Preparing to be called to account--Maria Von Trapp

 Last night we watched the movie, "Sound of Music" the fictional account of the Trapp Family singers starring Julie Andrews. Christopher Plummer who played the father, died this past year, and I looked up the actors who played the children.  Two of them have died within the last 6 years. The music is charming and has aged well.

Movie vs. Reality: The Real Story of the Von Trapp Family | National Archives

'The Sound of Music's von Trapp kids: Where is the cast now? (nypost.com)

The November 2021 Magnificat magazine featured an essay written by the real Maria who died in 1987.

"I was alone in the hospital in Vienna, my family hundreds of miles away.  As I lay there with eyes closed, waiting for death, I heard the doctor say to the nurse that it wouldn't make any sense to try to contact the family.  It was definitely too late for them to reach me.  Although the doctor talked in a whisper, I could hear him very clearly.  All my senses seemed to merge and concentrate into the one sense of hearing.  I noticed that while I was opening my eyes wide, I could see nothing, although it was 10 in the morning.  Sight was gone.  I heard the rustle of the sheets as the nurse removed them from the foot of my bed, and I heard her hand gliding over my feet and her voice when she said, "Her feet are already cold," but I couldn't feel it.  touch was gone.

"Am I dying?" I wanted to ask, but I couldn't move, couldn't speak.  And then hearing also stopped, and there was a silence more intense than any silence I can remember.  The body might have been helpless, but the soul was wide awake and in full possession of its faculties.  Undisturbed by the outside, memory was keener than ever before.  And in this anguish of a last agony the soul passed once more through its past life, seeing everything so much more clearly.  Although nothing is to be seen, the soul senses very sharply the presence of an evil power which wants to influence it to give up: the sins are too many and too horrible to allow any hope.  But it also senses another spiritual power present.  It may be the guardian angel soothing the soul, reminding it, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow: reminding the soul of the bottomless mercy and love of the heavenly Father whom it is to meet very soon now.

And then?  Well, I did not die.  But for the rest of my life I shall be grateful for those most precious moments.  Afterwards I found out that this seems to be a general occurrence and not just my private experience.  They say the sense die slowly, one by one.  Therefore, we should take great care what is said and done in the presence of the dying.  While they are fighting their last decisive battle, it would mean such a help if they could hear us talk to them about the mercy of God, about having trust and confidence.  One day we shall have to take that same step too.  This might be the best preparation.  And when everything is over and one of our beloved has died, we should remember the words of the Revelation of John:  I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord henceforth." "Blessed indeed," says the Spirit, "that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them." (Rv14:13)."

Maria von Trapp (from Let Me Tell You about My Savior, New Leaf Press, 2000)

Update:  When I posted a link to this on Facebook, the "fact checkers" placed a warning label on it!  

Christmas season thoughts

 Our son used to call me in the middle of the week and paraphrase what the sermon was about at his church, Gender Road Christian Church. the previous Sunday.  Had a great memory.  Not me.  The sermon is gone by the time I leave coffee time (which this week included donut holes). Aaron Thompson is a fine preacher, probably the best on our staff, and I know it was good--from Isaiah 55--but by the time I chat with a few friends it's gone.

I always enjoy seeing the young couple with 7 kids.  They are all beautiful and well-behaved, and even with that new baby that was baptized 2 weeks ago, mom is as slim and trim as a teen-ager.  I particularly watch the fourth one--we prayed for him for weeks and weeks after he was born because he was a preemie.

Yesterday I attended at our Mill Run location the second funeral in a week--Tim Robison.  I didn't know him, only his wife, but by the end of the service I really wondered why God called him home (b. 1960). He had such a fine record of service for God--even as a young man. We definitely need more men like that, and his wife and two young adult sons also needed him.  We will always miss our brother-in-law Bob, whose service we attended on Monday in Indianapolis.  He was 88 and it was wonderful to see his family who had been with him his last weeks.

