“This Advent we look to the Wise Men to teach us where to focus our attention.  We set our sights on things above, where God is.  We draw closer to Jesus . . . When our Advent journey ends, and we reach the place where Jesus resides in Bethlehem, may we, like the Wise Men, fall on our knees and adore him as our true and only King.”

–Mark Zimmermann.

Today I am sharing an article on the dangers and consequences of the Left’s imposition of cultural relativism on our country. I trust you find it thought provoking.

Cultural Relativism Is Forcing The Collapse Of America’s Institutions

By Allan J. Feifer, The American Thinker (November 29, 2025).

Alone, Donald Trump will not change our national mood. Tens of millions are permanently disenchanted. The America of today is light-years away from the America I grew up in. It’s not so much our demographics, or our failed education system, or our tilt towards socialism. It’s not that millions are confused as to their sexuality.

Of course, it’s all of this and more, but what allowed these fracture lines to develop and grow rapidly can likely be traced to the fact that all of the systems that once upheld America are collapsing—and that’s happening because cultural relativism forces us to pretend that they have no value.

Witness so many vital metrics in freefall, buttressing the belief that whatever we are doing isn’t working. Yet, institutional inertia keeps pushing us down the same dead-end paths leading to failure:

1.    Spending both personally and within our federal government beyond our means undermines our future, as interest on the debt has reached ridiculous levels, making us vulnerable to economic blackmail and economic slavery.

2.    After two generations of public education spiraling out of control, Johnny has been left with a substandard education, unpayable debt, and failing on a hyper-competitive world stage.

3.    America is no longer the competitive leader it once was. To the extent we compete at all, too many of our leaders are recent arrivals. Worse, we have virtually capitulated entire essential industries to dubious offshore locales, and management, under the flag of globalization.

4.    We Balkanized our country, with millions entering our country as economic migrants not intending to assimilate, harboring ill feelings towards our institutions, people, and American-style norms.

5.    Companies have a mission statement; why doesn’t America have one? How much longer can we remain Americans without shared values and goals?

Part of the problem is that moral relativism tells Americans that no one political system or set of values is better than another. Cultural relativism is not a sign of progress but rather a dismantling of our moral and cultural foundations. The erosion isn’t abstract—it’s visible, tangible, and operationally consequential. When we welcome in people from dysfunctional countries and insist that their ways are equal to our better than our highly successful ways, we’ve got a problem.

Or, as one friend said to me: “Millions of uneducated, and uneducable (low-IQ), invaders, propagating like rabbits, are rapidly eroding the pillars of our society.” Can anyone really make the case that it’s not so?

We can’t be the home of individualism and dependency at the same time. It’s inconsistent with our values, allowing millions of our citizens to live drugged lives as wards of the State. We won’t survive doing your own thing, featuring antisocial or destructive behavior undermining our core beliefs. Our government must end encouraging, allowing, funding, or tolerating anti-American activities. Doing so is cultural suicide, not freedom. Freedom must espouse life-affirming behavior, or it’s a dead end.

Our acceptance of cultural relativism reflects a foundational tension in moral philosophy and cultural governance. Our way, the old way, had virtues that, when erased, will destroy us. Moral truths are objective, not contingent on cultural trends. What was considered moral 50 years ago—fidelity, patriotism, traditional family structures—should still be upheld.

These values are aligned with tried and true, successful systems:

• Natural law theory (Aquinas, Locke): Morality is discoverable through reason and universal human nature.
• Deontological ethics (Kant): Moral duties are inarguable and not subject to fickle cultural reinterpretation.
• Traditional conservatism: Institutions and norms evolved for a purpose and exist for a reason.

Critics speciously argue that morality must respond to new understandings of harm, autonomy, and justice. That’s hogwash, and fundamental truths don’t change because some past moral precepts may have excluded or oppressed certain groups (e.g., racial minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, women). The principle that “all men [that is, all humans] are created equal,” is an exemplary one, untainted by early American failings to abide by it.

Cultural Relativists believe feelings or shifting norms override reasoned moral foundations. Traditional views are reframed as outdated or harmful, even when they’re logically coherent. Conservatives are attacked and labeled as “bitter clingers” or “deplorables”, “science deniers”, and “white supremacists.”

When was the last time you heard of anyone accused of a hate crime for uttering any of these derogatory and hateful phrases, thrown like so much confetti by the left?

Conservatives are not just defending tradition—we’re defending moral epistemology grounded in reason and permanence. I see cultural relativism as the opposite of progress, as it dismantles our shared moral foundations. That erosion isn’t abstract—it’s visible, tangible, and consequential.

Since America has embraced the left’s cultural relativism, we’ve seen the decline in American institutions as described above. These, in turn, reflect more fundamental societal failures:

• Breakdown of family structures: Declining marriage rates, rising single-parent households, and the redefinition of family norms.
• Erosion of civic trust: Institutions once seen as neutral arbiters—like the courts, universities, or the press—are now viewed as ideological enemies.
• Moral incoherence: Public standards that shift rapidly, where yesterday’s consensus becomes today’s heresy.
• Normalization of disorder: From urban crime and drug use to public vulgarity and the collapse of decorum in politics and media.

These aren’t just aesthetic concerns—they’re operational markers of social cohesion, institutional legitimacy, and intergenerational continuity. Thinkers from Roger Scruton to Thomas Sowell have warned that when societies abandon objective moral anchors, they don’t become freer—they become more chaotic, more tribal, and more vulnerable to authoritarianism masquerading as liberation; sound familiar?

We can observe the inevitable moral paralysis, institutional fragility, and massive civic fragmentation that always follow in the wake of cultural relativism. If all values are equal, then none are defensible. Without shared norms, law and policy become tools of factional power. A society without moral consensus becomes a battleground of identities and grievances.

Can a society survive without shared moral absolutes?

None that I know of. We are well along the way to becoming the next failed society.

God Bless America!

“Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.”

–Bill Watterson.

It is the weekend. Do something completely pointless. Have fun!

GFK

“The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.”

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The United States Senate may consider competing bills on Obamacare this week. The Democrats are demanding that the emergency subsidies put in place during the former Current Unpleasantness be extended for 3 years, period. Republicans want to expand individual Health Savings Accounts, condition health funding on verifying U.S. citizenship of recipients, banning gender affirming care (i.e. genital mutilation surgery), and abortion. It is unlikely that either bill will survive a filibuster.

“You end up with what our Founding Fathers feared the most, which is that you have foreign immigrants who become advocates, not for this country, but the country that they left.  So you see, throughout Somali politics in Minnesota is this constant concern about how to reorient U.S. politics around Somalia, and then using welfare fraud, pillaging the U.S. financial system to prop up a foreign country.”

–White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

The Federal Reserve Bank cut interest rates by a quarter point. Yawn.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld President Trump’s ban on “trans” members serving in the United States military services. Common sense prevails.

“If you look at the history, we demonstrated that we were not ready.  These are incredible women who have run: Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and I think that we are getting there.  That’s why we can’t afford to turn the clock back.  We’ve taken one, two and three steps forward and let’s not take two, three and four steps backwards which is what we are doing in these elections.”

–Representative James Clyburn (D. S.C.), speaking on Meet The Press, advocating for the election of a woman President.

Please, please, please. Run Commiela again in 2028. You think she’s “incredible”? So do the American people. They think that she is “incredib[ly]” incompetent.

Representative Haley Stevens (D. Mi.) filed articles of impeachment against Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., because “he has turned his back on science”. HA! This from a woman who believes that a man can “transition” to a woman, and vice versa.

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

–H. L. Mencken.

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D.) has named Mysonne Linen to his transition team to advise on matters of public safety. Mysonne Linen is a former rapper who was recently released from prison, after serving 7 years on an armed robbery conviction.

Mr. Mamdani also announced that he would end Mayor Adams’s program of sweeping homeless encampments off the city’s streets and parks. Wonderful! The Observations hopes that the homeless gather en masse in front of Gracie Mansion, the Mayor’s official residence.

Democrat Senate candidate Jasmine Crockett (D. Tx.) says that she doesn’t care about Trump voters, and doesn’t need Trump voters to win the general election. Hmmm. Wanna bet?

Governor J. B. Pritzker (D. Il.) signed legislation aimed at preventing ICE enforcement actions at courthouses, hospitals, university campuses, and day care centers. It is stupid, anti-American, and unconstitutional. On issues of immigration, federal law remains supreme.

