I am exhausted. Too much fun was had in Dallas celebrating Holland’s graduation. And the flight back was fine, as was the drive home from the airport, but . . . still. It was a lot.
Now it was a VERY BIG TIME! Thoroughly enjoyed seeing friends, meeting Holland’s friends and their parents. Everything was lovely. Dallas is a great city, and SMU is a beautiful and inviting campus. But you can only have so much fun. Though, English might disagree with me on that point.
Today I try and catch up, and inform you dear readers on some of the important things that happened in my absence. Eventually, I will become current. But for now, let us get started.
The United States Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve Bank Chairman. He cannot be any worse than Jerome Powell.
“South Carolina, where the first shot of the civil war was fired, where 40 percent of those enslaved came through the Charleston port, is today engaged in an ugly recidivism to draw maps that will deny a black person the chance to serve in Congress. The stakes could not be higher. Our political fight is not on a playground, but a moral battleground. We must stand for black representation across the South.”
–Representative Ro Khanna (D. Ca.).
Senator Tim Scott (R. S.C.) is not black? Since when? I must have missed that.
“The ghost of the Confederacy has afflicted the United States Supreme Court majority and is invading and haunting the nation right now, and we take that seriously.”
–Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D. N.Y.).
How dumb is this man? Every time he opens his mouth, he says something incredibly stupid. And false.
“I think Republicans face a new time of choosing whether we’re gonna stay on the path of the traditional conservative principles that have always defined our party for the last half century or whether we’re going to follow the siren song of populism on more to conservative principles,” the former vice president said. “And there are loud voices in and out of government, some of which have been able to influence the new Trump administration in ways that are taking our party and our movement far afield from those traditional conservative underpinnings.”
–Former Vice-President Mike Pence.
If anyone cared what Mike Pence had to say, he would still be in political office. The truth is, no one cares. Go away.
Democrat led States are refusing to issue registrations to undercover cars being used by ICE in immigration operations. Sigh. This is so unbelievable.
In San Diego, California, 2 teenagers opened fire at a mosque, killing 3. Senseless. Absolutely senseless.
San Diego authorities promised to investigate the mosque shooting as a “hate crime”. Sigh. Is there really any such thing as a “love crime”? Are all crimes a manifestation of hate?
Delaware Democrats are seeking to redistrict their State. One (1) problem. Delaware is 1 district, and the seat is already held by a Democrat. What are they going to change, the State’s boundaries? Oh, good gracious!
The United States Supreme Court rejected Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones’s Petition for Certiorari, seeking to overturn the Supreme Court of Virginia’s redistricting decision. Told you so.
Democrats are now exploring a plan to abolish the entire Virginia state level government. Democrats control both houses of the General Assembly. The Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General are Democrats. BUT, because they lost 1 decision (4-3) at the Supreme Court, the Democrats want to burn it all down. My goodness, these people are power hungry tyrants!
Governor Abigail Spanberger (D. Va.) signed legislation making public universities and colleges “gun free zones”. What could possibly go wrong?
In 2007, VPI was a “gun free zone” when a disgruntled student murdered 32 and wounded 17 with 2 pistols. No one could stop him because no students or faculty carried firearms. Because it was a “gun free zone”. But the shooter did not care about the regulations concerning firearms. Because he was a criminal. Criminals by definition do not abide by laws and regulations. But the law abiding did. And for that, they died at the hands of a crazed gunman.
What would have happened if even only 1 faculty member or student had been armed? Or would the incident even have occurred if the shooter were faced with a situation where others might have been armed? Would not the possibility that some of his intended victims were armed have deterred him? We shall never know. But maybe.
The University of Virginia placed tampon dispensers in men’s restrooms throughout the campus. What a dumb idea! What a waste of money!
Virginia’s Appalachian School of Law [Buchanan County] is exploring affiliating with the University of Pikeville [Kentucky]. It may be the cash strapped school’s only hope for survival.
At Freedom High School, in Loudoun County, Virginia, a “trans” student has been surreptitiously filming students in restrooms. What is it about Loudoun County public schools and these “trans” students?
In Fairfax County, Virginia, 1 in 5 residents are illegal aliens. That is a problem. That is a HUGE problem.
When the Tennessee legislature approved legislation to redistrict the State, House Democrats erupted in protest on the House floor, waving banners, shouting profanities, throwing objects, threatening State troopers, and disrupting legislative business. As a reward, the Tennessee House Speaker has removed all Democrats from their legislative committee assignments. Now these petulant Democrats will have lots of time to be disruptive outside of the legislative arena.
The South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously overturned Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions, and remanded the matters for a new trial. The Court found that the Court Clerk’s improper communications with the jury interfered with his right to a fair trial.
In Nebraska, the Democrats are going to nominate a Senate candidate who will quit the race immediately after being nominated. Democrats will then claim that the best choice to beat the Republican incumbent is an “independent” candidate, who is, in actuality, a radical Leftist Democrat. This is nothing but “moderate” Abigail Spanberger 2.0. On steroids.
People will be forgiven for believing that Animal Crackers were invented by Nabisco, and distributed via the familiar red Barnum’s boxes. I certainly believed that, but it is not so. Animal Crackers were invented in England in the mid-1800s, and were first baked in America by David Stauffer, owner of the D.F. Stauffer Biscuit Company. How ’bout that?!?
Pizza Hut is the #1 pizza chain in the United States. And now Pizza Hut is returning to its roots which got it to that position. The chain is refurbishing its restaurants to their origins; red and white check table cloths, red plastic cups, and the always popular salad bar.
Will Young was in Las Vegas, Nevada with friends, when they got a case of the munchies. They all went to In-N-Out Burger, where they ordered 1 burger–a Double/Double, with an extra 98 hamburger patties and 98 extra pieces of cheese. In-N-Out made it for them! And according to Will and friends, it was delicious, and they finished it. What a great In-N-Out story! One of my favorites.
Late Saturday night following Holland’s graduation, several of us went to In-N-Out in Dallas. It was packed. I enjoyed a Double-Double, and a strawberry shake. It was heavenly!
Congratulations to Napoleon Solo on winning The Preakness Stakes. It was the 3 year old’s first win of the year.
Congratulations to Aaron Rai on winning the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. A strong finish propelled him to a decisive win over the field.
LSU head football coach Lane Kiffin opened his big mouth again, insulting his previous employer, the University of Mississippi. Coach Kiffin claimed–for the 1st time, and without any specifics–that he lost a lot of black recruits because Mississippi is . . . “racist”. Coach Kiffin went on to insist that he does not have that problem at LSU, because it is so “diverse”, “welcoming”, and “inclusive”. Sigh. Lane Kiffin is an a$$!
Former Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman has died at age 74. R. I. P.
Film critic Rex Reed has died at age 87. R. I. P.
Former San Francisco 49ers tight end Charle Young has died at age 75. R. I. P.
Former New York Jets player and NFL coach Sherman Lewis has died at age 83. R. I. P.
Pinehurst, North Carolina is a magical place for golfers. The Carolina Sand Hills are home to many of the best golf courses in the nation. The weather is usually pleasant, though Summers are a challenge (as they are throughout the South).
One of my favorite places to hang out is a comfortable place called the Pine Crest Inn. Situated in the Village of Pinehurst, it is just a short walk from the 1st tee at Pinehurst #2, as well as the much more posh (and expensive) Carolina Hotel. The Pine Crest Inn is historic, iconic, and friendly. The food is good, and the drinks are better. Like Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, the Pine Crest Inn is “arrogantly shabby”.
One January afternoon, I sat in a rocking chair on the front porch smoking a cigar and drinking Scotch. The temperature was a pleasant 75 degrees. The next afternoon, it was snowing and cold. I still sat in a rocking chair on the front porch smoking a cigar and drinking Scotch, albeit wearing heavier clothes than on the day before.
Robert and I were staying there in the middle of an ice storm one Winter, when all the guests left but us. The manager and the chef went to bed around 10:00 p.m., tossing the keys to us, and telling us to lock up before we went to bed. Which, a couple of drinks later, we did.
The article below was originally published in Pine Straw magazine. I hope you enjoy.
Home Away From Home
The legend and allure of the Pine Crest
By Bill Case
It’s March 1961. You’re 45 and a lifelong resident of Erie, Pennsylvania, where you’re the respected managing editor of the local newspaper, the Erie Daily Times. You’ve worked at the paper for 20 years and been its editor for five. You have an excellent relationship with the paper’s owner. The job is yours as long as you want it. And you love it.
Your wife, Betty, comes from a prominent Erie family. Her father, Charles A. Dailey Sr., owned and operated Dailey’s Chevrolet from 1925 until his death in 1958, when Betty’s brother, Charles “Chuck” Dailey Jr., took over. The Dailey family has been among Erie’s foremost philanthropists. And your kids — Bobby, age 9, and Peter, age 5 — are happy in Erie.
Bob and Betty Barrett seemed the unlikeliest of couples to pull up stakes and seek a new life. While Bob was making a good living at the hometown paper, he wanted to own his own business. He discussed the possibility of partnering with Betty’s father in a second auto dealership in Erie, but that trial balloon blew away with Charles Sr.’s death. His passing did, however, result in a significant bequest to daughter Betty. With this nest egg and additional assistance from Betty’s mother, Elizabeth Dailey, the Barretts began looking for investment opportunities. But where?
“My dad had contracted pneumonia and worried he might not live long if he stayed where he was,” says Bobby Barrett, now 74. “He thought he stood a better chance of a long life if the family moved south. The Barretts and Daileys made regular golf trips to the Sandhills after my dad started playing in his mid-’30s. He fell in love with Pinehurst.”
While walking down Dogwood Road during a March ’61 vacation, Bob happened to encounter Carl Moser, then owner of the Pine Crest, sweeping the inn’s front steps. The men struck up a conversation in which Moser indicated he would consider selling if the price was right. Bob and Betty began mulling over the idea of making an offer. While the Pine Crest was no luxury hotel, the Barretts knew that many golfers weren’t interested in cushy surroundings. The inn’s 44 modestly sized rooms provided a homey, affordable alternative to the upscale lodgings at the Carolina Hotel and Holly Inn. And it was a going concern. The Pine Crest boasted a solid base of recurring guests, migrating golfers who returned like swallows year after year. Some had been doing it for as long as the inn had been in existence, 48 years.
Built in 1913, the hotel was the creation of enterprising innkeeper Emma Bliss. A New Hampshire native, Bliss had spent the previous nine years (1903 to 1912 ) managing The Lexington Hotel — where The Manor is today — which primarily served as a boarding house for resort employees. Leonard Tufts, who controlled most business activity in Pinehurst, hired Bliss after being impressed with her surehanded management of a Bethlehem, New Hampshire, inn.
Bliss shuttled back and forth with the seasons between managing The Lexington and her inn in Bethlehem. Possessing an entrepreneurial spirit of her own, she aspired to own a hotel herself, not just manage one. In January 1913, Tufts sold Bliss property on Dogwood Road, adjacent to the Lexington. By year end, she had erected and opened the Pine Crest Inn.
The Pinehurst Outlook hailed the inn’s arrival as a “delightful addition to the list of hotels; its comfort is suggested by the charm of its exterior . . . Modern in every particular, it provides several suites with private bath; radiant with fresh air; sunshine, good cheer, and ‘hominess’.”
Bliss operated the Pine Crest for seven years before selling it in April 1920 to Donald Ross and his fellow Scot expatriate W. James MacNab for $52,500. Ross, Pinehurst’s patron saint, was hitting his stride in the golf course architecture business and supplied the money for the purchase. MacNab managed the inn.
Instead of simply returning to run The Lexington, Bliss bought that property and tore down the old hotel. In its footprint, she erected a new lodging house — The Manor, a far more upscale house than its predecessor. Neither Tufts nor Ross seemed to begrudge Emma’s maneuvering, and Bliss owned and operated The Manor until her death in 1936.
To keep pace, Ross financed several improvements at the Pine Crest. He summarized them in correspondence with a prospective buyer in 1939: “Ever since I purchased the property, I have put back every cent earned and also some additional cash in the furnishing and maintenance of it. . . . Among the improvements I made are a telephone in every room and a Grinnell fireproofing system.” Ross dropped an additional $35,000 adding the inn’s east wing.
The Ross era at the inn began winding down after MacNab died in 1942. Aging himself, Ross chose to sell the inn in 1944 to the Arthur L. Roberts Hotel Company for $65,000. The company operated hotels in Florida, Minnesota and Indiana. The company’s founder, Arthur L. Roberts, arranged for title to the Pine Crest’s property to be placed in his individual name.
In September 1950, Carl Moser came to Pinehurst to manage the Pine Crest. Moser had extensive experience in hotel management and customer service. In 1941, the native New Yorker managed the Officers Club at Fort Bragg while serving in the Army Reserve. He had subsequent stints managing hotels in Greensboro (the Sedgefield Inn), Charlotte (Selwyn Hotel) and Stamford, Connecticut.
Along with his wife, Jean, the Mosers chose to live in the Pine Crest, occupying rooms 6, 8 and 10 on the first floor. Daughter Carlean joined her parents in these cozy quarters following her birth in May 1953. Arthur L. Roberts passed away in October 1952, and the trustees of his eponymously named company began liquidating its portfolio of hotels. In June 1953, Carl and Jean Moser entered into a land contract with Roberts Hotels to buy the Pine Crest Inn for $65,000 — $12,000 down and the balance paid over time.
