Character Counts

When a man takes an oath, he's holding his own self in his own hands like water, and if he opens his fingers then, he needn't hope to find himself again. Sir Thomas More, Man For All Seasons

By Rich Kozlovich

As I watch the candidates....from both parties....running for political office I just chuckle, roll my eyes, and shake my head, and think to myself nitwits are like cockroaches, you just can't get rid of them. 

It's being touted that former Senator John Sununu (R-NH), a "scion of a prominent GOP political dynasty, Sununu, 61, likely gives Republicans their best chance of flipping the seat after his brother, former Gov. Chris Sununu, rejected the party’s recruitment efforts for another cycle", with him saying " “somebody has to step up and lower the temperature. Somebody has to get things done.”   He thinks he's the guy who can do that.... Really? 

 Two things.  

He's been a supporter of John Kasich, which shows there's something seriously wrong with the man, and Nikki Haley, both now Republican outcasts, and he's been an anti-Trumper.  It appears the Democrat running is beatable, and allegedly, Sununu is considered the best Republican to win.... but.... polls are polls.  Show me the crowds not the polls, and Trump hasn't weighed in on who he thinks is the best Republican.  Based on his relationship with the RINO Sununu clan, I would normally be betting it wouldn't be John Sununu, except I have no doubt the Maine Republican party, like most state Republican organizations is filled with RINO's, who will offer no alternative to Sununu.  

In New Jersey ....and this is a shocker.... a Republican actually has a chance to become the governor, as the Democrat, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, running for governor has issues.  She's a graduate of the US Naval Academy, who wasn't allowed to march with her graduating class because she violated the Honor Code over a cheating scandal at the Academy.  A classmate testified she either "lied or obscured the facts".  Apparently they couldn't prove that for sure, but it's clear they had no doubt she violated the Honor Code.  And while she graduated, the author notes that "outcomes are not exonerations when the process was tainted by dishonesty", and time hasn't been on her side as more information has come forward, and she keeps dodging and twisting to avoid releasing her whole record.  

• Democrat in New Jersey Governor’s Race Changes Story About Naval Academy Cheating Scandal Again-Classmates Aren’t Buying It 

In Maine Senator Susan Collins has been a thorn in the Republican backside, and in my view, a disgrace since first elected in 1997.   But as far left as she is, she actually seems rational compared the Democrat candidate running against her.  A guy sporting a Nazi tattoo, who Bernie Sanders thinks is just grand.  Talk about having two strikes against you.  Graham Platner claims he's shocked that's a Nazi tattoo....imagine that!

Now, ya just gotta see the humor in that given the Democrat penchant for declaring anyone who disagrees with them is a Nazi.   He's been busy deleting  social media posts showing he's an out and out communist and hates the police and he's made it clear he approves of violence.  What could possibly go wrong with a Senator like him?  

Then we have Virginia.  The Democrat gal running for governor started out with a huge lead...and that's crumbling.  Why?  Let's do the numbers.

1. Is it because of she supports mass amnesty for anyone in the world who makes it into the US?  
2. Could it be because she babbles "word salads" about males in girls’ locker rooms, clearly fearing to offend the LGBTQIAXYZCNNCBSABCMSNBCMSNOW movement, totally unconcerned about the girls? 
3. How about the possibility that overall she has a woke DEI, pro-trans, pro-illegal immigrant agenda and loved Joe Biden's massive spending bills that caused record inflation? 
4. Or perhaps it's because she's really unhappy voters in Virginia expect her to condemn the violence promoted by Democrats primarily the Democrat running for Attorney General for the State of Virginia, Jay Jones?

Nah, that's not why her numbers are starting to crash.  It's because, according to MSNBC sexism is the source for her troubles.  Oh, wait, they're blaming sexism for her problems when she's running against another woman and they're calling it sexism? A black woman at that.  So.... is that racism? 

Let's talk about Jay Jones who's running to be Virginia's next Attorney General.  He's been exposed for his reckless disregard for the law, and somehow thinks he deserves special privileges. His willingness to support violence is well documented, including wanting the "head of the cop who donated to the Rittenhouse defense".  This is the guy who claimed he wanted to put bullets in the head Todd Gilbert, the Republican Speaker of the House and "hoped that Jennifer Gilbert’s children would die in her arms, adding,  “I mean do I think Todd and Jennifer are evil? And that they’re breeding little fascists? Yes.”  This is another disgraceful leftist lunatic who if elected claims he will prosecute President Trump because he's bad.  

 

He's anti police and anti-law an order, even wanting to defund the police, and he's running for the top law enforcement job in the state?  Where have we seen that before, and the consequences of those actions?   He's aligned himself with BLM invoking their thug icons George Floyd and Jacob Blake, "wants to pull police from schools, end qualified immunity for law enforcement, and end cash bail", and wants to end the "system that's oppressing black people."  He's an anti white racist, saying, "the daily indignities of being black can be burdensome. If we respond to it all, we would have riots daily.”  

 

He's a race baiting racist, and the Democrat party stands behind him.  Why? According to the Chairman of the DNC Virginians have accepted his apology for those statements. Polls suggest otherwise, except among Democrats.  It turns out 93% of Virginia Democrats think calling for the murder of Republicans and their children dying in their mother's arms is perfectly acceptable.  The Democrat party has descended into violence, willing to assault and even murder anyone who challenges their insanity, and it's contagious on a national scale, even at local level politics such as this school board race.

