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About theartfuldilettante

The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.

Iran Threatens to Stop Oil from Leaving Middle East

Trading Energy Threats

Iran War

Analysis and news.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed on Tuesday that “today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran” at the same time that Iranian forces unleashed a new barrage of attacks on Israel and its Gulf neighbors. With both Washington and Tehran ruling out cease-fire talks, experts expect the global energy crisis to worsen as the war trudges on.

Fears of Iranian attacks coupled with high insurance costs have largely halted oil and gas tankers from traversing the Strait of Hormuz, where around 20 percent of the world’s crude normally passes. On Tuesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that Tehran “will not allow the export of even a single liter of oil from the region to the hostile side and its partners until further notice,” adding that “we are the ones who will determine the end of the war.”

In response, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far.”

Such threats have left global markets scrambling. The cost of a barrel of Brent crude hit around $90 on Tuesday, nearly 24 percent higher than when U.S.-Israeli strikes first targeted Iran on Feb. 28. That, however, is down from Monday’s spike, which saw Brent prices reach almost $120. West Texas Intermediate crude also recorded falling prices from Monday into Tuesday, though costs still hit around $85 per barrel.

“The Strait of Hormuz will either be a path of peace and prosperity for all, or a path of failure and suffering for warmongers,” Ali Larijani, Iran’s top national security official, wrote on X on Tuesday.

The Trump administration is pursuing several strategies to counter high oil prices. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a 30-day waiver for India to buy Russian crude already at sea in an effort to “enable oil to keep flowing into the global market.” The following day, Bessent revealed that Washington is considering lifting even more sanctions on Russian oil.

The U.S. Development Finance Corporation has also begun offering a backstop for maritime insurance to persuade tankers to make the risky trip through Hormuz, though experts say that the plan is likely inadequate to address the scale of the problem.

In addition, the White House has said that it is considering having the U.S. Navy escort tankers through the strait. And on Tuesday, oil prices dropped in response to a post on X by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright announcing that the U.S. Navy had “successfully” carried out such a mission; however, minutes later, the post was deleted without explanation.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a press briefing shortly after that “the U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or a vessel at this time,” though she noted that “that’s an option the president has said he will absolutely utilize if and when necessary at the appropriate time.”

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) convened an emergency meeting on Tuesday to decide whether to release emergency oil stockpiles to help bring down costs; IEA member nations hold more than 1.2 billion barrels of public crude reserves.

Catholic Bishop to Ordain Married Men to Priesthood by 2028

A Catholic bishop in Belgium has announced plans to ordain married men to the priesthood by 2028, despite the Roman Catholic Church’s requirement of clerical celibacy.

Bishop Johan Bonny of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Antwerp recently released a pastoral letter claiming that “the consensus on this question is almost total” among Church leaders.

“The question is no longer whether the Church can ordain married men as priests but when it will do so, and who will do it,” wrote Bonny. “Any delay comes across as an excuse.”

The bishop said he “will make every effort to ordain married men as priests for our diocese by 2028,” adding that the vetting process will be “transparent but discreet, away from the media spotlight.”

Bonny cited a shortage of priests as the reason for the proposal, saying “the number of unmarried men who want to become priests has fallen to just above zero” in many dioceses.

“I will approach them personally and ensure that by then they have the necessary theological training and pastoral experience, comparable to that of other priest candidates,” Bonny continued.

“For many a bishop, the ordination of married men has become a matter of conscience. At that level, too, transparency, accountability, and evaluation are important for the credibility of the Church.”

According to Canon 1042, a man cannot be ordained into the Catholic priesthood if he is “someone who has a wife, unless he is legitimately destined to the permanent diaconate.”

The celibacy requirement includes some exemptions. For example, Eastern Rite Catholic priests may marry if they do so before becoming ordained. Once ordained, however, if they are widowed, they cannot remarry.

