It's obviously a developing story, but it appears that Hunter Biden's sweetheart deal might not survive.
I do find it interesting that anyone who argues that the "rich need to pay their fair share" of taxes, could support Hunter's deal allows him to avoid "paying his fair share" because he intentionally hid income from the IRS.
More as this develops.
https://thetexan.news/texas-woman-files-1-million-suit-against-doctors-over-botched-double-mastectomy-gender-modification-as-teen
In the rush of the trans medical-industrial complex's rush to start "treatment" that will permanently an irreversibly alter healthy, perfectly functioning, human bodies one has to wonder how this lawsuit will turn out. I'll be interested to see what the defense is, as well as to see the outcome. I suspect that if we see enough people winning these sorts of lawsuits, we will see the trans medical-industrial complex starting to exercise more caution before they start adolescents on the same drug that many on the left argue is "cruel and unusual" when it's used to chemically castrate sex offenders. It'll also be interesting to see how the all trans at all costs crowd reacts. It seem like enough of these cases going in favor of the victims, and they'll have to at least reconsider their stance.
As I was watching the US women's soccer team play to a draw last night, and realized that they probably need 3 or 4 "trans women" on the team.
https://twitter.com/brian_sauve/status/1683858509656637441?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
Men were made to be lowercase-s saviors. That's why nearly all of them have an innate and God-originated desire to save, deliver, redeem, rescue, ransom—to crush the head of serpents, cut off the head of giants, and search out the biggest dragons in the land in order to pick a fight with them. “Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.” -Proverbs 24:11 As N.D. Wilson reminds us, our father Adam was given a dragon to fight before sin ever entered the world. Why do you think that is? Because our God is a man of war (Exodus 15:3), a dread warrior (Jeremiah 20:11), the Seed of the Woman come to crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15)—and we are made in his image. Man is the glory of that God. One thing this means is that real, masculine, godly men must be capable of putting up a fight. They fight their own flesh, waging war with it (1 Peter 2:11). They fight with weapons that are not of the flesh, but weapons that have the power to destroy satanic strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:3–5). They are given a sword with which to fight, the word of God (Ephesians 6:17).
God’s men are to be dragon-slayers, giant-killers, following after our High King, Jesus, who by his cross became the great dragon-slayer.
We fight, like our Lord, by dying. By dying to ourselves so that our wives and children and churches can live. And like our Lord, we find that dying is the path to resurrection life and joy.
So men: Go fight.
Don’t be passive.
Don’t be cowards.
Live in such a way as to put a big target on your back for the fiery darts of the enemy. The church has enough passive men.
https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1683605288434163712
Aquilino Gonell has claimed for the last 2 years that he suffered significant injuries during the J6 protests. Some recently released video seem to contradict his testimony. It boggles my mind that there are vast quantities of surveillance video from J6 that would certainly give a more complete picture of what actually happened, yet they've never been seen.
As the days and weeks go by, we keep seeing more and more people testifying under oath regarding the dealings of the Biden family. Leaving aside the questions of why these people weren't testifying in front of the prosecutor that cut Hunter such a sweetheart deal, I have a question.
How much witness testimony under oath will it take before the Biden supporters acknowledge that their sainted Joe Biden might not be quite as ethical as they thought?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/19/snp-chopped-down-16m-trees-develop-wind-farms-scotland/
In Scotland the government decided that it made perfect sense to cut down 16,000,000 trees so that they could install wind turbines. Strangely enough the Greens are quick to protest trees being cut down for lumber, or paper, but seem not to be bothered by this massive deforestation for wind turbines.
Let the bird slaughter begin.
The concept of certain people being held to a higher standard is one has been around for quite a while. The notion that certain people, or roles, are of such importance that they are expected to behave differently than others seems like a reasonable expectation. We expect that those who enforce laws, will not break the laws. If they do, then we don't have a problem with them receiving a greater punishment because of their position.
As I watch the Hunter Biden drama play out, especially as we learn more about the investigation that led to his plea deal, I've been reflecting on this. I understand that he's not an elected official, or in an official position of power, but as the adult son of the president (VP, Senator, etc) shouldn't he be expected to live up to even a slightly higher standard than Joe schmoe?
The Biden administration has made no secret that it is trying to crack down on guns. They're trying really hard to restrict what law abiding citizens can do with their legally owned property, protected by the 2nd amendment. Given that stance, isn't it even a tiny bit strange that Hunter got a slap on the wrist for a felony related to guns?