 

I've written and/or posted a lot about the NYC race, so I won't go into it here, but I really think this is telling.  Both Mamdani and Cuomo say a vote for the other is a vote for Trump, which in a round about way is saying they would vote for each other rather than Donald Trump.  How insane is that?  

 

I think New Jersey and Virginia are going to choose Republican governors, and the NYC race has set off a shocking chain of events exposing the insanity of the Democrat party, exposures that are making an impact nationally.  Even Dana Perino of FOX News,  who isn't one to jump out in front of an issue, believes Democrats will lose New Jersey and Virginia.  Imagine that!

 

My Gazette: Overview - Character, Intelligence, and The Mythical Kamala

By Rich Kozlovich

This is part of a series of gazettes outlining who and what Kamala really is, what she stands for, what she represents, and the disasters that surrounds she and all of her peers, which is the desire to destroy America as it was founded, which is why they're doing everything in their power to destroy the Constitution, they only thing standing between freedom and a socialist system of world governance under the auspices of the most corrupt institution ever created, the United Nations, molded by the World Economic Forum, and controlled by China.  

This cartoon will be part of each gazette. 

 

Make no mistake.  Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are absolutely antisemites, anti-Christian, anti-White racists, and anti-American in their views and their actions.   Lies, deceit, corruption, and destruction is at the heart of who and what they are.  And if elected, that's what they will promote.  

The effort to whitewash their history is failing, but it's exposing the corruption that surrounds them, but that exposure isn't being done by what's now being called the 'legacy' media, including their desire to defraud the election process with these illegal non-citizens, and allowing them to destroy America's major cities. Cities that will take decades to recover, and some may never come back.   

 If it walks like a communist, and if it talks like a communist, it's a communist.

Tags: The Kamala Policy Conundrum, The Reality of Kamala, Kamala Now Reigneth!, So, It's Kamala? Really? Then We Need a Little History Lesson!, Intelligence Alert!, Kamala Harris Weekly, Almost!,Kamala Harris Weekly, Part I, Kamala Harris Weekly, Part II, Kamala Harris Watch, Part III

THE MYTHICAL KAMALA, HER CHARACTER AND HER INTELLIGENCE

 

Kamala Harris, Candidate of Myth - So, Kamala Harris is the new Democratic candidate for president. And, we've been told, she is incredible. Not merely serviceable, a middle innings relief pitcher brought in when your starter suddenly implodes in the third inning. She is the Mariano Rivera of politics. She's lights-out. She's charismatic, fascinating, quick on her feet, charming. She is, in the words of the legacy media, a historic candidate -- not just because she's a Black woman, a fact that explains her lightning-fast political ascent but that only Democrats are allowed to mention, and only then in the context of explaining why America requires a Black female president -- but because she is, apparently, so good at this. Apparently, Harris was the candidate America needed all along. As in a bad romcom, all we needed to do was remove her glasses, brush out her hair and put her in a better outfit -- and she would transform from high school weirdo nerd into prom queen.......

 

 FACT CHECK: Kamala Harris Has Nothing To Do With Kamala Harris By Daniel Greenfield • August 1, 2024 The one thing we know about Kamala is that she isn’t Kamala.  Some scurrilous social media disinformation sources have taken to accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of supporting the Green New Deal, banning fracking, defunding the police, and describing herself as Indian. Experts using science however agree that Kamala Harris didn’t say any of these things, and that if she said them she didn’t mean them and anyway coconuts are an incredibly delicious source of nutrients that are also used to power the space shuttle.......

The enigma that is Kamala - August 4, 2024 by Amil Imani -What does the vice president do, anyway? Whomever you ask, don’t ask the vice president.  In an unexpected twist of fate that has left political pundits scratching their heads and reaching for their thesauruses, U.S. vice president Kamala Harris has stumbled into the spotlight for...not knowing what she does. Yes, you heard it right!  In a recent appearance on CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Harris found herself in a pickle, trying to articulate her daily duties like a contestant on a game show where the prize is a lifetime supply of awkward silence.......

MN governor Tim Walz: ‘One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness’ July 31, 2024 by Olivia Murray Kamala Harris’s potential running mate teaches me what I never knew—Stalin, Hitler, Chávez, and all the rest of the 20th century socialists were just a bunch of “neighborly” guys! More

The media’s focus on candidates shouldn’t obscure the real issues in this election By Andrea Widburg - The media would have us believe that this race is between Kamala the Magnificent, on the one hand, and Trump the Dishonest and Vance the Weird, on the other hand. This is a lie. What matters is that Americans must decide on November 5 if we are a constitutional nation with traditional values or a communist nation with values exemplified in the 2024 Olympics’ opening ceremonies.......

Diversity Hire Harris Just Can’t Stop Lying - There's an old joke that is often bandied about in political discussions, a joke that has to do with honesty, or the lack thereof, among politicians. The first two names rarely vary, but the last does, for obvious reasons, and we're due for another revision. The updated gag would run:

Kamala Harris, female messiah? - The entire federal government apparatus, made-up largely of Democrats, uses taxpayer money to attack its political opponents and retain and enhance its power. The larger the government gets, the larger it wants to be. And too many people are either on the government dole or are too stupid to notice or care.This is why it is so dangerous for Republicans, and Trump supporters in specific, to be overconfident about the upcoming election.