Additionally, married Anglican clergy who convert to the Catholic Church may remain married. According to a 2017 Los Angeles Times report, there were approximately 120 such married priests in the United States.

In October 2017, Pope Francis convened a synod to address the shortage of priests in the Amazon region of Latin America. At the time, the then-pontiff expressed openness to permitting “viri probati,” or married men of proven moral character, to be ordained as priests for that specific area.

Ultimately, however, Pope Francis did not follow through with the idea. Instead, he implored bishops to pray for more vocations and send more missionaries to the Amazon region.

In 2022, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich told the German publication Sueddeutsche Zeitung that he supported allowing priests to marry as part of efforts to address sexual abuse.

“For some priests, it would be better if they were married — not just for sexual reasons, but because it would be better for their life and they wouldn’t be lonely,” Marx stated. “We must hold this discussion.”


Michael Gryboski, Christian Post

VICTORY !

VICTORY!

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1

that the Department of Homeland Security CAN detain — without possibility of bond —

illegal aliens waiting to be deported.

This is a huge, massive win for President Trump & the American people.

This War isn’t about Israel–it’s about America

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Iranian_Nuclear_Program

This war isn’t about Israel-it’s about America

The United States does not need Israel to tell it that Iran is a threat. The evidence is written in blood-American blood-spilled over decades of unprovoked aggression. Opinion.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach


  Mar 24, 2026, 7:33 PM (GMT+2)

Rabbi Shmuley BoteachIsrael-IranIranian Nuclear ProgramUnited States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act

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The call that changed the decision on Iran

by Taboola

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One of the most persistent and dangerous lies circulating in today’s political discourse is the claim that any American confrontation with Iran-especially under President Donald Trump-is somehow a war “for Israel.” It is a falsehood repeated so often that it has begun to calcify into conventional wisdom, echoed by media figures and political commentators who should know better, and some who simply don’t care whether it is true.

Let’s say it plainly: this is not Israel’s war. It never was. It is America’s war-forced upon it by nearly half a century of Iranian aggression, bloodshed, hostage-taking, and ideological hatred directed first and foremost at the United States.

The Islamic Republic of Iran did not begin its hostility toward America because of Israel. It began in 1979, the very moment the Ayatollahs seized power, long before any modern American president could be accused of acting at Israel’s behest. From day one, the regime defined itself through hatred of the United States, branding it “the Great Satan” and making confrontation with America a central pillar of its revolutionary identity.

The first act of this new regime was not against Israel. It was against America.

In November 1979, Iranian revolutionaries stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days. This was not a minor incident. It was a declaration of war in all but name. American citizens were paraded blindfolded before cameras, humiliated, threatened, and used as bargaining chips by a regime that had barely come into existence.

That single act should have permanently dispelled any illusion about Iran’s intentions. But it was only the beginning.

Throughout the 1980s, Iran orchestrated and supported attacks that directly targeted American lives. The 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, carried out by Iranian-backed Hezbollah, killed 241 American servicemen. That same year, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was bombed, killing dozens more. These were not isolated events. They were part of a deliberate strategy by Tehran to drive America out of the Middle East through terror.

Iranian fingerprints are found on decades of bloodshed.

During the Iraq War, Iranian-backed militias supplied sophisticated roadside bombs-explosively formed penetrators-that killed and maimed hundreds of American soldiers. These weapons were not improvised in caves; they were engineered, funded, and distributed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. American families buried their sons and daughters because Tehran made a calculated decision to wage proxy war against the United States.

Even outside conventional battlefields, Iran has pursued Americans relentlessly. It has plotted assassinations on U.S. soil, including a brazen attempt to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C., using a cartel hitman-an operation traced directly back to Iranian operatives. It has kidnapped Americans abroad, including journalists, academics, and tourists, holding them as leverage in geopolitical negotiations.

This is not ancient history. This is a continuous pattern of behavior spanning more than four decades.

And yet, despite this overwhelming record, a chorus of voices insists on reframing any American response to Iran as somehow being done “for Israel.”