Isn't it also a bit strange that Hunter (along with Jesse Jackson and a number of other prominent tax cheats) got away with such a sweet deal for failing to pay his taxes? As we've recently learned taxes are simply our fair share of the bills we accrue as a nation, and that we should happily pay our fair share of those bills. Yet I haven't heard any outrage from anyone about how Hunter is not paying his fair share and is burdening the rest of us with his fair share of the bills.
I kind of wonder if maybe it wouldn't have been better if Hunter hadn't gotten the sweetheart deal. If he'd gotten the same sentence that a black dude in the hood would have gotten for the gun crime, and had been made to repay all of his tax debt along with interest and penalties just like those of us who's fathers aren't president. I'm thinking that it might be a good thing is Hunter was made an example of. I'm not suggesting that he should have gotten extra punishment, just that seeing the son of a president have to answer for his crimes might actually set a good example. Maybe hold the elites and their families to at least the same standard as the rest of us, if not a higher standard.
"So Jason Aldean is catching A LOT of shit for his new song because of the lyrics in this video. Let’s highlight some music lyrics that aren’t causing any controversy and see why that might be. Shall we? • DMX: ‘If you got a daughter older than 15, I’mma rape her/Take her on the living room floor, right there in front of you/Then ask you seriously, what you wanna do?’ • ICE CUBE: ‘So don't follow me up and down your market/ Or your little chop-suey ass will be a target/ Of the nationwide boycott/ Juice with the people, that's what the boy got/So pay respect to the Black fist/ Or we`ll burn your store right down to a crisp/ And then we`ll see ya/ Cause you can't turn the ghetto into Black Korea.’ • SADAT X: ‘Though I can freak, fly, flow, fuck up a fa#%ot, Don't understand their ways, I ain't down with gays’ • BIGGIE: ‘Then I'm dippin' up the block and I'm robbin' bitches, too/Up the herringbones and bamboos/I wouldn't give a fuck if you're pregnant/Give me the baby rings and the #1 Mom pendant’ • RICK ROSS: ‘Put Molly all in her champagne, she ain’t even know it/I took her home and I enjoyed that, she ain't even know it’"
Amiri King
I could be wrong, but I suspect that part of the problem is that the video for Aldean's song consists of actual footage of the actual riots in 2020. I think that the hand wringers probably prefer we forgot all about those riots.
Secretary Anthony Blinken wrote the following on his official Twitter account.
"The War of Independence and the French Revolution were fueled by the same aspirations for freedom, democracy, and human rights. Today we are more committed to defending them-together. Warmest wishes on Bastille Day to the people of France."
I can only assume that Blinken, and his social media team is blissfully and gloriously unaware of what happened during the French Revolution. The fact that the period following the revolution was called the "Reign of Terror"and was marked by the most vile sorts of atrocities that could be imagined. At Gonnord two hundred innocent civilians, the elderly, mothers, and children, were forced to dig their own common grave, kneel in front of it, and were then shot.
The fact that a modern US liberal politician is so fulsome in their praise of the French Revolution may be telling us something.
FYI, the Haitian Revolution was much closer to the American Revolution in terms of goals, aspirations, and commitment to freedom than the French.
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1681312287309836290?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
https://twitter.com/mazemoore/status/1681489880600158211?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
I'm shocked the interviewer had the courage to go off script, and I'm surprised that Biden's handlers let this go.
"Drain The Swamp".
It's a noble idea, a great slogan, looks awesome on a t-shirt, and makes anyone who say sit sound like a reformer. But, as with most slogans it's inadequate in and of itself.
"Okay, great. Whoever you support in a Republican primary should be able to explain exactly HOW they plan on doing that, as a bare minimum. If they don't know how they're going to do it, then they're not going to be able to do it."
Matt Walsh
In our office we talk a lot about setting goals, accountability, and productivity. When we set goals we talk about SMART goals. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely. I'd argue that any candidate who says they'll "Drain the swamp." would need to be able to articulate all of the above in some detail. Obviously, it would be unrealistic to eliminate all of the entrenched bureaucracy in one term as president. But that's where Realistic and Achievable come in. I would expect any candidate to be able to explain where they would start, how they would proceed, and what we could expect after their first term. I'd also expect them to be prepared to get voted out if they don't achieve st least a significant part of their stated goals.