The final candle in the wreath arrangement at UALC was lit today as we sang Oh come Oh come Emanuel.  I couldn't help but recall that terrible Christmas of 1976.  I think that was the year.  At that time each Sunday during advent had a different family come forward and light the candle, and it was our turn at the early service.  At the later service, another family had the honor.  The next day, the mother of that family shot and killed her husband, 2 of her children and the dog, with a third child escaping the tragedy and running to a neighbor. Then she turned the gun on herself. It was so awful the congregation was reeling for weeks.  And now I can't remember their names. 45 years ago.

How we got here--explained in clear language

 Bishop Robert Barron explains the complex chaos of today, the ideologies behind the riots and violence, based on philosophies of two 19th century and two 20th century philosophers.

1.  Marx

2. Nietzsche

3. Sarte

4. Foucault

Atheism. This is critical to all of them.   Oppressed and oppressor. Class struggle.  Control of language. Culture of self-invention.  Being and non-being. Existentialism. Death of God. Power.

Ideas have consequences. https://youtu.be/8KQcm0Mi5To

Pope Francis--deliberately cruel? Insecure? Misled?

Why is he restricting the traditional Catholic Latin mass? The World Over program Thursday Dec. 16, 2021.  Treating the old rite like a virus.  It has been flourishing, why is he squelching it when Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI approved it?  Why are some Catholics treated like second class citizens?

https://youtu.be/erDcQxjo-4c

PETER KWASNIEWSKI, senior fellow at The St. Paul Center in Steubenville, OH, and FR. GERALD MURRAY, canon lawyer and priest of the Archdiocese of NY discuss new instructions expected from the Vatican on the implementation Pope Francis' moto proprio on the Traditional Latin Mass. The World Over with Raymond Arroyo airs on EWTN Thursdays at 8pm ET. It re-airs on Fridays at 1am & 9:30am ET, and Mondays at 10pm ET.

This reminds me of another situation.  An old man with unpopular views in charge of a huge organization, but everyone wonders who is pulling the string?

Number is not rate

Tricky statement. Number is not rate. Of course, most women having abortions are white, just as most of anything in the U.S. is white. Most poor people are white. Most criminals shot by police are white. Where are the riots?

 
"Since 2013, most abortion patients have been white, non-Hispanic people. The only exception was in 2016 when Black, non-Hispanic people had the largest percentage of abortions by race." And notice "people" not women are having abortions? Crazy. (USAFacts)

While African-Americans constitute 32.2 % of Georgia’s population, 62.4 % of abortions in Georgia are performed on African-American women. By contrast, whites constitute 60.8 % of the Georgia population, but only 24.7 % of abortions were performed on white women. (Public Discourse) Even Planned Parenthood admits black women are 5x more likely to have an abortion than white women. Planned Parenthood preys on blacks, young, vulnerable and poor--of any race, but particularly blacks.

Advice from Kurt Vonnegut

In 2006, a group of students at Xavier High School in New York City was given an assignment by their English teacher, Ms. LOCKWOOD, that was to test their persuasive writing skills: they were asked to write to their favorite author and ask him or her to visit the school. It’s a measure of his ongoing influence that five of those pupils chose KURT VONNEGUT, the novelist responsible for, amongst other highly-respected books, Slaughterhouse-Five; sadly, however, he never made that trip. Instead, he wrote a wonderful letter. He was the only author to reply.
__________________________________-
November 5, 2006

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut

------------------------------------

I checked this on the web, and it appears to be authentic.  I met Vonnegut when I was working at Ohio State--probably 1968.  I remember standing in line to ask him a question.

Sir Ian McKellen Reads Kurt Vonnegut's Letter to High School Students: Make Art and “Make Your Soul Grow” | Open Culture

Kash Patel

Keep an eye on Kash. He's a good writer/investigator and a Trump supporter. I love his diversity. "Kashyap "Kash" Patel was born in Garden City, New York, to ethnically Gujarati parents who had immigrated to the United States from East Africa, via Canada, in 1970. He graduated from the University of Richmond in 2002 and earned a Juris Doctor from Pace University School of Law in 2005. He also received a certificate in international law from University College London.