Among the loudest of these voices are media personalities like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, and even Megyn Kelly, who have either directly or indirectly advanced the narrative that American policy toward Iran is driven by Israeli interests rather than American ones.

This is not just wrong. It is dangerously misleading.

It suggests that the United States lacks agency, that its leaders are somehow manipulated into conflict by a foreign ally. It erases decades of Iranian aggression against Americans. And perhaps most insidiously, it echoes a deeply troubling historical trope-that Jews or Israel are secretly controlling global events for their own benefit.

But the facts are stubborn.

Iran does not chant “Death to Israel” alone. It chants “Death to America” with equal fervor, often placing America first. Its leaders have repeatedly declared their intention to bring about the collapse of the United States as a global power. This is not rhetorical flourish. It is ideological doctrine.

The Iranian regime’s ambitions extend far beyond Israel. It seeks regional dominance and, ultimately, global influence. It funds and arms terrorist organizations across the Middle East-Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen-all of which have targeted American interests directly or indirectly.

When American ships are attacked in the Persian Gulf, when U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria come under rocket fire, when American personnel are wounded or killed, these are not Israeli concerns. They are American ones.

And then there is the nuclear question.

A nuclear-armed Iran is not merely an Israeli problem. It is a global catastrophe waiting to happen-but first and foremost, it is an existential threat to the United States.

The idea that Iran would reserve its most devastating weapon for Israel while sparing America defies both logic and history. The regime has consistently demonstrated that its hatred of America is foundational, not incidental. If given the capability, there is every reason to believe that Iran would view an attack on a major American city-New York, Washington, or Los Angeles-as the ultimate act of revolutionary triumph.

This is not alarmism. It is a sober assessment of a regime that has spent decades declaring its intentions openly.

The Ayatollahs are not rational actors in the Western sense. They are driven by a messianic ideology that glorifies martyrdom and envisions a world reordered under their interpretation of Islamic governance. Their pursuit of nuclear weapons is not simply about deterrence. It is about power, prestige, and the ability to reshape the global order.

To pretend otherwise is to ignore everything they have said and done since 1979.

Critics who claim that confronting Iran is about protecting Israel miss the central point: America is protecting itself.

No sovereign nation can tolerate a regime that has repeatedly killed its citizens, attacked its interests, taken its people hostage, and openly calls for its destruction-while simultaneously racing toward nuclear capability.

If anything, the real question is not why America confronts Iran, but why it has taken so long to do so decisively.

The narrative that this is “Israel’s war” serves only one purpose: to delegitimize American action and to shift blame away from the true aggressor. It allows commentators to posture as anti-war while ignoring the war that Iran has already been waging against the United States for decades.

It also has a corrosive domestic effect. By framing U.S. policy as being driven by Israel, it feeds suspicion, division, and, ultimately, antisemitism. It suggests that American Jews or the State of Israel are dragging the United States into conflicts that are not its own.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The United States does not need Israel to tell it that Iran is a threat. The evidence is written in blood-American blood-spilled over decades of unprovoked aggression.

This is not about foreign entanglements or misplaced loyalties. It is about national security in its most fundamental sense.

Iran has been at war with America since 1979. It has simply been a war fought in shadows-through proxies, terror attacks, cyber operations, and ideological warfare. The question now is whether America is willing to recognize that reality and respond accordingly.

History teaches a clear lesson: regimes that declare their intentions and act on them should be taken at their word. The cost of ignoring them is measured not in abstract policy debates, but in human lives.

The biggest lie, then, is not just that this is Israel’s war. It is that America has a choice about whether to be involved.

