What we've been reading
And what we think about it
Now for a few articles that we found interesting over the last week or so...
Alex Berenson just came off a Twitter suspension last week. In fact, the Twits saddled him with a lifetime ban, but he finagled his way out of it.
Berenson sued Twitter and won.
Not only was Berenson one of the better and more sane voices during the days of heavy covid propaganda, in the days of “moderate” propaganda, Berenson is there to combat it.
He’s a bit abrasive at times and his “attitude” may have had more to do with his banning than any of the content that he put out. No false claims, just facts that bucked the corporate media’s narrative.
Anyway, he’s back. I found him on Substack here and he’s back on Twitter @AlexBerenson
Excerpt from Berenson’s article:
I know what you did last summer (and fall) You tried to take away my rights and segregate me. And no, you don't get to pretend you didn't.
As a reader wrote me a couple of days ago: Things were very scary in July/August 2021. I thought I was going to lose my job and other rights because the pressure to get vaccinated was so intense.
—
And this says nothing of the even more personal consequences, the friendships lost and family relationships destroyed.
Those fights were rarely started by those of us who had not been vaccinated, we merely wanted to live our lives. It was the jabbed who insisted on vilifying us, and who could blame them when everyone from Joe Biden on down was doing the same.
The pressure peaked last fall, as the work vaccine mandate deadlines neared and the holidays and another winter of Covid approached.
…
What we do know is that the mandate have failed as badly as the vaccines themselves, aside - unfortunately - from the military, the only place where the fools in the White House who committed themselves to this course last year retain complete control.
I understand the impetus to forget what happened, forget those ugly seasons. The vaccine fanatics want to whitewash what they did, and many who resisted would now simply rather move on.
But we can’t.
The stakes are too high.
Former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul weighed in on Berenson “getting back into the game.”
At a critical time – just as authoritarians were locking the country down and threatening anyone who refused the shot – all public discussion about the matters was shut down by “private” companies that just happened to have very close ties with the US government.
This raises fundamental questions about the First Amendment that hopefully might be explored by Congress after the November elections. The American people deserve to know who is trying to shut them up…and why.
I had a strange moment with Ron Paul at one point. I went to a 2012 campaign rally for him in Ridgefield, Washington. I got there just before Dr. Paul went on stage and after his speech I went directly to the men’s room.
Well, who should saddle up at the urinal to my left right after he exited stage right?
The Good Doctor himself.
Awkward.
When we were washing hands, I told him of my essay in a publication on his behalf. He had no clue. Not shocking.
Don’t worry, I didn’t offer a handshake, either. We just went our separate ways—I read his stuff every day while he still has no clue who I am.
While Ron Paul himself is an impressive and serious man, the campaign, by all accounts was a total disaster. Typical politics…the best candidates never get by the evil gatekeepers.
Here’s the book that I mentioned.
For the free (as far as I can figure), online version, go here:
Voices of Revolution….
Turn to page 17 for my essay.
For the hard copy of the book, go to Amazon
How did this all come about?
I entered a writing contest promoted by Tom Woods and others at the end of 2011.
“Why I support Ron Paul for president” or something to that effect.
I’d done some contest writing before: a few short stories and some poetry that didn’t get me any prizes.
So, throwing my hat into the ring by writing an essay about why sane Americans should support Ron Paul for president in 2012 figured to be something worth my time, even if I never would win the contest or get the piece published.
I cranked out the piece the night before the deadline and, to my shock, a few weeks later I get a proof of the whole book from the editor.
“Proofread my edits,” was essentially the message.
I looked at the lineup. My own screed was batting leadoff for the series of essays, right after the editor’s ceremonial first pitch.
Senator Rand Paul bookended the collection.
Feather in my cap. “Macaroni.”
A few things were edited in a way that bothered me, but it is mostly my article.
As for the “contest,” it was not much of one, I don’t think. If one’s piece was chosen to get published, the author’s prize was one paperback copy of the book.
Huge payday!
Moving on…
One must work and riot and throw oneself into the whirl Words of advice from John Dos Passos
Interesting Substack here. The proprietor posts letters. That’s it. Letters from people to other people.
Some famous, some not.
I hadn’t been actively looking for anything more on John Dos Passos, who we mentioned last week, but as I stumbled and bumbled around Substack the other morning, I found a letter from him to Rumsey Marvin from December 1918, published on the site a couple of weeks ago.
When he wrote this, Dos Passos was a recent college graduate and would have a lot of growing ahead of him in the next half century or so, but this is a surprisingly self-aware letter. Something I would have been wholly incapable of at age 22.
Over the weekend I read an article by George Neumayr on
The Rise of Hispanic Religious Republicans This has obtuse woke liberals at the New York Times and elsewhere alarmed.