Of course, any official from the Trump administration is being scrutinized for the January 6 protests. This was the so-called insurrection for which many are being held in gulag type conditions with not proper representation, It's a shame to our nation, particularly the hoax and hate filled Nancy Pelosi. No one has been charged with anything, and look how long it has been. Truly, these are USSR conditions.

Former Trump admin official Kash Patel meets with January 6 committee - CNNPolitics

Trump ally receives racist death threats following Jan. 6 panel subpoena (nypost.com)

https://youtu.be/0D--4g9YUzc Tucker interview with Patel. How does Christopher Steele still have influence in the main stream media when he's been proven to be an idiot? He should be in jail.

Jeanne Robertson, 1943-2021, her final show

 I loved her comedy--squeaky clean and clever.  This was her last performance in July 2021.  She died August 21, 2021.  https://youtu.be/XbnUHYxtYgI  Jeanne tells the story about her friend Norma Rose.

Jeanne Robertson, Humorist, Dies Unexpectedly After 'Severe Illness' (popculture.com)

(2) Facebook  During the pandemic she did a back porch show.

Her friend Patrick Henry whom she mentions in the above routine. https://youtu.be/poDyt882iRA

Her son Beaver at funeral  https://youtu.be/zzzTFdb_FaI

June's recipe for Butterscotch Pie

 My husband is well known locally and in his family for his dislike of corn.  What good midwestern boy could hate corn (includes corn on the cob, escalloped corn, fresh cut corn), but he does.  Little known except by me, is he also gags at the thought of eating anything "butterscotch," which would include caramel or toffee or pecan pie. So I was surprised when looking through one of my recipe book treasures, "Favorite Recipes from the One Dozen Mums" (1974, index cards attached with plastic binder) that his own mother had submitted "Butterscotch Pie" as one of her contributions to what was probably a fund raiser for her club:

1 C. brown sugar

1 C. milk

2 T. flour

yolks of 2 eggs

2 T. butter

Cook in double boiler until thick.  Put into crust previously baked & spread slightly sweetened beaten whites over the top.  Place in oven to brown very little.

That's it.  Pretty simple with no details.  I enjoyed some of her specialties like Goulash or spaghetti with garlic rolls, but don't recall ever eating home made pie at her home.

Humanized mice, Covid and bioethics

When I begin to read a medical article, and a phrase introduces a topic with, "Although Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott have promoted monoclonal antibodies while opposing vaccine and mask mandates, they're not a substitute for Covid-19 vaccines." 

You have to read it carefully, though. They are not against vaccines or masks, only the mandates. Opposing mandates is a political stance. It's about opposing growing totalitarianism, the huge failures of Biden and the lies of Fauci. This journal obviously is political too--JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association)

But here's my question for medical/scientific folks, because I'm way over my pay grade here: the monoclonal antibodies for Covid preexposure prophylaxis use 'humanized mice" in their development. Is that for testing or is some of that matter passed into our system? Using animals as chimeras is not new, but the bioethics of this seem to only be discussed in some committee locked in a closet in a research institution. Maybe in Wuhan?

'Humanized mice': Chimeras fuel quest to treat chronic diseases, cancer and even COVID-19 - Genetic Literacy Project

Part mouse, Part human - Science in the News (harvard.edu)

Blame for woke goes way back, embedded in academe

Michael Hurd posted a jolly photo of Michelle and Barack Obama linking arms with Jussie Smollett on Facebook, but I didn't care at all for the comments and blame posted with it. Conservatives weren't kind. Yes, what we were seeing may be three narcissistic black celebrities, but if you made your career in academe as I did, the roots and unraveling were there long before their time, 1970-2000. It was the privileged white professorial class, not a rising, wealthy privileged black class that embedded this oppressor/oppressed Marxist ideology into everything from elementary education to high tech/high touch culture. We're reaping what was sown. We allowed them to teach our children (who are now gen-x woke grandparents) and it took a tragedy like a totalitarian lockdown for us to "wake up" to "woke."

