Happy Halloween!

 Made by me with a Gemini prompt (see below):

Photo-realistic painting in perspective. A night sky with stars in the sky. Upper-left is a small white waning crescent moon. Upper-right is a small fractal bolt of lightening.

The ground is covered with dead Bermuda grass.

A small vampire bat is flying close to the center in the sky. In the center of the painting is 2-story dilapidating abandoned pine wood house with 4 broken windows.

In the one of the windows is a transparent apparition of a small woman in white with black eyes. 

In another window is a small shadow person with a hat on his head.

In another window is a small bluish white sparkling ball of light.

Surrounding the house is a gated rusted iron fence. Next to the house on the left is an old bloodwood tree with a black widow spiderweb on one of the branches.

Next to the house on the right is a gray medium-sized granite tombstone with words RIP carved in the middle.

Out of the grave in front of the tombstone is a skeleton's small hand.

To the right of the house, is a zombie walking with its arms out. 

In front of the fence is the Grim Reaper. 

A transparent headless specter is walking toward the left in the background.

A medium sized blue lighted pumpkin with a worried carved expression in front of the house.

Notes from the American Citizenship and Its Decline course

Dr. [Victor Davis] Hanson argues that perhaps the greatest catalyst for the development of citizenship in ancient Greece was the protection of property.

Rome adopted many ideas from the Greeks regarding citizenship, especially from the constitutions of Sparta and Crete.

The Romans established a government with a senate and two consuls in order to check the excesses of radical Greek democracy.

According to Dr. Hanson, Rome was able to expand as far as it did because the Romans brought legal protections, cultural sophistication and material benefits to the peoples they conquered.

Rome's expansion brought new challenges to citizenship because its population was too diverse to share a common identity, the elites no longer felt invested in the common interest, citizens in distant provinces were difficult to assimilate.

According to Dr. Hanson, borders are significant to the idea of citizenship because borders define a space in which a common idea can be pursued.

Dr. Hanson does not classify globalization as one of the "organic" or "premodern" challenges to citizenship.

Source: Hillsdale College's "American Citizenship and Its Decline" course.

Pentagon UFO boss says strange sightings are either 'aliens' or a foreign power - and he hopes it's extraterrestrials

From Daily Mail.com (Nov. 10, 2023):

The Pentagon's outgoing UFO chief has said he does believe extraterrestrial life exists - but that you'd have to go to Mars or beyond to find it. 

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the longtime laser and materials physicist and head of the Pentagon's UFO-chasing All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, delivered his assessment following news of his retirement from government service.

Kirkpatrick's 18-month tenure as the office's first-ever director has been laced with controversy, as expected for an area once relegated to the scientific fringe.

In the summer, there was a Congress hearing into claims the American government is covering up its knowledge of alien craft - which included the resurfacing of the 'Tic Tac' shaped UFO saga from 15 years ago.

Kirkpatrick's office was established in July 2022. He said his mission is to 'is raise the level of the conversation' around aliens and their potential existence.

When asked by Politico if aliens are real, he said: 'That is a great question. I love that question.

'Number one, the best thing that could come out of this job is to prove that there are aliens, right? Because if we don’t prove there are aliens, then what we’re finding is evidence of other people doing stuff in our backyard. And that’s not good.

'Two, from a scientific perspective: The scientific community will agree that it is statistically invalid to believe that there is not life out in the universe, as vast as the universe is and the number of galaxies and solar systems and planets.

'That is what part of NASA’s mission is to look for that life. The probability, however, that that life is intelligent and that it has found Earth and that it has come to Earth and that it has repeatedly crashed in the United States is not very probable.

'So part of what we’ve been trying to do, and part of what I will continue to do until I’m done, is raise the level of the conversation.

'If you are talking with NASA or the European Space Agency, and you’re talking about looking for life out in the universe, it is a very objective, very scientifically sound discussion and discourse.

'As that discussion gets closer to the solar system, somewhere around Mars, it turns into science fiction. And then as you get even closer to Earth, and you cross into Earth’s atmosphere, it becomes conspiracy theory.

'We need to change the level of the [public] conversation. It’s one of the reasons why we’ve engaged academia to work on a number of scientific papers that look at the probabilities of these things, and what are the signatures associated with that?

