Category: US Politics

Thanksgiving Day parades have largely been canceled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but balloons and floats are symbolically celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year.

American Thanksgiving is modeled on a three-day harvest feast shared by Pilgrims, who had landed in the New World in 1620, and the Wampanoag, a tribe of American Indians, in November 1621.  Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce did not seem to be on the menu, but rather deer and seafood.  Turkey became the meal of choice in the mid-1850s, especially after President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863.  It has been celebrated and eaten since then, except when President F.D. Roosevelt changed the date for a short time, on the fourth Thursday of November, a day on which Americans eat more than on any other day of the year.

Thanksgiving is therefore linked historically with the original Pilgrims, seeking religious freedom in the New World, and is connected with the origin of American society.  There are perhaps only ten million Americans who today can trace their ancestry back to them.  They number Humphrey Bogart and Presidents John Adams and James Garfield.  More than half of the original settlers died during the first winter as a result of poor nutrition and housing.  The rest were helped by Squanto, an English-speaking Indian, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe, who taught them to plant corn and where to fish and hunt beaver.  He was the mediator between the Pilgrims and the Indians and therefore responsible for the harvest festival.

Times have changed since the Pilgrims got a shock when they landed on Plymouth Rock.  So have the meaning and significance of that landing four hundred years ago and its consequences for the birth of the American nation.  On November 21, 1620, the Mayflower, a three-masted ship that had sailed from England on September 16, 1620, after a voyage of 65 days, arrived at Cape Cod, Provincetown Harbor.  It contained 102 passengers and 30 crewmen.  Of the 50 men on board, 41 were “Separatists,” true Pilgrims, the group who wanted to leave the Established Church and engage in secret worship, people who had left England to live in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic, a wealthy maritime power, and a more religiously diverse and tolerant place than England.  In 1608, this group, in revolt against the Established Church, decided to go to Virginia and set up their own colony.  The rest of passengers on the Mayflower were “Strangers,” who were selected by the Merchant Adventurers, a joint stock company of financial backers for colonial expeditions who funded the Mayflower.  The passengers included indentured workers but no slaves.

The Mayflower had intended to lay anchor in north Virginia, since the Pilgrims had signed a contract with the Virginia Company, a trading company to colonize parts of the east coast of the New World.  They had intended to settle on land near the Hudson river in north Virginia.  The Pilgrims did not have an official patent to settle in New England, and therefore, on November 21, 1620, while on board the ship, they signed before landing in and inhabiting Patuxet, Plymouth what is known as the Mayflower Compact.  The original document has been lost, but copies of notes have survived with information of the text and the individuals who signed, one of whom is sometimes remembered today: Myles Standish, a military officer hired by the Pilgrims as their military leader and a man who later enforced the new laws and protected the colonists.

The Mayflower Compact is a short document, signed by 41 passengers, written by “loyal subjects of our great sovereign Lord King James.”  They had undertaken to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia for “the glory of god, the advancements of the Christian faith, and the honor of king and country.”  What is crucially important is that they agreed on a Covenant, a civic body politic, which would enact, constitute, and frame just and equal laws, ordinances, and offices, for the general good of the colony.  To this they promised all due submission and obedience.

The brief compact can be seen as a mini-constitution, a statement of unity, the first governing document of the New World, a model of self-government, a covenant derived from the consent of the governed.  The self-government lasted 70 years until 1691, when the Plymouth colony became part of Massachusetts Bay colony.  More settlers arrived, thereby leading to an early form of representative government, a General Court, a holdover from the Bay Colony, to which each town elected representatives to attend.

The Mayflower Compact was a covenant, a religious concept that echoes politically with its emphasis on unity, consent of the people, and just and equal laws.  It was significant that the Pilgrims, not British officials in London, chose their own governor, John Carver.

John Quincy Adams declared the agreement the original American social compact.  As a result of current protests against racism and colonialism, not everyone accepts this view.  The argument is made by some who see the Compact as systematic of colonialism, not of liberty.  The most extreme challenge has been, in the New York Times, the formulation of the 1619 Project, the assertion that 1619 was the true birth year of the American nation, not 1776, the normally accepted year.  The reason given is the fact that in August 1619, a ship carrying 20 or more slaves from the area now Angola was captured by pirates.  It landed at Point Comfort in Virginia, where the pirates sold the slaves to Jamestown colonists.  Critics have argued that this was the beginning of slavery in America and that these slaves can be considered “founding fathers” since they see slavery as the basis of American economic growth.  In this view, slavery and its consequences are put in the center of the American story.

This 1619 Project is essentially political propaganda, not history.  This is not to disparage the pain of black experience or deny the reality of slavery and segregation, but to argue as the Project does that the 1619 incident is more important for America than 1776 or 1787 suggests a lack of moral compass.  It should not deprive anyone of his turkey.

