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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A Sad Day for America: When the Left’s Madness Became the Mainstream

 From Direct Line News:

Today is one of those days when you wake up, look at the news, and feel the weight of history pressing down on your chest. New York City, a beacon once known for grit, freedom, and unshakable energy, just elected a communist as mayor. Not a progressive, not a socialist, trying to soften the edges of their ideology, but an outright communist. Across the river, New Jersey re-elected a man who can’t seem to win an election without a suspicious cloud of “extra ballots.” And down south in Virginia, voters handed the keys of the lieutenant governor’s office to a radical Muslim ideologue who believes America is the problem, not the answer. Add to that a crooked attorney general and a woman who sees no issue with men in women’s locker rooms, and you’ve got yourself a trifecta of moral collapse.

Let’s not sugarcoat this: it’s a sad day in America.

New York: The Fall of a Great City

New York was once the city that defined the American dream. The Statue of Liberty stood for hope and opportunity. But tonight, Lady Liberty is weeping. The voters handed power to a man who openly despises capitalism, the very system that built those skyscrapers and gave millions a shot at a better life. He calls it “reimagining fairness.” I call it dismantling freedom.

What happens next is predictable. Crime will rise. Taxes will soar. Businesses will leave. The same people who chant “tax the rich” will soon realize that the rich have moving trucks on standby. The rest of the working people, families, and retirees will be left behind to pay for the utopian fantasies of a Marxist mayor who believes government should control every aspect of your life.

You can’t have prosperity without freedom. And you can’t have freedom when you let communists run your city. (Read more.)

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Hoofed Dinosaur Discovered in Wyoming

 From Live Science:

Two extremely rare dinosaur "mummies" found in the badlands of Wyoming are the first examples of hoofed reptiles, according to a new study. Researchers discovered the pair of 66 million-year-old duck-billed dinosaur (Edmontosaurus annectens) skeletons complete with skin, spikes and hooves, as if the creatures had been naturally mummified.

The fossils aren't true mummies, as their original tissues have been replaced with rock, but they give scientists an unprecedented look at duck-billed dinosaur biology, confirming they had hooves. The researchers reported their findings Oct. 23 in the journal Science.

"It's the first time we’ve had a complete, fleshed-out view of a large dinosaur that we can really feel confident about," study senior author Paul Sereno, a professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago, said in a statement.

Duck-billed dinosaurs used their hooves to stomp through mud at the end of the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago). They lived alongside other large dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, just before the age of dinosaurs came to a crashing end when a massive asteroid hit Earth and wiped them all out (except for birds). Dinosaur mummies are exceptionally preserved fossils that contain a clay copy of dinosaur skin and other organic tissues. Several of these fossils were discovered in Wyoming in the early 1900s, which inspired the new research. (Read more.)

 

From Earth:

Scientists in Argentina have described a new long-necked dinosaur, Chucarosaurus diripienda, that stretched about 100 feet. It lived around 90 million years ago in Patagonia, and its heavy fossil blocks even damaged a road during transport.

The find adds a big piece to the puzzle of South America’s giant plant-eaters. It is not the largest ever found, but it is large enough to sharpen how researchers think about sauropod body design. Lead researcher Fernando E. Novas, of the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires and CONICET, led the description. The partial skeleton came from Río Negro province and includes hip and limb elements.

The 2023 study reports Chucarosaurus diripienda‘s femur is about 6.2 feet long and unusually slender limb bones. These appendicular bones, limb bones from shoulders to toes, vary more than expected and carry signals useful for classifying relatives. As a titanosaur, a Cretaceous long-necked plant-eating dinosaur group, Chucarosaurus diripienda would have browsed high vegetation. Its long tail likely served as a deterrent against large predators patrolling the same habitats.

The name fits the field story. Chucaro refers to something hard and indomitable, while diripienda means scrambled, a nod to the scattered bones and the rough trip to the lab. (Read more.)

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Taininskoye: Russia’s Greatest Monument to Nicholas II

 From Nicholas II:

The finest and most impressive full-scale monument to Nicholas II has to be the one erected in the former village of Taininskoye [the village was incorporated in the Mytishchi district of the Moscow region in 1961], situated 19 km northeast of Moscow. Like the fate of the Sovereign, the monument has a tragic history, having been the target of extremists in 1997. However, the monuments’ sculptor Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Klykov (1938-2006) replaced it in 2000.

According to the sculptor’s son Andrey Klykov, the monument was supposed to be erected on Borovitsky Hill in central Moscow. The project had the support of Yuri Luzhkov, who served as mayor at the time. Members of the city’s Communist party were outraged at the idea, so the project was pulled.

Klykov was offered another site in Mytishchi, near the site of a former royal traveling palace [built in 1749 for Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, it was destroyed by fire in 1823]. The site was situated near the 11th century Church of the Annunciation of the Holy Mother of God [built in 1675-1677]. As it turned out, due to the smaller number of approvals and red tape, the monument was easier to install on the church grounds, and had the support of the diocese. (Read more.)