By virtue of the deed records, Roberts’ heirs thought they owned the property, not the company. If they were right, neither Roberts Hotels nor the Mosers had any cognizable interest in the property. To resolve the issue, litigation was instituted in Moore County in September 1953. After hearing evidence, a local jury determined that (1) Roberts was acting in his capacity “as president and agent” of Roberts Hotel in effecting the 1944 purchase from Ross and MacNab; (2) it was Roberts Hotels, not Arthur Roberts individually, that paid the $65,000 purchase price; and (3) Roberts Hotels was not “under any duty to provide for the said Arthur L. Roberts in purchasing said property.”
Roberts Hotels was declared the inn’s rightful owner. Carl and Jean Moser breathed a sigh of relief; they had been dealing with the right party after all. And if in the future they wanted to sell the inn, they could do so.
Eight years later, the Mosers were ready to entertain offers, but according to daughter Carlean, her parents did not initially consider the Barretts serious prospects. After the sidewalk chat between Bob and Carl, there was no immediate follow-up. Not long afterward, however, representatives of the Barretts — probably Betty and her brother Chuck, who had experience in evaluating businesses — came to inspect the premises. Negotiations heated up, and in May 1961, the Barretts agreed to buy the Pine Crest for $125,000.
Since the Dailey side of the family was providing the capital, it was determined Betty would hold title to the property.
Unlike Carl and Jean, the Barretts chose not to reside in the Pine Crest. They bought Chatham Cottage (now Barrett Cottage) across Dogwood Road and made it the family’s home. Over the summer, Bob moved his wife and children to Pinehurst, took a crash course in hotel management, and announced a fall reopening date of October 12, 1961.
Eight-year-old Carlean Moser was heartsick to be departing the inn. “My dad broached the subject by asking whether I thought it would be fun for us to live in our own house,” recalls Moser, now 74 and living in Washington, Georgia. “I said it wouldn’t be fun if it meant I had to make my own bed or couldn’t order off a menu like I could always do at the inn.”
To Carlean the Pine Crest’s employees were like family. Some doubled as playmates. Carl Jackson, the inn’s head chef since the Donald Ross days, was a special favorite. The burly African American would spot Carlean entering the kitchen and commence beating the pots and pans hanging over the counter. The cacophonous clanging delighted the little girl. “I nicknamed Carl “Boom-Boom,” says Moser. “He was kind and fun.”
She played with guests too. At age 6, she sat on the lap of 19-year-old lodger Jack Nicklaus, in town for the 1959 North and South Amateur (which he won). ”We sat in the lobby watching the Mickey Mouse Club on television, and I wore my mouse ears,” says Moser. “Jack was very shy then. As long as I was on his lap, no one was going to bother him.” (Nicklaus bunked in room 205 in ’59; 26 years later, son Jack Jr. also roomed in 205 while winning his own North and South title).
The inevitable pitfalls of Barrett’s unlikely career switch presented the sort of scenario reminiscent of the 1980s comedy Newhart, the long-running television show about a New York City-based author of travel books, played by Bob Newhart, who abandons his former life to operate a 200 year-old Vermont inn.
In contrast to Newhart’s neighbors — Larry, Darryl and his other brother Darryl — a coterie of dedicated employees kept Barrett on track. Foremost was Jackson, who proved to be the ultimate lifer, remaining the inn’s chef until 1997, a full 61 years of employment. Starting in 1936 as “the pot washer” in the kitchen, Jackson began preparing meals about five years later.
“I started cooking under a German lady, “he told a Pilot interviewer in 1986. “She became ill and left it in my hands.” Jackson mastered a variety of Southern-style recipes. His pièce de résistance was “Chef Jackson’s Famous Pork Chop,” 22 ounces of meat “so tender you can cut through it with a fork,” effused writer John March in his 100th anniversary piece “Legends of the Pine Crest.” The famous dish is still on the menu.
Barrett insisted the kitchen serve the best cuts of prime meat. Specially ordered steaks came from Gertman’s in Boston. Freshly squeezed orange juice graced breakfast tables. Assisting Jackson in the kitchen was his apprentice and nephew, Peter Jackson. Peter had been employed at the inn for three years when the Barretts arrived and worked in tandem with his uncle for nearly 40 years. Carl Jackson’s cousins Elizabeth “Tiz” Russell and Josephine “Peanut” Russell Swinnie were sisters and permanent fixtures on the housekeeping staff. Tiz also babysat for youngsters Bobby and Peter.
Then there was Peggy Thompson, who supervised the dining room for decades, charming the guests and making a point to know them on a first-name basis. She recruited Marie Hartsell, who labored at the inn for 33 years, first on the wait staff, then as kitchen supervisor. Though Hartsell did not fancy herself a cook, she assisted in the kitchen baking pies. Her tasty banana cream became a Payne Stewart favorite.
And Betty Barrett was a worker bee too. She assumed the duties of an assistant manager, working behind the counter, preparing menus and ordering supplies. Even Betty’s mother, Mrs. Dailey, a frequent presence in Pinehurst, pitched in, assisting with the inn’s bookkeeping.
Though it took time for Bob Barrett to find his innkeeping sea legs, his personality proved perfectly suited for his position. A natural schmoozer, Barrett easily befriended guests. A major factor was his resourcefulness in arranging golf itineraries, an aspect of the job he enjoyed. During the ’60s, independent hotels like the Pine Crest had little difficulty getting starting times at the Pinehurst resort, Mid Pines and Pine Needles — a lifeblood for the inn.
Barrett also expanded the Pine Crest’s footprint. When the old telephone exchange building next to the inn was offered for sale, he outbid The Manor to get it. The revamped “Telephone Cottage” would become a favorite lodging choice for pros like Roger Maltbie and Ben Crenshaw.
Things ran relatively smoothly for the Barretts throughout the 1960s, but that changed when the Tufts family sold Pinehurst in 1970 to Malcolm McLean. His Diamondhead Corporation promptly converted vast wooded acreage into housing subdivisions, tacking on Pinehurst Country Club memberships to lot purchases. With the ranks of new club members swelling, securing tee times by the independent hotels became a nightmare. Under the new regime, outside starting times could, at best, only be reserved three days in advance.
Barrett did find a lifeline at the resort who assisted him in coping with the new order. Young Drew Gross, the first assistant to the resort’s director of golf, greased the skids for Barrett, keeping him abreast of last-minute openings on the resort’s tee sheet. The two men formed a bond that would have lasting impact.
Despite Gross’ assistance, the early 1970s were a bleak time for the Barretts. Bobby recalls his dad becoming so frustrated with the starting time debacle he considered suing Diamondhead for ruining his business. Instead, Bob and Betty decided to get out altogether. In 1974, they sold the Pine Crest to Richmond businessman Nat Armistead. The Barretts agreed to take periodic payments from the buyer and to continue managing the inn for an interim period.
The Barretts were in the midst of planning their future when tragedy struck in 1975. Betty Barrett, just 53, died suddenly at home. The family was devastated. To make matters worse, Armistead defaulted and Barrett (now in joint ownership of the inn with sons Bobby and Peter) remained saddled with a teetering business.
Barrett rededicated himself to improving the Pine Crest’s facilities. He installed air conditioning in 1977, allowing the inn to stay open during the summer. He reduced the number of rooms in the hotel to 35, increasing the size of several, and added rooms by moving out of Barrett Cottage and converting it into an eight-room headquarters for larger golf groups. When Diamondhead exited the scene, obtaining tee times at the resort eased up and new courses, like the Carolina Golf Club and The Pit, were open for play.
A 1978 change in state liquor law provided a major boost to the Pine Crest’s bottom line. North Carolina had historically been a “brown bag” state; customers brought their own booze to restaurants, and the bartender would mix their drinks. But with passage of the new law, inns and hotels could sell liquor themselves. Originally situated in the Crystal Room at the western end of the inn, the bar was ultimately moved to its current location, just off the lobby. Bill Jones, the flamboyant personality who tended the bar, began attracting regulars to the watering hole known as “Mr. B.’s.”
While Jones’ long blond hair gave him the outward appearance of a California surfer dude, he was actually a high-voltage comedian, flashing his rapid-fire albeit caustic humor. John Marsh wrote that Jones’ “rapier-like wit reminded many of comedian Don Rickles, and it was generally conceded that you weren’t really accepted within the Pinehurst community until you had been insulted by Bill Jones.”
Adding to the atmosphere at Mr. B’s were regular appearances of renowned golf writers Bob Drum, Dick Taylor and Charles Price, all bon vivants. They formed the bar’s notorious “Press Row.” A Pittsburgh Press alum, Drum was Arnold Palmer’s muse and later a feature presence on CBS golf telecasts. Taylor was the longtime editor in chief of Golf World, and Price was the author of several noteworthy books (A Golf Story: Bobby Jones, Augusta National, and the Masters Tournament and Golfer at Large), and at one time or another wrote for every golf publication worth the ink. Bob Barrett often permitted these luminaries, as well as other notable golf figures, to imbibe on the house, or at least at a steep discount. And they made the most of it.
Just about everyone in Drum’s family worked at the Pine Crest in some capacity. Son Kevin served as busboy or, as he puts it, “the relish tray girl.” Bob Drum himself served as a celebrity bartender from time to time, standing in for Jones. On one such occasion, a customer ordered a “George Dickel.” Drum, a man of substantial girth, broke a sweat rummaging through the bar in feverish efforts to locate the whiskey. Once he was ready to pour, the guest said, “Oh, and mix Coke with it.” The thought of despoiling fine Tennessee whiskey so offended Drum he suggested the man take his business elsewhere.
Barrett considered his generosity toward Press Row money well spent. He’d been in the newspaper trade himself, and the writers did provide the Pine Crest some favorable publicity. Mr. B.’s soon began appearing near the top of ubiquitous listings for “the best 19th holes in golf.”
Jones fit right in, moonlighting a golf column for The Pilot. Despite his bluster, he was a revered part of the scene, and it was a shock when Jones passed away in 1995 at age 40.
Bobby Barrett’s wife, Andy Hofmann, who has worked in reservations for 45 years, got teary-eyed recalling Jones’ passing. “Bill said he wasn’t feeling well at work on November 13th,” she says, “went home, and by the 15th he was in the hospital. He died December 5th.”
Jones’ successor behind the bar, Carl Wood (now the owner of Neville’s in Southern Pines), was at first unaware of the local luminary discount. He recalls two-time U.S. Amateur champion Harvie Ward sitting down at the bar with a friend and ordering a Bombay. “That will be $6, sir,” said Wood. A clearly mystified Harvie turned to his companion and observed, “I think he’s serious!”
The return of PGA Tour events to Pinehurst, beginning in 1973, brought increasing numbers of golf greats into the village. Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Payne Stewart, Bill Rogers, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite are just a few of the champions who stayed, ate or drank at the Pine Crest. And their appearances led to memorable anecdotes.
Barrett made friends with the great, the not-so-great and the run-of-the-mill alike. Probably his best buddy in PGA circles was Pinehurst pro Lionel Callaway. Whenever there was a March snowstorm, Bob would call on Lionel to give golf lessons in the lobby, a tradition begun by Donald Ross, who likewise provided instructional tips to snowbound guests when he owned the inn.
Callaway’s greatest contribution to the Pine Crest is the celebrated chipping board. No golfer’s Pinehurst pilgrimage is complete without trying to knock a ball into the hole in the wooden board covering the old fireplace. Ben Crenshaw has the record for consecutive chips holed — 28. Not everyone is as accurate. The fireplace mantel has more dents than a car in a demolition derby. The glass protecting the painting of Donald Ross above the fireplace was smashed so often, it was ultimately bulletproofed.
Both of Barrett’s sons became skilled golfers. Bobby Barrett made the final field of the 1969 U.S. Amateur, competed at medal play that year at Oakmont Country Club, America’s most demanding championship test. Not to be outdone by his elder sibling, Peter Barrett would subsequently make a strong run at winning the Carolinas Open. He did win the 1974 Pinehurst Country Club championship, his 283 total edging Pinehurst mogul-to-be Marty McKenzie by one shot.
Both boys were advancing in their professional lives as well, though on different tracks. Bobby obtained professional degrees at Duke and UNC. He became a CPA catering to individuals and small businesses (including the Pine Crest). His office is located on Community Road just behind the inn. Bobby also obtained a law license but never practiced. “I never lost a case,” he deadpans.
Groomed by Bob to one day succeed him as the inn’s general manager, Peter attended hotel management school. Given his own golf chops, he related well to the younger pros, like Payne Stewart, who became a friend. It was he who created a slogan touting the inn’s no frills persona: “A third-rate hotel for first rate people.” It supplemented the inn’s other tagline, employed since the Emma Bliss era: “An Inn Like a Home!” The youngest Barrett also sold real estate.
In the course of Bob Barrett’s first 37 years of the inn’s ownership, a slew of PGA Tour events were contested at Pinehurst, but no professional major championships. So it was a thrill for the 84-year-old when the USGA brought the 1999 U.S. Open to Pinehurst. And not surprisingly, both the Pine Crest and a longtime employee became involved in the lore surrounding Payne Stewart’s epic victory. Payne ate dinner at the Pine Crest after an early round of the championship and affixed a hyper-enlarged signature on the wall of the ground floor men’s room. The passage of time has rendered the script undecipherable, but his outsized signature is replicated in the lobby.
