Let’s say you are all in on the Not Trump candidate being elected. The trustworthy and unbiased media and DOJ have endlessly vilified the other candidate. Based on this, you see yourself above that “foul” candidate and his supporters. Your image – self and public – and your world must be protected.
Let’s say you have chosen to accept what people in the media are saying: “Trump and Christian Nationalists are a threat to Democracy.” And though Democracy didn’t fall during Trump’s first term and the nation didn’t become a theocracy and Democrats, the democracy-must-be-destroyed-to-Save-Democracy party, perverted Democracy to steal the 2020 election, you have chosen to believe that Democracy is now threatened by Trump and his kind because there are those who say so.
Let’s say you’re all in with the Not-Trump candidate and the “Save Democracy” party, the self-proclaimed protectors of democratic norms (that ensured that there would not be an open Democratic primary . . . so democracy can die in darkness).
Let’s say you are OK with all this and you will look-in-the-mirror-of-your-world and see yourself as respectable for voting Not Trump. You’ve come to view your version of Christianity/Progressivism as not all that destructive. It is simply a way to be open-minded and to “Love Your Neighbor.”
Economics is over your head but you’ve heard the Not Trump candidate say “equity” “fair share” “price-gouging” and “opportunity economy.” And though under the Not Trump administration, inflation has reached its highest point since 1981, the high cost of living burdening millions of Americans, and the country has entered a recession, and the Not Trump candidate is clueless about economics, you go with the Not Trump flow because Not Trump.
Abortion, borders, and national sovereignty are annoying issues the Right brings up and so you avoid them. You have a higher calling. You are all in on existential and emotion-driven causes: climate change regulations, racial power structures, “unity”, “being nice”, “creation care”, and welcoming all illegal migrants without worrying about how to care for them.
Let’s say you are all in on the Not-Trump candidate and The New Way Forward. What does that look like?
Imagine. You own a business with employees and overhead to pay for and government comes in and says your pricing is too high. (Would they do this to Harvard?) You are accused of “price-gouging.” What do you do? To avoid expensive and extended litigation, you drop prices. Revenue is subsequently reduced. But, labor, materials, and overhead costs haven’t changed. To keep your business operating you cut employee benefits. You then cut the labor force. You then sell assets. Not hard to imagine. The New Way Forward is government saying it owns you and your business.
Accusing companies and corporations of taking advantage of people (Kamala, AOC, Liz Warren, et al.) with “price-gouging” verbal attacks is a ploy by autocratic politicians to take control of your bottom line in order to make them and their governing policies look good.
For, government will never accept responsibility for the high prices created with its enormous spending and dollar printing. The Fed has printed an incredible amount of money to buy the debt the US Treasury issues. And every time it does it expands the money supply, devalues the dollar, and drives up interest rates and inflation.
But, it’s the “price-gouging grocers” — as Team Harris would have you believe — and not the excessive government spending.
Remember: Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) which increased inflation of prices.
Joe Biden said, at a New Mexico fundraiser, that “[The Inflation Reduction Act] has nothing to do with inflation.” “It has to do with the $368 billion, the single-largest investment in climate change anywhere in the world.”
Price-gouging? That is what Biden-Harris economics have done to all of us with their policies.
Since Biden took office, prices have risen nearly 20 percent, a number that, when checked against stagnant wage growth, puts the real effect of inflation at some of the worst levels we’ve seen in decades. Inflation is often described as the “hidden tax” because it takes away purchasing power from citizens not through taking away money directly but via a devaluation of the money that citizens already have.
One of the major stressors for families is cost of living. From a recent report issued by the surgeon general:
Over the last decade, parents have been consistently more likely to report experiencing high levels of stress compared to other adults. 33% of parents reporting high levels of stress in the past month compared to 20% of other adults. When stress is severe or prolonged, it can have a harmful effect on the mental health of parents and caregivers, which in turn also affects the well- being of the children they raise.
The report, in general, mentions several stress-inducing factors including “financial strain and economic instability.” It doesn’t mention the price-gouging inflation caused by the Biden-Harris regime. It just talks about more government solutions.
(Aren’t laws that impose an increase in the minimum wage also “price-gouging”? Labor costs are passed on to the customer.)
Not hard to imagine the major stress created by the Not Trump president.
~~~
Imagine. You are watching a debate and your choice of presidential candidate, the current Vice President, is asked, “Do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?” and she responds saying, “I was raised as a middle-class kid.”
(BTW: Harris was raised by two parents with PhDs and lived in a well-off neighborhood.)
~~~
Imagine. You are at an Economic Club of Pittsburgh event that is hosting the Vice President. She is there to talk about her economic agenda and says:
“We need to guard that spirit. We have to guard that spirit. Let it always inspire us. Let it always be the source of our optimism, which is that spirit that is uniquely American. Let that then inspire us by helping us to be inspired to solve the problems that so many face, including our small business owners.”
KAMALA: We have to guard that spirit. Let it always inspire us. Let it always be the source of our optimism – which is that spirit which is so uniquely American. And let that then inspire us by helping us to be inspired to help solve the problems. pic.twitter.com/GTKuyuvYl5
Imagine. Our “serious thinker” Vice President as President and she can’t explain her economic policies because she doesn’t understand economics (only how to repeat ideological jargon) and “wholistically” speaks Kamalawocky:
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen I am the walrus, goo-goo g’joob
Imagine Not Trump in a room with world leaders.
“I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.”
Imagine a candidate for president who hasn’t released any tax policies. The candidate’s s New Way Forward is based on tax provisions in Biden’s 2025 budget proposal, which include a tax on unrealized capital gains, as reported in Axios, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal .
As proposed, the UCG tax applies only to individuals with at least $100 million in wealth who do not pay at least a 25% tax rate on their income (inclusive of unrealized capital gains). There are exemptions. Basically, it would not apply to the holdings of most startup founders or investors or on real estate based on certain conditions.
But nothing happens in isolation.
Certainly, a more complex tax code would burden the IRS (and likely encourage more tax money for the IRS) and would discourage investment in growing businesses. Many would invest in safer financial instruments such as government bonds rather than in risky new technology and innovation (energy sources, biopharmaceuticals, etc.) that produce great benefits.
Florida Atlantic University College of Business professor Siri Terjesen wrote in July 2024 that the UCG tax would act like a “kill-switch for entrepreneurship.” She said that “Investors may be less likely to invest in growth-oriented ventures due to greater swings in valuation compared to larger, established companies.”
The new tax on unrealized gains could hasten the selling of assets by investors for tax reasons rather than legitimate business reasons.
The new tax would penalize individuals for owning assets that appreciate, regardless of whether those assets are sold.
Behind the money grab is the argument that tax-free accumulation of wealth over generations intensifies income-and-wealth disparities in the U.S. (When government takes control of people’s wealth and plays favorites, the income-and-wealth disparity is exacerbated.)
It’s not hard to imagine that the Not Trump candidate’s administration, by taxing the “paper” gains, the unrealized gains of the top 0.01% of taxpayers in the country, will not use that tax revenue to pay off the enormous budget deficit but will instead, redistribute the money for “votes.”
~~~
Imagine. Someone removes the firewall and all network security designed to monitor, filter, and control incoming and outgoing network traffic from your computer. The firewall sits between a trusted network and an untrusted network.
Imagine, as president, a Border Czar that presided over a disabled firewall and refused to protect the border, the country and its citizens from untrustworthy traffic.
FOX NEWS ALERT: Ice just crashed @KamalaHarris’ border photo op with cold hard truths. Turns out, the Biden-Harris administration didn’t just let in 10 million illegals, half a million of them were convicted criminals. That means five percent of the Biden-Harris migrants are… pic.twitter.com/gI0bjzEFNz
Flooding small American towns with a diaspora from the most violent, economically deprived nation in the Western Hemisphere is, for the Democrats, the best answer to economic stagnation in Middle America.
Imagine. The 2024 Democratic presidential nominee and current Vice President claimed during a debate that, “There is not one member of the military who is in active duty in a combat zone in any war zone around the world for the first time this century.”
Was she not aware of “war zone” troops currently deployed?
The Biden-Harris regime did recklessly withdraw from the major Afghanistan War in August 2021. But there are U.S. troops stationed across the Middle East and other countries, mostly in counter-terrorism roles, according to a December 2023 White House War Powers Act report.
Thousands of U.S. troops remain in harm’s way. Hundreds have been under attack this year alone. Three died in January.
Imagine a Not Trump president who supports censorship.
So far, Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden have said absolutely nothing about this attack on free speech in Brazil, and now we likely know why: they approve of it.
This video clip below is proof that Kamala Harris would support Brazil’s nationwide ban on X. And if you don’t think the same could happen here, you haven’t been paying attention.
Kamala supports what Brazil just did to X. How do I know? She wants to do it here: pic.twitter.com/nb4QXRiI9v
Finally, imagine the Not Trump candidate as Lemony Snicket’s failed actor Count Olaf and the New Way Forward as a series of very burdened by what has been unfortunate events. Imagine the transformation of America into a one-party socialist oligarchy. Imagine yourself as a serf in your own country all because of Not Trump.
~~~~~
Michael Walsh Exposes the Corporate Media
Host Scot Bertram talks with Paul Moreno, the William and Berniece Grewcock Chair in Constitutional History, professor of history, and dean of social sciences at Hillsdale College, about Kamala Harris’s proposed reforms to the U.S. Supreme Court. Michael Walsh, journalist and screenwriter, discusses the dangers of the evolving media landscape and his new book Against the Corporate Media: Forty-two Ways the Press Hates You. And Elizabeth Edwards Spalding, ’88, chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and founding director of the Victims of Communism Museum, tells us about her work and accepting Hillsdale College’s 2024 Elizebeth Smith Friedman Freedom Award.
DANA BASH: “You’ve been Vice President for three and half years. The steps that you are talking about now, why haven’t you done them already?” KAMALA: “I’m very proud of the work we have done.”
Everyone knows where the very public and transparent Trump stands on issues. Democrats know and are doing everything they can to keep Trump out of the White House. And it is not because of his personality or his past immoral peccadillos, or because he poses a “threat to Democracy!” No.
Donald J Trump is a threat to the status quo of the Blob – a clandestine network of members of the federal government, working in conjunction with financial, industrial, media, and social media entities and leaders, to exercise power alongside with and apart from the elected United States government.
(That is the “Russia Russia Russia!” (and many others) deception-generating Blob, that I am referring to, that is focused on taking out Trump and retaining Blob power.
More than 700 deep state security and military officials have officially endorsed Kamala Harris for president, claiming that former President Donald J. Trump “endangers” democratic ideals, ironically as Harris was never democratically nominated by her party. (Emphasis mine.)
Trump has openly talked about bursting that foul blister to save the country, its citizens, the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and Democracy! And that’s why Blob parasites continue, even after a second attempt on his life, to call Trump a “threat to Democracy.” They hope that someone listening to Blob media and deep-state prepped will take him out by any means necessary. They want to continue feeding on America.
In a shocking and dangerously irresponsible move, the Harris/Biden DOJ put out a letter showing there’s a $150k active bounty on President Trump’s head. Why would they release something like this right after yet another assassination attempt? Most would say it’s because they’re absolutely desperate to take him out before Election Day
That is the “Russia Russia Russia!” (and many others) deception-generating Blob, that I am referring to, all meant to smear Trump and retain Blob power.
So far, Trump has dodged bullets and Kamala has dodged interviews.
Where does the blob/Democratic party’s second basement candidate stand on the issues?
What did we learn about the Blob’s amorphous candidate during the Tuesday, Sept. 10 ABC presidential three-against-one debate?
Kamala said things that were not true and wasn’t fact-checked. Trump, on the other hand was interrupted over and over and “fact-checked” – not with facts but with the Blob media’s skewed talking points. That’s how the totally biased and condescending ABC moderators rolled. The purulent matter of the Blob media seeped out. The biggest loser in Tuesday night’s presidential debate was ABC News. No Debate About It.
The public is exhausted after a decade of chronic untruth from the left wing and its media.
There was no newfound knowledge about the Blob’s hand puppet. There was a lot of coached mannerisms that reminded me of the Blob’s snarky media hosts.
If you switched off the sound for the ABC debate Tuesday night and just watched the images, you would come away feeling deep distaste for the haughty flibbertigibbet who kept making faces while Trump was speaking.
American writer, social critic, public speaker, and blogger James Howard Kunstler, in his brief Substack post What You Don’t Know Might Surprise You, writes about Hollywood influence shoring up Kamala and comments on the debate: “everything she said was disingenuous or an outright lie.”
And then he flags the debate “whopper”: an admission by Kamala Harris regarding her whereabouts on J6 when a “joint session of Congress was about to certify her as the first female veep in US history.”
“. . .at 11:15a.m. on 1/6/21 — hours before protesters breached the Capitol — Kamala Harris was spirited away a few blocks to 430 South Capitol Street, the headquarters building of the Democratic National Committee, where a pipe bomb (or facsimile of one) had been planted hours before by some DC law enforcement person.”
Kunstler explains why:
“The plan, you see, was to disrupt the election certification process underway at mid-day in the House chamber by creating a furor over the discovery of the pipe bomb planted to assassinate veep-elect Kamala Harris — a joint blob / Democratic Party operation.”
To further the J6 and “threat to Democracy” ruse by the Blob, a recent August 2, 2024 article was posted:
Vice President Kamala Harris came within 20 feet of a pipe bomb at the Democratic National Committee headquarters on Jan. 6, 2021.
Kunstler goes on to say that the pipe bomb hoax wasn’t needed. Deep state actors – FBI instigators – stoked the J6 crowd into disrupting the procedure. (Unarmed Ashli Babbitt was murdered that day by capital police officer Michael Byrd.)
You won’t hear about any of this from the MSM or in your “higher education” bubble where discernment and wisdom are denied admission. Darren Beattie at Revolver has done extensive investigative research on the pipe bomb hoax: You searched for pipe bomb – Revolver News
The debate between President Trump and Kamala Harris was a complete nothingburger for her. She didn’t go in and wow anyone or change any hearts and minds. All she really proved is that she’s running on “vibes.” Kamala is banking on feelings and emotions because she’s got nothing when it comes to actual policies. And what little she has to show is a track record of failure and hopelessness.
