What Happened to Those 15,000,000 Biden Voters?!

 

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Hidden in a Saudi Arabian Oasis

 From Live Science:

A small 4,400-year-old town in the Khaybar Oasis of Saudi Arabia hints that Bronze Age people in this region were slow to urbanize, unlike their contemporaries in Egypt and Mesopotamia, a new study finds.

Archaeologists discovered the site near the city of Al-'Ula in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia and called it "al-Natah." The settlement covered about 3.7 acres (1.5 hectares), "including a central district and nearby residential district surrounded by protective ramparts," the researchers said in a statement. But the town, which was occupied starting around 2400 B.C., was small, with a population of only around 500 people, the team noted in a study, published Wednesday (Oct. 30) in the journal PLOS One.

The residential area had a large amount of pottery and grinding stones, as well as the remains of at least 50 dwellings that may have been made of earthen materials. The central area had two buildings that may have been used as administrative areas, the team wrote in the paper. In the western part of the central area, a necropolis was found. It has large and high circular tombs that archaeologists call "stepped tower tombs." (Read more.)

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Marie-Antoinette's Lost Couch

 The fact that they even mention the cake myth in the following article is regrettable. And I know of no portrait that shows the Queen reclining on a couch. They must be referring to the Coppola film. From The San Francisco Standard:

“This piece of furniture has a very complicated history,” Williams said. Commissioned for Versailles in 1779, it was included in an inventory of furniture taken from the palace shared by Antoinette and her husband, King Louis XVI, a few months before their heads were chopped off in a public square in Paris by French revolutionaries.

“For the lavish furniture of the last tyrants of France,” read the report, “a general inventory will be made for the sale of the current items of furniture estimated to be worth less than a thousand livres.” 

More than 17,000 objects were sold in lots to raise money for the state. Gilded clocks, tapestries, jewels, art, and Europe’s finest furniture were dispersed across the world.

Some of these objects were taken by Napoleon; others found their way to the homes of English and German aristocrats and American ambassadors. But Antoinette’s couch found its way, eventually, to San Francisco. 

Likely moving from one rich estate to the next, the couch was first it was sawed in half and reupholstered several times before making its way to the historical museum at Lands End. 

In what Williams called one of the museum’s most ambitious efforts and a longtime passion project for Martin Chapman, the now-retired curator in charge of European decorative arts and sculpture, the museum began the delicate work of restoring the couch in 2006. More than a dozen people were involved, from historians who traced the couch’s provenance to conservationists and chemists like Williams who worked to restore its trim through X-ray radiography. Replicas of the peonies, roses, pansies, daffodils, and cornflowers that line the white cushions were embroidered by a centennial French company specializing in haute couture. 

Now, after 18 years of research and restoration, the piece is considered as close to its original form as possible — a couch truly fit for a queen.

Much of its history is unknown, including when it left France or whether Antoinette ever actually laid down on it. The museum purchased it at an auction in 1957, when an FAMSF employee recognized its significance and purchased it for the collection. (Read more.)

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Reclaiming Our Catholic Schools

 From First Things:

An alarming number of children from Catholic families lose their faith during elementary and secondary school. By age thirteen, 50 percent fall away from the Church; by eighteen, it’s 86 percent.

This exodus is not unique to Catholics—other Christian communities struggle with similar problems. But many of these children are in Catholic schools for 16,000 hours from pre-school through 12th grade. And the 1.6 million students that are in the classrooms far exceed the twelve apostles that Jesus Christ started with.

After serving as Superintendent of Schools for five years for the Archdiocese of Boston—one of the largest Catholic school systems in the nation—I believe that Catholic schools could lead a national Catholic renewal. But many Catholic schools are not properly ordered. We need to do many things differently.

For starters, we must ensure that we have a strong and authentic witness to the Catholic faith in every classroom. Pope Paul VI, in 1975, noted that “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than teachers, and, if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” Such is the purpose of the St. Thomas More Teaching Fellowship, for instance, which recruits and trains faithful Catholic college graduates. 

We also need school leaders fully committed to evangelization and total fidelity to the Magisterium. As superintendent, I had the privilege of appointing 75 percent of the current parochial school leaders in Boston over a five-year time period—one of the largest intentional turnovers of Catholic school leadership talent in the nation. (Read more.)

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America’s Earliest Political War

 From Daniel McCarthy:

Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party, the ancestor of today’s Democratic Party, thought Adams and his Federalist Party were monarchists and traitors to the American Revolution because they were pro-British and anti-French. The Federalists thought Jefferson’s pro-French party was as radical as France’s own revolutionaries: The phrase “godless communists” didn’t exist yet, but Federalists perceived Jeffersonians as atheists who would abolish private property if they got the chance.

Federalists were anti-democratic, said Republicans. Republicans were against the Constitution, Federalists shot back.  Each side fervently believed the other was “illiberal” and in league with foreign regimes antithetical to America’s principles. Immigration was a red-hot issue then as well and tied to fears of anti-American influences from abroad. Under President Adams, Congress raised the number of years a foreigner would have to live in the United States before being naturalized as a citizen.

The Federalist-controlled Congress also gave the president broad powers to deport immigrants — or “aliens,” as they were then called. How about complaints of government being used against domestic opponents? With the Sedition Act of 1798, Congress criminalized “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” critical of the government. Nowadays, administrations like President Biden’s lean on social media companies to do their censoring for them, as critics of COVID policy, such as Jay Bhattacharya, discovered.

Jefferson and his supporters didn’t just oppose the Alien and Sedition Acts, they were prepared to resist them to the point of inciting states to defy the federal government. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 — the former written by Jefferson, the latter by James Madison, both making their case anonymously — argued states could obstruct or even “nullify” federal law. The “sanctuary city” progressive mayors declare this in response to federal immigration restrictions that have a precedent here. (Read more.)

