teenage girl whose parents just read her diary about what President Donald Trump has accomplished so far. Yeah, there have been disappointments. Here’s a flash: there are disappointments in life. You can’t always get what you want, but this administration tried really hard, and we might just get what we need.

Let’s review some of the typical complaints from Team All-Is-Lost. The war in Iran hasn’t yet been conclusively won. Millions upon millions of illegal aliens are still in the United States. We’re paying fat slobs to sit on their butts and gobble down Doritos that our welfare dollars pay for. Republicans are weak and soft, and haven’t passed the SAVE Act. Trust-fund communists are taking over the Democrat Party.

The economy under Trump 47 hasn’t yet matched the economy under Trump 45. The budget is still out of control. Bureaucrats keep interfering in our agenda. Judges keep getting in the way of progress. Democrats keep getting in the way of progress. Progressives keep getting in the way of progress.

So, we should whine and cry, right? After all, what has Trump accomplished?

A lot. I don’t need a column for that. I need a book.

Let’s look at the border. It’s closed. The argument isn’t over how many thousands of Third World invaders we let in every day. The argument is now about the walls we are actually building — they’re really mad that we’re going to put up barriers in a national park instead of letting thousands of invaders trash it as they traipse through it. We have net-zero immigration right now. More foreigners are leaving than coming in. Think about that. Back in 2024, it was inconceivable that we would be where we are. Yet here we are. The biggest problem America faced has been solved, at least until America is stupid enough to elect a Democrat again. If Trump did nothing else during the last two years, this would be enough to make him a success.

And he’s done a hell of a lot more just on immigration. He unleashed ICE to toss hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens out, and the boot-out rate is increasing. We’re putting the temporary back in “Temporary Protected Status.” We’re banning immigration from many garbage countries and putting limits on H-1B visas. We’ve got the asylum adjudication machine up and moving — no more six years to your hearing date and no more soft-touch judges who grant asylum to anyone with a sob story. ICE is only going to get bigger. The invaders who will only leave the hard way are going to get their wish, and as the administration tightens the rules on giving free stuff to invaders who shouldn’t be here, more of them are going to pick up and leave. We’ve already seen the results. Foreigner job numbers have dropped, but American jobs have risen. Crime is down. Hell, even traffic is better in LA.

Let’s look at the federal government’s pinko feeding trough. We used to have USAID funding transgender mime troupes in Bolivia. We’ve defunded that crap, and a ton of leftist NGOs, as a result. Look at the map. Latin America is turning red because American money isn’t going to fund leftist parties. You could hear about it on NPR, but we’ve stopped giving them government money. Trump didn’t cut everything he wanted to cut, but he cut a lot. Who the hell did that before?

On the economy, yeah, gas prices have gone up because we’ve got to deal with the world as it is. But last month, inflation dropped — again. Take a look at your retirement accounts. They’ve gone up, up, up.

Unless you’re a borderline mental defective, you understand that we’re not going to enter into a deflationary cycle. The way we’re going to have to deal with affordability is by growing wages, and that’s going to take time. Sorry, the good-economy wand is broken, but the good economy is still coming.

Trump has cut taxes, including the kind that hit working people hardest. If Kamala Harris were here, we’d all be holding our gruel bowls begging “More, please.”

Sure, there’s a giant problem with healthcare. You know healthcare — it was called “Obamacare” until the people who created Obamacare realized how much Obamacare sucked. Do we have a solution yet? No, thanks to weak Republicans who refused to repeal it. But Trump’s doing something hugely important — preventing the single-payer socialized-medicine nightmare. The only people bummed about this are the people who think that medicine should be run by the same people who run the DMV.

