Harry, a professional eavesdropper, is being paid to spy on a woman having an affair. But something he overheard makes him question whether he can remain a detached listener.
Harry and his crew use powerful microphones to record a conversation between the woman and her lover as they walk around a crowded San Francisco square. Later, after filtering out background noise on the tape, Harry replays a cryptic phrase in the recording. He imagines it to mean that the woman is being targeted to be murdered by his client.
Listening to his conscience, already replaying guilt and shame from a previous snooping assignment, Harry looks for a way out, for a way to not have blood on his hands. To offload his responsibility, he confides to a priest in a confessional, the oldest form of eavesdropping:
I’ve been involved in a job that may bring misfortune to two young people. It’s happened before. What I do has caused harm to someone. I’m afraid it will happen this time too. I’m not responsible for it. I can’t be responsible for it.
The conversation in the park and in Harry’s soul takes place in the 1974 film by Francis Ford Coppola – a tense thriller and character study titled The Conversation.
Gene Hackman (God rest his soul) plays Harry Caul, ‘the best bugger on the West Coast.’ Harry is obsessed with technology and works in a world where privacy can be bought and sold using it.
On-the-job Harry, a surveillance expert, is an invader of privacy. He gets paid to move in close, take pictures, and record private conversations with electronic devices. But Harry has a paranoid fear of anyone being up close and personal with him.
Harry guards his privacy. He lives in a sparsely furnished apartment that is secured by three locks and an alarm system. It’s his fortress. He uses a payphone to make personal calls and lies about having a home telephone. Alone, Harry spends time playing his saxophone along with jazz records.Jazz is the music of individualists and loners.
Harry looks like a regular Joe. He easily fits into crowds and isn’t noticed while snooping. But Harry isn’t public. The enigmatic Harry stays emotionally detached from others, cut him off from the rest of the world as though he’s not really a part of it yet. This suggested in his last name “Caul,” the thin membrane that surrounds a fetus until it is born. His translucent raincoat suggests the caul.
Harry’s work is intrusive, but he wants protection from the same. He avoids below-the-surface relationships with people in his industry, his coworker Stan (John Cazale), and Amy, the mistress he supports and visits at random times.
Harry records private moments between humans. But the guarded Harry can’t or won’t expose himself to another human. His involvement with Amy (Teri Garr) is not a relationship nor intimacy. Harry shows up on his birthday and Amy thinks it is a good time to get to know Harry, to know his secrets. But Harry says he has no secrets to his secret lover. Harry is distant even from the person he is physically closest to.
As with the priest, Harry off loads his conscience and distances himself from the detrimental effects of his work. When Stan wants to speculate about the meaning of the conversation between Ann and Mark on the tapes, Harry insists that it is just a job and that it is unprofessional to get too curious or assume anything. How ironic for the intensely curious Caul!
Stan: It wouldn’t hurt if you filled me in a little bit every once in awhile. Did you ever think of that? Harry Caul: It has nothing to do with me! And even less to do with you! Stan: It’s curiosity! Did you ever hear of that? It’s just g*ddamn human nature! Harry Caul: Listen, if there’s one sure fire rule that I have learned in this business is I don’t know anything about human nature. I don’t know anything about curiosity. That’s not part of what I do.
The man who hires Harry is Martin Stett (Harrison Ford). Stett is the assistant to Harry’s client, the director (Robert Duvall). Initially, Stett is friendly. But when Harry refuses to hand over the tapes, he becomes intimidating and warns Harry to “be careful.” He surveils Harry at the surveillance tech convention.
After a party at his workshop, Harry spends the night with Meredith (Elizabeth MacRae), a woman he has just met. He finds out the next morning that the tapes have been stolen. Stett had Meredith steal the tapes.
Stett tells Harry that they couldn’t wait for the tapes. He then tells Harry to come to the director’s office to hand over the photographs and collect his money. There, Harry meets the director and realizes that the woman he has been spying on is the director’s wife. The taped conversation now seems to signal the worst for the woman.
After leaving the office, Harry decides to get involved. His Catholic conscience kicks in and so does his covert curiosity. He surveils the lovers in a hotel room and . . .
I’ll stop there, with the basic elements of the film. You can watch the movie, experience the intrigue, check out the enigmatic Harry Caul character, and find out what’s bugging Harry Caul.
~~~
Some questions and thoughts:
Does Harry’s method of recording reality, a cryptic conversation here, turn out to be flawed?
Does anyone who views or hears another from a distance – do they know that person? Or, do they only hear and see what they want to.
Do devices divine truth?
Does Harry compartmentalize his work-self from his conscience so as to maintain his addiction to snooping?
Does Harry become a pawn in another scheme?
Does Harry become a “partner in crime” that he so wanted to avoid?
Does the overflowing toilet scene signify the ugly truth coming to the surface?
How does super snoop Harry end up at the end of the movie? What’s his psychological state? What does his utter helplessness represent?
In the end, with what’s left intact, does Harry Caul find what is ‘bugging’ him? Does Harry come up empty?
Why would a Christian and book reader like me watch this movie? Well, for one reason, it is a great movie.
The Conversation, written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola between the Godfather movies, is a tense thriller and character study. The 1974 film is not like most of the pathetic and mindless flicks of today. There are no superheroes, no CGI, no WOKE agenda, no gratuitous sex, nudity, and violence. The violence that does occur is presented as an off-stage event like in Greek tragedies.
The movie was shot using long lenses and camera positions on rooftops. You get the idea of watching at a distance and of surveillance cameras panning scenes.
Another reason to watch is that Gene Hackman was a great actor. The character study involving a Catholic man who is self-isolating and who hears and views others from a distance – Hackman’s Harry Caul makes the movie.
Another is to consider the consequences of hearsay or of unfounded information, of surveillance versus participation, and of perception versus reality. Can we really know someone, their thinking, and their situation from a distance, from what others would have us believe?
And, there is the matter of someone listening without our knowledge. Though made in 1974, the issues of privacy the movie presents are relevant regarding you and I being surveilled today. The analog technology shown in the film has been replaced with digital technology that gains access to our private electronic communications, as through wiretapping or the interception of e-mail or cell phone calls.
We live in the age of digital technology that includes emails, texts, smart phones, and social media. How does Harry’s addiction to technology that supports his habit of seeing and hearing others at distance and his voyeuristic predilections affect him?
Scot Bertram talks with Clare Morell, fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and director of EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing Project, about the long-term effects of smartphone use on children and her new book The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones. And Benedict Whalen, associate professor of English at Hillsdale College, continues a series on the life and work of American writer Mark Twain. This week, he discusses The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
But don’t believe your eyes. Believe what the media tells you . . .
ABC7 Los Angeles anchor Jory Rand described anti-ICE riots as “just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn,” minimizing the widespread violence and destruction in the city.
I cannot believe this is real.
ABC reporter says not to bring in law enforcement to the LA riots because “it’s just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn.”pic.twitter.com/OlgBo4Pj1I
Another on-the-scene reporter, Tim Caputo, pushed back on the term “riot” and blamed police presence for provoking violence. Demonstrators set cars on fire, hurled objects from a freeway overpass, and smashed LAPD headquarters windows.
Even with images of burning vehicles and protesters brawling with law enforcement, the media downplayed violent anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles calling them “fun” and “relatively peaceful.” The media is worse than distraction. The media is disinformation chaos.
“What we witnessed in Los Angeles over the weekend wasn’t some organic outcry over injustice. It was premeditated, coordinated chaos—triggered by long-overdue ICE enforcement operations, and escalated by radical agitators, cartel-aligned elements, and a feckless local government unwilling or unable to defend its city. . .
“And yet, LA city leadership and activists immediately painted these moves as “racial targeting” and “unconstitutional overreach.” By Saturday night, the city was predictably on fire. Downtown intersections were barricaded. Masked agitators torched Waymo self-driving vehicles. LAPD officers were pelted with bricks, fireworks, and frozen water bottles.”
Don’t believe your eyes. Believe what Democrat leaders tell you . . .
While LA county burns (again) California Governor Gavin Newsom and DEI LA Mayor Karen Bass condemned Trump’s federal law-and-order response as “escalatory” and “provocative,” hoping to rally Democrats against Trump.
And so, media-programmed Democrats scream “authoritarianism,” “insurrection,” and “constitutional overreach,” and “We have no King!”
Democrats, who cheered open-border policies and virtue-signaled about being a “welcoming city,” are now left with the ungodly results – civil collapse. They propose no solution to the chaos they promote. They blame others. That’s what Democrats do.
Trump won the popular vote in the 2024 election. Trump flipped Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to win the Electoral College votes.
Voters, including blacks and Hispanics, wanted what Trump said he would do as president: bring about law and order, mass deportations and bring jobs to Americans.
A majority of likely U.S. voters say they approve of President Donald Trump’s job performance, according to Rasmussen poll results.
But don’t believe your eyes. Believe what elites tell you . . .
About two months ago, on April 17, 2025, columnist David Brooks wrote the above NYT column where he appears to allude to a type of Mao-Communist People’s War uprising:
It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.
See that again. June, 2025, . . .
“An avowedly Communist revolutionary group with ties to a China-linked Marxist funding network has been at the forefront of organizing nationwide protests opposing illegal immigration crackdowns by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — including protests which spiraled into violent riots in parts of Los Angeles.
“The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) — which openly calls for revolution to bring down the current American system and which publicly sympathizes with murderous Communist regimes — has been a leader in organizing and fueling anti-ICE demonstrations in LA as well as in other cities nationwide.”
Renowned attorney Larry Klayman predicted months ago that there would be full-blown legal civil war happening in the court system. He warns that what is happening in LA is dire,
” We knew this was coming. This is more than an insurrection, this is a Bolshevik style revolution. It’s not just Bolsheviks, but it’s every conceivable leftist radical group. This is financed, undoubtedly, by people like George Soros. . . This will be a flash point to carry forth this Bolshevik revolution. They want to take this county down to ground zero. This is what they are trying to do. They want to destabilize the country and bring these radicals out.”