Kansas City, Missouri’s city manager has banned all references to Christmas in City Hall. No tree, no Nativity Scene, no angels, nothing. He said that Christmas imagery was “insufficiently inclusive”. Hmmm. So the only way you can be “inclusive” is to ban Christians?

As an aside, Kansas City typically permits Kwanzaa decorations. Kwanzaa is a fictional holiday. But since it has no connection to Christians, it is okey dokey.

Kent State University’s choir is restricting certain solo parts to people of color (colored people?); white singers need not apply. What could possibly justify such blatant racial discrimination? According to Kent State’s choir director, to permit a white singer to sing pieces historically performed by colored people would constitute “impermissible cultural misappropriation”. Sigh. What absolute horse hockey!

Our atheist friends at the Freedom From Religion Foundation have bullied an Arkansas public high school into renaming its annual Christmas program, now calling it a “holiday program”, and removing all references to Christmas, and disallowing the singing or performances of Christmas songs. What small minds these atheists must have not to comprehend that singing Christmas songs at a Christmas program is kind of standard, and normal. How hateful these atheists are, and how cowardly are the high school’s administrators.

Virginia State Senator Aaron Rouse (D. Va. Beach) wants to change the law to permit tenants to remain in their rented domiciles when they fail to pay their rent. Senator Rouse has lots of sympathy for deadbeat tenants. Not so much for landlords who are not getting paid, and whose property is being confiscated, albeit temporarily, by the Marxists in the General Assembly.

The Winooski [Vermont] public school district flew the Somali flag over its high school last week. For goodness sakes, why?

Little Debbie has introduced a brand new snack offering–Banana Pudding Creme Pie cookies! Be still my heart! How absolutely fabulous, and delicious, is that?

Japan has rejected any notion of “same sex marriage”. The Japanese are far more civilized than are Americans in this regard.

An elementary school teacher in London, England was dismissed from her job for telling a Muslim student that Great Britain was a Christian country, and the King of England was head of the Church of England. But, but, but . . . Great Britain is a Christian country, and the King of England is the head of the Church of England! Sigh.

Country singer Raul Malo has died at age 60. R. I. P.

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson.

GFK

“Advent is a journey towards Bethlehem.  May we let ourselves be enlightened by the light that comes from Bethlehem, the light of Christ.”

–Pope Benedict XVI.

You probably learned that Christians placed Christmas on December 25th to co-opt Saturnalia, the Roman Empire’s mid-winter festival, or possibly the Festival of the Unconquered Sun — Sol Invictus. The theory went that Christians could get the heathen to convert by co-opting the pagan holidays.

There is one problem — it sounds more convincing than it is. These theories only became popular once comparative religion became trendy after the eighteenth century. Going back to the earliest Christian church finds evidence that Christmas, though not initially celebrated, had been commemorated well before the Feast of the Unconquered Sun’s creation for entirely Christian reasons. In fact, it is possible Emperor Aurelian instituted Sol Invictus on December 25 to combat Christianity’s belief that Jesus was born that day.

In Egypt, less than three hundred years after Christ’s death, some Christians celebrated his birth in the spring. The earliest references to Christmas come at about 200 A.D., at a time Christians were not incorporating other religious traditions into their own. In fact, Christians at the time were trying very hard to blend in as citizens while avoiding participation in the various pagan festivals and activities. By 300 A.D., many Christians were celebrating Jesus’s birth around December 25th. Within a hundred years, Christmas was on the calendar record. Christians looked to December because the early church was far more interested in Jesus’s death. His death and resurrection is what matters to the Gospel and that was the date the early church focused on.

“Around 200 A.D. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan in the year Jesus died was the equivalent to March 25 in the Roman calendar,” reported Andrew McGowan at the Biblical Archaeology Society. That would be the day of Crucifixion. The math from there is rather simple. Nine months later would be December 25. Early church history held as fact that the prophets and martyrs of the church were conceived on the day they died. So if Christ died on March 25, it was also the anniversary of his conception.

Separately, and more directly from the Bible, Luke 1 tell us Zacharias, John the Baptist’s father, was in the priestly division of Abijah. Based on a calculation of this and the division of priest in the temple in 70 A.D. when the temple fell, a number of early Church historians presumed Zacharias would have been in the temple in late September or early October. Later historians, however, speculate it would have been June. The Gospel of Luke tells us when Zacharias left the temple, his wife conceived. “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazaerth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David,” Luke 1:25-26 notes.

The early church concluded that six months after Zacharias left the temple would be March as Mary’s time of conception. Fast forward nine months and again we find ourselves in December. Given the respect held for Tertullian, everything aligned. With the very earliest Church fathers settling on March 25th as Christ’s death and believing fully that Christ’s death would occur on the anniversary of his conception, the early church reinforced its belief well before there is any written accusation or evidence of the church incorporating Saturnalia or Sol Invictus into its celebrations. It is important to note, however, that most scholars reject setting Christ’s birth to Zacharias’s temple service because of problems related to really knowing when he was there.

But there are two final points. One can look at all of this and conclude the church fathers got it wrong. But the real question is whether they themselves thought they got it wrong. They were pretty sure they were right. The earliest Christians refused to celebrate birthdays, but by 300 A.D., there was growing evidence the Church noted Christ’s birthday around December 25th. Second, the date of Christ’s birth is not important. What is important is that He is.

____________________________________________________________________

Gasoline is under $3.00 per gallon in 37 States. WINNING!

Energy prices are falling across the country. What this means is that the cost of goods are being reduced, because energy factors into everything in our economy. Democrats are constantly complaining that prices are going up. They are lying.

Representative Jasmine Crockett (D. Tx.) is running for the Democrat nomination to be Texas’s next U.S. Senator. This is great news for the Republican nominee, whoever he might be.

“Elon Musk is about to become the first trillionaire.  The reason poverty exists in the wealthiest country on earth isn’t because we can’t feed the poor — it’s because we can’t satisfy the rich.  We should tax trillionaires out of existence.”

–Texas State Representative James Talarico (D.), who is also seeking the Democrat nomination for the U.S. Senate.

The United States federal government spends more than $1 trillion annually on alleviating poverty. Since 1964, more than $22 trillion has been spent by federal government in its “War on Poverty”. Well guess, what? All that money was spent, and we lost the “War on Poverty”. Eliminating 1 trillionaire, or all trillionaire, or all the billionaires will not solve the problem. It will just make folks like James Talarico feel superior.

Democrats always want to punish success. Punishing the successful will not help a single person in poverty or other dire circumstances. What we all should want is more successful people, not fewer. As President John F. Kennedy observed in pushing his tax cut plan, “a rising tide lifts all boats”. Just so.

“All of us need to wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and say ‘What am I doing specifically today . . . to make our immigrants [illegal aliens] feel more welcome.'”

–Senator John Curtis (R. Ut.).

No.  No, no, no, NO!

John Curtis is what is wrong with the Republican Party.  They are a bunch of squishes who desire media approval above all else.  It is a fool’s errand, and completely unprincipled.

John Curtis is only a Republican, because he left the Democrat Party.  He was the Utah State Party Chair, and became a Republican because he wanted to ascend to elected office.  In Utah, that means running as a Republican.

Republican voters need to resist the urge to vote for a candidate just because he has an “R” after his name.  The Doles, Bushes, Cheneys, McCains, Romneys, et al. have done enough damage.  No more!

Appearing on CNN, Senator Tammy Duckworth (D. Il.) stated that she saw the video of the missiles blowing up the drug trafficking boat and found it “disgusting”. She demanded that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth resign immediately. Upon closer questioning by host Dana Bash, Senator Duckworth admitted that she had not seen the video. But she still demanded Secretary Hegseth resign, based on the video she has not seen. What a Leftist hack!

“When I think about Stephen Miller and his white supremacist rhetoric, it reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany.”

–Representative Ilhan Omar (D. Mn.).

Nice.  Stephen Miller is an observant Jew. 

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D. N.Y.) released a video urging New York city residents to “stand up to ICE”, and advising illegal aliens on how to evade arrest by federal authorities. Utterly insane.

There was another stabbing of a passenger on the Charlotte, North Carolina Light Rail System. Thankfully, this time the victim survived the attack. The attacker was an illegal alien, which is unsurprising since Charlotte considers itself a “sanctuary city”. He is charged with attempted murder. And assuming he is convicted, and ever released from State prison, he will be deported. Again. Because this is not his first rodeo.