What isn’t a nothing burger: Democrats, the “Save Democracy” party, is setting us up for another stolen election with reports that election results will take time to count, and, of course, with the influx of illegal immigrants being set up to vote as if they were U.S. citizens and had skin in the game.
But when Trump wins reelection, Democrats will provoke civil war.
If there is a Democrat majority in the house this next election, Trump’s reelection will not be certified on January 6th 2025. Democrats will claim (falsely) that he is an insurrectionist. A conspiracy theory? No. The “Save Democracy” Party is very open about this.
Jamie Raskin is saying that congress will STOP Trump from taking office even if he’s chosen by the voters.
This is extremely dangerous. Every Democrat needs to be on the record about this immediately. pic.twitter.com/9IwRoGrrQu
[Jamie] Raskin then suggested that there would be “civil war conditions” and that Congress would “need bodyguards for everybody.” The Democrat lawmaker claimed that civil war conditions and bodyguards would be necessary because the Supreme Court justices “simply do not want to do their job and interpret what the great Fourteenth Amendment means.”
I have no doubt that Trump will win reelection and I have no doubt that the Democrats will not certify his reelection. Never Trumpers and Evangelicals for Harris, who cast their vote for Kamala, will have to lie to themselves again to be OK with the loss of Democracy and the takeover of the country.
When the takeover happens, we will not have a legitimate government. No debate about it.
As a result, there will massive civil unrest. The dollars in your pocket, your bank account and retirement accounts will lose most of their value. The fiat U.S. dollar is backed, not by gold, but by the full faith and trust in the government that issued it. Faith and trust will be blown away by the illegitimate government. No other country will want to deal with the dollar.
Right now, BRIC nations, “a Russia- and China-led consortium has apparently settled on using gold as the basis of a planned new international currency system separate from the US dollar and euro.”
The stock market will likely crash 50% (hurting retirement accounts) and Marshall law will then be imposed by the “Save Democracy” party. Everyone needs to prepare for what is coming. Right now, make sure that America First republicans are elected to the house so that there is majority to protect against the “fundamental transformation” plans of Democrats.
More on this in a future post.
~~~~~
Analysis of the Trump-Harris Debate:
Victor Davis Hanson and cohost Sami Winc analyze Tuesday’s debate and Kamala mid-debate-prep trip to Penzey’s.
KAMALA: "In terms of both rightly having the right to have aspirations and dreams and ambitions for your family and working hard and finding that the American Dream is, for this generation & so many recently, far more elusive than it's been, and we need to deal with that."
RFK Jr. sheds light on how Big Pharma operates: "They are making $60 billion a year selling those vaccines, but they're making $500 billion a year selling the remedies for the injuries caused by the vaccines. The diabetes medication, the Adderall, the Ritalin, the Concerta…This… pic.twitter.com/gtIYV9zqfn
I know someone who was given the antidepressant Zoloft – a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) – during a time of going through a divorce. The drug was making her so lethargic that she didn’t care about anything. So, she stopped taking it. Then she crashed and became severely depressed. She didn’t want to go on with life like that. She found help.
Big Mike started the victimization rhetoric during the 2008 presidential campaign – until David Axelrod had her stop. Here’s Big Mike at the recent DNC doing it again:
Ephesus, a major seaport on the eastern Mediterranean and the capital of a Roman province in Asia, was a vibrant hub of commerce, and a center of Roman rule and the Roman imperial cult.
Centuries before becoming a political capital, Ephesus was a center of religious activity. Communities of Jesus-followers living in the Greek city of Ephesus at the end of the first century AD would be confronted daily with political and cultic imagery. The city was renowned for its devotion to various gods and goddesses.
Artemis
Christians in that Greco-Roman setting would be well aware of one of the most prominent goddesses: Artemis. Her temple was famous for its great size and for the magnificent works of art that adorned it (See video below.)
The Greek goddess Artemis was worshipped as the goddess of hunting, wild animals, and fertility. Her Roman counterpart was Diana. Goddess Diana shared similar aspects of deity with Artemis. She was worshipped as a benefactress of the countryside and nature, hunters, wildlife, childbirth, crossroads, the night, and the Moon (See video below.)
During his second missionary journey to Ephesus, the Apostle Paul caused a big stir with the Artemis image industry (c. A.D. 52) (Acts 18:19).
The Lady of Ephesus no 718 1st century AD Ephesus Archaeological Museum
“Around that time there was a major disturbance because of the Way. There was a silversmith called Demetrius who made silver statues of Artemis, which brought the workmen a tidy income. He got them all together, along with other workers in the same business.
“Gentlemen,” he began. “You know that the reason we are doing rather well for ourselves is quite simply this business of ours. And now you see, and hear, that this fellow Paul is going around not only Ephesus but pretty well the whole of Asia, persuading the masses to change their way of life, telling them that gods made with hands are not gods after all! This not only threatens to bring our business into disrepute, but it looks as if it might make people disregard the temple of the great goddess Artemis. Then she – and, after all, the whole of Asia, indeed the whole world worships her! – she might lose her great majesty.” (Acts 19:23-28)
The temple of Artemis was one of the wonders of the world. Its great size and lavish decorations were a major attraction for the many pilgrims and tourists who came to Ephesus. Their Artemis image purchases provided the guild of silversmiths the coin to produce more images and to sustain their livelihoods. After listening to Demetrius, “the whole city was filled with uproar” and people shouted “Great is Ephesian Artemis!”
We read in Acts 19 that the town clerk quieted the crowd. A riot would bring the Roman army down on them. He said, “Citizens of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the statue that fell from heaven?”
Nike
Jesus-followers living in Ephesus would also be conscious of ubiquitous images of Nike, a Greek goddess who personified Victory. That Muse website has more about Nike:
“. . .she was almost always represented in Greek art as a beautiful, winged woman. Her main role in life was to fly around battlefields, rewarding victors. The winning soldiers received a wreath of laurel leaves, symbolizing fame and glory. But she also visited and crowned outstanding athletes and heroes.”
In Roman mythology Nike is called Victoria. She is depicted as holding a palm leaf with her right hand while carrying a laurel wreath on the other. She was worshipped by the Roman army as personifying speed, strength, and victory.
Polytheism
The citizens of cosmopolitan Ephesus were polytheistic. It was common for them to add new gods to their personal pantheon. Like with Artemis (Diana) and Nike (Victoria), different gods had different roles.
Polytheism was not a religion with written scriptures. People knew the multiplicity of Greco-Roman deities by their images and myths – their form of theology. Seeing their gods was a way to believe and to practice their contractual religion (do ut des, “I give that you might give”). Offerings and sacrifices were offered to the gods in return for certain favors.
Contrary to the explicit polytheism all around them – pagan temples, pagan priests, pagan priestesses, pagan worshippers and pagan idols – Christians, along with the Jews, were monotheistic. Ephesians tolerated Christians who worshipped a new and different god (except as noted above with Paul) as there were many gods divided up among many peoples. And it seems, at that time, that the Roman government did not yet have a policy of persecution of the Christians; official action was based on the need to maintain good order, not on religious hostility.
Political and Cultic Imagery
Citizens of this capital of the Roman Empire in Asia Minor would also celebrate and worship deified Emperors who claimed being a divine son of god. Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, and subsequent Roman emperors were regularly referred to as “son of god” (divi filius). Coins were struck with the imperial image on one side and “son of god” on the other.
The Roman Empire, claiming divine authority on earth, spread its political influence in religious terms using monuments, iconography, myths, and Imperial cult rituals.
Symbolizing victory, Victoria’s (nike’s) image was vital to the Roman military. Her likeness, with crowns, laurel wreaths, or palm branches as victory emblems, was seen on coins, sculptures, and architectural reliefs, triumphal arches, and monuments.
Worship of Victoria was also thought to bring good fortune and help with politics, business, and personal undertakings.
The goddess Artemis had been worshiped for centuries. Her great temple in Ephesus (one of the seven wonders of the world) and the cult of Ephesian Artemis was vitally important to the citizens, as notes N.L. Gill in his post The Cult Statue of Artemis of Ephesus:
“The Ephesians’ goddess was their protector, a goddess of the polis (‘political’), and more. The Ephesians’ history and fate were intertwined with hers, so they raised the funds needed to rebuild their temple and replace their statue of the Ephesian Artemis.”
The Dispatch
Into this political and cultic context at the end of the first century AD, a circular letter was sent around to Jesus-follower communities in and around Ephesus.
1 John is a pastoral letter that presents a no-nonsense counter-cultural narrative. It is full of contrasts: those born of the world and those born of the father, light vs. darkness, truth vs. falsehood, righteousness vs. sin, love of the Father vs. love of the world, and the Spirit of God vs. the spirit of the Antichrist.
The letter was penned by an eyewitness of gospel events and one who had seen way beyond the images and idols and imperial power of Rome. 1 John is a rebuke to the claims of the Antimessiahs and to the appeal of a pagan culture. It also provided spiritual reinforcement for the letter’s recipients.
1 John was most likely written by John the Elder (and not John the son of Zebedee and one of the Twelve; more below) around 90 AD during the reign of Domitian (81-96 A.D.). (Domitian believed in the divine nature of his rule, aligning himself with the lineage of the first Roman emperor Augustus. He saw himself as an absolute ruler and took pride in being called master or god: “dominus et deus.”)
John opens his letter, not with the typical (“grace and peace”) greeting, but with an authoritative “we” reassurance of his and other’s experience of Jesus, the son of God. He speaks in terms of visual, aural, and physical contact with the Messiah. This is crucial for what he writes against the “Antimessiahs”.
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have gazed at, and our hands have handled – concerning the Word of Life!” That life was displayed, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and we announce to you the life of God’s coming age, which was with the father and was displayed to us. That which we have seen and heard we announce to you too, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the father, and with his son Jesus the Messiah. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” (1 John 1: 1-4)
John the Elder closes the circle of the fellowship of the joy bound by linking those (“we”) who were physically present with the Messiah with the Ephesian Christians who heard the gospel message and believed that Jesus is the Messiah, so that “our joy may be complete.”
(NB: The “joy” talked about here is not the DNC slogan “Joy”– a cover for the Harris cackle. Rather, John’s “our joy” completed would be the satisfaction of a deep yearning by the “we” for the readers to believe that Jesus is the son of God and the Messiah and for them to be included in the dancing embrace of the father, son and spirit.)
John then writes in terms of the associative “we” about what it means for followers of Jesus to have fellowship with him: we are not to deceive ourselves about our sin, we keep the Lord’s commandments and we show rightly ordered love. (1 John 1: 6 – 2:11).
Conflict Within and Without
The letter’s opening brings to the fore one of the main purposes of the letter: to reaffirm that Jesus, the son of God and the Christ, (mentioned some 24 times in the letter) did have a real body and not, as some were saying, that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion (Docetism). This thinking had come into Ephesian churches.
“Docetism was a doctrine in the early years of the Christian church that claimed that Jesus didn’t have a physical body. The name comes from the Greek dókēsis which means “to seem.” It refers to the belief that Jesus only seemed to have a physical body. . .
“It was understood that mind/spirit was good and body was bad. Since Jesus is good, he must be all spirit and not body at all. In modern language, Jesus was almost a hologram. He looked perfectly human but underneath the image, there was no muscle or bone.”
Those worshipping images would not believe that a god would come down and dwell in the flesh. They believed the gods stayed up and away from humans and did their own thing. Intellectual sorts, who were anti-incarnation, unethical, and loveless Gnostics, were deceiving Ephesian Christians (1 John 2:26).
John presented truth tests to discern whether they were false teachers. Anyone who denied that Jesus is the Messiah was not from God (1 John 4:2-3). They were a “liar” and an “Antimessiah” (1 John 2:22).
He writes about “the spirit of truth” and the spirit of error (1 John 4:6). And, that “many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). “They went out from among us, but they were not really of our number” (1 John 2:19)
Denying that Jesus was the Messiah, the Antimessiahs split off from the church community. They didn’t accept Scripture’s references about Jesus or the testimony of eyewitnesses. (They were revisionist historians who, like many in Progressive churches today, homed in on his sayings. They think of Jesus in terms of being a fellow traveler who imparted esoteric truths.) Whatever love or joy the Antimessiahs had went with them when they left the church.
In his second letter, John echoes this warning: “Many deceivers, you see, have gone out into the world. These are people who do not admit that Jesus is the Messiah has come in the flesh. Such a person is the Deceiver – the Antimessiah!” (2 John 2:7)
(Ongoing conflict: Earlier (c. A.D. 52), Priscilla and Aquila, who had come to Ephesus with Paul, instructed a Jew named Apollos in the way of the Lord. Apollos then “vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. (Acts 18:28))
Beside the conflict within the local churches, there was the ever-present Roman Empire that expected worship of the emperor. John writing over and over that Jesus is the son of God (and not the emperor) put the Christians in direct opposition to Rome. But it seems that, at that time, Rome was somewhat lax about forcing the Jews and Christians to burn incense for the emperor. If these two groups did disturb Rome’s Pax Romana, they would be dealt with.
(Calling Jesus “Lord” and having a “kingdom of God” message also conflicted with the Roman empire’s ‘divine’ prerogatives.)
Living as a Conquering Contradiction
As mentioned above, imperial Rome spread political propaganda through religion. And throughout Ephesus there would be visual representations of Roman conquest and power: grand architecture and monuments, centurions and soldiers all around, and the conquering, overcoming, prevailing, subduing, obtaining victory, Nike/Victoria images around the city and on coins.
Perhaps, with all of these images in mind, John the Elder writes:
“. . . everything fathered by God conquers the world. This is the victory (nike, νίκη) that conquers the world: our faith. (1 John 5:4):
Conquering Attitude
We, the “fathered by God” no longer continue sinning (1 John 3: 9; 5:18).
Because we are “fathered by God” we understand that we are God’s children (1 John 3: 1) and that loving one another is a character trait of all who know the father (1 John 4:7).
And because we are “fathered by God” and “God is love” (1 John 4:7-12), we as his children need not live in fear like the pagans who look to capricious gods and superstitious practices and the Roman state for understanding and favor. (Sounds like Progressives today.)
