Flashes of green and purple outline the slacken faces in the crowd. They bob their heads off-rhythm and stare into the distance. Blue light cracks across the stage as a man taps my shoulder and gargles, “You know honey, it’s okay to smile”. It’s in this moment that I feel as though this decision was a mistake.
The idea of going to a rave had been bounced around in our friend group for a couple weeks. To us, raves were an essential bucket list item. They seemed revelous. A night filled with exhilarating music and entrancing lights. When given the opportunity to finally check that box, we jumped.
The night before the event, we ventured to the Mall of America to pick out our outfits. This was the most exciting part and ramped up the anticipation for the event. Surrounded by neons and metallics, with only 40 minutes to decide, I picked out a combination of fishnets, holistic tulle, and silver.
The quintessential rave item is kandi. These beaded bracelets come in every color and design and symbolize the rave culture, PLURR (peace, love, unity, respect, and responsibility). After hearing about my rave intentions, one of my close friends made me five beautiful kandi bracelets to complete my dream.
Kandi trading comes with meaning. It commemorates a connection made with someone at a rave. Going into the Skyway Theater in downtown Minneapolis, this was my idea of what a rave would be: a place filled with loud music and a special atmosphere of unity.
The reality was very much not what I had idealized. Walking onto the floor was a deafening experience, literally. The first five minutes were the most euphoric of my life — then took an exponential nose-dive.
After breaking trance from the electric music, I realized how boring it was. The DJ playing had an evident god complex taller than the skyscraper surrounding us, yet somehow only knew how to blast the base. After subsequently blowing out our eardrums, the only relief was when the main performer, Mitis, came on stage. The room was still too small to find reprieve from the loudness. Even standing in the back felt like my brain was being hijacked by the beat.
When I started to look around, I uneasily began to notice the ratio of men to women. Throngs of men stood in the back silently observing while much fewer girls danced seemingly disembodied. A feeling of fear began to tighten my chest as I realized how outnumbered we were.
I was approached numerous times by older men asking me incoherent questions. When I didn’t respond, they’d drift over to the next group of girls and start the cycle over. They treated us like fruit in a grocery store, eyeing us over, trying to feel our ripeness. I’d never felt my gender and age as such vulnerabilities before.
After an hour, all four of us jammed ourselves in a dilapidated 4×3 bathroom stall and made an exit plan. We were far too sober for the chaos around us and the rave was not at all the movie-moment we desired. We needed to binge Insomnia Cookies and sleep.
While I’m not warded off of raves completely, I don’t think I’ll be attending another one in the Twin Cities. The rave life in Minneapolis is nothing like the traditional EDM festivals like Mysteryland and Tomorrowland. There are a lot fewer people, with the attendees being mostly in their 30s. No one wore kandi, which was the most disappointing part, and there wasn’t any unity in the experience.
Above anything else, it made me realize my place in the world that I live in. It seems unjust that I had to fear so much for my safety in a crowd of 500 people simply because of my gender. The lack of security provided increased the anxiety-inducing factors. The fashion, the getting ready process, and the people made the night wonderful, but I could have done without the rave.
I can’t get into paper books unless it’s PDF off archive.org. Mom says no. My certification books are outdated. Still have all my college books. I have some novels like those ones on goodreads.com. Now I collect Dungeons and Dragons books now like the Players manual, monster manual, Xanathar book of everything, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition, Eberron: Rising from the Last War. and Streams of Silver. and the famous Icewind Dale Crystal Shard. There is the Dork Den in Mankato, Minnesota. I go there for D&D groups, but the books there cost $50 new so I find second hand D&D books at $11 to $27. Saving for visitors. This better make me friends. In the 2000s, Game Quest and D&D books, but during that era I was collecting N64, Genesis, Super Nintendo, Playstation 2, and Gamecube. And I’m 8 months away from age 40.
It’s been a particularly rough week for former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and her obsession about January 6. Her narrative is collapsing, especially as she tried to bury evidence regarding former and potentially future President Donald Trump’s security plans for that day. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), who chairs the Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight, also shared a report his committee did about “the politicization of the January 6th Select Committee.”