FOR EXAMPLE
Candidate X proposes the following.
1. Specific goal. "I will eliminate the Dept of Education during my first term."
2. Within 30 days of being elected, I will do X,Y, and Z. Within 60 days, I will do Q,R, and S. And so on.
3. Obviously this would be both Realistic and Achievable in 4 years.
4. Set out a timeline, and explain how those few functions of the dept would be handled after it has been disbanded.
The key is to not over promise and under deliver. Trump is a master at this. He WAY over promised in his 2016 campaign, and certainly under delivered on many/most of his promises. I believe that he was either deluded in thinking that he could actually do everything he promised, or that he knew he couldn't and promised it anyway. Likewise Biden has done the same things. It's time that the GOP set themselves apart by making specific, limited, promises and laying out detailed plans to accomplish those limited objectives, instead if promising the moon and stars and failing to deliver.
I don't think it's unrealistic to set higher expectations for the GOP, and make sure that those who don't meet those expectations, don't get reelected.
Given Disney's huge success with it's practice of simply making shot for shot remakes of it's animated classics with live actors and CGI, it's no shock that they've come for Snow White next. Of course, they've decided to make Snow White Hispanic, and the eliminate the Dwarves, but other then that it's the same movie.
Let's start with the fact that Snow White is based on a Germanic fairy tale, and that the title character is identified by the coloration of her skin. (IE, for some reason it was important that her skin was described as being white as snow. In all honesty, I'm not sure that this makes much of a difference to the plot of the movie, but I also don't see how making this change enhances the story either.
The Dwarves on the other hand, are a bigger issue. As someone who just finished LOTR, I am reminded that in the fairy tale/fantasy/whatever genre of literature, Dwarves are NOT simply humans who are short. They are literally always portrayed as an entirely different "race" from humans. Again, I'm not sure why it's important that these 7 characters are Dwarves (as opposed to Elves, Fairies, Trolls, or any other made up "race" of being), but it's clearly absurd to not portray them as Dwarves are historically portrayed. This is quite obviously a stupid, misguided, attempt to avoid criticism from the woke APL.
In my mind, what's worse is that this decision takes actual, meaningful, acting work away from "little people" (or whatever the PC term currently is), and gives it to people of "normal" height. This seems no different from hiring a sighted actor to play a blind character, hiring a white actor to play a black character, or (the Hollywood horror du jour) hiring a straight actor to play a gay character. I'd be shocked if there weren't 7 "little people" actors currently working who would have killed to get a primary role in a movie expected to do a lot of business.
I suspect that this will be one more in the recent string of Disney movie "failures", and that the "failure" will be chalked up to "white supremacy" or some other nonsense.
We have the ability to see incredibly beautiful, hi res, extremely detailed pictures of galaxies immense distances from earth, but we can't get video clear enough to identify criminals committing crimes on camera.
We can mercilessly hunt down every single person who might have done even the tiniest bit wrong on J6, but we can't find the one SCOTUS staffer that leaked the decision that overturned Roe, or any of the thousands of protesters violating the law by protesting the private residences of SCOTUS justices.
We can pull DNA off of a pizza crust to solve a cold murder case, but can't figure out who left cocaine in one of the most secure, limited access, and heavily surveilled places in the country.
We can find billions after billions to try to maintain the integrity of Ukraine's borders, but put minimal money and effort into controlling access across our own borders.
It appears that Tucker Carlson unleashed from Fox News, might really be as effective as his previous ratings showed. He single-handedly seems to have dashed the slim presidential hopes of 2-3 GOP candidates and perhaps slightly enhanced Vivek Ramswamy, whose answer about J6 was pretty impressive (It also had the benefit of paraphrasing the excuses offered for the 2020 riots). I know he's not going to get the nomination, but he seems to have much of what people see as positive in Trump, with fewer negatives.
Speaking of Trump, he wasn't at this event. I can't help but wonder (in hindsight) if he wanted to avoid the interview with Carlson. Or it's because that Iowa GOP seems to strongly dislike him because he's taking credit for getting the Iowa governor elected.
It's being reported that Theresa Ribera, the Climate Minister for Spain, (Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Change) is not above a little theater.
On her way to the EU Climate Summit, she took a private jet from Spain to Portugal, then hopped in a limousine for the trip (almost) to the venue, then she got on a bike and rode the last hundred yards.