We understand that “the one in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (the Antimessiah) (1 John 4:4).
We believe that Jesus the Messiah has been fathered by God (1 John 5: 1), (The center of Christianity is the Incarnation of Jesus, God becoming flesh and dwelling among humanity. John railed against the Antimessiahs because he and others had witnessed the flesh and blood presence and power of the true Messiah. Jesus wasn’t some esoteric figure floating in the air. He wasn’t a statue or icon of a god. Jesus, son of God, Messiah, was “displayed” to John and others as a new way of being human.)
We understand that “we are from God, and the whole world is under the power of evil one” (1 John 5:19) (As Paul wrote to the Ephesian church some 30-40 years before:
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” – Ephesians 6:12)
As the letter comes to a close, John reemphasizes his message:
“We know that the son of God has come and given us understanding so that we know the truth. And we are in the truth, in his son Jesus the Messiah. This is the true God; this is the life of the age to come. (1 John 5:20-21).
The letter of 1 John ends with a succinct pastoral exhortation based on what was said at the beginning of the letter about the reality of what John and others had witnessed: “keep yourself from idols.”
Christians are not to get involved with unreality. They are not to collude with evil. Early Christians believed that idol worship in its various forms was used by demonic forces. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:21–22:
“You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?”
Those of us born of the father live in the tension of contrasts: light vs. dark, truth vs. falsehood, righteousness vs. sin, love of the Father vs. love of the world, and the Spirit of God vs. the spirit of the Antimessiahs. We are to overcome that tension with the reality of Jesus, son of God and Messiah.
I see tremendous forces (DEI, ESG, LGBTQ, Critical Race theory, WEF, WHO, Globalism, etc.) at work to conform everyone into a monolithic unity of enforced pluralism subject to one Satanic Beast. Those who confess loyalty to the Beast will find it easier to get a job, move up, gain tenure and more. Those who don’t will be called “weird” and sacrificed to the Beast.
In the milieu of this sociocultural pluralism, it would be quite easy to glide into a religious pluralism and end up worshipping the vaunted images of the world and rage against those who don’t – “Great is Ephesian Artemis!”
And, with the multiplicity of political and cultic images generated daily to influence behavior, it would be quite easy to glide into a religious pluralism so as to be accepted, to have “likes” and clicks and to avoid the pressure being applied by the culture. One would thus end up having a form of godliness (virtue signaling) but denying its power (2 Timothy 3:5). Neither John the Elder nor I want anything to do with such people.
For those who question the uniqueness or claims of Christian faith, John’s letter with truth tests would be in order.
Not longer just image bearers of the One True God, we are more: overcoming image bearers of Jesus, the son of God, Messiah, and Lord.
~~~~
This circular pastoral letter was most likely written by John the Elder and not John the son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve. John was from an aristocratic family in Jerusalem and a member of the High Priest’s family.
According to Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus late in the second century, John (the Elder), “who leaned back on the Lord’s breast,” was a (Jewish high) “priest” (who had officiated in the Jerusalem temple early in his life), a “witness”, and a “teacher” (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 5.24.2-7). (cf. Acts 4:6 & John 18:15, John’s record of Jesus’ high priestly intercessory prayer in John 17, and his courtyard access John 18:15).
John the Elder was most likely the Beloved disciple who was mentioned in John 21: 20-23. Because of his proximity to Jesus, John the Elder was an eyewitness of the events of gospel history. He was at Jesus’ crucifixion and given charge over Mary. He eventually brought her with him to Ephesus.
“When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.” (John 19:26-27)
Several years younger than the Twelve Apostles, John the Elder survived most of them. It seems that he lived into the reign of Trajan (AD 98-117) as prominent Christian teacher in Asia. (We don’t know why he is called John the Elder. “Elder” may refer to John’s old age (Likely 80-90 years old at the end of the first century) more than an honorific. He writes to his “little children” in his letters.
John the Elder most likely wrote the Gospel of John and the three Johannine letters – 1, 2 & 3 John.
Within days, global elitists will try to put world government on steroids. The perpetrators don’t want us to know it, but that’s the purpose of the upcoming “Summit of the Future” and the accord it is supposed to adopt, dubbed the “Pact for the Future.”
Rather than openly doing so by voting to revise the United Nations Charter, the idea is to launch a “process” to be conducted largely behind closed doors. The UN’s Secretary-General and former president of the Socialist International, Antonio Guterres, however, has let slip that process’ goal – namely, granting him authority unilaterally to declare and dictate the responses to emergencies caused by any of a number of so-called “complex global shocks.”
I get the sense that there are Christians who want to hurry off to heaven. They believe that there will be a rapture and they will be taken away from the trouble on earth and therefore voting doesn’t matter. Understand, there will be NO rapture. That is a misinterpretation of Scripture. Go vote!!
In late August officials [of China’s Communist Party] published regulations for dealing with them [the corrupt, criminal and disloyal], too. The aim is to reform or expel people who show a “lack of revolutionary spirit” . . .
Religious members are seen as another problem. Newbies must swear that they are atheist. But many still harbour beliefs in the supernatural. . .According to the regulations, religious folk should be given a chance to renounce their beliefs—and kicked out if they do not.
A certain meticulous copyist, a bibulous tailor, a prominent personage, and a coat-stealing ghost walk into a short story by “Russia’s most baffling comic writer” Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852). Satirical and sobering, The Overcoat depicts the smallness of human concerns and the smallness of human hearts in the life of a ‘nobody’ dealing with exposure, humiliation, and public injustices. The Overcoat covers the dehumanizing problems of the “little man.”
The “little man” is a theme employed in 19th century Russian literature: “Due to his low social and career position, the “little man” had a difficult fate, which consisted only of difficulties and obstacles. “Little Man,” modest and meek in nature, was forced to endure humiliation. No one ever noticed such people who were completely defenseless against circumstances, no one helped them, which is why the life of a “little man” ended very tragically.”
The main character in The Overcoat is an unremarkable figure – a low-ranking government clerk. He is portrayed as a raw stripped-down version of humanity. He is a ghost of a man in the sense that his place in society is little or completely invisible.
Clerk Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin lives a meager existence. He wears a patched-up overcoat that, with much wear, has also becomes meager. It doesn’t keep out the cold of the St. Petersburg winter.
Gogol’s clerk is also a “little man” in that his vital interests are extremely narrow, his world small. His self-contentment is derived from his copying work. There is something almost petty about his solitary life dedicated to repetitive work.
Unmarried and not gregarious, he doesn’t copy others who wanted more in life. Unlike many of his coworkers, he indulges in no diversion of any kind, not even the taste of his soup at night, to focus on copying. He goes to bed, after copying papers for pure enjoyment, “smiling at the thought of the next day and wondering what God would send him to copy.”
Of Akaky, Gogol writes:
“. . . in a certain department there was a certain official—not a very high one, it must be allowed—short of stature, somewhat pock-marked, red-haired, and short-sighted, with a bald forehead, wrinkled cheeks, and a complexion of the kind known as sanguine. . . he was what is called a perpetual titular councilor, over which, as is well known, some writers make merry, and crack their jokes, obeying the praiseworthy custom of attacking those who cannot bite back.”
We learn that Akaky was given his father’s name, making him a copy of his father, a government official. When baby Akaky was christened, it was said that “he wept and made a grimace, as though he foresaw that he was to be a titular councilor.”
(A titular councilor was ranked at 9 out of l4 grades in the hierarchy of government positions.)
Akaky is seen as unchanging fixture and not human:
“When and how he entered the department, and who appointed him, no one could remember. However much the directors and chiefs of all kinds were changed, he was always to be seen in the same place, the same attitude, the same occupation; so that it was afterwards affirmed that he had been born in undress uniform with a bald head. No respect was shown him in the department. . . His superiors treated him in coolly despotic fashion.”
Akaky’s job was to copy official documents by hand and he is diligent in doing so. He worked, “as his companions, the wits, put it, like a horse in a mill.” Akaky doesn’t hate his uninteresting job:
“It is not enough to say that Akaky labored with zeal: no, he labored with love. In his copying, he found a varied and agreeable employment. Enjoyment was written on his face: some letters were even favorites with him; and when he encountered these, he smiled, winked, and worked with his lips, till it seemed as though each letter might be read in his face, as his pen traced it. If his pay had been in proportion to his zeal, he would, perhaps, to his great surprise, have been made even a councilor of state.”
When given an opportunity to advance and do more – change titles and edit pronouns – Akaky tries the new work, gets flustered and says “No, give me rather something to copy.” He does not want to deviate from his first love – the repetitive work of copying. (He seems to spend a lot of time in his head. He does have an imagination as we find out later.)
“Outside this copying, it appeared that nothing existed for him. He gave no thought to his clothes: his undress uniform was not green, but a sort of rusty- meal color. Never once in his life did he give heed to what was going on every day in the street. . . Akaky Akakievitch saw in all things the clean, even strokes of his written lines . . . “
And though Akaky kept to himself and minded his own business, he is nonetheless made sport of by those around him. He is a running joke in the office. His overcoat – “they even refused it the noble name of cloak, and called it a cape.”
But Akaky silently endures ridicule from co-workers, asserting himself only when they go too far. (He reminds of the quirky oft-rejected collator, Milton Waddams, in the movie Office Space.)
“The young officials laughed at and made fun of him, so far as their official wit permitted; told in his presence various stories concocted about him, and about his landlady, an old woman of seventy; declared that she beat him; asked when the wedding was to be; and strewed bits of paper over his head, calling them snow. But Akaky Akakievitch answered not a word, any more than if there had been no one there besides himself. It even had no effect upon his work: amid all these annoyances he never made a single mistake in a letter.”
Then one time, Akaky does protest the harassment: “Leave me alone! Why do you insult me?”
These words affect a new hire who had participated in the constant teasing:
“In these moving words, other words resounded —” I am thy brother.” And the young man covered his face with his hand; and many a time afterwards, in the course of his life, shuddered at seeing how much inhumanity there is in man, how much savage coarseness is concealed beneath delicate, refined worldliness, and even, O God! in that man whom the world acknowledges as honorable and noble.
Akaky is chaffed, not only by his fellow workers, but also by St. Petersburg’s Northern cold. His overcoat is threadbare and unable to fend off the icy wind. He goes to see his tailor, Petrovich, the imbiber, for another patch job. Living on a meager salary, Akaky goes to Petrovich with a budget amount in mind.
Seeing the state of the coat – “the cloth was worn to such a degree that he could see through it, and the lining had fallen into pieces” – the tailor balks at any more repair. Akaky is told that the coat is beyond salvation and he needs a new one. Hearing this, Akaky is beside himself. He doesn’t have the money on hand to pay for a new overcoat. After an unsuccessful back and forth with the tailor in hopes of another patch job, Akaky sets out on a singular life-mission to buy a new coat.
Pinching his salary of only four hundred rubles, he begins living an ascetic lifestyle for the space of one year. He curtails his living expenses and doesn’t eat at night. Less food, more imagination, and a labor of love for Akaky:
“He even got used to being hungry in the evening, but he made up for it by treating himself, so to say, in spirit, by bearing ever in mind the idea of his future cloak. From that time forth his existence seemed to become, in some way, fuller, as if he were married, or as if some other man lived in him, as if, in fact, he were not alone, and some pleasant friend had consented to travel along life’s path with him, the friend being no other than the cloak, with thick wadding and a strong lining incapable of wearing out. He became more lively, and even his character grew firmer, like that of a man who has made up his mind, and set himself a goal.”
The desired overcoat becomes a substitute for the bond of normal human love. Is it also a symbol of dignity that needs repair? A chance at survival?
Akaky is finally able to get the money together to buy the material needed for the coat. He is overjoyed with it. He wears the overcoat to work and coworkers notice it. Gaining new status among them, he is invited to a party that night to celebrate the new coat and a birthday.
Leaving the poor side of town, Akaky crosses St. Petersburg square to reach the party. He muses about the people living on the other side of town. For one night he becomes a socialite, joining in the food and fun. Around midnight, he picks up his coat from the floor, brushes it off, and heads home.
On his way he is assaulted by two thugs who steal the garment. The Square’s watchman is no help. His landlady tells him he must go straight to the district chief of police. She has some connection with him.
Akaky goes to the district chief of police and finds that he is never makes himself available. When Akaky finally asserts himself and gets in to see him, the chief of police, instead of listening to the stollen overcoat matter, begins to question Akaky about his late-night behavior – as if Akaky was to blame for the stolen coat. He leaves the office not knowing what will happen.
A co-worker, “moved by pity, resolved to help Akaky Akakievitch.” He tells Akaky that the best thing for him to do is to go see a certain prominent personage who would expedite the matter.
“The reader must know that the prominent personage had but recently become a prominent personage, having up to that time been only an insignificant person.”
To increase his image, the prominent personage copied the protocol of what he saw being done by those in positions above him. For “In Holy Russia all is thus contaminated with the love of imitation; every man imitates and copies his superior.”
And so it was that “The manners and customs of the prominent personage were grand and imposing, but rather exaggerated. The main foundation of his system was strictness. “Strictness, strictness, and always strictness!”
Akaky arrives at the office of the prominent personage and has to wait. The prominent personage is in no hurry. When Akaky finally appears before him in his worn undress uniform, he gets a curt greeting: “What do you want?” Fearful and confused, Akaky explains that his new overcoat was stolen and that he came to him as an intermediary with the police.
The prominent personage then upbraids Akaky for not strictly following protocol. Akaky did not go through the layers of bureaucracy leading up to the prominent personage.
“But, your excellency,” said Akaky Akakievitch, trying to collect his small handful of wits, and conscious at the same time that he was perspiring terribly, “I, your excellency, presumed to trouble you because secretaries—are an untrustworthy race.”
This response is taken as another breach of etiquette and the prominent personage goes ballistic:
“What, what, what!” . . . “Do you know to whom you speak? Do you realize who stands before you? Do you realize it? do you realize it? I ask you!” Then he stamped his foot and raised his voice to such a pitch that it would have frightened even a different man from Akaky Akakievitch.”
Akaky is stunned and becomes weak. He has to be held up and carried out by porters. The prominent personage is quite pleased with himself “that his word could even deprive a man of his senses.”