Thanksgiving Day parades have largely been canceled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but balloons and floats are symbolically celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year.

American Thanksgiving is modeled on a three-day harvest feast shared by Pilgrims, who had landed in the New World in 1620, and the Wampanoag, a tribe of American Indians, in November 1621.  Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce did not seem to be on the menu, but rather deer and seafood.  Turkey became the meal of choice in the mid-1850s, especially after President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863.  It has been celebrated and eaten since then, except when President F.D. Roosevelt changed the date for a short time, on the fourth Thursday of November, a day on which Americans eat more than on any other day of the year.

Thanksgiving is therefore linked historically with the original Pilgrims, seeking religious freedom in the New World, and is connected with the origin of American society.  There are perhaps only ten million Americans who today can trace their ancestry back to them.  They number Humphrey Bogart and Presidents John Adams and James Garfield.  More than half of the original settlers died during the first winter as a result of poor nutrition and housing.  The rest were helped by Squanto, an English-speaking Indian, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe, who taught them to plant corn and where to fish and hunt beaver.  He was the mediator between the Pilgrims and the Indians and therefore responsible for the harvest festival.

Times have changed since the Pilgrims got a shock when they landed on Plymouth Rock.  So have the meaning and significance of that landing four hundred years ago and its consequences for the birth of the American nation.  On November 21, 1620, the Mayflower, a three-masted ship that had sailed from England on September 16, 1620, after a voyage of 65 days, arrived at Cape Cod, Provincetown Harbor.  It contained 102 passengers and 30 crewmen.  Of the 50 men on board, 41 were “Separatists,” true Pilgrims, the group who wanted to leave the Established Church and engage in secret worship, people who had left England to live in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic, a wealthy maritime power, and a more religiously diverse and tolerant place than England.  In 1608, this group, in revolt against the Established Church, decided to go to Virginia and set up their own colony.  The rest of passengers on the Mayflower were “Strangers,” who were selected by the Merchant Adventurers, a joint stock company of financial backers for colonial expeditions who funded the Mayflower.  The passengers included indentured workers but no slaves.

The Mayflower had intended to lay anchor in north Virginia, since the Pilgrims had signed a contract with the Virginia Company, a trading company to colonize parts of the east coast of the New World.  They had intended to settle on land near the Hudson river in north Virginia.  The Pilgrims did not have an official patent to settle in New England, and therefore, on November 21, 1620, while on board the ship, they signed before landing in and inhabiting Patuxet, Plymouth what is known as the Mayflower Compact.  The original document has been lost, but copies of notes have survived with information of the text and the individuals who signed, one of whom is sometimes remembered today: Myles Standish, a military officer hired by the Pilgrims as their military leader and a man who later enforced the new laws and protected the colonists.

The Mayflower Compact is a short document, signed by 41 passengers, written by “loyal subjects of our great sovereign Lord King James.”  They had undertaken to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia for “the glory of god, the advancements of the Christian faith, and the honor of king and country.”  What is crucially important is that they agreed on a Covenant, a civic body politic, which would enact, constitute, and frame just and equal laws, ordinances, and offices, for the general good of the colony.  To this they promised all due submission and obedience.

The brief compact can be seen as a mini-constitution, a statement of unity, the first governing document of the New World, a model of self-government, a covenant derived from the consent of the governed.  The self-government lasted 70 years until 1691, when the Plymouth colony became part of Massachusetts Bay colony.  More settlers arrived, thereby leading to an early form of representative government, a General Court, a holdover from the Bay Colony, to which each town elected representatives to attend.

The Mayflower Compact was a covenant, a religious concept that echoes politically with its emphasis on unity, consent of the people, and just and equal laws.  It was significant that the Pilgrims, not British officials in London, chose their own governor, John Carver.

John Quincy Adams declared the agreement the original American social compact.  As a result of current protests against racism and colonialism, not everyone accepts this view.  The argument is made by some who see the Compact as systematic of colonialism, not of liberty.  The most extreme challenge has been, in the New York Times, the formulation of the 1619 Project, the assertion that 1619 was the true birth year of the American nation, not 1776, the normally accepted year.  The reason given is the fact that in August 1619, a ship carrying 20 or more slaves from the area now Angola was captured by pirates.  It landed at Point Comfort in Virginia, where the pirates sold the slaves to Jamestown colonists.  Critics have argued that this was the beginning of slavery in America and that these slaves can be considered “founding fathers” since they see slavery as the basis of American economic growth.  In this view, slavery and its consequences are put in the center of the American story.