 

From First Things:

 Like many cultural trends, the fashion for spiritualism and esoteric practices came to Russia from the West. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Russian aristocracy was deeply westernized: Knowledge of French, German, and English was widespread, and travel abroad was popular. Science and philosophy deferred to Western authorities; the nobility and the urban elite readily adopted European trends in clothing and leisure. Trust in the official Church had weakened by the beginning of the twentieth century, fueling interest in new forms of spirituality.

The Decadent movement exerted a tremendous influence on the cultural life of fin de siècle Russia. Decadent literature, which began in France, emphasized the pursuit of sensual knowledge and spirituality over against positivism. For the intellectual elite, particularly artists, esotericism and mysticism were not merely a creative method but also a lifestyle. 

At the same time, spiritism became popular in the United States and was quickly taken up in Europe. The first modern spiritist practices are associated with sisters Catherine and Margaretta Fox, who became famous in 1848 by claiming they made contact with the deceased previous owner of their New York house. The sisters took their spiritist talents on the road and toured the country performing lucrative séances. The Theosophical movement of Russian-born Helena Blavatsky drew tens of thousands of followers in the West who embraced Blavatsky’s ideas about the inseparability of spirit and matter, the secret knowledge of the ancients, and karma and reincarnation.

The works of French Decadents and symbolists inspired many poets and novelists—such as Valery Bryusov, Konstantin Balmont, and later Nikolai Gumilev, Boris Pasternak, and others—of the “Silver Age” of Russian literature. Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud were especially popular, as were Arthur Schopenhauer and other German philosophers. Literary salons were major cultural hubs. One of the most famous was the St. Petersburg salon of the writer couple Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius, the latter also known as the Russian Decadent Madonna. The city’s elite gathered at their four-room apartment, located in the heart of Petersburg in a building of exquisite neo-Moorish style. Writer Andrei Bely, poet Alexander Blok, and many other leading figures in the arts were among the regular guests.

Groups with a more pronounced occult orientation spread across the Russian Empire. Theosophical societies sprang up in St. Petersburg, Kyiv, and Warsaw, some running extensive educational programs and participating in international Theosophical conferences. Beginning in the 1880s, St. Petersburg became home to the weekly journal Rebus, a voice for spiritism and mediumship. The journal offered instructions for conducting séances and translated articles on various esoteric practices from European periodicals. It also regularly reported on so-called “spontaneous phenomena” attributed to supernatural forces—doorbells that rang without human help and empty houses where moans of the long-dead could be heard. (Read more.)

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Poor Journalistic Ethics

 From Mark Judge at Hot Air:

The Kavanaugh nightmare was an oppo research political hit that had been set up weeks earlier. Ben Shapiro might think he is wrecking Ford’s argument by saying she “couldn’t name any of the people at the party.” However, it is a far worse thing to name people you are using and threatening to promote a fake story. That’s a plot. That’s extortion. And that’s witness tampering. Harris was involved in all of this with Ford, and Ben Shapiro ought to have said so. Leftist journalism is wretched, we all know that. Conservative journalism needs to do better. Shapiro should have consulted me for his story. Indeed, he had every opportunity to do so.

    It’s painful to say because I loathe the mainstream media so much, but journalistic malpractice is also killing conservative journalism. Despite my being near the center of the Kavanaugh blast, several conservative outlets did not review my book about the experience or show any interest in an interview. Even conservative journalists who were writing books about Kavanaugh did not bother to contact me. One of the few conservative outlets that did review my book The Devil’s Triangle managed to, as one of my childhood friends put it, “get you and us exactly, 100% wrong.” How can we scold the liberal media when our side is doing such a poor job?

    In the last thirty years, it has been rewarding watching the rise of conservative media and how it challenges the narratives of fake news. Yet to truly replace them, we need to do better. Otherwise, the Tucker debacle is just the beginning. (Read more.)

From Bethel McGrew at Further Up:

I used to have a casual liking for Carlson, but I was on to his schtick as of a few years ago. The penny-dropping moment for me was the way he covered the Russia-Ukraine war. It just became clear all at once that this was a guy with a special gift for telling his viewers what they want to hear, artfully mixed with just enough truth to make it halfway plausible. And yet, even in that very year, as my friend Brandon Showalter explains in an illuminating thread, Carlson was continuing to do important work on issues like the transgender crisis. He had the power to make real truth-tellers and whistle-blowers feel a little less lonely. One can see why he was viewed as a conservative ally.

But over time, in an arc also summarized in Ben Shapiro’s take on this whole affair, it became progressively clear what Carlson’s personal priorities were, who he hated most, and who he was willing to whitewash. Some people had their lightbulb moment when he sucked up to Vladimir Putin, others when he sucked up to the president of Iran, still others when he sucked up to Andrew Tate. Some noticed that he didn’t just welcome fair-minded criticism of Israeli policy, but outright Hamas propaganda. All blended together and served up to a rapidly growing audience, with the enticing hook that this was the secret knowledge THEY didn’t want you to know. And who are THEY? Well…you know. THEM.

