Monthly Archives: May 2019

Never Miss a Chance

13 Monday May 2019

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To walk out on insulting political trash. Just what these kids in CO did during a vigil, allegedly for the victims of the recent Satanic, gay-tranny, hate crime and shooting spree.

Colorado students walked out of an event billed as a vigil for Kendrick Castillo, an 18-year-old killed in a shooting at his school on Tuesday, when prominent speakers attempted to turn it into a rally for gun control. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colorado) each took a turn calling for gun control at the Douglas County event before students streamed out in protest.

Two students at STEM Highlands Ranch, a K-12 charter school focused on science, technology, engineering, and math, shot nine students, one fatally. The accused students, who were arrested, are an adult male and a juvenile female who identifies as male. The accused male had written anti-Christian social media messages. He drove a car with a pentagram spray-painted on the hood, as well as other [Satanic] graffiti…

In response to the shooting, a public vigil was announced at another local public high school: Highlands Ranch High School. It was sponsored by the gun control groups Brady’s Team Enough and March for Our Lives and featured Democratic politicians who seek limits on Second Amendment gun rights, but was billed instead as an event to remember and honor Castillo and other victims. As the politicians called for gun control, students left in protest over the politicization of the deaths and injuries.

You were just supposed to be there as pawns, children. The shithead pols care nothing about you nor your deceased hero friend. Good on all of them! Parents and other adults (if any): vote this garbage out of office and run them out of the State.

 

Caesar Gets Zilch

13 Monday May 2019

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Sayeth the Lord. Jeffery Barr explains away any confusion about what Jesus said to the Rabbinate in re allegiance (and taxes).

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The Catholic Church considers Herself the authoritative interpreter of Sacred Scripture. The 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church “is a statement of the Church’s faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition, and the Church’s Magisterium.”

The 1994 Catechism instructs the faithful that it is morally obligatory to pay one’s taxes for the common good. (What the definition of the “common good” is may be left for a different debate.) The 1994 Catechism also quotes and cites the Tribute Episode. But the 1994 Catechism does NOT use the Tribute Episode to support the proposition that it is morally obligatory to pay taxes. Instead, the 1994 Catechism refers the Tribute Episode only to justify acts of civil disobedience. It quotes St. Matthew’s version to teach that a Christian must refuse to obey political authority when that political authority makes a demand contrary to the demands of the moral order, the fundamental rights of persons, or the teachings of the Gospel. Similarly, the 1994 Catechism also cites to St. Mark’s version to instruct that a person “should not submit his personal freedom in an absolute manner to any earthly power, but only to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Caesar is not u2018the Lord.‘” Thus, according to the 1994 Catechism, the Tribute Episode stands for the proposition that a Christian owes his allegiance to God and to the things of God alone. If the Tribute Episode unequivocally supported the proposition that it is morally obligatory to pay taxes, the 1994 Catechism would not hesitate to cite to it for that position. That the 1994 Catechism does not interpret the Tribute Episode as a justification for the payment of taxes suggests that such an interpretation is not an authoritative reading of the passage. In short, even the Catholic Church does not understand the Tribute Episode to mean that Jesus endorsed paying Caesar’s taxes.

V. CONCLUSION

St. John’s Gospel recounts the scene of a woman caught in adultery, brought before Jesus by the Pharisees so that they might “test” Him “so that they could have some charge to bring against Him.” When asked, “u2018Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say,’” Jesus appears trapped by only two answers: the strict, legally-correct answer of the Pharisees, or the mercifully-right, morally-correct, but technically-illegal answer undermining Jesus’ authority as a Rabbi. Notably, Jesus never does overtly respond to the question posed to Him; instead of answering, “Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.” When pressed by His inquisitors, He finally answers, “u2018Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,’” and, of course, the shamed Pharisees all leave one by one. Jesus then refuses to condemn the woman.

