Lew Rockwell Institute

Ginny Garner wrote:

Lew,

The most principled peacemaker in the House of Representatives, Congressman Thomas Massie, was recently interviewed about the Trump administration’s military strikes on the Houthis. 

See here.

The post Thomas Massie Interview: Houthi Strikes Not America First appeared first on LewRockwell.

Ginny Garner wrote:

Lew,

Are you supportive of a movement that runs counter to the foreign policy of the United States? Then, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, you are a lunatic who meets the standard of individuals who will be eligible for deportation.

See here.

The post Supporters of Movements Running Counter to US Foreign Policy Meet Standard for Deportation appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Vicki Marzullo:

I guarantee Putin knows more U.S. history than anyone in our government does.

See here.

The post US has been plotting to annex Greenland since the 1860s – Putin appeared first on LewRockwell.

Joseph Salerno wrote:

Lew, my brother posted this on Facebook.

She walked into the Roman arena where the wild beasts awaited her. She trembled not from fear but from joy. Her name was Vibia Perpetua. She was just 22, a young mother singing hymns as the crowd jeered and a lion, leopard and wild cow encircled her.

One of the beasts attacked, hurling her to the ground. She covered an exposed thigh with her bloody robe to preserve her modesty and groped in the dust for her hair pin so she could fix her disheveled hair.

And when a Roman executioner approached Perpetua with a sword, her last words before collapsing were aimed at her Christian companions: “Stand fast in the faith, and love you all one another and do not let our sufferings be a stumbling block to you.”

History remembers Perpetua because she kept a diary during her imprisonment entitled “The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity” (Felicity was a pregnant slave girl arrested with Perpetua). Her diary is one of the rare and  oldest-surviving documents written by a Christian woman. The emotion in the diary is almost unbearable. Perpetua describes the pain of leaving her infant son, who she was still nursing. She describes a prison visit from her weeping father, who kissed her hands while pleading with her to renounce her faith.

A narrator picks up the story in the diary after Perpetua was sent to her death.  He wrote in the diary that Perpetua’s faith was so inspiring it caused the prison’s warden to convert. The narrator also describes Perpetua’s death. While she was imprisoned, Perpetua says God gave her visions to reassure her. After one, she wrote: “I understood that I should fight, not with beasts but against the devil.”

 If only we were so wise!

SAINT PERPETUA, pray for us! 

The post St. Perpetua appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Ellen Finnigan:

Dear Lew, 

I read the article you linked to written by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman in Crisis Magazine in which he stated that Pope Francis’s condemnations of Israel’s actions “represent the Church’s clear teachings on war found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.” 

I take issue with this statement. The Church’s teachings on this matter are not clear. In the latest episode of the CAM podcast, I take a closer look at what is in the Catechism. Here is Part I.

The post Crisis Magazine is Wrong: Catholic Church Teaching on War is Not Clear appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Drop Site News

The post “The Target Is Unmistakable”: The Shooting of Gaza’s Children appeared first on LewRockwell.

Tariffs are very risky business. They’re like playing with fire. We run into the same unsolvable problem that we have with The Fed. They don’t know what interest rates should be. It’s all arbitrary. In the same way, the president doesn’t know what the price of cars, or lumber, or any other product should be. While the president is not literally price-fixing like the Fed, he is arbitrarily interfering with market prices and trade. Our inescapable problem in America is the overwhelming size of government, spending, debt and empire. All of these variables are still going in the wrong direction.

The post The Arbitrary Nature of The Tariff Regime appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel wrote:

Never doubted it.

The post How to amp up the numbers of “Russian” kills appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Mike Sanders.

Activist Post

The post Parents: Measles Didn’t Kill Girl In Texas appeared first on LewRockwell.

Ginny Garner wrote:

Lew,

The EO leaves electronic voting machines in the election process. It refers to improving the security of these machines which are called “systems.” Mike Lindell is still hopeful they will be eliminated from the election process in the future. 

See here.

The post Trump’s Election Integrity EO appeared first on LewRockwell.

Tim McGraw wrote:

The bureaucrats in the US Agencies are sadists who enjoy lording it over people. They hate strong, independent Americans like the Maude family because the bureaucrats are weak.