All this and more renders thoroughly unimpressive Kevin Roberts’s attempt to triangulate by hastening to clarify that he thinks Fuentes is bad while double-triple-quadrupling down on his blind loyalty to Tucker. In an interview, he fussed and pouted that we just weren’t ready for “a little bit of nuance.” And in his Hillsdale speech last night, he asked us all to understand that he was just trying to help the young men who are turning to Fuentes and falling for anti-Semitism. Of course, if he is under the impression that Carlson is a good-faith partner in that endeavor, then he’s either stupid or disingenuous. Which is why, as I write, the think tank is quickly hemorrhaging members of its anti-Semitic task force, who won’t be looking back until there is either a recantation or turnover. Meanwhile, the staffer who (it appears) wrote Roberts’s speech has resigned, after Roberts “reassigned” him to think tank Siberia in “housing policy” amid the backlash. I personally don’t see it as a sign of strong leadership to make subordinates take your L in such times. Other people’s mileage may vary. (Read more.)

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Rhino Living in Frigid Arctic Circle 23 Million Years Ago

 From Good News Network:

Rhinos have an evolutionary history that spanned over 40 million years, encompassing every continent except South America and Antarctica. The new species of ‘Arctic rhino’ lived about 23 million years ago during the Early Miocene period.

“The addition of this Arctic species to the rhino family tree now offers new insights to our understanding of their evolutionary history,” said study author Dr. Danielle Fraser, head of paleo-biology at the Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN). “Today there are only five species of rhinos in Africa and Asia, but in the past they were found in Europe and North America, with more than 50 species known from the fossil record.” 

“More broadly, this study reinforces that the Arctic continues to offer up new knowledge and discoveries that expand on our understanding of mammal diversification over time.”

Scientists described the updated family tree for rhinocerotids in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, providing evidence that the new Arctic species migrated to North America across a “land bridge” that may have been a passage for terrestrial-mammal dispersal millions of years later than suggested by previous evidence. (Read more.)

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La Reine Marie-Antoinette Enfant

Baby Antonia, a small archduchess. From the Memoirs of Maria-Antoinetta by Joseph Weber, her foster brother:

 Maria-Antoinetta-Joseph-Jane of Lorraine, Archduchess of Austria, daughter of Francis I. Emperor of Germany, and of the immortal Maria-Theresa, Empress of Germany, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, was born on the 2nd of November, 1755.

A short time previous to her birth, the Empress gave orders to her governess to look for a nurse in some respectable family, of pure morals and unspotted character ; a description completely applicable to my virtuous parents, to whom I am proud to pay this public tribute of respect. My father, Mr. George Weber, was a Counsellor in the Magistracy of Vienna, and at the head of the Victualling-Office : my mother, Maria-Constantia Hoffman, was distinguished for the beauty of her person, and still more for that of her mind. Their marriage had constantly presented a union of the domestic virtues. My mother was fixed upon to be the nurse of the Archduchess, and I was three months old when she had the honour of receiving the charge.

Maria-Theresa was a good mother as well as a great Queen. Her tenderness seemed as soft as her courage appeared majestic and sublime. No sooner had she entrusted her child to my mother than she adopted us all. She rewarded the long services of my father with a considerable pension, and a grant of apartments in the Hotel de la Chancellerie. A pension was settled on my mother, and one also on each of her children. As for me, whose lot it was to be nourished with the same milk that Maria-Antoinetta was, Her Imperial Majesty desired my mother, while I was a child, to take me with her whenever she went to pay her respects to the young Princess whom she had suckled.

The daughter of the Cesars then made me join in the sports of her infancy, in which the Empress herself took a part; and, as at that age no thing had yet made me sensible of the immense distance between myself and her with whom I played, the august and good Maria-Theresa, fearing to give me pain if she bestowed her caresses partially, often took me on one of her knees when she held her daughter on the other, and honoured me with embraces similar to those she lavished upon her. (Memoirs of Maria-Antoinetta, Queen of France and Navarre by Joseph Weber, translated by R.C. Dallas, pp1-3)

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The Evil of Aimlessness

 From Brownstone Institute:

I once worked in communities supported mainly through a form of Universal Basic Income (UBI). Most money was received from the government for no (or token) work, or from mining royalties, where others worked digging on the communities’ lands. There were walls black and heaving with cockroaches while children slept with dogs on stained mattresses below, and babies covered head to toe in pustular scabies while the mother complained about a sore back. This was not universal, but not uncommon. Other communities that stood out as strong and healthy had people working hard for a living – particularly in roles that reflected their culture – a very different economy.

Men who once worked hard to support families lose the reason to do so when it makes no real difference; when the basics of life and leisure are equally available to those who work for them, and those who do nothing. It is not a political issue, just a human behavioral and psychological one. Removing the need to work and the dignity that striving and succeeding, especially before one’s family, leads to inaction, loss of interest in the world, a loss of role (i.e., a loss of dignity), and depression. This is dampened by alcohol or drugs. Wives and children suffer by being beaten up by drunk, frustrated, and drugged men. Having two frequently drunk parents ensures children are malnourished and aimless. This is not theoretical – it is seen all over the world where people of one culture are overrun by those of another, and confined to subservience, economic and societal irrelevance, and handouts. Some people and communities break out of it, usually by finding ways to grow their local economy and achieve some form of self-governance and self-reliance. Breaking out is not common and requires an opportunity, the possibility, to do so. (Read more.)