The scene of the woman caught in adultery and the Tribute Episode are similar. In both, Jesus is faced with a hostile question challenging His credibility as a Rabbi. In each, the hostile question has two answers: one answer which the audience knows is morally correct, but politically incorrect, and the other answer which the audience knows is wrong, but politically correct. In the scene of the woman caught in adultery, no one roots for Jesus to say, “Stone her!” Everyone wants to see Jesus extend the woman mercy. Likewise, in the Tribute Episode, no one hopes Jesus answers, “Pay tribute to the pagan, Roman oppressors!” The Tribute Episode, like the scene of the woman caught in adultery, has a “right” answer – it is not licit to pay the tribute. But Jesus cannot give this “right” answer without running afoul of the Roman government. Instead, in both Gospel accounts, Jesus gives a quick-witted, but ultimately ambiguous, response which exposes the hypocrisy of His interrogators rather than overtly answers the underlying question posed by them. Nevertheless, in each instance, the audience can infer the right answer embedded in Jesus’ response.

Read the whole thing and what brought him to this sound, extraordinarily well-researched conclusion. Taxation is more than theft, it’s slavery. Show me the money!

Facebook’s Constitutional Convention

13 Monday May 2019

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To all the libertarians and conservatives, who from time to time make mention of an Con-Con, please have a gander at what Farcebook is doing:

All that said, serious concerns remain. For example, how might a 40 person board adequately represent the concerns of the thousands of groups across the globe? How might a set of “universal” rules address the significant disparities in belief and practice by the billions of people who use or will soon use the platform? How might a company firmly committed to American ideals not end up exporting those ideals, or enforcing such social values over and against smaller states? It’s a dizzying miasma of problems for which solutions are not merely difficult to find, but perhaps impossible.

That difficulty seems inherent to what Facebook is actually doing: in essence, writing a constitution for the global moderation of speech. That it is doing so at all is a recognition of what is at stake on its platform. Yet, sitting and listening to Facebook dutifully receive and genuinely listen to feedback, the absurdity of the situation was also hard to ignore. Here was a private company with historically unprecedented reach trying its best to do the right thing, in which the “right thing” was to find the right way to govern speech on the world’s largest democratic platform. It is indicative of the fact that the company is a kind of supra-state unto itself, significantly more powerful than most countries across the globe, and with enormous influence.

This is what you might reasonably expect, regarding Article Five: a group of anonymous, SJW control freaks trying to impose “American values” – what those are, outside of usury, sodomy, and obesity, isn’t clear – on everyone, everywhere, under every circumstance.

Get off social media. Get off the Parchment.

Shouting About The Big Stick

13 Monday May 2019

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So much for avoiding foreign entanglements. USSOCOM is advising and bragging about overthrowing governments.

No kidding – this is not our headline, but Newsweek’s: “US Special Forces School Publishes New Guide For Overthrowing Foreign Governments” – and as far as we can tell they are the only major mainstream outlet to have picked up on the fact that the US military is now essentially openly bragging on past and future capabilities to foster covert regime change operations.

The 250-page study entitled “Support to Resistance: Strategic Purpose and Effectiveness” was put out by the Joint Special Operations University under US Special Operations Command, which is the Army’s official unified command center which overseas all joint covert and clandestine missions out of MacDill AFB, Florida.

“This work will serve as a benchmark reference on resistance movements for the benefit of the special operations community and its civilian leadership,” the report introduces.

The study examines 47 instances of US special forces trying to intervene in various countries from 1941-2003, thus special attention is given to the Cold War, but it doesn’t include coups which lacked “legitimate resistance movements” — such as the case of ‘Operation AJAX’ in 1953 which overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.

Read all about it, HERE.

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Bu, bu, but, muh Russians…

Winged Justice From Cuba: A Tom Ironsides Story

12 Sunday May 2019

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Recycled due to positive feedback, etc. Someone told me the flight sequence gave him goosebumps. A very straight fellow confessed to a “man crush” of Ironsides. A sweet woman I know said I have a vivid imagination. [I do but this is cobbled FACTS, for the most part]. There was mention of having “a gift.” Thanks, here’s your gift:

perrinlovett's avatarPERRIN LOVETT

As originally published at TPC

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Winged Justice From Cuba

A Tom Ironsides Story

Author’s Note: The following is partly based on true events, a blended, fictional account of several independent and real stories. Names have been changed, omitted, or dramatized so as to protect the innocent, the guilty, and the dead. The resemblance of any character or entity in this tale, to any person or entity, living or dead, is mere semblance only. Please, enjoy.