The American people deserve the entire truth about Jan. 6.
Instead of conducting a genuine investigation, the former Select Committee was focused on their predetermined narrative of legislatively prosecuting former President Trump.
Multiple key findings focused on the supposed “star witness” Cassidy Hutchinson, who has changed her testimony. Her testimony was also contradicted by U.S. Secret Service agents. Yet she was still considered credible by the Select Committee. The report also mentions embattled Fulton County DA Fani Willis, who, looked to meet with the Select Committee. As Mia has been covering, Willis is facing her own issues in her case against Trump, with Judge Scott McAfee having just dismissed some of the charges.
“The American people deserve the entire truth about Jan. 6,” Loudermilk posted, though it doesn’t appear as if Cheney, who served as the vice chair of that dismantled Select Committee, would agree. Rather, she has a narrative to uphold, as evidenced by her onslaught of fiery posts, which our sister site of Twitchy has been covering at length.
Cheney’s most recent post, from Tuesday morning, which she herself also reposted, comes with a particularly nasty and steep charge about not being on America’s side.
“If your response to Trump’s assault on our democracy is to lie & cover up what he did, attack the brave men & women who came forward with the truth, and defend the criminals who violently assaulted the Capitol, you need to rethink whose side you’re on. Hint: It’s not America’s,” her post read as she ironically brought up “truth.”
There’s already been close to 15,000 replies and close to 1,000 quoted replies of people having had enough of her talking points.
If your response to Trump’s assault on our democracy is to lie & cover up what he did, attack the brave men & women who came forward with the truth, and defend the criminals who violently assaulted the Capitol, you need to rethink whose side you’re on. Hint: It’s not America’s.— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) March 12, 2024
Although such a post doesn’t call out Loudermilk, or anyone, posts from the former congresswoman did specifically call out conservatives like Mark Levin and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).
If you had hoped that Cheney was going anywhere, think again, though she doesn’t seem to be aware her influence in the Republican Party has been completely dwindling. Her narratives have been discredited, and let’s not forget that she lost her primary in August 2022 to now Rep. Harriet Hageman by nearly 40 points. In May of 2021 she had also been replaced by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) in her role as the House Republican Conference chairwoman, a role which Stefanik still holds today.
Trump just clinched the nomination on Tuesday night though, after his primary win in Washington state, which means we can likely expect even more ranting from Cheney about how he is supposedly a threat to democracy.
Cheney has even hinted she herself may run for president, though only if it doesn’t help Trump. It’s a question she has been asked since even before she lost her primary. On Wednesday morning, The Hill published a piece highlighting how “Cheney fuels speculation about her next move,” specifically as to if that means she’ll endorse President Joe Biden for president.
It certainly doesn’t look like she’ll be endorsing Trump, like some even still delusionally hope she might do. Her post from March 6, still the pinned post from her X account, makes clear she looks to “ensure Donald Trump is never anywhere near the Oval Office again” as she invited people to support her organization, The Great Task. Such a post conveniently came right as former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley had dropped her bid for the Republican nomination.
The GOP has chosen. They will nominate a man who attempted to overturn an election and seize power. We have eight months to save our republic & ensure Donald Trump is never anywhere near the Oval Office again. Join me in the fight for our nation’s freedom. https://t.co/V4otPCFdY6— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) March 6, 2024
It marked the end of an experiment that lasted almost a century testing the premise that godless secularization, turning control of people’s lives over to other people to rule them, who decide what others need and how they should live and conduct their lives, is the answer for mankind.
In the free world, the collapse of the Soviet Union was cause for celebration. In the USA, it was widely viewed as a victory of the American way of life — a free nation under God.
But let’s not get confused between things and the names we give them.
Our own country — despite the words in our founding documents about freedom and God — has been on a path adopting the same premises about human reality that lead to the collapse of the communist world.
This was evident in President Joe Biden’s message to the nation in his State of the Union address.
Biden, in so many words, delivered a message that the path for a better, wealthier, fairer America is more government.
Despite the reality that the country is being crushed with staggering debt, the result of runaway government, Biden and his party celebrate this and want even more.