See here.

The post USFS Goes After Cattle Rancher in South Dakota appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Andy Thomas.

The post Auron MacIntyre – How To Destroy High-Trust Societies appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Gail Appel:

Somali “refugee” State Legislators are so grateful for U.S. taxpayer dollar largesse.

Get them all the hell out of here. They HATE us!

See here.

The post Medicare Fraud Funding Munition and Arms to Somalia appeared first on LewRockwell.

Great interview last night with Musk and members of the DOGE team. A good mix of concrete examples (40% of calls to Social Security customer service are crooks trying to reset electronic deposits from the intended recipient to the crook) with a steady return to the overall goal of cutting waste and fraud.

The $1B target of first year cost savings is too low IMHO. DOGE has yet to start with Defense. Social Security is just getting started. We will see.

Everything Musk and his team has found reflects my experience in working with government IT systems. My work for one of “Beltway Bandits” consulting firms to respond to an RFP for fixing Air Force financial systems matches what Musk and his team describe. Hundreds of legacy financial systems (most of which can barely communicate with each other) and no ability to conduct a financial audit, let alone pass one.  Many IT people in the Air Force were very aware of flaws and limitations on the systems, but just had to live with it. That is no longer the case.

Musk is correct to give credit to Trump for pushing this effort to combat waste and fraud. To me, his best comment was that when fraud is exposed, the fraudsters are the loudest ones to shout in outrage and complain.

Fox News segment on Baier interview Musk and DOGE team.

The post Great DOGE Review appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith.

Common Dreams

The post Jewish Groups Denounce Latest ‘Cynical’ GOP Hearing Equating Criticism of Israel With Antisemitism appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Antiwar.com

The post From JFK to Donald Trump: How the USA Became Wedded to Zionist Israel appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks,  Brian Dunaway.

Katv.com

The post Ivermectin becomes accessible without prescription in Arkansas under new state legislation appeared first on LewRockwell.

We are in a culture war. Tax payer financed institutions are being used to amplify the culture war. I completely agree with Trump’s approach. If you want the federal dollars, then you will drop the DEI nonsense.

It was in the news yesterday that a DEI inspired private foundation just closed shop. The DEI types running it had stolen donor money, bankrupting the foundation. There is no reason to allow such behavior in taxpayer financed institutions. And no reason to allow your own money to support such behavior.

Link to New York Post article on Trump cutting federal funds to Smithsonian over DEI.

The post Right Approach to DEI appeared first on LewRockwell.

When I was younger, I was taught that the most important part of our worship in song wasn’t the notes, but rather the words. When we sing to God, we are also speaking to and teaching one another (Eph. 5.19; Col. 3.16). We should be able to “sing with the mind” (1 Cor. 14.15).

Every Sunday, our worship is filled with wonderful, beautiful, theologically rich hymns which remind us of biblical truths.  But growing up in the church, there was one song that we didn’t sing. In fact, we avoided it. We never sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It’s not that we didn’t know the song (if you know the tune of “Booster”, you know the song). But rather, we avoided it because of its anti-Christian message.

Of course, there are some who remain ignorant of the song’s history and its anti-Christian theology. There have been rare occasions (usually near a patriotic holiday) where I’ve heard this song led in worship. But those occasions are rare. And even when the song is led, there are usually at least a handful of Christians throughout the auditorium standing there in awkward silence.

It is important to pay attention to the message we teach with our songs. That’s why many Christians don’t sing the “Battle Hymn.”

The Origins of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”

(Source: Chapter 8 of Julia Ward Howe’s biography. You can read it here.)

The Battle Hymn of the Republic was written in 1861 by a northern political activist, Julia Ward Howe. As an abolitionist, she was convinced that the Union cause was moral and righteous, and thus felt justified in supporting the destruction of her southern neighbors.

Returning from a visit to Washington in 1861, her carriage was delayed by marching regiments of Union soldiers. To pass the time, she and her companions sang several war songs which were popular at the time. Among them was a song called “John Brown’s Body”.

John Brown’s body lied a-moulding in the grave,
His soul is marching on!