Iran made that choice for us nearly half a century ago. It’s time for America to finally neutralize the threat.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, widely known as “America’s Rabbi”, is one of the world’s most recognized and influential Jewish voices. A bestselling author, award-winning columnist, global human rights advocate, and dynamic public speaker, he has dedicated his life to spreading Jewish values, defending the Jewish people, and championing universal human dignity. The international bestselling author of 36 books that have been translated into multiple languages and sold millions of copies worldwide, his writings are known for their boldness, accessibility, and unapologetic defense of morality in the modern age. In 2000, Rabbi Shmuley became the only rabbi to win The Times of London’s prestigious “Preacher of the Year” competition, and remains the record-holder to this day. He has also been honored with the American Jewish Press Association’s highest award for excellence in commentary, cementing his reputation as one of the foremost Jewish communicators in the world. Follow him on Instagram and X @RabbiShmuley.

Lights out in Colorado

The Rocky Mountain High state is heading for the rocks.

Rocky Mountain high, Colorado,” sang John Denver, AKA Henry Duetschendorf Jr. in 1972. Those were heady days for Colorado. Ski resorts, the Rockies, natural beauty aplenty and the promise of new beginnings enticed many, including me, to move to Colorado. My stay on the west slope was brief, and over the years, Colorado has descended from a more-or-less business-friendly and affordable state to a Democrat People’s Republic, increasingly crowded and hostile to civil liberties and prosperity.

I occasionally travel to Colorado Springs for service on my recumbent trike and bike at the best recumbent shop in this part of the country. The traffic on I-35 is always horrific, driving through Denver is a nightmare and road construction and delays are eternal. I yet have friends and family in Colorado. My family worries about entrusting their still-infant kids to Colorado schools when the time comes. They also worry about Colorado’s increasingly draconian anti-liberty/gun laws.

They have other worries too. Colorado is facing a $1.5+ billion dollar budget shortfall, a half-billion more than expected. Republicans blame Democrat overspending. Democrats blame Republicans for noticing.

Coloradans are also noticing increasing power outages. Colorado currently is 26th in the nation for power outages and is 27th for the number of power customers affected. At Complete Colorado, Jon Caldera has noticed—when his lights have been on. He’s noticed that Colorado can be windy.

But only in the last few months have I witnessed our power utilities preemptively turning off electricity during high winds to “prevent fires.”

Caldera is suspicious:

Is Colorado suddenly windier than it has been during my entire life? Unless our eyes have been lying to us, the answer is comfortably: no.

Yet, I type this under an official warning that my power might be turned off because of another rather normal day of high winds.

Is it too tinfoil-hat to wonder if this is really about preventing fires?

Is it too “QAnon” to think they might be conditioning us for Colorado’s future of intermittent electricity?

But why would the state do that?

But why would the state do that?

They know sizable power disruptions are in our future — because they ordered them. So, they’d better start getting YOU used to it.

Currently about two-thirds of Colorado’s electricity comes from fossil fuels. And already our power is becoming less reliable and more intermittent.

Thanks to state mandates, by 2050 — and the legislature is already flirting with moving that deadline up to 2040 — none of our power can come from fossil fuels. [skip]

Our leaders — and the corporate energy leeches who feed off them — know they need to prepare you for wildly intermittent, Third World energyCaldera reasonably notes Colorado’s energy consumption is expected to triple in the near future in part due to the proliferation of energy intensive data centers. He also notes that all-renewable energy sources—wind and solar—coming remotely close to meeting Colorado’s energy needs is fantasy. That’s true for the nation. But when a state’s rulers live in their own fantasy world and try to force everyone else to live in it too, that’s the kind of policy you get.

However, real reality may intrude due to power outages at Denver International Airport, one of America’s five busiest:

A power outage on Wednesday morning impacted operations at Denver International Airport.

“The airport experienced a power incident around 9:20 a.m. Certain areas of the airport are still experiencing an outage, including DEN’s train to the gates,” the airport said on social media.

“Technicians are working as quickly as possible to restore power. We will share updates as soon as we have them,” it added.

Denver International Airport officials said power was restored at 11:04 a.m., nearly two hours after the initial outage. They said that operations would return to normal and asked for patience.