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An Author Interview

I answered some questions for the talented Avellina Balestri of Fellowship and Fairydust about writing historical fiction, an art we are both striving to perfect. Here is an excerpt:

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

I grew up in the countryside outside of Frederick, Maryland, “fair as the garden of the Lord” as the poet Whittier said of it. As a child I read so many books that my mom had to put restrictions on my hours of reading. During my teenage years, I spent a great deal of my free time writing stories and short novels. I graduated in 1984 from Hood College in Frederick with a BA in Psychology, and in 1985 from the State University of New York at Albany with an MA in Modern European History. In 1986, I joined the Secular Order of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. I taught at the Frederick Visitation Academy and worked as a private tutor as well as teaching children’s etiquette classes. During a trip to Austria in 1995 I visited the tomb of Empress Maria Theresa in the Capuchin crypt in Vienna. Afterwards I decided to finish a novel about Marie-Antoinette I had started writing ten years earlier but had put aside. In 1997 my first historical novel TRIANON was published by St. Michaels Press.

What first inspired you to start writing?

 I wanted to be a writer from the time I was a very small child, just learning to write. I suppose all the stories about girls who wrote, like Anne of Green Gables, inspired me.

How did you first become interested in history, and what are your favorite time periods?

I was always interested in “the olden days” when ladies wore long dresses and had long hair. I wore my aunt’s old prom dresses and played princess. My favorite times periods became the Middle Ages (when Joan of Arc lived) and the 1700’s (when Marie-Antoinette lived).

What started you on the journey of historical fiction writing in particular?

I saw the first Star Wars film when I was 14. I came home and made up a story about a character based on Princess Leia except instead of living in space she lived in a medieval country.

What are your favorite and least favorite parts of working within the historical fiction genre? 

I love everything about the genre. Good historical fiction requires thorough research, and I enjoy research. The story-line is basically provided for you; all the author has to do is weave the historical events together in a coherent and entertaining manner. The challenge for the historical fiction writer is to maintain the integrity of the historical persons, remembering that those who were real people have the right to be presented as close as possible to how they were in life. For instance, if an author of historical fiction decided to show Napoleon Bonaparte as a pacifist who hated the sight of weapons, it would be irresponsible to the readers to create such a false depiction. Or, as I actually saw in a miniseries, to show St. Thomas More as a sadist who tortured heretics in his study for the fun of it contradicts all that we know about the cheerful humanism of the More household. Yes, Thomas More as Chancellor applied the laws of the land to religious dissenters but he did not do it at his home or for his personal amusement but because it was his job. Authors owe it to the people they are writing about to present them realistically, even as we owe it to the readers to offer an authentic portrait of the past.

How have you chosen which historical characters to feature in your books, and what made their stories resonate with you?

I almost feel like the historical characters chose me, as certain characters such as Marie-Antoinette captured my imagination at a young age before I even knew much about them or about the world they lived in. St. Joan of Arc as well, although I have not written directly about her, she usually is hovering in the background of everything I do. There is something about certain persons that reaches out to you from the past, the past being like Alice’s mirror that she climbs through into another universe. People who faced hardships with courage, fortitude and faith have always appealed to me. By studying their lives and recreating what we discover into a living portrait we historical fiction writers are able to invite others to join us in our journeys into the past.

What is your process in terms of research and bringing historical characters to life?

I start with studying portraits and then with several good biographies. Then I read letters and memoirs and other primary sources. Then I read as much as possible about the era. I usually include a bibliography in the back of my novels as a guide to further reading on the subject.

(Read more.)

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The Era of Corporate Media Dominance Is Over

Trump cannot be prosecuted. The "lawfare" must end. From John Nolte at Breitbart:

The Road to the White House no longer goes through 60 Minutes, CNN, Fox News, Meet the Press, the New York Times editorial board, or the cover of Time Magazine. That road now runs through the Joe Rogan Experience, Breitbart News, New Media, podcasts, talk radio, and social media.

In other words, the Road to the White House now goes through We the People.

Like Hamas, the wicked corporate media launched a terrorist war against a political leader and his civilian followers, which has led to the media’s humiliating and irreversible defeat. The media launched this war on June 15, 2015, the day former President and now President-elect Donald Trump announced his first run for the Oval Office.

On that day, the media wasted no time mocking and slandering Trump. He was immediately written off as a reality show buffoon, a racist who hated Arabs and Mexicans, an Orange Ego with zero chance. As soon as he’d concluded that announcement, the media smugs were already writing the first draft of history…How riding the Trump Tower escalator down defined Trump’s short-lived political career. (Read more.)

 

In New York, no more vouchers for illegal aliens. From The Daily Wire:

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced on Thursday that the city is ending its controversial program that gave illegal aliens hundreds of dollars of taxpayer money every week for food.

Adams’ office said in a statement, “As we move towards more competitive contracting for asylum seeker programs, we have chosen not to renew the emergency contract for this pilot program once the one-year term concludes.”

The move comes after President-Elect Donald Trump promised mass deportations once he takes office in January.

The program gave debit cards to illegal aliens who were living in taxpayer-funded hotels, allowing them to buy whatever kind of food they wanted.

The city gave millions of dollars to thousands of illegal aliens through the program. (Read more.)

 

And the tide has turned for "gender-affirming care" for minors. From City Journal:

The main justification for “gender-affirming care” for minors in the United States has been that “all major U.S. medical associations” support it. Critics of this supposed consensus have argued that it is not grounded in high-quality research or decades of honest and robust deliberation among clinicians with different viewpoints and experiences. Instead, it is the result of a small number of ideologically driven doctor-association members in LGBT-focused committees, who exploit their colleagues' trust. Physicians presenting different viewpoints are silenced or kept away from decision-making circles, ensuring the appearance of unanimity.

As the U.K.’s Cass Review pointed out, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the U.S. Endocrine Society were especially important in forging this consensus, and they did so by citing each other’s statements, rather than conducting a scientific appraisal of the evidence. The “circularity” of this approach, says Cass in her report to England’s National Health Service, “may explain why there has been an apparent consensus on key areas of practice despite the evidence being poor.”