The words find their way into numbers in the budget for the next 10 years that the president has just submitted to Congress.
Federal spending in this budget will stand in fiscal year 2025 at $7.3 trillion. One-quarter of our national economy consumed by the federal government.
This amounts to a 14% increase from where federal spending stood in the last quarter of 2023 — $6.4 trillion.
Per the president’s spokesperson in the White House, this budget “invests in all of America to make sure everyone has a fair shot, we leave no one behind.”
Translation: government will accumulate more power and decide what is fair and achieve its aims with more government paid for with other people’s money.
The beautiful language of leaving “no one behind” means government expansion into every area of our lives, including subsidized child care for families earning $200,000 and below.
The bill for the massive new spending, per the president’s budget, will be paid for with a total of $4.9 trillion in tax increases on the wealthy and on corporations.
I say “supposedly paid for” because expansion of government under the premises of raising taxes on the most successful sectors of our economy never works.
Renown economist Arthur Laffer and Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore just published data showing that when President Donald Trump cut the highest individual tax rate and cut the corporate tax rate in 2017, the percentage of overall taxes paid by the wealthiest 1% of the population increased.
Before the Trump tax cuts, the top 1 % paid “a little more than 40% of the income taxes collected,” per Laffer and Moore.
After the tax cuts, that percentage increased to almost 46%.
This was not something new. Laffer and Moore show data going back to 1980 showing general correlation of lower top tax rates with a larger percentage of overall taxes paid by the top 1%.
Freedom means unleashing productivity and creativity. Absence of freedom means punishing both and therefore getting less of both.
It’s why the Soviet Union collapsed. Godless secularism doesn’t work.
The latest edition of CURE’s “The State of Black Progress” shows the uniform failure of expansion of government into health care, education, housing and retirement, all in the name of “fairness” and no one being “left behind.”
The truth really is it’s more than this. It’s about politicians who love power buying it with gifts given with other people’s money. Harsh to say, but this is reality.
Only 19% of Americans are satisfied with the direction of the country, per Gallup.
Most Americans feel something is wrong. We need leadership to take us back to freedom and God.
After 10 years wait of QT 6.6.2 and KDE Plasma 6.0.1 running in Virtual Box, there is a black screen with the desktop..unusable. This disaster wasn’t happening in 2006 with KDE 4.0.
The Heritage foundation is a think tank with a clear bias when it comes to American politics. They’re not a reliable source for facts. And the other sources don’t say what you’re asserting. —Aquillion (talk) 03:40, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
Democracies don’t have 435 Congressmen in House of Representatives with who knows how many districts that are supposed to be loyal to voters. Then USA has without any vote of no confidence like in parliament so that’s not democracies. 3 branches of government. In US there is impeachment. Democracies come from Ancient Greece. Ancient Romans have Senators or Senates. No other constitutional republics have God in the writing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Renegadeviking (talk • contribs) 03:56, 4 September 2022 (UTC) First, please sign your comments so we know who is saying what is being said. Second, that you personally feel that it is not a democracy because of whatever criteria is ultimately irrelevant; we go by what reliable sources say, not with what we feel is true. – Aoidh (talk) 04:37, 4 September 2022 (UTC) Except USA has http://keywiki.org. Democrats are trying to erase servers and history. We need the Wayback machine more these days. https://bensguide.gpo.gov/m-constitutionRenegadeviking (talk • contribs) 03:56, 4 September 2022 (UTC) Whatever that website is, and I feel like we’re getting into conspiracy theory territory here, but it’s irrelevant to the point you’re trying to make and does not change why your assertion about democracy and the United States is inaccurate. But we’re getting off track. Do you have an issue with anything in the article, do you have a proposal for an alternate wording or removal of a specific wording, and do you have reliable sources to back up that proposed change? Anything short of that and this discussion should honestly be closed as it’s getting off-topic. – Aoidh (talk) 04:59, 4 September 2022 (UTC) Sorry, that isn’t correct, and doesn’t really make sense. The US is a representative democracy, or a republic. It’s not a direct democracy. But there is a legislature elected by popular election, similar to parliament. And we don’t have a monarchy, unlike the UK, which has a fossilized vestige that could still technically dissolve parliament. Andre🚐 02:08, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