Coatless Akaky staggers home slack-jawed in St. Petersburg snow and cold, the wind blowing from everywhere. He catches a cold that becomes a severe fever and dies. Enter the ghost. And justice?
I’ll not say more so you can read what develops. My purpose here is to introduce the story.
I see the overcoat as symbolic of different viewpoints:
For Gogol, the old threadbare overcoat represents bar-bone humanity. How much can be removed from a person’s life before the person is gone? For Akaky, it meant just getting by with another patch job.
The idea of the future coat, as imagined by Akaky, represented no longer being cut off from life. The new threads are a life-line. When he finally gets the new overcoat, it represents a goal achieved, a baseline of survival in the cold, and acceptance in society where appearances matter.
For thugs, the new overcoat represented an object of illicit desire – “But, of course, the cloak is mine!” For the victim, Akaky, the dis-mantling meant a life changed forever.
For bureaucratic overlords, the stolen overcoat represented a nuisance. They could make better use of their time. They amuse their selves with their selves.
And for the ghost, the dis-mantling of the prominent personage represented justice for the dis-mantled “little man:
“Ah, here you are at last! I have you, that—by the collar! I need your cloak; you took no trouble about mine, but reprimanded me; so now give up your own.”
~~~~~
Though you might not be a fan of Russian literature, Gogol’s last short story The Overcoat is considered one of the best in Russian literature and worth a read. And you are likely someone who can relate to those who are made fun off, insulted, considered unworthy, acknowledged only in negative terms, ignored by society, shown disrespect by bureaucrats, and robbed of dignity and life by those who boost themselves up by pushing others down
Both realistic and supernatural, The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol is an appeal for compassion for the barely visible “little man” and the dis-mantled.
The Overcoat, short story by Nikolay Gogol, published in Russian as “Shinel” in 1842. The Overcoat is perhaps the best-known and most influential short fiction in all of Russian literature. Gogol’s Dead Souls and “The Overcoat” are considered the foundation of 19th-century Russian realism.
From the Father of the Golden Age of Russian Literature, Nicolai Gogol’s The Overcoat is one of the greatest short stories of all time. This satire on Russia’s 19th century bureaucracy is amusing, pointed and has influenced many renowned Russian writers.
Gogol was also capable of piercing insight into the human condition, satirizing the banality of everyday life while not losing sight of the pathos of those who struggle to rise above it.
A 60-year-old Arizona Wells Fargo employee scanned into her office on a Friday on what appeared to be an ordinary workday. Then, four days later, she was found dead in her cubicle.
“They start from a desire for unity, and they are taught a contrived notion of right and wrong through criticism and struggle so that we can arrive at a new, contrived unity on a new, contrived basis. Everyone outside of the desire for unity is an enemy of the people.” ~Maoism.
There’s a project afoot pre-election 2024. Maoist in nature, it’s formula – unity, criticism, unity – is being used to transform the faithful into having “correct” political opinions.
Gurus have come out of their ashram bubbles to tells us how to be good little political Christians because . . . “You people are so extreme. We must address divisive forces and soften your stance on everything. You must rid yourself of old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas that get in the way of fundamental transformation. We will free you from wrongthink. We have books, podcasts, MSNBC media spots, and church seminars to stretch you beyond what you know. The goal is to expose you to voices you need to be following so you can learn to love each other better.” So goes the hectoring.
(Submit to our purpose-driven struggle session and over your personal spiritual journey with us you too will soon agree with us on critical race theory, liberation theology, queer theory, climate change, open-borders, gun control, same-sex marriage, abortion, hating Trump, and saving “Democracy!” by any means necessary. We want you to love God and the State!)
I don’t know the motive of these moralizing gurus other than they want to “reclaim Christianity from right-wing extremism” or some such thing such thing. (David French, who has an extreme case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, says he wants to pry away the conservative movement from a deranged man [Trump]. That’s why he’s all in on the radical Leftist Kamala-Walz duo – to save conservatism from itself.)
Is there mal-intent by these evangelists of the Left, these missionaries of Progressivism – for Progressivism is a political religion? Maybe not. They likely have turned their eyes and ears away from reality to follow Wide Way myths – contrived notions of right and wrong. Some have become paid influencers who find ways of being in the spotlights of media’s Great White Way. In any case, they have become disciples of Mao and the Left.
And the Left, like Mao in support of his Cultural Revolution, has shown that it will do what it wants by any means necessary including rig elections, creating hoaxes, spreading lies, censorship, purging of political opponents, and unjust lawfare in the name of “Democracy!” to bring about its own Cultural Revolution.
The Left’s spiritual guides employ the Maoist formula of unity, criticism, unity. They’ll start by talking about wanting to unite Christians in a better way of love and then they’ll criticize in Saul Alinsky-like fashion. You’ve heard the ad hominems: “deplorables” “bitter clingers” “extremists” “conspiracy theorists” “homophobes” “xenophobes”, “authoritarians”, “fascists”, “threats to Evangelicalism” AND “DEMOCRACY!” and the latest put-down: “they’re weird.”
(They finally got something right: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor)
They ridicule “Christian Nationalists” as being backward reactionaries and project a threat to Democracy on to them. And it’s no wonder: would-be dictators, Marxists, fascists, autocrats, and MSNBC use the word “Democracy” the most. It’s used by them in a bait and switch scheme.
These “purveyors of Democracy” offer to sell “Democracy”, which they do not actually intend to sell. This is “the bait.” They switch customers from buying the advertised “Democracy” that the seller initially offered into buying a different product or service that is usually at a higher price (loss of freedom including free speech – vox populi – and therefore Democracy!) and has advantageous effect to the advertiser (dictatorship). This is the “switch.”
From a Marxist perspective, the Left wants to subvert the nation-state and nationalism. Marxists think that the Proletarians who embrace nationalism do so out of false consciousness. The working class should therefore abandon their parochial worldview and understand that their struggles against the bourgeoisie, the means of production and capitalism, transcend national boundaries. Nationality would disappear as people come to identify by class instead. So goes Bolshevik theory. The working class has no homeland!
. . .the political projectionist knows best his own hazardous or off-putting conduct and policies. And so, he can most skillfully attribute just these liabilities to those who have had no experience with them.
Shaming people till they break down and pledge Progressive values or to at least get them so muddled in their thinking that they back off and become controlled opposition is their means to their unity.
Below are some of the long-form journalistic revisionist (and unsubstantiated) works (ala The 1619 Project) that takes a critical view of backwater Evangelicals living in flyover country (“the ragged edge of the universe”- Nick in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby).
You see, sneering elites and the literati decided that anyone not like them was not worth knowing–an attitude reflected in such quotes as this one from H.L. Mencken, who said of Willa Cather, “I don’t care how well she writes, I don’t give a damn what happens in Nebraska.”
To wit:
Tim Alberta and The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, published December 5, 2023
Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman with White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy published on February 27, 2024
Jim Wallis: The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy, published April 2, 2024
The After Party: Toward Better Christian Politics, Nancy French and Curtis Chang, based on project by David French, Russell Moore & Curtis Chang, published April 23, 2024
And before the 2020 election:
Kaitlyn Schiess: The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor, published September 8, 2020
I wonder. Did these spiritual guides come to their conclusions about people they don’t agree with and are irritated by through Leftist media sources?
Certainly, if one were a disciple of MSNBC, CNN, the NYT, WaPo, The Atlantic, Christianity Today, Trinity Forum, and other Progressive Left sources, one could easily conclude that Christians who are not like them are “enemies of the people.” For, media disciples are an enlightened bunch but everyone else – they don’t know any better, and worse. They are racist rubes, are in a cult of personality and are involved in political idolatry. Christians in this sad group, so they tell us, are making Christianity look bad. But THEY have the answer – be discipled by the Left!
One has to wonder how it is that groups such as Evangelicals for Harris (more below) are OK with the disastrous record of destructive monetary and fiscal policies under Biden-Harris. Are they OK with the modern monetary theory of spending and dollar printing that has created high inflation and massive debt for future generations? To pay off the huge debt, the government will come after retirement funds and checking and saving accounts.
Are they OK with people unable to pay their bills and not able to buy a house or maintain their business? How does this show love for your neighbor? Are Evangelicals for Harris OK with soviet-style price controls as proposed by Kamala Harris? David Brooks actually gets something right.
One has to wonder how it is that groups such as Evangelicals for Harris are OK with the current inversion of justice: criminals without bonds are released to do harm again, great grandmothers are sentenced for praying, political opponents are brought to trial on spurious charges. Many of the political prisoners of J6 are still awaiting trial. This is equity in Harris world. How does this show love for your neighbor?
Tucker at his best. He picks apart Kamala word by word.
One has to wonder how it is that groups such as Evangelicals for Harris are OK with a stolen election and a stolen candidacy and stolen valor. How does this show love for your neighbor?
One has to wonder how it is that groups such as Evangelicals for Harris are OK with the current geo-political nightmare of wars and potential wars on several fronts that have come about under Biden-Harris. How does this show love for your neighbor?
One has to wonder – are they OK with the Afghanistan debacle? Joe and Kamala (of the party of gun control) had the U.S. flee Afghanistan, leaving behind $80+ BN in weapons and equipment and “a security vacuum into which all the Islamic terrorist organizations on the planet flooded. The results will be catastrophic for the entire world. Joe and Kamala never speak of it and do nothing to stave off what is at this point the inevitable.” The Terror Factory Joe And Kamala Built – Afghanistan (substack.com) How does this show love for your neighbor?
It's the 3rd anniversary of 13 American service members dying during the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
One has to wonder how it is that groups such as Evangelicals for Harris are OK aligning themselves with those who want to destroy Western civilization? They might not view themselves as pro-Hamas protestors, but the party they are joining is showing its hatred toward Israel, that in truth, is also hatred of Western civilization and America. How does this show love for your neighbor?
Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson:
Foreign Policy cites what it calls Harris’ “mantra” of favoring “what can be, unburdened by what has been.” In practice, this “mantra” and her public statements show a pronounced indulgence toward Iran and a hostility to Israeli efforts to ensure its own survival. . .
A Harris foreign policy promises genuine departure— “what can be, unburdened by what has been”—acknowledging a multipolar world by retreating from its friends in the face of its enemies.
One has to wonder how it is that groups such as Evangelicals for Harris (more below) are OK hitching their wagon to the party of anger and grievance? To identity politics, victimhood and the need to constantly produce guilt? To condemnation and holding a grudge? To a party that reconciles itself to all manner of evil and refuses to be reconciled to people not like them? How does personal animus toward Trump and MAGA folks show love for your neighbor?
One has to wonder how it is that groups such as Evangelicals for Harris are OK with scientism, with masks and mandates, with lockdowns, with the closing of schools, churches and businesses, with snitching on your neighbor, and the ill treatment of the elderly that happened during COVID? Are they Karens? Do they want vaccine passports and everyone to be monitored 24/7 by some government entity? How does this show love for your neighbor?
One has to wonder how it is that groups such as Evangelicals for Harris are OK with censorship, when Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” How does censorship show love for your neighbor?
One has to wonder how it is that groups such as Evangelicals for Harris are OK with abortion used as Satanic ritual? Are they OK with the guy who identifies as a Christian and was the former head of NIH, Francis Collins, doing Mengele-like experiments with aborted baby parts. And what about fetal tissue trafficking? How does this show love for your neighbor?
▶️WATCH: In new full undercover video, Planned Parenthood NYC seeks $1,500 "financial incentive" per aborted fetal liver, which can be harvested from "intact D&Es"—criminal partial-birth abortions.@KamalaHarris seized this footage to cover up for @PPFApic.twitter.com/6pbuo7kpHe
Recently released videos from a citizen journalist who went undercover to expose Planned Parenthood’s involvement in fetal tissue trafficking — and was subsequently investigated by then-California Attorney General Harris — reignited criticism of her role in his prosecution. As prosecutions of pro-life activists have increased under the Biden administration, Harris’ past actions amplify concerns that her administration would take an even more aggressive stance, using the Department of Justice (DOJ) to selectively target political opponents.
One has to wonder how it is that groups such as Evangelicals for Harris are OK with open borders that allows in deadly fentanyl and murderers and all kinds of terrorists and disease. Gang leader wanted for 23 murders was released into US: ICE (youtube.com) Do they pretend that Scripture makes it all OK? How does this show love for your neighbor?
Did Evangelicals for Harris join up out of feelings for and a myopic obsession with DEI, CRT, and climate crisis myths coming out their “higher-education” ashrams?
Do they identify with identity politics? Are they Marxist and socialists?
Did Evangelicals for Harris join up to show their hatred of all things Trump like good little foot soldiers of MSNBC? To show their disdain of Trump’s now-distant past remarks and behavior while aligning themselves with characters of all kinds of unscrupulous and perverse behavior? To show their contempt for patriotism and America just like the Left? How does this show love for your neighbor?
Added 8-24-2024:
Democrats are pretending to embrace patriotism and the American flag.
It seems to me that all such groups like Evangelicals for Harris see themselves as freed up thinkers and Rousseauian in the sense that they feel good about themselves and what they do for they think they are morally good apart from any outside reference except for their tribe. And more so.
They believe that the “politically correct” views they hold would create a perfectly unified democracy. And so, they ply Evangelicals to transfer allegiance from what they hold to be true to what they say is true. As such, they reveal themselves to be the prophets of “totalitarian democracy” – the majority living under the tyranny (“unity”) of a one absolute and perfect political truth.
By any measure – facts, science, Scripture, common sense, and the common good – groups such as Evangelicals for Harris are at war with reality. And, it’s no wonder. They are the products and facilitators of the struggle session known as The 2024 Project.
In Paul’s last letter (II Timothy) he tells his young protégé Timothy what to look out for:
For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. II Timothy 4:3-4
Evangelicals for Harris, formerly Evangelicals for Biden, is a project of Faith Voters, a 501(c)4 organization. It is a group claiming to represent evangelicals who are voting and advocating for Harris-Walz.
Apparently, they are running interference for Harris-Walz while seeking to downplay their radical agenda on issues like the economy, race, climate change, open borders, abortion entrenchment and expansion, LGBTQ promotion, destroying the nuclear family, and trans-ing the children – all in the name of Evangelicalism.