How about Iran? I know, Trump promised no more forever wars. Well, Iran is about ending a forever war — one those 7th-century savages declared against us about 50 years ago. Oh no, they fought back. Pathetically, and tactically ineffectively, but yeah, they shot at us. They’ve actually killed a few of us. That’s why it’s called a “war.” But the United States has completely dominated the fight, and only idiots think that the Strait of Hormuz is somehow checkmated because a bunch of Iranians are saying so on X while millions of barrels of oil flow through every day. Yeah, finishing the job is hard, and it’s taking longer than our impatient society wants, but it will remove a huge strategic opponent from the board. Go short on the mullahs, if you’re smart — Trump’s going to finish this, and them.

Oh, and the Trump administration is still hunting down and eliminating scores of other terrorists. We have re-introduced something that has been missing on the part of our enemies for far too long — fear.

Let’s review some other wins. DEI is dead in the whole United States government. Trump’s defunding and banning gender mutilation. The U.S. military is back, not only putting up wins on the scoreboard, but posting record recruiting numbers after getting rid of the curse of DEI. We haven’t got the SAVE Act yet, but we’ve got Trump promulgating orders to curb some of the most blatant mail-in ballot abuses. We’re gutting regulations on everything from guns to mining to drilling and beyond.

Yeah, we’re getting resistance in the courts. Resistance doesn’t mean you’re losing. In this case, it means we’re winning. When some communist judge from the Eastern District of the Soviet Union decides that Trump’s not allowed to be president because of reasons and racism, and the DOJ appeals, the Trump administration wins about 95 percent of the time. Hell, the only time it lost, birthright citizenship, it still came out 5–4, which is closer than anyone with any glancing familiarity with the law ever imagined, and set the stage for new executive orders that will limit birth tourism.

We could go on and on. We could talk about the superstars that Trump’s brought aboard, from JD Vance to Marco Rubio, from Scott Bessent to Pete Hegseth. We could talk about tons of things that are driving the Left crazy, like beautifying Washington, D.C., and cutting crime. The persecuted patriots of J6 have been pardoned, as have the grandmas jailed for praying in abortion clinics. The FBI is no longer trying to frame the Commander-in-Chief and lock up moms who dared to raise their concerns at school board meetings.

We should be talking about these wins. Donald Trump should be talking about them, and when he holds his convention next month, I expect he will. That’s the real story: not the whining about the things we haven’t done yet, but about celebrating the things we have.

That’s why the blackpillers are so annoying. To be a doomer, you have to ignore the great things we have achieved. That’s ridiculous and unreasonable. Now, no one is saying that we can’t complain about mistakes and missteps. It’s saying that you have to understand that every human endeavor, especially something as complex and unwieldy as reversing course on the entire United States government, is going to have its share of mistakes and missteps. Adults understand that, and they don’t wet themselves every time some things don’t go their way.

Newsflash — some things are not going to go your way. Everything isn’t going to be fixed tomorrow. That doesn’t mean don’t complain — you should be complaining because that keeps the pressure on.

Complain that we haven’t thrown out enough illegals, complain that we haven’t locked up enough criminals, complain that we haven’t killed enough Third World savages who threaten America. But don’t undermine the morale of our side by dwelling on what hasn’t been done yet to the exclusion of all the many things that Trump 47 has done so far.

Be dissatisfied with Donald Trump if you want. Think that he could be doing more. Again, keep the pressure on. Yeah, there are lots of problems and lots of things to do. Welcome to the world. Here’s another newsflash: everything is never going to get fixed. You’re not going to get to that shining city on the hill until they plant you six feet under.

But understand that life is about choices. We face a stark one. It is the Trump administration, with all its imperfections, versus a potential DSA communist regime that’s going to take your guns, take your liberty, and take your son’s genitals if he looks sideways at a Barbie doll. We had that choice in 2024, and we made the right one. We need to keep making it in 2026 and 2028. We have a long way to go, but dammit, don’t ever think we haven’t come a long way already.

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Fresh proof that ‘democratic socialists’ will act like communists once elected

BY:          Victor Davis Hanson, The New York Post (August 10, 2026).