The british have a nice encyclopedia saying its a constitutional republic. https://www.britannica.com/place/United-StatesRenegadeviking (talk • contribs) 03:56, 4 September 2022 (UTC) Democratic Centralism in Marxism-Leninism doesn’t make sense either and that’s not democracy either. Democratic German Republic (east germany) doesn’t make sense as a title, because it’s a dictatorship. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Renegadeviking (talk • contribs) 02:13, 4 September 2022 (UTC)A constitutional republic is a type of democracy. And apparently you’re coming here making statements from Kari Lake[4]. Andre🚐 06:22, 4 September 2022 (UTC) liar. liar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin_(Seattle)Renegadeviking (talk) 21:30, 4 September 2022 (UTC) America is a republic, not a democracy, is a frequent slogan of some elements of the U.S. radical right, such as the John Birch Society. In the end however it comes down to semantics. The way they define it, the U.S. is not a democracy although it is according to how the term is normally understood today. While the discussion is worthy of coverage in Wikipedia, this is not the article to do that. TFD (talk) 13:50, 4 September 2022 (UTC) liar. liar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin_(SeattleRenegadeviking (talk) 21:31, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
It is probably the most misunderstood concept in our Constitutional Republic. I remember being asked to address a group of upper-level undergrad Political Science majors at the University of Miami while I was a member of Congress. My bachelor’s degree and two Masters’ are in Poli Sci with emphasis on international relations, political theory, and military operations. It was a great discussion as the purpose was to highlight how my studies enabled me as a member of Congress. And those of you who know me well know that my faith is an integral part of who I am. God knows that I am far from perfect, but He knows my heart. As to the source of my strength, well, see Joshua 1:9.
During the Q&A portion, there was a young female student who stepped up and asked me if I thought mentioning my Christian faith, as a member of Congress, was a violation of the separation of Church and State. I asked her why she thought so, and where did she find the concept of separation of Church and State? She responded that it was in the US Constitution. I pulled out my pocket Constitution and asked if she would show me where, and warned her it would be awhile because it’s not there. Another student shouted out, “It’s in the Declaration of Independence,” to wit I calmly disagreed, once again. Then I looked over to the professors and instructors with a smile and suggested perhaps the students were not being taught well.
As Executive Director of the American Constitutional Rights Union (ACRU), I just discussed this topic againover the weekend in Marco Island at an event called Worship on the Rock.
Max Weber Economy and Society 1921
Separation of Church and State is not located in any of our founding documents, nor the Federalist Papers. It comes from a letter that the author of the Declaration of Independence, and our third President Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Convention of Connecticut.The Baptists were concerned that those pesky Presbyterians were getting an upper hand in our new fledgling government, and, of course, would seek to elevate their religion. Jefferson wanted to make it clear that would not be the case, that America would not have any state-established religion.
What Jefferson, in his letter, did not want to see happen in our America, was what happened in England under King Henry VIII. When Henry sought a divorce from his wife through the Catholic Church, he was denied. Therefore,he decided to create his very own church, the Church of England, and prescribe his own practices, orders, and dogma as the head of that Church. Since he was also the king, using a little “k,” he ordered his new church to be the official church. Of course, this follows last week’s discussion where we articulated the reason English political philosopher John Locke formulated the Natural Rights Theory, which challenged the prevailing Divine Rights Theory, which Henry firmly enabled.
This is why our very first liberty in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights is the freedom of religion and the free exercise thereof, that Congress shall not establish any religion. Yet, what we face in today’s America is a political philosophy that rejects religion, and faith, to do as Henry did, which is to elevate their ideological agenda. As Henry did, this philosophy seeks to persecute and prosecute any and all who do not ascribe to their belief. Just as Sir Thomas More, advisor to Henry the VIII, was wrongfully accused, tried, convicted, and beheaded for not giving his assent to Henry as his King, with a capital “K.” If you wish to understand, watch the Academy Award winning classic, “A Man for All Seasons”. You can bet that if Hollywood tried to remake that film, the leftists would botch it!
