How the Amazing Rescue of Two American Airmen Unfolded

From Red State.com (Apr. 5):

Overnight, the U.S. military pulled off one of the most difficult missions in the playbook: the rescue of a downed aircrew deep inside enemy territory.

Easter morning, an F-15E weapons systems officer was extracted from atop a 7,000-foot ridge in southwestern Iran, having been on the run since Friday (this sounds sort of Biblical, doesn't it).

This is how the operation played out. Mind you, it is all based on reports patched together from various sources. U.S. Central Command has yet to issue a statement on either the loss of the aircraft or the successful rescue of the flight crew. President Trump was not quite that constrained; see 'WE GOT HIM!' President Trump Responds As Second Airman Is Rescued From Enemy Territory in Iran – RedState.

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

Friday morning, April 3. An F-15E Strike Eagle was apparently hit by Iranian fire near the village of Talkhuncheh, Isfahan Province, Iran. There is a lot of boasting from the Iranians about an advanced passive infrared detection system used to guide a missile. There are online accounts linking the downing to Russian ships arriving at Iranian ports. We don't know the cause, but based on the history of the Operation Epic Fury air campaign, the plane going down from a bird strike is just as likely as an Iranian anti-aircraft missile. Both pilot and weapons systems officer (WSO) eject.

When the pilots punched out, they would have transmitted a MAYDAY on Guard frequency. This would have alerted the Combat Search and Rescue element that was on standby. The WSO, who is reported to be a lieutenant colonel, is reportedly injured during ejection. This is not unusual. Within a short period of time, an image of one of the ejection seats appears on social media.

The pilots have some emergency supplies, including a radio and a personal defense weapon that is stored under the seat.

Within a short period of time, a CSAR element composed of an MC-130J refueling aircraft and two HH-60 "Jolly Green" 2 helicopters was spotted near the scene. I know, you're asking why they are called "Jolly Green" 2 helicopters. The original "Jolly Green Giant" was the HH-53B designed for CSAR work during the Vietnam War. The name stuck. [read more]

Glad the awesome American commandos were able to rescue the downed airman in Iran. Great job guys. 

Other articles on the rescue:

• Commandos Probed Deep Into Iran to Rescue Downed Airman
• Baker to Newsmax: CIA Played Key Role in Rescue of Airman in Iran
• The secret, never-before-used CIA tool that helped find airman downed in Iran: ‘If your heart is beating, we will find you’
• Trump, US Feared Iran Trap in F-15 Crew Rescue
  

Artemis II Mission Shows There Are No Limits To American Exceptionalism

From The Federalist.com (Apr. 7):

Pushing the boundaries of what was once thought to be impossible is a hallmark of American greatness. And the recent mission to circle the moon is no different.

The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission set a record on Monday for traveling further into space than any humans have ever gone before. As part of their “lunar flyby,” the four-person crew (consisting of three Americans and one Canadian) broke Apollo 13’s record by reaching an estimated 252,756 miles from Earth.

While traveling in their Orion capsule, the team viewed previously unseen surfaces of the moon and captured breathtaking images in the process. Amid their discoveries was a noticeably bright crater, which one of the astronauts suggested naming “Carroll” after mission commander Reid Wiseman’s wife, who died of cancer in 2020.

While the mission has certainly boasted its great moments, there was something the astronauts reportedly said before embarking on their journey that puts a perfect bow on the entire thing. As summarized by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, the Artemis II crew said that they hope their feat “will be remembered as the moment people started to believe that America can once again do the near-impossible and change the world.”

It’s a simple, yet important point to remember given the constant barrage of negativity Americans hear about their country from its most vocal institutions. From higher education to legacy media and Hollywood, everyday citizens are regularly inundated with anti-American rhetoric about why their nation is evil, stupid, and not that great after all.

Why would you want to try your best and work your hardest in a racist, bigoted, oppressive, hateful country like America? or so the conventional leftist groupthink goes.

The Artemis II mission provides a stark contrast to that backwards thinking. It teaches America’s people that adventure and risks are worth taking, that hard work wins, and that there are no limits to what their country can accomplish.

That’s American exceptionalism at its best.

So, dream big. Reach for what others believe to be impossible. Give 110 percent into what you do. And always remember that it could happen nowhere else except in the United States of America. [source]

USA! USA! USA! 

More articles on the mission:

• 16 inspiring Artemis II photos that’ll make you feel like a tiny Earthling
• Artemis II astronauts reflect on historic flight as they wrap up moon mission
• 9 highlights from Artemis II's epic journey around the moon
• NASA’s Artemis II mission’s return to Earth, hour by hour
• Artemis II's Grand Moon Finale Almost Here With a Pacific Splashdown to Cap NASA's Lunar Comeback
• Artemis II splashes down off the coast of San Diego, finishing historic journey around the moon
• Watch a recovery crew open Integrity’s hatch for Artemis II astronauts
  
• NASA Artemis II Zero Gravity Indicator & Moon Mascot 'Rise' Back Home on Earth
• Artemis, the Greatness of God, and Human Exceptionalism

Assisted Suicide for the Healthy

From Breakpoint.org (Aug. 5, 2020):

Physician-assisted suicide is sold to the public as a “compassionate” measure, necessary to spare those with no reasonable chance of recovery the unbearable pain and suffering of the last days of their lives. In every context in which it has been made legal, however, what might be called euthanasia-by-another-name has never remained limited to the rare instances on which it was sold.

There are reasons this slope has proven so slippery, literally everywhere it has been made legal. Once it is decided that certain lives are not worth living, the list of people eligible for physician-assisted suicide inevitably grows. As the list of people without intrinsic value grows, it becomes impossible not to re-evaluate lives based on some other criteria, perhaps convenience or financial costs. It’s a small step indeed from “eligible to die” to “expected to die.”

Wherever doctor assisted suicide is legalized, in a bait-and-switch from what is sold to the public, the category of “terminal” illness is often expanded to include “chronic” illnesses and permanent disabilities. Even mental illness and depression are now considered sufficient justification for suicide in places such as Belgium and the Netherlands. Given this trajectory, it’s only a matter of time before we dispense with the requirement of any illness whatsoever.