It is not difficult, these days, to see the neo-communist flipside of “democratic socialists” — once they find power.

Indeed, the more the ossified Democratic Party claims that its growing cadre of socialist renegades are not really socialists, the more they act like — and even appear comfortable being called — communists.

With every new policy they propose, the socialists have been dropping the pretense that they are not Marxists.

Declaring capitalism a failure? All the socialists now do that.

Confiscating private property? New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani claims he will do just that if New York’s landlords, in his opinion, are poor custodians of their own property.

Dismantling the Constitution? Almost all Democrats have long called for destroying the 238-year-old Electoral College.

And now the socialists openly brag that, when they take over the Democratic Party and then the nation, they will, as good Bolsheviks, go much further: destroying the Senate, destroying the Pentagon, prisons, the police and our borders.

And they want to take over utilities, break up or absorb corporate agriculture and own major industries.

Apparently, socialists believe that with a snap of their fingers they can destroy key elements of the US constitutional order.

They also seem to have taken their cue for such radical change from “mainstream” Democrats — for example, Kamala Harris.

Now in her third vain bid for the presidency, she has adopted the doctrine of “if you can’t beat them, join them.”

So Harris now promises that if she is elected, she will pack the court, admit two new blue states (to snag four liberal senators), end the filibuster and junk the Electoral College.

How she plans to amend the Constitution to that effect she never tells us.

Like all good Marxists, these “ends-justify-the-means” leftists show an utter lack of principle: If two new red states wished to join the United States, they would lecture us on the sanctity of a 50-state union.

If they were a permanent Senate minority, they would, as in the past, honor the filibuster.

How about making “enemies of the people” lists and forcing sales of private property?

Mamdani just sent out a public list of nearly 1 million New York homeowners.

He sent official warnings to 17,000 of these property owners that, if they cannot prove they have lived full-time in their own properties, the city will levy a huge surtax on them to drive home the point that no one should own a second high-value home.

Are show trials next for those who decline to reply?

Mamdani has flipped the American tradition of “innocent until proven guilty.”

Almost 20,000 New Yorkers are now automatically presumed guilty of being house-hoarding, capitalist leeches who owe the exploited classes tens of thousands of dollars a year in reparations, unless they can prove themselves innocent.

Welcome to Mamdani’s revolutionary court.

Recently, on cable news, the national co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, Megan Romer, was asked about her group’s agenda.

Far from denying its communist radicalism, she gleefully confirmed it all — from destroying the border to ending prisons, the military and the police.

But it is in Spain, and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s corrupt and unpopular regime, where we see what one-eyed-jack socialists can do when they are finally in power, especially when they are hated and on their way out.

Sanchez has given amnesty to 600,000 illegal aliens. One result was that 60,000 Muslim men from North Africa in a single day recently swarmed Spain’s colonial outpost at Ceuta, demanding amnesties — while looting and vandalizing businesses and attacking Spaniards.

Why do European socialists and American leftists, once elected, destroy borders, create conditions of mass chaos and welcome in millions of illegal aliens — poor, often angry and unassimilated — from the Third World?

Aside from their belief that the capitalists and their bourgeois hirelings deserve violence and upheaval, they hate the fact that capitalism is too class-fluid to furnish a permanent exploited proletarian underclass.

And so they import a huge victim class, and virtue signal their purported moral superiority.

Then they spend lavish social largesse upon the influx, and, in quid pro quo fashion, thus bind their imported underclass with their welfare-state assurances.

Socialist candidates (as opposed to registered socialist activists) hide their communist-adjacent agendas during elections.

But once in office and drunk with power, they find socialism too wishy-washy and go full communist.

They destroy borders, institutions, names, dates, statues, norms, customs and traditions to replicate the illiberalism and concomitant failures of a new Haiti, West Bank or Morocco in the West.

In sum, to make a new socialist America, you must first destroy everything that made Americans — and all that they hold dear.

GFK