Margaret Swindell, a mainstay behind the desk for decades (you’re a newbie until you’ve been employed at the Pine Crest for at least a decade), had a memorable encounter with Stewart prior to his final round. Swindell was working at her then-primary job with Pinehurst Country Club at the Learning Center when Payne approached her counter and requested a pair of scissors. He did not like the feel of his rain jacket and wanted the sleeves trimmed away.
Swindell and a co-worker held the jacket taut while Stewart snipped. She placed the detached sleeves in a drawer, thinking nothing more about the remnants until Stewart won the championship, and a ruckus was made afterward concerning his sleeveless rain jacket. Today, the sleeves and scissors are displayed at the World Golf Hall of Fame in an exhibit titled “Style and Substance: The Life and Legacy of Payne Stewart.”
Bob Barrett’s hope that moving South would lead to a long life came to pass. He died at age 89, two months after the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst. John Dempsey, the longtime president of Sandhills Community College, gave the eulogy.
“Bob lit up every room he ever entered,” said Dempsey. “He was truly the community’s innkeeper.” Dempsey, who first met Barrett while guesting at the Pine Crest many decades ago, credits Bob for persuading him to apply for the position of SCC’s president, a job he would hold for 34 years.
Though already performing the bulk of managerial duties, Peter Barrett formally became the Pine Crest’s general manager following his father’s death. But additional leadership was required, and it came from Bob’s old friend.
Drew Gross was hired in 2011 as the Pine Crest’s resident manager. Gross had been involved in a diverse array of activities since his Diamondhead days: caddying on tour, event planning, cultivating relationships with airlines for National Car Rental, and operating a company that provided retired baseball players moneymaking opportunities. It was Gross who arranged for retired greats like Sparky Lyle, Lew Burdette, Tommy Davis and Warren Spahn to bivouac at the Pine Crest during the old ballplayers’ 1992 Pinehurst golf get-together.
Recognizing the inn’s history constitutes a major part of its appeal, Gross organized a gala centennial celebration of its founding on Nov. 1, 2013. Bagpipers played, dignitaries spoke, Hoagy Carmichael’s son, Randy, performed “Stardust,” and a bronze bust of Donald Ross was unveiled.
Free drinks at Mr. B’s are a thing of the past. Head bartender Annie Ulrich makes sure of that. The Long Island native came to the Pine Crest as a fill-in barkeep during the 2014 Open. Ulrich, whose husband, Gus, is a two-time North Carolina Open champion, loves her job. “Making one person happy is great,” she says. “But at any one time, I can make 20 people happy.” The narrow passage between the piano and the bar is now called “Annie Avenue.” Even as Mr. B’s flourishes, courses like Pine Needles, Mid Pines, Southern Pines, Talamore, Mid South, Tobacco Road, etc., continue to work with the inn booking tee times.
It is true that the Pine Crest celebrates its history — the three barstools at Mr. B’s bearing brass plaques dedicated to the long departed trio of Drum, Price and Taylor; the two Donald Ross sculptures and the painting of Ross over the fireplace; the many images of long-gone golf heroes; and the tiny monument to the succession of orange cats, Marmalade or Marmaduke depending on the feline’s gender, that patrolled the porch — but this is no museum. Stop by on a weekend night when music is playing, folks are dancing and guests are chipping, all in the snug, yet somehow uncrowded, lobby. It’s vibrant, intimate and fun.
We are boarding an American Airlines flight to return to Northern Virginia. I expect Dudley will be pleased to see us upon arrival.
Below is an article concerning the stupidity of the minimum wage. I have opined on this before (many times, but Mr. Cardoza’s article explains the stupidity of the policy in detail).
There is also an article on the abuse of language in order to deceive. A particular pet peeve of mine.
Advocates of minimum wage present the policy as a means to uplift low-income workers. But for more than a century, it has steadily produced outcomes starkly at odds with this goal.
BY: Jim Cardoza, The American Thinker (May 7, 2026).
Progressive lawmakers in Washington, D.C., recently introduced legislation that would increase the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour. But rather than discuss the merits of an increase, our representatives would be wise to debate the scheme itself.
Advocates of minimum wage present the policy as a means to uplift low-income workers. But for more than a century, it has steadily produced outcomes starkly at odds with this goal. It is far more than an economic policy. It is a statement on our society’s underlying assumptions about human freedom, responsibility, and the proper limits of government power. When examined honestly, minimum wage reveals an unsettling truth: symbolic compassion often produces actual misery, and the people paying the highest price are those least able to bear it.
Let’s look at how this policy originated. The popular narrative claims the minimum wage was created to protect low-skill workers from exploitation. But the historical record tells a very different story — one so politically inconvenient that it has been almost entirely erased from public discussion.
In the early 20th century, Progressive-era reformers in the United States, Canada, and Australia supported minimum-wage laws explicitly as a tool to exclude undersired workers from the labor market. These undesired workers were usually minorities, immigrants, women, or the poor. The logic was simple: raise the cost of competitive labor. After all, the appeal of hiring unionized white men is greatly reduced when a black laborer, an immigrant, or a woman is available to do the job at a far lower wage.
The intention was not hidden. Economists and policymakers wrote openly about the need to prevent “inferior” workers from “undercutting” others through their offer to work for lower pay. Early advocates were quite clear that raising the cost of hiring low-skill workers would reduce their value, making them less employable. They supported the legislation for precisely this reason.
Milton Friedman noted bluntly, “The minimum wage law is most properly described as a law saying employers must discriminate against people with low skills.” Walter E. Williams went even further, calling it one of the few government policies whose historical intent and modern consequences aligned perfectly: it reduced employment among low-skill workers, disproportionately harming minorities.
Minimum wage is a policy born not of generosity, but of exclusion. Its intent was never to uplift. It was always to restrict.
A minimum wage is not merely an economic regulation; it is a legal prohibition. It forbids consenting adults from entering into a work agreement that both find mutually beneficial. If a young person wishes to work for $10 an hour to gain experience — and an employer wishes to hire him at that wage — that transaction is outlawed.
The assumption behind such a law is that individuals do not know what is in their best interest and that government overlords do.
In a free society, there is no reason that third parties should dictate terms for people whose circumstances and incentives they do not share, do not understand, and cannot possibly know individual motivations. The paternalistic presumptions of minimum wage should be an affront to a free people.
Williams made the moral point even more directly: if you do not own your labor — if you are not free to sell it on terms you choose — then someone else owns part of you. Minimum-wage laws obliterate a core principle of a free society: the right of peaceful individuals to make voluntary arrangements without political interference.
A policy that forcibly restricts human freedom has no claim to moral superiority.
The most basic lesson of economics — so often ignored in political rhetoric — is that price controls create surpluses or shortages. A minimum wage is a price floor. When imposed above the value a worker can produce, it does not raise that worker’s productivity; it simply makes it illegal to employ him.
Employers do not pay wages out of kindness. They pay wages out of revenue generated by the worker’s output. If a law requires an employer to pay $20 per hour for labor worth $12 per hour, the employer will not hire that worker. There is no mystery in this. There is only arithmetic.
When the government mandates wages that exceed a worker’s productivity, the worker is priced out of the job market entirely. In other words, the government mandates their unemployment.
The groups most harmed are those with limited skills: often teenagers, minorities, immigrants with limited English, individuals with poor schooling, and anyone needing a first step onto the employment ladder.
These workers do not need a law declaring their labor to be more valuable than it is. They need the opportunity to gain skills and experience so their productivity — and thus their wages — can rise naturally. Minimum-wage laws deny them that opportunity.
One of the great ironies of minimum-wage policy is that it kills precisely the jobs that build the foundations for success. First jobs are not primarily about income; they are about experience, habits, discipline, and the development of employability.
Minimum wage has led employers to eliminate entry-level positions, replace labor with automation, combine multiple low-skill roles into a single high-skill position, or simply ask existing workers to do more.
The gas station attendant, the grocery bagger, the usher, the dishwasher, and the clerk — positions once filled by teenagers and those entering the workforce for the first time — have quietly disappeared over the decades. Not because society no longer needs these services, but because it is no longer legal to hire inexperienced workers at wages that reflect their initial level of productivity.
Like many government interventions, the minimum wage creates a comforting illusion. Consumers and voters see the wage mandated by law; they do not see the jobs that never appear, the hours that are cut, the businesses that do not open, or the services that vanish.
The winners are the higher-productivity workers who keep their jobs. The losers are the lower-productivity workers who are pushed out of the labor market entirely.
Society pays in other ways as well. When labor becomes more expensive by law, prices rise, service options shrink, small businesses struggle or close, automation accelerates, and economic mobility slows.
Every additional restriction on voluntary exchange reduces the range of choices available to individuals. A society does not lose its freedom all at once; it loses it regulation by regulation, each wrapped in the language of noble intentions.
In time, citizens become less free not because freedom was taken from them violently, but because it was regulated away politely.
Minimum-wage laws allow politicians to appear compassionate while shifting the costs onto the invisible, the inexperienced, and the politically powerless. The policy was born in exclusion, survives through misunderstanding, and persists because its victims lack a voice.
Minimum-wage laws do not uplift the poor. They prohibit the poor from helping themselves. They do not expand opportunity; they ration it. They do not raise productivity; they merely outlaw employment for those whose productivity is too low.
Most of all, the minimum wage erodes one of the central pillars of a free society — the right of individuals to make voluntary arrangements that benefit both parties. When the state dictates the terms of peaceful exchange, liberty gives way to symbolism, and compassion becomes something performed rather than practiced.
A society serious about opportunity would not criminalize the first rung of the economic ladder. It would widen the path upward — not block it with good intentions and rigid mandates.
There are too many euphemisms in politics. And ‘euphemism’ can often be considered a euphemism for ‘lie.’
BY: Bob Weir, The American Thinker (May 9, 2026).
When I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, there was an area, about half a mile downtown from me, known as “The Bowery.” One of the most elegant areas of the city during the 1800s, by 1900, the Bowery had devolved into low-rent concert halls, flop houses, beer gardens, brothels, and streets that became the living quarters for hundreds of people with no visible means of support.
These days, people in those circumstances are called “homeless” or “temporarily unsheltered.” In those days, they were known as Bowery Bums. The word, bum, simply refers to someone who refuses to work and tries to live off of others. Those who either chose or were thrust into such penury were also called loafers and tramps. Such references were made during a time in our history when euphemisms were rare.
Today, there are euphemisms for just about every activity that, if given the specific title, would be deemed offensive to civil discourse, also known as polite conversation. Hence, in a continuing effort to soften our language and distort reality, we find words that make us feel better about who we are and how un-judgmental we can be. Those who are extremely overweight are not referred to as obese or fat. Instead, a man would be called heavyset or husky, while a woman would be full-figured. People who used to be called handicapped or crippled are now labeled physically challenged. The famous comedian Henny Youngman told a joke about his brother-in-law who claimed to be a diamond-cutter. Later, it was learned that he was in charge of mowing the lawn at Yankee Stadium. Ed Norton, the famous sewer worker from the Honeymooners television show, introduced himself as “an engineer in subterranean sanitation.” Employees are never fired from their jobs; they are “let go.”
When I was a young lad, people who were physically attracted to the same sex were known as homosexuals. Now they are gays and lesbians. The late English author Quentin Crisp, who was openly gay, was also very open about the use of softened language. “Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission; they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head.” Furthermore, “euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.”
In the days of yore, we never even heard of someone being able to change from one sex to another, but when surgeries came into being that pretended to do this, they became known as sex change operations. Soon, the term was considered objectionable, so it became “gender reassignment.” Once upon a time, if you supported taking the life of a child in the womb, you were pro-abortion; if you didn’t, you were anti-abortion. Now you’re classified pro-choice or pro-life.
Someone who has died is said to have passed away, bought the farm, given up the ghost, kicked the bucket, or, as the great Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “shuffled off this mortal coil.” When ending the life of a pet, it’s called “putting him to sleep.” When the mob wants to put someone to sleep, it puts a “contract” out on him. The mobsters don’t want to murder the guy; they want him “whacked,” “hit,” “taken for a ride,” or “fitted for a cement overcoat.” The bad guys don’t get sent to prison; they go to correctional institutions. In military terms, people and places bombed out of existence have been “marginalized.” When innocent civilians are killed during a war, it’s known as “collateral damage.” Slums and ghettoes have been euphemistically excised from the language and reborn as economically depressed or culturally deprived environments. People who violate our laws by sneaking across our borders are no longer “illegal aliens”; they are “undocumented immigrants.”
When taxpayers became aware of the term “earmarks,” which are pork-barrel projects intended to benefit constituents of a politician in return for their political support, it became an epithet for wasteful spending. Therefore, they needed a new name, so they were magically transformed into “legislatively directed spending.”
All of the foregoing is meant to be more than a linguistic exercise; it’s about questioning where we are as a society. It’s about our refusal to deal with reality, preferring instead to pretend what is happening before our eyes can be creatively denied by the use of more “tolerant” language. In other words, if we can find a comfortable substitute for the truth, we can avoid facing it. This doesn’t make me vomit; it makes me lose my lunch.
“We didn’t realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.”
–A.A. Milne, Winnie The Pooh.