'So that we can benchmark what we’re doing in scientific proofs and in scientific fact and not hearsay and pointing fingers and government cover ups and conspiracies with no evidence of any of them.'

Kirkpatrick also revealed he's had over 30 whistleblowers 'come in to talk,' adding: 'We have investigated every single one of them, every single story, every lead that provided any substantive evidence for us to go after.'

According to the director of the Pentagon's UFO investigation office, 'the best thing that could come out of this job is to prove that there are aliens.'

The alternative to what would be a literally Earth-changing discovery of extraterrestrial life exploring our own planet would be that a rival foreign power could be 'doing stuff in our backyard,' he said.

Kirkpatrick added: 'And that's not good.'

While some UFO whistleblowers now accuse Kirkpatrick of fostering an 'atmosphere of disinterest,' others have suggested his superiors are holding AARO's efforts back even though a few have described 'really positive' experiences with the office.

'I'm ready to move on,' Kirkpatrick told Politico, upon official confirmation of his retirement. 'I have accomplished everything I said I was going to do.' [read more]

Is there another explanation other than misidentification? I suppose they could also be future earth time travelers if you want to get imaginative. From a Christian perspective, UFOs or UAPs could be Satan messing with mankind. Hard to say.

EXCLUSIVE: Hamas Turns Gaza Hospitals and Schools Into Torture Chambers as It Reestablishes Police State: Gazans Describe Horrific Interrogations, Beatings

From Free Beacon.com (June 10):

Hamas has built makeshift torture chambers inside Gazan hospitals and schools where its men are interrogating and abusing fellow Palestinians suspected of disloyalty. The reign of terror comes as Hamas moves aggressively to reassert its power over the Gaza Strip, according to video testimonials and official government documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

More than eight months after a fragile ceasefire with Israel left Hamas badly wounded, the terror group has largely turned inward, establishing a strict police state and moving internal security operations—its dreaded "Interior Ministry"—back into the same civilian outposts it commandeered to wage war on Israel. Eyewitness accounts from three Gazans reveal that Hamas has again laid claim to al-Shifa hospital, the Gaza Strip's largest medical complex, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, and the al-Ma'amadani Hospital in Gaza City. The terror group has done the same with schools across Gaza, turning classrooms into prisons and detention centers where civilians are often subjected to brutal beatings and more creative forms of torture.

"They have prisons inside the schools, rooms that function like prisons," recounted one Gazan activist who says he was abducted by Hamas and beaten for several days. "The same goes for hospitals. They have rooms underground in the basement that they use as a prison, as if they were military and security sites." At the Nasser Hospital, said a second Gazan woman, "inside the Hind al-Daghma Dialysis Center, people are beaten and shot in the legs. If they send someone to the renal department at Nasser, it basically means it's over."

Jonathan Schanzer, a veteran regional analyst and executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said it is no surprise that Hamas is again staking claim to Gaza's most important civilian centers.

"Hamas has always exploited the civilian infrastructure that it has wielded to deter Israel from attacking its military structures," he said. "The co-opting of institutions is a long-standing practice of this terrorist organization dating back to its very founding."

Like others quoted in this report, the Gazan witnesses to Hamas's torture operation have asked to remain anonymous in order to protect themselves from Hamas retaliation. The video testimonials were secretly filmed inside Gaza by Jusoor News, an independent Arab-run media outlet that frequently documents life under Hamas control, and provided to the Free Beacon along with Hamas-run Interior Ministry documents that show civilians being summoned to hospitals for interrogation.

The testimonials and documentation provide some of the firmest evidence to date that Hamas is not only torturing Palestinians, but also continuing to breach international law by using civilian buildings as military outposts. Israel targeted several of the aforementioned hospitals during the war in Gaza and provided extensive evidence that Hamas used these medical facilities for its operations, with Hamas operatives often working alongside humanitarian aid workers.

At the same time, anti-Israel elements of the international community and the media have paid little attention as Hamas rebuilds its authoritarian state and have focused instead on criticizing Israel. The New York Times last month published a largely discredited opinion column by Nicholas Kristof, which alleged that Israelis were raping "Palestinian journalists" with carrots and dogs. [read more]

Evil sheep-screwing bastards!  President Trump should just let Israel destroy Hamas. The world (other than the crazy Mullahs) wouldn’t miss them.