In fact, that’s what has just happened in the Netherlands. A recently introduced bill there would “allow healthy individuals over the age of 75 to request assisted suicide, if they have had a ‘strong death wish for at least two months.’” The bill, which is expected to be up for a vote sometime in 2021, would, according to the bill’s sponsor, give the elderly “…the choice at an advanced age, if [they] consider their lives complete, to die with dignity, with careful help.”

Thankfully, the two Christian parties in the governing coalition are strongly opposing the measure, but it will not be easy to keep it from becoming law. After all, the bill is the next logical step in the Dutch trajectory. Having embraced what novelist Walker Percy called “Thanatos Syndrome,” every promise to limit euthanasia in any way has not only been broken, but any so-called “safeguards” have been swept aside.

For example, the people were promised that only those certifiably in their right minds would be euthanized. That was a lie. Anyone who goes into an American emergency room and tells doctors they had a “strong death wish” and were “done with life” would be diagnosed with “suicidal ideation” and immediately admitted to the psych ward. To not do so, in fact, would be medical malpractice. Suicidal ideation is rightly regarded as a symptom of an underlying mental disorder. People with untreated mental illnesses are not allowed to make life-and-death decisions.

Or at least they weren’t. In Oregon, since doctor-assisted-suicide was legalized, over 96 percent of people given lethal drugs did not undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Not to evaluate is neglect, but if this Dutch bill becomes law, any elderly person who admits suicidal wishes will be referred to those who will help them turn their desires into reality.

This is why, as our recent “What Would You Say” video so clearly explained, there’s nothing compassionate about physician-assisted-suicide. In fact, it is the exact opposite of compassion, the abdication of a civilized people’s responsibility to offer compassion to those who need it most when they need it most.

In his book The Thanatos Syndrome, Walker Percy described how a society devolves to the point of thinking that killing patients instead of healing them is compassionate. A psychiatrist, he wrote of well-trained and exquisitely credentialed doctors who “turn their backs on the oath of Hippocrates and kill millions of old useless people, unborn children, born malformed children, for the good of mankind.”

Percy’s literary prophecy, written in 1987, is becoming reality. Some form of assisted suicide is now legal in nine states and the District of Columbia. That number will only grow unless we convince people what true compassion is and make the idea that assisted suicide is compassionate unthinkable.

Come to WhatWouldYouSay.org for the latest video on assisted suicide, and be equipped to make the case. And please, share it with your pastor, community leaders, and legislators. It’s literally a life-and-death issue. [source]

Canada isn’t much better with its “Medical Assistance in Dying” law.

Hitler, Islam, Iran, Hezbollah and 9/11

One twentieth-century European, however, was disappointed that Charles Martel had defeated the warriors of Islam, for the same reason that Gibbon was relieved. He exclaimed:

Had Charles Martel not been victorious at Poitiers—already, you see, the world had fallen into the hands of the Jews, so gutless a thing was Christianity!—then we should in all probability have been converted to Mohammedanism, that cult which glorifies heroism and which opens the seventh heaven to the bold warrior alone. Then the Germanic races would have conquered the world. Christianity alone prevented them from doing so.

The man expressing that regret was Adolf Hitler.

…….

[U.S. District judge George B.] Daniels found that Iran and Hezbollah had cooperated and collaborated with al-Qaeda before 9/11 and continued to do so after the attacks.

Before 9/11, Iran and Hezbollah were implicated in efforts to train al-Qaeda members to blow up large buildings—resulting in the bombings of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

Shortly after the Cole attack, the 9/11 jihad plot began to come together—and Iran was involved. Former MOIS operative Abolghasem Mesbahi, a defector from Iran, testified that during the summer of 2001, he received messages from Iranian government officials regarding a plan for unconventional warfare against the U.S., entitled “Shaitan dar Atash” (“Satan in Flames”).

“Satan in Flames” was the elaborate plot to hijack three passenger jets, each packed full of people, and crash them into American landmarks: the World Trade Center, which jihadis took to be the center of American commerce; the Pentagon, the center of America’s military apparatus; and the White House.

A classified National Security Agency analysis referred to in the 9/11 Commission report reveals that eight to ten of the 9/11 hijackers traveled to Iran repeatedly in late 2000 and early 2001. The 9/11 Commission called for a U.S. government investigation into Iran’s role in 9/11, but none was ever undertaken. Kenneth R. Timmerman of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran was, in his words, “engaged by the Havlish attorneys in 2004 to carry out the investigation the 9/11 Commission report called on the U.S. government to handle.”

Timmerman noted that during the 9/11 hijackers’ trips to Iran, they were “accompanied by ‘senior Hezbollah operatives’ who were in fact agents of the Iranian regime.” Iranian border agents did not stamp their passports, so that their having been inside the Islamic Republic would not arouse suspicion against them when they entered the United States.

The CIA, embarrassed by its failure to recognize the import of these trips, tried to suppress this revelation. But Timmerman contends that even the available evidence is explosive enough, revealing that the Islamic Republic of Iran, in his words:

• helped design the 9/11 plot; 
• provided intelligence support to identify and train the operatives who carried it out;
• allowed the future hijackers to evade U.S. and Pakistani surveillance on key trips to Afghanistan where they received the final order of mission from Osama bin Laden, by escorting them through Iranian borders without passport stamps;
• evacuated hundreds of top al-Qaeda operatives from Afghanistan to Iran after 9/11 just as U.S. forces launched their offensive;
• provided safe haven and continued financial support to al-Qaeda cadres for years after 9/11;
• allowed al-Qaeda to use Iran as an operational base for additional terror attacks, in particular the May 2003 bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 

The Ayatollah Khamenei knew about the plot. During the summer of 2001, he instructed Iranian agents to be careful to conceal their tracks and told them to communicate only with al-Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Imad Mughniyah of Hezbollah.

Source: The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS (2018) by Robert Spencer.

More reasons why Trump felt compelled to stop Iran.

Japanese company successfully tests a manned flying car for the first time

From koat.com (Aug. 30, 2020):

A Japanese company has announced the successful test drive of a flying car.

Sky Drive Inc. conducted the public demonstration on Aug. 25, the company said in a news release, at the Toyota Test Field, one of the largest in Japan and home to the car company's development base. It was the first public demonstration for a flying car in Japanese history.