Even Billy Graham’s granddaughter has joined Evangelicals for Harris: ‘Voting Kamala, for me, is so much greater than policies.’ Apparently, wisdom need not be applied to issues beyond her wrinkled nose. The country can go to hell so long as Trump is not elected. A Faustian bargain, indeed.
A recent Evangelicals for Harris Zoom event was hosted by an activist who has a long history of bashing “Whiteness” and calling for the destruction of police departments.
Ekemini Uwan hosted the Zoom call, one of many identity-based online Zoom meetings in support of the new Democratic Party nominee that have sparked controversy.
Uwan describes herself on her website as a “reparations activist whose work spans the globe, as she has advocated for global reparations on behalf of Africans and African Descendants on the floor of the United Nations three times.”
Uwan spoke at Sparrow Conference 2019 where she gave “a historical, sociological, political, theological and gospel-saturated clinic on racial identity.” At that conference, she said we have to talk about what whiteness is:
In 2019, Uwan spoke at a conference where she declared that "whiteness is rooted in plunder, in theft, in slavery, in enslavement of Africans, [and] genocide of Native Americans."
“The reality is whiteness is rooted in plunder. theft. In slavery – enslavement of Africans. Genocide of native Americans. We’re sitting on stolen land. Everywhere in America we’re sitting on stolen land. This is the reality of land that was stolen from native Americans. We’re Americans we have to recognize and acknowledge that. It’s a power structure, that’s what whiteness is . . .”
I wonder. Did the whites on that Wednesday Zoom call, including Wheaton College prof. Amy Peeler, divest from their whiteness?
Just more greed, envy, racism, and class warfare but now encapsuled in the virtue-signaling ‘respectability’ of anti-racism rhetoric. This Christian-coated pill gives groups like Evangelicals for Harris a way to swallow Marxist Progressivism.
~~~~~
Get to know the Evangelicals for Harris Mind Games at work to woo voters away to their liberal agenda.
For many Christians, “Evangelicals for Harris” sounds like an oxymoron but there is a simple political strategy behind it.
The strategy is this: Harris doesn’t have to appeal to a lot of Republican-leaning churchgoers. She just needs to win over a few, David Brody, chief political analyst for the Christian Broadcast Network, said on American Family Radio Wednesday.
(The following Harris campaign Mind Games clip is meant to shame Trump and those who vote for him.)
EXCLUSIVE: Evangelicals For Harris drops their first media spot TODAY in an effort to win over some of those “on-the-fence” Conservative Evangelicals in swing states who are lukewarm when it comes to Donald Trump. You can watch it here first before it’s officially released. Many… pic.twitter.com/zhLUpA3CWU
Victor Davis Hanson, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Distinguished Fellow at Hillsdale College, Pepperdine professor, syndicated columnist, bestselling author, and fifth-generation California farmer, argues in his July 29, 2024 article that American society is treating its citizens like lab rats, resulting in harmful outcomes. Read the article here: https://victorhanson.com/americas-lab…
Half the country thinks something has gone drastically wrong in America, to the point that it is rapidly becoming unrecognizable. Millions feel they are virtual lab rats in some grand research project conducted by entitled elites who could care less when the experiment blows up.
Mao Zedong wanted to thought-reform, that is, brainwash, the whole Chinese population, and he had a formula (https://www.marxists.org/reference/ar…) for doing it: “Unity – Criticism – Unity.” That is, he sought to induce in people a “desire for unity” so they would join his socialistic cult, and then once that desire was strong enough, criticism and struggle sessions (https://newdiscourses.com/2022/12/sur…) would begin to cement adherence. Finally, through criticism, struggle, and study, unity with the socialist cult would be achieved.
A “study, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates on behalf of The Media Research Center, found that on ten aspects of Harris’s political record, between 71 percent and 86 percent of respondents were either unaware or unsure of her positions.
“The issues surveyed include her support for the Green New Deal, abolishing ICE, and eliminating private health insurance. Additionally, the data reveals that many voters obtain their political news primarily from broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) and cable channels (CNN, MSNBC). The lack of voter knowledge of Harris‘s record suggests these outlets have not provided adequate coverage of the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.”
26. Kamala Harris is a communist and her word choices give it away. “Equitable distribution” “equity”
It’s a repackaged version of Karl Marx’ popularized slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” meaning a redistribution of wealth. pic.twitter.com/WlETamsJUy
“Reality cannot be ignored except at a price; and the longer the ignorance is persisted in, the higher and more terrible becomes the price that must be paid.” -Aldous Huxley
Just when you hear that the phoniest candidate ever, a media astroturf job without a single vote in primaries, is now running for president, we find out that the running mate is the pro-riot Maoist Tim Walz.
It was bad enough when the media would have us ignore reality one moment – “Biden was never better” (MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough) – and in the next breath say that Biden was incompetent and had to go. Now we find the media again wanting us to ignore reality – the record of the radical Leftist Tim Walz – and working to invert that reality.
The Pravda-like media would have us warm to and even fawn over the alternate reality the man presents to the public. We are to believe that Tim Walz is just a folksy Minnesotan, normal and neighborly, a populist ‘everyman’, a military and football wonder, and even a Bernie Sanders of the Prairie in hunting gear. But we can’t ignore reality like this Walter Mitty of this election.
Unlike many of us including Trump, Tim Walz “never ran a business or worked long in the private sector. His entire career has been spent working for the government, either as a teacher or as a politician. His politics, despite a pivot to the middle while in Congress, are rooted in the far left.”
One Christian website that apparently has sold its soul to Progressivism gaslights with Walz’s faith bona fides. These include being a Lutheran dad. These include being a great unifier, as he “rallied” with faith leaders after the death of George Floyd and advocated for the Minnesota Muslim population. And, these include having to feel sorry for Walz, as he faced blowback from religious communities during the pandemic — including conservative Lutherans —for closing churches.
What the article does not say about Walz’s faith bona fides:
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz attends a church that preaches beliefs related to gender, race and sexuality that many Christian denominations strongly oppose.
Walz, who is the governor of Minnesota, identified Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul as his parish during a 2020 briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials published by Pilgrim Lutheran Church instruct parishioners not to refer to God using male pronouns, push congregants to support reparation funds, encourage them to celebrate Ramadan and include a modified gender-neutral version of the Lord’s Prayer, among other liberal practices.
(Walz’s faith bona fides remind me of Barack Obama’s faith bona fides: 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s south side, under the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and “God damn America.”)
Walz has feminist bona fides, too.J. Robert Smith writes at American Thinker that “Walz is attractive to feminized progressives because he’s a feminized progressive.”
Smith asks . . .
What can we say about a man who protects those who mutilate children’s bodies in the name of “gender-affirming health care?” How about promoting the savagery of no-limits abortion? How about banning counseling for gender dysphoria sufferers? How about safeguarding graphic LGBTQ themed pornography in public libraries and schools?
Walz signed a bill last year that makes Minnesota a “sanctuary state” for so-called “trans kids” (there is no such thing as a transgender child because there is no such thing as a transgender person). What this means is that a parent who wants to mutilate her child can take him to Minnesota, and the state will not obey an extradition or arrest orders from the originating state—even if the family is in a custody battle and the father does not want his child surgically abused.
So this won’t be any surprise, either. LibsofTikTok highlighted a story about how Walz used taxpayer money to hire a “Satanic” drag queen to perform at a show open to children.
Quite the faith bona fides!!
Who is Tim Walz? He was not the obvious, logical, or straightforward choice to be Kamala’s VP. He’s the in-your-face radical choice and what the puppet Kamala needs as her ventriloquist.
Don’t ignore reality! Tim Walz . . .
1. Fueled BLM Riots in 2020, stalled on deploying the National Guard for an entire day
2. Let rioters loot and wreck Minneapolis “Those who don’t build must burn. It’s as old as history and juvenile delinquents” (Fahrenheit 451).
3. Changed MN state flag to resemble Somalia’s
4. Was a COVID-19 tyrant; sent sick, elderly patients back to nursing homes where the infection often spread to other vulnerable people, causing a disproportionate number of coronavirus deaths
5. Pushed youth trans surgery, ‘hormone therapy’ agenda
6. Put tampons in boy’s bathrooms
7. Embellished and selectively omitted facts about his military career
During his first term as governor, Walz faced two major challenges: The riots following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and COVID-19. He fumbled both.
As the Twin Cities burned for three days in May 2020, Walz froze, terrified of upsetting his party’s activist base which sympathized with the rioters, for whom Kamala Harris raised money. Walz hesitated to commit the National Guard – whom he dismissed as “19-year-old cooks” – but when they finally were deployed, the violence ceased immediately. . .
In response to the second challenge, COVID-19, in defiance of the science, Walz shut down schools, churches and businesses and instituted draconian mask mandates and shelter in place orders. . .
On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The ReidOut,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) responded to a question on what he will do to make sure there are penalties for disinformation about elections by claiming that “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” (Emphasis mine.
Governor Tim Walz backed an Orwellian hate speech registry.
His original budget proposal for the human rights department included a 7% increase in funding for 2024 and a 4.5% increase after that to monitor Minnesotans speech.
The Harris-Walz Burn-it-down Open Borders ticket is the most radical ticket this country has ever seen. If you ignore the reality of what they have said and done – the inversion of the good for the inflation of evil – then whoever you are, wherever you are, you will not be isolated from the price. Be careful what you vote for. This is election is about our survival.
~~~
From Bad to Walz – Politicians with Policies that Plunder
These short videos provide more perspective on Tim Walz:
In the Friday news roundup, Victor Davis Hanson and cohost Sami Winc discuss Jamie Raskin’s call for invoking the 14th Amendment to take down Trump, the Harris choices, the Squad losing re-election bids, how the Left deals with debt, Biden’s absence from the scene, and California as Kamala’s offering to the country.
In short, Walz has never seen a California energy policy he didn’t try to implement in Minnesota. His standard tactic has been the bait-and-switch, first proposing a seemingly moderate policy during election season and then lurching to the extreme end of the spectrum at his first opportunity.
Nearly 13,500 people moved from Minnesota to other parts of the United States from April 2020 through July 1, 2021, making it the eighth highest state for population loss through domestic migration, according to Dec. 21, 2021, data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, on at least five occasions as governor of Minnesota, hosted a Muslim cleric who celebrated Hamas‘s Oct. 7 attack last year on Israel and promoted a film popular among Neo-Nazis that glorifies Adolf Hitler, the Washington Examiner found.
No more of Politicians with Policies that Plunder:
🚨BREAKING: California Democrat State Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil has announced that she is switching to the Republican Party, criticizing the leadership and policies of her former party.
“I’ve been a lifelong Democrat, and the Democratic Party of today in California—I do not… pic.twitter.com/wauPA10wcu
Tim’s (and Kamala’s) disastrous policies have plunged this country into a black hole of despair. How do they counter that? Well, if you’re a liberal, you treat Americans like they’re clueless and pretend everything that’s tearing us apart is actually “great.” They better cook up a better strategy, because real Americans are just getting started on this ticket that is straight from the pit of hell. Things are about to turn very ugly, very fast.
Just when you think it can’t get any worse for the Dastardly Duo, more dirt surfaces. Now we can add “wide open borders” to the list of radical issues Harris and Walz are pushing, thanks to some old info that’s made its way back to the surface.
Who can forget when Kamala Harris likened the hardworking men and women of ICE to the KKK? That old video has resurfaced, perfectly timed to undermine Kamala and Tampon Tim.
Another video from the Kamala Harris memory hole. You guys remember when she compared ICE to the KKK?
This is the woman who, if elected, will have all the power of the executive branch and will decide our immigration policy.
After all, you have to admit that likening ICE to the “KKK” and showing up at an ABOLISH ICE march reveals a deep commitment to keeping our borders wide open and fully vulnerable. Maybe that’s why Kamala, the so-called “border czar,” hardly shows up at the border or does anything to curb the Biden/Harris invasion. With their support for Abolish ICE and Defund the Police, it’s clear that Kamala and Tampon Tim are pushing for a lawless country overrun by foreign illegals and ruthless criminals. Is that the kind of country you want? Vote wisely. (Emphasis mine.)
“The old man nodded. “Those who don’t build must burn. It’s as old as history and juvenile delinquents.””
-Faber to Guy Montag, in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
Despite our country needing to be unburdened by what has been the last three-and-a half years, the Democratic party, caretaker of decline, is foisting Kamala Harris upon the nation. Burning it all down needed a smiley facelift.
Put another way: to show its continued disdain and hatred of all things American, including you, me, and democracy, the Democratic party – the party of “preachy women”, of soy boys and the apron-string attached, of suborned reality, of thrusting men into women’s spaces, of censorship, show trials, cheating and “Democracy!”, of celebrity hype, and wealth transfer by any means necessary including war and green policies, of record inflation, of smash and grab, of masks and mandates, of open borders, fentanyl deaths and favoring criminals over victims – has, in furtive fashion, nominated the failed border and broadband czar and socialist to be their Maduro for president.
This is the same party that allowed sinister Hillary Clinton to rob presidential candidate socialist Bernie Sanders of the Democratic nomination that now anoints zero-votes socialist Kamala Harris, once the most liberal senator in Congress, to be their DEI hire in the White House.
The same party that told us that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen just stole the 2024 nomination from their own party member.
Victor Davis Hanson writes on X: Democracy Really Is Dying in Darkness—But by Whom?
Never in modern presidential history has a political party staged a veritable inside coup to remove their current president from his ongoing candidacy for his party’s nomination and reelection.
Stranger still, the very elites and grandees, who now are using every imaginable means of deposing Biden as their nominee, are the very public voices that just weeks ago insisted that candidate Biden was “sharp as a tack” and “fit as a fiddle.” And they damned any who thought otherwise! . . .
So, to make sense of what these self-appointed and sanctimonious protectors of democracy are trying to pull off demands an Orwellian vocabulary—memory hole, newspeak, unperson, and groupthink.
Kamala Harris: “Unburdened by what has been” – an Indian-American past
Kamala ‘Chameleon‘ Harris has become opportunistically black to suit her political purposes.
