I know Ritter has ‘baggage,’ but he still provides descent military information.

Trump organized and supplied weapons to overthrow the government of a foreign country. The world is now suffering the consequences of his illegal revolution’s failure.

Iran is rated fourth in the world for educated people. But to Trump, they are animals.

I asked Grok if Trump’s speech reflects hegemony:

Yes, the post reflects hegemonic thinking—specifically, the logic of U.S. global hegemony in its raw, realist form.The core content is Trump’s direct quote: “If I had my choice, what would I like to do? Take the oil! Because it’s there for the taking, there’s not a thing they can do about it. Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home.”This isn’t subtle. It openly asserts that superior U.S. military power gives America the right (and practical ability) to seize a sovereign nation’s resources by force during conflict. That’s textbook hegemonic behavior:

• Hegemony defined here: One dominant power (the U.S. as post-WWII hegemon) uses its unmatched capabilities to shape outcomes in its favor, including economic extraction from weaker or adversarial states. This isn’t new—U.S. policy in the Middle East has long revolved around securing oil flows (Gulf Wars, sanctions, Strait of Hormuz control). Trump frames it transactionally: “it’s there for the taking” because Iran can’t stop us militarily right now.
• Why it fits: It dismisses international norms (sovereignty, non-aggression) in favor of raw power politics. The “unfortunately” part highlights the tension—he acknowledges domestic isolationism (“come home”) but prioritizes the hegemonic option of resource grabs over withdrawal. This echoes his past rhetoric on Iraq (“we should have taken the oil”) and aligns with realpolitik views of hegemony as predatory or transactional dominance rather than “benign” liberal order-keeping.

In W. Cleon Skousen’s The 5000 Year Leap, the clergy’s role is to stress morality from the pulpits, fuel the “flame of freedom,” provide moral stability to the people, and alert citizens to dangerous trends—without getting involved in partisan politics.

This is covered primarily in the section/subsection titled “The Clergy Fuel the Flame of Freedom, Stressed Morality, and Alerted the Citizenry to Dangerous Trends” (around pages 39–42 in some editions). Skousen draws heavily on Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations in Democracy in America to explain how the clergy helped produce and sustain a “moral and religious people”—which the Founding Fathers (and Skousen) saw as an absolute prerequisite for the U.S. Constitution to function.

Points from the Book

• Clergy teach righteousness and moral values as the foundation of a free society: De Tocqueville noted that American clergy stayed out of government and partisan politics (no public appointments, not in legislatures), but they kept “a message of religious principles and moral values flowing out to the people as the best safeguard for America’s freedom and political security.”
• Pulpits “aflame with righteousness” produce national goodness: The most famous quote Skousen highlights is de Tocqueville’s: “I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
• Clergy (along with home and school) cultivate virtue generation after generation: The Founders looked to churches to instill the “religion of America”—five universal principles (belief in a Creator, a revealed moral code, accountability to God, life after death, and final judgment). This moral education was seen as essential so that “national morality can prevail.” George Washington warned in his Farewell Address (quoted in the book) that “reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” avalonlibrary.net
• John Adams’ famous statement ties it together: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

In short, Skousen presents the clergy as the non-political moral backbone of society: their job is to keep the people virtuous through religious and moral teaching so that self-government can work. Without this ongoing influence from the churches, the Founders believed the entire experiment in liberty would collapse into tyranny or anarchy. This is part of Skousen’s broader Principle on religion and morality being “indispensable supports” for political prosperity.

The book treats this as one of the key reasons America made its “5000 year leap” in freedom and progress.

Praising Allah on Easter Sunday?

At this point, I think it’s much more likely that the Clown World clone is malfunctioning than whatever creature is in the White House is genuinely President Donald Trump.

UPDATE: There are now rumors – I stress RUMORS – on /pol/ that Trump, or at least his stand-in, died on Saturday morning. This is definitely NOT confirmed and could just be a hoax.

President Donald J. Trump has reportedly passed away at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center following complications related to a cardiac condition, according to preliminary statements from hospital officials early this morning. Sources say Trump was transported to Walter Reed late Friday evening after experiencing severe chest pain at his residence. Medical teams worked for several hours to stabilize him before he was pronounced dead at approximately 2:42 AM Eastern Standard Time.

Per Vox Popoli

If … I say if Trump has died due to a ‘cardiac condition’, I’d be prone to recall that Joseph Stalin also died of ‘natural causes’. Natural causes applied by some of his associates. If Trump is indeed deceased, it would not be out of the realm of possibility that he was removed in like manner.

Per Simplicius

The morning broke with news of a large-scale US operation to supposedly extract the second downed pilot (WSO – Weapons Systems Officer) from Iran, who had ejected from his shot-down F-15E on Thursday. The scale of losses for this operation alone turned out to be massive, as the US lost hundreds of millions worth of planes allegedly getting the airman back to safety.

The operation involved all kinds of Special Forces units which amounted to “boots on ground” inside Iran for the first time—at least officially.

The story is roughly as follows:

Continue reading …