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Dinosaurs Were Thriving Just Before Annihilation

From Reuters:

A fossil site in New Mexico with numerous dinosaurs, including the gargantuan Alamosaurus, dates to shortly before the asteroid strike that abruptly ended the age of dinosaurs, according to research that underscores that these creatures were still thriving on the eve of destruction.

Paleontologists have debated the age of fossils found at the Naashoibito site in northwestern New Mexico. The new study used two dating methods to determine that the fossils date to roughly 340,000 years - a blink of the eye in geological time - before the asteroid hit off the coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period. (Read more.)

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Parenting In Three Phases

 

From Lane Scott at Matriarch Goals:

One of the most difficult things about early childhood is the constant feeling that it’s all going by too quickly, it’s the cutest the kids will ever be, you’ll miss it desperately when it’s all over, and also it’s impossible and you cannot wait until they grow out of it. All of these things are true, and as far as I can see, there is no way to wrestle yourself out of any one of these feelings.

The years you have small children in your home are unlike any other time: they bring more charm but also more bodily suffering than any other phase. The biggest temptation of this phase is to lean waaaaaaaay out and outsource as much of the childcare as possible, simply because it is so exhausting, and you have no idea what you’re doing. The second temptation of this phase is to begin all the schooling and intellectual development that is really proper to middle childhood early, putting them in school as soon as possible, racing through preschool curriculum like a Tiger Mom, and giving every advantage so that they don’t “fall behind.”

Assuming you have your marriage together and a safe home to live in, with food and necessities for survival, the most important thing to secure in the early years is a rough concept of home, or real home life, with the children at the center of home activities.

I do not mean your life should be child-centric, or ordered to the wants of the children. There is a subtle distinction between ordering a household to serve the selfish desires and random impulses of a small child vs. setting up a household to serve the child’s best interests, as judged and ordered by the parents.

From ages 0-5, the child’s best interests are stability, safety, and freedom enough to move around within the confines of the house. As babies turn to toddlers their sphere of freedom can expand to the outside of the house, and by the time they are entering middle childhood they have both the mobile dexterity to handle their physical environment and also, and most importantly, the discipline to move around safely and with some awareness of the existence of others. A big caveat: do not make the mistake of allowing the baby to believe she can walk wherever she wants and get into whatever she pleases as soon as she is mobile. The goal is to eventually open up the entire world to the child’s wandering ways, but when a baby is first learning to walk you’ll make yourself crazy if you do not provide physical boundaries for her safety and your sanity, as well as teach the child to check in with you before venturing beyond her everyday space. (Read more.)

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Will 2026 Undo It All?

 From Forbidden.News:

I’m Susan Kokinda. I’ve been fighting to revive the real American economics since the 1970s. But I’ve seen how British economics, free trade, globalism, environmentalism have spread like an infection and it’s almost killed us – until Donald Trump came along and started to administer the cure. So if this sounds like your kind of fight, please hit the like and share buttons so we can spread our reach on YouTube.

Today, I’m going to show you why Trump’s biggest threat isn’t Beijing or Moscow. It’s in the US among Republicans who don’t understand his revolution – or worse, oppose it. And second, I’ll reveal exactly what Trump did in Asia that has the British in full panic mode and how that is the key to victory.

So let me start with an uncomfortable truth: Americans do love Trump’s economic populism, but they don’t associate it with the Republican Party. And I think you can figure out what that means for 2026.

A recent Rasmussen poll exposed this dangerous gap. Here’s the question they asked people. Economic populism is a political and economic approach that emphasizes growth and income distribution, often opposing the perceived elites in favor of the interests of the common people. Do you agree or disagree that America needs more economic populism?

The result, 58% said “yes”. And take note, that’s to more economic populism. And 46% called Trump’s economic performance “good” or “excellent”.

In other words, he’s delivering. But here’s the problem. When asked which party will deliver economic populism, 46% said the Democrats. That’s the blue bar. And only 26% said Republicans. That’s the red bar in the middle. (Read more.)

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“The Two Shall Become One Flesh”

 From Elizabeth Stone at Of Home and Motherhood:

In today’s world, the female body is often treated as an object, something we can all judge, a commodity for consumption. But the truth is God designed it for something much different. The woman’s body speaks a language written into creation itself. Its capacity to receive, to nurture, and to bring forth life reveals the character of divine love: creative, generous, and ordered toward communion. To receive life requires openness, not just of the body, but of the heart and the will. And openness always involves risk. It means allowing another to enter the most personal space. It demands trust. This is why, for a woman, sexual intimacy can never be detached from the moral and relational context that gives it meaning. It is not merely an act of pleasure; it is an act of faith, a giving of self that presumes mutual fidelity and care. When that trust is betrayed, through lust, manipulation, or indifference, the damage is vast, because the very design of our bodies show how it was made for covenant, not transaction. The body and soul are left bearing the weight of something sacred that was treated as casual. The tragedy of modern sexual culture is that it demands the fruits of feminine openness, pleasure, beauty, intimacy, without the structure that protects it: covenant, commitment, marriage, and trust.