Klayman goes on to say, “There is, undoubtedly, foreign money involved probably from communist China, Iran and North Korea…”
Progressivism’s controlled-opposition David Brooks, self-described moderate and Christian, like others of his ilk – the David French-Russel Moore-Never Trump types – publishes hoity-toity prescriptions for how we should live, think, and vote. He tells us that Trump will destroy democracy and America. But how is the content of Brook’s screed any different than the Left’s by any means necessary and the ends justify the means?
“The Left will grab power by any means necessary including stealing elections, creating hoaxes about political opponents and J6, and lawfare. David Brooks, in this NYT op-ed, is seeking to aggregate “rival power” to overthrow the current government (so as to return to the “normal” chaos and destruction the Left is known for, e.g., keeping MS-13 gang members in the U.S.).”
Brandon Smith writes in And So It Begins: Leftist Monkey Wrenching Is Leading To Civil War,
If you thought that the leftist delusions of grandeur had finally hit their peak you are about to be unpleasantly surprised. There are no limits to the insanity that progressives will embrace in their pursuit of power, and they continue to adhere to the fantasy that they are the “good guys” despite the fact that most of the world has been telling them for the past several years that their ideology is repugnant.
David Brook’s days of anarchy are here, and they are repugnant.
Bottom Line:
The drooling despot Joe Biden along with Mayorkas and Democrat governors and mayors and the auto-pen allowed 12,000,000+ illegal invaders into this country who do not consider themselves Americans, do not want to become Americans, and think they have every right to simply occupy and seize the sovereign territory of these United States. Biden’s would-be successor, the babbling Kamala Harris, would have done the same.
It is no surprise then that chaos and death followed, including nearly 48,500 Americans dying from synthetic opioid overdoses, mostly fentanyl, in 2024 alone.
It is no surprise then that children have been endangered:
The loss of even one child is a tragedy. The loss of over 7,000, some potentially to sex traffickers, due to Joe Biden’s immigration policies, is a national shame.
Like petulant willful children who demand their way, the Left (a fused group of Progressive Democrats along with antifa, BLM, the PSL, the MSM, trans-activists, pro-Hamas agitators, radical dark money NGOs, and Never-Trumpers) have attempted Trump’s assassination twice, have used rogue judges for non-stop lawfare attempting to jail and bankrupt Trump, have used rogue judges in non-stop lawfare to stop and delay his EOs, have continued to harangue him, and is now in full violent revolt against him and the Americans who voted for him and America itself.
Government of the elites, by the elites, for the elites. Hence, the urgent calls for civil war and Color Revolution by the likes of David Brooks. Hence the encouragement of dark woke and talk that nods and winks at people taking matters into their own hands! Hence, the fused groups of paid agitators – the fraternité-terreur – and pro-illegal immigrant riots and ultra-Bolshevism.
Call to Action:
See that again. Lawless Mexicans, who left the narco-state of Mexico, are running around Southern California with Mexican flags, burning ICE vehicles and detention centers.
All American fathers must fight for America and against the terror, chaos, and lies of the Left. Defend our country and constitution. Don’t be distracted by the calls for U.S. sons and daughters to be involved in forever wars. Don’t be distracted by what’s going on in Ukraine and the Middle East. We are at war at home.
All illegal invaders must go back home now.
. . . the Center for Immigration Studies, has conservatively estimated there are about 15.4 million illegal aliens in the United States, a 50% increase over the four tumultuous years of the Biden administration.
All illegal invader remittances back to their homeland via wire transfer services must be taxed at least 50%.
All federal district court judges who have acted with rulings against Article Two of the United States Constitution which established the executive branch of the federal government which is responsible for enforcing federal laws need to be stopped by the Supreme Court now and/or be impeached and/or have their funding cut off by congress now.
The New York Times runs through several scenarios to “neutralize” the so-called Trump threat, finally landing on their fifth and most desperate option—which just so happens to be the one we’re likely facing right now. This last-ditch scenario should scare the living daylights out of any sane American. This is the “color revolution” or “civil war” option. (Emphasis mine.)
HAPPENING NOW 🚨: Police on the 101 freeway are using tear gas on protestors on the overpass, that are launching fireworks, glass bottles and other items at them.
Multiple people injured as they tried to escape the tear gas from hitting them.
HAPPENING NOW 🚨: A protestor waves a Mexican Flag in front of a burning WayMo vehicle. Multiple vehicles have been destroyed, no police presence in this affected area.
Far-left Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) is calling for mass demonstrations and mobilization with the intention to “punish” Republicans. The extreme language is being seen by some as a return to the violent political rhetoric that resulted in two assassination attempts on President Donald J. Trump last year.
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -George Santayana
~~~~~
American Citizenship and Its Decline: Illegal Immigration and the Loss of National Sovereignty
“On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan discuss Juan’s journey to citizenship before introducing Victor Davis Hanson. (Recorded 8 months ago during the Biden regime.)
“Citizenship is rare in human history but essential to free government. Today, the constitutional rule of citizens in America is threatened by a new form of government, unaccountable to the people, in which power is held by a ruling class that seeks to transform our society. In this eight-lecture course, students will examine the origins and history of citizenship in the West and the grave challenges American citizenship faces today.”
American Citizenship and Its Decline: Illegal Immigration and the Loss of National Sovereignty
For a long while now the main stream media has been staging professional wrestling matches with day-of-reckoning plots. The scrappers include Hurricane Climate Change, Mysterio Misinformation, Equalizer Inequality, Undertaker Pandemic, and The Hammer “Democracy!” Opponents will take the fall.
A lot of sponsor money is backing the theater. So, a team of writers pen the storylines. And though the plots are predetermined and the moves choreographed, the staged spectacle must appear real to wrest control of the public’s interest. The rigged and scripted matches must provide the illusion of legitimacy of an actual unprecedented threat.
The wrestlers’ character and in-ring actions must look authentic and connect with the audience. Even so, Joe Blow is not watching as a critical thinker. He’s partaking in the bloodlust.
The nature of the high-stakes fiction captures his full attention. He is soon whipped into a state of frenzy. Animal spirits, “the spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction” (M. Keynes), are released. He can barely contain himself.
What’s this! In tonight’s audience is another professional wrestler. The Snake! wants in on the action:
Former FBI Director James Comey posted a photo of sea shells arranged into the numbers “86 47” on his Instagram account today, before shortly deleting the post.
OK. The pro wrestling imagery is not perfect, but here’s the thing . . .
High-stakes fiction – existential threats posed by climate change, misinformation, inequality, democracy, and who knows what’s next – is meant not only to capture the full attention of Joe Blow but also to overwhelm and exhaust his resolve. Such is the nature of psychological oppression. To wit:
“A gleeful, self-satisfied Mr Punch was often heard to remark: “That’s the way to do it.” Today we examine how Mark Poynting, one of the BBC’s top doom-mongering Net Zero activists, uses the trusted ‘scientists say’ message to turn a centennial sea level rise of around 30 cm into prose stating: “The world could see hugely damaging sea-level rises of several metres or more over the coming centuries””
The constant messaging of threats – “It creates a state of utter helplessness, a state in which you are far more pliant.” So writes Thomas Buckley, of the Brownstone Institute in the web article The Existential Threat of the Existential Threat. Why do this? Buckley continues:
And those invoking that dread are waiting nearby to do just that – take society by the shoulder, offer it comfort on the form of entertainment, medication, and basic sustenance, and lead it away.
The real existential threat, as Buckley notes, is that which denies our individual human agency and seeks to combine us into communitarian compliancy with “the ethereal economy of government agencies, civil society actors, non-governmental organizations, foundations, and academia, all aided by the information cabal. Together they do, in fact, currently have the power to foist something upon civilization that truly is transgenerational, global, and terminal.
The benefit of a pliant public is all theirs, as Buckley writes:
The climate being threatened is their silver sheened scrubbed personal environment – the actual environmental destruction that is occurring is out of sight, the denigrating of the sub-Deltas who inhabit other places, is immaterial.
A new paper by Dr. Judith Curry, one of the world’s most prominent scientists skeptical of a looming human-caused climate catastrophe, and economist Harry DeAngelo cautions investors and the public that “the apocalyptic climate narrative is a seriously flawed guide for public policy.” Why? “Because it radically overstates the risks to humanity from continued global warming.” Wide-scale suppression of fossil fuel use will not measurably change future temperatures, but “a sharp decline in quality of life would surely ensue.”
“The past 24 hours have been something of a Rorschach Test for the Supreme Court. In the birthright citizenship case, the Court made clear that in emergencies, the judiciary must retain the power to enter universal injunctions, even if Article III does not otherwise permit such injunctions. And in A.A.R.P. v. Trump, the Court made clear that in emergencies, the court should certify a class without going through Rule 23, and grant an ex parte tro without considering any of the usual TRO factors.
“What lesson should lower court judges take away? In cases of perceived emergencies, forget all the rules and make stuff up. When the executive branch takes such actions we call it an autocracy. When the courts do it, they call it the “rule of law.””
A countryman returning home one winter’s day found a snake by the hedge-side, half dead with cold. Taking compassion on the creature, he laid it in his bosom and brought it home to his fireside to revive it. No sooner had the warmth restored it, than it began to attack the children of the cottage. Upon this the countryman, whose compassion had saved its life, took up a club and laid the snake dead at his feet.
Aesop’s The Countryman and The Snake
~~~~~
The foolish take pity on snakes. Thinking to help creatures out in the cold cruel world, they bring them home and the creature’s true nature is revealed. Suffering follows.
The foolish do not take care to bestow their benevolence upon proper objects. And so, not having yet been bitten, the foolish continue to empathize with snakes.
Snakes on the Brain
The foolish take pity on and work to bring home MS-13 gang members, wife abusers, and human traffickers e.g., Abrego Garcia.