Power, abortion and the beltway crowd

If Roe v. Wade collapses because it is bad, made up law by SCOTUS in 1973 usurping Congress, it won't stop abortions. It simply moves the responsibility to the states. So why do Democrats become so hysterical about it? They can still kill babies. Power. Power shifts from DC to the state capitals. This has always been about power.

End Roe v. Wade: It's Time to Defederalize Abortion Policy | Mises Wire

What overturning Roe v. Wade could mean for Ohio - Axios Columbus

California Planning To Skirt Federal Law, Declare Itself A Sanctuary State If Roe v. Wade Overturned - FYI.com

States That Will Be Most Affected If Roe v. Wade Is Repealed | Stacker  (This is very pro-abort, and uses the term "pregnant person" which immediately flags the piece for what it is, but may contain useful information about states)

Abortion: U.S. Supreme Court to hear arguments challenging Roe v. Wade - Deseret News

What exactly is "woke"

"When we “wake up” to the belief that everything is about the conflict of the oppressed versus the oppressor, and after we deconstruct our own inherited oppressive thinking and set out on a mission to dismantle everything in our inherently oppressive world view, then we are considered members of an elite class known as the “woke.” Everyone else, of course, is asleep."

https://edify.us/video/responding-to-a-world-gone-woke/

A lot of people using the word "woke," admit they have no idea what it means. Watch this and be informed.

Oppressed and the oppressor.  Sound familiar?  Sound like Marx? 

Deconstructing Critical Theory: Oppressed and Oppressor (holisticapologetics.com)

Woke capitalism is a sign of things to come | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

I think the TV advertising from Gillette a few years ago to Coca Cola insulting white consumers without addressing obesity and diabetes has really become ridiculous.  Now in 2021, 95% of the actors in TV commercials are black, and they appear to be wealthy, entitled, and just as addle brained as the white consumers of the 1990s. They tell a story the opposite of an oppressed minority marching for justice and reparations.  The corporations are reaching for the young, and they like to see themselves as "woke." 

"The U.S. industries most obsequious to Chinese audiences present themselves as socially, culturally, and economically progressive at home. The National Basketball Association, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and major financial institutions are exemplars of the “woke capitalism” that has transformed the business landscape in recent years. GM cannot meet the demands of 48,000 striking workers, but it wants you to know that it supports wind power and gender equity. GE suspended pension benefits, but remains a signatory to the U.N. Global Compact, is a highly rated workplace according to the Human Rights Campaign, and received a State Department award for “inclusive hiring in Saudi Arabia.” (from the AEI article above)

It's not science, it's totalitarianism

 December 7th, 2021

A Constitutional Cure for Covid-19

by Marilyn M. Singleton, M.D., J.D.

Covid, Covid, Covid. Variant, variant, variant. Trust me, I’m the government’s highest paid employee, and “I represent science.” Show your papers, wear a mask, take a shot or lose your job. And the beat goes on for an infection where 99.95 percent of infected persons under age 70 years recover. It’s becoming clear that Covid-19 is not merely a disease but an excuse to concentrate power in the government.

It’s time for the political histrionics to stop. Multiple studies have shown that the consequences far outweigh any potential (and illusory) benefits of masks, lockdowns, and school closures. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director admitted that the current Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, while helpful in reducing deaths and hospitalizations, do not stop transmission of the virus. “Breakthrough” cases in vaccinated persons are on the rise. Moreover, the current vaccines likely are not effective for the new, likely less lethal Omicron variant. Public health experts opine that the SARS-CoV-2 virus (that causes Covid-19) and its multiple variants are becoming endemic. That means SARS-CoV-2 and its infinite number of variants will not be eliminated, but become a manageable part of the human-viral ecosystem.