This is what modern sexual ethics fail to grasp. A culture organized around “consent” assumes that if two people agree, the act is good. But human beings aren’t built for legal minimalism. Sex involves attachment systems, hormonal bonding, moral meaning, and literal God ordained design. Reducing it to permission has stripped it of the structure that made it intelligible. The result is the gray zone now haunting both sexes. Was it wrong? Was it assault? Was it just bad judgment? The categories blur because the moral framework is gone. Consent tells us what’s allowed; covenant told us what’s good. And unfortunately nowadays, they are both speaking very different languages.

When sex belonged to marriage, the questions of trust, stability, and safety were already built into the act. The relationship carried the structure that the body requires. Once sex was detached from covenant, every encounter became a private negotiation. The culture of sex-based consent has been disastrous for both men and women. For women, it’s produced chronic confusion and emotional fragmentation, the body giving itself in contexts it was never meant to. For men, it’s fostered paranoia and moral apathy. A covenantal view of sex — one bound to fidelity and permanence — resolved those contradictions. It gave desire a structure, and intimacy a home. Without that, consent becomes the last word in a language that no longer makes sense. (Read more.)

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The Christening of Marie-Antoinette

Gareth Russell describes Marie-Antoinette's baptism and early childhood, as follows:

As with most of the Hapsburg girls for the last two centuries, the baby's first name was given in honour of the Virgin Mary, whom the Austrian imperial family was especially devoted to; subsequent names were then added in honour of Saint Anthony, her Portuguese godfather and Saint John the Evangelist. Thus, the new baby formally presented at the Church of the Augustine Friars for baptism into the Christian Faith on the following day was Her Imperial Highness the Archduchess Maria-Antonia-Josefa-Johanna von Hapsburg of Austria, Alsace and Lorraine.

The christening itself took place in the church's latest addition, a beautiful ante-camera, which can still be seen today, with two of the baby's elder siblings - Josef and Maria-Anna - standing in for the Portuguese king and queen who, naturally, could not be expected to travel all the way from Lisbon for the ceremony. Although they were amongst the eldest of the Emperor and Empress's children, it's my hunch that Josef and Maria-Anna were picked to stand proxy because they conveniently also had the same Christian names as the King and Queen of Portugal. With the exception of the Empress, who was still in seclusion, the Imperial Family sat on a pew near the font, where Maria-Antonia was christened by the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal von Trautson. Where possible, the Empress preferred to have the children baptised by the Papal Nuncio, however the new nuncio, Cardinal Visconti, had not yet been formally presented at Court and was therefore ineligible to perform the ceremony.

Sitting in the pew, before the eyes of the Court, Church and military, little Maria-Antonia's bevy of brothers and sisters made an impressive show of imperial fecundity.They were living proof that all was well within the House of Hapsburg and that the common criticism that the family was debilitatingly inbred did not apply to the Austrian branch of this formidable clan. Several of Maria-Antonia's siblings had predeceased her and, at the time of her christening, eleven of the children remained alive. Apart from 14 year-old Josef, the crown prince, and 17 year-old Maria-Anna, an intelligent girl with a crooked back who had already decided on a vocation as a nun in Prague,  the imperial siblings congregated in the Augustinian Church on that chilly November afternoon included Maria-Antonia's six other sisters - their mother's favourite, Maria-Christina, the family beauty, Maria-Elisabeth, the impetuous Maria-Amalia, 5 year-old Maria-Johanna, 4 year-old Maria-Josefa and the toddler, Maria-Caroline, destined to be Marie-Antoinette's favourite sister and childhood playmate . They were joined by their three brothers, all junior to Josef in the line of succession; 10 year-old Karl, 8 year-old Leopold and the baby, Ferdinand. (Read more.)

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“FASCIST? PLEASE.”

 From Direct Line News:

“Fascism.” It’s the Left’s favorite seasoning. Sprinkle it on every Republican and—bam!—instant moral superiority.

They’ve been doing it for decades. When Ronald Reagan rebuilt the economy and defeated the Soviet Union, The Nation called him “authoritarian” and “proto-fascist.” ¹ When Richard Nixon talked about “law and order,” liberals screamed “Nazi tactics.” ² And when George W. Bush toppled Saddam Hussein, MoveOn.org and Michael Moore ran ads comparing him to Hitler. ³

See a pattern? Every GOP president since Eisenhower has been declared “literally Hitler” by someone with a blue check mark. If Trump’s a fascist, he’s in a long line of “fascists” who somehow keep leaving office peacefully after elections.