Perhaps because it has never really depended on evidence, this doctor-group consensus has shown remarkable resilience in the face of major system shocks, including several whistleblowers, revelations from court documents that WPATH manipulated scientific evidence reviews, the Cass Review, a bipartisan commitment in the U.K. to roll back pediatric medical transition, and a growing international call for a developmentally informed approach that prioritizes psychotherapy over hormones and surgeries.

But the U.S. consensus now appears to have its first big fracture. In July, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, a major medical association representing 11,000 members and over 90 percent of the field in the U.S. and Canada, told me that it “has not endorsed any organization’s practice recommendations for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria.” ASPS acknowledged that there is “considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions” and that “the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty.”  

Calling the evidence for youth gender transition “low quality” is not, as some gender clinicians say, a “scary buzzword” intended to “confus[e] non-experts.” In evidence-based medicine, “low quality” evidence means something very specific: that the true effect of an intervention is likely to be markedly different from the results reported in studies. As one expert in evidence-based medicine put it, low quality “doesn’t just mean something esoteric about study design, it means there’s uncertainty about whether the long-term benefits outweigh the harms.” As evidence for those harms—which include infertility, sexual dysfunction, and the agony of regret—continues to mount and ethical concerns get harder to ignore, European countries are increasingly prioritizing psychotherapy and reclassifying endocrine and surgical approaches as experimental.

Aware that WPATH suppressed systematic reviews of evidence while developing its latest “standards of care,” ASPS says that it “is reviewing and prioritizing several initiatives that best support evidence-based gender surgical care to provide guidance to plastic surgeons.” I also asked ASPS whether plastic surgeons share responsibility for determining the medical necessity of gender surgeries for minors. ASPS responded that surgeons are “members of the multidisciplinary care team” and as such “have a responsibility to provide comprehensive patient education and maintain a robust and evidence-based informed consent process, so patients and their families can set realistic expectations in the shared decision-making process.” (Read more.)

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Benjamin Franklin: His Private Life

 From The Collector:

Meanwhile, the governor of Pennsylvania, Sir William Keith, had convinced Franklin to go to London to acquire equipment to start a newspaper. Franklin took up Keith’s offer, but while in London, it became apparent to Franklin that Keith’s promises were false.

Before he left, Deborah and Benjamin “interchang’d some Promises,” as Benjamin later wrote of the events before he set off. With Keith’s promises proving to be lies, Benjamin found himself compelled to spend longer than anticipated in London. He sent Deborah a letter stating that he would be in London indefinitely.

After several months, Benjamin returned to Philadelphia and found that Deborah had been heartbroken by his absence. Believing that she may never see him again, she entered into a relationship with a potter (or a carpenter, depending on the source) named John Rogers, whom she later married. Franklin would later write of the event, describing it as a “great Erratum” for which he felt a certain responsibility and guilt. (Read more.)

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The Marriage of Maria Theresa of Austria and Francis of Lorraine

The Wedding Feast

Maria Theresa as Queen of Hungary from the miniseries

 

The young couple

 From The History of Royal Women:

On 12 February 1736, Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria married Duke Francis Stephan III of Lorraine. The pair had known each other since childhood and were distant cousins. Maria Theresa’s family had offered shelter to Francis’s father and grandfather who were both born in Austria, during a period of exile from their Duchy Lorraine. Despite a Duke of Lorraine being much lower in rank than a daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, the close family bond meant that a match had been planned since Maria Theresa was a child.

The Archduchess was destined to marry a son of the house of Lorraine, but Duke Francis was not always the intended groom. From being an infant, Maria Theresa was betrothed to the Hereditary Prince of Lorraine Léopold Clément. Unfortunately, the match was ill-fated, and Léopold died of smallpox at the age of sixteen on his way to Vienna.

There was a period of uncertainty for Maria Theresa after the death of Léopold as her father planned to marry her to Charles, the heir to the Spanish throne. Luckily for Maria Theresa, this match was vetoed by many European powers. The Spanish branch of the Habsburgs had only died out in 1700, and the rulers of Europe were unwilling to allow the re-creation of such a power bloc.

Throughout the years of negotiation, Maria Theresa and Francis grew close as they were brought up together in Vienna. Though once it was finally time for the marriage to go ahead, Francis was hesitant. Maria Theresa’s father; Emperor Charles VI had put Francis in a difficult position. In order for him to be able to marry Maria Theresa, he would have to give away the Duchy of Lorraine. To help to solve the War of the Polish Succession, it was decided that Lorraine should go to the deposed King of Poland for his lifetime. Francis would be compensated by being given the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Francis and his family were truly heartbroken about the decision; Francis even hesitated during the betrothal ceremony and put down his quill before eventually signing the documents.

The wedding took place at 6 o’clock in the evening at the Augustinian Church in Vienna. Imperial chamberlains led the procession to the church. The privy counsellors and conference members followed and after them, the Knights of the Golden Fleece in long medieval robes. The groom was clad in cloth of silver, a white hat and wearing the collar of the Golden Fleece. The bride wore a gown of silver-thread fabric studded with diamonds and pearls. She was flanked by her mother and Joseph I’s widow, Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Her train was carried by her mistress of the robes, Madame Fuchs. Her younger sister followed her in the procession. The church was lit with thousands of candles and was hung with splendid Flemish tapestries. The bride and groom exchanged rings and were blessed by the papal nuncio. The celebrations ended with a Te Deum, and the wedding party had a magnificent banquet. (Read more.)

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Why Trump Won

 From Daniel McCarthy at The New York Times:

Donald Trump is returning to the White House, and while this will not change what most critics think of him, it should compel them to take a close look in the mirror. They lost this election as much as Mr. Trump won it.