Today’s progressive socialist left, Marxists, parading around as the Democrat party, have established their religion. It is that of dismembering babies in the womb up until birth, and murdering them even afterwards, same-sexmarriage, gender dysphoria and the mutilation of children, and climate change. If you refuse to bow down to their established religion, you will find yourself being persecuted, prosecuted, and in some cases we are seeing, losing your own children. Deuteronomy 30:19 and Psalm 127:3-5 are pretty definitive statements on life. Yet, pro-life supporters are being jailed. Romans 1:18-32 along with 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 are pretty straightforward about human sexuality. If you don’t agree, you get called homophobe, a form of persecution. Gender dysphoria is covered in Genesis 2 and makes it quite clear. If you disagree, then you will be called a “transphobe,” and as we are seeing in Virginia, even a Lieutenant Governor is not safe from leftist persecution when they feel their religion has been violated. Lastly, with respect to climate change, well, if you do not subscribe to man changing the climate, then you are a denier and basically deemed a troglodyte and publicly persecuted.
Perhaps coming to America is another example of leftist, Marxist, persecution of the Christian faith, declaring the Holy Bible contains hate speech. This has already happened in parts of Europe where publicly stating Bible verses that go against the secular humanist leftist religion is a punishable offense. Funny, why is it that leftists have no issue with the Quran, which post-622AD (Medina phase) contains explicit hate speech and violence?Phrases that lead to the type of violence witnessed in the acts of October 7th. Maybe leftists and Islamists are comfortable with advancing their ideologies through acts of violence?
Back in March 2020, the one institution that the government vehemently wanted to shut down, under threat of imprisonment and fining, were churches. Not Home Depot, McDonalds, abortion clinics, or marijuana stores. Consider how absurd — and unconstitutional — for the government to declare churches as “non-essential.” In essence, they ruled that your very first liberty was non-essential. As the Bible says in Hebrews 10:25, “forsake not the assembly of yourselves together.” However, when it comes to the new religion of secular humanism, there is no separation. And isn’t it interesting that churches would seek to appease the government and accept their religion under a misconceived belief of subjugation and moral relativism, or perhaps fear, disregarding the word of God. Too many of those called pastors, ministers, and reverends are not being good shepherds of their flocks orcongregations, but rather offering them to the wolves. Seeing a BLM sign on a church, as was the case in the Dallas area a few years back, is quite perplexing. BLM is an organization founded by self-proclaimed avowed Marxists. Karl Marx despised faith and religion. He referred to it as the “opiate of the masses.” Truth be told, he wanted people to believe that man – government –could create a paradise for them, here on earth. That is bad juju, Tarzan.
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So, in order to instill fear into Christians, the left now has a new denigrating, and disparaging moniker, “Christian Nationalist.” In other words, if you do not ascribe to their religion, they will target you as a domestic threat. Perhaps that is why we see, according to My Faith Votes, that on average in a presidential election cycle, some 25 millionChristians do not vote. They surrender their faith.
My recommendation? Everyone concerned about ending the false narrative of Separation of Church and State, should go out and read the book by my friend, Eric Metaxas, “Letter to the American Church.” Now is the time for courage, not fear. As the Bible says, “perfect love castsout all fear.” Even President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” I believe the apostle Paul said it best in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”
As for me, well, I created this symbol that I award topastors I see standing up for the word of God: the Black Robe Regiment tomahawk. In conjunction with my friend David Storts of iST Laser Engraving, we designed this to be the embodiment of the men of God who left their pulpits during the Revolutionary War. Christian pastors who honor and follow the words of 2 Timothy 4:2-5 (NIV):
“Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of anevangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”
The most recent recipient of the Col. Allen West Black Robe Regiment tomahawk is Pastor Jeff Schwartzentraub founder and Senior Pastor of Brave Church in Cherry Hills,Colorado. I recently attended his service and Pastor Jeff, it is on the way.
Separation of Church and State does not mean we separate our Constitutional Republic from is Judeo-Christian faith heritage. We fight for it, and we vote for its fundamental principles and values that were integral in the establishment of our nation. If doing so angers the progressive socialist left, so be it.