Sometimes the mind wanders. In daydreams, a man can relive what he found harrowing as well as those pleasant times that feel now, as they did then, just like dreams. Sometimes, if one isn’t careful, the two meld together. Tom’s brain turned back the calendar to another stage in his life’s journey.

Tom stood in the door of “his” Dassault Falcon 7X, peering into the gloom above a dark, tropical landscape. The absence of…

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Economic Absolution

12 Sunday May 2019

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PCR writes about an ancient practice, one we could sorely use today in America.

In actual fact, these civilizations were more advanced and more humanitarian than our own. They were more advanced because the rulers were focused on ensuring the society’s longevity by maintaining a livable balance between debtors and creditors. It has all been downhill ever since.

The rulers maintained social balance and, thereby, the life of the society by periodically cancelling debts. The rulers understood that compound interest resulted in debt growing faster than the economy. The consequence would be foreclosures on agricultural land, which would shift riches and power into a small oligarchy of creditors. The ruler and the society would be deprived of a self-supporting population on the land which provided tax revenues, soldiers for the military, and corvee labor to maintain public infrastructure. Disaster would follow. A grasping oligarchy could overthrow the ruler or the dispossessed population could flee to a potential invader offering their military services in exchange for debt forgiveness.

To protect their societies from dissolution by unpayable debts, rulers periodically cancelled agrarian debts owed by the citizenry at large, but not mercantile debts among businessmen.

The reason for debt forgiveness was stability, not egalitarianism.

One difference between the debts of then, there, and now and here, is that the ancients generally had debts based in actual currency, debased to a degree perhaps, but based nonetheless. Ours, in contrast, is pure fiat, wished into being by a cartel of financial criminals. What can be made with a wish, could easily be wished away. But, that’s wishing for a lot.

In America today the population is drowning in unpayable debts—student loan debt, credit card debt, home mortgage debt, state and local government debt, and business debt—but policymakers have reserved forgiveness only for the debt associated with the bad and irresponsible investments of the big banks and financial institutions. The Federal Reserve printed $4 trillion to buy up the banks’ bad debt while permitting ten million homeowners to be foreclosed. Student loan debt prevents university graduates from forming independent households. Mortgage and credit card debt prevents households from having discretionary income with which to drive retail sales. But modern day economics has no prescription for preventing our society from failing from debt overload.

…

In the US today we have a situation in which the New York banks control Federal Reserve policy and financial legislation—the deregulation of the banking system and its subsequent bailout, for example. We have a situation in which monopolies, monopsonies, and oligopolies are stronger than the central government, which is unable to rein them in or act against them in any way. Corporations dispossess citizens of their jobs by offshoring the jobs. Creditor demands prevent university graduates from forming households. Debt service preempts retail demand except by further debt expansion.

This is an economy headed down, not up. Clearly, Hammurabi did far better for the Babylonians than Washington can do for Americans.

Cue Darth Sidious: “Wipe [the debts out]. All of them.” Make debt illegal, usurious lending a capital felony.

Abridging the freedom of … the press…

12 Sunday May 2019

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Scenario: Some local police are corrupt. The public defender dwells on said corruption. A reporter sometimes reports on this as well. The PD dies. Police possibly attempt to tarnish the dead PD’s character. Someone leaks an internal police report to the reporter. The reporter publishes the report in the ordinary course of doing his job. The police run to their friends at the FBI and the hall o’ the black robes for help; then, they seize the reporter’s work tools at gunpoint. Most Americans, only aware that none of this happened to them, do not care.

“They treated me like I was some kind of drug dealer,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Carmody was being raided in connection with a criminal investigation.