The tune was catchy, and it wasn’t long until the marching soldiers joined in singing with her. One of her friends then suggested to her, “Mrs. Howe, why do you not write some good words for that stirring tune?”

Early the following morning the following lyrics came to her:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.

After the song was published in 1862, it quickly found its way into military camps, and was frequently sung in exhortation before battles, and was sung joyously upon the news of military victories. In describing why she had written the song, Howe said:

Something seems to say to me, “You would be glad to serve, but you cannot help anyone; you have nothing to give, and there is nothing for you to do.” Yet, because of my sincere desire, a word was given to me to say, which did strengthen the hearts of those who fought in the field and of those who languished in the prison.

Despite originating during the war, it is important to realize that opposition to singing this “hymn” has nothing to do with who we think was right or wrong during the war. It has everything to do with the anti-Christian message of the song.

The Theology of the “Battle Hymn”

Like many who lived in the 19th century, Howe was very familiar with the Bible. Therefore the song is filled with language and imagery from Scripture. The song certainly has a spiritual message, but the message is not a Christian message.

The “Battle Hymn of the Republic” is religious war propaganda. It twists and turns the biblical imagery for the purpose of “strengthening the hearts” of union soldiers as they fought and killed their southern neighbors. Far from being a Christian hymn, the “Battle Hymn” is anti-Christian to the core.

Revelation 19 and the Coming of the Lord

The phrase “coming of the Lord” is understood to refer to the 2nd coming of Christ (1 Thess. 4.15; Jas. 5.7-8). Despite the fact that the phrase “coming of the Lord” never appears in the book of Revelation, most of the songs images are drawn from Revelation 19.

And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which not one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “King of kings, and Lord of lords.” – Rev. 19.11-16

In this passage, violence, war, and judgment seem to accompany the appearance of Christ, who arrives on a white horse (a common image used for Roman military conquerors). The passage describes Jesus in a blood-drenched robe treading out the “wine press of the fierce wrath of God.” Howe poetically uses the image to describe the Lord “Trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”

The problem is that Howe wrote this lyric, not for the purpose of trusting in the Lord’s judgment, but rather for the purpose of giving Union troops license to kill their southern enemies. Americans have continually heard this popular patriotic song exactly as it was intended by Howe to be understood – as a validation for Americans to destroy enemies whom they judge as being immoral.

As Howe wrote the following verses with Union soldiers in mind, seeking to “offer service to their cause”, even the triumph of the gospel and the birth of Christ and twisted into justification for war.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal”
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on!

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never sound retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat,
O be swift, my soul, to answer Him, Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on!

In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on!

John’s Use of Military Imagery

The Bible is no stranger to using military imagery (1 Tim. 1.18; 2 Tim. 2.3), and Revelation 19 is no exception. But Julia Ward Howe and John of Patmos use military imagery to opposite ends.

Howe used the military imagery of Revelation 19 to “strengthen the hearts” of union soldiers as they marched into battle against their enemies. John used Roman military imagery to show that Christ (as opposed to Roman military leaders) will ultimately win the day. If we are looking for a heroic conqueror on a white horse to ride in and save the day, John doesn’t want for us to look for a Roman military leader, a Union General, or any other military hero. He wants us to look to Christ.

By the time Revelation was written, the “sword” was already commonly understood by Christians as a figure of the word of God (Eph. 6.17; Heb. 4.12). Earlier in the book of Revelation, Christ is described as having a sword coming out of his mouth, strongly reinforcing this image (Rev. 1.16). The fact that Revelation 19 describes the sword coming out of Jesus’ mouth indicates that the “weapon” John envisions is not the “burnished rows of steel”, but rather the God’s word.

John then describes how the sword is used to strike down the nations and rule them with a rod of iron. This is quite the opposite of Howe’s usage of Revelation’s imagery to “strengthen the hearts of those who fought” for her nation. In Revelation 19, the nations are not the victors. Rather the nations, having been deceived by Babylon (Rev. 18.23), are the ones who are defeated by the triumphant word of God.

The Victory of the Lamb

The book of Revelation not only assures us of Christ’s victory, it also gives us understanding as to how God destroys evil.