2 Corinthians 3:17 (NIV) says:
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
As Spencer reported, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously 9-0 Monday morning that states cannot take former President Donald Trump off of the 2024 presidential ballot.
In her written opinion on the ruling, Justice Amy Coney Barrett explained the message she believes Americans should take away from the decision.
“In my judgment, this is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency. The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up,” Barrett wrote. “For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.”
All Justices concurred that the states cannot create a “chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles.” A patchwork was rejected because it would “sever the direct link that the Framers found so critical between the National Government and the people of the United States.”
The media isn’t taking the ruling well.
CNN on SCOTUS RULING: “Unfortunately for America, the court isn’t necessarily wrong.”
The Defenders of Democracy™️ are at it again
Denying citizens’ the right to vote for their preferred candidate may be unconstitutional — but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be good for America pic.twitter.com/GvimW4lR9m— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) March 4, 2024
Do you remember your stupid high school government teacher, that insipid left-leaning strange-o in the bad sport jacket who taught you that conservatives don’t want to change and liberals want change and blah blah blah? Good gosh, there’s nothing worse than the unionized hacks infesting our schools and filling empty skulls with nonsense. But enough about public education. The truth is that today’s conservatives do want change, and change is coming to our party. The new Republican Party is, as that desiccated old pervert masquerading as our president likes to say, not your father’s Republican Party. Thank goodness, because my father’s Republican Party was too often a bunch of sissy corporate lackeys who never met a war they didn’t want somebody else’s kids to fight.
Yes, we’re changing, and that’s good. But look at the other party. They’re regressing. They’re the cutting edge of the neo-Bolshevik Revolution, except I will give this to Lenin’s crew – at least they knew which bathroom to use.
The GOP’s changes are illustrated by a couple of Veep candidates who I inexplicably overlooked in last week’s column on Trump’s potential vice presidential picks. Take JD Vance, the senator from Ohio, who is giving traditionalists fits because he dares to ask tough questions about Ukraine – and as a military guy who trained Ukrainians, I agree that we need to ask tough questions. The thing about JD Vance is that he’s from Ohio, like me, so he’s cool. But he’s also a self-identified hillbilly. His book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” about his life growing up poor, talks about people who at one time would’ve been Democrats. The Buick dealership owners and the sensible, sober bankers of the old-school Republican Party never saw somebody like JD Vance unless he was fixing or parking their car or caddying for them at Bushwood Country Club. But now JD is a senator, and they are busy setting fire to their money subsidizing Nikki Haley in a desperate attempt to turn back the clock to 2004.
Let’s apply the Schlichter Test to JD Vance. First, does he do any damage to the ticket? While Ohio is red, if he leaves the Senate that sparks an expensive and uncertain fight to keep that seat. That’s sub-optimal, but otherwise, he’s fine. He’s got no known weirdness. The only people who hate him are the elites, who feel this formerly-penniless upstart betrayed them by not being more grateful for being invited to join the ruling class. There’s nothing they hate more than an uppity peasant jumped up into a position of authority. Is he competent to be president? Sure. He’s a Marine, he’s smart, and he is undaunted by airplane stairways. Finally, does he bring anything to the ticket? That’s a little more complicated. Does he secure the working-class demographic? It worked in Ohio, but Ohio has been trending red, so it’s unclear if that aspect mattered much. We don’t need him to bring us Ohio.
The other guy I unforgivably overlooked is my friend, Ric Grenell, the smooth and brilliant diplomat who gave the Europeans fits as our ambassador to Germany when he demanded that the Krauts pay their fair share of NATO. He’s a very smart and cunning guy, and he is definitely competent. The question is whether he would damage the ticket and whether he brings anything tangible to the campaign.