Paul Gottfried writes, in What ‘Black’ Really Means to the Left, that “Part of what now defines blackness is holding leftist political views.” And, . . .
The larger point made by [Miranda] Devine and by Matt Boose on at Chronicles is of course correct. Kamala Harris has no fixed identity other than her career as a leftist minority celebrity-victim, the details of which she’s been free to change with media assistance. In this respect, she’s like Al Sharpton, the Obamas, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and other media darlings, who have been able to change their stands or obliterate no longer useful aspects of their past, with lots of outside help.
No DEI here:
Vivek on Kamala's Heritage:
"Many Indian-Americans in the US are indeed somewhat offended by the way Kamala has suddenly cast aside the Indian-American side of identity… She wore that when it was convenient. She's wearing a different identity now." pic.twitter.com/Si7Pzk7zRJ
Now, with the border as a top election issue, the media is scrambling to change the narrative. They’re pushing the claim that Kamala was never officially appointed ‘border czar.’ Unfortunately for them, the internet remembers everything.
Kamala Harris: “Unburdened by what has been” – a Broadband Czar Position
Kamala was put in charge of the broadband distribution and she opted to do nothing, apparently to protect her image. She must have known she would fail.
Joe Biden tapped Kamala Harris to serve as the rural broadband czar in 2021. Part of her task was overseeing the implementation of a $42 billion program to connect Americans in rural and remote parts of the country to the Internet. According to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member Brendan Carr, however, after almost 1,000 days, not a single person has actually been connected to the web. (Emphasis mine.)
As polls show America’s young men are lurching rightward at a rapid pace, the Democratic brand has finally evolved into the party of scolding shrews, nagging Karens and “preachy females,” as Dem dinosaur James Carville calls them.
Its image is tied to a type of unserious, self-involved, neurotic, dogmatic Dem-fem who insists on telling you her pronouns and whose highest goal is abortion on demand right up until the moment of birth.
And there’s more Kringe . . .
The Kamala Harris rally in Atlanta yesterday couldn’t have been more ghetto.
Black people, the democrats have had a choke hold on us for too long. They’ve done nothing for the black community other than pander.
Team Kamala is showing its desperate true colors. Kamala in such bad shape that she’s now begging for white votes. Recently, they launched a cringeworthy “White Dudes for Harris” campaign featuring out-of-touch elites and effeminate poofs gushing over Kamala. It went about as well as you’d expect and spawned a plethora of hilarious online memes. . .
This time, it’s “White Women for Harris,” and they’ve got a real doozy heading up this cringe fest. Enter Arielle Fodor, arguably the most insufferable human being on the planet, who is, of course, the voice of the “White Women for Harris” campaign.
“As white women we need to use our privilege to make positive changes.”
Former teacher turned “influencer” infantilizes the “white women for Kamala Harris” and suggests that white women should never “correct” black women. pic.twitter.com/uj00SfwZb9
Columnist Camilla Long, despite being unfriendly to former President Donald J. Trump, bemoans the way “All [Harris’s] faults, flaws, back story are now also being hastily tidied away, as [Joe] Biden’s were; the snafus, word salads, ‘border tsar’ errors drowned out.”
“This is the first true AI election: synthetic candidates are magicked up almost out of nowhere, suddenly given huge projection, campaigns, ready-made armies of Twitter followers. They’re mere products,” Long argues.
Less than 300 people are in attendance to see Kamala and Gov. Shapiro. The capacity of the Wissahickon H.S. auditorium is 3,500 people.
Data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the Biden-Harris government is continuing to replace native-born American workers with immigrant labor entering the country both legally and illegally. Over the last year, native-born Americans have seen total job losses hit 1.2 million. Meanwhile, foreign-born employment has risen by 1.3 million jobs. (Emphasis mine.)
The Joe Biden–Kamala Harris government has halted a controversial program allowing up to 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter the U.S. legally through so-called parole powers. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed the suspension after an internal report uncovered significant fraud in sponsor applications.
While [Biden-Harris] policies have resulted in a steep rise in the price of energy over the past few years, they absolutely pale in comparison to what Kamala Harris would have in store should she become the next president of the United States.
Like most of her Democrat colleagues, Kamala Harris clearly believes that climate change is an “existential threat.” However, her policy agenda to combat climate change makes her far more radical than President Biden, and most other Democrats.
Pay no attention to the sky-high interest ratesmaking home ownership unaffordable or the sky-high inflation that has doubled the cost of basic necessities. So what if the average person’s paycheck barely covers monthly gas and grocery bills?Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris identifies as a female “person of color.” She is a shiny object that should help everyone forget about personal financial troubles. (Emphasis mine.)
Kamala Harris once said a "70% to 80% tax rate" and saying "every car should be eliminated in the next 11 years" are "bold ideas that should be discussed" 🥴 pic.twitter.com/ATHOuLLk78
To overwhelm the system, law and order must be destroyed and replaced with government handouts to pacify the masses. To wit:
Harris said in the June radio interview the movement “rightly” called out the amount of money spent on police departments instead of community services such as education, housing, and healthcare, emphasizing that more police did not equate to more public safety.
Vice President Kamala Harris toured a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota on Thursday, becoming what is believed to be the first president or vice president ever to visit a clinic that provides abortion services in U.S. history.
It’s easy to mock word-salad Kamala Harris. Her mind on Marxist, Maoist and Green isms has become mush, her talk, spoonsful of regurgitated pablum. But with such an otherworldly aura she maintains the charisma of a feisty radical in the minds of suburban women who take in MSNBC, CNN, the NYT and WaPo for their daily groupthink.
Let’s not forget: Kamala was put in charge of the border and she did what the basically lazy Marxists of a Cloward-Piven mindset do: She sat back and let things collapse into crisis to overwhelm the system and aggregate power to the state and to herself thereby leading to the complete control of citizens through Socialism/Communism and control of outcomes. She’s a proud communist.
Kamala Harris explains to voters why she's a proud Communist.
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) July 26, 2024
Despite our country needing to be unburdened by what has been the last three-and-a half years, the Democratic party, caretakers of America’s decline, is not only foisting Kamala Harris upon the nation, it is also fostering division and hate.
The same Democrats, always reading from the same script, who recently called Joe Biden sharp as a tack and Kamala Harris dynamic and transformative, want their minions to believe that people who are not of their exclusive tribe are “weird”.
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) July 30, 2024
This from the party that gave us ‘What is a woman?’ Ketanji Brown Jackson.
This from the party that pushes DEI, the run-amok spawn of racist affirmative action, but now views it like a “scarlet letter” that Kamala shouldn’t be forced to wear. Yet, she, and justice Ketanji Jackson Brown, don’t seem to mind being a “DEI hire” for Joe Biden and the Dems.
This from the party Miranda Devine describes: Its [Mean Girl] image is tied to a type of unserious, self-involved, neurotic, dogmatic Dem-fem who insists on telling you her pronouns and whose highest goal is abortion on demand right up until the moment of birth.
This from the party that wants Kamala Harris to be geo-strategist leader of the free world
KAMALA — UNSCRIPTED FOR THE FIRST TIME:
"This is just an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy and understands the strength that rests in understanding the significance of diplomacy."
This is the most crucial time in our country’s history. Should the ship of state be piloted by someone whose only competence is that she plays to perfection her role as prom queen placeholder for radical Leftist policies?
It’s time for America to grow up and to stop playing with DEI Barbie.
~~~~~
Podcasts:
Andrew Klaven with Megan Basham discuss her book, Shepherds for Sale.
Churches are being infiltrated – Megan Basham with Andrew Klaven
Podcast: John J. Miller is joined by Megan Basham to discuss her book, Shepherds for Sale.
‘Shepherds for Sale’ by Megan Basham | National Review
A vicious, conniving, immoral, unpopular, third-rate politician with extreme radical views has come to within an inch of the presidency. Kamala Harris could be sitting in the Oval Office as soon as next week. She is far from the best America has to offer. “In a functioning meritocracy,” said Tucker Carlson, “Kamala Harris would be a C-list massage therapist working out of a strip mall. Yet somehow she became our vice president. How’d that happen?”
One day, Peter sat down with Mark and told him about the challenges of being a disciple of Jesus and what he witnessed.
“Jesus called the twelve of us together, gave us instructions, and sent us out in pairs to several areas in Galilee. We announced that the kingdom of God had arrived, and that people should repent. We cast out unclean spirits. And we anointed many sick people with oil and cured them. We were doing what he had been doing.
“When we returned from our mission, we were anxious to share with him all that we had done and taught. We must have looked tired and hungry. He said we all needed a break. People were constantly coming and going around us. So much so that we didn’t have time to eat.
“We got in the boat and sailed to a deserted spot. But the crowd saw us going, realized what was happening and arrived there first. When Jesus got out of the boat and saw the huge crowd, I could tell that he felt deeply sorry for them. He said they were like a flock without a shepherd. So, he began to teach them many things.
“There was nothing to eat at that deserted place and it was getting late in the day. We wanted the Teacher to send the crowd away so they could buy food in the countryside or in the villages. But then he said “We don’t need to send them away. Why don’t you give them something.”
“We looked at each other wondering what in the world he was suggesting. Was he serious? Philip said “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
“Then he said “Well, how many loaves have you got? Go and see.”
“My brother Andrew found a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish. But we were standing in front of thousands of people.
“Jesus had us sit everyone down, group by group, on the green grass. So, we made everyone sit in companies of hundreds and fifties. Then Jesus took the five loves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, and blessed the bread. He broke it and gave it to us to give to the crowd. Then he broke the fish into pieces and handed to it to us to give to the crowd. Everyone ate and had their fill including me and the others of our group. Over five thousand people were fed.
“We gathered up the leftovers and there were twelve baskets of broken pieces and of the fish. Everyone was full and tired.
“And then, just like that, Jesus told us to get into the boat and sail toward the opposite shore. He dismissed the crowd and then went off up the mountain to pray.
“Mark, you won’t believe what happened. We had rowed about three or four miles and were in the middle of the sea. It had been hard rowing all night. A stiff wind coming down from the mountains on the eastern shore of the lake was working against us.
“Then, in the dead of night, we all thought we saw a ghost walking on the water. It was about to go past our boat. We were scared out of our wits. We were yelling “Who goes there?!” And then, just like that, we hear “Cheer up! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.” When the figure came closer, we could see that it was Jesus. He was walking on the water!
“I said “if it’s really you, Master, then give me the word and I’ll come to you on the water.” And he said “Come along, then.”
“So, I got out of the boat, and would you believe it Mark, I walked on the water. But then I saw the wind chopping the waves and the chaos at my feet and I began to sink just like that. I called out to the Teacher. He put his hand out and caught me before I went under. He looked at me and said “A fine lot of faith you’ve got! Why did you doubt?” I was shivering and feeling pretty low, so I said nothing as we walked to the boat and climbed in.
“As soon as we got in the boat the wind stopped blowing just like that. And just like that we reached the shore. And just like that we went from being scared out of our minds to being thunderstruck by what had taken place, just like before.
“I told you, Mark, about the last storm we faced on the Sea of Galilee. It came up suddenly from the West. Waves beat against the boat and it quickly began to fill with water. That time Jesus was with us. He was asleep and we woke him up to help us bale out water. He got up, scolded the wind, and said to the sea “Silence! Shut up!” Things went to a dead calm, just like that. Then he said “Why are you scared? Don’t you believe yet?”
We were terrified when we saw this. We looked at each other and said “Who is this? Even the wind and the sea do what he says.”
This time we fell down and worshipped Jesus saying, “You are really God’s son!”
“We made landfall at Gennesaret and tied the boat up. As soon as we landed people recognized Jesus. They began to bring sick people on stretchers to where they heard he was.
“And Mark, wherever Jesus went, in the villages, towns or open country, people brought their sick to the marketplace and begged him to let them touch the edge of his cloak. And whoever touched the hem became well. The healed were getting up from their stretchers and were running around praising God. You should have seen it.”
Did Jesus have Peter and the other apostles wade into waters over their heads to remove the scales from their eyes? Did he put them through the wringer to squeeze out unbelief? It would seem so.
The Twelve – fishermen, a tax collector, and other regular guys – are sent to districts of Galilee on a kingdom of God mission well outside the range of their experience. This while earthly kingdoms get word of their kingdom message and of the power at work in them. And this while there is news of the arrest and beheading of John the Baptist by Herod.
When the Twelve return to Jesus, he has the group sail to a deserted area for a break away from the constant flow of people. But upon arriving they are met by an enormous crowd that had figured out where they were going. Then the Twelve are asked to provide food for the thousands listening to Jesus.
Having no resources other than a meager five loaves and two fish, the Twelve are assigned by Jesus to have everyone sit down in groups, to pass out the baskets of bread and fish that he hands them, and to collect the leftovers. Menial labor after a lofty mission and no rest for the Twelve.
That evening, Jesus sends the Twelve rowing across a sea that was known for its challenges. (Nature is no respecter of persons except for Jesus.) And on that sea, in the early morning hours, they encounter a ghost-like figure that scares the beJesus into them.
We don’t always get the inner perspective of the disciple’s thoughts and feelings in the gospel of Mark. But in at least two accounts we learn that the Twelve were “terrified” (Mk. 4:41) and “astounded” (Mk. 6:51) by the Who of “Who is this?” and “Who goes there?”
It is one thing to hear about divine revelation in the synagogue, to hear the words He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel (Ps. 103:7). It is quite another to encounter God’s ways and deeds in person. And what the “terrified” and “astounded” Twelve experienced was God’s favor, care, and protection for those he chose to be with.
Peter, a fisherman who spent most of his time on the water in a boat, walked on the water with the Son of God right there urging him to do so and ready to catch him. For, faith is more than floating along on what you think you know.
The Twelve, schooled by each unsettling situation the Teacher had them face – strong winds and a sudden storm at sea, a scary specter, a supply shortage, and steady streams of the sick and sheep without a shepherd – discovered God’s power, His presence, His plenty, and His pity.
To their uncertainty, their fears, their inadequacy, and their helplessness, God’s presence was revealed.
“Who is this?” “Who goes there? “
“Cheer up! It is I AM.