This was no ordinary contest between two candidates from rival parties: The real choice before voters was between Mr. Trump and everyone else — not only the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, and her party, but also Republicans like Liz Cheney, top military officers like Gen. Mark Milley and Gen. John Kelly (also a former chief of staff), outspoken members of the intelligence community and Nobel Prize-winning economists.

Framed this way, the presidential contest became an example of what’s known in economics as “creative destruction.” His opponents certainly fear that Mr. Trump will destroy American democracy itself.

To his supporters, however, a vote for Mr. Trump meant a vote to evict a failed leadership class from power and recreate the nation’s institutions under a new set of standards that would better serve American citizens. (Read more.)

 

 From Dana Loesch:

For the better part of ten years I traveled around the country helping to elect candidates, canvas, raise money, and organize. It was exhausting, but I was in my twenties going into my thirties so it didn’t matter. I think back and wonder how on earth I did it with little homeschooled kids in tow.

Ten-plus years later, it’s meaner out there than it was before. There is less room for error. Cancel culture hasn’t fully receded. Not every RINO is marked. The names they, the left, have called us haven’t changed: Bigot, sexist, racist, ist-ist, whatever. What infuriates me, though, is knowing that somewhere out there a young mom is looking over her grocery list, double-checking her budget, and wincing while removing items because inflation is terrible, everyone is broke, and she just wanted to vote for a way to improve it all. For this, she’s called a battered wife, a bigot, a racist. For simply wanting to improve her station in life from the economic status which Democrats have foisted upon her she must be morally deficient. It’s easier for Democrats to excuse their incompetency by blaming the imaginary moral failures of others instead of looking within themselves. This is beyond hurt-and-rescue, it’s hurt-and-shame. (Read more.)

 

From The Daily Wire:

Trump messaged throughout his campaign that Harris and the Democrats were pushing dangerous ideology that Americans didn’t want. He argued repeatedly that the far-left policies the Democratic Party embraced were “crazy.” His assertions were based on polling, both internal and external, as The Daily Wire previously reported, showing that Americans don’t want these radical transgender policies. 

These leftist activists and lawmakers, as Trump put it, are “crazy.” 

“The sickos who are pushing sexual content in kindergartens, or providing puberty blockers to young children who have no idea what a puberty blocker is,” he said in 2022, drawing laughs from the crowd. “Neither do I, by the way. Neither do most of the people in the audience, as you smile.” (Read more.)

From John Hawkins:

In a sense, Obama kind of created that roadmap for the Left. He told every lie under the sun to sell Obamacare, but once it was in place, the attitude was, “You suckers believed me and now it’s too late for you to do anything about it.” All politicians lie sometimes, but that was extremely dishonorable and there are consequences to doing that. If people know you’ll say anything today and just do what you want later, they won’t trust you. They shouldn’t trust you. So, the idea that the Democrats were offering up anything other than radical liberalism is silly. Everyone knew Kamala Harris way lying about much of what she wanted to do and would go way off to the Left, just as she promised Democrats she would during her 2020 presidential run, if she was elected.

Yet and still, getting beyond that, liberals have started to become engaged in another very circular form of thinking that goes like so, “Liberals are the good guys, and whatever we do is good by default. The only reason anyone could oppose us is because they’re bad people. If they oppose us, they must be racist, sexist, bigots, fascists, Nazis, evil people, or maybe all of those, otherwise, they wouldn’t oppose us. (Read more.)

 

From The Federalist:

Back in July after the first Trump assassination attempt, I wrote that there can be no national unity, no burying the hatchet or cooling the rhetoric with people who have been encouraging political violence and pushing assassination prep for years. You can’t smack someone in the face with a hammer and then insist everyone calm down.

Trump’s election victory doesn’t change that. Those in the news media who spent years calling Trump a fascist and comparing him to Hitler, claiming he represents a threat to democracy and that he’ll use his presidential powers to go after his enemies, should not be forgiven. Their lies and nonstop propaganda should not be forgotten. No one should ever take them seriously again. When they try to engage the public square, they should either be ignored entirely or met with a wall of mockery and derision. They are enemies of the American people, whom they openly despise, and there can be no real unity with them no matter what they might say in the future. (Read more.)

 

From The Transom:

Loser: the “we have nothing to offer but abortions, abortions, abortions” portion of the left. Fueled in part by their overperformance on the issue in 2022, there were many on the left who seemed only interested in hammering away on their demands for unlimited deaths for unborn infants, ignoring all other subjects along the way. The single issue abortion voter exists on both sides, but they’re only part of the coalition, and the failure of multiple ballot initiatives on the subject shows that it has lost some of its salience in the years since the shock of Dobbs. What’s more, the unwillingness on the Kamala campaign’s part to sound any moderate notes was a warning sign for religious believers. Harris plummeted in support among Catholics in part because of her insistence that Catholic hospitals, too, would be forced to perform abortions and her failure to have any note of compromise even for late-term abortions. For something that was supposed to be central to her appeal, abortion may well have cost her more than it benefited her in every swing state. (Read more.)

 

From The Georgia Record:

Biden-Harris, instead, governed from the far left:

Causing an invasion of illegal aliens;

Historic high food prices;

Infecting the whole of government with racist DEI policies;

Pushing radical transgendered ideology on children and reluctant parents;

Forcing working-class taxpayers to pay off others’ college loans;

International instability and war as far as the eye can see; and

All while gleefully spending higher and higher amounts of nonexistent money.

Biden-Harris slurred Americans who disagree with them as “Jim Crowe 2.0 racist” and “garbage.”

Disdain for white-Christian-workingclass-Southern-Chick-fil-A eating type of Americans permeates Democrat programs and thinking.

This is not what Biden-Harris promised in 2020.

“Trump is crazy” compared to what?

My Trump Derangement Syndrome is over. (Read more.)