Sadly, our government is not responding in accordance with the scientific facts. Instead, federal and some local governments are mandating more vaccines, culminating in proof of vaccination to engage in society and continue living as a normal human being. This is not science. This is nascent totalitarianism.

Two lines from the 1990 Cold War era spy film, The Hunt for Red October foreshadowed our government’s warp speed trajectory to authoritarianism. “Privacy is not of major concern in the Soviet Union, comrade. It’s often contrary to the collective good.” And a White House official casually boasted, “I’m a politician that means I’m a cheat and a liar.”

It didn’t take long for President Biden to tell the big lie. As president-elect, Mr. Biden said there would be no vaccine mandates. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (the third in line for the presidency) brilliantly illustrated the intersection of lying and privacy. As late as August 2021, Speaker Pelosi said, “We cannot require someone to be vaccinated. That’s just not what we can do. It is a matter of privacy to know who is or who isn’t.”

Without skipping a beat, the executive branch issued three separate vaccine mandates: all federal contractors (including remote workers), an Occupational Health & Safety Administration (OSHA) requirement for businesses with more than 100 employees, and a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requirement for employees, volunteers and third-party contractors of health care providers certified by CMS.

The judicial branch is fighting back against the President’s attempt to jettison the Constitution’s separation of powers clauses, a large chunk of the Bill of Rights, and Supreme Court precedents on bodily autonomy with these mandates. On November 9th, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals put the OSHA mandate on hold. The Court reasoned that the mandate “threatens to substantially burden the liberty interests of reluctant individual recipients put to a choice between their job(s) and their jab(s).” And “the loss of constitutional freedoms ‘for even minimal periods of time … unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”

Citing the lack of congressional authorization and harm to access to medical care, on November 29th a Missouri federal district court placed a temporary halt on the CMS health care workers “boundary-pushing” mandate. The government planned to enforce the mandate by imposing monetary penalties, denial of payment and termination from the Medicare and Medicaid program. The ruling covers providers in Kansas, Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

On November 30th, a Louisiana federal district court blocked the CMS mandate issuing a nationwide injunction in a lawsuit brought by 14 states (Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia). “If the executive branch is allowed to usurp the power of the legislative branch to make laws, two of the three powers conferred by our Constitution would be in the same hands. … [C]ivil liberties face grave risks when governments proclaim indefinite states of emergency.”

That same day, a Kentucky federal district court issued a hold on the federal government contractors mandate, citing lack of authority of the executive branch—“even for a good cause”. The court reasoned that if a procurement statute could be used to mandate vaccination, it “could be used to enact virtually any measure at the president’s whim under the guise of economy and efficiency.” The ruling covers Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee.

The mainstream media finally reported on the toxicity and poor results of Dr. Fauci’s “standard of care” treatment, remdesivir. This prompted families to use the courts rather than watch their relatives needlessly die. Victories for patients are growing. A Chicago area judge recently ordered a hospital to “step aside” and allow a physician to administer ivermectin in an effort to save a dying patient. It worked.

People are tired of lies. When Google employees are signing a “manifesto” to fight the mandates, you know the seeds of revolt have sprouted.

Stand up for women

Claim it. If you are a biological bigot, claim it. I believe men and women are different. There is no such thing as transitioning, or transgender, no matter what the media and academe and Democrat administrations tell us. No matter how many doctors are paid huge sums to remove or remodel body parts; no matter how many counselors are aiding and abetting those who don't want to take a knife to their privates. Trans people don't exist. There may be a fraction of people born with sexual anomalies, but there are people without hands and feet, too, and we're not asked to change our language and culture because of it and pretend none of us have two feet. It's not just sports. Women are being hurt. Stand up for women.

https://youtu.be/r1QmLFtUemg

Time to review for this next crisis

Let's review. It was a mistake to close churches, libraries and outdoor parks and recreational areas, three institutions that strengthen mind, body and soul. Thousands of non-covid deaths could have been prevented if governors (and the managers of these institutions--like pastors and librarians) would have paid attention to the decades of research that show their positive social, economic and health benefits. I remind you, because at the rate Biden is going, it will happen again. In 2020, he said he had a plan. Now we know the plan, so be prepared.