The car, named SD-03, manned with a pilot, took off and circled the field for about four minutes.

"We are extremely excited to have achieved Japan's first-ever manned flight of a flying car in the two years since we founded SkyDrive... with the goal of commercializing such aircraft," CEO Tomohiro Fukuzawa said in a statement.

"We want to realize a society where flying cars are an accessible and convenient means of transportation in the skies and people are able to experience a safe, secure, and comfortable new way of life."

The SD-03 is the world's smallest electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle and takes up the space of about two parked cars, according to the company. It has eight motors to ensure "safety in emergency situations."

"In designing an unexplored, new genre of transportation known as the flying car, we chose the keyword "progressive" for inspiration," Design Director Takumi Yamamot said.

"We wanted this vehicle to be futuristic, charismatic and desirable for all future customers, while fully incorporating the high technology of SkyDrive.

The company hopes to make the flying car a part of normal life and not just a commodity. More test flights will occur in the future under different conditions to make sure the safety and technology of the vehicle meet industry standards.

The success of this flight means that it is likely the car will be tested outside of the Toyota Test field by the end of the year.

The company will continue to develop technologies to safely and securely launch the flying car in 2023, the news release said. No price has been announced. [source]

Cool. Here come the Jetsons.

A Tax Man with Convictions and Courage

From Lawrence W. Reed on FEE.org (Apr. 15, 2025):

Have you ever heard of someone so principled that he quit his job rather than do something he knew to be wrong?

I admire people of such integrity. We need more of them. Let me tell you about one whose story is especially relevant on April 15, the date the federal government demands we meet our income tax obligations. This man was head of the IRS. His name was T. Coleman Andrews.

Born in Virginia in 1899, Andrews possessed a head for numbers. He loved accounting, an affection which I personally could never understand. Accounting baffled and frustrated me during my undergraduate days; I scraped by with a “C.”  I agree with whoever described an accountant as “someone who solves a problem you did not know you had in a way you don’t understand.”

Andrews was not only good at it, but he also founded several successful accounting firms and worked in high accounting positions for the Commonwealth of Virginia, the US State Department, and the General Accounting Office in Washington.

In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed him Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. In an interview while still new in the job, Andrews said that he would insist that every employee engage taxpayers with “a sincere desire to be helpful,” but he promised to come down hard on anybody caught cheating on his taxes.

Andrews moved to simplify complex tax forms. He changed the Bureau’s name to what we know today—the Internal Revenue Service. He adopted numerous measures to improve efficiency, but when Congress overhauled tax law in 1955, he realized how “unreformable” the system was. Isaac William Martin, in his 2013 book titled Rich People’s Movements, quotes Andrews as lamenting that the congressmen who wrote the bill “do not themselves know what they mean.”

Barely two years into his tenure on the inside, Andrews abruptly resigned. His views on the agency and the income tax had evolved. Andrews was one of those rare public servants who “grew in office.” He could no longer hold a position that put him at odds with his conscience. He came to see the IRS and the tax code as oppressive, incomprehensible, and corrupt. Shortly after his departure from the IRS, he issued a statement explaining his position:

Congress went beyond merely enacting an income tax law and repealed Article IV of the Bill of Rights, by empowering the tax collector to do the very things from which that article says we were to be secure. It opened up our homes, our papers and our effects to the prying eyes of government agents and set the stage for searches of our books and vaults and for inquiries into our private affairs whenever the tax men might decide, even though there might not be any justification beyond mere cynical suspicion.

The income tax is bad because it has robbed you and me of the guarantee of privacy and the respect for our property that were given to us in Article IV of the Bill of Rights. This invasion is absolute and complete as far as the amount of tax that can be assessed is concerned. Please remember that under the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress can take 100% of our income anytime it wants to. As a matter of fact, right now it is imposing a tax as high as 91%. This is downright confiscation and cannot be defended on any other grounds.

The income tax is bad because it was conceived in class hatred, is an instrument of vengeance and plays right into the hands of the communists. It employs the vicious communist principle of taking from each according to his accumulation of the fruits of his labor and giving to others according to their needs, regardless of whether those needs are the result of indolence or lack of pride, self-respect, personal dignity or other attributes of men.

The income tax is fulfilling the Marxist prophecy that the surest way to destroy a capitalist society is by steeply graduated taxes on income and heavy levies upon the estates of people when they die.

As matters now stand, if our children make the most of their capabilities and training, they will have to give most of it to the tax collector and so become slaves of the government. People cannot pull themselves up by the bootstraps anymore because the tax collector gets the boots and the straps as well.

Clearly, this was a guy who didn’t allow power or a paycheck to turn either his brain or his spine into jelly. Agree with him or not, you must admit there’s some impressive personal character there.

Andrews continued to speak out against the income tax and the ever-bigger government it was financing. In 1956, he even ran for President of the United States on a third-party ticket—a campaign that, controversially, was built around a states’ rights platform. While some saw it as a principled stance for limited government, others rightly noted its alignment with political figures and movements that defended segregation. He died in 1983 at the age of 84.

The school in my native state of Pennsylvania where I struggled in that accounting class more than a half-century ago is Grove City College. In researching this article, I was proud to learn that in 1963, GCC bestowed an honorary doctorate upon T. Coleman Andrews.

What Andrews had to say may not be much consolation to you this tax season. Perhaps it will be of at least small comfort, however, to know that we once had an IRS Commissioner who saw the harm of the whole business and possessed the courage of his convictions to wash his hands of it. [source]

Wow. If the IRS was corrupt back then, how corrupt is it now? Not very many bureaucrats quit a job because of its corruption. That’s integrity for you.

Trump Signature Set for US Currency in Historic First

From Newsmax.com (Mar. 26):

U.S. paper currency will bear President Donald Trump's signature to mark the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, the Treasury Department said Thursday, a first for a sitting president, while deleting the Treasurer of the United States' signature from U.S. money for the first time in 165 years.

The Treasury said in a statement to Reuters that the first $100 bills with Trump's signature and that of U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will be printed in June, followed by other bills in subsequent months.

The Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing is currently still producing notes bearing the signatures of former President Joe Biden's Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, and Treasurer Lynn Malerba.