This is our last day deep in the heart of Texas. It has been a wonderful time with family and friends. But it will be good to return home.
And it is not like we will not be back. After what will probably be her last Summer of leisure, Holland will return to Dallas to attend law school at SMU. English and I will visit occasionally (English probably more than me). We look forward to following the next chapters of The Adventures of Holland Koontz.
Today I have chosen 3 articles which touch on important topics. Don Feder discusses the dangers of our nation’s falling fertility rates. Robert Knight writes about the dishonest media, always 1 of my favorite topics. And Everett Pipe takes issue with Associate United States Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s claim that the United States is not “a Christian nation” (we quote an excerpt from Justice Gorsuch’s remarks on May 11). Enjoy!
Justice Gorsuch ignores the faith behind America’s freedoms
Rights, self-government and equality depend on moral foundations the Founders repeatedly traced to religion and virtue
BY: Everett Piper, The Washington Times (May 10, 2026).
In a recent interview, Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said the United States is not a Christian nation but rather one that is “creedal.”
He went on to extol the principles of “equality, inalienable rights and self-rule” as being above any commonly held religious beliefs or consequent moral obligations. More specifically, Mr. Gorsuch said, “[America] was not founded on a religion. It is not based on a common culture, even, or heritage. We’re a creedal nation.”
The fact that one of the supposed “conservative” judges of our nation’s highest court just made such a statement should stun all of us. Why? Because it is simply not true, and anyone with an elementary school understanding of American history should know it.
How could Justice Gorsuch not know that the principles he claims to cherish — such as “equality, inalienable rights and self-rule” — do not just create themselves ex nihilo, i.e., out of nothing? How could he not know that human rights, personal liberty and the right to self-governance must be grounded in something and that their source is the very religion, culture and common heritage he denies?
How could he not know that our Founding Fathers — the ones who wrote, signed and championed the “creed” he says he loves — said the exact opposite of what he claims?
How could he not know that the authors of our nation’s creed told us repeatedly that we, in fact, are a country of common faith and common values and that what binds us together is our Judeo-Christian understanding and respect for the Bible?
How could Justice Gorsuch not know that James McHenry, for example, declared, “The Holy Scriptures … can alone secure to society order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness.”
How could he not know that President John Quincy Adams said, “No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible. [It is] the first and almost the only book deserving such universal recommendation.”
How could he not know that one of our earliest American historians, W.P. Strickland, observed, “Who … will call into question the assertion that this is a Bible nation? Who will charge the government with indifference to religion when the first Congress of the States assumed all the rights and performed all the duties of a Bible Society long before such an institution had an existence in the world!”
How could Justice Gorsuch not know that John Jay (Founding Father and original chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) said, “The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the Word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue, therefore … to regulate your life by its precepts.”
How could he not know that Jay went further to declare, “The Moral or Natural Law was given by the Sovereign of the universe to all mankind … Being founded by infinite wisdom and goodness on essential right, which never varies, it can require no amendment or alteration.” Lest we miss his point, he concluded by saying, “The Gospel not only recognizes the whole Moral Law and extends and perfects our knowledge of it, but also enjoins on all mankind the observance of it. Being ordered by a Legislator of infinite wisdom and rectitude and in Whom there is ‘no variableness,’ it must be free from imperfection and therefore never has nor ever will require any [change].”
How could any “conservative” justice of any court not know all this?
America’s common religious and cultural heritage is irrefutable. It is the glue that has bound us together for 250 years. It is the source and stability of the national “creed” that Justice Gorsuch so admires.
None of the freedoms and rights he is charged to defend would exist without the very faith and foundation he now sidesteps and denies.
Those who gave their blood and fortune to bequeath to us the liberties Justice Gorsuch now celebrates knew this. They also made it very clear that should we ever forget that we are, in fact, a people bound together by this common faith and common heritage, that our efforts at “self-rule” would fail and our country would fall.
Before the good justice grants any more interviews, he might do well to go back and read a little bit of American history. I recommend he start with President John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Lawlessness, big government and its media enablers
Pressing a pillow to the face of real journalism
BY: Robert Knight, The Washington Times (May 10, 2026).
What are we up to now — four attempts on President Trump’s life? And possibly one on the life of Vice President J.D. Vance?
This has happened amid constant Democratic vilification of Mr. Trump, his staff and conservative Supreme Court justices, who have had to increase their security. Several Cabinet members and other top staff have left their homes and moved to military bases to protect their families from crazies.
In Virginia, Arlington County Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti basically declared Tuesday that it was open season for harassing Trump administration officials and their families.
One of many Democratic district attorneys elected with aid from leftist financier George Soros, Ms. Dehghani-Tafti dropped criminal charges against a woman who had gone to Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s Arlington County neighborhood to scare him and his family.
On Sept. 11, 2025, the day after Charlie Kirk’s murder on a Utah campus, activist Barbara Wien and her husband, Robert Herman, handed out flyers bearing a photo of Mr. Miller with a red line through it.
“Wanted for crimes against humanity,” the flyer read, along with the Millers’ home address and “No Nazis in NOVA,” referring to Northern Virginia.
Upon spotting Mr. Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, on the Millers’ front porch, Ms. Wien, a “retired peace studies professor,” made a gesture to indicate that she was watching her, The Washington Post reported.
You know, just free speech stuff. Nothing to worry about. Especially if you have children. The Millers have three young children and a baby on the way.
A Virginia statute says, “It shall be unlawful for any person, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, or harass another person, to publish the person’s name or photograph along with identifying information … or identification of the person’s primary residence address.”
The Class 1 misdemeanor carries a maximum sentence of 12 years and a $2,500 fine.
But wait. It was only a Trump official and his family who were being targeted. Also, Ms. Wien said she didn’t know who made the flyer and hadn’t been aware that the Millers’ address was on it. Right.
Ms. Dehghani-Tafti said that pursuing the charge would “risk having a chilling effect on others wishing to engage in peaceful, political protest.”
Not feeling the warmth after being doxed in their own neighborhood, the Millers moved to military housing.
When shots were fired outside the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on April 25, Mr. Miller instantly shielded the pregnant Mrs. Miller with his body, an act of chivalry that has gone viral on social media.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of California, was arrested and charged with attempting to assassinate the president.
On May 4, a gunman who had been tracking Mr. Vance’s motorcade a block from the White House exchanged fire with Secret Service agents. A child was struck and briefly hospitalized. Michael Marx, 45, of Texas, was arrested.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Mr. Marx exclaimed, “F the White House” after being arrested.
We are constantly being told that “both sides” are responsible for the rise in violence and that “both sides” should turn down the rhetoric. That is a lie propounded by legacy media, which see no enemies to the left, even as that side grows more violent.
You might think the shooting near the White House, which occurred around 3:30 p.m., would be front-page news, especially after the attempted assassination of the president only days earlier.
The Washington Post buried it in the second section, on page B-20. It was, in fact, the very last story in the entire publication.
On the front page, however, The Post gaily celebrated its latest Pulitzer prizes. The paper won for feature photography and for the big one: the Public Service Award.
It got the latter largely for siccing hard-left reporter Hannah Natanson to crusade against the Trump administration’s attempts to rein in the federal bureaucracy through the Department of Government Efficiency.
The best argument for freedom of the press is that it is there to keep government honest and in check. The Post news staff appears to feel otherwise. Instead, it goes after any attempt to impose accountability on the ever-growing permanent state.
It may have helped Ms. Natanson’s case for a Pulitzer that the FBI had executed a search warrant at her home in January, looking for leaked classified information from a federal contractor who was charged under the Espionage Act. The agents told her she wasn’t a target of their investigation, but what a feather in her cap.
In its glory days, The Post brought down a sitting president, Richard Nixon, by regurgitating leads fed to it by FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt, whose cover was “Deep Throat.”
During the Obama and Biden administrations, The Post was incurious about any number of reportable scandals, including mass illegal immigration and lies about COVID-19 and the Russian collusion hoax. The latter netted Pulitzers for The Post and The New York Times, which played key roles in manipulating the public.
That itself should be a major news story. Yet it doesn’t fit the narrative, so don’t hold your breath.
When the New York Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, the legacy media pointedly ignored it while leftist-controlled social media crushed it.
Dave Burge, who writes at Iowahawkblog, put it best when he observed, “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.”
Falling fertility: The world could end in empty cradles
Gen Z will regret not having children
BY: Don Feder, The Washington Times (May 10, 2026).
Generation Z is easily the most self-absorbed, egocentric generation in history. Their hubris will have consequences for its members, society and the future of humanity.
A Barna Survey on Gen Z attitudes toward marriage and children signals looming disaster.
Overall, the survey by America’s foremost Christian pollster shows that Gen Z is largely disconnected from reality. Among 14- to 29-year-olds, support for socialism has increased 17 percentage points since the last time the survey was taken, from 22% to 39%. Why not?
The signs of its success are all around us. What do you do when you get caught between Pyongyang and New York City?
Barna notes: “Young adults today report high levels of anxiety, uncertainty and emotional complexity in their daily lives — factors that may shape how they approach long-term decisions like marriage.”
In other words, they are emotional lightweights.
My parents married in 1936, in the depths of the Great Depression. They were married for 20 years before they could afford to buy a house.
Of course, there was nothing to be anxious about in 1936 — nothing except Nazis goose-stepping across Europe, Imperial Japan tearing up Asia and Marshal Stalin waiting to pounce.
The survey’s most troubling disclosure is this: Some 74% of Gen Z say life can be fulfilling without children. This attitude has been carefully cultivated by elites in education, news media and Hollywood.
If marriage and children aren’t important, then what is the greatest source of satisfaction for this aimless generation? Their careers, condos, cars, investments or the number of likes they get on social media?
I have a friend who is a successful lawyer. In her 70s, she says she was focused on a legal career since high school. Now, she wishes someone had told her about the importance of children decades earlier, while she still had time.
The decisions Gen Z makes about marriage and children won’t affect them alone. It is a butterfly effect that starts in the maternity ward and eventually collapses the Social Security Trust Fund.
To put it bluntly, our civilization is dying because too many have unknowingly chosen for it to happen.
Our society is aging rapidly as fewer children are born to replace previous generations.
Fertility is the key to a nation’s future. A nation’s fertility rate is the number of children the average woman will have in her lifetime. Replacement level fertility is 2.1. We haven’t been there in almost 20 years. In 2025, America’s fertility rate was 1.57, the lowest on record and well below replacement, and it keeps going down.
This means fewer taxpayers supporting more elderly people who need their pensions funded and their medical bills paid.
An industrialized society runs on people, all sorts of people, including architects, teachers, medical personnel, first responders, assembly-line and agricultural workers, investors and innovators. As more of them retire, fewer are waiting to take their place.
In 20 years, we will still have the abundant natural resources we have today, but we will have no one to harness them. We will still have the roads, railroads and ports, but not the truck drivers, trainmen and longshoremen.
America will contract. Small towns and medium-size cities will be abandoned. Life will be centered on large cities, which will be increasingly unlivable, as the pool of police, firefighters and medical personnel dries up.
Fertility and marriage go hand in hand. In 1970, more than 40% of households consisted of married couples with children younger than 18. By 2022, that figure had declined to 22%. In 2024, for the first time, a majority of women weren’t married.
The survey shows one positive trend.
Barna reports that Generation Z has outpaced all other generations in church attendance. On average, they attend religious services 1.9 times a month, compared with 1.8 for millennials.
There is a gender gap here too. Although 21% of Gen Z men attend church monthly, only 12% of Gen Z women are regular churchgoers. They are probably too busy marching with CodePink.
Regardless of their sex, when they are in church, do they hear anything positive about marriage and procreation, such as “Be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth” and “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh”?
Churches and synagogues need to do more than pay lip service to marriage and procreation. Otherwise, the world may end not in fire or ice but empty cradles.
It’s not mental illness; it’s a sickness of the soul
BY: Don Feder, The Washington Times (May 3, 2026).
In thinking about Cole Tomas Allen, the man charged with attempting to assassinate the president at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, I keep coming back to historian Hannah Arendt’s phrase “the banality of evil.”
Arendt, who covered the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, expected the chief architect of the Holocaust to be a monster with blood dripping from his fangs. That he was a monster is undeniable, but in many ways, he was rather ordinary, even bland.
Some are surprised by Mr. Allen’s vanilla ice cream plainness. The man who described himself as the “Friendly Federal Assassin” is well-educated, with degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science. He has no documented history of mental illness.
Those who knew him professionally said he seemed like a nice guy.
Evil and education have no connection. In Germany, the less educated, such as farmworkers, were the least likely to join the Nazi Party, while the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile killing units that preceded the death camps, were often composed of professionals, including lawyers, accountants and teachers.
Mr. Cole’s manifesto is extreme, but no more so than the rhetoric of many in the Democratic Party’s leadership and mainstream media. He referred to President Trump as a “pedophile, rapist and traitor,” which, come to think of it, sounds like many of the “undocumented” aliens his predecessor allowed to enter the country illegally.
Was Mr. Cole brainwashed? If he was, then he brainwashed himself.
The Friendly Federal Assassin chose to believe certain things: that Mr. Trump and members of his Cabinet had the blood of innocents on their hands, such as “fishermen” (in reality, Venezuelan drug smugglers), and were plotting to destroy democracy.