Georgia State Representative Sharon Henderson (D.) is charged with the fraudulent theft of pandemic funds. What is it about Democrats and the fraudulent use of welfare funds?

“Let’s be honest, whiteness is being weaponized everywhere right now.  It’s in our politics, our media, our police forces, our borders. Instead of reading the room, Pantone basically branded it a lifestyle.  It’s not just out of touch, it’s symbolic.  It’s a reminder of who still controls the narrative.  They are openly mocking us, choosing purity white as the cultural color of the year while the rest of us are screaming for humanity.”

–Social media “Karens” melting down over Pantone announcing that “Cloud Dancer”, an off white color, was its “Color of the Year” for 2026.

Pittsburgh will play East Carolina in the Military Bowl. Clemson will play Penn State in the Pinstripe Bowl. Georgia Tech will play BYU in the Pop Tarts Bowl. UVA will face off against Missouri in the Gator Bowl. USC will play TCU in the Alamo Bowl. Arizona State and Duke will play in the Sun Bowl. Michigan will play Texas in the Citrus Bowl. Wake Forest will play Mississippi State in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. And Arizona will play SMU in the Holiday Bowl.

There are too many bowls. I did not come close to listing them all. But come on; the Pop Tarts Bowl? The Duke’s Mayo Bowl? Good grief!

Notre Dame threw a hissy fit after not getting into the College Football Playoffs, and turned down a bowl invitation. Iowa State and Kansas State turned down bowl invitations, and were fined $500,000.00 each by the Big 12 Conference.

Notre Dame’s hissy fit gathered results, as the CFP Committee promised in writing that in the future, if Notre Dame was ranked in the Top 12, it was guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. Huh. What about Duke? It won the ACC championship.

The Washington Post blames the ACC for Notre Dame’s exclusion. The Post’s shaky premise is that Miami should have been allowed to play in the conference championship game, even though Miami did not earn a slot in the championship game. And just how does the Post know that Miami would have won that game, if it had played in it?

Sigh. No one reads the Post’s sports page anyway.

“I wouldn’t be honest with you if I didn’t say they have certainly done permanent damage to the relationship between the [ACC] conference and Notre Dame.”

–Notre Dame Athletic Director Pete Bevacqua.

Notre Dame is a member of the ACC in every sport except football. The school wants the benefits of conference membership without responsibility, and without football revenue sharing. GROW UP, IRISH! Join the ACC in full for goodness sakes, and stop acting like a petulant child!

The irony is that if Notre Dame were a football member of the ACC, it likely would have played in the championship game, and it likely would have won that game. Which means that Notre Dame would have been chosen as the ACC champion in the CFP. But because Notre Dame deems itself above all other schools with conference affiliations, and insists on being independent, its team will be sitting at home. Watching the CFP on television.

Donald Huffman, lawyer, political activist, and Washington & Lee University law school graduate, has died at age 98. R. I. P.

“You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.”
– George Lorimer.

GFK

“I don’t think we’ll understand Advent correctly until we see it as a preparation for a revolution.”

–Robert Barron.

Ever wonder why things no longer work in this country? Why we cannot build things? Why we cannot afford things? Why products available in years past are no longer available? Then read on.

Washington’s Reverse Midas Touch

Priorities must shift, and the focus needs to be on the long-run outcomes, not the short-term political optics.

By:         David Hebert and Peter C. Earle, The American Spectator (December 4, 2025).

Imagine a doctor who treated low blood pressure with medication that lowered it further. When treating a patient with high blood pressure, they prescribed drugs that raised it. We would question whether this doctor understood basic medicine, and rightly so. Unfortunately, this is exactly how Washington approaches economic policy. Across decades and multiple administrations of both parties, the one constant is that Washington will push on exactly the wrong side of the market in sector after sector and then act surprised when the predictable results occur.

In education, healthcare, and housing, Washington floods the market with demand-side subsidies while leaving supply artificially constrained. As a result, prices soar and affordability plummets. Meanwhile, in the war on drugs, policymakers have obsessed over supply-side interdictions while ignoring the demand side. As a result, prices rise, consumption barely budges, and drug cartels get richer. Policymakers could not do worse if they tried. 

With the passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965, the federal government began its campaign to make college “affordable” by putting taxpayer money into the pockets of students across the nation. The Congressional Budget Office projects that Pell Grants, authorized under this Act, will cost $38.1 billion, distributed to 7.4 million undergraduate students, for an average award of about $5,120 per student. According to the Congressional Research Office, federal student loan debt now exceeds $1.6 trillion. Despite the bluster of spending on higher education, Congress routinely finds ways to increase spending and expand access to subsidized loans or grants. 

The theory behind this is straightforward. When college is unaffordable, Congress can step in and give students more purchasing power, thus making college more “accessible.” But this ignores the reality of supply-side considerations. Higher education is an incredibly regulated industry in the United States. Accreditation requirements create serious barriers to entry, making it harder for new colleges to enter the market and absorb some of the increased spending. State licensing boards restrict who is allowed to offer degrees. Creating new facilities, in addition to being expensive, requires navigating a labyrinthian set of regulations and requirements. All of this, in economic terms, makes the supply of higher education in the U.S. highly inelastic, meaning that it does not expand much in response to increased demand.

Any student who takes Econ 101 can tell you what happens when policy boosts demand and regulations restrict supply: the price will rise. According to the BLS, college tuition has almost tripled just since the turn of the century. In fact, tuition has grown faster than overall inflation in almost every single year going back to 1980. 

Education Secretary William Bennett noticed the effect of federal funding on education back in 1987, which eventually became known as the “Bennett Effect.” This effect has gone through rigorous testing, the most famous of which is a 2015 study by the Federal Reserve of New York, which finds that for every one-dollar increase in Pell Grant maximums leads to an average of a 37-cent increase in college tuition. Pell Grant recipients might, on net, come out ahead, but for students who do not qualify for these, college becomes less and less affordable.

Healthcare: More of the Same but Higher Stakes

The healthcare market exhibits exactly the same phenomenon. The only difference is that there are a lot more zeroes involved. On the demand side, Washington has steadily expanded access to insurance through Medicare, Medicaid, and various tax incentives for employer-sponsored health coverage. With the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, Washington added another channel through which to boost demand for healthcare.

Looking at BLS data, however, overall healthcare employment has grown at roughly the same rate (2-2.5 percent) each year both before and after the ACA’s passage. In fact, healthcare employment grew more slowly in the years immediately following the ACA’s passage than it did in the years before. While Washington boosts the demand for healthcare, it has stifled the supply, despite graduating more medical students than ever.

The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 essentially froze residency programs funded by Medicare at their 1996 levels, creating what the American Association of Medical Colleges refers to as a “residency bottleneck.” According to their 2024 report, they project a shortage of 86,000 physicians by 2036 unless Congress acts to mitigate this. In June 2025, Congress introduced the Resident Physician Reduction Act of 2025, which would add approximately 2,000 residency slots per year from 2026 through 2032 if passed. Once again, the demand is outstripping supply, and quickly.

As a result of all of this, and more, average family premiums for insurance have skyrocketed. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual reports, premiums have increased by 86 percent, from $13,770.00 in 2010 to $26,993.00 in 2025. If the government shutdown of 2025 has revealed anything, it’s that the Affordable Care Act relies on increasingly growing subsidies to maintain its “affordability.”

Housing: Subsidizing Buyers Into Bidding Wars

Artificially expanding purchasing power in a market with constrained supply simply bids up existing home prices, transferring wealth to current owners and exacerbating price volatility.

Governments lean on demand-side interventions — 50 year mortgages, tax incentives, down payment subsidies, credit-expansion programs, etc. —  to make housing appear more affordable, and in some cases to be more affordable for initial/short periods of time. Tools such as these are politically attractive because they deliver conspicuous, short-run benefits to buyers. In fact, though, they fail to confront the structural forces driving prices higher. Artificially expanding purchasing power in a market with constrained supply simply bids up existing home prices, transferring wealth to current owners and exacerbating price volatility. In effect, policymakers stimulate demand while leaving the underlying scarcity unchanged. 

In contrast, the supply side of the housing market remains heavily restricted through zoning limits, environmental reviews, density caps, and construction sector bottlenecks. Those constraints prevent builders from responding to higher prices with adequate construction: the very mechanism through which markets relieve shortages. When supply can’t expand, or expands at a relative crawl, even the most well-designed, well-intentioned demand side policies aggravate the imbalance, ensuring that “affordability” gains are swallowed up by higher prices. Sound (and basic) economics, therefore, points to a simple but regularly ignored truth: without generating a freer, faster, and more flexible means of supplying housing, no amount of financial engineering will deliver a sufficient supply of homes to assuage the current shortfall and consequent price increases.