The foolish bring home a false premise of multiculturalism believing that all cultures are equal in some undefinable sense.
The foolish bring home DEI creatures and their true nature is revealed in the sorry outcomes.
The foolish bring home, with ad-hoc justice and zero-bail policies, criminals who are not fit to live in a community. Repeat offenders reveal their true nature.
The foolish take pity on unvetted (legally and health wise) invaders and bring them home by creating “sanctuary cities” and alerting them to the approach of the countryman, and by hiding them.
The foolish take home Hamas sympathizers and warm them by the fires of Marxist/critical theory/anticolonialism ‘higher education’. Thus embraced, their true nature is revealed. Their “freedom of expression” is to bite those empathizing with them.
The foolish take pity on invaders and rally behind rogue district court judges appointed by Biden and Obama who act unconstitutionally to block deportation of the invaders.
The foolish take pity on CCP snakes by letting them purchase U.S. farmland where they can breed.
The foolish take pity on and want to hold on to government programs of waste, fraud, and abuse that produce more snakes and snake bites, including “sex changes, LGBT activism, a “DEI musical,” a transgender opera, and birth control,” and terrorism, e.g., USAID.
I have known some as bad as the Snake.
Those with no sense will not only take a snake to their bosom, they will also take fire to their bosom, as Proverbs 6:27-35 tells us.
Disorder in the House
The foolish order their Mr. Rogers neighborly affections with Progressivism’s morally-relativistic calculus that breeds chaos, injustice and societal harm.
In the current cultural milieu given to Marxist victim-oppressor ideology, taking pity on a snake, a lowly creature, can provide a feeling of dominance and power. It can also make the snake-pitier feel virtuous. Benevolence upon improper objects follows: take pity on snakes, say nothing of their bite, and virtue signal your empathy to the world.
It helps Progressive sensibilities that the deep state media doesn’t show the consequences of snake-pity and holds snake-pitiers innocent of any biting consequences and that social media “Likes” flow with snake-pity empathy, and there are handshakes after sermons that wrangle scripture to have it mean that bringing a snake home is a loving thing.
And why not. Doesn’t the Good Book tell us to love? Isn’t that the Jesus way? And isn’t that the Woodstock way e.g., “Love the one you’re with?” Isn’t that the abstract universalist platitude way, e.g., “All You Need is Love?” Isn’t that the sentimentalist way, e.g., “love is love?” Isn’t that the social justice way, e.g., “Love is picking winners and losers?”
Prudent people bestow their benevolence upon proper objects. Prudent people focus on ordering their loves and not on joining fools who take snakes to their bosom. Here, I address the latter group, Progressive Christians who misplace empathy and disorder their love.
Empathy that cedes wisdom and objective reality for acts of trendy “social justice”, love so disordered will come back to bite them and the ones they love and those who go on to live with the consequences of their ‘empathy’!
Should we prioritize the foreigner above our family, our community, and our church? Isn’t the well-being of those closest to us more important than the migrant pursuing opportunism by crossing the border illegally? (Many illegals wave the flag of the country they left behind.)
Oh, I forgot. Many SJWs ‘exist’ on social media and in pulpits but don’t live in the communities affected. Snake bites – the raping and killing and stealing and fentanyl deaths and the zapping of community resources – Deep State Media doesn’t mention consequences of snake pity. Instead, Deep State Media is focused on vilifying snake deportations. (No pearl-clutching, please.)
A state government using taxpayer dollars to pay for housing, medical, legal and other expenses for the invaders is not on your radar – yet. Empathy that results in rape, murder, harm, and loss to your family, your community, your church, and your country – that snake hasn’t bitten you yet.
The Progressive snake preys on the naïve, on the sentimental, on those lacking wisdom and discernment. Figures in Christianity have brought home that snake and its dangerous nature. The result: moral relativity; prioritizing political correctness over truth; prioritizing the foreign over the familiar, the stranger over kin; abstract humanitarianism over the concrete needs of one’s community; disordered ordo amoris.
Disordered love is the basis of much confusion and chaos and corruption today. Disordered love can result in political disarray, protests, cultural demise, and a moral relativity that abstracts reality to gain social credit.
The breakdown of ordo amoris (order of love) explains benevolence upon improper objects It explains bringing home a snake. You cannot claim to love “the world” if you harm those closest to you in the process. And closing one’s eyes to the consequences of mis-placed empathy isn’t loving.
Order in the House
Imagine you are invited to a symphony orchestra concert. The program features atonal music.
The music lacks a tonal center or key. It sounds off, as it does not conform to the ordered system of tonal hierarchies and harmonious structures that characterize classical music.
The vagueness and generality of the sound is annoying. Dissonant and jarring, it is characterized by disorder – pitches in new combinations and familiar pitch combinations in unfamiliar settings.
By the end of the first movement, you’ve heard enough and walk out.
~~~
The new pope Leo XIV, the first Augustinian Pope, criticized J.D. Vance’s views on the Catholic teachings on caring for others, as well as President Trump’s immigration policies.
This past February, then-Cardinal Prevost challenged Vice President JD Vance on X, repeating a headline from The National Catholic Reporter: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
I find such criticism rather strange and out of touch with the Order of St. Augustine that Prevost joined in 1977. The criticism sounds like Progressive politics that appropriates Jesus because it has no moral authority its own.
St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas said that love must be ordered. One must love God first, then family, then nation. (The following summaries are from The Order of Love by Sean Ring. Document below.)
Augustine’s hierarchy of love can be summarized as:
God above all – The highest love is due to God, as He is the source of all good.
Self properly ordered – We must love ourselves rightly, seeking salvation and holiness rather than selfish pleasure.
Family and kin – Natural obligations to parents, spouses, and children take precedence over others.
Community and nation – A just love of one’s people and homeland follows from natural bonds.
Strangers and humanity at large – Charity extends to all, but not at the expense of higher obligations.
St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica says that love should be given according to moral proximity, explaining that natural law thru justice and governance dictates a preference for those closest to us:
We owe special care to our families because they are an extension of ourselves.
The common good of a nation is more relevant than abstract global concerns.
Charity is universal, but obligations are graded, meaning the duty to kin and community is stronger than to distant strangers.
Ordo Amoris
Put God first – Moral order flows from divine truth.
Prioritize family and community – Nations and families are not arbitrary constructs but natural hierarchies of love.
Exercise prudent charity – Helping others should not come at the expense of justice or the destruction of one’s people.
Reject false universalism – Love for all does not mean an equal obligation to all.
Today’s education system is focused on a Marxist victim-oppressor ordering.
Christian education should focus on Ordo Amoris, the order of affections. Children must be taught the order of priorities: what is most important and what is least important. This isn’t to say a given item is bad, but that it’s not as high in our affection (or priority list) as something else.
Teaching that involves such wisdom and discernment would be a guide to relationships and moral obligations and a protection against the modern sentimentality that distorts true love.
C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man:
“St Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in ‘ordinate affections’ or ‘just sentiments’ will easily find the first principles in Ethics; but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science. Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting and hateful.”
The apostle Paul: “So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all and especially for those of the family of faith.” Gal. 6:10
Charity begins at home. Societies thrive when love is ordered correctly. But fools bring snakes home.
In pity he brought the poor Snake To be warmed at his fire. A mistake! For the ungrateful thing Wife & children would sting. I have known some as bad as the Snake.
The apostle Paul: “So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all and especially for those of the family of faith.” Gal. 6:10
A Danish man—just a regular guy—gets confronted in his own country by a group of migrants who flat-out tell him: “This isn’t Denmark anymore. We’re taking over.”
That’s not integration or assimilation. That’s demographic conquest. These aren’t whispers in the back alleys—these are bold, open declarations: “We have 5 children, you have 1. In ten years, you’ll be gone.”
You’re not going to hear this story on CNN, MSNBC, or from the latte-sipping globalists at the UN—but this is what’s REALLY going on in Denmark right now.
While the mainstream media distracts you with puff pieces about Trump trying to “buy Greenland”—like that’s some kind of planetary emergency—the REAL crisis is happening on the streets of Europe. The globalist experiment is unraveling, and the social engineers want you asleep at the wheel.
Let me break this down for you—this is not immigration, this is replacement. It’s part of a globalist plan, and they’ve been cooking this up for decades: flood sovereign nations with unvetted mass migration, break down cultural identity, dilute national pride, and then centralize power in unelected bureaucracies like the EU and the World Economic Forum.
And yet—what’s the big scandal on the evening news? “Trump wanted to buy Greenland!” Give me a break! That’s not a scandal, that’s strategic resource acquisition! But they don’t want you thinking strategically. They want you guilty, distracted, docile, and outbred.
This is a warning. This is a five-alarm fire for Western civilization, and they’re telling you it’s a candle flickering in the wind. Denmark is the canary in the coal mine. What happens there will echo across Europe and the West if people don’t wake up, reclaim their identity, protect their borders, and stand up for truth, sovereignty, and survival.
WAKE UP, BEFORE YOU’RE ERASED.
~~~~~
Why, in a land that prides itself on welcoming migrants, are so many gang members from migrant communities? And is it Swedish society that is the ultimate culprit, or the migrant communities themselves?
Researchers at the University of British Columbia, using data analyzed from a American Time Use Survey, came up with the components of a “better than typical” day.
Led by Dunigan Folk, a social psychologist and PhD candidate, the team at UBC used data from the 2013 and 2021 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS). These surveys collect detailed information about how Americans spend their days, from working and socializing to leisure activities and commuting. By analyzing this data, the team employed AI to pinpoint the activities that most significantly contribute to a “better than typical” day.
Talker Research surveyed 2,000 Americans. The survey was administered and conducted online between December 13 and December 19, 2024.
(All variables measured in hours or minutes. “–” denotes tipping points where enjoyment decreases.)
OR
That’s Best Day Ever = 6 hours with family + 2 hours with friends + 1.5 hours of extra socializing + 2 hours of exercise + 1 hour of eating and drinking – with less than 6 hours of work, indulging in only 1 hour of screen time, and a 15-minute commute.