~~~
Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Saul, David, Solomon, Jeroboam, Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Jeremiah were promised the presence of God. The Presence was promised to Jacob:
“Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Genesis 28:15) (Emphasis mine.)
Jesus made the same promise to his followers before he ascended into heaven:
“I am with you, every single day, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20)
And beyond . . .
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. (Rev. 21:3) (Emphasis mine.)
The Real Presence is with you in the Holy Eucharist. Jesus is literally and wholly present—body and blood, and divinity—in the elements of bread and wine.
The age-to-age continuum of God’s promise of presence with us, expressing His covenant faithfulness, is the premise of our faith. He will not abandon us. The praxis of knowing that – living by faith – operates within The Presence continuum.
~~~
The time the Twelve spent with Jesus was eye-opening – but not always mind’s eye opening.
After Mark tells us that the apostles were overwhelmed with astonishment (having just watched Jesus walking on the water) he adds a comment (Mk. 6:52): they didn’t understand what Jesus had done with the fishes and loaves – their hearts were hardened.
Mark doesn’t explain this last note. Maybe, when presented with the existential reality of what took place that afternoon, the Twelve chose to ignore it or had no place in their imagination for it. Or maybe, their hearts were hardened by God.
Recall that during the Ten Plagues of Egypt, Pharoah’s heart was hardened by God and remained that way even after Pharoah’s magicians threw in the towel when they couldn’t fabricate further “miracles”:
The magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is God’s doing.” But Pharaoh was stubborn and wouldn’t listen. Just as God had said
Exodus 9:15-16 gives us the reason why Pharoah’s heart was hardened. God tells Moses to confront Pharaoh and tell him the following:
You know that by now I could have struck you and your people with deadly disease and there would be nothing left of you, not a trace. But for one reason only I’ve kept you on your feet: To make you recognize my power so that my reputation spreads in all the Earth. You are still building yourself up at my people’s expense. (Emphasis mine.)
We don’t know why the Twelve couldn’t take in what had happened that afternoon. But I wonder: did they later recollect that experience and understand the multiplication of loaves and fishes in the context of the Exodus? God fed thousands in the wilderness.
Did they later recollect their experiences (walking on water, Jesus intending to pass by the boat, disclosure of God’s presence with them, a healing hem) and understand them in context of the Exodus?
God controlled nature (the Red Sea) so that Israel can walk through/on it.
God revealed Himself to Moses as “I Am” in a physical phenomenon (a burning bush).
Israelites were healed by a physical object – by looking at a snake made of fiery copper (Num.21-4-9),
With the events described by Peter in Mark’s gospel and the events of Israel’s history, Jesus’ kingdom mission for the world is equated with the Exodus mission of rescue and redemption for Israel.
The Old Testament is often maligned as an outmoded and even dangerous text. Best-selling authors like Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, and Derrick Jensen are prime examples of those who find the Old Testament to be problematic to modern sensibilities. In his new book Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor UP, 2014), Iain W. Provan counters that such easy and popular readings misunderstand the Old Testament
Discussed in this podcast are three books authored by OT scholar Iain Proven:
The Left’s daily (MSNBC, CNN, The View, WaPo, NYT, etc.) Two Minutes Hate directed at Donald J. Trump, MAGA, “rural whites” and at a democracy and a Supreme Court that allows them to lose power has become kinetic.
According to The New Republic, Trump is the next Hitler. The Left trotted out Rober DeNiro to spew his hatred of Trump. MAGA, rural white Americans, people praying at abortion clinics are called “domestic terrorists” and “extremists.”. Dehumanization is the very coin of the realm for progressives.
Theater director Oskar Eustis put on a version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar portraying the Roman leader as Trump, complete with a bloody assassination, the same year.
While in the United Kingdom in 2017, Johnny Depp asked a festival audience, “When was the last time an actor assassinated a president? … [I]t’s been a while and maybe it’s time”—referencing the murder of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth.
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) July 18, 2024
Those of us who love our country and would vote for Trump are constantly being lectured by academics and journalists about being full of “rage”, of wanting a “civil war”, of being a “threat to democracy”, and of not being good little Christians. It is the Left (and NeverTrumpers) that never recoils from hate. Never. To wit:
Here’s the shooter saying that he hates Republicans, he hates Trump and “you’ve got the wrong guy.”
Sam Faddis: “I am not an expert in protective details. I have worked with them extensively in the field. I also have well in excess of thirty years of experience in clandestine operations, both preventing them and carrying them out on enemy soil. From that perspective, let me ask some questions about what happened yesterday in Butler, Pennsylvania when Donald Trump came within a hair’s breadth of being assassinated.”
How did the shooter know he could safely and securely occupy the elevated firing position from which he shot?
How is it possible Secret Service left an elevated firing position in proximity to the stage unsecured?
Why were the Secret Service agents on stage so slow to react?
Shooter was bear crawling across a roof, just outside the venue, with a rifle in his hands. Eyewitness and his friends were screaming at the police and Secret Service for 2 to 3 minutes.
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) July 14, 2024
Melania Trump:
“A monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine attempted to ring out Donald’s passion – his laughter, ingenuity, love of music, and inspiration. The core facets of my husband’s life – his human side – were buried below the political machine. Donald, the generous and caring man who I have been with through the best of times and the worst of times. . ..
. . . “Dawn is here again. Let us reunite. Now. This morning, ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence. We all want a world where respect is paramount, family is first, and love transcends.
If we were leftists and we were to use leftist tropes to editorialize the recent attempt on Trump’s life, then we would frame the assassination attempt in the following way:
We have witnessed for years blatant exceptions to the once common custom that we don’t normalize the imagined killing of any president or presidential candidate and thus lower the bar of violence.
But the Left constantly makes Trump an exception. Now, it as if the imagined killing of Trump had been mainstreamed and become acceptable in a way inconceivable of other presidents.
(Do we remember the rodeo clown who merely wore an Obama mask during a bull riding contest and was punished by being permanently banned by the Missouri State Fair authorities?)
So since at least 2016 there has been a parlor game among Leftist celebrities and entertainers joking (one hopes), dreaming, imagining, and just talking about the various and graphic ways they would like to assassinate or seriously injure Trump:
By slugging his face (Robert De Niro), by decapitation (Kathy Griffin, Marilyn Manson), by stabbing (Shakespeare in the Park), by clubbing (Mickey Rourke), by shooting ( Snoop Dogg), by poisoning (Anthony Bourdain), by bounty killing (George Lopez), by carrion eating his corpse (Pearl Jam), by suffocating (Larry Whilmore), by blowing him up (Madonna, Moby), by throwing him over a cliff (Rosie O’Donnell), just by generic “killing” him (Johnny Depp, Big Sean), or by martyring him (Reid Hoffman: “Yeah, I wish I had made him an actual martyr.”).
Or should we deplore the use of telescopic scope imagery, given that the Left blamed Sarah Palin for once using bullseye spots on an election map of opposition congressional districts, claiming that such usage had incited the mass shooting by Jared Lee Loughner?
Yet, recently POTUS Joe Biden was a little bit more graphic and a lot more literal.
In a widely reported call to hundreds of donors last week, Biden boasted, “I have one job, and that’s to beat Donald Trump. I’m absolutely certain I’m the best person to be able to do that. So, we’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”
“In a bullseye?” At least, Biden did not go back to the full Biden beat-up porn of the past (e.g., “If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him”/ “The press always asks me, ‘Don’t I wish I were debating him?’ No, I wish we were in high school – I could take him behind the gym. That’s what I wish.”).
Then there is the question of the Secret Service and one’s political opponents. Given the tragic history of the Kennedys, why in the world did the Biden administration not insist that third-party candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. be accorded Secret Service protection? Because his candidacy was felt to be disadvantageous to Biden?
And why just this April would the former head of the January 6th Committee and 2004 election obstructionist Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) introduce legislation ridiculously entitled, “Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable (DISGRACED) Former Protectees Act” to strip away Secret Service protection for former President Trump and by this April current leading presidential candidate?
Had Thompson’s bill passed, would that not have been confirmation for a potential shooter to feel his task was just made much easier?
But in a wider sense, if the common referent day after day on the Left is that Trump is another Hitler (cf. a recent The New Republic cover where Trump is literally photoshopped as Hitler), then it seems reckless not to imagine an unhinged or young shootist believing that by taking out somewhat identical to one of the greatest mass murderers in history, he would be applauded for his violence?
So is their logic, shoot Trump and save six million from the gas chambers?
After all, The New Republic defiantly explained their Hitler-Trump cover photo this way, “Today, we at The New Republic think we can spend this election year in one of two ways. We can spend it debating whether Trump meets the nine or 17 points that define fascism. Or we can spend it saying, “He’s damn close enough, and we’d better fight.”
Well, New Republic, recently someone took you up on your argument that Trump was “damn close enough” to Hitler and so he likewise chose to “fight”— albeit with a semi-automatic rifle.
If ad nauseam, a Joy Reid is screaming about Trump as a Hitlerian dictator (“Then let me know who I got to vote for to keep Hitler out of the White House”) or Rachel Maddow is bloviating about studying Hitler to understand Trump, then finally the message sinks in that a mass murderer is about to take power—unless….
Finally, the idea, if true, that bystanders spotted a 20-year-old on a nearby roof with a gun, a mere 130 yards from Trump, and in vain warned police of his presence, is surreal.
Is it all that hard for the Secret Service to post a few agents on the tops of a few surrounding buildings closest to the dais, or at least coordinate with local law enforcement to do the same?
That is a no brainer. Whoever made the decisions concerning the proper secret service security details for presidential events should be immediately fired.
~~~
Was Corey Comperatore one of those “Christian nationalists,” one of those “extremists,” one of those “threats to democracy” that armchair academics and haughty journalists and talking heads warn us about?
‘A real-life superhero’: Retired fire chief Corey Comperatore killed by would-be assassin at Trump rally, took bullet to save wife, daughter
“He was a man of God, loved Jesus fiercely, and also looked after our church and our members as family.”
Heart wrenching dissection of the assassination attempt on President Trump shows grave compromise by the security agents. I completely agree with this compelling expert analysis. Further revelation has shown that attendees even saw the gunman on rooftop before shooting. While condemning this dastardly act in the most strongest terms, I pray for President Trump’s quick recovery.
Heart wrenching dissection of the assassination attempt on President Trump shows grave compromise by the security agents. I completely agree with this compelling expert analysis. Further revelation has shown that attendees even saw the gunman on rooftop before shooting. While… pic.twitter.com/XfqJ0IgFUX
President Trump speaks publicly for first time since shooting.
'In many ways it changes your attitude, your viewpoint on life. And I think, honestly, I think you appreciate God even more.'pic.twitter.com/uzTVUbFHqV
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) July 18, 2024
Note: Post to be updated as more information is released.
Land utilization and farming came into view during the past few months.
This spring, two housing developments sprung up near my home. Both residential sites are located on a small amount of previously open and undeveloped acreage. Multi-level multi-family townhomes were built on both sites.
The site nearest my home has ten three-story multiplexes. Three units are six-family across and seven units are five-family across. I imagine that from a drone’s aerial view the development would look like ten brown Monopoly hotels all crowded onto a single board property.
As of today, all of the townhomes are sold except for two. And that has me wondering why anyone would spend the kind of money they are asking to live in a townhome on a densely occupied tree-less lot next to a busy state highway and across from a bowling alley and surrounded by commercial enterprises including a car dealership, a cell phone store, and fast-food restaurants.
The other housing development, just down the road from me, is built on one corner of an intersection.
There are seven two-story structures – four are duplexes and three are single family townhomes. The second story space is reduced by a double-pitched roof, making it a small bedroom or an attic with a window.
The seven buildings are arranged three-in-a row facing three-in-a row: duplex – single – duplex with one single family townhome sitting at the end facing down between the two rows. The townhomes are bunched together on just a handful of acres. I can walk across the property in forty seconds.
Between the three units in a row there is roughly twelve feet of grass. Between the front doors of the two rows of units that face each other there is roughly twenty-five feet of grass with a sidewalk like a main street going down the middle. A driveway circles around the back of the seven duplexes to connect with the garages. And that, not the once grassy open space, is what one sees from the intersection.
The small white townhomes are odd-looking – like play houses built for a close-knit family of dolls. I imagine little people living there.
Both of these nearby housing projects had me wondering about land use. What was presented to the city. Did the city actually agree to use up these open spaces for these quirky looking residential units? Did the city want more tax revenue and so they OK’d these revolting developments?
I understand the need for new housing and new development. I understand that developers will develop and city planners will plan. What I don’t understand is jamming things together and a lack of aesthetic judgement. The loss of open pastoral space and the filling of it with replicative boxes touched me in some visceral way. I need to explore this in another post.
Another bit of land use, or maybe I should say land abuse, came into focus these past months as I watched the first three seasons of Clarkson’s Farm – that’s Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddley Squat farm.
Jeremy Clarkson is best known for his work as a presenter on the BBC TV show “Top Gear.”
“Top Gear” become synonymous with adrenaline-fueled challenges, witty banter, and heart-pounding car reviews.
JC ventured into agrarian life with his TV series “Clarkson’s Farm,” which debuted on Amazon Prime Video in 2021. The series follows Clarkson as he attempts to run a 1,000-acre farm in the Cotswolds, despite having no prior farming experience. The show provides an honest, humorous look at the challenges of modern farming, from uncooperative weather to complex agricultural machinery, showcasing Clarkson’s journey of successes, failures, and learning alongside his charismatic farmhand, Kaleb Cooper.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching Jeremy Clarkson’s Amazon TV Show – Clarkson’s Farm. I learned a bit about farming. Clarkson deals with crops, animal husbandry, a huge number of regulations and trying to eke out a profit. I found the program far more interesting than a farming documentary.
Note: Clarkson, who is quite a character, habitually punctuates his setbacks and unpleasant surprises with a curse.
From an AGWeb report By SARA SCHAFER July 29, 2022:
From 2001 to 2016, the U.S. lost or compromised 2,000 acres of farmland and ranchland every day. That adds up to 11 million acres of farmland that has been paved over, fragmented or developed, according to research by American Farmland Trust.