Two weeks before, police investigators showed up at his home to ask him, politely he says, to identify the source who provided him with a confidential police report about the February death of the city’s public defender, Jeff Adachi. Carmody, who said he worked with three local television news stations on the story, declined.

He wasn’t about to give up his source on Friday either, despite the escalation — not to the police or two FBI agents in suits who questioned him about the case, he said.

“I’m smart enough not to talk to federal agents, ever,” Carmody said. “I just kept saying ‘lawyer, lawyer, lawyer.’ ”

So he stayed handcuffed for the next six hours, he says — a certificate of release from the police department that he distributed says he was in custody from 8:22 a.m. until 1:55 p.m. — as investigators searched his home, then his office, where they found the report in a safe. A search warrant filed in the case notes that it was issued as police investigated “stolen or embezzled property.”

“There’s only two people on this planet who know who leaked this report — me and the guy who leaked it,” Carmody said.

The raid on Carmody’s home and office drew wide First Amendment-related attention in the Bay Area over the weekend. And it added a new twist to the intrigue that surrounded the death of Adachi, who had built up a high profile as a public defender in the 16 years he had held the office.

At least he didn’t talk to the police.

This is, and isn’t, a First Amendment issue. Liberal protestations about common sense press controls aside, Carmody’s rights were violated. But, it doesn’t matter. This is really about the police protecting themselves and involving Br’er Wolf to help them. The DOJ, which should be watching for police misconduct – like violations of press freedom – instead concern themselves with aiding a cover-up. It’s not legal or political, per se, unless Cosa Notra be political.

In truth, there’s no more freedom of the press, than there is justice in our multi-layered federal system. Now, off you go to see Endgame, in which Ironman dies.

Who was the Man Who Lost the Civil War?

11 Saturday May 2019

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Did you ever have a feeling about a college professor? Maybe a classics professor? (What is it with those, here and at TPC, lately???) Anyway, did you suspect some old man might have, say … lost the War Between the States? Probably not. But, it could have happened. Such is the premise of,

A Fatal Mercy: The Man Who Lost The Civil War

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Amazon/Green Altar Books – Shotwell/Tom Moore

Tom Moore is a friend of mine. He is a man of the West, dedicated to more than mere Southern culture, to measured, educated civility itself. And, by “dedicated,” I mean actually willing to resolutely walk where Angels fear to tread. For that alone, I would recommend his novel. Yet, only a modest way into the 727! pages, I am already hooked, materially.

As I told Tom in an email, I really think this is the first Civil War fiction I’ve read since The Red Badge of Courage, some 35 years ago. Fatal Mercy has a Crane feeling about it, maybe something Faulkneresque. This is historical fiction with a high degree of historical accuracy, not unlike the “can’t believe it’s NOT fiction” work of Erik Larson. In other words, it’s a story you don’t want to pause. There’s also another speculation in my mind about Lieutenant Drayton and his titular (in)action. Might his mercy affect the War of Southern Independence as Bilbo’s did the War of the Ring? I have no idea at this point. But, again, this point is very early on. Join me and let’s find out what happens.

Consider this another of my famous book review previews – more to follow, here, maybe at TPC, and on Amazon (5 Stars are a given). Order your copy today – click the above link and/or picture – and get started. She’s $4.95 on Kindle and $19.95 for a trade paperback.

Saw you a-marchin’ with Robert E. Lee;
You held your head a-high, tryin’ to win the victory.
You fought for your folks but you didn’t die in vain;
Even though you lost, they speak highly of your name.

– “Johnny Reb,” Kilgore/Horton (1959)

The Devil Wants Out of Georgia

11 Saturday May 2019

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Friends in Georgia: the immoral, useless, and downright evil slugs of Hellywood want to govern your State. If you won’t let them, they’ll take their marbles and retreat back to Sodom and Gomorrah West.

Hollywood has been outspoken against a controversial Georgia abortion law, and now the heads of three production companies are saying they will not film in the state.