Robert Poisal, 88, Indianapolis

Our brother-in-law, Bob Poisal, went home to Jesus at 3 p.m. on December 5. So many good memories these many years. I'm looking for a photo I call 3 Bobs and a Rick of my father-in-law (Bob), my brother-in-law (Bob), my husband (Bob) and my brother-in-law (Rick) playing cards together in California, but can't locate it. It was a happy time in 2003 when we gathered for the 90th birthday of the senior Bob. Bob and sister Jean visited us a number of times at Lakeside, we've shared so many Christmas and birthday celebrations, and most recently in October 2020 for the wedding of his great grandson Caleb.  We attended their 30th surprise wedding anniversary celebration at their church in a terrible snowstorm, and this past January we "attended" their 50th via Facetime due to our own health problems and the pandemic. In 2001 he came to Columbus to help get our home on Abington Rd. ready to sell, and then again to our current home to fix lots of small problems after we took possession. He was a master craftsman, he would help anyone, and never met a stranger. They used to spend their winter season in Florida--and all the neighbors loved to see them come and had their "to do" lists ready. He was a veteran of the Navy, and in 2014 his sons and grandson treated him to a visit to his Korean War aircraft carrier. Robert (his son) writes: "My best memory was a trip we took in 2014 to visit the aircraft carrier Hornet, the ship he served on during the Korean conflict in the early 1950's. The best three days a boy could ever spend with his dad. Seeing him sit in the Captain's chair, looking out over the flight deck is the best gift I could give him, and receive myself at the same time."

 

2020 Caleb and Shelby's wedding

 

2017 with Diva

  

Hornet visit 2014 with sons, grandson, son in law, and brother

2010 at Lakeside

Bob, Bob and Bob in 1970s

Update:  Found the 2003 photograph of the guys playing cards.

The Laptop from Hell--summary by Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee: Laptop from Hell--Election interference

"You know the basic story of how an apparently dazed and confused Hunter left his laptop at a computer repair shop in Delaware in the spring of 2019, only a few days before his father announced he was running for President, and how the FBI ended up with it in what I like to call “protective custody” (they were protecting Joe). Not only is it filled with video evidence of grotesque debauchery, but it also shows how Hunter and the family sold access to his powerful dad. In her book, Devine clarifies exactly what is on the laptop, what it tells about President Biden and the whole Biden family, and what China knows.

The publisher, Simon & Schuster, describes her book as “a treasure trove of corporate documents, emails, text messages, photographs, and voice recordings, spanning a decade, [providing] the first evidence that President Joe Biden was involved in his son’s ventures in China, Ukraine, and beyond, despite his repeated denials.”

Just as importantly, “it exposes the coordinated censorship operation by Big Tech, the media establishment, and former intelligence operatives to stifle the New York Post’s coverage, in a chilling exercise of raw political power three weeks before the 2020 election.” Recall that as the election loomed, Facebook and Twitter censored the breaking NYP laptop story, ensuring that most voters wouldn’t know about the Biden “family business” when they cast their ballots. The online reach of the NYP is 80 million! Social media essentially used their control of the news to interfere with the election. They wanted to shape the outcome, and they did.

(Note: incidentally, another new book that ties Big Tech to the election outcome is Mollie Hemingway’s RIGGED. There’s some good holiday reading material available right now!)