War on Drugs: Getting it Backwards

Governments inevitably respond to widespread drug usage by attacking supply: criminalization, interdiction, border enforcement, even military and covert action abroad. Focusing on distribution networks is visible, politically rewarding, and signals action without confronting the deeper drivers (and even deeper economics) of the consumption of illicit substances. Constraining supply in the face of persistent demand simply raises prices, which means that the profit margins of illicit producers are increased and riskier forms of production and trafficking result. The result is that a more lucrative black market is produced, and with it an increasingly violent drug trafficking business; all without a meaningful reduction in drug use.

What remains unaddressed in this case is the demand side: the social, psychological, cultural, and economic forces that sustain drug consumption. Reducing demand in this case requires asking exceedingly difficult questions about mental health, despair, social decay, medical overprescription, and the search for meaning or relief, all of which governments are ill-prepared to answer, let alone address. These are costly, complex issues for which no amount of supply suppression can ultimately succeed. Even if it could — and there would be tremendous costs to liberty and prosperity to do so — intoxicants are readily substitutable for individuals seeking an escape, whatever the ultimate reason for doing so.

The Common Thread

How can we explain Washington’s consistent pattern of getting this so wrong? The answer is remarkably simple once we understand the political incentives at work.

Demand-side subsidies in education, healthcare, and housing create concentrated benefits and diffused costs. Students, patients, and homebuyers all get immediate benefits. The costs, which are higher prices for everyone, are diffused throughout all of society and only materialize gradually. Politicians in office can take credit for the benefits, avoid the blame, and stick future policymakers with the task of “fixing” the problems.

Supply-side reforms in these industries create diffuse benefits in the form of lower prices for consumers while threatening concentrated benefits. Reducing barriers to creating new colleges and universities threatens existing colleges and universities. Expanding residency programs and allowing nonphysician caregivers to perform more medical care threatens existing physicians’ income. Loosening zoning regulations threatens homeowners’ property values. These concentrated interests can (and do) effectively lobby against reforms. The benefactors of these reforms, i.e., the consumers, lack organized advocates on their behalf.

Politicians do not win votes by being effective; they win votes by appearing effective.

In the war on drugs, supply-side enforcement is highly visible and dramatic. Coast Guard seizures, attacks on vessels allegedly carrying drugs, DEA raids, and drug busts at the border, all garner high amounts of media coverage. Demand side reforms, such as addiction treatment programs and mental health services, are quiet, unglamorous, and easily portrayed as being “soft on crime.” Politicians do not win votes by being effective; they win votes by appearing effective.

The pattern is consistent across decades, administrations, and party lines because the political incentives are consistent. Ultimately, the only path out of this cycle is to realign policy with basic economics: expand supply where shortages exist, and address demand where consumption drives harm. That requires political courage, insofar as it rewards long-run outcomes rather than short-run optics, and a willingness to confront entrenched interests that benefit from the status quo. Until the incentives change, Washington will continue treating economic symptoms while worsening the underlying conditions.

GFK

“Advent is the time to listen to the voice of Jesus as he comes to us every day.” 

– Henri Nouwen

Last Friday it s**wed. I had to go to court in Winchester, so I left early, ensuring that I would have plenty of time to navigate the slippery roads. There were no problems on the snow covered roads in rural Clarke County. But as soon as I entered the more urban and plowed streets of Winchester, all hell broke out. The roads were wet, not snow or ice covered. But people were driving like they had never seen snow before. And they were driving like it was a blizzard. Automobile flashers were on, speeds were so slow it seemed like you were traveling backwards. It was a mess. For no good reason. It was like driving in Los Angeles, California when it rains. Sigh. It is going to be a very long Winter.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUSSELL! Russell celebrated his birthday on Saturday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRANK! Frank’s birthday is today. But for Frank, every day is a holiday.

Every year the Department of the Interior publishes a list of fee free access days for National Parks. Next year’s dates have been released, and are as follows:

February 16: Washington’s Birthday 

May 25: Memorial Day 

June 14: Flag Day 

July 3-5: Independence Day Weekend 

August 25: 110th Birthday of the National Park Service 

September 17: Constitution Day 

October 27: Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday 

November 11: Veterans’ Day 

Nothing unusual or dismaying in the list, is there? But the Left is ablaze with indignity and outrage over these dates. The dates do not include Martin Luther King, Jr. Day or Juneteenth! Which means that the list is “racist”! Because everything is “racist”. Which means nothing is “racist”. The Left just likes being outraged.

Representative Adelita Grijalva (D. Az.) claimed that ICE agents pepper sprayed her for merely inquiring about something. Representative Grijalva is a liar. She was not pepper sprayed. She was not merely inquiring about something; rather, she was actively interfering physically with an ICE operation as a part of a larger mob. She kept screaming “do you know who I am?”, asserting her Congressional “authority”. And when she refused to retreat in response to an ICE agent’s direction, she may have been–MAY HAVE BEEN–exposed to a cloud of pepper spray directed at another demonstrator.

Who does this woman think she is, interfering with law enforcement? Representative Grijalva went on MS NOW and claimed that ICE agents shot at her. Lie. And just to emphasize the lie, Representative Grijalva posted a video on social media which shows her interfering with the ICE operations, but nothing in that video display her being pepper sprayed or shot at by ICE agents.

Political performative B.S.! The whole point of confronting ICE agents is to make yourself a “victim”. Representative Grijalva has been in Congress all of 5 minutes, and she has achieved her “victim” status. Well, bless her heart!

“The President of the United States is a killer.”

–Representative Maxine Waters (D. Ca.).

The Democrats are more concerned about narco-terrorists than they are about American citizens. Representative Jim Himes (D. Ct.) said that the traffickers were probably shipping “only cocaine”. Only cocaine? Oh, well. Then by all means, let’s give them free passage.

Senators Mark Warner (D. Va.) and Tim Kaine (D. Va.) are worried about the drug pirates’ due process rights, and about the possibility of destabilizing Venezuela’s communist dictatorship. What about Americans? Where is your concern? What about the Venezuelans who voted overwhelmingly against the Maduro government, only to have the election stolen, the results nullified? No, no, no. We have to be concerned about pirates who are smuggling drugs on the high seas, and which kill more than 100,000 Americans annually.

China, Russia, and Iran are financing Venezuela’s drug operations, and using that country to destabilize the United States. We are, and have been, at war. The Democrats just refuse to recognize that fact.

The United States Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s ruling, and held that Texas could use its newly redrawn electoral maps. The correct decision.

Hillary Clinton decried “misinformation”, and “disinformation”, and warned about the dangers of misinformation and disinformation to “our democracy”. Uh, hello? Ever hear of the Steele Dossier, Hillary? How about the Russia! Russia! Russia! hoax?

CNN’s Jake Tapper identified the January 6 pipe bomber as a MAGA loving white guy. Much to the network’s embarrassment, he is not.

The January 6 pipe bomber is a 30 year old black man living in Virginia. He is a radical Leftist involved with ANTIFA, hates Mr. Trump, hates ICE, lives with his mother, and believes the country to be systemically racist. So why did it take the FBI almost 5 years to find him? Oh, wait . . . .

Senator Mark Warner expressed his belief that the FBI did not catch the pipe bomber sooner, because President Trump diverted FBI resources to aiding ICE in deporting illegal aliens. Hmmm. How does he explain that the FBI did not catch the pipe bomber during the 4 years of China Joe? Is not that an interesting question, Senator Warner?

First California banned single use plastic bags at retail establishments. Now California has banned reusable multiple use plastic bags at retail establishments. And to add insult to injury, California mandates that retail establishments charge not less than 10 cents per recycled paper bag (all paper bags must be made of recycled materials). There is an exemption for the minimum 10 cents per recycled paper bag fee if you are on certain food welfare programs.

Tampon Tim’s (D. Mn.) feelings are hurt. It seems that scores of people are driving by his house, yelling “Retard” at him. Tampon Tim does not like this, and is concerned that such rhetoric could “lead to violence”. Poppycock! Maybe Tampon Tim should stop acting like a retard.