 

Top Five Kamala Word Salads - Vice President Kamala Harris’s track record of gaffes and word salads fell into the spotlight this week after she became the Democrats’ de facto presumptive nominee. Harris is infamous for spouting odd phrases and explanations for simple ideas. In 2022, for example, she marveled over Venn diagrams. Another time she rambled about the “significance of the passage of time.” “More alphabet soup from Kamala,” one X user mocked..........

 

In Case You or Someone You Know Isn’t Aware That Obamala Harris Is Awful - Joe Biden announced over the weekend that he is withdrawing from the 2024 presidential election. The announcement follows almost a month of pressure on Biden to drop out after his abysmal debate performance in late June made it impossible to keep hiding the fact that the president is cognitively impaired. The soon-to-be former president and most major players in Democratic politics quickly threw their support behind Vice President Kamala Harris. In the days since, Harris’ biggest potential challengers have either fallen in line and endorsed her too or began maneuvering to become Harris’ running mate. By Monday night, Harris “had the support of well more than the 1,976 delegates she’ll need to win” the nomination, according to an Associated Press survey. So, it appears all but guaranteed that Kamala Harris will be the 2024 Democratic nominee.............

 

‘Absolutely Not’: Heels Up Harris Isn’t Ready for Prime Time on the Global Stage, Experts Say - Vice President Kamala Harris will be stepping on to a fracturing world stage as a “novice” foreign policy tactician should she win the 2024 presidential race, which experts warned would pose a serious risk to U.S. national security. Harris has quickly become the presumptive Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential race, having captured major endorsements and roughly $80 million in new campaign donations since President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he would not be seeking reelection. But Harris’ inexperience and policy stances make her unqualified to conduct serious national security and foreign policy, raising the risk that she will be comparably poor or worse than Biden on such critical issues, former U.S. officials and defense experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation...........

 

Kamala campaign admits misleading voters on Trump, Project 2025 - A campaign official for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris acknowledged Wednesday that the vice president is deliberately misleading voters about Project 2025. CNN first reported the stunning admission as part of a fact-check article accusing Harris of making false claims about Project 2025 and former President Donald Trump's stance on Social Security. CNN's Daniel Dale revealed: A Harris campaign official said the campaign has "made a deliberate decision to brand all of Trump's policies" as "Project 2025," since they believe "it has stuck with voters."... 

 

Georgia Swing Voter Had Some Damning Remarks About Kamala Harris' Character- I’ll have more on this later, but some swing voters have been saying the same thing about Kamala Harris: Can we trust her? In Georgia and Wisconsin, voters are wondering what else she is hiding and what she will hide should she win the upcoming election. This Georgia voter is concerned that Harris might have been part of a White House cover-up........

 

So, Kamala Harris Is the Worst Boss Ever -Apparently, Vice President Kamala Harris is hard to work for… shocker.  MSNBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend, ex-senior advisor and chief spokesperson for Harris, suggested she had a bad experience working for the VP amid mounting criticism.  After President Joe Biden was forced out of the 2024 race, Harris, who has earned a reputation as an alleged “soul-destroying” workplace “bully,” greeted her new staff but was met with concerns.  Sanders-Townsend explained that her experience working for Harris—after only ever working for men—might make the VP the last woman she works for. .............

 
Virtually Everyone Thinks Kamala Harris Was Part of the Biden Health Cover-up - This game the Biden White House is playing is ridiculous. They deny the president stepped away due to health reasons. We all saw this trainwreck in real-time. The June 27 debate, where Biden got thrashed by Donald Trump, was the implosion of an elaborate scheme to cover up Joe Biden’s declining mental health that suddenly was common knowledge among aides and officials. The media played a huge role in helping Biden’s staff shield the president from scrutiny of his gradual loss of his mental facilities......

In Her Own Words: Kamala Harris’s Radical Vision for America - While the left is trying it’s hardest to recast Kamala Harris as a moderate Democrat – quietly scrubbing her public record over the past 5 years – her actual positions have always been radical.  For starters, she’s on record wanting to abolish ICE (which she compared to the KKK), letting criminals like the Boston Marathon bomber and rapists vote, ban fracking and offshore drilling, defund the police, provide US taxpayer subsidized healthcare to illegals, and ban private health insurance.

Kamala reportedly ignoring her daily presidential intelligence briefs - Same old Kamala who doesn't like "homework.".........What kind of president would Kamala Harris be if she were in office and another 9/11 struck?  According to reporter Seymour Hersh, probably a pretty surprised one. She doesn't read her daily presidential intelligence briefings, because, well, that's "homework." Kamala doesn't do homework, as previous reports have noted. According to Hersh's subscription-only Substack, President Obama read Joe Biden the Riot Act about stepping down from his re-election bid, saying that Congress was ready to go on invoking the 25th Amendment against him and that he had "Kamala's approval" for it..............

 
Good Luck Denying This One, Kamala; VP Argues Person Committing Crime 'Is Not a Criminal' - Vice President Kamala Harris’ past is going to thoroughly haunt her up to November’s General Election should she officially secure the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency. While her campaign team would desperately like you to see her as the preferable alternative to former President Donald Trump, there is simply too much evidence to the contrary floating around the internet. For example, a clip resurfaced on X Thursday of Harris speaking to the Islamic Center of Southern California from July 6, 2016..............