And, per Talker Research: “When asked if they felt they’d experienced any perfect days in 2024, the average respondent had enjoyed 12 (12.6).”
Huh. I can’t recall any perfect days as formulated above. I’ve lived alone for the past 25 years. A good day for me would include any of the following: being outdoors, exercise, walking, discovering beauty in nature and art, wondering at things beyond my understanding, creating something, writing, spending time with my kids, expanding my personal bandwidth by reading books, and enjoying the life lessons of Calvin and Hobbes.
I don’t know of any use for the findings and the formula as days and people are subject to other factors. No doubt, one’s temperament and personal bandwidth would influence one’s expectations of a “better than typical” day.
For example, someone may be Eeyore-like: “I was so upset, I forgot to be happy”; “If it is a good morning, which I doubt”; “It’s the only cloud in the sky and it’s drizzling, right on me. Somehow, I’m not surprised”; The sky has finally fallen. Always knew it would.”
(Anton Chekhov wrote a short comedic take on human temperaments. He divides them into four major categories – Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic, and Melancholic – and further bifurcates them into male and female varieties. The Temperaments is a hilarious account of personalities.)
Others may not enjoy the present because they are worrying about the future and dwelling in the past.
And some, as clearly evident, spend hours looking at a screen to know what kind of day they must have, e.g., Trump Derangment Syndrome (TDS).
Do some choose the simple daily outlook of the old English proverb “Whoever will rise early shall be holy, healthy, and happy?”
~~~~~
O Healthy Day?
I’m Still Standing. I never received the COVID-clot shot or the flu shot or the RSV shot or any vaccines since my mother took me to the doctor before entering kindergarten in the 1950s. During annual checkups, my doctor in Chicago has pushed the three vaccines above. I have refused each time.
When he suggested the COVID vaccine I told him that I wouldn’t inject myself with an untested mRNA vaccine that had a spike protein and who knows what else in it for a flu-like virus that was 99.9% curable with a regimen of vitamin D & C, sunshine, exercise, and the availability of Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. I would let T cells do their thing.
(Why did the Biden regime inject a country with 12-20 million undocumented and unvetted (legally & health wise) aliens into it?)
During a recent checkup my doctor told me, attempting to alert concern, that several of his patients had developed severe RSV and needed hospitalization. He proposed that I should be vaxed against it. I did not the shot. I should have asked if those patients had received previous vaccines from him.
Why no vaccines? I have had childhood infections such as measles, mumps, and flu. I sweated through the Asian flu with a 106-degree fever (our Swedish doctor made a house call). My body’s T cells have worked to fight infections. Why should I inject a big pharma substance into my body when my body heals itself? And why should I blindly trust anything the government or a government-licensed doctor say?
~~~
You may want to read and listen to all of the following:
Adverse effects of Covid mRNA vaccines
“Soon-Shiong, founder of ImmunityBio ($IBRX) and owner of the Los Angeles Times, claims that the COVID-19 pandemic, and the very vaccines developed to fight it, may be contributing to a global surge in “terrifyingly aggressive” cancers. In the nearly two-hour conversation, the Los Angeles Times owner leveraged his decades of clinical and scientific experience to outline why he suspects an unprecedented cancer epidemic is unfolding. This report examines Dr. Soon-Shiong’s background and assertions, the scientific responses for and against his claims, new data on post-COVID health trends, and the far-reaching implications if his alarming hypothesis proves true.” (Emphasis mine.)
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is a surgeon who made billions inventing cancer drugs. He says that Covid, and the vaccines that didn’t stop it, are likely causing a global epidemic of terrifyingly aggressive cancers.
(0:00) Why Are Cancer Rates Rising in Young People? (6:16) What Is Causing This Cancer Epidemic? (14:52) Is There a Connection Between Covid and Cancer? (25:33) Why Dr. Soon-Shiong Never Got Covid (39:36) How Big Pharma Tried to Undermine Dr. Soon-Shiong (47:35) Dr. Soon-Shiong’s Analysis of RFK Jr. (1:02:47) The Healthcare Industry’s Conflict of Interest (1:05:51) How to Strengthen Your Immune System (1:10:32) What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About How to Fight Cancer (1:20:58) Why Hasn’t Anyone Faced Consequences for These Crimes? (1:33:59) Why Dr. Soon-Shiong Bought the LA Times
A world-renowned immunologist is sounding the alarm after his peer-reviewed research uncovered a devastating surge in a deadly heart condition among people who received Covid mRNA “vaccines.”
Dr. János Szebeni, an internationally recognized European immunologist, issued a stomach-churning warning to the world after confirming that the injections have caused a staggering 115,100% surge in myocarditis. (Emphasis mine.)
The “safe and effective” narrative collapsed on camera during Senator Ron Johnson’s explosive Senate hearing on COVID-19 vaccine injuries Wednesday afternoon.
OB-GYN Dr. James Thorp delivered one of the most haunting moments of the hearing.
He said the COVID shots “MIRRORED” the effects of chemical abortion drugs—and the government knew what it was doing. (Emphasis mine.)
Dr. Thorp pointed to the now-infamous Shimabukuro study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which claimed a 12.6% miscarriage rate following COVID vaccination.
But when you isolate the data for women vaccinated in the first trimester, the miscarriage rate rises to 82%, Dr. Thorp said. This 82% claim remains a topic of debate within the scientific community.
~~~
A group of Italy’s leading scientists has issued an alarming warning of the devastating long-term health risks faced by those who received Covid mRNA “vaccines.”
The experimental medicine researchers found that people who received the injections face persistent neurological symptoms.
The study found that mRNA injections alter human biology to create long-term spike protein production that increases over time.
The scientists warn that the Covid mRNA vaccines alter T cell immunophenotypes, which triggers VAIDS – or “vaccine-induced AIDS.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently made the explosive admission that Covid mRNA “vaccines” are spiked with contaminants that triggered a global surge in cancers.
The federal agency made the admission after an FDA study confirmed that Pfizer’s Covid mRNA “vaccine” contains dangerous levels of excess DNA contamination. (Emphasis mine.)
Medical leaders like Dr. Peter McCullough, who fought tooth and nail to expose the COVID lies, are now digging into a groundbreaking new approach to cancer treatment: repurposing safe, affordable medications like ivermectin and mebendazole to fight cancer.
According to the McCullough Foundation’s latest research, ivermectin shows incredible promise:
-It’s already been proven safe in humans, even during chemotherapy.
-Preclinical models show a wide range of anti-cancer effects.
-Anecdotal cases are pouring in, showing real-world improvements.
Mebendazole is another time-tested antiparasitic, and it’s also showing the same exciting potential. And when combined with ivermectin, the results could be even more powerful.
Five years after the greatest crime in American history, the only people who’ve been punished are the ones who told the truth about Covid. Dr. Mary Talley Bowden is one of them.
Chapters: 0:00 Dr. Mary Talley Bowden Was Right All Along 6:19 The Origin of the Government’s Propaganda Campaign 17:57 How the Medical Establishment Tried to Destroy Dr. Bowden 22:30 How Much Money Was Made From the Pandemic? 24:17 How Effective Is Ivermectin? 20:24 When Did the Healthcare Industry Become Politicized? 39:26 The Health of Dr. Bowden’s Patients Compared to Others 49:04 Does the COVID Shot Need to Be Pulled From the Market? 50:06 They’re Giving Babies the Covid Shot 53:33 The Link Between Cancer and Covid 1:00:25 The Legal Protection of Vaccine Developers 1:09:48 Why Is There So Much Secrecy Around Covid Data? 1:13:01 Will Medicine Get Better Because of This? 1:20:00 How to Fix the Healthcare Industry
‘The diagnosis can create an identity that enhances prejudice and judgment which are associated with even greater feelings of isolation, exclusion and shame.’
Steve Templeton, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is an Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Indiana University School of Medicine – Terre Haute, writes:
I set out to understand why people were behaving in a way that would’ve been seen as unhinged just weeks before. I could see everyone becoming germophobes, and I wondered if that behavior, once ingrained in the population, would ever go away. Could I reason people out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into? Probably not, but there were other people I admired trying, and I couldn’t just stand idle. So I decided to write a book, an idea that became Fear of a Microbial Planet.
The pandemic response exposed a systemic rot in US federal agencies that operate in a politicized environment with perverse incentives that favor pharmaceutical companies and powerful wealthy individuals at the expense of the public interest. Very few were courageous enough to stand up for the truth when the vast majority of the public and media were supportive of these agencies, even when their recommendations, authorizations, and mandates were clearly not backed by evidence or driven by minimum standards of ethical behavior that existed before 2020. (Emphasis mine.)
On December 13, 2022, Florida Governor DeSantis asked for a statewide grand jury to investigate how actions of pharmaceutical companies and federal agencies had ultimately harmed the public. He also appointed seven people to a public health integrity committee to advise him and the Florida Surgeon General Joe Ladapo. I was happy to be named a member of that committee. (Emphasis mine.)
Kennedy then delivered a devastating jab at the dominant measles narrative, putting everything into perspective and leaving the panel silent.
“I want to say this,” Kennedy began.
“We’ve had four measles deaths in this country in 20 years. We have 100,000 autism cases a year. We have 38% of our kids now are diabetic or pre-diabetic. That should be in the headlines,” he said.
*Applause erupted*
When I was a kid, there were 2 million measles cases a year and none of them got headlines. And we had 400 deaths. We had deaths between 1 in 1,200 and 1 in 10,000. We have so many kids now who are afflicted by chronic disease. And the media never covers them. They only want to cover measles,” he added.
“And what I’ve been saying to people is, let’s pay attention to other illnesses as well—illnesses that are really, really damaging our country, that are existential for our country. We now spend almost a trillion dollars a year on diabetes and metabolic disorder,” Kennedy explained.