Amid all the violence and evil in the world, Revelation 5 gives good news. The victorious Lion of Judah is here to fight for us! But the surprising thing is that when John turns around to see the Lion, He looks like a slain Lamb.

“And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain.” (Rev. 5.6)

Significantly, a similar surprise is seen in the Revelation 19 battle scene. A close reading will show that the blood on Christ’s garment was not that of his enemies. Christ is described as being covered in blood (v. 13) before the enemies are struck down (v. 15). The blood is not that of His enemies. It is His own blood.

At the conclusion of Jesus’s conquest, He bears a new title: “King of kings and Lord of lords” (v. 16). Jesus replaces every other king, lord, or other political power which may demand our allegiance. Immediately after the conquest, the kings, the military commanders, the mighty men, the horses are their riders are all defeated (vs. 17-18).

Julia Ward Howe wrote the Battle Hymn to strengthen others in their allegiance to the Union. Revelation 19 challenges us to give our allegiance to Him who is Faithful and True as opposed to giving our allegiance to the nations of this earth with their kings and military conquerors. The “Battle Hymn” uses the same images, but to a completely opposite end.

Choose Your Side

Though the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” is filled with scriptural images, it has nothing to do with following Jesus. This is why many Christians don’t sing the “Battle Hymn”. We don’t sing the “Battle Hymn”, because we have decided to give our allegiance and worship to Christ alone, rejecting allegiance to any other defeated king, lord, or political entity.

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

The post Why We Don’t Sing the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

If you let the popularity of an idea – no matter how silly – dictate your stance, then you are not a very good elected official.

If you completely ignore and shoo-away and disparage overwhelming public sentiment on an issue, then you are not a very good elected official.

And, in the latter case, doing so used to mean your job at risk. But that, in the large and depressing part, is no longer the case.

And that is a result of voting districts, at every level.

You can be consistently on the “20% side” of an issue, as it were, and defy the remaining 80% of public sentiment and not be too worried about losing your seat because the district you represent has been drawn in such a way as to make it nearly mathematically impossible.

You can be in favor of paying for trans surgeries, in favor of illegal alien criminals staying in the country, in favor of massive slush fund spending that only goes to your political cronies, you can be in favor of government censorship, and on and on and not worry even though the vast majority of the public – probably even your district – are opposed to them.

In other words, rotten districts are licenses to be crazy because you only have to get through the primary where the 20% miraculously becomes 50% because they are far more obsessed with their issues…they vote…or are voted for…or paid to vote…

Let’s start with Congress.

Out of the 435 seats, about 190 are Democrat automatics. If a combination of Albert Einstein, Cary Grant, and the Buddha challenged the incumbent in any of these seats he would lose, even if he ran as an independent (Run as a Republican? Don’t even bother.)

The same can be said for the 190 ribrock reliable Republican seats.

That leaves 55 seats, or only 13% of the entire House of Representatives, in play in any given year. (Note – if only legal residents and citizens were counted when creating congressional districts, it is estimated that at least 10 Democrat seats would slip at least into the “contestable” pile.)

And if you are in one of those safe seats you can do anything you want, no matter what the public thinks.

On the Senate side, it’s slightly different as they are statewide elections that far more closely represent the actual will of the voters. At this moment in time, about 15 states can reliably predicted to return two Democrats, about 18 to return two Republicans.

That leaves about 34 seats or so theoretically in actual play, a far larger percentage than in the House.

Of course, senate seats do turn on other issues – while money and personality are important in all elections, they are far more important in statewide (and national) elections than any at the district level.

Let’s turn now to a specific type of election – local school boards.

Typically, the winning candidate has the support of the local teachers union. That means money and people to knock on doors and all of the rest of the permanent organization the union has is at your disposal.

So, then you win? Whom do you owe?

The union. Imagine if you could pick your own boss and then imagine you can get your boss fired and then imagine what happens when you ask for a raise or demand a new policy or procedure?