Malerba will be the last of an unbroken line of Treasurers whose signatures had appeared on U.S. federal currency since 1861, when it was first issued by the U.S. government.

The signature change is the latest effort by the Trump administration and its allies to put the president's name on buildings, institutions, government programs, battleships and coins. The design of a commemorative gold coin with Trump's image was approved by a federal arts panel whose members he appointed.

Bessent said in a statement that the move was appropriate for the U.S. 250th anniversary, given strong U.S. economic growth, financial stability and "lasting dollar dominance" during Trump's second term.

"There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S. dollar bills bearing his name, and it is only appropriate that this historic currency be issued at the Semiquincentennial," Bessent said.

An effort for a circulating $1 Trump coin was set back by laws prohibiting the depiction of living individuals on U.S. coins.

A statute governing the printing of Federal Reserve notes gives the Treasury broad discretion to change designs to guard against counterfeiting. The law requires keeping certain elements, including the words "In God We Trust," and only allows portraits of deceased individuals.

The overall designs of bills will not change, except for Trump's signature replacing the Treasurer's, Treasury officials said. [source]

Nice. Although, the Left will probably find a reason to complain about this small, temporary (I believe) change.

Trump targeted by four FBI code-named counterintel probes that ensnared hundreds of Americans

From Just the News.com (Mar. 9):

President Donald Trump and his supporters were targeted by four consecutive FBI code-named counterintelligence investigations over the last decade that secretly subjected hundreds of innocent Americans to privacy-invading tactics and essentially treated the man twice elected president as a national security threat for most of the first nine years of his political career, according to interviews and documents reviewed by Just the News.

FBI Director Kash Patel has personally led the effort to review the operations code-named Crossfire Hurricane, Round River, Plasmic Echo and Arctic Frost that stretched from summer 2016 to January 2025, uncovering evidence of a far-reaching dragnet that in some cases may have been predicated on false, misleading or uncorroborated justifications, officials said.

Many of the investigative files were hidden from view, even from most FBI agents, because they were marked "prohibited access" and controlled carefully by FBI leadership.

Patel's search has been aided by whistleblowers inside his agency, a handful of senior bureau executives close to the director and some members of Congress, particularly Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

FBI's work hijacked by politics, invading citizens' privacy

Those who have seen the records told Just the News they chronicle how the FBI's expanded counterterrorism and counterintelligence missions after the Sept, 11, 2001, terrorist attacks eventually became hijacked by politics and led agents to deploy tools meant for terrorists and spies against everyday Americans in a bid to find a way to bring criminal cases against Trump.

One whistleblower this month told the FBI that surveillance and monitoring of Trump figures continued right up to the president’s January 2025 inauguration, according to multiple interviews.

Few inside Trump’s orbit were spared from targeting by their stature: a dozen members of Congress and their staffers, his future chief of staff Susie Wiles, journalists, campaign advisers, defense lawyers, and even Patel himself had their privacy pierced by warrants, wiretaps, FISA surveillance, phone record analysis, FBI assessments, or grand juries.

Many targets and subjects fell under the bureau’s definition of special circumstances targets because they have recognized constitutionally protected privileges – like lawyers, members of Congress, journalists, and political figures.

Even a political consultant turned documentary filmmaker who investigated Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings before joining Trump’s 2024 campaign was recently notified he was targeted in a criminal investigation that only recently was shut down, according to letters between Congress and the FBI reviewed by Just the News.

Michael Caputo had his emails and communications seized in 2023 by a “classified subpoena” issued about two weeks after he joined the Trump campaign and the email account the bureau penetrated “contained correspondence on The Trump Campaign’s private strategies and deliberations,” the correspondence stated.
Patel’s FBI has informed Congress that probe has been shut down. But the question of how so many Americans were targeted remains open.

At least 1,200 people that fall into the categories of special circumstances targets or subject were investigated under assessments by the FBI between 2018 and 2024 during Wray’s tenure, an explosive recent audit report to Congress revealed.

You can read that report here.

File

Gao_Report_Fbi_Assessments.pdf [read more]

Disgusting.  Abuse of power? I would say so.

Why We Should Thank God that Our Sun is So ‘Boring’

From Breakpoint.org (May 29, 2020):

Recently, a New York Times article drew attention to a corona that’s not a virus and that makes life possible instead of threatening it. The corona, or outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere, puzzles astronomers because it is, as compared with similar stars, so calm.

We take the sun for granted, unless it disappears for a few cloudy days or burns us at the beach or, less often, disrupts satellite communications. Once every century or so, it might burp enough energy to fry technology and maybe even ignite the Northern Lights over the Caribbean, as happened in 1859.  Aside from instances such as these, it’s easy to forget that the local star that warms our faces and wakens our flowers, this “blazing ball of fusion-powered plasma,” is actually capable, at least in theory, of scorching our planet and all of us to a lifeless cinder.

However, a new paper published in the journal “Science” suggests that’s exactly the sort of thing we should expect from the sun, if it behaved like other stars of its kind. But it doesn’t. The good news is, as the Times put it, the star around which we orbit is downright “boring” compared with its solar siblings.

Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, after compiling data from NASA’s retired Kepler space telescope, which spent years monitoring 150,000 distant stars, concluded that our sun’s relative calm is among the reasons we are here at all.

After identifying 369 comparable stars in our galaxy, these scientists learned something astounding: The magnetic activity that creates the sunspots, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections on other stars is, on average, five times more intense than on our sun. On many stars that were studied, disruptions were even twelve times more intense. That level of chaos makes life in their orbits virtually impossible.

So why would our sun behave so differently than all the others? One unsettling theory, especially given the “what else could possibly go wrong” start to 2020, is that our sun is currently asleep, but might, at some point, wake up and blast us with deadly levels of radiation.  Another idea is that our sun is aging, and because it is now over-the-hill, has fewer bursts of energy to give off.

That sounds reasonable to those of us reaching middle age.

Currently, according to researchers, one theory is not to be favored over another, but what is clear, as the Times observes, is that our sun’s relative tranquility has unquestionably “benefited our species.” As the study’s lead author put it, “It may be no coincidence that we live around a very inactive star.”