Then he drove the point home, contrasting the media’s obsession with measles to its silence on autism. (Emphasis mine.)
Per Audrey and Harry – The Budget Savvy Travelers@thebstravelers
For years, we were told to avoid butter because it “clogs arteries,” and instead use margarine, loaded with processed seed oils. Now we’re seeing rising inflammation, cognitive decline, and even links to cancer.
The problem? It’s not natural fats—it’s heavily refined, industrial oils that damage your cells over time.
The solution: Use stable, healthy fats that support your brain, hormones, and metabolism.
Here are some of the best options, sorted from lowest to highest heat tolerance:
NEVER let your oil smoke. When oil smokes, it releases acrolein (a toxic lung irritant) and oxidized fats linked to inflammation and arterial damage.
DITCH these so-called “healthy” oils: Soybean, corn, cottonseed, canola, margarine, vegetable shortening (loaded with hidden trans fats)
Storage Tips: Keep EVOO in dark glass Refrigerate animal fats like tallow and lard to prevent oxidation Bonus Tip: Mix ghee + avocado oil for ultra-stable high-heat cooking.
3 Rules to Avoid Toxic Oils Never Smoke Your Oil → If it’s smoking, it’s harming you. Avoid Processed Seed Oils → Chemically extracted, often GMO, highly inflammatory. Store Oils Correctly → Light, heat, and air = oxidation = rancid fats.
Focus on real, nutrient-dense fats—your body will thank you.
~~~
23 insights and reflections from “Public Health SOS: The Shadow Side of the Wireless Revolution
The electromagnetic radiation from cell phones, Wi-Fi, smart meters, and cell towers is like those overwhelming, discordant sound waves – invisible but physically impactful, drowning out our bodies’ natural electromagnetic symphony. Some people, like trained musicians with sensitive ears, notice the disruption immediately (the electrically hypersensitive), while others don’t consciously perceive it yet still experience the biological effects. The book’s message is that we need to turn down this electromagnetic noise and create spaces where our bodily instruments can play their natural melodies again, before too many instruments are permanently damaged beyond repair.
How can you consent to paying for something if you don’t know the price? In today’s podcast, AnneMarie Schieber of Health Care News and Devon Herrick of the Goodman Institute Health Care Blog talk about New York State’s decision to ban “consent to pay” forms at medical practices. Also on tap: reforming health care without a political fight, the RESULT Act being reintroduced, which fast-tracks successful treatments in trusted countries but comes too late for one Alzheimer’s patient, “Name it to tame it,” is over-diagnosing symptoms driving up health care utilization?—and has private equity ruined the doctor-patient relationship?
The Consent Trap: Agreeing to Medical Bills Without Knowing Prices
In this episode Dr. Karyne Messina, a New Books Network host, and Dr. Harry Gill discussed the negative effects of excessive screen time on young adults’ mental health and development, emphasizing the importance of face-to-face interactions and shared experiences. They focused on Erik Erickson’s first phase of adulthood which is the Intimacy versus Isolation phase from neuroscience and psychoanalytic perspectives.
They both talked about the benefits of turning off phones and televisions early in the evening so that a person, couple or family can have quality time participating in some type of meaningful activity versus watching or reading what people on screens are saying or doing. The also discussed how blue light emitted by screens interferes with the production of melatonin which prevents people from falling asleep.
Brain Rot: How Screens Affect the Minds of Young Adults (4)
Archbishop Viganò: The modus operandi is the same: the deep state finances ideological movements and social pressure groups through USAID and other government agencies to simulate dissent against the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and thus be able to put pressure on the hierarchy to adopt reforms, always in a “progressive” sense.
Archbishop Viganò: This coup is part of a wider global coup organized by the subversive lobby of the woke left (on the ideological front) and the World Economic Forum (on the financial front). Its aim is the destruction of every form of resistance against the establishment of the New World Order, the establishment of governments totally controlled by an elite of technocrats, and the establishment of a new Religion of Humanity that gives doctrinal and moral foundations to the globalist dystopia. In the minds of these criminals devoted to the Antichrist – because it is the kingdom of the Antichrist that we are talking about – Bergoglio was to be the first “pope” of the new ecumenical and synodal church prepared since Vatican II. And it is precisely because of this total heterogeneity even with respect to his immediate predecessors (and even with respect to the most progressive of these) that Bergoglio cannot be considered to have been pope of the Catholic Church.
Z-Kits Include: Ivermectin (a Nobel-prize winning anti-parasitic agent), Hydroxychloroquine (an antimalarial medication which helps combat several types of respiratory viruses), Dexamethasone (an anti-inflammatory medication), Doxycycline (a broad-spectrum antibiotic), and Dr Zelenko’s original over-the-counter nutraceutical, Z-Stack™, containing vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc and quercetin for everyday immune support.
There’s a tick spreading across the US that’s giving people an allergy to red meat. No, this isn’t some fringe conspiracy theory; it’s actually real, and it’s called Alpha-gal Syndrome. It starts with the bite of a Lone Star tick, and for some people, it ends with a permanent allergic reaction to beef, lamb, pork, even dairy and gelatin. Some farmers and ranchers who get it can’t even go near their own livestock without reacting.
At the exact same time this bizarre red meat allergy is sweeping across the country, we’re also being hit with a coordinated media and political campaign to convince us that meat is killing us, making us sick, destroying the planet, and needs to go. The timing isn’t just strange, it’s downright suspicious…
Red meat is one of the most nutrient-dense, healing, anti-inflammatory foods on the planet. It’s packed with glutamine and contains the nutrients your body needs to fight inflammation and support everything from mental health to cardiovascular function. Yet it’s been falsely demonized for decades in the name of the Marxist “Green” agenda.
Added 5-20-2025:
The MMR vaccine
“I Saw What The SHOT Did” – Michael & The Vaccine Dissident | Dr. Andy Wakefield
Shining a light on the MMR shot: More combos, less choice.
Choice is taken away from parents by combo shots. Making MMR a combination shot, and removing the availability of the individual measles, mumps, or rubella vaccines, was a policy and profit decision
The Confederacy of coastal and globalist elites, networked with the deep state blob, the media, the federal courts, controlled-opposition Christians, and other useful idiots, is threatened by a turn to common sense normal that ignores their “expertise” and instead affirms America, Americans, and the law. Trump’s election, by a vast margin, exposed the Confederacy of coastal and globalist elites et al as Democracy-challenged.
Not to be outdone by the rancor of David Brooks promoting a hostile takeover of the country in the NYT (see previous post) because Brook’s “normal” doesn’t include Trump and MAGA voters, comes another columnist for The New York Times who has wet himself – his “normal” is being exorcised by Trump.
First Friedman: “. . .when [Trump] singles out coal miners for praise while he tries to zero out development of clean-tech jobs from his budget — in 2023, the U.S. wind energy industry employed approximately 130,000 workers, while the solar industry employed 280,000 — it suggests that Trump is trapped in a right-wing woke ideology that doesn’t recognize green manufacturing jobs as “real” jobs. How is that going to make us stronger?”
First Reply: Something that must have had Friedman shaking in his booties:
The Biden administration published a congressionally mandated report highlighting the positive economic benefits the Keystone XL Pipeline would have had if President Biden didn’t revoke its federal permits.
The report, which the Department of Energy (DOE) completed in late December without any public announcement, says the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had a positive economic impact of between $3.4-9.6 billion, citing various studies. A previous report from the federal government published in 2014 determined 3,900 direct jobs and 21,050 total jobs would be created during construction which was expected to take two years.
But immediately after taking office in January 2021, Biden canceled the pipeline’s permits, effectively shutting the project down. (Emphasis mine.)
How did being trapped in a left-wing “Green” ideology make us stronger, Thomas?
Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee Jason Smith, 9/24: “A stumbling job market is a part of the price Americans are paying as the Federal Reserve tries to clean up the inflation crisis created by the Biden-Harris Administration’s runaway spending.” (Emphasis mine.)
“-Smallest Businesses Cut Jobs: Small businesses employing less than 10 people cut 43,100 jobs in the last year (Intuit Quickbooks Small Business Index)
“-More Part-Time Jobs: Since the start of the Biden-Harris Administration in January 2021, 1.7 million more Americans have had to take multiple jobs. In August alone, 264,000 more Americans took on part-time work for economic reasons.
“-More Bureaucrats: Since the Biden-Harris Administration began, 30 percent of new jobs have come from hiring for government salaries. In August, government agencies added 24,000 to taxpayer-funded payrolls.
“-No “Manufacturing Boom”: In August, manufacturers cut another 24,000 jobs and the United States has shed 14,000 manufacturing jobs in the last year.”
Was Thomas L. Friedman never “more afraid for America’s future” then?
What about when transportation secretary Buttigieg had $7.5 billion at his disposal to install EV charging stations around the U.S. from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, but only managed to complete a few dozen projects. Where did money and jobs go?
President Trump has signed executive orders to boost the coal industry, which once was the backbone of the U.S. generating system. Despite coal’s ability to provide reliable baseload power, massive subsidies and state mandates have resulted in significant solar and wind power additions that are causing grid instability.To protect the grid and to help meet rising electricity demand from AI data centers, electric vehicles, and cryptocurrency, President Trump is using emergency powers to keep existing coal plants online. He is also reopening western lands to coal leasing, looking to name metallurgical coal as a critical mineral, and ordering the attorney general to investigate states that have implemented laws against fossil fuel use so that the federal government could waive those rules. (Emphasis mine.)
What should be obvious by now is that intermittent wind and solar power don’t meet the needs for baseload power – the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time. Green energy options certainly will not meet the need for AI data centers. I favor clean nuclear power as do those behind the rise of AI.
Trump, by signing EOs to boost the coal industry, is keeping the lights on. He is working to grow industry, and preparing for the future job growth at home, not globally.