In the article, Neumayr quotes a New York Times writer trying to make sense of all of this.
“For years, Texas Republicans tried to win the Hispanic vote using a Bush-era brand of compassionate conservatism,” Medina writes. “The idea was that a moderate’s touch and a softer rhetoric on immigration were key to making inroads with Hispanic voters, particularly in Democratic strongholds along the southern border.” But that’s not what Hispanic voters wanted, she says, observing that Flores won her seat in a deep blue congressional district by “shunning moderates” and “wearing her support for Donald J. Trump on her sleeve—more Marjorie Taylor Greene than Kay Bailey Hutchinson.”
Sober analysis by the NYT as far as I’m concerned. Shocking, yes, but the Karl Rove strategy of bullying Latinos into voting for the GOP was foolish and ineffective and has been for two-plus decades.
But Rove is a political genius, right?
Neumayr continues…
One hopes the GOP leadership is taking note here. Its success with Hispanic voters is contingent upon rejecting the wokeness of the Democrats, not aping them. It is the glaring contrast between the parties that explains the defections of Hispanics to the GOP. They come from a traditional culture that has little time for the gender and race obsessions of the Democrats and instills a work ethic that makes Hispanics more interested in capitalist opportunities to escape poverty than left-wing lectures about it.
The simple nationalism that Trump offers is comprehensible to them, if only because they come from a culture that takes such nationalism for granted too. What’s not understandable to them is a party that celebrates open borders, flag boycotters, and the desecration of its country’s history.
The man-bites-dog story is not the rise of Hispanic Republicans but the almost total indifference of Democrats, supposedly so sensitive to minorities, in losing them. Even as Hispanics ditch them in droves, they continue to prattle on about “gender fluidity” and critical race theory.
I don’t know Neumayr, but I have read two of his books and I try to read his stuff in the American Spectator when I can.
I was, however, an acquaintance of a relative of his.
When I asked if there was a relation, the person said, “Oh, George… what did he do this time?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I read a couple of his books, heard him on a few podcasts, and just found a website he writes for. I just really like his writing.”
“Well, thanks, I’ll tell him. That’s not what most people say about him, you know?”
“I get that impression.”
I follow George on Twitter @george_neumayr but I rarely, if ever, see his stuff in my feeds. Perhaps a shadow ban of sorts?
A couple of Neumayr’s books to consider:
The Political Pope: How Pope Francis Is Delighting the Liberal Left and Abandoning Conservatives
The blurb:
Pope Francis is the most liberal pope in the history of the Catholic Church. He is not only championing the causes of the global Left, but also undermining centuries-old Catholic teaching and practice. In the words of the late radical Tom Hayden, his election was "more miraculous, if you will, than the rise of Barack Obama in 2008."
But to Catholics in the pews, his pontificate is a source of alienation. It is a pontificate, at times, beyond parody: Francis is the first pope to approve of adultery, flirt with proposals to bless gay marriages and cohabitation, tell atheists not to convert, tell Catholics to not breed "like rabbits," praise the Koran, support a secularized Europe, and celebrate Martin Luther.
At a time of widespread moral relativism, Pope Francis is not defending the Church's teachings but diluting them. At a time of Christian persecution, he is not strengthening Catholic identity but weakening it. Where other popes sought to save souls, he prefers to "save the planet" and play politics, from habitual capitalism-bashing to his support for open borders and pacifism.
In The Political Pope, George Neumayr gives readers what the media won't: a bracing look at the liberal revolution that Pope Francis is advancing in the Church. To the radical academic Cornel West, "Pope Francis is a gift from heaven." To many conservative Catholics, he is the worst pope in centuries.
Neumayr delivers. It is a disturbing book, however.
The current pope is a politician more than a religious leader. The Francis papacy is essentially a front for a leftist vision of society, rather than a Catholic one.
I do not abide.
I’ve said in the past that I don’t consider myself particularly “political.” Indeed, I don’t, at least when it comes to rooting on candidates.
I last did that a decade ago with the Ron Paul campaign in the GOP primary. It was a dozen years prior that I rooted on anyone else and that was the Reform Party candidacy of Pat Buchanan in 2000.
Buchanan was the only decent candidate in the 2000 election, but his campaign was sabotaged throughout the process. Remember Donald J. Trump? He tried—and failed—to wrest the Reform nomination from Paddy Joe.
Buchanan, the erstwhile pugilist, fended off The Donald in the primaries and the Buchanan insurgency ultimately led to the result of the “second-best option” in the general, which was George W. Bush winning the presidency of the United States.
The eight years of Bush were an unqualified disaster. Full stop.
Consider, however: four or more years of Al Gore at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
A certificate of death would have been rendered upon this republic.