In every generation, political killers have chosen to believe certain things that allowed them to rationalize their evil. The Jacobins, who presided over the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, believed aristocrats were conspiring with foreign monarchs to overthrow the republic, so the guillotine was an instrument of national survival.
The Bolsheviks justified their liquidation of the kulaks (relatively prosperous peasant farmers) as counterrevolutionaries. The Nazis claimed that Jews were plotting to destroy Germany and rule the world and that mass murder was the only way to stop them.
Mao Zedong believed that for communism to succeed in China, certain classes had to be eliminated, including intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution.
Once upon a time, society believed in sin — that the human heart could be corrupted in ways that led to acts of depravity. Sometime in the 20th century, psychology replaced theology.
It didn’t work.
Humanity hasn’t gotten better in the era of psychoanalysis, group therapy and “I’m OK — You’re OK.” Even with all the bloodshed of past religious wars, the 20th century showed mass murder motivated by ideology unparalleled in the course of history.
Rather than improving the human condition, by leaving God out of the equation, the modern era has shown a proliferation of evil: genocide, gulags and supersonic jihad. As we have moved away from biblical morality, we have gotten ever closer to the abyss.
Western religion teaches humility. Cole Allen’s manifesto and conduct reek of monumental arrogance. Because he believed the president and the president’s Cabinet to be guilty of certain crimes, he took it upon himself to be judge, jury and executioner.
Christianity says the sword of justice is in the hand of the state, not your hand. The attack on the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner reflects a nihilism increasingly in vogue.
For the left, political violence is increasingly the option of first resort. If you believe George Floyd’s death was the result of police brutality, then burn down a city. If you think the Palestinians are oppressed, then attack Jews on college campuses or drive your car into a synagogue. If you are opposed to the enforcement of our immigration laws, then assault federal agents.
The choice is simple: You can obey the laws of God or act as if you are God.
Cole Allen is symptomatic of a condition. He is part of an army of moral anarchists that includes the killers of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, the attempted assassin who shot President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and killed Corey Comperatore, and the millions who applaud their foul deeds.
Call it what it is. It isn’t political activism or mental illness. It’s evil, pure and simple — a sickness of the soul.
The Supreme Court’s chief justice seems to have something other than the Constitution as his top priority.
BY: J.B. Shurck, The American Thinker (May 10, 2026).
I do not like Chief Justice John Roberts. I think his loyalties lie more with defending the entrenched powers of the political Establishment than with defending the Constitution of the United States. I find his jurisprudence squishy. Although his decisions could be described as advancing, more often than not, conservative viewpoints, Roberts does not seem to have a consistent philosophy guiding his opinions.
Roberts is a pragmatist. He surveys the mood of the country and considers how the rest of the members of the Court will vote on any case, and he chooses a position that he feels will best preserve the institutional longevity of the Judicial Branch. Roberts is, in other words, more interested in maintaining the power of the branch that he embodies than in making tough, but correct, decisions.
None of Roberts’ rulings better exemplifies this pragmatic, amoral approach to jurisprudence than his 2012 decision to save Obamacare by redefining the individual insurance mandate as a tax, rather than as a penalty. During oral arguments, the Obama administration barely addressed the possibility that the mandate could be seen as a tax. Democrats did not want to admit that nationalizing health insurance would increase costs for Americans, and the word “tax” certainly implies that prices will rise (which they did).
President Obama had been haranguing the Court for over a year that should it strike down his signature welfare legislation putting the federal government in control of American medicine, the decision would be disastrous for the American people and render the Court illegitimate. Roberts lives in the D.C. bubble. All his friends live in the D.C. bubble. The Democrat-controlled corporate news media reflect the prevailing opinions of those who live within the D.C. bubble. So Chief Justice Roberts chose to avoid leftist backlash (and to protect the Establishment’s sizable financial investments in government-controlled, socialized medicine) by aligning himself with Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan.
Obama celebrated Roberts’ valuable assist: “The highest court in the land has now spoken,” the president gloated. It is worth noting that similarly squishy jurist Justice Anthony Kennedy (a man whom Democrats succeeded in elevating to the Court after scuttling President Reagan’s original nomination of Robert Bork and then his replacement nomination of Douglas Ginsburg) actually joined the conservative members of the Court in a dissent that would have invalidated Obamacare in its entirety. Because Roberts joined the four leftist members of the Court in protecting Obama’s government takeover of the medical profession, healthcare is substantially more expensive and provides substantially worse treatment today.
Roberts’ constitutionally illiterate and philosophically unsound Obamacare opinion permitted a nefarious government-corporate power axis to take hold that has killed private practices across the country, made every medical doctor a de facto government employee, replaced medical science with government-regulated treatments, and inserted a government bureaucrat inside every examination room. But Roberts did preserve his standing in the D.C. bubble, maximize the profits of large insurance companies, bankrupt rural hospitals, increase the investment portfolio-generated wealth of insider-trading members of Congress, eliminate small practices that prioritized patient care, and let labor unions off the hook for healthcare obligations that they owed to their members. Furthermore, an entire generation of young leftists — too ignorant to know that President Obama and his fellow Democrats are responsible for the horrible state of healthcare in the United States today — openly celebrate the assassination of health insurance company executives walking down the street.
When the issue of Obamacare’s unconstitutionality came before the Roberts Court, the chief justice could have saved the country from all the harm that has come from forcing another illegitimate government power grab upon the American people. But that would have taken guts, wisdom, and principle. Roberts has none of those virtues. He’s a judicial pimp who pragmatically defends the Establishment’s bottom line. The medical profession in America is worse off and American patients are poorer and less healthy because of Roberts’ cowardice.
What I find particularly galling about the chief justice, however, is that he demands to be respected as some kind of impartial and inherently righteous judicial priest. If he could admit that he lacks a jurisprudential backbone and primarily represents the interests of the Establishment Blob in D.C., I would grant him some small measure of respect for being self-aware enough to understand that he is little more than a swampy, Leviathan-controlled, gelatinous judge whose opinions can be molded into whatever D.C.’s “elites” need. But Roberts is not honest enough to do that. Instead, he pretends to be above venal politics and struts around in his priestly robes as if he represents a branch of government too holy to be tainted by the inherently corrupting influence of power.
Although Roberts never said anything when Obama and his Democrat goons were threatening the Court before its damaging Obamacare decision, the chief justice jumped into action in 2018 to reprimand President Trump during his first term. Trump had publicly excoriated a 9th Circuit judge for usurping constitutional powers vested to the president of the United States. In doing so, Trump called the judicial tyrant “an Obama judge.” Well, that rather anodyne remark threw Chief Justice Roberts into a “Why, I never” tizzy, and the Judicial Branch’s limp caretaker found his way to a member of the Democrat-controlled press in order to correct the president’s errant thinking: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”
Uhhh…sure, Chief Justice Gumby. Why would a grown man feel compelled to tell such a blatant lie? The whole country knows that judges come with certain ideological proclivities that influence their decisions on the bench. While Republican presidents have repeatedly stumbled into nominating raging leftists (among them, Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice David Souter) to the Supreme Court, nobody has any doubt that federal judges are chosen for their perceived philosophical bent.
This problem exists only because federal judges have proved incapable of performing their jobs with self-restraint. In the past, Roberts has correctly defined the Judiciary’s obligations: “Our role is very clear. We are to interpret the Constitution and laws of the United States and ensure that the political branches act within them.” But that’s not how most judges act! Instead of interpreting the Constitution, federal judges rewrite the Constitution. Instead of interpreting laws written by Congress, federal judges rewrite those laws into laws of their own. For Roberts to pretend that federal judges have not spent the last century imposing their will upon the American people makes him richly deserving of Queen Gertrude’s quip: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Eight years later, Lady Roberts is still protesting! In a speech last week in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the chief justice claimed that judges are not “political actors.” (Tell that to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, whose opinions sound as if they were written by teenaged Marxists with dog-eared copies of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals!) Roberts lamented how too many Americans “think we’re making policy decisions.” (Perhaps that’s because too many judges are, in fact, making policy decisions!) The chief justice also insisted that it is “not appropriate” for Americans to criticize individual judges.
Well, perhaps Chief Justice Roberts should convince his federal judges to stop behaving as partisan hacks! Rather than permitting, through his silence, individual judges to usurp the powers of the president of the United States, perhaps Roberts should call those tyrannical judges out by name. If he wants the Judicial Branch to be perceived as “independent” and “nonpartisan,” then he should insist that judges exercise constitutional self-restraint!
But he won’t do that. Because Roberts has opinions but no spine.
On this date, the VMI Keydets defeated the United States army at the Battle of New Market in 1864. The defeat for the United States was so humiliating that commanding Major General Franz Sigel was relieved and replaced by Major General David Hunter (an even more incompetent General, and worse, a butcher and barbarian).
The battle was truly remarkable. A mere 4,000 Confederate soldiers defeated the larger United States Army, consisting of 6,300 professionally trained and equipped soldiers. Of that 4,000, 250 were VMI students (average age of 18, some as young as 15 years old).
In the early afternoon, the 51st and the 30th Virginia Infantry Divisions retreated in the face of a Union artillery barrage. Commanding General Breckinridge reluctantly ordered the VMI Keydets to fill the gap, and halt the Union advance.
These were military students. They had never been in combat before. They had poor rations, and had marched 77 miles from Lexington, double time, many of the students without shoes.
Sixty (60) Keydets died in that battle. But the Corps filled the gap, repulsed the Union attack, and allowed the Confederates to prevail. This victory enabled local farmers to gather and transport much needed food rations to General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, which was then outside of Richmond, at Cold Harbor.
The VMI Keydets fought bravely at New Market, and were a credit to, not just their Corps, but also the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the Confederate military forces. This was celebrated annually, right up until the “Summer of George Floyd”, and Governor Coonman (D. Va.). Governor Coonman appointed as VMI Superintendent Major General Cedric Wins, who immediately began “disappearing” VMI’s rich history, including the legacy of “Stonewall Jackson”. The American Taliban stopped the reenactments, and “contextualized” the telling of the Battle of New Market. It was a sad moment, dishonoring the memory of the fallen.
While the Battle of New Market will not be reenacted today, the Corps will assemble on campus in front of a monument titled “Virginia Mourning Her Dead”. The names of the fallen will be read, and Taps will be played. God Bless Those Brave Souls who fought for their home.
ALSO on this day, in 2005, Grace Hollandsworth Koontz was baptized, on Pentecost, at St. Paul’s (K Street), in Washington, D.C. It was a glorious day, and we were so Blessed to be there, having our daughter dedicated to The Lord, surrounded by our parish priests and friends. After Church, English threw a lovely celebration lunch at The City Tavern Club in Georgetown. Fr. Barnett instructed me at the time to never forget this date, and event. I never have.
Today we are enjoying brunch with the Barnetts. Then we attend Baccalaureate Services. And we shall enjoy dinner with Holland and 1 of her friends. I cannot wait for a cold, crisp, martini.
BY: J.B. Shurk, The American Thinker (March 8, 2026).
In the United States — and the civilizational “West” more broadly — we are a society divided by slogans, propaganda, and social media memes. It is an unfortunate part of our present reality that we no longer engage in honest “public debate.” We haven’t done so for a very long time.
The Founding Fathers wrote essays and pamphlets and delivered hours-long speeches during which they articulated the reasons for their beliefs. We get pink-hatted people — who may or may not identify as women — “shouting their abortions.” We get automatons screaming, “Black lives matter,” “Free Palestine,” “Trump is Hitler,” “Hands off Iran,” and whatever other mindless chants billionaire-funded NGOs churn out.
If you approach people yelling these things and ask them why they believe what they believe, they have no idea. They can’t explain why “all human lives,” more generally, shouldn’t matter just as much as those with dark skin. They don’t know anything about Israel’s ancient history, the United Kingdom and France’s colonial carving of the Middle East, the Soviet Union’s promotion of a “Palestinian” identity to cause the United States and its allies problems during the Cold War, any of the multitude of ways that the international community has broken its promises to the Israeli government for the last century, or how the United Nations has spent most of its existence targeting Israel for alleged “human rights” abuses while ignoring unspeakable evils committed by far too many regimes in power today. They can’t explain why illegal aliens are breaking into America if “Trump is Hitler” or why the president’s determination to protect American citizens from foreign nationals by paying for those foreigners’ return to their own countries is somehow equivalent to Nazi atrocities that included the mass murder of six million Jews and millions of Soviets, Poles, Romani, disabled people, and other so-called “undesirables.” They don’t have any idea why Iran’s theocratic tyrants and Islamic terrorists deserve to be protected when those tyrants and terrorists have killed, maimed, and kidnapped Americans, Europeans, and Jews around the world for nearly fifty years.
Our ancestors benefited from Thomas Paine’s polemical pamphlets in favor of American independence. They listened to Sam Adams’s fiery arguments for revolution. They attended church services where they heard political exhortations from learned men delivering passionate sermons. They read newspaper editorials and political essays aloud while drinking ale in local taverns. Common people heard and debated uncommon ideas that birthed a new nation and altered the historic trajectory of the world.