Of course, coincidence is the only reason that anyone already committed to naturalism can feasibly offer. If, however, the blinders of that particular worldview are removed, there’s a third possible explanation: Our host star is uniquely friendly to life because it was finely-tuned by God to support life.

In the marvelous book, “The Privileged Planet,” Jay Richards and Guillermo Gonzalez list the many features that make our Earth, sun, and our corner of the universe uniquely suited for life.

Not only do we have the right kind of star, we are just the right distance from that star. We are at the right location in the galaxy. We are in a solar system with gas giants that shield us from wandering asteroids and comets. We have a moon just the right size to stabilize our axis and create tides and seasons. We are on a planet with land, liquid water, oxygen, plate tectonics, and a molten iron core to generate a magnetosphere.

Tally up all these factors, as Richards and Gonzalez do, and it’s a dizzying improbability that we would be here at all: something like 1 out of 1 followed by 15 zeroes.

And yet, here we are, bathed in the warmth of a star scientists increasingly recognize as rare and hospitable. Our brightest minds could hardly imagine, much less attempt to design, a better solar system. All of which is why we ought to thank the brightest of all minds, the One who also made our own minds bright enough to discover all of these remarkable things about our privileged planet, our privileged place in the universe, and our blessedly boring sun. [source]

Thank God the sun is “boring.”

Highlights of Democrat Party Platforms Part 2

1868 Democratic Party Platform

Second. Amnesty for all past political offenses, and the regulation of the elective franchise in the States, by their citizens.

Third. Payment of the public debt of the United States as rapidly as practicable. All moneys drawn from the people by taxation, except so much as is requisite for the necessities of the government, economically administered, being honestly applied to such payment, and where the obligations of the government do not expressly state upon their face, or the law under which they were issued does not provide, that they shall be paid in coin, they ought, in right and in justice, to be paid in the lawful money of the United States.

……..

Eighth. Equal rights and protection for naturalized and native-born citizens at home and abroad; the assertion of American nationality, which shall command the respect of foreign powers, and furnish an example and encouragement to people struggling for national integrity, constitutional liberty, and individual rights, and the maintenance of the rights of naturalized citizens against the absolute doctrine of immutable allegiance and the claims of foreign powers to punish them for alleged crimes committed beyond their jurisdiction.

In demanding these measures and reforms we arraign the Radical party* for its disregard of right, and the unparalleled oppression and tyranny which have marked its career.

After the most solemn and unanimous pledge of both Houses of Congress to prosecute the war exclusively for the maintenance of the government and the preservation of the Union under the Constitution, it has repeatedly violated that most sacred pledge, under which alone was rallied that noble volunteer army which carried our flag to victory.

Instead of restoring the Union, it has, so far as in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten States, in time of profound peace, to military despotism and negro supremacy. [read more]

1904 Democratic Party Platform

Election of Senators By the People

We favor the election of United States Senators by direct vote of the people.**

…..

Condemnation of Polygamy

We demand the extermination of polygamy within the jurisdiction of the United States, and the complete separation of Church and State in political affairs. [read more]

1908 Democratic Party Platform

Income Tax

We favor an income tax as part of our revenue system^, and we urge the submission of a constitutional amendment specifically authorizing Congress to levy and collect a tax upon individual and corporate incomes, to the end that wealth may bear its proportionate share of the burdens of the Federal Government. [read more]

The 1908 Democrat Party platform also wanted election of senators by popular vote.

 

Notes:

* The Republican party.

** Not part of the 1904 Republican Party Platform.

^ Not part of the 1908 Republican Party Platform.

Civilization Versus the New Nihilists

From AM Greatness.com (Dec. 14, 2023):

Nihilism is the religion of the Left. Anarchy is now at the core of the new Democratic Party.

If the Left wished radically to alter the demography of the U.S., it could have expanded legal immigration through legislation or the courts.

Instead, it simply erased the border and dynamited federal immigration law.

By fiat, nihilists ended the wall, and stopped detaining and deporting illegal aliens altogether.

Or was it worse than that when candidate Joe Biden in September 2019 urged would-be illegal aliens to “surge” the border?

As a result, through laxity and entitlement incentives, eight-million illegal entrants have swarmed the southern border under the Biden administration.

They are swamping border towns, bankrupting big-city budgets, and infuriating even Democratic constituencies.

The same nihilism applies to crime.

In the old days liberals gave light sentences to criminals or reduced bail. But today leftist prosecutors do not even seek bail. They hardly prosecute theft or random assaults.

Criminals are arrested and released the same day. Is the nihilist plan to destroy the entire body of American jurisprudence, and to ensure “equity” in being victimized?

Is the woke idea that all Americans—inclusive of diverse Beverly Hills elites, Hollywood celebrities, or members of Congress alike—must share victim equity, and thus experience first-hand street robbery, car-jacking, smash-and-grab, and home invasion?

The United States can produce annually more natural gas and oil than any nation on earth. It once pioneered nuclear power. It has vast coal reserves and sophisticated hydroelectric plants.

The old idea was to use these unmatched resources to transition gradually to other cleaner fuels such as hydrogen, fusion power, solar, and wind. That way consumers would still enjoy affordable energy. And the United States could remain independent of coercion by the oil-producing Middle East.

But that was not the nihilist way.

Instead, the left deliberately cut back on pipelines, new energy leases, and fracking. It bragged of an upcoming ban on fossil fuels. In drought-stricken, energy-short California, the state is blowing up, not building new dams.

Is the nihilist agenda to punish with bankruptcy the energy-using middle class?

Is the hope that Americans will have to beg the Saudis, Iranians, Venezuelans, and Russians to pump more of the hated goo for our benefit so we would not have to dirty ourselves helping ourselves?

When Joe Biden entered office in January 2021 the U.S. was naturally rebounding from more than a year of Covid-enforced lockdowns.

Overtaxed supply chains were still fragile. Pent-up demand was soaring. Consumers were flush with government cash. Trillions of dollars had been printed and infused into the economy to ward off a feared recession.

All economists advised not to increase the deficit, spike further consumer demand, and expand entitlements.

Instead the Left did just the opposite.

Four-trillion dollars were printed and distributed. In no time, Americans, recovering from Covid, next experienced the worst, but entirely preventable, inflation in 40 years.

Three years later prices on staples remain 30-40 percent higher than when Biden took office. Mortgage rates tripled.