Christine Vachon, chief executive officer of Killer Films; David Simon, creator of “The Wire” and “The Deuce” who heads Blown Deadline Productions; and Mark Duplass of Duplass Brothers Productions have come out in opposition to a newly signed law that would ban abortions in the state if a fetal heartbeat can be detected.

Georgia has been the location for the filming of multiple television shows and blockbuster films, including one of Marvel’s biggest hits, “Black Panther.”

Such films and the production of wildly popular TV series including “The Walking Dead” and “Stranger Things” have resulted in an estimated $2.7 billion pouring into the Southern state from direct spending via 455 productions, the governor’s office announced last year.

Filmmakers J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele released a joint statement Friday stating they’d stand “shoulder to shoulder with the women of Georgia” as their new show “Lovecraft Country” begins shooting in the state. They promised to donate 100% of their episodic fees to the ACLU of Georiga and Fair Fight Georgia, an election reform organization.

“Governor Kemp’s ‘Fetal Heartbeat’ Abortion Law is an unconstitutional effort to further restrict women and their health providers from making private medical decisions on their terms. Make no mistake, this is an attack aimed squarely and purposely at women,” the joint statement read. “We encourage those who are able to funnel any and all resources to these organizations.”

On Thursday, Vachon, whose company has been behind such films as “Carol” and “Vox Lux,” made her stand known on Twitter.

“Killer Films will no longer consider Georgia as a viable shooting location until this ridiculous law is overturned,” she said.

Of course, “Killer” Films wants to keep killing Georgia babies. To hell with them. Really, who in his right mind cares what these savages say about anything. Let them go. Hell, they should have – yeah, yeah, I know the GA GOP is money hungry – added that to the law: “…and all television and movie production companies are henceforth barred from the State…”

Join me in permanently boycotting everything that appears on the larger and smaller screens – unless it comes from a verified Christian source. There’s a reason that the actor set has been scorned by the civilized, as a bunch of idiots and degenerates, for millennia.

And, Cut!

Anything Girls Can Do, Fake Girls Can Do Better

11 Saturday May 2019

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This really could be the end of women’s sports. But, at least we’re getting a better picture of the SJW social hierarchy. Trans “girls” top real girls. Get that straight – no pun intended.

When two high school athletes who were born male but identify as female took first and second place at Connecticut’s girls indoor track championship this year, it wasn’t just a local news story.

To some, it was a story of triumph and courage. The winner, a junior from Bloomfield High School, set a girls state indoor record of 6.95 seconds in the 55-meter dash, and went on to win the New England titles in both the 55-meter dash and the 300-meter dash.

To others, it was a story of shock and disappointment: Is this the end of women’s sports?

To Selina Soule, a 16-year-old runner from Glastonbury, it was personal.

A junior, Selina missed qualifying for the 55-meter in the New England regionals by two spots. Two spots, she said, that were taken by biological boys.

Had the boys who identify as girls not been allowed to compete, Selina would have placed sixth, qualifying to run the 55 in front of college coaches at the New England regionals.

Instead, she placed eighth, watching the 55 from the sidelines after qualifying in only the long jump, an event in which the transgender athletes didn’t compete.

“It’s very frustrating and heartbreaking when us girls are at the start of the race and we already know that these athletes are going to come out and win no matter how hard you try,” Selina told The Daily Signal. “They took away the spots of deserving girls, athletes … me being included.”F

While the debate over transgender athletes and fairness is complex, the situation in Connecticut has brought forth another complicating layer: Plenty of parents and high school girls appear to object to the participation of biological boys in girls sports, but fearing public bullying and backlash, they’re not speaking out.

Publicly, at least.

The stakes of remaining silent are high: Policies are being formed in real time at the local, state, and federal levels regarding transgender individuals, student athletes, and sports.

Most prominently, on March 13, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced HR 5, the Equality Act, a bill that would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected classes under federal civil rights law.

The legislation would create a civil right for male athletes to self-identify as females at any time, critics say, without any evidence of physical changes to their bodies.

Private schools. Private sporting leagues. It’s past time to hop off the dead popular and “legal” culture. With this issue, second place is dead last.