The same people who love Trump already love Ric, so it’s not clear he would bring in any additional new voters. And there is the gay thing. Who would’ve thought one of the most popular figures in the Republican Party would be an out gay man who’s also an evangelical Christian? Probably not a lot ten or so years ago, when the loathsome Mitt Romney cravenly stabbed his friend in the back and made him resign from his campaign team because some people complained that he had a gay guy on his staff. Today, we have a Republican Party that mostly doesn’t care. Right now, most of us would eagerly vote for a differently-abled plus-sized lesbian Hindu of color who’s also a furry if she – or they or xe – voted like Ted Cruz. But there will be some people who do care. Will that be a net loss or a net gain? The fact is, Republicans have learned that choosing candidates by their identities does not translate for Republicans. We don’t get black voters because we pick a black candidate, and we don’t get women voters because we pick a woman-identifying one. It’s doubtful we would get gay voters just because Ric Grenell is gay. But we might get them because Ric Grenell is awesome – I have several books that mention a hypothetical Vice-President Grenell in some context or other, so you know where I stand.
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These two guys represent a huge change in the Republican Party, both in terms of its approach to class – we are now a much more working-class accepting party than we were – and in terms of minority groups. Our vice-presidential candidates in 2024 include black people, working people, gay people, and women people, who aren’t a minority, but you know what I mean. The GOP has changed for the better by allowing everyone to support a future of freedom, prosperity, and security instead of being condemned to the Democrat future of oppression, poverty, and anarcho-tyranny.
We saw another big change with the announcement that Mitch McConnell will soon resign. There’s been a lot of ink spilled about Cocaine Mitch, a man who was simultaneously unbelievably frustrating and unbelievably proficient in his prime. Is it time for him to go? Yes, because he’s 82 and he’s in poor health – it’s commonly understood in Washington, DC, that he suffered a debilitating stroke. And yes, his game seems to be slipping with the border fiasco and the obnoxious gun control thing that may very well keep John Cornyn, who is inexplicably a senator from Texas, from taking the Murder Turtle’s job. Conservatives will not miss the old-school aspects of McConnell, who seems to find it an intolerable imposition to have the grassroots offer its input regarding his plans. But love him or hate him, he was the most effective legislative genius of this century and maybe more. If for nothing else, he deserves huge credit for keeping that obnoxious progressive lackey Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court.
Regardless of how you feel about Mitch McConnell and his legacy, the fact is that this is a changing of the guard. Now comes the fight to see who will replace him, and it may well be somebody unexpected. But it has to be someone effective. That’s the priority. Conservatives need to stop thinking with their hearts and think with their minds when they pick the next guy to hold the position. We keep hearing names like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, but that’s all based on ideology. As much as we like what they think, these guys are not team-builders. They are rebels. The kind of senators we really like are polarizers, not unifiers. The right guy to replace Mitch McConnell is not the guy who gets every policy choice exactly right. He’s the guy who gets Josh Hawley and Susan Collins to vote the same way. That’s the job.
We are a coalition, and while our coalition is changing, it’s still a coalition. That’s something we have to understand. In America, the two political parties are going to have just about 50% of the population. Neither is going to have a lot more than that, at least not for long. Each is going to have about half, and that means it’s going to be a big tent whether we like it or not. It means we’re going to have our Lisa Murkowskis as well as our Mike Lees. That’s just how it is.
But we can make conservative progress. We are moving the Republican Party to the right. It’s slow, and it’s painful, and Mitt Romney will still be around for a while, annoying us, but it’s happening, and it’s going to keep happening. It won’t happen overnight. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Insert another cliché here.
There’s no end to this fight. The fight is the end state. We’re always going to be fighting. Accept that. Understand that. And be happy that, at least today, we’re changing in the right direction.
The left loves to make fun of the right for believing conspiracy theories, but lately many of them are proving to be real. This is largely due to the availability of widespread information on the internet; it’s become a lot harder to keep secrets.
Why have conspiracy theories become a big thing on the right but not on the left? It’s because the left is increasingly engaging in fascist, illegal behavior and trying to hide it. We suspect it’s happening, but they always come up with bogus excuses to avoid being transparent, making it difficult to catch and prove the wrongdoing. With the left now controlling much of the legal system, it’s almost impossible to find a brave prosecutor or judge who will do the right thing; prosecute the corrupt actors or merely even require them to be transparent such as by honoring public records requests.