According to witness accounts from inside the airport, passengers were not allowed to board waiting planes, and power outages were impacting bathroom services.

I’d rather not imagine what impacted bathroom services looked and smelled like.

Around 11 a.m., users said that power was on, though there were still large crowds of people, and bathrooms were hit or miss. [skip]

According to flight tracking tool FlightAware, there were 96 flights delayed and 6 canceled as of 10 a.m. That increased to 258 delays by 11 a.m., and is up to 474 delays as of 1:30 p.m.

I’ve flown into and out of Denver. It’s hellish even when the power is on. 

Now the question is whether even those kinds of inconveniences will be sufficient to convince Colorado’s People’s Assembly to realize renewable energy isn’t remotely realistic. 

Become a subscriber and get our weekly, Friday newsletter with unique content from our editors. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor. 

Related Topics: Energy

Jefferson Was Right: Cities Support Tyranny

Psychology May Explain Socialim’s Allure for Youth, Big Cities 

During his first term, President Donald Trump promised, “America will never be a socialist country.” Maybe not. But New York is now a socialist city.

The Big Apple was once the heart of American capitalism.

Zohran Mamdan’s rise to power is thanks to the votes of young people in their 20s.

Do they have one iota of a clue what they’re asking for?

Imagine if all of America became socialist tomorrow, as these young voters undoubtedly want. Some of us ask, “How long would the typical American today last during a prolonged power or internet outage?”

Millions of people would have to put down their phones and find something else to do.

Far worse, however, is the brand of poverty that socialism brings.

Grocery store shelves wouldn’t have the things you expect.

Hospitals would be disaster areas, far worse than the frustrations people experience now.

Roads would be in ruins.

Why?

Because when there’s no money, nothing happens.

When there’s nobody to innovate, create, and sustain the wealth we all take for granted — everything fails.

The Mamdani election shows just how divided America is.

Yes, Manhattan is deeply blue.

But not terribly long ago Giuliani was Gotham’s mayor.

Now, Democrats like Andrew Cuomo seem like Ronald Reagan compared to what’s coming. But America is hopelessly divided. Not by race so much as by where you live — urban versus rural.

In Thomas Jefferson’s letters, one of his biggest concerns for the survival of our republic involved the development of cities over rural life.

Jefferson felt that cities would foster a support for tyranny while the rural life fostered the self-accountability and self-reliance a free country requires.

Clearly, one of our nation’s Founders was on to something.

The catastrophic election of not just a Communist but an open terrorist to such a high position reinforces my view that the ruptures in America cannot be repaired.

At a minimum, even without a civil war, our states will have to split up.

You can’t reconcile Mamdani and the Bill of Rights.

And lovers of liberty and civilization can’t and will never coexist with the ignorant fools who voted for him, as well as the evil totalitarians who funded him.

And now, are we witness to a chilling emergent trend?

One emanating from the Pacific Northwest? 

Now comes news that Katie Wilson, a 43-year socialist, living off her parents money, has been elected mayor of Seattle, Washington. 

At this stage, we need to be crystal clear, there’s no miracle behind capitalism.

It’s all very real, logical, and tangible.

In fact, it’s beauty is in its simplicity.

When human beings are accountable for their actions, and are permitted to keep all (or even most) of what they earn, they perform far, far better than when only permitted to work for the government.

Only in the United States do we call it “progressive” to move toward an economic and social system where — using a very real example — nail polish is in such short supply that young girls are not permitted to use it, lest they hurt the feelings of other little girls.

It’s not merely that everyone is poor under socialism.

It’s that no wealth can be created.

Because people will not create things like Amazon, American Airlines, Uber, Nike, eBay, Apple, your favorite clothing lines, your favorite cars, your favorite sports and entertainment, and all the rest when they’re not allowed to make a profit.

Would you?