And in Maryland, the trouble with Larry. From Jan Greenhawk at The Easton Gazette:

Larry [Hogan] made some BIG mistakes over the past four years that eroded his support so much that he lost a Senate race that he should have won.

First, there's 2020 and the Pandemic. Even if we give grace to Hogan for dealing with a situation no one had ever dealt with before, so many of the things he did were not done with an attitude of caring for, helping the, and keeping the people of Maryland safe. When he made his initial announcement of closing down everything for "two weeks to flatten the curve," Hogan was dismissive, distant and uncaring about the fact that his announcement was drastic and damaging to businesses, workers, and school students in the state. He didn't even give people time to prepare for the closure. Boom, it was done in ONE DAY.

Hogan followed that up with MONTHS of disastrous decisions, opening big box and liquor stores while keeping small businesses closed, mandating masks and six-foot distancing even when outside in state parks and public areas, and then mandating an unproven vaccine to state workers upon threat of losing their jobs. And, again, his attitude was tyrannical. Remember "Wear the damn mask" in one of his videos?

When people complained he shut them down rudely, even on his public Facebook page. That act got him in trouble.

Let's not forget that he proudly proclaimed he didn't vote for the Republican nominee, Trump, for President in 2020, claiming he wrote in "Ronald Reagan" instead. He never gave a reason. He just hated Trump.

He still could have run for Senate in 2022 and possibly won. Maryland Republicans begged him. Larry said "no." He wanted to run for President. Too many appearances with sycophants on CNN, MSNBC and all the mainstream legacy media gave him the idea that he should. That died quickly when the alleged "No Labels" party couldn't raise the money or support for him.

He demeaned the Republican candidate for Governor and his followers, calling them "fringe whackos." Meanwhile, he cozied up to Democrat Wes Moore taking Moore all over the state under the guise of "reaching across the aisle." Those "fringe whackos" felt betrayed, since they helped him get elected Governor, TWICE! Did we mention he didn't even support the Republican down ballot races? (Read more.)

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Pogrom in Amsterdam

 From The National Pulse:

Israel was forced to send aircraft to the Netherlands this week to rescue Israeli soccer fans who were attacked in the streets of Amsterdam, leading to five injuries and at least 62 arrests. Videos have emerged on X and other social media platforms showing antisemitic mobs attacking supporters of the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer club and chanting anti-Israeli slurs on Thursday, November 7.

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema stated that police had to escort the Israeli soccer fans to their hotels. She added that they were targeted for violent attacks, including having fireworks launched at them. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his office sent five airplanes to Amsterdam to help the soccer fans get home. Dick Schoof, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, who is part of a right-wing coalition with anti-Islamist Geert Wilders‘s party, said he was “horrified” by the scenes.

“This is completely unacceptable. I am in close contact with all parties involved and have just spoken to [Prime Minister] Netanyahu by phone to stress that the perpetrators will be identified and prosecuted,” he wrote on X. (Read more.)

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The Habsburgs: Building a Family Life

 

From the Archduke Eduard, Hungarian Ambassador to the Holy See. Share

Our Flag Is Still There

 

 

From Sebastian Gorka:

They laughed at him the first time. 

When Donald Trump came down the escalator of Trump Tower nine years ago, the commentariat thought is was all a big joke. Or at best, a publicity stunt for his world-spanning commercial empire.

It wasn’t.

Despite having to run against more than a dozen Republican primary contenders, and then the female half of the Clinton dynasty, he crushed them all. And on Tuesday night, he did it again.

Not only did the 45th President boggle the pollsters to defeat the incumbent Democrat Vice President and blast through the requisite 270 votes in the Electoral College, the brash real estate mogul and reality TV star crushed Biden’s diversity hire in the popular vote too. By more than 4,000,000 votes! And it was utterly delicious to be with my former Boss Tuesday night at the MAGA HQ that is Mar-a-Lago to watch the results come in, along with the likes of America First stars like Elon Musk and Dana White. 

So how did the man the “elite” wrote off twice pull it off again, against all the odds? What’s the secret sauce to his double-header of victories? Easy: Donald Trump. (Read more.)

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Tintagel: A Dark Age Beacon

 According to legend, Tintagel is the site of King Arthur's birth. Archaeologists have found remnants not only of a palace but of a thriving port. From Archaeology Magazine:

Scattered around the ruins of this medieval castle are the footprints of much older, smaller rectangular buildings. These are the remains of post-Roman Tintagel. English Heritage, the organization that manages the site, recently commissioned a five-year project to better understand this settlement. “The impetus of this project is to interpret Tintagel’s earlier history, which, for me, is more important than the later castle,” says Win Scutt, English Heritage properties curator.

The first excavations at Tintagel began in the 1930s, and researchers returned throughout the twentieth century. Given the small, cell-like appearance of some of the buildings, archaeologists once believed that Tintagel was the site of a secluded monastery, an interpretation researchers now question.

Nowakowski and her team are focusing on a previously unexcavated terrace clinging to the headland’s southern slope. They have found a complex of three well-preserved early buildings, the largest of which is an impressive 50 feet long with three-foot-thick walls. Tintagel’s inhabitants not only built heavily on the relatively flat central plateau of the site, but they constructed terraces along the steep hillsides in order to create more habitable land—no easy task, but one that must have been necessary. “Why would you build in such precarious positions if the whole island is not densely populated?” asks Scutt. “The civil engineering that went on at this site is phenomenal.” (Read more.)

On medieval legends. From Medieval History:

The origins of medieval legends are often shrouded in mystery, rooted in a blend of historical events and imaginative storytelling. These legends primarily originated from oral traditions before being committed to written form. Oral traditions were pivotal in disseminating stories across different regions and social classes. These tales were recited by bards, troubadours, and storytellers, who played a crucial role in preserving and adapting them to reflect their audiences’ changing values and circumstances.