We, on the other hand, get hypocrites such as Senator Chuck Schumer, who was last year telling Americans that President Trump was “chickening out” on holding Iran’s Islamic regime accountable for nuclear saber-rattling before telling Americans this year that Trump has no business holding Iran’s Islamic regime accountable for its nuclear saber-rattling. We get Democrats calling federal law enforcement agents “Trump’s Gestapo” because those agents put their lives on the line arresting criminal illegal aliens — including murderers, rapists, and other violent felons. We get apocalyptic doomsayers such as Al Gore and Barack Obama who have told us that the “science” of “climate change” is “settled,” even though nothing those frauds have predicted has ever come true. We get public school teachers indoctrinating students with ridiculously false ideas, such as (1) biological sex isn’t real; (2) the January 6, 2021 protest for election integrity was worse than the 9/11 Islamic terror attacks, the Pearl Harbor attack, and the Civil War all wrapped up together; (3) Muslims built America; and (4) America has never been more racist, fascist, or authoritarian than it is today. We get a left-wing corporate news media establishment pushing the ludicrous argument that requiring voter identification (a basic electoral safeguard enforced around the world) is both racist and an impossible burden for legal voters to surmount (even though Americans must present valid ID to board planes, buy liquor, and enter government buildings).
Notice that these sources of misinformation never advance anything that remotely resembles a rational argument. Democrats don’t explain why they used to consider Iran a major national security threat but no longer do. They don’t explain why it’s perfectly reasonable to attack federal law enforcement officers arresting criminal illegal aliens, even though they’ve spent five years calling the January 6 election protest an unacceptable “attack” on cops. Barack Obama and other wealthy “global warming” fanatics can’t explain why they own expensive beachfront homes if those homes will soon be under water. Democrats can’t explain why it’s too difficult for their voters to get photo IDs, or why boys should undress in girls’ locker rooms, or why white men are a “viral disease,” or why all of their political opponents are “racist, fascist Nazis.”
All of these false statements are simply represented as undisputed “facts” that cannot be questioned. As a kind of “political correctness” tripwire meant to ensure that these false ideas are never questioned, Democrats further insist that anyone asking questions must be a “racist, fascist Nazi,” too. Rational argument no longer exists. In its place, Democrats give us name-calling, self-censorship, circular reasoning, and empty tautology.
America is very divided today. For most of its two-hundred-and-fifty-year history, though, America has been divided. It was birthed in revolution. It survived numerous attacks from foreign powers while still in its infancy. It grew up through radical social change, profound technological innovation, and endless waves of immigration. It has gone to war against itself, and it has gone to war against the world. It has endured hardships that have destroyed other nations. Nevertheless, its people have persevered, united, settled the wild frontier, built a continent, and prospered. We look over our shoulders and applaud American achievement without reflecting on our near escapes from American disaster.
Division does not signal disaster. Division is also opportunity. When societies are forced to confront great change, some wilt, while others rise to the occasion. America has been blessed with rare resilience. Our nation is unique in human history because it is predicated on the still revolutionary principle that legitimate political power originates with the people. We do not look to kings to tell us what we may or may not do. As our rights come directly from God, aristocrats just get in the way. Our institutions matter not because they are invested with power over us, but rather because we have lent those institutions some of our inherent powers so that they can properly defend our inherent rights. Neither presidents nor congresses nor corporations can grant us what is already ours.
It is with this understanding of our natural rights in mind that I encourage everyone to protect those rights personally. Read, learn, debate, and most importantly don’t give up just because giving up is in fashion these days. This country has been through far worse and survived. People who tell you that this is the end for America have a vested interest in seeing America end. Those stubborn enough to resist will ensure that our country lives.
To be sure, we deserve more than slogans, propaganda, and memes. We deserve civic leaders who can speak in complete sentences. We deserve members of Congress who can introduce cogent arguments — supported by salient facts and not calumnies, falsehoods, or red herrings. We deserve a new generation of leaders who remind us of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, and George Washington. Perhaps they already move among us.
Do not mistake division for disease. Division is the engine that often spawns greatness. What we require is discernment. We require wisdom. We require courage. We require leadership. We require renewed faith in God’s grace. These are not always in abundant supply. But they are veryAmerican things.
BY: Robert Knight, The Washington Times (May 3, 2026).
The left is all about freedom of choice — unless you make a choice they don’t like. Then they bring down the full power of the government on you.
Try being parents in a liberal state who don’t want their son Johnny turned into Susie behind their backs. They just might lose custody, as has happened in some places.
Nearly half the states — those governed by Democratic quacks such as Minnesota’s Tim Walz — have criminalized counseling aimed at helping minors overcome unwanted LGBTQ feelings.
On March 31, the U.S. Supreme Court restored some sanity by striking down Colorado’s “conversion therapy” ban as violating a Christian counselor’s First Amendment rights.
In California, the liberal state government ordered crisis pregnancy centers to place ads directing clients to abortion clinics. The Supreme Court stopped this assault in its Becerra ruling in 2022.
Another case in point is New Jersey’s attempt to bully a crisis pregnancy chain by forcing it to reveal its donors. Thankfully, the Supreme Court put the kibosh on the plan, ruling 9-0 on Wednesday that First Choice Women’s Resource Centers has a First Amendment right to sue the state.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, a liberal Democrat, had ordered First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a chain of five crisis pregnancy centers, to turn over its donor list. He demanded names, phone numbers and addresses of the people who had given money to the facilities, which provide ultrasounds, diapers and other baby needs, along with counseling.
First Choice refused the demand, and for good reason. When Democrats obtain lists, they use them to target and punish donors.
In 2008, after California voters approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, contributors to the Prop. 8 campaign were harassed after their names, addresses and donation amounts were posted on Google Maps. Some people were vilely harangued, and others lost their jobs.
Brendan Eich, founder of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, was ousted by his own liberal board in 2014 after it learned that he had donated six years earlier to the Proposition 8 campaign.
This kind of retaliation is why the Supreme Court later ruled in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta in 2021 that charities and nonprofits have a First Amendment right to not disclose their donors to the government.
Even earlier, in 1958, the Supreme Court ruled in NAACP v. Alabama that people have the right to anonymously support and associate with organizations. Otherwise, the Democratic-spawned Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups could harass them.
The liberal urge to override individual rights in the name of centralized progress came into vogue in the early 20th century, along with the eugenics movement. Anchored by atheism, progressivism is utterly incompatible with the Declaration of Independence, as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas recently explained in a clear-as-crystal essay in The Wall Street Journal.
The Declaration says that “unalienable rights” come from God, not flawed men. Progressivism is a steady march toward a Godless, collectivist future, wrapped in good intentions. By rejecting God and relying instead on government as the source of all rights, progressivism paved the way for “the most awful century the world has ever seen,” Mr. Thomas wrote. “Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao all were intertwined with the rise of progressivism, and all were opposed to the natural rights on which our Declaration was based.”
In the 1910s, progressivism was embraced by Woodrow Wilson’s Democratic Party, which resegregated the military, drafted Jim Crow laws and glorified the Klan. After Republicans voted in higher percentages than Democrats to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Democrats under President Johnson concocted the “Great Society.”
This grand, liberal welfare scheme almost immediately reversed all the considerable gains made by Black Americans. Marriage-based families gave way to single-parent households dependent on the welfare state. Once-stable communities fell into urban decay, drug dealers and gangs.
Still, liberals were fat and happy. They had hooked enough people in their “free stuff” army to guarantee generational voting success.
Today’s liberals are still at it, encouraging dependency and faith in government, not God. This includes wolves in sheep’s clothing, such as U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico in Texas and Gov. Andy Beshear in Kentucky. Like former President Barack Obama, the two Democrats twist the Bible to justify abortion, LGBTQ activism and redistribution of income.
Getting back to the New Jersey case, it exemplifies the cultural chasm in our country. One side sees life and marriage as sacred; the other, based on moral relativism, thinks it’s all negotiable.
Like other crisis pregnancy charities, New Jersey’s First Choice chain is an alternative to abortion. Mr. Platkin, a “rising star” in the Democratic Party according to NewJersey.com, implausibly insists that he just wants to make sure that women aren’t misled into believing that the centers also provide abortions. A gentleman, riding to the rescue.
Mr. Platkin hasn’t demanded donor lists from Planned Parenthood and other abortionists, but then, why should he? He worked with them to target First Choice. They are making millions of dollars doing the devil’s work of killing unborn babies and then donating some of that money back to Democrats.
It’s the angels at First Choice whom Mr. Platkin was hoping to put out of business. Trying to save babies’ lives and help women avoid possible injuries and lifelong regret is their passion.
As Adam West in the old TV version of “Batman” would say, “What criminals!”
That’s been the refrain from prominent Democrats across the country in the wake of the Virginia Supreme Court overturning the state’s illegal, unconstitutional redistricting referendum. And it’s amazing to watch. So much so, I have to wonder if that wasn’t the game plan all along.
Throughout the redistricting process, the Democrats demanded that the Virginia Supreme Court not rule on the measure’s constitutionality until after it went to voters. In fact, here’s what the ruling said about the issue (emphasis added):
“It is fair to ask whether we could have or should have reviewed the constitutionality of the proposed amendment prior to it being presented to the voters. But it is not a question the Commonwealth should ask. Throughout this litigation, the Commonwealth has insisted that we cannot lawfully decide this case prior to the referendum. In its motion for a stay in this case, the Commonwealth argued that longstanding Virginia precedent, Scott v. James, was ‘virtually indistinguishable’ from this case and that it clearly held that ‘courts cannot interfere to stop any of the proceedings while this permanent law is in the process of being made.'”
Huh.
Keep in mind, the process was wholly illegal and unconstitutional from the get-go. Virginia laws is clear and strict, outlining a mult-step process for passing constitutional amendments. This includes provisions that require an amendment to pass the General Assembly twice, in separate legislative sessions, and a minimum 90-day posting requirement before any vote. Democrats disregarded all of this. Instead, they pushed the version through a special session on October 31, 2025. By that point, more than one million ballots had been cast in the House elections.
It seems, according to reports, Democrats knew this was illegal, too, and warned Governor Spanberger as such behind the scenes.
“But the Virginia Supreme Court determined not that the map was illegal, the process of trying to change the constitution was done illegally,” Guy Benson said. “This was an unlawful process.”
“Earlier in the week, there was a Democratic operative who went on his podcast, and he revealed that internally there’s been a lot of angry sniping and recriminations within Democratic circles in Virginia because Governor Spanberger’s team — remember she campaigned saying she wasn’t going to do this … her team reportedly told the Legislature, the Democrats leading the Legislature, don’t do this. It is going to be susceptible to a legal challenge. We don’t think this is going to be legal, and they plowed forward anyway, and they did it illegally.”
Whoops. And they nuked any remaining hope Spanberger may have had of higher office, but that’s a topic for another time.
What Virginia reveals is a scary truth about the so-called defenders of democracy. They don’t believe in democracy. They believe in winning, and they assumed — despite the blatant illegality of this referendum — that either the Democrat-appointed Supreme Court would go along with their scheme or they’d scream about it thwarting the will of the voters.
It’s the classic, “Heads we win, tails you lose” scenario.
And here’s more proof the Democrats do not care about the will of the voters unless it suits their agenda.
In 2008, California voters approved Proposition 8 by a margin of 52.24 percent to 47.76 percent — a margin larger than the Virginia referendum, by the way. In 1994, voters also passed Proposition 187, which barred illegal aliens from accessing public social services.
Both of those were overturned by the courts and Democrats applauded. In fact, many states voted similarly including Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska, Oregon, Colorado, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. Despite that, the Democrats went to the courts and the will of the people was overturned in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015.
Californians also voted overwhelmingly for Proposition 36, which would toughen laws and penalties for crimes like shoplifting. Instead of respecting the will of the people, California Democrats — led by Gavin Newsom — have simply refused to fund the measure, rendering it moot. He did the same thing with Proposition 66, which would have streamlined and sped up the death penalty process. In that same election, voters rejected Proposition 62, which would have abolished the death penalty. Despite the clear will of the people, Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions, halting them indefinitely.
The biggest example of this, of course, is the 2024 presidential election. 77 million Americans voted for President Trump. He won both the Electoral College and the popular vote. And while the Electoral College is the only vote that matters, the Democrats have always held the popular vote as an example of a mandate.
Except when a Republican does it.
Over the past two years, Democrats have instead — once again — tried to thwart the will of the people by going to court and blocking President Trump’s agenda. The agenda he was elected to enact, mind you.
We, of course, are not a democracy but a republic. That being said, there are democratic votes and, if you pay attention, a clear pattern emerges: when Democrats lose a democratic vote, they turn to the courts to get their way. And when the courts rule against them, they hide behind the “will of the voters” to try to push their agenda.
This morning, English and I are departing for Dallas, Texas. Holland graduates from Southern Methodist University this weekend, and we would not miss it for the world.
I am not going to be writing while in Dallas. That time is reserved for my family. It is a celebration of all the hard work Holland has done, and her accomplishments, which are many. She deserves my undivided attention.
But I have not forgotten you, dear readers. On Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I shall share with you some news and commentary that I find interesting. I hope you do too.
Dudley is not pleased. He is not going to Dallas–that makes him happy–and he is not going to a kennel–that makes him happy. But we are leaving, and that makes him very unhappy. He will pout. He will act out in ways that will not be well-received. We have friends staying at the house to take care of him, and to look after things, and that will have to suffice. Dudley will, of course, blame me. Fine. I am used to it.