The level of ignorance among the left-wing and left-wing-by-default, i.e., millions of young people who will vote for totalitarian blockheads like Mamdani, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., s staggering.

If they hated all material wealth, it would be one thing. It would make sense for them to embrace socialism.

But the socialism we find in America comes from two places.

Both are psychological. One is envy, and the other is neurotic guilt.

In America, there are two types of people who embrace socialism.

First are the types who don’t have a lot, and who feel they never will have a lot, or who perhaps (deep down) don’t want to do the work required to gain a lot.

They’re envious, they’re bitter, and they want others to suffer their fate.

The others are the already wealthy who, regardless of how they attained their wealth, feel it’s not fair they have more than others.

Rather than giving their money away, they demand a social system that prevents others from ever having what they have, or even from ever having anything at all.

It’s a neurotic form of psychological atonement.

“I’m bad for having all this. If I support redistribution of wealth, that makes me feel better.”

We’re not ridding ourselves of socialism until we challenge the unearned guilt and envy of millions of citizens who suffer from these problems.

The problem is psychological and ultimately ideological, since human emotions are based upon ideas. We are stuck at the ballot box until we first get to the subconscious. I see no other way out of this mess.

It would be stunningly sad if America, the most moral and successful society in all of human history, went down in a frenzy of psychological neurosis and disorder which never had to be. America was not preordained.

It happened because people wanted it.

Yes, it can rise again — but only if people want it.

And therein lies the problem.

(Related opinion columns may be found here, and here.) 

Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Psychology. He’s the author of “Grow Up America” and “Bad Therapy, Good Therapy,” (see: www.DrHurd.com). Dr. Hurd has been quoted in and/or appeared on over 30 radio shows/podcasts (including Rush Limbaugh and Larry Elder), and on Newsmax TV. He also authors two self-help columns weekly. Dr. Hurd resides in Charleston, South Carolina. Read More Dr. Hurd’s Reports — More Here.

The Iran War is Going Better than You Think

Most Americans probably don’t look back at March 2012 — if they remember it at all — and think of terrifyingly high gas prices. In the month when “The Hunger Games” ruled the box office and President Barack Obama was on his way to a comfortable re-election, the price of Brent crude closed the month around $123 a barrel. That would be about $175 a barrel in today’s dollars.

As of Tuesday, despite Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz and its attacks on its neighbors’ energy facilities, it’s hovering around $100, slightly higher than the average inflation-adjusted price since January 2001, roughly $95.

That ought to provide some perspective on the panic over the war in the Middle East. To hear the critics’ version of events, an unprovoked and unnecessary attack on Iran, launched at Israel’s behest, is already a foreign-policy fiasco that has put the global economy at risk without any clear objective or endgame. As Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told NBC’s Kristen Welker over the weekend, “We’ve never seen this level of incompetence in war-making in this country’s history.”

Really? Let’s take a tour of some of the recent history.

During the 1991 Operation Desert Storm against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, a campaign that is widely considered a brilliant military success, the U.S.-led coalition lost 75 aircraft, 42 of them in combat. In this conflict, four manned aircraft have been destroyed, three to friendly fire and one in an accident. Not a single manned plane has yet been lost over Iran.

The U.S. air and land campaign in that operation lasted a full six weeks. Today it’s remembered as a lightning-fast war. The current conflict with Iran is less than four weeks old.


Brett Stephens, New York Times

The End of Our Republic is Closer than We Think

The End of Our Republic Is Closer Than We Think 

The left continues to act as though it has never been, or will be, challenged – ever.

Minnesota serves as a prime example.

They’ve purportedly stolen millions, while trying to distract everyone by attacking ICE officers. Those officers back down, and the result is Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., threatening to sue U.S. President Donald Trump and the federal government.

The left acts as though they are an omnipotent totalitarian power that can’t be overthrown.

They don’t act like they believe they’re God; rather they carry on as though they’re actually stronger than God.

And to paraphrase an axiom of political science: power corrupts, a self-sense of omnipotence does absolutely.