Manuscripts and illuminated texts later became the primary vehicles for preserving these legends. Monasteries and scholarly communities meticulously copied and illustrated these manuscripts, ensuring their survival for future generations. For instance, the tales of King Arthur were preserved in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae and later in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. These texts chronicled the legends and embellished them, adding layers of chivalric and moralistic themes that resonated with contemporary audiences.

Specific figures and events became central to the medieval legendary tradition, each embodying the values and aspirations of their time. Some of the most enduring of these include:

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table: Perhaps the most enduring of medieval legends, the Arthurian cycle revolves around the mythical king and his knights, who embody ideals of chivalry, honour, and courtly love. The historical existence of King Arthur remains a topic of debate among scholars. However, his legendary status is undisputed, as the tales of his court, his quests, and the magical elements like the Sword in the  Stone and the Holy Grail continue to captivate audiences. The Arthurian legends, as recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth and later expanded by writers such as Chrétien de Troyes and Thomas Malory, reflect the complex interplay between history and myth.

Charlemagne and the Paladins: Charlemagne, the King of the Franks and later Emperor of the Carolingian Empire, became the central figure of another important legendary cycle. The Chanson de Roland, one of the oldest surviving pieces of French literature, depicts Charlemagne’s knight, Roland, and his heroic stand at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. This legend served to exemplify the ideals of feudal loyalty and martial valour. Scholars like Robert Morrissey have explored how the Chanson de Roland memorialized historical events and shaped the identity and values of medieval European nobility. (Read more.)

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The Truly Grim History of Hansel and Gretel

From All That's Interesting:

The true story of Hansel and Gretel goes back to a cohort of tales that originated in the Baltic regions during the Great Famine of 1314 to 1322. Volcanic activity in southeast Asia and New Zealand ushered in a period of prolonged climate change that led to crop failures and massive starvation across the globe. In Europe, the situation was particularly dire since the food supply was already scarce. When the Great Famine struck, the results were devastating. One scholar estimated that the Great Famine impacted 400,000 square miles of Europe, 30 million people, and may have killed off up to 25 percent of the population in certain areas. (Read more.)

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Trump’s Huge Gains with Black Men

 From The Daily BS:

Of all the trends on Tuesday night that stand out, one of the most remarkable ones is the shift in the black vote to the right. The shift was especially pronounced with black men.

Trump appears to have made significant inroads with black Americans, at least according to some of the preliminary exit-polling data. Several state exit polls show the former president picking up a much larger percentage of the black vote than he did in either 2020 or 2016.

Early exit polls released by CNN and Fox News showed Trump winning about 20% of black men in North Carolina and Georgia, and getting double digits among black voters in general. According to Politico, that’s a significant shift from 2020, “when Trump won 11% of black voters in Georgia and just 7% in North Carolina.”

It wasn’t just Georgia and North Carolina, however. Exit polls from NBC indicated a large shift in the black vote toward Trump in Wisconsin, as well.

“This year, Trump is pulling about 20% of the black vote, versus 78% for Harris,” NBC News correspondent Dasha Burns wrote on X. “Four years ago, Trump won only about 8% of black voters in the Badger State.”

While there will certainly be more data in the days to come, there’s little doubt that at least some shift in the black vote has taken place. That’s after years of hysterical media screeching about how Trump is a racist and that Republicans want Jim Crow 2.0.

It turns out that the man who Democrats tried to portray as fascist and Hitler in their closing arguments to the American people did very well with a long list of minorities.

Maybe the bigger issue here is the increasing irrelevancy of the corporate media to drive narratives, but that’s a longer discussion for another day.

Something is happening in American politics that goes beyond Trump doing better with black men, who have actually just followed the general trend of men leaning toward the GOP. What Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini and others have called a “multiracial populist coalition” is remaking American politics. (Read more.)

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All Will be Well

 From The New Jerusalem:

What’s more, they routinely abuse the legal system and transgress the First Amendment. Had they won, they might have endangered my livelihood and even my freedom. The only time in the evening I was overcome by emotion was when a talented young artist who has been accused of crimes for political reasons approached me at the Daily Wire office party. “I’m not going to jail!” he said. That he should have to say those words broke my heart. That he could say them moved me deeply.

There was much talk of God last night. God had protected Donald Trump from a bullet. God had written a comeback narrative for the ages. God had given our nation a chance to turn away from abortion and other atrocities and become what G. K. Chesterton once said we were: “a nation with the soul of a church.”

I believe all this is so. All outcomes are with God and there are none without him. But, of course, when the evening began, we could not predict what the outcomes would be. Free will is real, and God will let us thwart his present plans if we insist. The votes were ours to cast.

But loving God, we know he will ultimately put even our catastrophes to some good end, even if it’s an end beyond our understanding.

And so while I am, of course, jubilant in victory, I would have gone on in defeat as before, speaking what I believe to be the truth. Loss of livelihood would not have stopped me. I know this, because it has not stopped me in the past. Loss of freedom would not have stopped me. It might have killed me, but not stopped me. I have no doubt about it. (Read more.)

 

 From The Lunatic Farmer:

The deplorables and garbage people won again. Can you believe it?

I've been contacted by the Trump transition team to hold some sort of position within the USDA and have accepted one of the six "Advisor to the Secretary" spots. My favorite congressman, Thomas Massie from Kentucky, has agreed to go in as Secretary of Agriculture. He's been the sponsor of the PRIME ACT, which, if pushed through, would be the biggest shot across the bow of the entrenched industrial meat processing system we've seen in a century. Let liberty ring. Wouldn't that be a change of fortune for Big Ag?

If RFK Jr. goes in as Sec. of Health and Human Services, everything will be inverted. Talk about the coolest turn about. He'd be the boss of the Faucis and Francis Collins--the whole covid anti-science crowd. Wouldn't that be a change of fortune for Big Pharma?

And if Elon Musk goes in as a Government Waste Czar, do you think he could possibly find something?