 

Kamalagate: The Harris Deception That Doomed Dozens of J6ers Jack Cashill Given her penchant for contrived drama, however, Harris has remained curiously silent about having her life “directly endangered” on Jan. 6.  On March 19, 2021, UCLA student Christian Secor learned that the Department of Justice planned to keep him in jail.  A month earlier a federal judge had denied Secor bond after a D.C. grand jury indicted him on ten counts of nonviolent January 6 mischief. Secor’s alleged offenses, argued Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Paschall, “from him pushing on a crowd of people to breach the Rotunda door to sitting atop the Senate dais in the chair occupied minutes before by Vice President Mike Pence,” merited pre-trial detention...........

 

Trump vs. Harris = Familiar vs. Strange August 12, 2024 by Mark C. Ross Everybody already knows who and what Donald Trump is. But does anybody really have a clear idea about the electorally unchallenged Democrat presidential nominee?  More

Trump campaign employs brilliant new election season slogan: ‘Kamala supports this’ -August 1, 2024 by Olivia Murray - It’s memorable, condemnatory, and conclusive. Everybody already knows who and what Donald Trump is. But does anybody really have a clear idea about the electorally unchallenged presumptive Democrat presidential nominee? The time has now come for Democrat operatives to reinvent Kamala Harris in what is perceived to be a popular form. How’s it going so far? Not all that well.....

Kamala Word Salads ‘Are So Back’ After Stump Speech in Pa. -  While speaking at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris appeared to stumble over her words while explaining what the 2024 presidential election is “about” and what the United States stands “for around the globe.”.....

Kamala Word Salad on ‘Duality of Democracy’ in PA Speech - While speaking at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris appeared to stumble over her words while explaining what the 2024 presidential election is “about” and what the United States stands “for around the globe.”  “Our election is about understanding the importance of this beautiful country of ours in terms of what we stand for around the globe as a democracy,” Harris told the crowd. “As a democracy, we know, there’s a duality to the nature of democracy.”......

The philosophy of all leftists was exemplified by another criminal group in the 1948 film The Treasure of Sierra Madre, stated by Mexican bandit leader "Gold Hat" (portrayed by Alfonso Bedoya, trying to convince Fred C. Dobbs (portrayed by Humphrey Bogart), that he and his band of cut throats were legitimate.  I think my paraphrasing below is the perfect representation of the leftist philosophy, even if unspoken:

 

Rules?   We ain't got no rules.  We don't need no rules.  We don't have to show you any stinkin rules!

 

Definition Lead to Clarity, and Both Are Sorely Lacking!

By Rich Kozlovich 

One of my 200 rules is:  Definition leads to clarity.  Clarity leads to understanding.  Understanding leads to wisdom.  Wisdom leads to good decision making.  And now you know why there are so many stupid decisions being made, a failure to define things properly.

Let's start with the idea "character counts"!  Recently Paul Ryan just had to tell the world he wasn't voting for Donald Trump because "character" matters.  Okay, so, since he doesn't like Trump's character, the implication he does like Biden's character, the corrupt head of a crime family.

It's really interesting since that's exactly what Cindy McCain said, "character counts", so she's supporting Joe Biden! Imagine that. The implication is that Biden, and the McCain's, were exemplars of good character, while Trump is the prime example of bad character, thus disqualifying him for the Presidency. 

Okay, he's certainly had his character issues, no one can dispute that, but Cindy McCain calling anyone's character into issue is really rich.  Her husband had a lifetime of character issues that were questionable, and using the world questionable is being kind.  It was her husband who was caught in the Keating Five scandal, one of the biggest financial scandals in the country, and the New Phoenix Times reported at the time - McCain was the "guiltiest, most culpable, most reprehensible of the Keating Five", and nothing changed throughout his life, including being real buddies with Joe Biden, the head of the Biden Crime Family.   An empty Senate seat would have done a much better job at representing the people of Arizona, and the nation, than John McCain.  An empty seat can't vote! 

Remember it was Paul Ryan who said Ketanji Brown Jackson was a wonderful pick for the Supreme Court. Well, I followed that story from front to back, and that story was an ugly confirmation of the quality of her intelligence, her understanding of law, and her character.  

And Ryan is a judge of what constitutes character? Remarkable!

Since these people really have a unique perspective on what constitutes "character", perhaps it tells a lot more about their character than those they condemn.  Here's the reality.  These nitwits don't come out and say “I’m in it for me; get used to it, peasant”, and they don't have to.  Their actions show it. 

There's just no end to the lunacy of the left.  We have these misfit students out protesting instead of gong to class, studying, and preparing to productively taking their place in the world, so now they're demanding they get a free pass on their finals, and I approve.  Why?   It was Napoleon who said never interfere with an enemy when he's making a mistake, so, I encourage these "students" to continue down this path.  Guess what?  Their legal careers are already down the toilet.  Now they can become what they're best qualified for.  Career protestors.  Schadenfreude!

I also applaud the academics who encourage and enable them because their mistakes are compounding, and hopefully the end result will be a total destruction of America's academic culture as it's currently configured, full of anti America DEI dimwits and plagiarists who've turned academia into an abscessed canker sore on America's butt.

The end result?  There's going to be a demand to end their funding, absolutely the end of this idiot student loan forgiveness nonsense, and in the long run I hope to see a lot fewer universities in existence, and each and every one of them made into for profit institutions with no government funding of any kind, and the end of the Department of Education. After all, isn't 45 years of failure enough already?

It turns out illegal aliens think they have rights, ergo, they have demands.  "Demands" mind you, and they've given the City of Denver  a list of 13 'demands' for services .  Services for criminals, imagine that.  Remember, they're here illegally, ergo, they're criminals, they're not citizens of the United States and they have no rights.