But let’s look at the facts. Did Donald Trump ever shut down protests? Nope. The “No Kings” rallies went on—megaphones, papier-mâché effigies, and a soundtrack of bad folk music. ⁴ Nobody got rounded up.

Did he jail people for memes? Not unless you count hurt feelings on X. Half the internet spent four years making him the punchline.

Did he order arrests of political enemies—Democrat governors, senators, or House members who fought him tooth and nail? No. They went on MSNBC nightly and called him every name in the book. CNN’s profits depended on him. He didn’t silence them—he made them rich.

Now, let’s talk about real authoritarianism.

Back in 2012, after the Benghazi attack that killed our ambassador, Barack Obama’s administration blamed a low-budget YouTube video. The filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, was arrested and paraded as the culprit. ⁵ That wasn’t protecting democracy; that was finding a scapegoat.

Fast-forward to Joe Biden’s America. When the New York Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020, Big Tech acted as if it were guarding state secrets. Twitter and Facebook froze the story faster than you can say “algorithm.” ⁶ The FBI whispered “Russian disinformation,” and Silicon Valley’s billionaires saluted. ⁷

Even The Post itself—the oldest daily newspaper in America—was locked out of its account for reporting facts that later turned out to be true. ⁸ That’s not democracy in action; that’s information control in a cardigan.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris flat-out called Trump “a fascist” on The Breakfast Club, ⁹ and Joy Behar declared him “a fascist pig” on The View. ¹⁰ Apparently, fascism now means disagreeing with progressive orthodoxy while still letting your opponents dominate prime-time television. (Read more.)

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‘Peanuts’ at 75

 From Mark Judge at Chronicles:

Charlie Brown is 75. The media celebrations of the Peanuts’ anniversary all note that, seven-plus decades on, the strip still resonates. It is funny while, at the same time, making poignant observations about the irony, joy, and frustrations of life.

What’s been missing from the coverage is what I’ve always found most interesting about Charlie, Lucy, Linus, and the gang—the spiritual angle. There has always been a mystical, philosophical and contemplative tone to Peanuts. The characters seem bemused and accepting of the disappointments of life, yet also are rewarded with friendship, loyalty, and humor. There has to be a theology behind it, I have always thought, and I’ve long been curious about what accounts for it. 

In his 1968 book, The Parables of Peanuts, Robert Short sees Christian theology at work in the strip. Charles Schulz once asked, “If we are all members of the priesthood, why cannot a cartoonist preach in the same manner as a minister, or anyone else?” Short claims that Schulz’s cartoon strips, like Jesus’ parables, combine “the proclamation of God’s love for the world, and [a depiction of] the world as it really is.” Short’s book contains references to theologians such as Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Soren Kierkegaard.

The real story, however, is that Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts who died in 2000, was never really comfortable talking openly about religion. As the new book What Cartooning Really Is: The Main Interviews with Charles M. Schulz reveals, the cartoonist would often try to divert questioners who asked him about God. (Read more.)

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A Stolen String of Pearls

 

From Country Life:

De László’s most mysterious pearls are double string blush-pink ones which, in January 1921, were worn for a portrait sitting by Mrs Harold Nickols — the wife of a wealthy English businessman and philanthropist. Born Isabel ‘Bella’ MacConnell in Dublin, in 1878, she wed Harold in July 1908 and lived a lavish lifestyle of couture-filled wardrobes and finely decorated rooms. Her flawless pearls — gifted to her by her husband — included a central gem rumoured to have once been part of the Portuguese crown jewels.

Before they ringed the neck of Bella, the precious pearls had made headlines for their starring role in a jewellery heist. Their original owner was Max Meyer, one of Hatton Garden’s most respected gem dealers, who, in 1913, sent the necklace (then on a single strand and nicknamed the ‘Mona Lisa of necklaces’) to a colleague in Paris, France for appraisal. The jewels were valued at £135,000 (about £20 million in today’s money), but the sale fell through and so they were returned to London by registered post. ‘This was fairly common practice at the time,’ says Vivian Watson, author and third-generation Hatton Garden jeweller. ‘Even the priceless Cullinan diamond was sent to England from South Africa this way, with a security firm acting as a decoy to lure would-be criminals away from the mail.’ (Read more.)

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The Time to Stop Mamdani Was 30 Years Ago

From Chronicles:

Mamdani belongs to a generation of leftist politicians with tenuous ties to the nation they inhabit and would presume to rule. Mamdani, at least according to his mother, is “not American at all.” To his credit Mamdani has charisma, which sets him apart from more openly antagonistic figures like Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is practically a walking advertisement for closed borders. Mamdani’s parents came to the United States legally in 1998, although their move clearly did nothing to inculcate a sense of loyalty or national pride in them or their then-seven-year-old son.

Demographic change has transformed America since the immigration reforms of the 1960s. The Trump administration is now trying to play catch up for decades of mistakes, and is facing serious obstruction carrying out promised mass deportations. ICE’s activities have sparked a street war with fifth columnists, many from Latin America (the same people touted as “natural conservatives” by acolytes of George W. Bush). Yet Trump’s support among Hispanics has fallen sharply since January, despite the hullabaloo about Trump’s gains with Latinos in 2024.