A week after boasting it had achieved 100% renewables energy power for the first time, Spain’s power grid suffered a crippling blackout, along with Portugal’s. Apparently, this was due to over-reliance on what are always fluctuating power sources vs. the base power that comes from fossil fuels, nuclear, or storage batteries. (Emphasis mine.)
Friedman is an open borders globalist and is well aware of coal pollution mitigation. He should criticize China (instead of pestering trump) for China’s enormous use of coal. The U.S. has 204 operational coal-powered plants that use coal pollution mitigation. China has 1,161 apparently without coal pollution mitigation.
Second Friedman: “This whole Trump II administration is a cruel farce. Trump ran for another term not because he had any clue how to transform America for the 21st century. He ran in order to stay out of jail and to get revenge on those who, with real evidence, had tried to hold him accountable to the law. I doubt he has ever spent five minutes studying the workforce of the future.”
Second Reply: This statement is beyond idiotic. It is demonstrably false and comes from a bitter bully.
Here, Freidman shows that he doesn’t have a clue about the historic economic boom of Trump’s first term.
Donald Trump achieved significant economic growth, creating nearly 4 million jobs and reducing the unemployment rate to its lowest in 50 years. He also implemented major tax reforms, including the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which provided substantial tax relief for middle-class families and businesses.
“Real evidence”? Another deep state media talking point that is an utter lie. The lawfare against Trump was all manufactured to keep him out of office. The lawsuits came about, then and now, because the deep state “normal” with its control of information and citizens was being affected, not for lawlessness.
After his first term, which was continually beset by attempts to render Trump and “Democracy!” ineffective, Trump, in his 70s, could have stayed home and enjoyed golf and avoided lawfare and two assassination attempts and all of the hassle.
Instead, like Cincinnatus, Trump returned from the feild to save the country from the managed decline “normal” that mealy-mouthed people like David Brooks and Thomas Freidman want to maintain.
Third Friedman: “By attacking our closest allies — Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea and the European Union — and our biggest rival, China, at the same time he makes clear he favors Russia over Ukraine and prefers climate-destroying energy industries over future-oriented ones, the planet be damned, Trump is triggering a serious loss of global confidence in America.”
Third Reply: Hyperbolic BS. “Attacking our closest allies”? A U.S. president should put the U.S. first, as do the nations mentioned above. The U.S., to advance America’s interests abroad, should not be a soft touch for anyone. The world is changing, away from globalist preening.
Trump favors peace not Ukraine or Russia. And, shouldn’t the U.S. pull Russia away from uniting with China? Shouldn’t we isolate China so the CCP falls under its own debt?
Perhaps Friedman is terrified because the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is calling for a long overdue overall of the State Dept.:
Today America confronts a new era of great power competition and the rise of a multipolar order with a State Department that stifles creativity, lacks accountability, and occasionally veers into outright hostility to American interests.
Have you heard about the corrupt USAID working against U.S. interests including free speech? Have you heard about the out-of-control Department is the Global Engagement Center (GEC) that [the Sec. of State] shuttered last week?
The office engaged with media outlets and platforms to censor speech it disagreed with, including that of the President of the United States, who its director in 2019 accused of employing “the same techniques of disinformation as the Russians.” Despite Congress voting to shutter it, the GEC simply renamed itself and continued operating as if nothing had changed.
There are internal and external forces at work to destroy America. Trump and his administration are working to overturn the losses and managed decline of America and America’s own confidence in itself so weakened by nihilist cultural Marxists and grandiose globalist elites who invite in all kinds multicultural crap.
Fourth Freidman: “While Trump is doing his “weave” — rambling about whatever strikes him at the moment as good policy — China is weaving long-term plans.”
Fourth Reply: Yeah, China is “weaving long-term plans.” It’s called world domination. Trump and his administration know this. That is why the changes at the Panama Canal and that’s why the tariffs – to stop China from taking advantage of us.
The mission of the Committee on the Present Danger: China is to help defend America through public education and advocacy against the full array of conventional and non-conventional dangers posed by the People’s Republic of China. As with the Soviet Union in the past, Communist China represents an existential and ideological threat to the United States and to the idea of freedom—one that requires a new American consensus regarding the policies and priorities required to defeat this threat.
Americans would be more informed by listening to this series than by anything Thomas Freidman has to say.
Fifth Friedman: “But Trump’s constant bluster and his wild on-and-off imposition of tariffs are not a strategy — not when you are taking on China on the 10th anniversary of Made in China 2025. If Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent really believes what he foolishly said, that Beijing is just “playing with a pair of twos,” then somebody please let me know when it’s poker night at the White House, because I want to buy in. China has built an economic engine that gives it options.”
Fifth Reply: China has options because China has infiltrated the U.S. – its institutions, its land, its finances. China steals innovation from the U.S. and sends it home where it is replicated. Wall Street helps China steal America.
Instead of blustering in the former paper of record, Freidman should have listened to this webinar:
Last month, President Trump told his administration to implement an “America First Investment Policy” to stop Wall Street’s underwriting – and greatly intensifying – the threat we face from Communist China.
This month, four prominent U.S. investment banks are defying his executive action by ramping up their China First investment policy. J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are helping a Chinese military company called CATL raise $7 billion dollars or more from American investors.
They have so far failed to mention President Trump’s directive, let alone its potential negative impact on the value of this foreign adversary’s corporation and its securities.
Sixth Friedman: “The world is now seeing Trump’s America for exactly what it is becoming: a rogue state led by an impulsive strongman disconnected from the rule of law and other constitutional American principles and values.”
And, “[Trump] is undermining our sacred rule of law, he is tossing away our allies, he is undermining the value of the dollar and he is shredding any hope of national unity. He’s even got Canadians now boycotting Las Vegas because they don’t like to be told we will soon own them.
“So, you tell me who’s playing with a pair of twos.
“If Trump doesn’t stop his rogue behavior, he’s going to destroy all the things that made America strong, respected and prosperous.
“I have never been more afraid for America’s future in my life.”
Sixth reply: Who in the “world’ is seeing Trump as you do Thomas? The impulsive rogues of the Blob? The Deep State media? Moral elitists who write in The Atlantic? Globalists who want to continue the plunder of America? Federal district court judges disconnected from the rule of law?
Yeah, Trump is different than the money-laundering Joe Biden, who sold off and told off America, and the infinitely pliable Kamala Harris, so amenable to NYT’s “enlightenment.”
“Undermining the rule of law?” Freidman, it is the federal district judges who pretend to have executive authority over the president that are undermining the rule of law.
Article II of the Constitution says “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
(Amy Coney Barrett – please stop being a soft-touch Catholic social justice warrior and professor at Notre Dame. You clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia! Get your head out of your you-know-what and Reread the Constitution! Get back to originalism!)
“Tossing away our allies”? C’mon. Our allies need to see a strong America and not a subset of One World Marxist handlers. And, what about tossing away $189 billion in military assets to the Taliban and leaving 13 Americans dead in Afghanistan? That is what Biden, Blinken, Milly, and Austin did. How do our allies see this? Should we return to that “normal” way of thinking, Thomas?
“Undermining the value of the dollar”?
Let’s start here. Biden’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen left the U.S. with $7 trillion in USTs due this year.
To service our national debt, our government must now offer Treasury Bills at a higher interest rate to attract buyers. The higher interest rate affects our entire economy from car payments to mortgages to credit cards. The mishandling of the U.S. economy by the elites our budgets are well aware of.
Some believe Donald Trump’s economic policies are designed to end the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency. Scott Bessent clears up such misinformation, affirming the dollar’s status as the reserve currency. In Trump’s Economic Revolution, we opined on the long-standing Bretton Woods Agreement that made the dollar the reserve currency and how Trump may be steering away from some of the “rules” that evolved since the agreement was signed in 1944.
The agreement and its unwritten rules are economically unsustainable. Trump is rightfully taking action to change them. However, that doesn’t mean he intends to change the dollar’s status as the reserve currency. As we summarized in the article mentioned above:
The dollar will likely remain the world’s reserve currency as no reasonable alternative exists. However, the unspoken agreements and promises surrounding the global economy may change drastically.
“Shredding any hope of national unity”? You mean like when Joe Biden called half the nation “extremists”? Did you rah-rah that, Thomas?
“Canadians now boycotting Las Vegas”? Who cares. Fix the trade imbalance here, there and, everywhere. Bring manufacturing jobs home Apple.
There are so many Deep State media talking points echoed in in this article, so much blather, that I can’t address it all without making this post unbearably long.
It’s time for David Brooks and Thomas L. Freidman to put on big boy pants and stop whining like petulant little children who didn’t their Harris way the last election. Grow up!
~~~~~~
Government of the elites, by the elites, for the elites. Hence, the urgent calls for civil war and Color Revolution. Hence the encouragement of dark woke and talk that nods and winks at people taking matters into their own hands!
Far-left Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) is calling for mass demonstrations and mobilization with the intention to “punish” Republicans. The extreme language is being seen by some as a return to the violent political rhetoric that resulted in two assassination attempts on President Donald J. Trump last year.
A high school English teacher in Waterville, Maine identified as JoAnna St. Germain is being investigated by federal authorities officials after posting a series of extreme and disturbing messages on social media calling for violence against supporters of former President Donald Trump.
St. Germain doubled down on her comments, declaring, “I have zero shame about what I’ve said. I’m not backtracking a single thing. I believe Trump and every sycophant around him needs to die.” (Emphasis mine.)
The coastal and globalist elites expected to continue the overthrow of the U.S. and the enslavement of U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants to their dictates and policies so that full-blown communism would take hold.
“We need immigrants in this country,” Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler said Thursday during a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement hearing. “Our vegetables would rot in the ground if they weren’t being picked by many immigrants — many illegal immigrants.”
[Jerry] Nadler’s remarks recall the Democratic party’s past reasoning for supporting slavery. Federalist Senior Editor Mark Hemingway pointed out that Democrats in 1823 were backing slavery because if there were no slaves, “Who would pick our cotton?” Today, Democrats are making the argument that low-wage working illegal migrants are necessary to pick “our vegetables.”