 

And do you doubt this has been orchestrated by leftist lunatic lawyers, just like the Columbia Law School protestors?  Well, as P.T. Barnum said: "Never give a sucker an even break", and they know they're dealing with suckers. So.... I don't blame them, I blame these suckers falling for all this leftist claptrap. The people of Denver wanted to be a sanctuary city, so they chose this, and they deserve this! Schadenfreude!

However, I hope they keep it up demanding more, and more, and more because it won't be long before the rest of the nation says.....ENOUGH! And kicks the whole bunch out and forces them over the border into Mexico with the help of the American military declaring this is an invasion of the United States with Mexico being collaborators to the invasion.

When the klaxon sounds on an military instillation that means battle stations, and there's no excuse for not hearing it, or responding to it.   Yet, one of the things that's amazed me for years is how Jews, the smartest people in the world, can be so stupid, especially American Jews.  

Antisemitism is part of the philosophical core of leftism, and has been since the French Revolution. And that's been obvious to the most casual observer, and yet America's Jews refuse to see that and have been part of the backbone of the Democrat party.

Well, stupid has it's consequences, and we're seeing those consequences playing out on America's university campuses, and in the Biden administration.  They're so blatantly antisemitic every Jew in the world should be afraid!  Because if there is no America, there will be no one who will defend Jews or Israel.

And this next election may determine America's continued existence. America's Jews are at that proverbial fork in the road. Which way will they go?

I offer up Ackman the Barbarian as an example. After their attack on his wife he had a DEI epiphany, and you would think he had become enlightened, but nooooo, he still remains a Democrat giving a million dollars to Dem. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, to run against Biden. A politician from a state that's a hot bed of leftist contamination. 

If Ackman the Barbarian is an example, I'm not optimistic.

You know that little voice in your head that keeps you from saying the things you shouldn't say?  Yeah, I don't have that.

Reagan’s Spirit – On His Birthday

Grady Trent

Editor's Note:  Given the craven character and destructive behavior of so many of the nation's leaders today, I think this outline of who Reagan was is worth noting.   RK 

Today would be Ronald Reagan’s 112^th birthday. Reagan died at 93 in 2004. What we need – fittingly on his birthday – is his spirit. What was his spirit? Having worked in his White House, later kept up with the former president from afar, his spirit was a combination of goodwill and good cheer, faith in America and God, inevitable triumph of individual liberties over suppression, optimism over despondency, action over lethargy, and People’s will over government.

In practical terms, he was about staying engaged, talking straight, keeping government small, spending less, trusting your conscience, working together to advance age-old values – about getting it right on everything from national security and moral compass to humility in office and accountability.

Interestingly, he did not do any of this in an angry, shrill, dismissive, disparaging or personal way. He educated America – left, right, and middle – with stories they could all relate to, light humor. He modeled decency and the common touch that defined his entire life. He knew regular habits, respect for the Constitution, concern for your neighbor lifted everyone, politics aside........To Read More....

ALL RISE: Aaron Judge and Why It Matters

Aeon J. Skoble  – October 6, 2022 @ American Institute for Economic Research

In the 1927 baseball season, Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs, which was notable not only for being the most to that date, but the most by far. The three previous records he broke were his own, and the one before that was 16, so hitting 60 in a single season was incredible. That was more than some entire teams hit in a season. Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a season endured until 1961, when Roger Maris managed to hit 61. That was the record until October 4^th of 2022, when Aaron Judge hit his 62^nd home run. This is an impressive and inspiring story, for reasons I’ll elaborate.

But, readers who follow baseball will surely note, isn’t the previous paragraph glaringly inaccurate? “You have completely overlooked,” they’re thinking to themselves, “the fact that in 1998, both Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa hit more than 61: they hit 70 and 66 to be precise! Sosa actually had three such seasons, and McGwire had two. Then in 2001, Barry Bonds hit 73. So, surely, this author must have meant that Judge’s feat was to set a new American League record, as McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds were all National League players.”

I’m sure the record books will list Judge as the AL record holder, not the Major League record holder. But keep in mind, McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds were all hitting in the “Steroid Era,” when power hitters were known to be “juicing” with performance-enhancing drugs. By the time Judge came up, baseball was testing for such drugs. So Judge has the AL record, and arguably the clean-hitting major league record.

Baseball fans like to argue, perhaps even more than philosophers, so there will be plenty of opinions on both sides here. Some will argue that the Steroid-Era records don’t really count or shouldn’t count, as the PEDs distorted the game in the same way that subsidies distort the market.

But others will note that the game changes all the time, so we have to take records contextually.  Ruth, for example, hit his 60 in a time when the season consisted of 154 games. When Maris played, the baseball season was 162 games. Would Ruth have had more home runs if he’d played eight more games? We’ll never know. Also, in Ruth’s day, baseball was segregated, so we’ll never know whether he’d have had more or fewer homers if the Negro League pitchers had been facing him. But, we take these in stride and record Ruth’s 60 and Maris’s 61. Why, the argument goes, shouldn’t we also record Steroid-Era hitters’ home run records?

Interestingly, Judge himself has said that he takes the record to be 73. He is, by all reports, a classy and humble player, who takes team success to be more important than his personal stats. It’s a credit to his character that he feels that way. By contrast, Maris’ son has said that he thinks Steroid-Era records should not count, but was happy to see Judge break his father’s record, specifically because Judge plays clean.