Let us review. Tampon Tim ran for Vice-President where he daily called Mr. Trump a “fascist” and a “wannabe dictator”. After Mr. Trump was elected President, Tampon Tim lamented on one occasion that the news did not contain reference to President Trump’s death, but spoke hopefully it would soon be forthcoming. And Tampon Tim told another audience that “[w]e should bully the sh*t out of Trump!”

Pardon us, but we have no sympathy for Tampon Tim, or any other Democrat, who expresses distress for President Trump’s rhetoric. Tampon Tim and the Democrats can dish it out, but cannot take it.

The Somali fraudsters who ripped off taxpayers for more than $1 billion were politically well-connected. The Somali fraudsters gave tens of thousands in political contributions to Attorney General Keith Ellison (D. Mn.), Mr. Ellison’s Minneapolis city councilman son, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D.), and Representative Ilhan Omar (D. Mn.).

There are also pictures taken of Somali fraudsters with Governor Tampon Tim, Attorney General Ellison, Mayor Frey, and Representative Omar. Yet these politicians know nothing about the fraud. Hmmmm.

Carlos Portugal Gouvêa is a Harvard Law School professor who is present in the United States on a visa. Or was. Professor Gouvea is back in Brazil after being arrested for firing a BB gun at a New York City synagogue. Professor Gouvea, who teaches in Boston, explained that he was shooting at rats. In New York City? Around a synagogue? Professor Gouvea was detained by ICE, and quickly agreed to return to his native Brazil. Good choice, anti-Semite.

Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger (D. Va.) has named Stanley Meador to be the next Secretary of Public Safety. Mrs. Spanberger was effusive in her praise of Mr. Meador’s nomination.

Who is Stanley Meador? He is the former FBI agent who directed the FBI’s surveillance of traditional Catholics, claiming that a reverence for The Latin Mass exposed them as domestic radical terrorists.

“Moderate” Abigail Spanberger is not. She is China Joe in heels. And the Commonwealth is in a lot of trouble.

Mr. Meghan Markle went on The Late Show, and mocked the President of the United States. Poor taste, indeed. Time to deport the Markles. I understand that Northern Scotland is lovely this time of year.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts has condemned St. Sussana’s Nativity scene depicting an empty manger with a sign reading “ICE was here”. The Archdiocese demanded that that Nativity scene be removed, and that St. Sussana’s not engage in politically, divisive behavior. Not to mention, un-Christian behavior.

President Trump wants to rename soccer, “football”, and then rename football something else. Terrible idea. Stay in your lane, Mr. President.

Former VPI head football coach Brent Pry has been hired by current VPI head football coach James Franklin as the defensive coordinator. Humiliating for Pry. Stupid for VPI. Dru is destined to be disappointed well into the 2030s.

James Madison University beat Troy to win the Sun Belt Conference football championship. Kennesaw State beat Jacksonville State to win the Conference USA football championship. Boise State downed UNLV to win the Mountain West football championship. And despite Rocky’s hopeful cheering, North Texas State lost to Tulane in the American Conference football championship.

Texas Tech overwhelmed BYU to win the Big 12 football championship. Georgia humiliated Alabama in the SEC football championship game. Duke ruined Virginia’s “magical” season, winning the ACC football championship. Indiana stunned Ohio State, winning the Big 10 football championship.

So now which schools will play in the College Football Playoffs, and which schools are out? Indiana, Georgia, Texas Tech, and Ohio State are the top 4 seeds. Fair enough.

Oregon, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas A&M, Alabama, and Miami are in. Okay.

American Conference champion Tulane and Sun Belt Conference James Madison round out the field. There we have a problem.

ACC champion Duke University was excluded from the CFP field. This is B.S. Duke won its conference championship–a Power 4 Conference–but was excluded.

Neither Tulane nor James Madison could win an ACC football championship. Neither Tulane nor James Madison could successfully play an ACC schedule. But they get in? Give me a break.

My preferred ACC champion was SMU. But SMU failed to get the job done, losing to Cal in the last regular season game. I am not even thinking about making an argument that SMU belongs in the CFP.

The CFP could have excluded ACC member school Miami, and I would not write anything in protest. Nothing.

But excluding the ACC champion seems to contravene the letter and spirit of the CFP. You don’t have to like Duke. You don’t have to believe that Duke is one of the best teams in the nation. They are not.

BUT to pander to the Sun Belt and American Conferences, picking their champions, but excluding the ACC champion is just so much horse hockey.

College football–college sports in general–are a disgraceful mess. And the pursuit of the almighty dollar has created this disgraceful mess. And the prime movers of this pursuit are the Big Ten Conference (which has 18 members, but is apparently mathematically challenged) and the SEC (which schools devour cupcakes in order to pad their win totals).

I dissent.

GFK

“The Lord is coming, always coming.  When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life.  Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord.”

–Henri Nouwen.

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

–Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commenting on the aftermath of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s surprise attack on U.S. Naval Forces at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941

Eighty-four (84) years ago today, at 7:48 a.m. (Hawaiian Standard Time), the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked without warning United States Naval Forces stationed at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu.  The casualties were high, with 2,335 dead, and 1,143 wounded.  The bulk of the United States Pacific naval fleet lay sunk upon the harbor floor, while its planes burned on the tarmac.  Fortunately, the fleet’s aircraft carriers were at sea, and thus, unharmed.

The Pearl Harbor attack was well coordinated with Japanese attacks later that day on Guam, Philippines, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaya.  The Japanese plan to disable the United States’ ability to interfere with their expansionist plans succeeded.  But success came at a tremendous cost. 

The Japanese attack aroused an anger in the American people, who previously wished no part of foreign engagements.  A country whose people were willing to sit on the sidelines on December 6 as hostilities raged around the globe were suddenly plunged into the midst of the turmoil, responding with an energy and a vengeance that the Axis powers could never match.  The mobilized American nation proved its mettle by leading the destruction—the utter destruction—of Germany, Italy and Japan, all formidable military and economic powers at the war’s height.

The war also changed the lives of many, including my own father, as young men were ripped from their peaceful rural existences, and sent abroad to witness, fight in, and discover a whole world.  And it changed the role of the United States as a nation, shedding our prior historic role of isolationism, and thrusting the mantle of internationalism onto our collective shoulders as we used our nation’s might to ensure that such an atrocity would never again occur.  As stated by then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “December 7, 1941 is a day which will live in infamy.”  And so it is, still today.

“Dost thou love life?  Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”

–Benjamin Franklin.

GFK

“The Christmas spirit is the spirit of giving and forgiving.” 

– James E. Faust

Benjamin Franklin once said that democracy was 2 wolves and 1 lamb voting on what would be on the lunch menu. And it was an apt observation, because democracy maintains no respect for individual liberties and freedoms. Rather, democracy stands only for the proposition of majority rule. If 51% votes to strip the rights of 49%, then democratic standards permits that result. And that is not the United States of America.

“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.”

–Winston Churchill.

People in the news, politicians, journalists, scholars are always referring to “our democracy”. We do not live in a “democracy” in the United States. We live in a constitutional republic. There is a difference, because our written, republican constitution acts to protect minority rights.

What’s the big deal? Quit splitting hairs! Whooooaaa Nelly! This is not hair splitting. This is a big deal. And the article below by John Hendrickson, which was published in The American Spectator (December 2, 2025) explains why this is so.

Republic or Democracy: Democrats’ Crusade to ‘Save Our Democracy’ Is a Ploy to Undermine Our Constitution

Blurring the distinction between democracy and a republic is undermining constitutionalism.

“The United States of America is a federal republic: a federation of states governed by written constitutions,” wrote Russell Kirk. The Constitution created a republican form of government. A foundational aspect of our system is representative government. “Representative government, or what we call the republican tradition, is the bedrock of American constitutionalism,” noted James McClellan.

A republican form of government, as designed by the Founders, meant that sovereignty resided with the people who elected representatives. Further, the Founders designed a republican system based on the constitutional principles, which included limited government, checks and balances, separation of powers, federalism, rule of law, among others. 

The Framers understood political theory and systems, and the idea of a democracy was rejected. Democracy was associated with “mob rule,” which was fresh in the minds of the Framers with Shays’ Rebellion. 

They also understood human nature and that humanity was fallen. As James Madison wrote in Federalist 51:

But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

The late historian of the American Founding, Forrest McDonald, argued that “the genius of the system was that the power of government, though great and emanating ultimately from the people, was divided rather than concentrated in any single representation of the people.” This was the balance that the Constitution achieved by rejecting democracy. 