Illegal immigrant who murdered Michigan woman sues Trump, demands $75M, public apology, US citizenship

From Fox News.com (July 20):

An illegal immigrant serving a lengthy prison sentence for the murder of a Michigan woman is suing President Donald Trump, alleging he faced humiliation when his case was used as a political talking point, and is demanding $75 million, a public apology, and U.S. citizenship.

Brandon Ortiz-Vite, 27, who was previously deported from the United States, is serving a sentence of 39 to 102 years in prison for killing Ruby Garcia in March 2024.

Garcia's body had several gunshot wounds and was found dumped along a road in Grand Rapids. The pair were in a romantic relationship and were engaged in an argument at the time of the slaying.

In a handwritten complaint filed in federal court, Ortiz-Vite named Trump and White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Steven Cheung as defendants.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House.

Ortiz-Vite's case garnered national attention and was highlighted when Trump, who made combating illegal immigration a large part of his campaign, visited Grand Rapids in 2024. During his remarks, Trump labeled Ortiz-Vite as "America's problem."

He also featured Ortiz-Vite’s mugshot in commercials as an example of the "murderers, rapists , and drug traffickers" who resided illegally in the United States, The Midwesterner reported.

He was mocked by prison staff and other inmates, he said.

"I was put into a category. Who I was as a person no longer mattered! What only mattered was my race," Ortiz-Vite wrote. "My case and immigration status! Once again, it belittled me, shattered my dignity and what I was as a person."

"The shame it brought to my family name is a reality I have to live with now," he added. "I took full responsibility for my actions but for them to use my case for political gain on TV was unjust. Humiliating. When I thought it couldn't get worse, it did. I was center stage in front of a nation, public scrutiny at its finest!"

Ortiz-Vite, who acted as his own attorney, said his case came under intense media coverage, resulting in him living in a "nightmare".

"It all became clear to me when I first met with my court-appointed attorneys. They explained how my case had now gotten blown out of proportion and was now a high-profile case!" he wrote. "The shock in their eyes and the tears from mine were a reaction to my realization that I was living everyone's worst nightmare! To be publicly infamous—a target! To the United States of America, from here everything went downhill. I was now labeled a cold-blooded murderer in the eyes of the people of this nation."

"The anxiety and despair I felt compares to no other," he added.

Matthew Borgula, a criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, said the lawsuit is unlikely to succeed, citing a range of factors, including presidential immunity.

"Federal law requires courts to screen prisoner suits before anyone is served. This complaint will likely not survive that screening," Borgula told Fox News Digital. "Also, Presidential immunity covers official acts, and campaign statements can fall outside it — but this suit fails for more basic reasons." [read more]

That's too bad. Count your blessings that Michigan didn't give you the death penalty. You claim you were humiliated?  Be thankful you weren't attacked or killed in prison. That choice wasn't ever given to Ruby Garcia. I hope this selfish bastard gets deported immediately if he ever gets released.

The ‘Far Right’ Is Surging In Europe Because The Left’s Version Of ‘Democracy’ Has Failed

From The Federalist.com (June 13, 2024):

Due to mounting dissatisfaction with the political establishment throughout the European Union, right-wing parties have made significant gains in the recent European Parliament elections. Perhaps most surprisingly, this surge in seats won was fueled not only by traditional older conservatives but also by younger voters who have sought to rekindle the spirit of nationalism within their homelands.

Before the European Parliament elections, 32 percent of French 18-to-25-year-olds said they’d vote for the “far right” National Rally party, closely reflecting the eventual election outcome. Led by Marine Le Pen, “the National Rally party is on course to win 31.5 percent of the vote—more than twice the 14.7 percent projected for [French President Emmanuel] Macron’s liberal Renaissance party.”

Meanwhile, Germany’s AfD party secured better-than-expected results, coming in second in Germany’s EU parliamentary election, winning nearly 16 percent of the vote. Notably, AfD gained significant ground among younger voters, surging 12 percentage points to 17 percent among 16-24-year-olds.