The record books will say what they say, and baseball fans will have the argument for decades to come. Minimally, we know Judge has the American League record. In any event, this is a milestone worth noting, and one reason is that Judge plays clean, is a good sportsman and a good teammate, and by all accounts a man of good character. When someone who is by all reports a good person, and who also has exceptional talent, accomplishes something great, everyone ought to appreciate and celebrate it. While baseball “doesn’t matter” in one sense, it does matter as an allegory for excellence and achievement. Athletes aren’t literally saving lives when they compete, but they can illustrate virtues in a way that communicates to others pretty clearly. 

Celebrating excellence is always warranted, and the sort of accomplishment we see in Aaron Judge is an example that is public and commonly accessible. It shows us what the correct attitude should be towards great character and accomplishment in our own lives. And in a way, this tips the needle away from the Steroid-Era players, whose use of chemical performance enhancements can be seen as cutting corners, or seeking unfair advantage. This is a useful analogy to those whose businesses succeed because they have built a better mousetrap, versus those who prosper because they have leveraged political pull to secure unfair advantage in the market. The latter will get you on the Fortune 500, but does not warrant celebration by the rest of us, because that’s not “playing clean.” 

While we might have to say that Judge “merely” holds the American League record, it’s worth celebrating because of his character and fair play. Judge is an asterisk-free baseball hero whose accomplishments illustrate the connection between virtue and success in a way that can be instructive far outside sport. 

All rise, indeed.

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Aeon J. Skoble

Aeon J. Skoble is the Bruce and Patricia Bartlett Chair in Free Speech and Expression at Bridgewater State University. He is also Professor of Philosophy and co-coordinator of the program in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Skoble received his BA from the University of Pennsylvania, and his MA and PhD from Temple University.

He is the author of Deleting the State: An Argument about Government (Open Court, 2008) and The Essential Robert Nozick (Fraser Institute, 2020), the editor of Reading Rasmussen and Den Uyl: Critical Essays on Norms of Liberty (Lexington Books, 2008), and co-editor of Political Philosophy: Essential Selections (Prentice-Hall, 1999) and Reality, Reason, and Rights (Lexington Books, 2011).

Follow him on Twitter @AeonSkoble

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America in Crisis: When a Culture Lacks Character, What is it?

By Rich Kozlovich 

If the founding fathers could only see us now! The imposition of big government tyranny into American lives would have shocked and outraged them, especially John Adams the architect of the Constitution.  below are some articles I think outline many of these outrages.

What the Blue-State Left-Coasters Don't Understand about Culture - May 21, 2022 By Jeremy Egerer -

Yesterday, I met a man from Mumbai.  He happened to mention that he was new to Idaho, so I asked how new, and it turned out he'd been here for only a month and a half.  He spoke good English, and I learned he'd gone to an English-speaking school, which made his getting a job here in Idaho possible.

I asked him what he thought about Boise, and he said he loved it here better than Mumbai.  People don't care about you in a big city, he said.  Whether you live or die makes no difference to them.  But here in a little-big city like Boise, he said he could stand outside a store with a large purchase, and people would ask if he needed help.  He'd already done this the day before and been asked by eight people.  He'd never seen anything like it in his life.

His wife and children had the same impression and were generally impressed by how healthy the culture was here.  Not the same ugly bustle of a New York City or a Philadelphia, the facelessness of the crowds, the concern for you and yours and yours only, but a real humanity that sees a neighbor as a neighbor and asks him if he needs anything......

Big cities in blue counties are also known for people sleeping and defecating on the streets, for drugs and all kinds of crime, and for the racial divide being so bad that whole blocks get burned down when criminals get shot...............To Read More.....

Were there ‘right-wing’ riots when Tucker Carlson called for a colorblind meritocracy? D. Parker If we’re supposedly racist, then why aren’t we taking issue with Tucker Carlson advocating for a colorblind meritocracy and echoing the words of Martin Luther King? If we’re not doing that then leftists are liars....

A courageous archbishop finally takes on Nancy Pelosi -  May 21, 2022 By Andrea Widburg -  Given the clash between the politics she pushes and the Catholic values in which she wraps herself, this has been a long time coming. .......Nancy Pelosi has loudly and proudly boasted about for decades: Her absolute support for abortion and her staunch Catholicism. Of course, those two things are inconsistent because, even under the progressive Pope Francis, abortion remains anathema to the Church. With that in mind, it’s good news that, on Friday, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone had the courage to announce that, until Pelosi repudiates her support for abortion, she should not be admitted to Holy Communion in her home base of San Francisco nor should she present herself to receive the Eucharist........... 

 

Automobile ‘kill switch’ law to spy on and control Americans May 21, 2022 - Biden recently signed a law mandating that all new vehicles sold after 2026 must be equipped with electronic “kill switches” that could be used by government officials—or hackers—to seize control of one’s car without permission or oversight...........

 

New York – the state in which COVID restrictions will never die May 21, 2022 - After all that we Americans have been through because of the CCP Flu pandemic, it may seem that the worst of the COVID restrictions and mandates is finally over. Those who were fortunate enough to live in Red/Republican states during those evil times never had to deal with the full weight of a tyrannical governor’s boot on their necks. Sadly, for those of us who reside in Demo-Marxist enclaves such as New York, our so-called “freedom” is turning out to be an illusion. During the inglorious reign of King Cuomo, New Yorkers were subjected to some of the harshest restrictions and mandates in the USA. Cuomo’s successor, the equally loathsome Kathy Hochul, has proven to be no bargain, as she’s shown herself to be even more enthusiastic about imposing whatever restrictions she can, the Constitution be damned............