The left tries to disguise their increasing amount of hidden criminality by claiming that the right believes conspiracy theories because we’re more gullible. They produce studies that show conservatives are more wired to believe them — but they never dig deeper as to why.
One of the main conspiracy theories that is now becoming accurate is pedophiles on the left and in Hollywood. The downfall of Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein squelched much of that ridicule, due to how powerful both men were on the left and in Hollywood. Actor Cory Feldman sounded the alarm about pedophiles in Hollywood for years, but he was mostly ignored until it was proven in the highest echelons of power.
There were rampant accusations of conspiracy theories during COVID-19, some which are still in the process of coming true. One was that it was deliberately created in a Wuhan lab, where it was leaked out into society. Almost no one doubts that now. Another was that the COVID-19 vaccines don’t work. Even the medical community and U.S. government now admit they don’t stop transmission of the virus, at best they lower the risk of serious hospitalization.
Others challenged the efficacy of the masks. Eventually, suspicions that most of them don’t work, and don’t work to protect the person wearing it from others’ breathing on them, were proven accurate. Strangely, most leftists still don’t bother trying to obtain an n95 or n99 mask, proving it’s all about virtue signaling.
Some of the ones that are still in the process of being proven accurate are all the side effects of the vaccines. As time goes by, and more studies are done, we’ll discover the extent of the damage. Despite the fact the government controls these types of studies by withholding grants from studies that would reveal too much harm, eventually the information will trickle out.
The Russian collusion hoax along with the discredited Steele dossier are one of the biggest. The Democrats tried hard to ridicule Republicans who dug into the origins, but eventually there wasn’t much they could do when both special counsel Robert Mueller and then special counsel John Durham concluded there wasn’t any collusion.
The left loves to say there’s never been any “widespread evidence of election fraud” in the 2020 or 2022 elections — which isn’t even the standard to overturn elections — but we are routinely seeing more and more Democrats prosecuted for significant voter fraud over the past couple of years. In Arizona, thanks to former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, two Democratic officials, including the former Democratic mayor of San Luis, Guillermina Fuentes, were prosecuted and convicted for ballot harvesting. Juan Guerrero, a local justice of the peace, toldinvestigators that “issues” like this had occurred in the town for years, and “influential people” like Fuentes, known as “Chispas,” exchanged ballots for money. The Heritage Foundation has an updated database compiling instances of election fraud around the country.
The left said for years that Republicans have a racist history in our country, claiming they were behind the racist policies in the South. Republicans objected to the characterization, and now evidence is everywhere showing that the Democrats really were behind the discrimination. Professor Carol Swain has documented much of the history. She laid out how the Democratic Party defended slavery, started the Civil War, founded the KKK and fought against every major civil rights act in U.S. history.
The left points at the QAnon phenomenon as a bastion of unproven conspiracy theories. Well, with all the possible ways people can have fun and make money, it doesn’t come as any surprise that someone made up a fake persona that said all the right things and added in a lot of predictions that really weren’t grounded in facts. It’s a red herring.
The problem is the mainstream media gives scant coverage to developments revealing conspiracy theories as accurate. You’ll never see a headline that says “Conspiracy theory on the right is proven true.” In contrast, they run headlines nonstop that say some conservative theory was “debunked,” and their fact checking sites are everywhere claiming to debunk conservatives.
There are some longtime conspiracy theories that have quietly become viewed as accurate. Many of these are used as tests to determine whether someone is gullible about believing them — guess those tests will need to be revised. They include questioning whether Lee Harvey Oswald was the only one involved in the fatal shooting of President John F. Kennedy, whether UFOs exist and the government’s knowledge of them, and the government’s secret experiments on Americans such as the infamous syphilis study known as the Tuskegee Experiment.
Suspicions that a powerful cabal of people control much of the government are gradually proving right, although not necessarily in a tidy little fascist style, it’s much more loose. The left doesn’t even bother arguing back anymore that it has significant control over certain areas of society; particularly the legal system, the media, entertainment, and education.
And let’s be honest, as I’ve written previously, the left has more conspiracy theories than the right. But since their comrades in the MSM give them a free pass, there is a misperception that most are on the right.
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