Abroad the nihilism is even more inexplicable and terrifying.

All nations suffer military setbacks. But none in memory have shamefully hightailed out of a theater as we did from Afghanistan.

Few countries could even imagine discarding billions of dollars of weapons and hardware into the hands of the terrorist Taliban, or abandoning a $1 billion new embassy, and a huge, remodeled air base.

Why did the administration simply allow a huge Chinese spy balloon to float and photograph leisurely over the continental U.S.?

Naïve countries might endure two or three attacks on their overseas bases without serious retaliation. But how could the U.S. military permit 135 rocket barrages by Iranian-supplied terrorists on American soldiers without a major and sustained response?

Is the point to humiliate our own troops? To destroy what is left of U.S. deterrence?

Popular culture is especially captive to leftist nihilism.

It is not enough to object to a statue or artwork. Instead, without deliberation or public input, they must be defaced or destroyed, all the better stealthily and by night.

After the massacres of October 7—but well before Israel had even responded to the barbaric invasion—thousands of students swarmed their elite universities cheering on the violence.

And what so exhilarated them?

The nihilist, ghoulish beheading, torture, mutilation, mass rape, dismemberment, and necrophilia of unarmed, civilian Israeli elderly, women, children, and infants.

In sum, we are witnessing an epidemic of leftist nihilism similar to the 16^th-century European mad wave of iconoclastic destruction of religious art.

Or is the better parallel the suicidal insanity that Mao Zedong unleashed during his cultural revolution of the 1960s?

The old politics of right versus left, and Republican opposed to Democrat have now given way to a new existential struggle: Americans must choose between civilization—or its destroyers. [source]

VDH at his best. He has captured and exposed the real Left.

‘Schedule F’ is NUKE against Deep State and Trump’s finger is on the button…

From Revolver.news (Feb. 6):

While everyone is glued to AI stocks and crypto charts, the real power move just quietly unfolded in Washington.

The Office of Personnel Management finalized the rules that will allow President Trump to reclassify up to 50,000 federal employees as “at-will” workers.

Do you know what that means?

That means if the Supreme Court upholds this move, Trump can fire tens of thousands of entrenched bureaucrats (Deep State) who shape federal policy.

This is a direct nuclear strike right at the heart of the permanent administrative state.

A sharp observer noticed right away that something bigger than market volatility was unfolding.

Most people reading this post probably skimmed right past the last line… but that’s the bombshell.

Ceb K.

AI capex & capabilities exploding, AI-related stocks (hardware & software) oddly tumbling, Bitcoin/gold/silver etc crashing (but dollar rallying), etc; also OPM just finalized rules this morning allowing Trump to reclassify the most important 50k civil servants as at-will workers

He meant AI news as the big update, but it’s also eg worth noting that “Schedule F” has been the main goal of Republican presidents to fight the deep state for 50+ years & it was issued this morning (takes effect in 30 days) & SCOTUS will uphold it in upcoming Slaughter decision.

Schedule F, which has been renamed “Schedule Policy/Career,” isn’t new. It was introduced during Trump’s first term. But the goal hasn’t changed: crack open the layer of federal bureaucrats who influence policy but are nearly impossible to fire. [read more]

Sounds great. Hope the SOTUS upholds it. The Deep State will definitely fight the action.

The Islamic Republic followed the old playbook. Trump didn’t.

From The Blaze.com (June 25, 2025):

History offers a grim pattern: A tyrant rises, slaughters the innocent, and the world watches — then regrets. From the ruins of cities and graves of millions comes the same old lesson, relearned too late: Free nations must stand together or perish apart.

In the fifth century, Attila the Hun terrorized Europe. Theodosius II, the Eastern Roman emperor, bought peace by paying Attila 2,100 pounds of gold annually. The Western emperor, Valentinian III, stayed silent — happy to remain out of range. But Attila didn’t stop. He turned west, burned cities, demanded Valentinian’s sister in marriage, and claimed half the empire. Rome tried appeasement again. Gold flowed. But the hunger of predators cannot be satisfied with treasure.

Modern history offers another warning. Adolf Hitler spelled out his genocidal vision in "Mein Kampf." He made no secret of his plan to build a racially pure Volksgemeinschaft by eliminating “inferior” peoples. Yet, the world did nothing.

When Hitler marched troops into the Rhineland, Europe’s powers stood by. When he absorbed Austria in the Anschluss of 1938, they did nothing. When he threatened Czechoslovakia, the world convened — not to confront him but to appease him. The result was the Munich Agreement, signed in the name of peace, but it delivered only conquest. Six million Jews died. Tens of millions more followed. Once again, the world failed to act until it was far too late.

The refrain “never again” echoed across continents. But history’s warning now blares once more — from Tehran.

On February 11, 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran was born. That August, it declared Al-Quds Day, with crowds chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” The regime announced its goal: global domination under a single theocratic rule. Nonbelievers would be crushed. Sound familiar?

The alarms have only grown louder. In 1979, Iran seized 66 Americans at the U.S. embassy and held 52 of them hostage for over a year. In 1981, Iran’s Islamic Revolution inspired the assassination of Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat. In 1982, it supported the Syrian uprising that spawned Hamas. In 1983, Iran’s proxy Hezbollah bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans. By the 1990s, Iran backed Ansar Allah — the group now called the Houthis.

Iran built a terrorist Hydra of proxies, encircling Israel with armed fanatics. And the world did what it always does: It looked away.

Even the United States bent the knee. The Reagan administration traded arms for hostages. Obama gave Iran billions in sanctions relief under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — an appeasement deal in all but name, dressed up as diplomacy. In return, Iran advanced its nuclear program while promising not to use it. A familiar bargain: Leave us alone, won’t you? Please?

Then came October 7, 2023. Hamas terrorists — financed by unfrozen Iranian assets — slaughtered more than 1,200 Israelis. They raped. They kidnapped. They filmed their atrocities. And still, Iran marched forward, building nuclear capacity for a “final solution.”

Enough.

President Donald Trump saw the danger. Intelligence revealed that Iran was weeks away from building a bomb. He acted.