If that trend continues, and another 18.4 million acres is converted between 2016 and 2040 — an area nearly the size of South Carolina . . .
“Nearly half of the conversion will occur on the nation’s most productive, versatile and resilient farmland,” says John Piotti, president of American Farmland Trust.
Here’s an Ambrook Research Podcast w/Sarah K Mock, a freelance agriculture writer, podcaster, and author of Big Team Farms and Farm (and Other F Words) who answers that question.
Advocates are sounding the alarm — we’re losing millions of acres of farmland, and it’s an existential threat to our food supply. How worried should we be?
James and Helen Rebanks talk about raising sheep and cattle in the Lake District. James describes the landscape where their families have lived for six hundred years, and how they have begun practicing regenerative agriculture as a way of restoring the land that recent conventional agriculture had damaged. He gives details about the sheep and cattle herds and the grazing systems they’ve established.
Then Helen describes what led her to write her book on the work of the farmer’s wife, and addresses mothers, who are often the ones making choices about food that are linked to questions of sustainable agriculture.
Indiana lost about 345,700 acres of farmland to other purposes between 2010 and 2022, but agricultural productivity still increased, the state found in a study released Monday.
Most of it was lost to residential development around the edges of cities and suburban areas, according to the Indiana State Department of Agriculture (ISDA).
The state’s five biggest farmland losers included Allen, Elkhart, Jefferson, Knox and Monroe counties.
Lawmakers last year tasked the Indiana State Department of Agriculture with creating the inventory.
The agency recommended the following:
Due to a steady increase in population and continued economic growth, ISDA recommends the legislature pass legislation directing ISDA to update the Inventory of Lost Farmland every five years, starting in 2029 for a report to be published in 2030.
Consider prime farmland and its location in Indiana including the total number of acres in the state. According to USDA, in 2017 Indiana had approximately 12.56 million acres of prime cropland, pastureland, forestland, and other rural land.
Involve local units of government in the farmland preservation conversation. Indiana is a homerule state, and most land use decisions are made at the local level. No two counties are the same and neither are their comprehensive plans, zoning ordinances or land use decisions.
Consider what is an alarming level of lost farmland acres as it pertains to food security. When should a county, state or the country be concerned?
Consider advances in technology and innovation that have allowed farms to produce more with less acres.
Wilder Doddington is at the start of a hundred year project to bring more nature back to the Doddington Estate – working to restore ecosystems to benefit people and nature. In this programme ffinlo Costain is joined by Wilder Doddington’s Isobel Wright and the independent farm advisor, Liz Genever, who’s working with Isobel and advising on cattle management. The conversation ranges from the exciting activity at Wilder Doddington to a discussion about some of the more controversial aspects of the rewilding movement.
Be aware: The over ten million illegal aliens who have invaded our borders will overload healthcare systems in the U.S. These systems will go bankrupt. Taxpayers will be expected to make up the shortfall.
The report states that the Biden administration funneled tens of millions of taxpayer money to facilitate illegal entry into the U.S. and also provided “support services” to illegal foreign nationals “at the expense of border security and public safety.”. . .
A separate Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services report found that “emergency services for undocumented aliens” added up to $7 billion in fiscal 2021 and $5.4 billion in fiscal 2022, with taxpayer money funding at least $8 billion in improper Medicaid payouts (10% of the nation’s total of $80 billion).
The decision had been widely expected after the former nuncio to the United States refused to participate in the trial against him, saying that he “did not recognize the authority” of the dicastery or its prefect, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, or Pope Francis. (Emphasis mine.)
“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 
The Not Trump Candidate
September 29, 2024 Leave a comment
Let’s say you are all in on the Not Trump candidate being elected. The trustworthy and unbiased media and DOJ have endlessly vilified the other candidate. Based on this, you see yourself above that “foul” candidate and his supporters. Your image – self and public – and your world must be protected.
Let’s say you have chosen to accept what people in the media are saying: “Trump and Christian Nationalists are a threat to Democracy.” And though Democracy didn’t fall during Trump’s first term and the nation didn’t become a theocracy and Democrats, the democracy-must-be-destroyed-to-Save-Democracy party, perverted Democracy to steal the 2020 election, you have chosen to believe that Democracy is now threatened by Trump and his kind because there are those who say so.
Let’s say you’re all in with the Not-Trump candidate and the “Save Democracy” party, the self-proclaimed protectors of democratic norms (that ensured that there would not be an open Democratic primary . . . so democracy can die in darkness).
Let’s say you are OK with all this and you will look-in-the-mirror-of-your-world and see yourself as respectable for voting Not Trump. You’ve come to view your version of Christianity/Progressivism as not all that destructive. It is simply a way to be open-minded and to “Love Your Neighbor.”
Economics is over your head but you’ve heard the Not Trump candidate say “equity” “fair share” “price-gouging” and “opportunity economy.” And though under the Not Trump administration, inflation has reached its highest point since 1981, the high cost of living burdening millions of Americans, and the country has entered a recession, and the Not Trump candidate is clueless about economics, you go with the Not Trump flow because Not Trump.
Abortion, borders, and national sovereignty are annoying issues the Right brings up and so you avoid them. You have a higher calling. You are all in on existential and emotion-driven causes: climate change regulations, racial power structures, “unity”, “being nice”, “creation care”, and welcoming all illegal migrants without worrying about how to care for them.
Let’s say you are all in on the Not-Trump candidate and The New Way Forward. What does that look like?
Imagine. You own a business with employees and overhead to pay for and government comes in and says your pricing is too high. (Would they do this to Harvard?) You are accused of “price-gouging.” What do you do? To avoid expensive and extended litigation, you drop prices. Revenue is subsequently reduced. But, labor, materials, and overhead costs haven’t changed. To keep your business operating you cut employee benefits. You then cut the labor force. You then sell assets. Not hard to imagine. The New Way Forward is government saying it owns you and your business.
Accusing companies and corporations of taking advantage of people (Kamala, AOC, Liz Warren, et al.) with “price-gouging” verbal attacks is a ploy by autocratic politicians to take control of your bottom line in order to make them and their governing policies look good.
For, government will never accept responsibility for the high prices created with its enormous spending and dollar printing. The Fed has printed an incredible amount of money to buy the debt the US Treasury issues. And every time it does it expands the money supply, devalues the dollar, and drives up interest rates and inflation.
But, it’s the “price-gouging grocers” — as Team Harris would have you believe — and not the excessive government spending.
Remember: Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) which increased inflation of prices.
Joe Biden said, at a New Mexico fundraiser, that “[The Inflation Reduction Act] has nothing to do with inflation.” “It has to do with the $368 billion, the single-largest investment in climate change anywhere in the world.”
Price-gouging? That is what Biden-Harris economics have done to all of us with their policies.
Since Biden took office, prices have risen nearly 20 percent, a number that, when checked against stagnant wage growth, puts the real effect of inflation at some of the worst levels we’ve seen in decades. Inflation is often described as the “hidden tax” because it takes away purchasing power from citizens not through taking away money directly but via a devaluation of the money that citizens already have.
You Won’t Believe Kamala Harris and Merrick Garland’s Latest Trick to Avoid Blame for Inflation… – Revolver News
One of the major stressors for families is cost of living. From a recent report issued by the surgeon general:
Over the last decade, parents have been consistently more likely to report experiencing high levels of stress compared to other adults. 33% of parents reporting high levels of stress in the past month compared to 20% of other adults. When stress is severe or prolonged, it can have a harmful effect on the mental health of parents and caregivers, which in turn also affects the well- being of the children they raise.
The report, in general, mentions several stress-inducing factors including “financial strain and economic instability.” It doesn’t mention the price-gouging inflation caused by the Biden-Harris regime. It just talks about more government solutions.
(Aren’t laws that impose an increase in the minimum wage also “price-gouging”? Labor costs are passed on to the customer.)
Not hard to imagine the major stress created by the Not Trump president.
~~~
Imagine. You are watching a debate and your choice of presidential candidate, the current Vice President, is asked, “Do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?” and she responds saying, “I was raised as a middle-class kid.”
Kamala Harris couldn’t provide a coherent response to during the debate.
(BTW: Harris was raised by two parents with PhDs and lived in a well-off neighborhood.)
~~~
Imagine. You are at an Economic Club of Pittsburgh event that is hosting the Vice President. She is there to talk about her economic agenda and says:
“We need to guard that spirit. We have to guard that spirit. Let it always inspire us. Let it always be the source of our optimism, which is that spirit that is uniquely American. Let that then inspire us by helping us to be inspired to solve the problems that so many face, including our small business owners.”
~~~
Imagine. Our “serious thinker” Vice President as President and she can’t explain her economic policies because she doesn’t understand economics (only how to repeat ideological jargon) and “wholistically” speaks Kamalawocky:
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen
I am the walrus, goo-goo g’joob
Imagine Not Trump in a room with world leaders.
“I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.”
So, price controls are still on the table?: Jesse Watters (youtube.com)
~~~
Imagine a candidate for president who hasn’t released any tax policies. The candidate’s s New Way Forward is based on tax provisions in Biden’s 2025 budget proposal, which include a tax on unrealized capital gains, as reported in Axios, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal .
As proposed, the UCG tax applies only to individuals with at least $100 million in wealth who do not pay at least a 25% tax rate on their income (inclusive of unrealized capital gains). There are exemptions. Basically, it would not apply to the holdings of most startup founders or investors or on real estate based on certain conditions.
But nothing happens in isolation.
Certainly, a more complex tax code would burden the IRS (and likely encourage more tax money for the IRS) and would discourage investment in growing businesses. Many would invest in safer financial instruments such as government bonds rather than in risky new technology and innovation (energy sources, biopharmaceuticals, etc.) that produce great benefits.
Florida Atlantic University College of Business professor Siri Terjesen wrote in July 2024 that the UCG tax would act like a “kill-switch for entrepreneurship.” She said that “Investors may be less likely to invest in growth-oriented ventures due to greater swings in valuation compared to larger, established companies.”
The new tax on unrealized gains could hasten the selling of assets by investors for tax reasons rather than legitimate business reasons.
The new tax would penalize individuals for owning assets that appreciate, regardless of whether those assets are sold.
Behind the money grab is the argument that tax-free accumulation of wealth over generations intensifies income-and-wealth disparities in the U.S. (When government takes control of people’s wealth and plays favorites, the income-and-wealth disparity is exacerbated.)
It’s not hard to imagine that the Not Trump candidate’s administration, by taxing the “paper” gains, the unrealized gains of the top 0.01% of taxpayers in the country, will not use that tax revenue to pay off the enormous budget deficit but will instead, redistribute the money for “votes.”
~~~
Imagine. Someone removes the firewall and all network security designed to monitor, filter, and control incoming and outgoing network traffic from your computer. The firewall sits between a trusted network and an untrusted network.
Imagine, as president, a Border Czar that presided over a disabled firewall and refused to protect the border, the country and its citizens from untrustworthy traffic.
Biden-Harris Released 13,000+ Convicted Killers Into the U.S. (thenationalpulse.com)
Imagine a candidate so inept and careless that the best thing she can do is cackle when asked about the U.S. border.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here:
Flooding small American towns with a diaspora from the most violent, economically deprived nation in the Western Hemisphere is, for the Democrats, the best answer to economic stagnation in Middle America.
A Warning to America – Restoration, with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (restorationbulletin.com)
~~~
Imagine. The 2024 Democratic presidential nominee and current Vice President claimed during a debate that, “There is not one member of the military who is in active duty in a combat zone in any war zone around the world for the first time this century.”
Was she not aware of “war zone” troops currently deployed?
The Biden-Harris regime did recklessly withdraw from the major Afghanistan War in August 2021. But there are U.S. troops stationed across the Middle East and other countries, mostly in counter-terrorism roles, according to a December 2023 White House War Powers Act report.
Thousands of U.S. troops remain in harm’s way. Hundreds have been under attack this year alone. Three died in January.
FACT CHECK: Kamala Harris Claims There Are Zero U.S. Troops In Combat Zones In War Zones | Check Your Fact
~~~
Imagine a Not Trump president who supports censorship.
So far, Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden have said absolutely nothing about this attack on free speech in Brazil, and now we likely know why: they approve of it.
This video clip below is proof that Kamala Harris would support Brazil’s nationwide ban on X. And if you don’t think the same could happen here, you haven’t been paying attention.
Video proof that Harris would support Brazil’s nationwide ban on X… – Revolver News
What’s coming under Not Trump: “Democracy” defined as one voice and one narrative coming down from above.
/
~~~
Finally, imagine the Not Trump candidate as Lemony Snicket’s failed actor Count Olaf and the New Way Forward as a series of very burdened by what has been unfortunate events. Imagine the transformation of America into a one-party socialist oligarchy. Imagine yourself as a serf in your own country all because of Not Trump.
~~~~~
Michael Walsh Exposes the Corporate Media
Host Scot Bertram talks with Paul Moreno, the William and Berniece Grewcock Chair in Constitutional History, professor of history, and dean of social sciences at Hillsdale College, about Kamala Harris’s proposed reforms to the U.S. Supreme Court. Michael Walsh, journalist and screenwriter, discusses the dangers of the evolving media landscape and his new book Against the Corporate Media: Forty-two Ways the Press Hates You. And Elizabeth Edwards Spalding, ’88, chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and founding director of the Victims of Communism Museum, tells us about her work and accepting Hillsdale College’s 2024 Elizebeth Smith Friedman Freedom Award.
Home – Hillsdale College Podcast Network
Against the Corporate Media: Forty-two Ways the Press Hates You: Walsh, Michael: 9798888454213: Amazon.com: Books
~~~~~
https://modernity.news/2024/09/12/cnns-tapper-slams-kamala-for-dodging-questions-during-debate/
DANA BASH: “You’ve been Vice President for three and half years. The steps that you are talking about now, why haven’t you done them already?” KAMALA: “I’m very proud of the work we have done.”
The Significance of the Passage of Time – Kunstler
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Filed under 2024 Current Events, 2024 Election, Economics, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with border, capital gains tax, Democracy, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Economics, Election 2024, Evangelicals for Harris, inflation, Joe Biden, Kamala harris, news, politics, price-gouging, Trump