The use of the word “democracy” is not just harmless horse swapping of terms.

Although the Framers created a republican form of government, the term has been interchanged with “democracy.” Politicians, the media, and academia constantly refer to American democracy. The use of the word “democracy” is not just harmless horse swapping of terms.

Decades of civic illiteracy, combined with ideological policy efforts to “save our democracy,” have been successful in not only confusing Americans but outright undermining constitutionalism.

This is why our designation as a “republic” or a “democracy” is more than just an academic question. The more the United States forgets its republican heritage results in further erosion of constitutional principles.

James Carville, a Democratic Party strategist who is famous for his “it’s the economy, stupid” advice, recently revealed what many liberals have been thinking about once they regain power. Carville not only predicts that the Democrats will win the presidency in 2028 but that they will then proceed to start reforming government by “packing” the United States Supreme Court. 

“I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen. A Democrat is going to be elected in 2028. You know that. I know that. The Democratic president is going to announce a special transition advisory committee on the reform of the Supreme Court,” predicts Carville.

Carville argues that Democrats will “pack the Court by expanding the number of Justices from nine to 13.” The end goal, states Carville, is for the Democrats to make this “intervention so we can have a Supreme Court that the American people trust again.”

The justification for this is to “save our democracy.” The term “democracy” is often used incorrectly to describe the American political system. This is especially true of the political left, which argues that revolutionary changes are needed in order to preserve democracy.

Today’s Democrats are hoping they will succeed where President Franklin D. Roosevelt failed when he attempted to “pack” the Court. “We have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself,” explained President Roosevelt in arguing for his reform plan. 

Similar arguments will be made that, as a result of President Donald Trump’s policies and recent decisions by the Supreme Court, constitutional reforms are needed to “save our democracy.” Carville’s argument for “packing” the Court is not new, nor is the progressive or modern liberal belief in advocating for substantial constitutional reforms.

It is not just “packing” the Court, but also eliminating the Electoral College, reforming the Senate by either reforming the institution or outright elimination, and further limiting the sovereignty of states. 

In two opinion essays for Governing, Stephen Legomsky, a law professor emeritus at Washington University and author of Reimaging the American Union, argues that many of the political problems confronting the nation are a direct result of federalism. The root cause of the problem, Legomsky argues, directly resides with the states.

Although Legomsky places the blame for the nation’s political ills on states, in reality, it is a larger attack on the Constitution. “Liberals have for many decades tried to replace the Constitution’s ideas of limited federal and presidential power, checks and balances, and federalism with majoritarian democracy, expanded and centralized government, and strong presidential leadership,” noted Claes G. Ryn, an emeritus professor of politics at Catholic University.

Since the early 20th Century, progressives have attacked the American Founding as obsolete.

Progressives argued that the Constitution could not solve modern policy problems, and in response, they called for a vast expansion of federal power. Since the 1930s, the federal government has expanded both in size and scope. This has come at the expense of federalism — the constitutional principle of power being divided between the national and state governments.

“A dislike for the constitutional republicanism of the Framers has been integral to modern American liberalism. Liberals have long wanted an imperial presidency and a corresponding centralization and expansion of government,” argues Ryn.

Legomsky and Carville are not offering new arguments. In fact, they are just echoing what progressive academics and politicians have been arguing for decades.

These revolutionary reforms are being proposed as a measure to not only “save democracy,” but to “improve our democracy.” The term “democracy” is not only overused and misapplied but also misunderstood.

“There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes,” warned President Calvin Coolidge.

The Founding Fathers outright rejected democracy. The Constitution created a republican form of government, that is, a republic and not a democracy. This was once clearly understood, but as a result of the decline in civic education and the repetitive use of the term “democracy,” it is an important principle that has been lost.

“The government of the United States is a representative republic and not a pure democracy,” wrote Senator Arthur Vandenberg. Further, Vandenberg argued that “this country is frequently spoken of as a democracy, and yet the men who established our government made a very marked distinction between a ‘republic’ and a ‘democracy,’ gave very clear definitions of each term, and emphatically said they had founded a republic.”

Whether it is “packing” the Court, abolishing the Electoral College, the relevance of the Senate, or the further undermining of federalism, Americans need to realize that a serious debate over the Constitution is occurring. The crusade for “democracy” by those on the political left is an effort to fundamentally change the Constitution, which will have significant ramifications on policy.

Senator Vandenberg warned that “the most serious of all modern dangers to the Constitution, and therefore, to the welfare of the American people, are traceable to neglect of these distinctions” in referring to the misunderstanding of “republic” and “democracy.”

Benjamin Franklin, on the final day (September 18, 1787) of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, when asked about what type of government was created, he famously replied, “a republic, if we can keep it.”

The future direction of policy will hinge on whether we remain a republic as the Founders intended or become a “democracy.”

GFK

“Advent, this powerful liturgical season that we are beginning, invites us to pause in silence to understand a presence.  It is an invitation to understand that the individual events of the day are hints that God is giving us, signs of the attention he has for each one of us.”

–Pope Benedict XVI.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested a Virginia man in connection with the pipe bombs found at the Republican and Democrat National Committees’ headquarters on January 6, 2021. Hmmm. What prevented the China Joe Administration from arresting this suspect?

Congressional Democrats are pushing for a $25.00 minimum hourly wage. Please explain where in the Constitution the federal government has the power to establish wages that the private market must pay. We’ll wait.

Besides the legal issues concerning the minimum wage, there are solid economic reasons why the perfect minimum wage is $0.00. Freedom means that people be allowed to buy or sell labor at a market price, unfettered by government regulation. Some jobs are not worth an artificial minimum wage, and historically, raising the minimum wage causes unemployment. Why do you think that there are self-checkout stations in retail stores now? Why is McDonald’s experimenting with robotic cooks? Outside of Oregon and New Jersey, when was the last time you pulled into a full service gas station?

Minimum wages also adversely impact the unskilled, particularly young people. Teenagers used to gain valuable skills and experience working in grocery stores, restaurants, and other retail outlets. No more. The minimum wage has priced them out of the labor market, meaning that high school graduates will have never held a job, learning those things that only employment can teach.

The minimum wage is unconstitutional, and illegal. It is an economically illiterate solution to a problem that does not exist. It should be abolished at both the federal and State levels. Now.

“What needs to be said that isn’t being said enough in our press over the last 24 hours is that the President of the United States said a blatantly, obviously racist thing in the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday when he said what he said about Somali immigrants in this country. 

That they don’t contribute anything, that they’re not of value.  In no normal world should the President of the United States of America ever, ever say something like that to the American people or even say it privately.  I mean, if the President of the United States says it privately, it means he’s a bad person and we should get rid of him.

But to me, that was an impeachable moment.  There have been so many impeachable moments since Donald Trump has come back to the White House, but to blatantly say something as racist and as hateful and as nasty and cruel and mean-spirited as what he said yesterday.  The impeachment proceedings should begin right now.  But of course, they won’t.”

–former CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, trying desperately to become relevant.

President Trump said nothing racist about Somalis. He expressed his opinion, one with which The Observations agrees. Somalis are contributing nothing to this country; they are a drain. The only reason that Somalis were ever admitted to this country is because they are black. And that is truly racist.

Immigration should be about making the United States stronger. We are not a repository for those suffering in the Third World. If you bring the Third World here, here becomes the Third World.

Senator Mark Warner (D. Va.) is calling for the uniformed military to “save us from this President [Trump].” My gosh, the man is calling for a coup d’etat! Shades of Seven Days in May!

Mark Warner has never held a real job. He is a creature of government, and he is not very good at government. What he is good at is twisting the law to preserve his own power. Typical Democrat.

Representative Pramila Jayapal (D. Wa.) is introducing a bill that would prevent ICE from detaining illegal aliens, instead requiring the aliens’ release into the interior of the country on their own recognizance. The bill would extend special protections to asylum seekers, pregnant women, mentally ill people, people fleeing “gender violence”, disabled people, people over 60 years, LGBTQ++ individuals . . . blah, blah, blah. The bill would also require taxpayers to finance lawyers to represent illegal aliens present in this country, or aliens seeking to enter this country. The bill has 123 Democrat member co-sponsors. Because Democrats love illegal aliens more than the citizens of this country.

Representative Jasmine Crockett (D. Tx.) has a lien against her Dallas, Texas condominium for $3,047.79, due to her refusal to pay her HOA dues. Deadbeat!