Hubris? Narcissism?

Certainly.

Yet, it’s all seemingly worse than that.

They believe they can predict the weather one thousand or one million years from now.

Apart from believing their own publicity, they believe they know everything serving their sinister, toxic narrative. This comprises such over the top self-confidence in their beliefs, that they must censor or intimidate anyone who dares to dissent.

The left consistently believes they have a right to control every detail and every second of your life because of that belief.

As a mental health clinician, in all my years, I’ve never witnessed narcissism at such heightened levels.

Hitler and Stalin ultimately and thankfully faced robust opposition. They had to fear America and the relatively free Western world striking back. Today’s cultural and government left wing?

They are wholly cognizant that there is virtually no one to fight back. there’s nobody to fight back . . . except for U.S. President Trump and his supporters.

But you already hear the threats of retribution coming against all ICE officers, against President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and even grassroots MAGA supporters.

“We’re coming for you; your time will come,” they thunder, and experience shows they mean what they say.

Evil is consistently remarkably idiotic.

So, it follows, by definition, if you’re evil, you act irrationally: no intelligence required.

The only thing propping up today’s evil is the unwillingness or inability of anyone decent to stand up to it.

Thus, the megalomaniacs of the left keep getting away with it — that is, until they no longer can.

Left adherents prosecute, burn buildings, riot, defame, dox, impeach, imprison, fine, sue and execute.

Conservatives shy from such things.

Perhaps this is why we’re losing – as targets and victims of lawfare – and losing the culture war.

It’s ironic.

Conservatives (at least in the era of Ronald Reagan) were not the ones who advocated appeasement of the Soviet Union.

Yet, we treat today’s mortal enemies on the left as if they are capable of being reasoned with. We did so (during the Biden regime, or at least we tried) as they overtly imprisoned our candidates for no reason, declared any form of dissension an “insurrection” punishable by prison, censored our speech, stripped us of our Second Amendment rights and slowly, progressively completed the nationalization of private industry, via initiatives such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – among other left-wing agenda-driven, ideologic dark plans. 

Oh, and threatened to perform sex change surgery on our children without our consent, and to imprison us as domestic terrorists if we objected.

It’s a timeless principle we must relearn. . .

Appeasement didn’t work for Neville Chamberlain against Hitler in the 1930s, it certainly won’t prove even remotely effective now.

Even litigation in a court system seemingly left-leaning, of course, has not halted them, and may never do so.

Concurrently, while we can pass voter ID laws – will they be enforced uniformly? – that is, inclusive of blue states and cities.

Republicans will still feel intimidated, even in red states; pressured to buckle under they will intimidate Republicans even in some red states to buckle under, in some cases with overt ferocity.

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that it’s time for something different. And I’m not persuaded by the argument, “We can’t become like them.”

We’re in a partisan, domestic war.

If we don’t fight back at some point, then our lives and values will perish right before our eyes. If you allow your home to become infested with vermin, vermin prevail.

We must snap ourselves out of our individual and collective states of denial, and realize our liberties are increasingly compromised.

Back in 2023, James Woods wrote on (Twitter)/X:

“The true enemy of America is the Republican Party surprisingly. The Democrats will always complain, grift, cheat, and gleefully ignore the law. Who will stop then? In a real two-party system it would be Republicans, but they are weak, milquetoast losers who do nothing but talk.”

Is Mr. Woods correct?

Let’s hope not. He’s not talking about President Trump, but how many Republicans – many of whom secretly profit from the left’s agenda – are truly ready to stop allowing Democrats to turn America into a one-party state?

The verdict of history awaits. . . .

Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Psychology. He’s the author of “Grow Up America” and “Bad Therapy, Good Therapy,” (see: http://www.DrHurd.com). He also authors two self-help columns week and resides in Charleston, South Carolina. Read more Dr. Michael J.Hurd, Ph.D. Insider articles — Click Here Now.

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