The Green New Deal and its accompanying legislation—the Inflation Reduction Act—have been based upon the belief that government agents can identify problems and impose solutions by directing resources through command-and-control. While their system gives a nod to prices and private ownership, at best, the organizational structure would resemble what came out of Italy and Germany in the 1930s, or Fascism. Profits and market prices don’t guide that system; indeed, the organizers of the GND and the IRA see profits and market prices as hindrances to their plans, for they represent the capitalist scourge of placing profits above people. . .
The Green New Deal has not failed because of a lack of political will or because government regulators were too good at their jobs. It failed because it is based upon a socialistic model of command-and-control akin to the former Soviet Union.
“Dog Bites Man.” Not news. Madness – “Man Bites Dog” – is a headline! And so is nauseating “ultra-violence” (a term used in the disturbing A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick’s film version of Anthony Burgesses’ book). To wit, a small sample of recent “ultra-violence” revelations in the headlines:
A homeless woman in the NYC subway was set on fire by an illegal immigrant who fanned the flames and then calmly watched her burn to death from a bench on the platform.
Shocking and bizarre evil permeates the moral order of the universe. And it is not ideological ordinariness, as seen by Hannah Arendt in her Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil:
Perhaps our age does not like the idea of evil or does not know what to make of it. And yet if there is one thing that we ought to be able to do, it is to identify true evil—the profundity of evil—when we see it. In our own day, it is put on display for all to see by death-cults like Hamas. – “The profundity of evil,” by Douglas Murray
Along with the use of extreme force to hurt or kill people, evil in the form of disorder, lies, chaos, corruption, grift, and utter perversion is in the news.
Here in America, the Progressive Blue Beast, allied with the primeval source of all opposition to God, refuses to give up its hold on its imperial capital. With the aid of the imperial cult propaganda machine – the main stream media – it whines, panders for sympathy and looks for ways to claw back power to continue its rule of tyranny.
It wasn’t long ago when the same propaganda machine told us to “trust (worship) the science.” We were told to pay homage to the idol the Blue Beast had created with masking, social distancing, and vaxxing the COVID mRNA spike protein vaccine into our bloodstream.
(Did you know? Yale Scientists Confirm Covid ‘Vaccines’ Cause VAIDS – Slay News VAIDS = vaccine-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. One has to wonder if the COVID vax was used for population control. Was it used to keep the population weak, sick, and controlled? To create complete dependency on Big Pharma’s “science?”)
Remember, the Blue Beast told us to believe in the Russian collusion hoax and in many other lies that came from its mouth.
The last four years of the Biden regime and the eight years of Obama have given us a eye-opening look at the direction and speed with which evil can overtake aspects of our lives. The evil processes of the Blue Beast from those days have become so entrenched that activist federal judges are blocking the eradication of it from government. (Be aware that programs like discriminatory DEI, like all of evil’s deceptive programs, is the moral opposite of (social) justice. See Solzhenitsyn quote below.)
The Blue Beast worships power and itself and tolerates no rivals. Evil in all of it various forms (serpent, dragon, and human) and devices, and throughout time, worships power and itself. Evil tolerates no rivals, and certainly not the Risen and Conquering Christ that the prophecy of Revelation testifies about.
~~~
First century Christians, without newspapers and headlines, saw and heard about violence, oppression, and idolatries in the Roman Empire. Their world, like ours and Job’s, seemed arbitrarily mean, capricious and unfair.
These early Christians knew the enemies of God in terms of satanic forces invested in polytheism, the Roman empire’s tyranny, the imperial cult propaganda and the pressure to submit to it. And, there were those preaching another gospel other than the one they received from the apostles. The power of evil was all around them and they were looking for a divine rescue.
They were also likely aware of gospel accounts of Jesus exorcizing unclean spirits and plundering the strong man’s house (Mk 3:27). For them, awaiting Christ’s imminent return, these accounts prefigured a final victory over evil and the final realization of the kingdom of God on earth. Into that context at the end of the first century, seven struggling churches in a Roman province in Asia received a wake-up call, the letter of Revelation.
The letter begins by addressing issues in each church through a prophetic word. There’s critique of a church’s waywardness, its false teaching, its lethargy and compromises. And there are warnings to get each church on track to be victorious. The letter effectively summons each church to get involved in the divine war against evil and to conquer, conquer, conquer, conquer, conquer, conquer, conquer (Rev. 2:7; 2:11; 2:17; 2:28; 3:5; 3:12; 3:21).
How they are to conquer and what victory means is described in the rest of the letter. (Hint: conquering in Revelation has nothing to do with how the world conquers. And victory? There’s a promise that comes at the end of the letter referring to what was promised at the beginning of the letter to each church that conquers (Rev. 21:7).
You will want to read the whole of Revelation in one sitting to find out about Evil’s Last Grasp (cf. Gen. 3:15) and whether the three petitions of the Lord’s prayer are fulfilled. Is God’s name hallowed? Does his Kingdom come? Is God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven?
What would be the Final Headline and will you be one of those who were victorious over the beast? (Rev. 15:2)
~~~~~
The Big Reveal
Everyone who does evil hates the light; people like that don’t come to the light, in case their deeds get shown up and reproved. -The Gospel According to John 3:20
2025: The most transparent administration in American history is following the money . . .
The recent incursion of DOGE into the labyrinth of government has made headlines. As DOGE sheds light on what lurks there, deep state denizens are scurrying to use measures to hide their dark ways:
As in A Clockwork Orange, where a government agency works to rehabilitate the violent criminal Alex with an experimental aversion therapy, the World has had ongoing attempts at manipulating humans with mind control programs. Such are the CIA psyops, MSM propaganda, AI, brain chips, transhumanism, and more.
How Did Communism Get into the Corporations
~~~~~
Podcast:
Andrew Klaven with Megan Basham discuss her book, Shepherds for Sale.
Churches are being infiltrated – Megan Basham with Andrew Klaven
~~~~~
The evil that State media doesn’t report: Democrats illegally allowed into our country over 12,000,000 unvetted (and unvaccinated) aliens. The migrants were brought in for Democrat’s purposes: to consolidate Democrat power with votes and to support Democrat’s billionaire benefactors with low-cost workers. The illegals are to become serfs serving their welfare state lords.
It is certainly costs nothing to be ‘magnanimous’ and free with other people’s taxed money, property, freedom, safety, and our vulnerable children when sitting in your safe neighborhood virtue signaling the ‘goodness’ of open borders and ‘helping’ the ‘poor little foreigner’ in a social media text or a sermon.
You will hear from the creepy SJ James Martin on ‘X’ that “Caring for migrants and refugees Is not optional.” This kind of debauched out-of-context and Christian-sounding mumbo-jumbo for the ‘other’, directed toward the gullible – SJWs, suburban women, soy boys, and the like – is used by Martin to justify open borders, not just of our country but also for all kinds of sexual perversion in the church. Have you heard of the Lavender Mafia?
Four in five victims were male and one-fifth of the victims were female, the survey recorded, confirming reports by The Stream and other experts of a “lavender mafia” dominating the Latin-rite Roman Catholic priesthood.
Myopic, naïve, unwise, illegal, and compromised ‘compassion’ does more harm than good. Self-righteous compassion under the guise of “social justice” has become more important than the greater good.
Of course, if you speak out against open borders you are called “mean”, “racist”, a “xenophobe”, “unscriptural’, and more.
Apparently, ‘compassionately’ aiding and abetting foreigners in breaking U.S. law and thereby importing violence, narco-terrorism, fentanyl deaths, criminal gangs, drugs, felons, pedos, all kinds of disease, and economic migrants who flee their own country for a better ‘opportunity’ is OK as long as you help the “vulnerable” plunder and gut America and disregard the fact that our neighbors are made vulnerable to the above and to the chaos, disorder, disease, and cost that open borders causes.
Democrats have “invited every microbe on the planet onto our soil. And, now we are facing the consequences.”
More plundering of America enabled by the wicked. Activist federal judge is blocking deportation. His wife is “appears to be the former Vice President of National Immigration Forum, a pro-open borders advocacy group.”
“George Soros’s Open Society Foundation is also reportedly the group’s largest donor.”
~~~~~
“To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions… Ideology—that is what gives the evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.”
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
*****
“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
*****
“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
*****
“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
*****
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
*****
“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
*****
Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
*****
If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
*****
“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
*****
“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
*****
Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
*****
“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
*****
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
*****
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
*****
“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
*****
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
*****
God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
*****
From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
*****
“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
*****
One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
*****
“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
*****
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
*****
“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
**
“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
*****
“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
*****
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
*****
“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
*****
This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
*****
“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
*****
Cindy Wity 
See That Again
June 15, 2025 Leave a comment
“2020 Summer of Love” chaos. Premeditated chaos. Coordinated chaos.
But don’t believe your eyes. Believe what the media tells you . . .
ABC7 Los Angeles anchor Jory Rand described anti-ICE riots as “just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn,” minimizing the widespread violence and destruction in the city.
Another on-the-scene reporter, Tim Caputo, pushed back on the term “riot” and blamed police presence for provoking violence. Demonstrators set cars on fire, hurled objects from a freeway overpass, and smashed LAPD headquarters windows.
Even with images of burning vehicles and protesters brawling with law enforcement, the media downplayed violent anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles calling them “fun” and “relatively peaceful.” The media is worse than distraction. The media is disinformation chaos.
See that again with Sean Ring of The Rude Awakening in his article Los Chaos: Trump Brings the Heat,
“What we witnessed in Los Angeles over the weekend wasn’t some organic outcry over injustice. It was premeditated, coordinated chaos—triggered by long-overdue ICE enforcement operations, and escalated by radical agitators, cartel-aligned elements, and a feckless local government unwilling or unable to defend its city. . .