Representative Ilhan Omar (D. Mn.) said that companies that were not “sufficiently anti-Trump” must pay a “costly price”. What in the world does that mean?

“I think what happened, um, is that, you know, when you have these, kind of, new programs that are, um, designed to, uh, help people you are often times relying on third parties to be able to facilitate, and I just think that a lot of the COVID programs . . . were set up so quickly that a lot of the guardrails did not get created.”

–Representative Ilhan Omar trying to excuse her Somali brethren for their fraudulent actions and theft of government monies. You see, it was the government’s fault for not preventing the fraud in the first place!

The Minneapolis, Minnesota police chief called on residents to call 911 in response to observing any ICE raids or operations in the city. What is he proposing; that his officers arrest ICE agents for performing their duties?

The California Attorney General called on citizens to photograph and film ICE agents in the performance of their duties, and upload those images to a State website. Again, for what purpose? Nothing good.

In Dedham, Massachusetts, St. Sussana Catholic Church is displaying a Nativity scene with an empty manger. Next to the manger, a sign bears the message “ICE was here”. Sigh.

In Virginia there will be no “dry” jurisdictions whereby local authorities can ban retail sales of marijuana. Why? Shouldn’t the people of, say, Henry County be able to ban retail marijuana sales? Not according to General Assembly Democrats. No, according to the Democrats’ wisdom, the entire Commonwealth must smell like a head shop, or a street in New York City. Sigh.

Jaguar fired Chief Executive Creativity Officer Gerry McGovern after the company suffered a 97.5% sales drop following his rebrand, including the showcasing of androgynous characters in television advertisements, instead of actual automobiles. What took so long?

In-N-Out Burger is opening 4 new locations soon in Tennessee, including Franklin, Antioch, Murfreesboro, and Lebanon. We Virginians continue to wait impatiently for our own In-N-Out locations. I cannot keep commuting to LAX to get my In-N-Out Burger fix.

Venezuela has agreed to resume accepting deportation flights from the United States of its citizens. Send ’em all back!

Guitarist Steve Cropper, who performed with Booker T. & the MG’s, has died at age 84. R. I. P.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

– Mark Twain

GFK

“The word advent means ‘expectation.’  What advent can do for us is create a sense of hope.”

–Louie Giglio.

The Trump Administration is terminating China Joe’s high fuel mileage standards for automobiles. GOOD-BYE excessive government regulation. HELLO affordable automobiles!

President Trump pardoned Representative Henry Cueller (D. Tx.), who was facing federal criminal bribery charges, brought by the China Joe Administration. There was a belief that China Joe was having Representative Cueller prosecuted in retaliation for his criticism of China Joe’s immigration policies.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that States that refused to provide requested data about food stamps programs would not receive federal funds. Do you understand that, Tampon Tim (D. Mn.)? If you want to fund Somali fraud, then use your State dollars, but federal taxpayers will not subsidize your schemes.

Matt Van Epps (R. Tn.) won a special election on Tuesday to replace retired Representative Mark Green (R. Tn.) He bested Aftyn Behn (D. Tn.), who was famous for stating how much she hated the Congressional district she wanted to represent. Following her concession telephone call to Mr. Van Epps, Aftyn Behn told supporters:

“I called the Congressman-elect, Matt Van Epps, and I had one question for him.  What will define what happens next?  Do not let the Affordable Care Act subsidies expire.  Do not raise health care costs for working families in Tennessee.”

Someone needs to tell Aftyn Behn that she lost the election. The voters rejected her views.

The Democrats–including Aftyn Behn–continue to push for Obamacare subsidies, thus revealing the lie that the Affordable Care Act is “affordable”. Obamacare has distorted the health insurance, and the health care markets, raising costs for all Americans. What are the prime movers of these market distortions? Guaranteed coverage, no matter the applicant’s health, community rating, which prevents insurers from treating applicants differently, and mandated benefits, requiring consumers to purchase coverage that they neither need nor want.

Obamacare is the perfect example of what happens when you have politicians insert themselves into the markets. The Democrats who pushed through Obamacare were not insurance executives or doctors. They were–mostly–not even people who ever held private sector jobs. Rather, they were power hungry politicians who know better than their constituents what people want, need, or can afford.

And never forget; Obamacare as originally intended was mandatory. Unless you were a federal elected official or bureaucrat. Those people were exempt from their own policies, just like the Politburo members in the former Soviet Union.

The brouhaha over the narco-terrorist boats in the Caribbean Sea is just so much performative political posturing. These are stateless ships, flying no flags of registration. They are pirate ships, and the ships and their sailors are not entitled to any protections under any laws, domestic or international. They are pirates/terrorists. Remember that when you hear a Democrat or a talking head (but I repeat myself) scream “war crimes”.

“What is disturbing is that there are Democrats out there who apparently look at these bad guys flooding the country with illegal drugs that cause these drug overdoses, and think that the president and Secretary Hegseth are the problem because they are stopping the bad guys.

Safe to say, the Democrats’ appalling laxity on this issue effectively encourages massive drug overdoses in America for Americans.  And the Democrats’ answer as to how to stop this drug war is not only nowhere to be seen but is effectively allowing the problem — and the overdoses — to continue.”

–Jeffrey Lord, The American Spectator (December 2, 2025).

Only in the United States could the President and the Secretary of War actually take decisive action to prevent our enemies from harming Americans in this country, and then be accused of committing “war crimes” by the Democrats. Sigh We have issues.

Reverend Phillip Phaneuf, of North Chili United Methodist Church in Rochester, New York announced that he was transitioning to become a woman, and hereafter he was asexual. Sigh. Reverend Phaneuf is a cross dresser. He will remain a man. Because it is biologically impossible for a man to become a woman.

You would think that a man of the cloth would know that man cannot become woman. It is The Bible’s first book, Genesis. Perhaps Reverend Phaneuf should rethink his profession.

In Evanston, Illinois, the Lake Street Church erected a Nativity scene. That is not unusual at this time of year, EXCEPT; the Baby Jesus has zip tied hands, Mary and Joseph are wearing gas masks, and there are Roman soldiers, dressed as ICE agents. Sigh. The Lake Street Church does not embrace The Gospels. The Lake Street Church embraces radical progressive politics instead.

A Brooklyn, New York middle-school principal denied a parent’s request to have a Holocaust survivor speak to students about antisemitism — saying the victim’s pro-Israel views are not appropriate for a public school. Of course she did. How dare a parent suggest that a survivor of a horrific historical event be allowed to speak!

Jose Francisco Jovel, a career criminal, was arrested for heaving Molotov cocktails at the ICE detention center in Los Angeles, California. He might have done serious damage to the building and its personnel if he had bothered to light the cocktails first.

“These companies engineered a public health crisis, they profited handsomely, and now they need to take responsibility for the harm they have caused.”

–San Francisco, California City Attorney David Chiu.

The city of San Francisco sued Kraft, Mondelez, Coca-Cola and other makers of ultra-processed foods on Tuesday, accusing them of knowingly sickening California residents with addictive and harmful products.

City Attorney David Chiu filed the lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court, alleging that the companies employed tactics similar to those used by the tobacco industry to design and market products intended to addict consumers. The lawsuit accuses the companies of violating California laws on public nuisance and deceptive marketing.

This is just another government shakedown of the private sector. If you do not want to drink a Coke with your Kraft Mac-N-Cheese, then don’t.

As an aside, who does not like Kraft Mac-N-Cheese? Seriously. It is delicious.

Frank informs me that after 76 years, Short Sugars restaurant in Reidsville, North Carolina has closed for good. This is a crime against humanity! The shabby looking restaurant served up some of the best pork barbecue, hush puppies, and slaw in the world. In fact, in 1982, their barbecue was judged the best in the world. President Reagan loved Short Sugars’ barbecue, and served it at The White House. And their hot dogs! Gosh they served good hot dogs! This is just a very sad development. In fact, it is the worst thing to happen to Southern cuisine since Rumley’s closed in Martinsville, Virginia.

On his way to the airport to board a private plane for Baton Rouge, Louisiana, former University of Mississippi head football coach Lane Kiffin lamented that the school would not permit him to coach the team in the post-season, claiming that the players wanted him to have that opportunity. Not so fast, my friends; to a man, the Ole Miss football players have denied making any such request. Lane Kiffin is a disloyal liar.

Claude, an albino alligator, who resided in San Francisco at the California Academy of Sciences, has died at age 30. R. I. P.

“Change your thoughts and you change your world.’

