Just about everyone you know is quick to verbalize an opinion. Yourself included. Following the first GOP debate, most viewers immediately decide who should be invited back and who should get the axe. And almost always, no matter what happens later, these people will never change initial impressions. Self-pride doesn’t allow second thoughts. It’s a human weakness. Once the Pharisees decided Christ was a loser, nothing He did or said would temper their condemnation. Reasons for repudiation often have little to do with substance and more to do with instinct, inclination or some type of prejudice. In 1960, JFK was Hollywood pretty; Nixon was anything but, sporting five o’clock shadow. In any event, when the dust settles on any election, when corrupt presidents like Biden leave behind a trail of devastation, supporters can walk away from culpability, unstained and innocent. Their once outspoken opinions are gone with the wind, conveniently unrecorded. By contrast, published opinions nail you to the wall. You can’t hide . . . well, unless you’re a professional mouthpiece in media. Or unless you’re Greta Thunberg who continuously conjures up the apocalypse.

In 2023, or any year for that matter, you are not qualified to predict a presidential outcome. But you do have opinions for everyone to dismember at their leisure.

Donald John Trump
During the years 2015-2023, you put it on the line. You repeatedly said Trump would never be accepted, never be allowed at the Beltway table — that The Establishment would go to any lengths necessary to nullify his political existence and even his influence. Who is this Establishment? Certain members of the Supreme Court. The Democrat Party. The Republican Party. The Deep State bureaucracy. Legacy Media. Big Tech. Big money. Wall Street. Just about everyone who covets the accrual of money and power. Just about everyone who’s on the take. Donald Trump had (and has) only one asset: 80MM (arguably)citizens who voted for him. look at the evidence (from Late Latin evidentia “proof,” in classical Latin “distinction, vivid presentation, clearness”). In 2016-2019, under the withering barrage of baseless impeachment and other attacks, DT policy led America out of its economic stupor into unprecedented vitality — at home and abroad. The future glistened. This was the beginning of a political renaissance — to deregulate further, to dismantle the bureaucracy, to “drain the swamp.” But that agenda could not and would not be tolerated. The Left Machine saw to it by outright theft, while the GOP stood by as always — detached, in front of the cameras — devious, behind them. When Americans protested Jan. 6, Trump was branded an insurrectionist, and now stands indicted on a myriad of offenses, while he campaigns to be POTUS in 2024. In America’s history, no president — in fact, no Public Enemy #1 — has been the target of a more relentless seek and destroy mission. You must humbly request — imagine the motive, please. Can you?

2024
First things first. The Trump indictments are not aimed at jail time, although many haters pray for it. The indictments have two plausible goals: 1. Eliminate the Trump candidacy; 2. Create suspicion, demoralize and persuade Trump supporters to lose heart and choose a GOP “insider.” Already, many published pundits agree with the “alleged” voter sentiment. Trump and Biden should disappear. The nation needs to heal. That’s code language, Matilda, for “we’re tired of the constant war in Washington; we think Trump’s a lightning rod. If he runs, he will lose; if by some miracle he wins, the war will never end.” That last sentence is true but not complete. The war will never end until the Left continues to control America and completes its socialist agenda. If you think that agenda is dedicated to The Constitution and to your Freedom, at least have the willingness to honestly evaluate what has happened since 2020 — which is nothing less than a bloody catastrophe. More important, don’t make the mistake of thinking that deaths, lock-downs, mandates, the cost of living, the open border and Woke-ism are owned only by Democrats. The GOP is neck deep in corruption. House money claims that Trump can’t win against a credible Democrat candidate. House money claims that Trump 2020 voters — women and independents — have abandoned ship. You have only one option — wait and see.

GOP Debate #1
It stunk. The moderators stunk. You can’t assume they didn’t take orders and work from a prepared script that stunk. Whatever. If — and it’s a big if — Desantis would truly take his Florida hegemony to Washington, he makes the cut. If Vivek curbs his enthusiasm and keeps his powder dry, he’s the true outsider America needs. He makes the cut. In his absence, Trump makes the cut. Some of the rest — Pence, Haley, Hutchinson, Christie — are GOP veterans — and fit right in with the NRC and GOP Royalty. With them, nothing changes.

A New Beginning: One Naive View
1. The Federal Government — Executive and Congress — must cede all Domestic Governance to the States, as enumerated by the U.S. Constitution.

2. The SCOTUS must conduct a thorough review of the Annotated Constitution and methodically eliminate those legal findings that conflict with #1 above.

3. Impose term limits (12 years in both House and Senate)on all elected officials.

4. Mandate a balanced annual Federal budget.

5. Eliminate Federal Agencies that do not fall under provisions of The Constitution.

Ed. Note: If the day comes — tomorrow, next month or next year, when any of these opinions prove to be misguided, you pledge to quickly acknowledge your lack of scholarship and judgment.

www.conventionofstates.com

If a narrow, two-lane country road could be called seductive, this is it. Arrow straight into the horizon, it lies flat, bisecting rich, gently rolling farmland. Mile after mile of soybean, cotton, and corn planted three yards from the edges of asphalt ribbon — a lush agricultural tunnel. You nudge the accelerator. The road is yours. Deserted. Nothing moving under the late August morning sun. Not man. Not beast. The 535i shares your love of the place, humming almost gratefully as it gracefully settles on 90. Your right palm rests casually at five o’clock, eyes fixated just above the horizon, at once seeing everything and nothing, out of body, dreamlike. There’s something spiritual about speed. Are you gliding on a blacktop or floating on a cloud? Or, like an F-18, lifting skyward near the end of a land-based carrier deck, speeding toward….toward what?