Eight U.S. B-2 bombers carrying bunker-buster warheads struck Iran’s nuclear sites — Natanz, Isfahan, Fordow, and others. Trump announced to the American people that the regime’s key nuclear enrichment facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated.”

Trump did what history demands. He refused to sacrifice nine million Israelis while the world held meetings. He didn’t wait for Tehran to strike first. He acted to stop a second holocaust before it could begin.

This is the difference between a predator’s barbarism and a statesman’s vision. Trump offers peace through strength — as opposed to allowing predators to plunder, rape, and murder their way to barbaric “prosperity.” Trump’s prosperity emerges from shared interest. He champions a commonwealth built on commerce, not conquest.

History has handed us one last chance to learn its lesson. Let’s not waste it. [source]

A strike that Iran won't forget easily. But the regime didn’t learn its lesson. So, Operation Epic Fury happened.

Melania Releases Audiobook Exclusively Via AI of Her Voice

From Newsmax.com (May 22, 2025):

Melania Trump's 2024 self-titled memoir "Melania" has been released in an audiobook using groundbreaking artificial intelligence technology from ElevenLabs' replicating her voice through AI.

"I am proud to be at the forefront of publishing's new frontier – the intersection of artificial intelligence technology and audio," she wrote in a statement. "ElevenLabs developed an AI-generated replica of my voice under my strict supervision, which will establish an unforgettable connection with my personal story, in multiple languages for listeners worldwide."

The 7-hour English language version of "Melania: The Audiobook" is available exclusively on MelaniaTrump.com.

"We're excited that Melania Trump trusted our technology to power this first-of-its-kind audiobook project," ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski said.

"We look forward to helping bring this book to the public in many other languages, in Mrs. Trump's own voice, soon."

Multiple language versions including Spanish, Hindi, and Portuguese will be available this fall.

ElevenLabs is an AI audio research and technology company, building products for enterprises, developers, and creators. [source]

Cool. I believe in the future more authors are going to do this. They don't have to wear out their own voice just to read their work.

I refer to this kind of software in my 2018 blogpost "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS KILLING THE UNCANNY VALLEY AND OUR GRASP ON REALITY"

The Triumph of the Risen Christ Offers a Bridge to New Life

From Gingrich 360.com (April 17, 2025):

On Easter, we celebrate the most important day of the year for the Christian community – the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Christians worldwide believe Jesus Christ was crucified, died, was buried, and rose from the dead. This selfless, sacrificial love for humanity is at the heart of Christianity.

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.” 

Jesus Christ’s resurrection and ultimate victory over death gives us hope for the future and eternal life in Heaven.

As Pope Francis said on Easter 2024: “On this day when we celebrate the life given us in the resurrection of the Son, let us remember the infinite love of God for each of us: a love that overcomes every limit and every weakness.”

This message is as powerful today as it has ever been. Over the past year, many around the world have endured war, persecution, disease, abuse, addiction, and homelessness.

Yet Jesus Christ’s death on the cross reminds us that we are not alone in enduring hardship and challenges in this life – and that God’s eternal love conquers all.

This Easter, let us celebrate the hope and love that are revealed to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We wish you a happy Easter! [source]

Amen.

Highlights of Democrat Party Platforms Part 1

1840 Democratic Party Platform

Resolved, That congress has no power to charter a national bank; that we believe such an institution one of deadly hostility to the best interests of the country, dangerous to our republican institutions and the liberties of the people, and calculated to place the business of the country within the control of a concentrated money power, and above the laws and the will of the people.

Resolved, That congress has no power, under the constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several states, and that such states are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the constitution; that all efforts by abolitionists or others, made to induce congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and permanency of the union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend to our political institutions. [read more]

1856 Democratic Party Platform

Resolved, That we regard this as a distinctive feature of our political creed, which we are proud to maintain before the world, as the great moral element in a form of government springing from and upheld by the popular will; and we contrast it with the creed and practice of Federalism, under whatever name or form, which seeks to palsy the will of the constituent, and which conceives no imposture too monstrous for the popular credulity.

…….

That Congress has no power to charter a national bank; that we believe such an institution one of deadly hostility to the best interests of the country, dangerous to our republican institutions and the liberties of the people, and calculated to place the business of the country within the control of a concentrated money power, and above the laws and the will of the people; and that the results of Democratic legislation in this and all other financial measures upon which issues have been made between the two political parties of the country, have demonstrated to candid and practical men of all parties, their soundness, safety, and utility, in all business pursuits.

……..

That Congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts of the abolitionists, or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions.

…….

That the Democratic party will resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made. [read more]

1860 Democratic Party Platform

Resolved, That one of the necessities of the age, in a military, commercial, and postal point of view, is speedy communication between the Atlantic and Pacific States; and the Democratic party pledge such Constitutional Government aid as will insure the construction of a Railroad to the Pacific coast, at the earliest practicable period.

…….

Resolved, That the enactments of the State Legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect. [read more]

AI that reads brain scans shows promise for finding Alzheimer’s genes

From Nature.com (Nov. 1, 2023):

Washington DC

Researchers have sifted through genomes from thousands of individuals in an effort to identify genes linked to Alzheimer's disease. But these scientists have faced a serious obstacle: it's hard to know for certain which of those people have Alzheimer's. There's no foolproof blood test for the disease, and dementia, a key symptom of Alzheimer's, is also caused by other disorders. Early-stage Alzheimer's might cause no symptoms at all.

Now, researchers have developed artificial intelligence (AI)-based approaches that could help. One algorithm efficiently sorts through large numbers of brain images and picks out those that include characteristics of Alzheimer's. A second machine-learning method identifies important structural features of the brain - an effort that could eventually help scientists to spot new signs of Alzheimer's in brain scans.

The goal is to use people's brain images as visual 'biomarkers' of Alzheimer's. Applying the method to large databases that also include medical information and genetic data, such as the UK Biobank, could allow scientists to pinpoint genes that contribute to the disease. In turn, this work could aid the creation of treatments and of models that predict who's at risk of developing the disease.

Combining genomics, brain imaging and AI is allowing researchers to "find brain measures that are tightly linked to a genomic driver", says Paul Thompson, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who is spearheading efforts to develop these algorithms.

Thompson and others described the new AI techniques on 4 November at the annual conference of the American Society of Human Genetics in Washington DC.