Recall also that when House Democrats were impeaching President Trump for allegedly even mentioning an investigation of the Bidens in a phone call to the president of Ukraine –- a fake whistleblower report turned this into something it wasn’t; fortunately, there was a transcript –- the laptop would have contained evidence showing this corruption was real. But the FBI kept quiet.
Senior intelligence officials covered it up, too. Just five days after the NYP published its first Hunter story, then-CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper led 50 former intel officials in signing an open letter, published in Politico, saying the material on the laptop had “all the earmarks of a Russian information operation.” This was made up --- they apparently hadn't even seen it.

Now, more than a year after Devine published her first stories about the laptop, she has a new commentary in the NYP that times nicely with the release of her book. She notes that many of those who voted for Biden are disenchanted now, as he has turned out to be a very different person from the man they thought they were voting for."

Media helped hide the real Joe Biden by censoring Hunter stories: Devine (nypost.com)

Morning devotions, Psalm 107

 When my devotions include a Psalm, I frequently turn to "Meditations in the book of Psalms," by Erling C. Olsen (1939). It was compiled from his weekly radio addresses which had a huge audience, and 107 was broadcast during 1936, the depths of the Great Depression.  That's what I enjoy about his thoughtful analysis--he is using writings 2500 years old with appropriate comments, then applying personal spiritual meaning good for any era, but often comments on the news of the day he was living. His comments about the political and economic situation of 1936 sounds as fresh as last night's news.

"We here in the east, and along the Atlantic seaboard, have no idea of the devastation that has been raging in the wheat belt, except from newspaper accounts and a few pictures that have found their way into the press.  I do not wish to appear as a calamity howler, for I know only too well that God is good and His mercy endureth forever [Ps. 107:1], and that He waits patiently for men to repent before He expresses Himself in judgment.  However, I must confess that I would not be surprised if God withholds His blessing from the earth in order to bring us back to an acknowledgment of His goodness and mercy.  When I think of the wickedness of men in high places, I say WICKEDNESS, in what has been called the "philosophy of scarcity,"** when by government edict men have plowed under their fields of cotton and wheat and other foodstuffs, and men have literally slain livestock, it is not surprising that God withholds His refreshing rains.  I do not desire to be intruding a politically partisan comment here; I am not interested in politics from that viewpoint and I do not believe it is the business of a preacher to meddle in politics; but I cannot avoid speaking the evident truth that this nation, from its President down, cannot smile away the responsibility of such godless, wicked doings."  He goes on to call for repentance as a nation and beg God to restore the land.

My mind slipped off the page to our own sick, godless administration--demanding lockdowns and mandates that send grocery store clerks, waitresses, nurses and truck drivers to work while millionaires and politicians frolick and party unmasked, that calls tattoo parlors and bars essential, but closes churches, that demands more and more of what isn't working now for political gain, not health of the nation. I closed the volume; Biden could be the feckless FDR who in the drought of 1934-1936 ordered farmers to destroy their crops and kill their livestock.

** It would be difficult to find a fair and unbiased history of that era--FDR is still considered the savior by the Democrats who led us out of the Depression and a devil many by Republicans who launched government programs that have enslaved millions and never ended after the crisis was over.  But in a philosophy of scarcity one sees the pie as fixed and others must give up some of their share.  This is the opposite of expanding wealth so everyone benefits.  It's now probably called redistribution, reparations, sharing the wealth, or even the Green New Steal (my term).

How far can we fall?

In the 19th century women led the way for the big three--abolition and then civil rights and education for former slaves, temperance with its strong social impact on families, and woman's suffrage which included custody of their own children. And now? In the 21st century women are demanding the right to kill their own children, more rights for criminals who are killing black citizens, and the right to gender transition so they don't have to be such silly, ignorant women.

Abolition, Women's Rights, and Temperance Movements - Women's Rights National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

Women and Abolitionism | The Abolition Seminar

Abolitionist Movement — History of U.S. Woman's Suffrage (crusadeforthevote.org)

History of the Movement | Westerville Public Library (westervillelibrary.org)