Even a self-induced hypnosis has nowhere to go without an eventual slap in the face. Two hundred yards ahead, the Peterbilt Semi rumbles past a slight bend, refusing to be ignored as it roars past. The morning seduction is over, but not forgotten. Past the runway, you decel to 70. Exceeding the limit by 15 mph won’t land you in lockup but satisfyingly challenges you on the serpentine segments of backroad. This is driving as it should be, requiring hand/eye coordination, a tidbit of risk and a large helping of joy. Unfortunately, the future frowns on the joys of human proficiency, the joys of owning the road.

Well, better buckle up; the future is now. Vehicles already park, reduce speed and brake automatically, ushering in the arrival of the automatic pilot — your driverless car. As always, the changes are surreptitiously incremental. At first, you have the option of manual and automatic operation. In time, manual goes away. You become a full-time passenger. Your vehicle mandates speed control. Combustion vehicles disappear. All vehicles are electric and conform to standard design. Artificial Intelligence (AI) takes over and you take a back seat.

Not today, though, as you and Gladys Knight and her Pips (Midnight Train to Georgia)happily straighten out a nifty “S” curve. Sweet.

Truth is AI has been here in one form or another since the 50’s. You remember Hal 9000. (He) had a mind of (his) own in the 1968 flick: 2001: A Space Odyssey. Fifty five years later, AI knows your bathroom habits through a bevy of tech companies. It surrounds you with smart devices, controlling household utilities and security, ordering groceries, analyzing preferences and behaviors and predicting what you will say and how you will say it. Eventually, AI replaces the need for true, unassisted human endeavor. It penetrates all business sectors and all skilled disciplines. Optimists rightly claim that brilliant human brains are responsible for machines that think. Yes. Humans store the data, humans write the code and humans develop algorithms. Human brains give the instructions; machines listen and learn. Smart machines save time, make your data more useful, curtail errors, expedite decisions, make predictions, continuously evolve and minimize risk — 24-7. All these benefits arguably make the world a better place.

But at what cost?

In the wrong hands, pessimists and at least one realist suggest: AI technology is a weapon — destined to invade privacy, cheat, steal and completely subjugate a populace. Given recent history, AI is exactly poised to accelerate Huxley’s Brave New World, where an “oligarchy of big government and big business” threatens individual freedom — where “standardization and conformity in everyday life . . . becomes inevitable,” (and) where “brainwashing techniques influence people to conform to approved ways of thinking.” Sound familiar, Matilda? Hell, U.S. lefties  would nod pridefully. Even in the right hands, AI crushes critical thinking. History and history’s geniuses are irrelevant. Reading and writing are passe. And profoundly lost is respect for the architecture and artistry of the English language. But all isn’t lost for the GenX and GenZ congregation. Need a piece of knowledge? Grab your cell, enter or verbalize a few keywords and instantly you become educated. How sweet is that, comrades?

Not as sweet as this country road and this lusty machine that loves and depends on you and your touch alone. You have a biker friend who understands.

www.conventionofstates.com

Bad news almost always outweighs good news. By a lot.

Media loves bad news. Bad news makes the front page. Broadcast news almost always leads with death, disaster, destruction, deception, depravity, etc. Every now and then, good news does show a welcome face. Gas prices drop a dime/gal. Your favorite team wins a game. Your blood work is unremarkable. A black GenZ male student says law enforcement should be the key issue in the 2024 election. Anyway you cut it, to be trite, your frustration with doom and gloom is your fault, because it’s easy enough to dump the garbage. Just tune out, Matilda. Begin with TV, the mesmeric machine designed to sway behavior, condition thinking and shape opinion. Whatever “innocent” television entertainment you may enjoy, it is nothing less than a remorseless narcotic, keeping you addicted and numbing you to suffocating content. Speaking of which, what can be more negative than the deluge of pharmaceutical advertising that smashes listeners in the face with visions of disease and death. Not that many years ago, drug ads occupied very little air time. But Covid changed all that. The immediate and orchestrated fear of death changed all that. Shrewdly, Pharma marketing execs jumped at the opportunity to cash in on all-consuming fear and the preoccupation with all things health. Hour by hour, day and night, every day, dozen of drug ads entertain you with news of impending disease. All of it wrapped in song and dance, happy families and smiling faces, as you hear the litany of terrifying disclaimers. But don’t think Big Pharma is alone in the fear game. All kinds of insurance companies have you wrapped in a bubble of apprehension. So you surround your home in electronic surveillance, and you buy plumbing protection through American Home Shield, appliance coverage through Home Service Club, auto maintenance through Car Shield, identity protection through LifeLock and digital privacy through Norton, to name just a few of the most visible fear mongers. Meanwhile, as you obsess over personal health and security, the U.S. government makes certain that serious fear is your ever-present bedfellow. The swamp dwellers of both political parties threaten you with felonious policies that have a predictable outcome — the weakening of individual freedom. If they could read that last allegation, millions of Americans would howl “Baloney.” Yep, these would be the nitwits who entrust their children to annual Covid jabs. Who believe Covid is a bat virus. Who believe Anthony Fauci is an ethical public servant. Who believe healthcare is a natural right. Who believe national debt is an irrelevant number. Who think open borders have nothing to do with Democrat votes. Who believe drug cartels and child sex trafficking are overblown. Who believe climate change is doomsday. Who believe electric cars will save the planet. Who believe wind turbines will save the planet. Who believe solar panels will save the planet. Who believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Who believe the Clinton body count is right wing conspiracy. Who believe Hillary is guileless. Who believe the 2020 election was on the level. Who believe American foreign policy is noble. Who believe Government leaders put the American people ahead of themselves. On that last note, the good news is — you can dump the damn garbage. And remember that you live in God’s country — a good country with good people, generous people who do good things every single day.  Everyone of them needs to bury fear. Bury it now. This very minute. And remember what it means to be an American.

www.conventionofstates.com