Why do so many of those who demand that massive changes are needed to fight global warming, never quite manage to set the example they demand the others follow.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15614263.2023.2235056
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235222000496
Is it really possible that there is data showing that the BLM/George Floyd/Defnd the police riots/protests actually can be blamed for the increase in crime over the last few years?
As we've seen Dan become more attached to Biden's proxy war in Ukraine, I have to wonder what he thinks of this first step of sending US troops into the ETO and how likely it is that we'll see US troops in Ukraine soon.
Let's also not that the push to get Ukraine into NATO is gaining strength, which would allow them to invoke Article 5, and commit NATO to a war with Russia.
On an unrelated note, it appears that the Secret Service is just giving up on ever learning whose cocaine was found in the west wing. It's clearly reasonable that one of the preeminent federal law enforcement agencies is unable to solve this mystery given how heavily restricted and monitored the White House in general is. This seems like either incompetence, or a cover up.
In other news, Biden once again is reduced to mumbling gibberish on video. It's strange that when Trump walked in front of Queen Elizabeth as they were reviewing some British troops the US media was quick to point out the breach of etiquette,. Biden can wander aimlessly down the line, in front of King Charles, and the US media stays silent. Not surprising at all.
So much in our current culture is designed to keep us safe. Safe from physical danger, safe from being offended, safe from those who disagree with us, generally safe from anything that doesn't keep us happy. We go to a great deal of effort to stay in our comfort zone, and more an more we're seeing designated safe spaces. We can curate our lives, our friends, our social media so that we are protected from anything that might anger or offend. Basically we want to eliminate anything that might create pain, fear, or discomfort in our lives. The problem with this is that very often, really almost always, the only way that we can grow or improve is to leave our comfort zone, push through the pain and discomfort, until we get through those things and are able to grow. In most basic terms, when we exercise, we need to work our muscles until they break down, because that's how we get stronger. In business, we frequently have to do things that make us uncomfortable in order to grow our businesses. Heck even Jesus taught us that we need to go through trials, hardships, persecution and the like in order to follow Him. There's an old saying that conveys this same sentiment, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.".
Unfortunately what happens all too often is that our comfort zone, or safe space starts out as a sanctuary and ends up as a prison. I suspect that those who choose to stay in their comfort zone,
I've seen a couple of versions of this online, and it struck me as having a degree of Truth.
The post shows a picture of an old cathedral in all of it's architectural beauty. The caption reads as follows.
"Modern man is in a terrible predicament. He is helplessly enamored with the beauty of what the old world built, yet despises the beliefs that inspired them to build it. "
In my experience, as I look at older churches in the US (which certainly aren't as beautiful as many churches in other parts of the world), I can definitely see that the architects and builders understood the purpose of the building and tried to design the building to reflect that purpose. I've always thought that architecture and design should reflect the purpose and values of those who designed it. For example, back in my home building days, I was escorting John Perkins to our office so he could speak to our staff. One of the things we discussed was the importance of families sharing meals together, and therefore how important it was to design the homes we built to accommodate that activity.
One of my kids attends a church that was build over 100 years ago, and they've done a phenomenal job of maintaining the sanctuary and the beautiful details in the woodwork, even as they've built around it for other uses. I'm convinced that a black room that is indistinguishable from a theater, and which is lit entirely without natural light, does not draw one into an attitude of worship as does a more traditional sanctuary. I'm not saying that worship can't happen in one of these theaters, but I am saying that it seems easier to focus on worship in a room that is clearly and intentionally designed for the worship of YHWH.
"Art once made a cult of beauty. Now we have a cult of ugliness instead. This has made art into an elaborate joke, one which by now has ceased to be funny."
Sir Roger Scruton
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/south-fulton-residents-call-on-mayor-khalid-kamau-to-resign
In the video of the arrest of Khalid Kamau, the black mayor of South Fulton GA, we see the black mayor being escorted by a group of black police officers, yet he manages to spout some garbage about inequality and/or racism.
Dan has been quite adamant that the legislators must heed "the will of the people" and follow their wishes expressed through opinion polls.
Strangely enough we see this. https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/kpnwbn3sup/econTabReport.pdf#page46
Across the board, all ages, races, genders, everything, tells us that the majority of the people in the US approve of the recent SCOTUS decision on affirmative action. One wonders if Dan will back following the "will of the people" on this topic?