Here's an interesting tidbit. All the income taxes in the U.S. are $2 trillion a year. Government spending and borrowing are so out of control that if we eliminated $2 trillion from the budget, it would only set us back to 2020. Does anyone think returning to government spending in 2020 would destroy things? Of course not. So all we have to do is cut federal spending to 2020 levels and we can eliminate income tax. Period. Done. How would that make you feel?

Most people don't know enough history to know that the federal government was to be financed entirely from tariffs and excise taxes. In fact, as a nation we operated just fine for nearly 150 years without an income tax. The only president who eliminated the national debt was Andrew Jackson, and he did it by eliminating the second bank of the U.S. Nearly 100 years later we got the third bank, known as the Federal Reserve, plus the income tax.

During that time, tariffs averaged 40-50 percent. After the income tax, tariffs dropped to an average of about 7 percent, where they remain today. If we went back to 40 percent, like we had for nearly 150 years, we would bring production home and free our citizens from impoverishing taxes. (Read more.)

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Gluck's 'Orpheus and Eurydice'

November 2 is the birthday of Marie-Antoinette. Christoph Willibald Gluck was Marie-Antoinette's music teacher and her favorite composer, whom she introduced to France after she became queen in 1774. Among his most famous operas is Orpheus and Eurydice, which originally debuted in Vienna in 1762. It is a fitting opera to listen to during the month of the Holy Souls, when so many prayers are offered for the dead, since it is based upon the myth of Orpheus, who tried to release his beloved wife from the underworld. Unlike the myth, the opera of Gluck has a happy ending. One of the loveliest pieces from Orpheus and Eurydice is the "Dance of the Blessed Spirits." It is interesting that the queen so loved this opera; to listen to it is to have a glimpse into her soul.

 

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Trump Wins: What a Comeback

 From The Reactionary:

We were optimistic on Monday - if you looked at the crosstabs closely, Trump was making gains with independents, Black men, and Hispanics. He was making gains with 2020 Biden voters. There was widespread disapproval of Biden’s economic policies and Trump was trusted on the most two important issues this election: the economy and immigration. Momentum favored the Republicans. Nobody was enthusiastic for Kamala.

Contrary to the findings of the public pollsters - most of which had Kamala winning the election and the popular vote - the campaign’s internal polling was correct. (Credit to AtlasIntel and Rasmussen Reports and others who did a great job.) Those media reports about “terrible morale” inside the Trump campaign - like Trump’s “Hitler comments” and that last-minute Kamala +3% Iowa poll - were completely false. The Trump Team believed they would win. They were confident.

Kamala had a tough assignment. One that exceeded her abilities. How do you motivate voters without charisma? How to reassure voters with an economic plan when you wouldn’t do anything different than Biden? How do you convince voters that you’ll secure the border when you failed as “Border Czar”?

How do you win a Presidential election when you spectacularly failed as a candidate in 2020? You can’t. (A rhetorical question - how did those 20+ million Democrat votes from 2020 just vanish??)

Republicans finally traded the neocons for the working class. And it worked. Rural voters and Hispanic voters showed up for Trump. Rural counties shifted right across the country. Texas border counties, for example, are 90% Hispanic Democratic strongholds. Trump lost those counties by 10%+ in 2020. He won those counties last night. (Read more.)

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The Suda

 From The Greek Reporter:

The Suda, the massive tome written by a Byzantine scholar around the year 1100, was one of the world’s first encyclopedias and lexicons. Created as both a syllabary of the Greek language and an overview of events in the known world up until that time, it is a benchmark in scholarship of the medieval period. The Suda, or Souda (Σοῦδα,) was formerly attributed to an author called Soudas or Souidas. It is an encyclopedic lexicon, written in Greek, with a staggering 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost and often derived from medieval Christian compilers. The derivation of the word “Suda” is from the Byzantine Greek word souda, meaning “fortress” or “stronghold” with the alternate name, Suidas, stemming from an error made by Eustathius, who mistook the title for the author’s name. (Read more.)

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Te Deum Laudamus

Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!

Te Deum laudamus: te Dominum confitemur. 
Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur. 
Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi caeli et universae Potestates; 
Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant: 
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. 
Pleni sunt caeli et terra maiestatis gloriae tuae. 
Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus, 
Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus, 
Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus. 
Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur Ecclesia, 
Patrem immensae maiestatis: 
Venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium; 
Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum. 
Tu Rex gloriae, Christe. 
Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius. 
Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum. 
Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum. 
Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris. 
Iudex crederis esse venturus. 
Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni: quos pretioso sanguine redemisti. 
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari.

V. Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae. 
R. Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum.

V. Per singulos dies benedicimus te. 
R. Et laudamus nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi.

V. Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire. 
R. Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri.

V. Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te. 
R. In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.

 

O God, we praise Thee, and acknowledge Thee to be the supreme Lord. 
Everlasting Father, all the earth worships Thee. 
All the Angels, the heavens and all angelic powers, 
All the Cherubim and Seraphim, continuously cry to Thee: 
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts! 
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of Thy glory. 
The glorious choir of the Apostles, 
The wonderful company of Prophets, 
The white-robed army of Martyrs, praise Thee. 
Holy Church throughout the world acknowledges Thee: 
The Father of infinite Majesty; 
Thy adorable, true and only Son; 
Also the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. 
O Christ, Thou art the King of glory! 
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father. 
When Thou tookest it upon Thyself to deliver man, 
Thou didst not disdain the Virgin's womb. 
Having overcome the sting of death, Thou opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all 
believers. 
Thou sitest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father. 
We believe that Thou willst come to be our Judge. 
We, therefore, beg Thee to help Thy servants whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy 
Precious Blood. 
Let them be numbered with Thy Saints in everlasting glory.

V. Save Thy people, O Lord, and bless Thy inheritance! 
R. Govern them, and raise them up forever.

V. Every day we thank Thee. 
R. And we praise Thy Name forever, yes, forever and ever.

V. O Lord, deign to keep us from sin this day. 
R. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us.

V. Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, for we have hoped in Thee. 
R. O Lord, in Thee I have put my trust; let me never be put to shame.