Overwhelmed with data

Thousands of people have had both their genomes sequenced and their brains scanned in the past two decades as part of efforts to build massive research databases. But the rate at which this torrent of information is being produced is outpacing researchers' ability to analyze and interpret it.

"We're very data-rich these days compared with how things were 5-10 years ago, and that's where AI [and machine learning] approaches can excel," says Alison Goate, a geneticist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. In 2020, Thompson launched AI4AD, a consortium of researchers across the United States that aims to develop AI tools to analyze and integrate genetic, imaging and cognitive data relating to Alzheimer's disease. As part of this project, researchers created an AI model trained on tens of thousands of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans. These images had previously been reviewed by physicians, who picked out scans that showed evidence of Alzheimer's. From the images, the AI tool learned what the brains of people with and without Alzheimer's look like.

Self-taught algorithm

In one trial, reported in a preprint that has not yet been peer reviewed, the AI classifier detected Alzheimer's in brain scans with an accuracy of more than 90%. The consortium has also used a similar approach to create a classier that can accurately sort scans into separate categories according to specific pathological changes in the brain that are associated with cognitive decline and dementia.

Degui Zhi, a data scientist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and his colleagues have taken a different approach. Whereas Thompson and his team focused the AI model on areas of the brain that are known to be linked to Alzheimer's, Zhi wanted the tool to learn for itself the structural features of the brain that can help to diagnose the disease.

The researchers' AI tool reviewed thousands of brain scans and chose the features that most reliably differentiated one person's brain from another's. Zhi says that this minimizes the likelihood of human bias influencing the algorithm. Now, Zhi's team is using the algorithm to identify the traits that best distinguish between brain scans of people with and without Alzheimer's.

Thompson and Zhi acknowledge that the AI models are only as good as the data on which they're trained. There is a lack of racial and geographical diversity in individuals who have had their brains scanned and genomes sequenced, especially in databases such as the UK Biobank, so the findings from this AI-guided research might not be applicable to everyone. Furthermore, Goate says it will be crucial to show that the AI models' performance can be replicated in other databases, and that they show consistent results.

Rudolph Tanzi, a neurogeneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, says that these biomarkers could one day become part of a set of risk scores for the disease that also integrate blood-based biomarkers and genetics. When all of these bits of data are combined, risk scores can become "exponentially more sensitive", which will hopefully allow people to seek early treatment before the disease progresses, he adds.

Alzheimer's is just the beginning, Thompson says. If this approach works, it could also be applied to other diseases that have a physical presentation on brain imaging, he says. [source]

Nice.

Another article on Alzheimer’s and AI: AI tool detects Alzheimer’s disease with 95% accuracy

Capitol Police commander who ordered evacuations of Senate and House: 'J6 was not an insurrection'

From The Post Millennial.com (Dec. 14, 2023):

In an X post on Thursday, former US Capitol Police Lieutenant Tarik Johnson said that he has been stating publicly that "J6 was not an insurrection, but not many people would listen," reflecting on Vivek Ramaswamy’s comments during a CNN townhall event in Iowa on Wednesday evening.

"Vivek Ramaswamy got a lot right in this interview," Johnson began. "I’ve been saying publicly for a year that J6 was not an insurrection but not many people would listen."

"Ironically so, no one would benefit more than I if J6 was an insurrection as I (Tarik Johnson) was the Commander that ordered and led the evacuations of the Senate and the House during the J6 breach after begging former Assistant Chief Yogananda Pittman for permission to do so as she sat comfortably in the Commander Center watching the events unfold on CCTV while Chief Steven A Sund was obtaining National Guard approval and getting assistance from local law enforcement agencies."

Johnson said that Pittman "flat out ignored me," forcing him to go ahead with the evacuations without her approval. Three days later, he decided to call Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy on Pittman’s conduct, and around half an hour later, he received word from the USCP internal affairs section that he was suspended.

"The suspension lasted for 17 months and I was under a USCP gag order not to speak about the events of January 6, 2021 to the media until I separated from the Department," Johnson wrote, adding that he was required to remain at his home Mondays through Fridays between 8 am and 4 pm and was "unable to step off my property without notifying the USCP for fear of being disciplined up to and including termination during those 17 months."

"These are SOME of many facts USCP Chief J Thomas Manger (who is arguably the most corrupt politician in the country) was brought in to cover-up."

Johnson concluded, "If presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy would like more FACTS to disrupt the insurrection narrative, I will inbox his designated representative my personal phone number. God bless our country now and in 2024."

During Wednesday evening’s townhall event, Ramaswamy said that three years ago, at the time of January 6, "If you had told me that January 6 was in any way an inside job the subject of government entrapment, I would have told you that was crazy talk, fringe conspiracy theory nonsense."

"I can tell you now having gone somewhat deep in this: it's not. I mean, the reality is this: we do have a government — first of all, we have to acknowledge that has lied to us systematically over the last several years about the origin of COVID-19. About the Hunter Biden laptop that we were told was false by 51 CIA experts and otherwise before we now know that it was true. You can go straight down the list of Trump-Russia, disinformation, collusion, hoax, all of it. Now we come to January 6. The reality is we know that there were federal law enforcement agents in that field. We don't know how many I think it's shameful," he said, before host Abby Phillip cut him off, saying there was no evidence of this.

Ramaswamy interjected, holding the floor, "I know that the establishment doesn't approve of this message," and the crowd applauded.

"So why before Congress, when pressed on what the number was, they [FBI] didn't say there were none they just couldn't say how many there were?" Ramaswamy countered.

"We've seen multiple informants suggesting that there were," Ramaswamy said, "we know people were FBI informants."

"I'm gonna give you hard facts. And if I may, I know this can be a little uncomfortable," Ramaswamy said, asking why Congress suppressed footage from J6, releasing only 12 hours of hundreds of hours in existence, including footage showing police firing rubber bullets into the crowd and shooting tear gas. [source]

Of course, it wasn't an insurrection. It was a setup.

More Jan. 6 articles:

• Federal Prosecutors Start Dropping Jan. 6 Obstruction Charges After Supreme Court Ruling
• Pelosi's top security aides got warning about Capitol breach night before Jan. 6 riot, memos show