 

Extremist tactics – the left’s predictable playbook May 21, 2022 -  Elon Musk was 100% correct when he characterized the tactics used against him as a "standard (despicable) playbook." .........He’s 100% right, the left does have a tried and true playbook when it comes to going after their opposition.  In my new book, The Democratic Party Playbook, I identified the most common nefarious approaches that the Left utilizes when going after their opposition. The public needs to know how to spot them when they are being employed and see them for what they are. The radical Progressives employ these without remorse or care for the damage they inflict.  Here’s the short version: .........

 

Maybe the Secretary should talk to the people in the Interior - May 21, 2022 By Silvio Canto, Jr. - The Biden cabinet is made up of very interesting people. Let's check out Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland, regarding her visit to the U.S. Senate.  First, she shows no emotion about rising gasoline prices.  One would think that she would have prepared for such an obvious question.  In other words, I would have expected her to say 1,000 times that she feels the pain at the pump.  No, she responded with aloof answers about a "balanced approach" whatever that means.  I would think that most Americans would love an approach that tilts a bit in their direction, i.e. a drop in gas prices.  Second, she was confused when asked about the environmental impact of drilling there rather than here:

“Is it more environmentally friendly to develop and produce oil and gas” in the U.S. or in foreign countries, like Venezuela?  Biden Interior Secretary: “I’m not an economist”

 Thank God that she was not asked to define "woman.".......  

Yet another worm is turning, this time in the skateboarding world, By Andrea Widburg - A man who calls himself “Lillian Gallagher” was allowed to compete as a woman in the Red Bull Cornerstone Contest, which is a skateboarding contest with big cash prizes. When he won, he got the top step on the podium and $5,000. The woman who actually won the contest was told she came in second and received only $2,750. Outraged by the unfairness of being forced to compete against a mentally ill cheater, she protested the decision to let a man compete, only to be stonewalled. So now, bravely, she’s speaking out.........  

At Least 135 Educators Charged with Child Sex Crimes in 2022 Alone - By Eric Lendrum - In less than five months, at least 135 teachers, teachers’ aides, and other school employees across the country have been arrested and charged with various child sex crimes.  As reported by Fox News, the total of 135 does not account for arrests that haven’t been publicized, meaning the final total for the year 2022 thus far may be even higher. The 135 arrests have taken place across 41 states between January 1st and May 13th, averaging to about one arrest per day. Most of the suspects are men. At least 102 of the charges involved, 76 percent overall, involved crimes against students. Of the 135 suspects, 117 were teachers, 11 were aides, and 7 were substitute teachers..........

Australian Transgender Surfer Crushes the Competition in Open Women’s Divisions - By Debra Heine - A transgender surfer in Western Australia has become the first person in history to win both the men’s and women’s divisions of the sport.  This month, 43-year-old Sasha Jane Lowerson crushed the competition in the Open Women’s and Open Logger divisions at the West Coast Suspensions Longboard and Logger State Championships, as well as a number of state titles............

How many legs does a dog have? May 21, 2022 - We are seeing increasing episodes of delusional people, some of whom are in powerful positions, calling good evil and calling evil good.  George W. Julian was a Free-Soil Party congressman during Abraham Lincoln’s terms as president. According to Julian, during a discussion about issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln posed a particular riddle on how many legs a dog has (Lincoln actually said “calf,” but it has come down to us as “dog”):

Abraham Lincoln faced with some thorny issue that could be settled by a twist of language, or a slight abuse of power, asks his questioner how many legs would a dog have, if we called the dog’s tail, a leg. “Five,” the questioner responds confident in his mathematical ability to do simple addition.

“No,” Lincoln says. “Calling a dog’s tail a leg, doesn’t make it a leg.”

The particulars of this story apply to today’s society and the world in which we live.  Things and persons are what they are.  A tree is a tree.  You can call it a bush as often as you wish, but it is still a tree.  A fact is a fact.  You can wish it were something else, but it is still a fact.  Where am I going with this, you might ask?  Let me answer that for you.  Today, we are witnessing all too many delusional people who seem to think that if you call a man a woman, that makes him  a woman (or vice versa).  That just is not true.  I will agree that a person of either sex can dress and look like the opposite sex if they wish, but that person is simply a transvestite, since there is no way any individual can alter the sex chromosomes with which he is born................

Ronald Reagan and the Blind Children: A Story of Character

April 10, 2022  By George P. Harbison @ American Thinker

Editor's Note:  I don't have permission to publish this so if the author of American Thinker object I will merely link it.  However, some stories need to be told, and I think this is one of them.  RK

One of the best examples I know of a story about the importance of character is one involving our 40th president, Ronald Wilson Reagan. It is a compelling and inspiring story.

In the midst of the 1976 Republican presidential primary campaign, Reagan was preparing to make a campaign speech in the parking lot of a shopping mall in North Carolina. Just before the speech was about to begin, a woman approached Reagan’s assistant press secretary, Dana Rohrabacher, and asked him if it would be possible for Governor Reagan to spend a few minutes with a group of blind children she had escorted to the event. Rohrabacher conveyed the request to Mike Deaver, Reagan’s campaign chief of staff.