In parting, I leave you dear readers with a couple of articles below, which I found interesting. I hope you do too.
The slope becomes slippery when people trade freedom for promises of greater safety and security — promises that fall short while shrinking our rights.
BY: J. Robert Smith, The American Thinker (May 5, 2026).
Nowadays, U.S. Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) isn’t much liked outside his district. He’s butted heads with President Trump, incurring the president’s wrath. Trump is trying to unseat him in the midterms. MAGA grassroots are with Trump, unsurprisingly. Fair enough, but setting aside personalities and squabbles, Massie deserves praise.
Last January, the representative tried to amend the U.S. House’s version of the Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations bill. He wanted to defund a Biden-era mandate requiring installation of AI-guided “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” in new cars and trucks, likely starting with 2027 models. Meaning, installing kill switches in vehicles so when the technology detects driver impairment — or is so convinced — it shuts off the vehicle’s engine.
The mandate has been in the news recently because the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) was supposed to finalize rules by the end of 2024. The technology’s glitches forced an extension, but the mandate is a go with manufacturers gearing up.
The good news is that 160 Republicans and — believe it or not — four Democrats voted in favor of Massie’s amendment. The bad news: 57 Republicans joined 211 Democrats to keep the funding. Evidently, Speaker Mike Johnson let Republicans “vote their consciences.” So, four dozen plus Republicans gave thumbs up to a new approach to tyranny.
Continued funding is bad news because, aside from the “What’s not to like” claims that the technology will reduce drinking-related — and other driver-impaired — accidents and fatalities, it’s another Big Mother intrusion into our lives. Why “Big Mother?” Because in our feminized society, there’s a near-obsession with mitigating risks by trying to child-proof life, much to the detriment of our rights.
GOP mommies joined a lot of Orwellian Democrats to fund another episode of “Government Knows Best.” Blue Colorado is rolling out AVIS (Automated Vehicle Identification System). The system tracks how fast a vehicle goes from point to point. Exceed the speed limit, and a $75 ticket is automatically sent to the owner. Of course, Big Momma just wants to reduce crashes and save lives. It’s always for our own good.
Will installing anti-drunk devices in cars do the trick? No technology is foolproof, whatever the claptrap we’re fed. That goes for AI, too, which is drenched in utopian luster. Imperfect humans invent imperfect everything. AI self-perfecting over time is science fantasy.
Won’t latter-day Winston Smiths figure out workarounds — like keeping older vehicles, which the law grandfathers? Maybe Big Mother might remedy that by mandating retrofits?
Or Winston Smiths may find ways of detaching onboard devices. The mandate is crafted similarly to current law about disconnecting airbags: A warning light would trigger and stay on. When inspection time rolls around, the vehicle will fail. The aim is to make the mandate self-policing.
Can’t system misreads of drivers’ conditions lead to dangers? In fact, practical objections to installing kill switches abound.
At X, an influencer named “Eagle Wings” had this to say about the pitfalls:
The “Kill Switch” in your car could get you KILLED. Imagine a woman escaping a violent attacker — heart pounding, adrenaline surging. But her car refuses to start because the system detects “impairment.” Imagine a farmer bleeding from a machinery accident, trying to drive himself to help. His truck shuts down because the AI thinks he’s drunk. This isn’t science fiction. It’s the real-world nightmare of the federal Kill Switch mandate. They sold it as a “drunk driving” fix. What they didn’t tell you: it will punish the innocent when seconds matter most.
Concluded country singer and conservative influencer John Rich at X: “Wife goes into labor, husband is wild eyed and panicky, truck won’t start because commie AI settings decide you’re not ‘fit to drive.’ The analogies are endless…”
Or imagine mistakenly driving into an Antifa-fueled anti-ICE protest. Your car is swarmed by hooligans. You’re zigzagging, making a mad dash to escape. Sorry. Your car sputters to a stop. How fast can you sprint?
Maybe you need to flee a tornado? Yes, that happens. Oops. Your onboard device cuts your engine. Better find a ditch quick.
Having to sacrifice some innocents to save zillions of lives is an acceptable cost, isn’t it, claim utilitarians. Just hope you and yours aren’t among the sacrificed.
This can’t be stressed enough, though: Practical objections alone won’t scuttle the mandate. Technology can be improved, advocates will counter. Bugs can be fixed.
Central to this fight is rights versus intrusive government. Are we a free people with obligations to act responsibly — and rightly penalized by fair laws when we don’t — or are we children who must be subjugated for our benefit? Are we to accept the argument that because some among us act irresponsibly means that most of us must forfeit our rights for the “greater good?”
Don’t get caught up arguing about the mandate’s good intentions. The way to the gulag is paved with plenty of those. If a mandate has merit, chances are auto manufacturers would elect to incorporate change into vehicles, based on anticipated or real consumer demand. Government coercion is unnecessary.
Will installing anti-drunk technology fully satisfy proponents? Or can we expect more reasons why the government must exert greater levels of control? The same people after your guns are also after your car or truck keys, too.
Perhaps driving is far too dangerous altogether, the mommies and statists will next argue. Public transportation suffices. The dilapidating and crime-troubled D.C. Metro is a stellar example of first-rate public transit. Better to live in well-policed blue cities, anyway, where people can walk most places (just not after dark).
Slashing private vehicle ownership would be a big step toward ending the scourge of “manmade” climate change. Not only would that save lives — so would ending abortions, not incidentally – but cutting vehicle emissions saves the planet. The planet is so much healthier without plastic straws — right?
As Representative Rosa DeLauro (D. Ct.) to EPA administrator Lee Zeldin in an Appropriations hearing last week, “You do not have the right to say that climate change does not exist.” Zeldin does have that right, particularly when “manmade” is appended. DeLauro is free to hawk bogus science and her pseudo-religious belief, but Zeldin — and us — are free to reject both.
With nearly 280 million private and commercial vehicles crisscrossing the nation, DeLauro would be orgasmic if Big Mother cut vehicle ownership.
The mandate doesn’t connect anti-impairment devices to government monitoring technology. But an amendment could always be added. New autos are equipped with telematics, which collect and transmit data. Connecting an anti-drunk device to existing equipment isn’t a great leap. If advocates succeed with the mandate, you can bet your new Ford F-150 that government monitoring comes next.
The good news is that the Massie amendment has sparked a firestorm of protests among conservative and libertarian social media influencers and the grassroots. If publicity builds momentum toward killing the kill-switch, chalk that up as a major battle won.
Be warned, though. The war never ends. The mommies and statists are always with us. For them, defeats are temporary. Their ploy is to pluck at heartstrings while ladling up buckets of guilt to whittle away our rights.
Liberty isn’t lost all at once, as a rule. It occurs piecemeal. Decades of experience should teach us. The slope becomes slippery when people trade freedom for promises of greater safety and security — promises that fall short while shrinking our rights.
Vigilance and defending rights are the obligations of free people, day to day, generation to generation. It’s always a choice.
The Masks Are Off: How Europe Betrayed the Trump Administration
BY: Istvan Toth, The American Thinker (May 7, 2026).
Europe has betrayed President Trump. For years, EU leaders and key national governments have undermined the White House’s agenda quietly, working to remove pro-Washington figures from power. We recently witnessed this in Romania, where Cătălin Georgescu — a clear frontrunner who favored closer ties with the U.S. — was effectively sidelined in the presidential race. In Hungary, there was a concerted effort to defeat Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party in April. Now, anti-Trump Europe has stepped out of the shadows and is openly distancing itself from the administration, leaving it to face its challenges in Iran alone.
This isn’t allyship; it’s more like the antics of teenagers going through political puberty.
Many Europeans, basking in what they perceive as setbacks for Trump, seem oblivious to the consequences if he reevaluates his relationship with them and stops extending courtesies based on shared transatlantic ties. It appears the time for that reckoning is now upon us.
Europe: The Free Riders
The strikes against Iran created a clear before-and-after moment in U.S.-European relations. Setting aside the debate over the necessity of such an operation, President Trump demonstrated his role as a predictable partner and reliable ally by reaching out to Europe for assistance. Even strong nations sometimes need support.
But Europe demurred. Their response ranged from a flat “no” from Berlin to vague preconditions for potential aid.
Audacity Knows No Limits
Lithuania is a perfect example of the increasingly transactional relationship that Europeans have with the United States. Its barely audible leadership expressed a willingness to help Washington — but only if formally asked. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė shamelessly requested that U.S. Special Envoy David Hale resolve Lithuania’s domestic issues — specifically, cigarette smuggling and the detention of a transport vehicle — during his upcoming visit to Minsk. The assumption in Vilnius is clear: Washington should fix their problems, and it does.
Lithuania isn’t an outlier; it reflects a growing trend within the EU. National leaders openly ask for American assistance because they don’t want to address many of the problems they created themselves. Yet this anti-Trump Europe expects continued long-term support from the U.S., including in matters of security and strategic stability.
At the same time, however, they refuse to offer even symbolic gestures of reciprocity or consider American interests. Providing meaningful assistance with the Iran conflict is considered unthinkable. Instead, EU leaders feel entitled to lecture American officials and criticize Washington’s pragmatic policies.
Lithuania provides a telling example once again. Its president and prime minister recently disparaged Special Envoy Hale’s decision to meet with Lithuanian politicians deemed “unacceptable” by the government, including Member of Seimas (Member of Parliament) Ignas Vėgėlė and former presidential candidate Petras Gražulis. A small European nation is openly scolding a special envoy of the U.S. president. If American policymakers don’t deliver a firm response now, what will happen next?
You Don’t Catch Sparrows with Drums
It would be wise for the administration to stop turning a blind eye to this egregious behavior from its “allies” and hold them accountable. The EU can no longer be relied upon, even for minor issues. Ironically, the current difficulties surrounding Iran have helped expose these problems.
The truth is that European leaders are no longer reliable partners for America. They view a second term for President Trump as a nightmare and are eager for it to end. It’s time to take action against such “friends” — they are far more dangerous than any enemy.
Iran is the primary focus
That will happen without question. Just not yet. The immediate priority remains Iran.
No matter what anyone says, the U.S. military has not suffered any catastrophic losses in this conflict. There is no doubt that the Pentagon is constantly analyzing the situation on the ground and refining new objectives. The U.S. military is poised for action with a massive force: three aircraft carrier strike groups deployed to the region. This force is capable of reducing any adversary, especially Iran, to dust. Iran’s defenses have been weakened by previous strikes, and 90% of its export capacity is located on Kharg Island, which is notoriously difficult to protect.
Tehran hasn’t been idle either. Analysts believe the ayatollahs used negotiations and a ceasefire effectively to rebuild their defensive capabilities. However, U.S. forces have a significant advantage in firepower and training and are fully capable of achieving victory on the battlefield.
It’s time to pay the bill for Europe
A decisive victory in Iran — whether military, economic, or diplomatic — will force European critics to eat their words. This would send a powerful message to anti-Trump politicians in the EU, far more effective than threats to withdraw American bases.
Europe will have no choice but to pay for its shortsightedness, political cowardice, and disloyalty. They EU desperately needs this harsh lesson to force an abandonment of the delusion of “European strategic autonomy” — a fantasy constantly shattered by their inability to overcome internal divisions over leadership — and accept political reality.
“We are going to have to explore judicial ‘reform’ state by state and at the federal level . . . everything should be on the table as far as I’m concerned.”
–Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D. N.Y.).
What does that even mean? Well, let us start with repeated Democrat calls to “pack” the United States Supreme Court with 4 additional justices. This is a direct attack on judicial decisions with which the Democrats disagree. Because the decisions imperil their power, and socialistic dreams.
Then let us move on to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Attorney General Jay Jones (D.) is appealing a decision by the Supreme Court of Virginia concerning State law, to the United States Supreme Court. There are no federal issues involved. None. But the Democrats are desperate to expand their power, and so Virginia’s Attorney General throws a “Hail Mary” pass. It is so stupid, lacking any legal foundation. Jay Jones is a terrible lawyer. But because there is a “D” after his name, he is now the Commonwealth’s Attorney General.
Also threatening and abusing the courts are Virginia Democrats. The General Assembly Democrats and Governor Abigail Spanberger (D.) are seriously considering eliminating the Supreme Court of Virginia, and then reconstituting it. The plan would be to pass legislation establishing a 54 year old mandatory retirement age for the justices. That would ostensibly require all the justices to immediately retire. The General Assembly would then elect 7 new justices–“progressives all”–and Attorney General Jay Jones would ask the new Court to reconsider the recent redistricting decision. The plan is that the new Court would reinstate the Constitutional amendment, and the Democrats new legislative map, providing for a 10-1 Democrat advantage.
The Virginia Democrats’ plan is nothing but pure tyranny. My reading of the Virginia Constitution is that this new plan would also fail, as being unconstitutional. But the Democrats do not care. The Democrats are indifferent to the rule of law, as they only seek power, to impose their tyrannical, socialist schemes.
The federal Democrats’ scheme to “reform” the courts, and “pack” the Supreme Court are truly frightening. It would have the effect of collapsing our entire Constitution and system of government. And the Virginia Democrats’ plan is just as frightening.
Both Democrat plans should be a wake up call to the American people. The Democrats want unchecked, absolute power. They are telling you this every day. They call President Trump a dictator, but they are the true aspiring dictators. We currently have a republican form of government, with independent branches, each checking the others, to prevent power abuses. We are absolutely capable of losing this republican form of government. That is the Democrats’ goal if we do not stop them.