This political earthquake felt in France and Germany is not an isolated incident within these two countries. Feelings of Euroscepticism and discontent over immigration are rising all across Europe.

While a “centrist” (meaning leftist) pro-EU majority remains in firm control of the European Parliament, members of the Western ruling class are quickly realizing that the backlash against the globalist agenda, put into motion shortly after World War II, is escaping leftist containment and steadily growing.

This should surprise no one. We saw the first strong signs of this immune response to globalism in 2016 when Britain voted to leave the European Union. Yet ruling class members on both the left and right within the United Kingdom did not heed the message their voters sent as immigration surged.

One of the major promises of Brexit was to regain control of England’s borders, yet the number of legal arrivals has nearly doubled since Brexit. This surge has fueled a significant rise in anti-immigration protests by individuals desperate to preserve their culture and heritage. As a consequence, the Conservative Party in the U.K., which has been the primary governing party since 2010, is now set for historic losses ahead of the July 4 national elections due in part to its failure to control its borders.

Of course, according to leftist media, the rise of so-called “far-right” populism, manifesting itself through legitimate electoral wins, is positioned as a threat to democracy. But this is a rhetorical sleight of hand.

Democracy is not in danger. It’s their “democracy” that’s threatened as the right is beginning to flex its political muscles — finally acting as legitimate opposition to the status quo dominated by an establishment left and right that look and behave in a very similar fashion.

When liberals use the word “democracy,” they don’t mean the will of the voters. Rather, the word democracy is used as a substitute for leftist hegemony, or as Curtis Yarvin explained, “When they say democracy, they mean oligarchy.”

“Traditional” conservatives and “centrist” leftists both share the same immigration policy. That’s part of why the left is terrified of legitimate right-wing opposition as opposed to the traditional “opposition in-name-only” conservatism they are accustomed to defeating. In a recent New York Times analysis titled “Just How Dangerous Is Europe’s Rising Far Right?” author Roger Cohen alluded to the failure of leftist political containment strategies,

“Across Europe, the far right is becoming the right, absent any compelling message from traditional conservative parties. If ‘far’ suggests outlier, it has become a misnomer. Not only have the parties of an anti-immigrant right surged, they have seen the barriers that once kept them out crumble as they are absorbed into the arc of Western democracies.”

Much to the dismay of liberal elites, authoritarian “barriers” in the form of “hate speech” legislation, social stigmatization, corporate media exclusion, and outright censorship are proving ineffective because the reality of deteriorating social and economic conditions, due in part to mass migration across the West, is too great to ignore. After decades of prioritizing the well-being of immigrants over that of native-born citizens, the reinvigoration of traditional forms of nationalism through legitimate right-wing opposition was not only necessary but inevitable.

The surging popularity of the “far right” in Europe is shaking democracy to its core, as it should, exposing how unresponsive “democracy” has become to the needs of the people Western governments were meant to serve. [source]

Good. The Left likes to scare the public by using the term 'far right.' When in reality, the public gets tired of failed crazy socialist policies and wants sane policies back again.

Science 'Pleads the 5th'

From AFA.net (Aug. 10):

First and Second Samuel were originally a single book in the Hebrew Bible, known simply as Sefer Shmuel [Book of Samuel] and remained undivided in the Masoretic manuscript tradition. The book was divided into 2 parts when translated into Greek as part of the Septuagint, probably during the 2^nd century B.C.

Although the human authorship of 2 Samuel remains unknown, its vivid description of Absalom may preserve the testimony of someone familiar with David’s royal court, perhaps a prophet such as Nathan or Gad, or a royal chronicler whose records were later incorporated into the Samuelan tradition.

Second Samuel 14:25 records Absalom’s extraordinary physical beauty:

“But in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him.”

The next chapter reveals how Absalom converted physical appearance, insincere concern, and calculated flattery into personal loyalty. As 2 Samuel 15:6 concludes: “So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.”

In his classic The Life of David, written in the 1930s, A.W. Pink observes that Israel’s admiration for Absalom revealed the Nation's low spiritual condition. He possessed neither piety, wisdom, nor justice, yet the people were captivated by his handsome appearance. His wickedness was overlooked while his physical beauty was celebrated, feeding the arrogance that eventually brought about his ruin.