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The Greatest Political Comeback

 

From The Daily Wire:

Former President Donald Trump won the 2024 election, Decision Desk HQ predicts, completing what is likely the biggest political comeback in American history. 

Despite suggestions that the race would be incredibly close, Trump took off with an early lead, quickly winning majorities in the key swing states of Georgia and North Carolina, and showing early dominance in Pennsylvania.

When the race was called just past 1:00 a.m. on the east coast, Trump had won three of seven swing states — Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania — putting him at 270 Electoral College votes. He is set to take the stage at his election night party early morning on Wednesday.

Campaign officials and advisers celebrated Trump’s victory late into the night on Tuesday and early Wednesday in West Palm Beach, Florida, at an election night party for the former and future president. 

Trump, who also won the 2016 presidential election, will return to the White House after a four-year absence,  after Harris and President Joe Biden won in 2020. (Read more.)

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Historic Portrait Famously Recovered by the Monuments Men

 From ArtNet:

The work, titled Portrait d’une femme, à mi-corps, is one of three paintings seen in a historic April 1945 photo of the Monuments Men at Germany’s Neuschwanstein Castle. James J. Rorimer, a museum curator-turned Army captain, is seen overseeing U.S. soldiers recovering a cache of 5,000 paintings and 20,000 other objects the Nazis had hidden at the site in Bavaria.

Much of that art had been sold under duress, if not outright stolen, in the Nazis’ efforts to confiscate all valuables belonging to Jewish people. Rorimer, who would go on to become the director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, was instrumental in the Army’s Monuments Men unit, which was dedicated to protecting cultural heritage during World War II, as well as recovering and returning stolen artworks and other artifacts. (Sadly, nearly 80 years after the war’s end, some families continue to seek restitution.)

The photograph became a symbol of that work, and appeared on the cover of the 2009 book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, by Robert Edsel with Brett Witter. George Clooney directed and starred in the film version in 2014. (Read more.)

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A Gen-Z Town Hall

 

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Final Predictions on Election 2024

 From Tierney's Real News:

Remember, most of the pollsters and pundits are not in the business of telling us the truth until they have to. They are in the business of doing the bidding of whoever pays them the most and “course correcting” at the last minute so they can claim they were right all along. I wrote and fielded research surveys in my marketing career and I know how easy it is to manipulate a poll result by using skewed questions or databases. They all do it. Even worse - today they can’t reach people like they used to with land lines so it’s a nightmare to even find people to poll. In 1980, the pollsters said Reagan was going to lose big time to Carter until the last week. (Read more.)

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Voting in America

It used to be dangerous. From The New Yorker:

The United States was founded as an experiment in eighteenth-century republicanism, in which it was understood that only men with property would vote, and publicly, since they were the only people who could be trusted to vote with the commonweal, and not private gain, in mind. What went on in 1859 was something altogether different: voting was still public, but all white men could vote, and nearly seventy per cent of them managed to do so in the congressional elections that year, pistols and fisticuffs notwithstanding. (Read more.)

 

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Visits From Beyond

 From Christine Niles:

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Woke Bureaucracies

 From Right Flank:

Leftist bureaucrats hide in their offices and let paperwork do their dirty work for them. That’s why so many conservatives are paranoid—because they should be.

A Colorado school district has been sued for canning a dean of students for allegedly coming out against critical race theory in its “professional development” brainwashing scheme. Though the programmers encouraged open dialogue and promised there would be no reprisals for being honest, the Dean should have seen it coming.

Critical race theory, of course, is pseudointellectual nonsense founded on the premise that America is “systematically racist” because white men baked their inherent racism into the very fabric of the country.

According to CRT, if you’re born white, you’re automatically an incurable racist. The U.S. Constitution, our laws, our government, our schools, and even the logic on which all of it is based is racist.

Put another way, CRT teaches students that white men are evil. It’s a racist doctrine masquerading as the savior of the oppressed.

Patrick Hogarty, the dean in question, is a white man who identifies as an American. Would Marxist school administrators rather he identify as a little girl from Patagonia? Probably. (Read more.)

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The Trojan Kings of Britain: Myth or History?

 From The Greek Reporter:

Based on the fact that Brutus supposedly lived only a few generations after Aeneas, this would apparently place him around 1100 BCE. Modern sources regularly claim Brutus does not appear in any record prior to the Historia Brittonum, making it obvious that he is fictional.

However, there are some issues with this conclusion. As The Trojan Kings of Britain highlights, the Historia Brittonum actually calls Brutus a Roman consul. In fact, it describes him directly as the “first to hold the consulship.” This would identify him as Lucius Junius Brutus, a figure who appears in many ancient Roman records.

Confirming this is the fact that the Historia Brittonum provides an alternative genealogy for Brutus. This alternative tradition places Brutus several generations after Numa Pompilius, a king who likely lived in the seventh century BCE.

What this means is that the Brutus who appears in the Historia Brittonum was not invented by the writer of that document. Rather, he is simply a distorted version of the historical Lucius Junius Brutus. This Brutus really was the first to hold the consulship, and he really did live a few generations after Numa Pompilius.

This would mean that the supposedly fictional Brutus of Troy was not fictional at all. He really existed, and, in fact, he is very well attested to in the ancient Roman sources. He lived in the second half of the sixth century BCE.

How does this harmonise with the tradition that Brutus lived just a few generations after Aeneas? The book The Trojan Kings of Britain points out that many genealogies in medieval British documents are demonstrably abbreviated. Therefore, there is no reason why this could not also be the case with Brutus.

More significantly, however, the book highlights how modern research and discoveries support the conclusion that the Trojan War occurred centuries after the traditional date. In fact, the earliest records on the founding of Rome actually place Aeneas just a few generations before Lucius Junius Brutus, too. (Read more.)

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