The time to stop Mamdani’s rise was long ago—long before the people who would take over New York City, my hometown on Long Island, and countless other localities across America had the chance to “decolonize” America. A perfectly good date to stop Mamdani would have been Sept. 12, 2001, when the nation had more goodwill and unity than it had ever had, or would have, in decades. Instead of cracking down on immigration, however, the George W. Bush administration created a huge police state to investigate its own citizens, scolded Americans about the dangers of “Islamophobia,” launched pointless wars, and handed the White House to Barack Obama—Mamdani’s prototype. Like Obama, Mamdani has pretended to be racially inclusive, while holding onto deep racial grievances toward white, Western civilization, which find expression in his racist, anti-white tax proposals.

The conservative media have largely shied away from attacking Mamdani as a product of mass immigration, instead focusing on his extreme ideology and perceived soft spot for jihadism. The latter charge, at least, is certainly an exaggeration of his political views. Mamdani is a hard-left faculty lounge progressive, not an Islamist. In any case, he need not be a secret suicide bomber to destroy New York City, which had been dying a slow death long before Mamdani even became a citizen. (Read more.)

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A Bad Recipe For Motherhood

 From Ally's Substack:

While certainly not all women need to be mothers, a society with fewer mothers in it suffers, not just economically but spiritually.

Each new baby brings hope and renewal. Mothers are the builders of nations, the developers of morality and potential.

Mothers bring warmth and humanity to communities and the culture, and fewer mothers means a society that feels increasingly cold and inhumane.

So while I don’t think we should talk women who don’t want babies into having them, it would be nice if we could convince more women to start wanting them, and love life with them.

But first, we have to ask, how did we get here? Why am I receiving these sorts of responses from American young women, when it is doubtful any woman in 1880 would respond thus?

For the past seventy years, our culture has served young women a steady diet of messages potent enough to make even the most grounded among them question — or outright reject — motherhood. And for those who do become mothers, these same messages can turn the experience bitter.

What follows is the recipe our broader American culture seems intent on perfecting — one of the few meals that modern women aren’t told is demeaning to make.

Even just a few of these steps are enough to sour anyone on motherhood.. So, I don’t recommend sharing this at your next recipe swap. (Read more.)

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An Irish Halloween

The picture above was painted by Irish artist Daniel Maclise in 1833, inspired by a typical Irish Halloween party. (Click on picture for details.) It was called "snap-apple night." Here is the caption which accompanied the painting:

There Peggy was dancing with Dan/While Maureen the lead was melting,/To prove how their fortunes ran/With the Cards ould Nancy dealt in;/There was Kate, and her sweet-heart Will,/In nuts their true-love burning,/And poor Norah, though smiling still/She'd missed the snap-apple turning.

For the ancient Celts, November 1 was Samhain, their New Year's day. It is not necessary to detail some of the more gruesome pagan customs which accompanied the festivities in pre-Christian times, customs which eventually disappeared as the Faith spread and took hold. Nevertheless, on a more positive note, the Celts believed that on the day in question the veil between the worlds grew thin, and one could easily pass from world to world, from time into eternity.

As Christians, in celebrating the Solemnity of All Saints, the sacred liturgy permits us to glimpse the place where the blessed ones dwell in light. We are led to think of all the dead, of the awe-inspiring realties of death, judgment, heaven and hell. On All Souls' Day we recall those who are still undergoing purgation in the realm beyond time. We, too, through the Mass and through prayer, pass from world to world, for all are present to God.

Here is an article (via A Conservative Blog for Peace) which elucidates on the history of All Hallows' Eve, the pagan versus Christian aspects and how the Irish, French, Germans, and English brought it all to North America. To quote:

Halloween can still serve the purpose of reminding us about Hell and how to avoid it. Halloween is also a day to prepare us to remember those who have gone before us in Faith, those already in Heaven and those still suffering in Purgatory. The next time someone claims Halloween is a cruel trick to lure our children into devil worship, I suggest you tell them the real origin of Halloween and let them know about its Catholic roots and significance. (By Fr Scott Archer)

 More on Irish Halloween traditions HERE.

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Why Biden’s Autopen Actions Are Null and Void

 From Amuse on X:

Every executive order, pardon, or proclamation carries the force of law only because it represents the president’s own act of decision. The Framers understood this link between consent and command as the essence of executive accountability. The president may consult, deliberate, or delegate preparation of documents, but he alone must decide and affirm. His signature is not a mere formality; it is the constitutional manifestation of his will. To remove the president’s mind from the moment of authorization is to sever the act from its legitimacy.

This is precisely what the Oversight Committee’s investigation has revealed. In case after case, Biden’s aides employed an autopen to sign executive actions without any documented, written, or digital evidence showing the president’s contemporaneous consent. No secure log of approvals, no voice confirmation, no physical presence. The White House’s own counsel could not demonstrate that the president had even been briefed before some of these documents were executed. Such practices do not merely stretch the boundaries of legality, they obliterate them.