Pink saw the same spiritual disorder in his own generation: physical beauty and outward prowess were valued more highly than moral virtue and spiritual grace. He argued that Christendom had fallen into decline because it had become increasingly attracted to whatever appealed to the flesh. Churches wanted full pews and full treasuries; preachers wanted to retain the young; evangelists wanted visible results. Consequently, worldly attractions and high-pressure methods were employed to manufacture the appearance of spiritual success.

Such is seemingly the spiritual state of the Union in 21st-century America: a mile wide and an inch deep.

Which brings us to the ruse of the Gibeonite-like deception surrounding COVID-19 and Anthony Fauci, and the American people’s profound lack of spiritual discernment. The official narrative was advanced by a decadent secular culture and its antagonistic cultural Marxists, deeply entrenched across the spiritual, intellectual, educational, economic, and vocational mountains of influence and power in America.

Yet the Gibeonite deception reveals an even deeper failure. Joshua 9:14 tells of the fatal mistake of trusting physical evidence instead of seeking God’s guidance: “The Israelites sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord.”

The evidence appeared persuasive: the worn garments, patched wineskins, old shoes, and moldy bread. Everything had been carefully arranged to produce the desired conclusion. Israel examined what the Gibeonites presented but failed to inquire of the One who could expose what appearances concealed.

In Gleanings in Joshua, A.W. Pink explains that Satan opposes the people of God in 2 distinct forms: openly, as a roaring lion seeking to devour, and covertly, as a subtle serpent practicing deceit. Pink contends that Scripture and Church history demonstrate that deception is far more dangerous and successful than open persecution. When force cannot exterminate or intimidate the faithful, Satan turns to secret schemes.

Whereas the roaring lion is easily recognized, the subtle serpent seldom is. Open persecution may awaken the Church, but deception enters quietly, clothed in authority, credentialed by experts, amplified by institutions, and presented as unquestionable truth.

That is the great warning running from Joshua through 1 & 2 Samuel and into 21st-century America: God’s people are rarely defeated by superior strength alone. More often, they are defeated when they fail to seek the Lord’s counsel, mistake appearance for character, and surrender spiritual discernment to the prevailing authorities of the age.

The COVID-19 crisis was therefore more than medical or political. It was spiritual, a test whether the American Church could distinguish the voice of truth from the whispers of the guileful serpent.

The postgame accounting must now be lawful, factual, public, and unsparing. Every relevant document should be released. Every financial interest should be disclosed. Every misleading statement should be examined. Every abuse of governmental authority should be exposed.

The actions of Dr. Fauci, NIH officials, pharmaceutical companies, media organizations, government agencies, and communications platforms should be subjected to full-scale, rigorous public examination. Wherever the evidence establishes deliberate deception, concealment, censorship, or unlawful conduct, those responsible must answer for it; not as an act of vengeance, but as a vindication of truth and a warning against its repetition.

Century-old family businesses were bankrupted. Employees and military personnel lost their livelihoods under mask and vaccination mandates. Churches were shuttered, and in places such as California, congregational singing was prohibited. Loved ones died alone in sterile hospital rooms.

These were not abstractions. They were grievous harm inflicted upon real people, real families, churches, and the Nation itself.

Yet the deepest scandal of COVID-19 was not merely that powerful institutions may have misled the American people. It was that a spiritually undiscerning Nation had become so enamored with titles, appearances, credentials, and institutional power that it no longer knew whom - or what - to believe.

Absalom stood before Israel in all his external splendor, captivating and without visible blemish. The Gibeonites stood before Joshua wearing old garments and carrying moldy bread. In both instances, appearance concealed reality.

And therein lies the warning to America: the serpent seldom announces himself with a roar. He comes handsomely dressed, impressively credentialed, officially approved, and carrying precisely the evidence he wants us to see.

The question now is not merely whether America was deceived.

The question is whether the church has recovered enough spiritual discernment to seek the counsel of the Lord, and prevent it from happening again.

Gideons or Rehabs have begun to stand. [source]

Science is about discovering the Truth. When it loses that purpose and becomes politicized and weaponized then trust becomes an issue. I hope and pray that day never comes.