“And yet, LA city leadership and activists immediately painted these moves as “racial targeting” and “unconstitutional overreach.” By Saturday night, the city was predictably on fire. Downtown intersections were barricaded. Masked agitators torched Waymo self-driving vehicles. LAPD officers were pelted with bricks, fireworks, and frozen water bottles.”
Sanctuary city chaos. Sanctioned chaos.
Don’t believe your eyes. Believe what Democrat leaders tell you . . .
While LA county burns (again) California Governor Gavin Newsom and DEI LA Mayor Karen Bass condemned Trump’s federal law-and-order response as “escalatory” and “provocative,” hoping to rally Democrats against Trump.
And so, media-programmed Democrats scream “authoritarianism,” “insurrection,” and “constitutional overreach,” and “We have no King!”
Democrats, who cheered open-border policies and virtue-signaled about being a “welcoming city,” are now left with the ungodly results – civil collapse. They propose no solution to the chaos they promote. They blame others. That’s what Democrats do.
See that again:
Premeditated chaos. Promoted chaos. Coordinated chaos.
Trump won the popular vote in the 2024 election. Trump flipped Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to win the Electoral College votes.
Voters, including blacks and Hispanics, wanted what Trump said he would do as president: bring about law and order, mass deportations and bring jobs to Americans.
A majority of likely U.S. voters say they approve of President Donald Trump’s job performance, according to Rasmussen poll results.
But don’t believe your eyes. Believe what elites tell you . . .
Premeditated chaos: What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal.
About two months ago, on April 17, 2025, columnist David Brooks wrote the above NYT column where he appears to allude to a type of Mao-Communist People’s War uprising:
It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.
See that again. June, 2025, . . .
“An avowedly Communist revolutionary group with ties to a China-linked Marxist funding network has been at the forefront of organizing nationwide protests opposing illegal immigration crackdowns by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — including protests which spiraled into violent riots in parts of Los Angeles.
“The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) — which openly calls for revolution to bring down the current American system and which publicly sympathizes with murderous Communist regimes — has been a leader in organizing and fueling anti-ICE demonstrations in LA as well as in other cities nationwide.”
Anti-ICE protests fueled in part by CCP-linked Communist revolutionary org and a tech millionaire
Renowned attorney Larry Klayman predicted months ago that there would be full-blown legal civil war happening in the court system. He warns that what is happening in LA is dire,
” We knew this was coming. This is more than an insurrection, this is a Bolshevik style revolution. It’s not just Bolsheviks, but it’s every conceivable leftist radical group. This is financed, undoubtedly, by people like George Soros. . . This will be a flash point to carry forth this Bolshevik revolution. They want to take this county down to ground zero. This is what they are trying to do. They want to destabilize the country and bring these radicals out.”
Klayman goes on to say, “There is, undoubtedly, foreign money involved probably from communist China, Iran and North Korea…”
Progressivism’s controlled-opposition David Brooks, self-described moderate and Christian, like others of his ilk – the David French-Russel Moore-Never Trump types – publishes hoity-toity prescriptions for how we should live, think, and vote. He tells us that Trump will destroy democracy and America. But how is the content of Brook’s screed any different than the Left’s by any means necessary and the ends justify the means?
As I wrote in my April 21, 2025 post We See You David,
“The Left will grab power by any means necessary including stealing elections, creating hoaxes about political opponents and J6, and lawfare. David Brooks, in this NYT op-ed, is seeking to aggregate “rival power” to overthrow the current government (so as to return to the “normal” chaos and destruction the Left is known for, e.g., keeping MS-13 gang members in the U.S.).”
Brandon Smith writes in And So It Begins: Leftist Monkey Wrenching Is Leading To Civil War,
If you thought that the leftist delusions of grandeur had finally hit their peak you are about to be unpleasantly surprised. There are no limits to the insanity that progressives will embrace in their pursuit of power, and they continue to adhere to the fantasy that they are the “good guys” despite the fact that most of the world has been telling them for the past several years that their ideology is repugnant.
David Brook’s days of anarchy are here, and they are repugnant.
Bottom Line:
The drooling despot Joe Biden along with Mayorkas and Democrat governors and mayors and the auto-pen allowed 12,000,000+ illegal invaders into this country who do not consider themselves Americans, do not want to become Americans, and think they have every right to simply occupy and seize the sovereign territory of these United States. Biden’s would-be successor, the babbling Kamala Harris, would have done the same.
It is no surprise then that chaos and death followed, including nearly 48,500 Americans dying from synthetic opioid overdoses, mostly fentanyl, in 2024 alone.
It is no surprise then that children have been endangered:
The loss of even one child is a tragedy. The loss of over 7,000, some potentially to sex traffickers, due to Joe Biden’s immigration policies, is a national shame.
The Challenge of Finding the More Than 7,000 Children Biden Lost – The American Conservative
Like petulant willful children who demand their way, the Left (a fused group of Progressive Democrats along with antifa, BLM, the PSL, the MSM, trans-activists, pro-Hamas agitators, radical dark money NGOs, and Never-Trumpers) have attempted Trump’s assassination twice, have used rogue judges for non-stop lawfare attempting to jail and bankrupt Trump, have used rogue judges in non-stop lawfare to stop and delay his EOs, have continued to harangue him, and is now in full violent revolt against him and the Americans who voted for him and America itself.
Government of the elites, by the elites, for the elites. Hence, the urgent calls for civil war and Color Revolution by the likes of David Brooks. Hence the encouragement of dark woke and talk that nods and winks at people taking matters into their own hands! Hence, the fused groups of paid agitators – the fraternité-terreur – and pro-illegal immigrant riots and ultra-Bolshevism.
Call to Action:
See that again. Lawless Mexicans, who left the narco-state of Mexico, are running around Southern California with Mexican flags, burning ICE vehicles and detention centers.
All American fathers must fight for America and against the terror, chaos, and lies of the Left. Defend our country and constitution. Don’t be distracted by the calls for U.S. sons and daughters to be involved in forever wars. Don’t be distracted by what’s going on in Ukraine and the Middle East. We are at war at home.
All illegal invaders must go back home now.
. . . the Center for Immigration Studies, has conservatively estimated there are about 15.4 million illegal aliens in the United States, a 50% increase over the four tumultuous years of the Biden administration.
Nearly 1 million illegal immigrants have ‘self deported’ under Trump, which has led to higher wages
All illegal invader remittances back to their homeland via wire transfer services must be taxed at least 50%.
All federal district court judges who have acted with rulings against Article Two of the United States Constitution which established the executive branch of the federal government which is responsible for enforcing federal laws need to be stopped by the Supreme Court now and/or be impeached and/or have their funding cut off by congress now.
If Judges Can Stymie the Will of the People, We Don’t Have a Democracy Anymore – The American Conservative
Links about the Left’s coordinated chaos:
2020
Progressive group busted instructing pro-Hamas students to recreate 2020 “Summer of Love”… – Revolver News
Kamala Harris’s Support of Bail Fund for Summer of Love Rioters Comes Back to Haunt Her Once Again…
New film tells the truth about George Floyd and the summer of love…
2024
The New York Times runs through several scenarios to “neutralize” the so-called Trump threat, finally landing on their fifth and most desperate option—which just so happens to be the one we’re likely facing right now. This last-ditch scenario should scare the living daylights out of any sane American. This is the “color revolution” or “civil war” option. (Emphasis mine.)
Red alert: Liberal elites plan ‘Color Revolution’ if Trump wins… – Revolver News
2025
Dems Launch Summer Riots 2.0.
Dark-Money Network Funneled Millions Into ‘No Kings’ Nationwide Color Revolution Operation | ZeroHedge
Soviet Communist flag appears at Democrat riots — These are the worst people in America, dregs of society.
The latest on the Democratic Party’s color revolution operation against Trump, supported and funded by rogue NGOs: FBI’s Patel Probes Far-Left NGOs Funding Anti-ICE Riots | ZeroHedge:
Los Angeles Warzone: “Insurrectionist Mobs” Attack Cops, Set Fires, Block 101 Freeway
Riots Erupt At LA ICE Facility As Mexican BLM Clone Unleashes Color Revolution Operation
Rogue NGOs Prepare For Nationwide Color Revolution; Walmart Heiress Calls For “Mobilization”
Newsom Sues Trump Over National Guard Deployment As Media Calls LA Riots ‘Peaceful’ | ZeroHedge
What you don’t know about Karen Bass and her Cuban Communist past.
Far-left Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) is calling for mass demonstrations and mobilization with the intention to “punish” Republicans. The extreme language is being seen by some as a return to the violent political rhetoric that resulted in two assassination attempts on President Donald J. Trump last year.
Dem Governor Urges Mass, Extreme Protests Against Trump and GOP.
‘No Kings’ Terror? Fake Cop Assassinates Minnesota Democrat Who Blocked Health Care for Illegals
Call Them Jacobins Or Communists – These Protests Are About Rage And Violence And Revolution – Update
Tension in Chicago as police scuffle with anti-ICE protesters
Pro-Illegal Immigrant Rioters Cause Havoc in Chicago.
Disturbing video from Chicago.
~~~~~
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -George Santayana
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American Citizenship and Its Decline: Illegal Immigration and the Loss of National Sovereignty
“On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan discuss Juan’s journey to citizenship before introducing Victor Davis Hanson. (Recorded 8 months ago during the Biden regime.)
“Citizenship is rare in human history but essential to free government. Today, the constitutional rule of citizens in America is threatened by a new form of government, unaccountable to the people, in which power is held by a ruling class that seeks to transform our society. In this eight-lecture course, students will examine the origins and history of citizenship in the West and the grave challenges American citizenship faces today.”
American Citizenship and Its Decline: Illegal Immigration and the Loss of National Sovereignty – Hillsdale College Podcast Network
~~~~~
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Filed under 2025 Current Events, Immigration, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism Tagged with David Brooks, Donald Trump, history, ICE, Illegal Immigration, news, No Kings Day, politics, progressivism, Protests, Trump