The Constitution’s Article II vests “the executive Power” in the president, not in his aides, surrogates, or a pen operated by staff. The personal nature of this power is reinforced by the presidential oath, in which the president swears to “faithfully execute the Office of President.” That oath binds the office to the individual. No device can stand in for deliberation, and no staffer can channel another man’s judgment. When the act of execution becomes automated, government itself slides toward automation, unaccountable, impersonal, and dangerously opaque. (Read more.)

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Halloween and Catholicism

May 13, which is the feast of Our Lady, Queen of All Martyrs, was the original All Saints Day. So the origins of All Saints and Halloween had nothing to do with Samhain, as some people seem to think. Later, the Pope changed All Saints from May to November because after the harvest there was more food in Rome to feed the pilgrims. And for other reasons, as told in the article. From uCatholic:

The practice of a festival day to honor the whole communion of Saints, rather than that just a single saint, seems to happen for the first time in the Catholic Church with the consecration of the Pantheon as a public place for the Church’s worship. This happened in the year 609 (or 610) on May 13th. The Pantheon had been originally dedicated for the use of Roman religion as a place where all the gods would be honored. Boniface displaced the images of the gods from their shrines and gave the building over to the Saints of the Church, particularly the Martyrs. This was a kind of “in your face” to pagan culture. Boniface was saying that the old gods had been defeated and were defeated by the faith of the Church’s Martyrs. 

Also, May 13th was a day associated in Roman religion with what was called the festival of the Lemurs or ancestral spirits. It is likely that Boniface’s choice of this day to claim the Pantheon for Christian worship was intentional and it was a way of saying that the Martyrs are the great ancestors of all the baptized and it is their memory and witness that is rightly honored on the day that Romans recalled their ancestors. 

How we get from May 13th to November 1st is interesting. The festival of All Saints seems to emerge from the dedication of another Roman church that was consecrated by Pope Gregory III. The church is named St. Peter and all the Saints. It was a subsequent pope, Gregory IV, who extended the annual festival that commemorates this church dedication to the whole Church as All Saints Day. The extension of festivals specific to the Church of Rome is an part and parcel of how the Catholic Faith becomes the underlying cultural matrix from which a new kind of European civilization would emerge. (Read more.)

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The Angoulême Emerald Tiara

Duchesse d'Angoulême

The tiara that was not stolen. The legitimate line of the French Monarchy was abolished in 1830, not 1848. From Tatler:

The French king and queen at the time, Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, had attempted to escape Versailles during the uprising but were captured, imprisoned and eventually guillotined. When they had married in 1770 Louis and Marie-Antoinette were 15 and 14 years old respectively, and it was eight years later that their long-awaited first child, Princess Marie-Thérèse, was born. Despite having three more biological children, Marie-Thérèse was the only surviving family member of the Revolution and was imprisoned until she was nearly 17.

Upon her release, she was surrounded by throne enthusiasts keen to use her to regain monarchic power, and was quickly married off to her first cousin Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême in 1799, who was living in the Baltics while Napoleon held power back in France. Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, however, finally saw King Louis XVIII and the House of Bourbon reinstated – with the added bonus of allowing Marie-Thérèse full access to the state jewels. In 1819, crown jeweller Maison Bapst was commissioned by the duke to use 14 emeralds from the royal collection, along with over 1,000 additional emeralds and diamonds, to make the Angoulême Emerald Tiara for his wife. However, Marie-Thérèse faced upheaval once again with the outright abolishment of the monarchy in 1848, theoretically becoming `Queen of France’ for about 20 minutes (which was the time between her father-in-law and husband signing their abdication papers). She left France and her beloved tiara for the final time and sought exile once more. (Read more.)

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Bill Gates Walks Away from the Climate Cult

 From MxM News:

Billionaire Bill Gates — long one of the loudest voices warning of climate catastrophe — now says the world has bigger problems to worry about. In a 17-page memo released Tuesday, the Microsoft co-founder called for a “strategic pivot” away from the obsessive focus on reducing global temperatures, urging leaders instead to prioritize fighting poverty and eradicating disease in the developing world. “Climate change is a serious problem, but it’s not the end of humanity,” Gates wrote.

Gates, 70, argued that global leaders have lost perspective by treating climate change as an existential crisis while millions continue to suffer from preventable diseases like malaria. “If I had to choose between eradicating malaria and preventing a tenth of a degree of warming, I’d let the temperature go up 0.1 degree,” he told reporters ahead of next month’s U.N. climate conference in Brazil. “People don’t understand the suffering that exists today.”

For decades, Gates has positioned himself as a leading advocate for global climate initiatives, investing billions in green energy projects and warning of the dangers of rising emissions. Yet his latest comments mark a striking reversal — and a rare admission that the world’s climate panic may have gone too far. “If you think climate is not important, you won’t agree with the memo,” Gates told journalists. “If you think climate is the only cause and apocalyptic, you won’t agree with the memo. It’s a pragmatic view from someone trying to maximize the money and innovation that helps poor countries.” (Read more.)

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