You get what you want, and what teachers’ union want, beyond money, is astonishing:

From a previous story on a recent California Teachers Association convention:

The “So you Want to be an Anti-Racist Union?” program page leads the curious to at least one hint – stop embracing “white supremacy culture,” aspects of which include perfectionism (there goes math), objectivity (there goes history), individualism (there goes art), worship of the written word (there goes English) and urgency (actually this would have been handy if I forgot to do my homework) –see here for more detail.

Hence most school boards becoming covens of 20 percenters and, just to emphasize the issue, California is not an outlier in this respect.

Speaking of California, we come to its legislature.

There are 80 state Assembly seats and 40 state Senate seats. The Democrats have 60 Assemblymembers and 30 senators – literally 75% of the legislature.

What that means is that they can do anything they want – they could even override a Gov. Gavin Newsom, should the need ever arise (it hasn’t and won’t.) They have a super-majority.

In 2022, the state voted across the board for Democrats for each statewide office (governor, attorney general, etc.)

The average percentage of votes they each got was 57.7%, a bit different from the 75% (actually in 2022 it was 77%) in the legislative races.

In November’s presidential vote, Kamala Harris got 58.4% of the vote. Nice, one supposes, but far less than either Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton got.

But the more fascinating results were in the state proposition votes:

State voters took a hammer to the most progressive propositions. Allow cities more leeway to impose rent control? No. Allow cities and counties to have to get only 55% of the vote to approve new bonds? Hell no. Making it illegal (ish) for prisoners to work? Very no. Raising the minimum wage? You’re kidding, right?

And then of course there was Prop 36 that makes crime illegal again in California. 70% approval, a crushing defeat for the woke justice mob.

Each of these measures had the very strong backing of the governor, the legislature, public unions, and the Democratic machine yet they failed. Why?

Because at the statewide level, 75% of Californians are not lunatic leftist progressive determined to end policing, move abortion on demand to we demand you get an abortion, have the state take over local zoning, and give aggressively incompetent people like LA’s Mayor Karen Bass a standing ovation.

Yup, the Dems in the legislature really did that yesterday when she was in Sacramento asking for $2 billion to bail out the city.

Combine the above statistics with voter registration – 50% Dem, 25% Rep, 25% NPP (no party preference, like an independent elsewhere) – and the legislature number become even more of an outlier.

And typically the NPPs vote leans Republican by about two-to-one.

In other words, it is only how the districts are drawn and composed that’s keeping the legislature so far out of touch.

They’re like trust fund nepo-babies – they never have to face consequences so they can do whatever they want.

And in situations like that, even the stupidest most radical most unpopular policy or proposal becomes very possible, especially because it is rare that a Democrat will ever say or vote against anything another Democrat offers.

How did the districts get this way? First, the “independent citizen’s re-districting commission” has been anything but.

Second, districts are divided up by counting all the people, not just the legal residents.

An example from 2020:

An average district has about 275,000 legal voters. Districts that have more than 300,000 legal voters (about 10 percent higher than the average) returned seven Republicans, 16 Democrats, and one independent, results roughly in line with statewide party registration figures.

But districts that have fewer than 250,000 legal voters showed a very significant tilt, electing three Republicans and 17 Democrats, more than twice the difference that could be expected vis a vis statewide party affiliations.

It should be noted that the turnout and citizen rates appear to be intertwined. The competitive districts with the highest percentages of citizens had the highest turnouts, with the top eight turnout districts showing an average citizenship rate of 87 percent, while the lowest 10 districts by turnout carried a citizenship rate of 62 percent (Republicans and Democrats split the top eight districts four to four while the lowest went Democrat by nine to one).

Add those facts to boggling incompetence of the state Republican party, the leftist manipulation of the districting process (even ProPublica noticed how bad it is ) and the Dems cannot possibly lose.

And add that the political starting point for most members is somewhere to the left of Trotsky and the end result is foretold.

In other words, Democratic extremism (and in some case Republican silliness) is baked into the system which is why when people ask why so many take such extreme and extremely unpopular positions the answer becomes obvious.

If the districts were more representative of the population generally, the Dems would lose about 10 Assembly seats and 5 Senate seats and there goes the super-majority and the tempering process begins.

And that would be a start, at least.

This originally appeared on The Point.

The post Forever 20 appeared first on LewRockwell.