Reagan addresses the 1976 GOP convention (YouTube screengrab)

Reagan overheard the exchange between his two staff members and agreed to meet the children, but only if the press contingent was not present when the meeting took place.   Reagan did not want to be accused of staging a potentially poignant event for political gain, but he really wanted to meet the children. Rohrabacher said later, “Can you imagine that? He was in the middle of a presidential campaign, and the press would have gone wild for a photo of him with a group of blind kids. But Reagan wanted this to be between him and the kids.”

Deaver concocted a plan in which he would escort Reagan in the direction of the campaign bus after the speech concluded. This action, it was hoped, would lead the press corps to believe that the candidate was leaving for the next campaign stop and thus get them to board their vehicles and depart. Reagan would then circle back and meet the children in the privacy of the area behind the podium.

The plan worked.

Rohrabacher described what happened next. "The press guys all went back to their buses, and I brought the lady with the blind kids back behind the podium. There were six or seven kids, real sweet little kids about eight or nine or ten years old. Since there was a lot of background noise — Reagan bent down, close to the kids, to talk to them. But somehow I could see him thinking that that wasn't enough. So after the kids had asked him a couple of questions, he said, 'Well, now I have a question for you. Would you like to touch my face so you can get a better understanding of how I look?' The kids all smiled and said yes, so Reagan just leaned over into them, and one by one these little kids began moving their fingers over his face to see what he looked like.

"The only picture of that scene is the picture in my mind," Rohrabacher said. "But I can still see those kids, touching Ronald Reagan's face and smiling these really big smiles."

Readers may have difficulty reconciling this tender scene with visions of Reagan, the fierce cold warrior who stared down tyrants and worked fervently and relentlessly to defeat an evil empire and its hideous ideology. Actually, the apparent dichotomy is not hard to reconcile at all.

Ronald Reagan, perhaps more than any president since the early days of our republic, understood the fundamental right of (and basic human need for) freedom. To Reagan, freedom was the oxygen upon which the fire of life depended. Hand-in-hand with this understanding was his clear vision and appreciation of fundamental human rights and needs. Reagan’s character and innate moral compass directed him to work tirelessly to break down all barriers to basic human rights and freedoms wherever he found them.

To the blind children, this meant offering up his face to their touch so that they could compensate for their physical disability and thus “see” him and get to know him.

To America, this meant enacting legislation as president to reduce high individual income tax rates and rein in stifling business regulation in order to re-ignite the moribund U.S. economy. By any measure Reagan’s economic policies, all based on his desire to enhance basic individual economic freedoms, worked spectacularly well in growing the economy, bringing down inflation, and lowering unemployment, thus improving the economic well-being of a broad cross-section of the American populace.

To the rest of the world, this meant leading the fight against communism, an ideology that crushed the human spirit and laid waste to the individual freedoms, aspirations, and dreams of billions of people around the globe.

Unlike the circumstances of the blind children, the suffering and misery brought about by communism were entirely the result of human design and intention. This infuriated Ronald Reagan to his core. There was genuine, palpable anger in his voice when he famously beseeched Mikhail Gorbachev (in perhaps the greatest spoken words of the twentieth century) to “tear down this wall!” while standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on June 12, 1987.

In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down, followed in late 1991 by the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Burdened already by its stark incompatibility with human nature, Soviet communism’s ultimate demise was hastened by the courageous actions and principled leadership of Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa, and Pope John Paul II. The free world rejoiced as a billion human beings were freed from the shackles of a morally repugnant and evil ideology.

In 2011, in honor of his 100th birthday, statues of Ronald Reagan were unveiled in Hungary, Poland, and Georgia, and a street was named after him in the Czech Republic. The people of these former Soviet-controlled nations fully recognize, understand, and appreciate the important and transformative nature of Reagan’s principled character, his love of freedom, and his steadfast opposition to communism.

On June 5, 2004, Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th president of the United States, ended his long goodbye when he succumbed to the ravages of Alzheimer's disease. His inspiring, remarkable journey through life profoundly impacted millions of people throughout the second half of the 20th century, from seven blind children in a North Carolina parking lot in 1976 to millions of newly-freed Eastern Europeans in 1991.

Indeed, and beyond any doubt, Ronald Reagan proved that character and freedom are intractably intertwined.

Author’s Note: Peter Robinson (the Reagan speechwriter who wrote the famous “Tear down this wall!” speech) wrote about Reagan’s meeting with the blind children in his book How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life. The quotes above attributed to Dana Rohrabacher were taken from this book.

 

Utah football coach suspends entire team to build character

Fox News

A Utah high school football coach, fed up with his players' off-the-field behavior, suspended all 80 members of the team and made them help out in the community instead of practice. Matt Labrum, football coach at Union High School, in Roosevelt, said problems ranging from cutting class to cyberbullying prompted his extreme response, according to the Deseret News . “We felt like everything was going in a direction that we didn’t want our young men going.”

Labrum, who attended the school and has been its coach for two years, told the paper. "We felt like we needed to make a stand." After Friday night's loss to Judge Memorial Catholic High School, Labrum gathered the team and told players he was not happy with some of the players' actions. He told them all to turn in their jerseys and equipment, saying they had to earn the privilege to play again….. “I do support it," Rook said. "These boys are not going to be hurt by this. It’s a good life lesson. … It’s not a punishment. I see it as an opportunity to do some good in the community.” ...To Read More....