–Dr. Norman Vincent Peale.

GFK

“Advent is patience it’s how God has made us a people of promise, in a world of impatience.”

–Stanley Hauerwas.

I have returned to Northern Virginia, having spent a most relaxing time in Chatmoss. Relaxation is important, and something I am not good at enjoying. But for 2 weeks I went without [much] work, and read no newspapers. I saw friends, read books, played golf, and slept late.

Many people travel abroad for relaxation, some to engage in sightseeing, while others revel in tropical paradises. Others remain domestic, visiting national parks, or cities that they have enjoyed in the past. Those are fine things, but I enjoy simpler tastes; I go to the place of my birth and upbringing, and reconnect to all the people and things that made me who I am today. I’m like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, who no matter how far she roamed, she came to realize that “there is no place like home.”

Last week, President Trump announced that he was pausing all Third World country immigration into the United States, in reaction to the Afghani refugee’s attack on National Guard troops in D.C. Predictably, the Left went nuts over the news. Senator Mark Kelly (D. Az.), who is one of the “Seditious Six”, promptly went on CNN to claim that “When he [President Trump] says ‘Third World countries,’ he’s saying he doesn’t want BROWN PEOPLE!” Yes, when all else fails, the Left falls back on racism.

“I want you to realize this. You have lost. You’ve lost. White supremacists, White nationalists, you’ve lost. You are losers. Your story is a s—– story filled with misery. It’s filled with bland chicken. It’s filled with terrible, terrible dry a– meat. Your music sucks. All your culture sucks.”

And that’s the vote with Trump.  So, we’re not going away. And if we do get sent away, literally your sh**hole country will become the United States of America. It will sink.

You have lost. You lost. The mistake that you made is, you let us in in the first place. It has to do with brown people, and I am going to say this as a brown person:

There’s a lot of us—like, a lot.  There is like 1.2 billion in India, there is more than 200 million in Pakistan, and there’s like 170 million in Bangladesh.  Those are just the people there; I ain’t even talking about the folks who are expats or immigrants.  There’s a bunch of us — and we breed.  We’re a breeding people, and the problem is, you let us in in 1965.

There was a few us beforehand, but once you let one of us in, you know what happens with brown folks?   Our grandmother comes, our grandfather comes, our uncle comes, our aunt comes, her cousin comes, a second cousin comes, her third cousin comes [and then they marry each other?].  Then we had kids, a bunch of kids.  And then guess what?

Some white women — you know, the Western Civilization women, the pure women, the American women … the “rust belt” women, the real women — they like some of us brown folks.  We don’t take them; they come to us.  So we’re embedded; we are everywhere, we are everywhere.  I travel this country, and I’m going to speak as a brown person, brown people are everywhere.  There will be a Patel motel or there will be a daisy[?] restaurant everywhere.

I want you to realize this:  You have lost. Your story is a shi**y story, filled with misery.  It’s filled with bland chicken.  It’s filled with terrible terrible, terrible dry a$$ meat.  Your music sucks.  All your culture sucks.  Nobody . . . that’s why the kids, like listen to black people in their music.  That’s why the kids love Latinos.  Your parties suck, because they’re monochromatic.  Our parties have better food, better music, better-looking women.”

–Left wing radical Wajahat Ali, whose parents came to the United States in 1965, and quickly spent time in prison for money laundering and other fraudulent financial crimes.

We are being colonized by radicals from Third World countries. Radical bigots and Islamist extremists who have no intention of assimilating and becoming Americans. These are the people that Democrats like Senator Mark Kelly want to come into this nation.

It is not racist to want to keep these people out of the United States. Indeed, it is rational to want to keep these people out of the United States.

The Washington Post ran a story accusing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth of committing “war crimes” against narco-terrorists in the Caribbean Sea. FAKE NEWS! Even The New York Times says the Post story is false.

Senator Mark Kelly, who cannot seem to keep his mouth shut lately, called for Secretary Hegseth’s firing. Over FAKE NEWS! Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The Observations has reported about Minnesota Somali residents defrauding federal welfare programs, and sending the fraudulently procured funds abroad to relatives, and to terrorist organizations. The amount of money fraudulently procured is more than $1 billion and rising. On CNN, Tampon Tim denied any responsiblity for the fraud, and blamed President Trump! And Mr. Trump was not even in office when the fraud occurred! But now, more than 400 Minnesota State employees have pointed their fingers at the man responsible for the fraud–Governor Tampon Tim (D. Mn.). Wow!

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that it would be investigating Governor Tampon Tim in connection with the fraudulent distribution and use of federal funds. GOOD!

Tampon Tim wanted to live in the Vice-President’s residence off Massachusetts Avenue, NW. Now it looks like he will get to live in a federal facility, perhaps Fort Leavenworth.

Oregon’s Governor is threatening to arrest and prosecute ICE agents for the violation of Oregon State laws in the performance of their duties in enforcing U.S. immigration laws. Huh. How about this; the United States arrests and prosecutes Oregon officials for thwarting the enforcement of immigration laws by declaring and securing Oregon as a “sanctuary State”? We wonder who will win this battle?

Portland, Oregon held a tree lighting ceremony. It was NOT a “Christmas” tree lighting, and Christmas was specifically disavowed. But many speakers gave radical Leftist policy addresses, and attendees waved Palestinian flags. Some holiday, out West.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James’s war on pro-life clinics was just slapped down by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Attorney General James sued pro-life clinics claiming that their prescriptions for reversing abortion pills’ effects constituted “fraud”. The Second Circuit held that the pro-life clinics were engaged in First Amendment protected free speech, and unanimously enjoined Attorney General James from pursuing this matter further.

The Old State Saloon in Boise, Idaho is offering free beer for 1 month to any patron who aids ICE in apprehending illegal aliens. That is an excellent reason to visit Idaho.

“Jews must be abolished by any means necessary.”

–University of Florida law school student Preston Damsky.

The University of Florida law school expelled Preston Damsky for his vile, violent call to exterminate all Jews. Sadly, a court ordered his reinstatement, citing First Amendment concerns. Sigh.

I am all for free speech. But I am having a hard time believing that calling for the elimination of the Jewish people constitutes free speech. Maybe it does, but . . . .

Just because you have a right to do something, does not make it right to do it. And does not the University of Florida law school have the right to impose a standard of conduct to which students must adhere?

New Orleans, Louisiana Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said that her department would not assist ICE in apprehending illegal aliens because “it is a civil matter”. Uh, no. No it is not. Entering the United States without authorization is a crime. Which is within the purview of the police.

Virginia General Assembly Democrats are prepared to legalize the retail sales of marijuana. My goodness, what could possibly go wrong?

General Assembly Democrats insist that the retail sales will be restricted to adults, only. Uh, huh. And no teenager every buys or consumes beer in the Commonwealth. Never has, never will. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

It is not funny. But it is stupid to expect that retail marijuana will only be sold to or consumed by adults. Just plain stupid.

Solar companies pushed by Democrats, and rewarded with massive federal subsidies under China Joe’s Inflation Reduction Act received their monies, but are failing to produce much product, or provide much energy. But that is the least of the scandal. Now it turns out that these solar companies are owned, in large part, by the Chinese Communist Party! Who would have ever guessed that?!?!

That great foreign policy genius Pope Leo XIII said that the only solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict is a 2 State solution. Wow. And how would that look? Would it resemble Gaza? You know, the Hamas controlled territory that launched a war against Israel on October 7, 2023, and has vowed to do it again and again until Israel is wiped off the map? Is that the 2 State solution Pope Leo proposes?

The Pope has more than enough to do guiding The Catholic Church. Perhaps he should leave the Jews and the Muslims to others.

Great Britain continues to proceed steadily towards full “Big Brother”. Local jurisdictions are flooding the skies with drones so as to be able to “monitor” their citizens. Welcome to 1984’s Oceania!

University of Kentucky head football coach Mark Stoops vowed he would never walk away from his team. Never. So Kentucky did the necessary thing, and fired him.

The University of Alabama football team announced that it would schedule more “cupcakes”, beginning next year. Coach Paul Bryant would be so embarrassed. Jim Farrell, you should be too!

Alabama refused to schedule VPI’s football team. Too easy. Even the new Alabama schedule has some standards.

There is a professional women’s softball league. Did anyone know that there was a professional women’s softball league? Anyone other than Rocky and Dru?

“Believe you can and you are halfway there.”

–Theodore Roosevelt.

GFK