We’re now teetering under the Biden administration. The American “union” is closer to its ultimate conclusion at any time since—roughly—eight score years ago.
Which brings me to a second George Neumayr tome.
The Biden Deception: Moderate, Opportunist, or the Democrats' Crypto-Socialist?
This book came out prior to the 2020 election. Unfortunately, I believe, the release was only a few weeks before the election and didn’t get much traction in the world of the corporate press.
Shocker, I know.
I don’t have a strong belief in voting, at least how the current system operates.
“Democracy” has proven itself to be a fool’s errand, no matter how much latter day American politicians push the merits of it.
The Founders had no use for democracy. They designed a federal republic.
None of it has worked.
But, for those who think democracy to be sacrosanct—and I render little judgment against those who do from my end, because we all must endure the endless cradle-to-grave propaganda—this book would have helped these folks discover some things.
The book may even still be of assistance.
Neumayr simply laid out the story of “who Biden is.”
Cliff’s Notes: a corrupt dunce who is not impressive in any way other than his ability to bulldoze himself into national office with very little pushback by the electorate or his shills in corporate media.
We’re currently living in the semi-dystopia that Neumayr forewarned of with a Biden “victory.”
The rampant price inflation a year-and-a-half into a Biden first term may not have been projected, but here we are.
Total disaster.
To be fair, Biden and the Pecksniffian governor of California are only symptoms of the underlying cultural rot.
Bottom line: It is not my concern if you vote or not. Statistically, your vote does not amount to anything. But if you’re doing it out of some moral sense, voting for the “least bad” guy is actually not “moral” whatsoever.
These aren’t serious people…but they are effective.
In a serious culture, the Bidens and the Newsoms of the world (even Trumps, if you want to go there) would be shunned from society rather than have votes cast in their favor.
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste or the intelligence of the American voter.
As for Pat Buchanan, America lost a chance at having a great president. He’s a serious man with consequential ideas.
Donald Trump simply tried hijacking the previous messaging from the Buchanan Brigades during his 2016 campaign, but without the sincerity of Buchanan himself.
Fortunately for Trump, it was a successful tactic. From “the heart?” Not so much.
Politico interviewed Buchanan in 2017 and this article is what came of it…
The Ideas Made It, But I Didn’t Pat Buchanan won after all. But now he thinks it might be too late for the nation he was trying to save. (May/June 2017)
If not for his outsize ambition, Pat Buchanan might be the closest thing the American right has to a real-life Forrest Gump, that patriot from ordinary stock whose life journey positioned him to witness, influence and narrate the pivotal moments that shaped our modern world and changed the course of this country’s history. He has known myriad roles—neighborhood brawler, college expellee, journalist, White House adviser, political commentator, presidential candidate three times over, author, provocateur—and his existence traces the arc of what feels to some Americans like a nation’s ascent and decline. He was 3 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and 6 when Harry Truman dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Buchanan is not wrong. It may indeed be too late.
He was—and is—other than Ron Paul, the only “idea man” in the political sphere over the last three decades who is worth his salt.
Pat just came back to writing his syndicated column after a well-deserved break in June and penned this column on July 12…
New York Times to Biden — Time to Go!
“Democrats will not miss the message that the Times is ready to bolt on Biden, and if Democrats wish to win and keep Donald Trump out of the White House, they need a new horse to ride. This one is lame.”
I’ve read all of Buchanan’s books. Some several times.
I’ve taken in most of his columns over the last two decades, as well, but I have a lot of catching up to do with the vast back catalog from before then.
The work is brilliant.
The notion that a bumbling fool like Joe Biden or an amoral cretin like Bill Clinton—the two-time governor of a state that The Sage of Baltimore once called “an apex of moronia”—can become president and a serious, somber, intelligent, and clear communicator like Pat Buchanan never did—in three tries—is an indictment upon the American culture.
We’ve been sold a bill of goods.
It ain’t what we’ve been told.
What exactly have you been told?
Ever heard of a Groaning Table?
Probably not, unless you are into esoterica.
Perhaps a “groaning board?”
Same.
So what are we talking about here?
A groaning board/table is otherwise known as all of the food spread out for a feast, all on one table.
Think Thanksgiving.
Groaning Table. Birds, roasts, casseroles, you name it.
Last Thanksgiving I made a groaning table of our own with the main courses all from
Southside Market & Barbecue
Everything but turkey (because we all gave that up a while ago).
No matter how you do it, the most overrated animal protein out there that I’ve encountered. I may change my mind, but not any time soon.
Right now, though, the folks at Southside have a special deal on their 1882 Hot Beef Sausage (hot links).
12 links for 10 clams.
https://olearybeef.com/southside/
Brian O’Leary