The Left desperately tries to portray Hitler as some sort of “rightist,” mainly because he was so opposed to Soviet Bolshevism. But just as there are different manifestations of “right-wing” philosophies, there are different “left-wing” ideologies as well. And socialism is a leftist philosophy, not a “rightist” one. “National Socialist German Workers’ Party” was the official name of Hitler’s political party (“Nazi” comes from the German word “Nationalsozialistische,” national socialist). Hitler was a totalitarian leftist, not a Christian, right-wing, pro-American, freedom-loving conservative.
Here is Hitler’s full quote:
“We are socialists. We are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system, the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being, according to wealth and to property instead of responsibility and performance. And we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”
Find me one word in that statement that a member of the modern American Democratic Party would disagree with, except they wouldn’t like the words “responsibility” and “performance.” Those aren’t in any leftist dictionary.
The Left, the Democrats, are socialists. Not Donald Trump, who is probably as much of a capitalist as anyone in the country. But…the Left lies.
And, indeed, I recently published an article in which I demonstrated that lying was a major component of leftist ideology. Yes, they lie, obviously, all the time, but “propaganda” might be an even better word for what they try to spread. And that brings me to Adolf Hitler’s number one propagandist/liar, Joseph Goebbels.
Goebbels pushed Nazism as hard as anyone could, and he wrote about how he did it. Here are a few choice Goebbels quotes.
1. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
How many Americans actually believe the Left’s lie that Donald Trump is a Nazi, when, in reality, it is the Democrats who are the true socialist totalitarian party? In the same vein, Goebbels wrote, “If you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth.” Of course, it doesn’t really become the truth, but people believe it is. Or those who are naïve and inclined to believe what they want to.
Goebbels also said, “The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed.” Almost comical. “Surely that has to be true. Nobody would tell, or believe that big a lie.” Well, yes, Democrats tell lies like that all the time, and, yes, their sheep believe them. The bigger the lie, the more people who will believe it, said one of the master propagandists of human history.
2. “The rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious.”
The “rank and file” are the stupid masses, the naïve, the “primitives,” the “useful idiots,” the sheep who will believe anything their masters say. Goebbels said propaganda must be kept simple so those brainwashed masses can understand it, and repeated often enough so that the “big lie” will sink into unthinking brains. Goebbels’ words are a masterful description of what the Democratic Party is doing in America today.
3. “Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will.”
Make sure these sheep think they are “acting on their own free will.” How many Democratic Party faithful would admit they are really being programmed by master propagandists, being led by the nose to their own slaughter?
And this sublime thought:
4. “Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
The Deep State brilliantly employs the corporate media, the “great keyboard on which government can play,” to get its message out to the “primitives” of America. Democrats want to control the government, so they must control the media. And, largely, they do. But, fortunately, not all of it. If the Democrats ever gain the totalitarian control of the government they crave, they’ll do what leftists Hitler, Stalin, and the CCP did (and do) and shut down any opposition. They tried that under Biden and had some success, but they won’t dominate everything until they obtain totalitarian power. The corporate media—and braindead RINOs—are trying their hardest to help them.
Because they believe their own lies, their own propaganda, the Left has become completely divorced from reality. They no longer think, speak, or behave rationally. Truth becomes fiction to them, and lies become the truth. Men can become women just by saying so, men can “marry” men and women can “marry” women, children can decide their own gender and be mutilated for life to achieve it, unborn babies aren’t human and can be killed at a mother’s whim, illegal aliens have the same rights as citizens—these chimerical fantasies are what happen when you lie long and hard enough, and begin to believe your own rhetoric. A person like that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction, normality and abnormality. Not surprisingly, it happened to Joseph Goebbels:
5. “The war we are fighting until victory or the bitter end is in its deepest sense a war between Christ and Marx. Christ: the principle of love. Marx: the principle of hate.”
His last two sentences are certainly true: Christ is the embodiment of love, and Marx of hate. But his first statement shows how completely removed from reality he, and the Nazis (and the Democrats) were (are). He actually believed the Nazis were fighting on the side of Jesus. Hitler hated Christianity, or perhaps, thought he could determine what true Christianity is. Just like modern Democrats in America do. They can find all sorts of ingenious concoctions to defend their godless ideals as something Jesus would approve of. It’s sickening, and it’s sad. It is, perhaps, their biggest lie of all.
Who are the real Nazis in America? Whose propaganda proves it?
What ‘Rights’ Do They Want That They Don’t Already Have?
BY: Mark Lewis (May 8, 2026).
As we all know, the political leaders of the Democrat Party have absolutely no conscience whatsoever. Most politicians, around the world and in America (on both sides of the aisle), fall into that category, but Democrats are especially guilty of it. They lie, they propagandize, they demagogue, they cheat, they steal, they do whatever they believe is necessary to obtain and hold the power they lust for. It doesn’t matter what they need to do, how immoral it is, how egregious it is, how harmful it is to fellow Americans—if it puts them in power, they’ll do it. No conscience whatsoever. And they’ll hope sufficient Americans are blind and naïve enough (I hate to use the word “stupid,” but that’s what it amounts to) to believe their propagandistic lies.
Claiming, or implying, that certain groups don’t have the same “rights” as other (mainly white male) Americans do, is one of their major ploys. The great Thomas Sowell once wrote, “If you believe in equal rights, then what do ‘women’s rights,’ ‘gay rights,’ etc., mean?
Either they are redundant or they are violations of the principle of equal rights for all.” If homosexuals or woman or blacks must have their own special set of “rights,” then that means, as Sowell so correctly points out, that “equal rights” means nothing. “Equal rights for all, special privileges for none,” Thomas Jefferson said, but that isn’t what the Democratic Party believes.
Of course, the Democrats like to claim that “gays,” “blacks,” and “women” are denied “equal rights” that other Americans have. Well, even if they are (more on that in a moment), why not insist upon “equal rights” for everybody? That would include blacks, women, homosexuals, white males, etc. Why do they need to single out certain groups? Historical grievances and inequalities are invalid unless those historical inequalities can be proven to be happening now. And that can’t be done. What are they?
The Democrats shout “women’s rights,” “gay rights,” whatever special group of “rights” they can concoct for one purpose and one purpose only—to try to obtain votes. And they lie incessantly to accomplish it. Hence, no conscience, only lust for power.
I’d very much like to know what rights I, as a straight, Caucasian male, have that homosexuals, blacks, and women do not have. What rights have been, by law, given to me that haven’t been given to them? What rights do they WANT that they don’t now have? Do blacks want the right to vote? Well, they have that. No law in the land prevents them from doing so. Do women want the right to work any job they wish, run for political office, or have equal pay for equal work? They, by law, have all those things. Do homosexuals want the right to have sex with whomever they wish? Well, they have that, though we aren’t going to give them the right to abuse children. They can’t have that “right”; children have rights, too.
But the Democrats have given transgenders the right to butcher children (a right they shouldn’t have); so, what is it they want that they don’t now have? What do “gay rights,” “women’s rights,” and “black rights” mean in a practical sense? What rights do other Americans have that they don’t have, and what equal rights do they want they don’t now possess?
These groups already have, by law, every right other Americans have. But the Democrats want to convince them they don’t. That’s one way the Democrats keep them in line, and it has worked marvelously for Democrats over the decades.
Again, this “gay rights,” “women’s rights,” etc., issue has nothing to do with true rights and everything to do with votes and power. The Democrats continue to lie, telling their constituents that America continues to be unfair to them and that Democrats are fighting for their “rights,” rights they already have, and Democrats can’t say what rights they don’t have. “Trump and Republicans are trying to take away blacks right to vote.” That is, 100 percent, a bald-faced lie, and every Democratic politician knows it. So, it’s back to my first point—these people have no conscience whatsoever. And people with no conscience are evil, the most dangerous people on earth. America’s greatest enemy today is not Iran, Middle Eastern terrorists, Vladimir Putin, Cuba, or even China. America’s greatest enemy, the barbarians, are already on our shores—evil, conscienceless Democrats who will say and do anything to have power over us. And countless millions of Americans are too blind to see it. It will destroy the country if not corrected soon.
There isn’t a black citizen in the country who doesn’t have the right to vote (if they are old enough). There isn’t a person (citizen or not) who doesn’t have the right to have sex with any consenting adult they wish. And the only “right” women no longer have is the right to compete fairly in sporting events against members of their own gender without males also competing in those contests—and that is a right Democrats have taken away from them, not Trump or Republicans. If certain groups must have their own special “rights,” then those are not equal rights for all Americans; those are special privileges for some, a principle directly opposite to what true America stands for.
Again, I ask, what rights do straight, white males have that homosexuals, blacks, and women do not have? And to show that this has nothing to do with the rights of Americans, the Democrats now want non-citizens to have the same rights that citizens possess. If they succeed in that, it means there will no longer be a true America. Not even Putin or Communist China does that.
The Democrat leadership is conscienceless, despicable liars, using people for their own selfish political gain. That is nothing but vile and pure evil.
President Trump proposed that Congress suspend the federal gas and diesel fuel taxes. I wholly support that move.
Representative Darrell Issa (R. Ca.) introduced a resolution to expunge the 1 impeachments of President Trump, on the basis that they were based on lies, a lack of actual evidence, and the denial of due process to the President in the process. An excellent idea!
The seditious Senator from Arizona, Mark Kelly (D. Az.) went on television to blather on about information he received in a classified briefing from the War Department. This man is a menace.
“States like Tennessee want to wipe out every black representative.”
–Puddin’head.
We wrote it last week, and it remains true this week. The redrawing of Congressional districts in Tennessee will only affect Steve Cohen (D.), who is white. Puddin’head is a dolt.
Currently, Tennessee’s Congressional delegation is entirely white. And, the truth is, in the redrawn Memphis district, the Republicans are looking to nominate a black woman, who will likely win. It is the Republicans, Puddin’head, who are INCREASING black representatives in Tennessee.
Representative Ted Lieu (D. Ca.) told CBS News that if Democrats regain power, they will reverse all the spending cuts enacted by Congress under President Trump, and will increase spending. He claims that increased government spending will lower prices. Representative Lieu is a dumb as Puddin’head.
The United States Supreme Court vacated a lower court injunction, permitting Alabama to redraw its legislative district map. WINNING!
A Washington, D.C. based non-profit is suing the Trump Administration over its plans to repair and clean the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall. Because it prefers our nation’s Capital to be dirty and downtrodden? Because DOGE cancelled millions of dollars of grants to it? Or because Orange Man Bad? It is probably all of the above.
California voters approved their “jungle” primary system 16 years ago. The top 2 finishers in the primary face off for office in the general election, irrespective of party affiliation. Democrats were fine with this system, since every election cycle since, 2 Democrats have faced off in the general election. BUT THIS YEAR, it is entirely possible that 2 Republicans will face off for Governor in the general election, shutting out the Democrats. Well, that cannot stand, so the Democrats are working overtime to change the rules. Because that is what they do. They cheat.
Arcadia, California Mayor Eileen Wang (D.) will plead guilty to criminal charges of being an agent of the Red Chinese. The enemy among us.
Los Angeles, California Mayor and current City Councilman Nithya Raman (D.) blamed the city’s problems on . . . Donald Trump! Because it could not be the fault of her, or her fellow Democrats, who actually govern the city.
Among Virginia’s new laws is one which requires public universities and colleges to ask students if they are parents. What an intrusive and irrelevant question! Unless it is your intent to become more involved in students’ private lives, and expand the nanny state.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D.) said that if his 14 year old son wanted to “transition” to a girl, he would be fine with it, and would let his son make his own decision. Really? The man is not only unfit to be Governor, but a parent. His son should really be put into foster care, lest his father cause him harm.
Buc-ee’s is expanding into 6 more States, first in Arizona and Arkansas, and eventually as far North as Wisconsin. Wow.
Iran rejected the U.S. demands for a cessation of hostilities. Instead, Iran made a counterproposal that was beyond outrageous. The terrorist State wishes to receive reparations, control the Straits of Hormuz, have sanctions removed, and retain the ability to build nuclear weapons. Iran deemed its proposal “generous”. Uh, huh. Let the bombing resume.
Both France and Great Britain are prepositioning 1 ship [each] to aid in the flow of traffic through the Straits of Hormuz, but only once the hostilities between the U.S./Israel and Iran cease. Of course, once the hostilities stop, there will be no need for these countries’ ships.
Iran warned France and Great Britain that it would retaliate with force if their ships entered the Straits of Hormuz. French President Macron issued a statement, assuring Iran that no French ships would approach the Straits of Hormuz with coordination with, and the permission of, Iran. Sigh. Cheese munching Surrender Monkey.
Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Craig Morton has died at age 83. R. I. P.
Abraham Foxman, longtime leader of the Anti-Defamation League, has died at age 86. R. I. P.
“Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!”
–Dr. Seuss.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUFE! Enjoy your special day!
I spent yesterday officiating a PGA tournament at the Evergreen Country Club in Northern Virginia. The day started off cold and rainy. It ended in beautiful sunshine, but still chilly temperatures. The players slogged through. All in all, it was a far better day to be officiating than playing. And a rainy day on the golf course beats a good [and dry] day in the office.
Observations From The Fifth Estate 