This 1619 Project is essentially political propaganda, not history.  This is not to disparage the pain of black experience or deny the reality of slavery and segregation, but to argue as the Project does that the 1619 incident is more important for America than 1776 or 1787 suggests a lack of moral compass.  It should not deprive anyone of his turkey.

Kate Brown, the Governor of Oregon, was rather ambivalent in her approach to violence during the time Portland was torched by radical mobs.  In fact, she thanked “Oregonians for expressing their free speech rights largely through joyful celebrations…”

But Gov. Brown apparently did some soul searching since the election.  She found a joyful celebration about to be held by unquestionable enemies of the people.  It turns out actual domestic terrorists are Oregonians who wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving.  It’s extremists who wished to dine on turkey and all the trimmings who are dangerous, as they are potential super-spreaders of disease and destruction.  Therefore, it’s Thanksgiving celebrations that need to be tightly regulated. It’s Thanksgiving celebrants who need to be fined and sent to jail if they transgress the regulations the governor has established by executive order.

Among those regulations?

Private social events are to be limited to two households or six individuals in a closed group (including Thanksgiving); masks are to be worn in your own home on Thanksgiving, only removing them when eating; and you are not to leave your home during the two-week shutdown. Consequences include a fine of $1,250 and possible jail time. Neighbors should report non-compliance.

It is hard to avoid the suspicion the Governor wants the bulk of citizens locked within their domiciles while radicals once again roam free to wreak havoc.

The tight regulations during the holidays do make one think about the examples of the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China.  

We might recall that citizens of the Soviet Union were not permitted to celebrate Christmas until 1991, when the USSR collapsed.  As Emily Tamkin noted in an essay published in Foreign Policy, czarist Russia, which was widely Christianized, celebrated Christmas.  But the Russian Revolution ushered in the communists, who were anti-Christian secularists. She wrote:

“Initially, the Soviets tried to replace Christmas with a more appropriate komsomol (youth communist league) related holiday, but, shockingly, this did not take. And by 1928 they had banned Christmas entirely, and Dec. 25 was a normal working day.”

New Year’s Day was promoted as the masses’ favored holiday. It remains so even today, almost thirty years later. Such is the power of mental conditioning over decades.

Meanwhile, as Yuhan Zu noted in his 2018 article for NPR, in the Peoples Republic of China, some leaders of China’s cities have been cracking down on Christmas celebrations, including the city of Langfang, a city of some four million southeast of Beijing:

“According to a notice issued by local officials, government employees must report public Christmas displays and celebrations to their higher-ups. Vendors selling holiday-related items are to be ‘cleared out…’ Christmas was banned in the name of ‘maintaining stability’ and avoiding social unrest, which is of great importance to Chinese government. That could mean…extreme surveillance measures.” (Italics mine.)

If readers are finding a certain commonality among the former apparatchiks of the USSR, the communist overlords of CCP and the killers of Thanksgiving and Christmas cheer in America, perhaps it is because they see killjoys like Oregon’s and California’s governors just may be under the influence of similar socialist/communist ideologies.  All variants of such ideologies specialize in suffocating joy.

However, holiday cheer is not the only thing in the sights of the leftists in America. Yes, the lockdowns advocated by Democrat state governors and mayors are designed to kill the great joy provided by two holidays beloved by nearly all Americans.

Perhaps less noted is the fact that Main Street, USA is jeopardized by the shutdowns during the holiday season. Main Street is already full of shuttered small businesses that have not survived because of the lockdowns that began in March. Total lockdowns followed by reduced capacities have either finished off mom and pop boutiques, hair salons, restaurants, pubs, fitness centers and other small entities; or they have nearly suffocated them to death. 

Those businesses that have hung on rely on the Christmas season to see them through the year.  Even in good times, most small businesses only turn a profit during the holiday season. Many would be completely finished off if there is a lockdown from Thanksgiving until after New Year’s. The initial push to squash the middle class by literally putting it out of business and starving it of funds did not quite succeed. New lockdowns certainly seem designed to snuff out the nascent resurrection of mom and pop operations — to finish off the kulak middle classes, most of whom voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Of course, big corporations will remain unaffected.

Also worthy of note: By and large, the church did not stand up to protect its right to celebrate Easter. We can charitably assume many clergy were operating under the illusion that the Covid-19 crisis would pass and that things would soon return to normal. The initial threat may have been seen as exceedingly ominous.  It seemed understandable that services were temporarily suspended for a few weeks.

But now? 

Surely now church leaders can see Covid-19 regulations and directives are a mask for dictatorial measures.  If they don’t, they may be either willfully blind or allied with the Left. One thing is clear: Tyrannical governors and mayors are using the fear of the virus to make sure the bulk of the populace are paralyzed from gathering together in any way, including gathering to worship.

Unfortunately, the church has long been subject to secularist ideological infiltration.  But now, literally muted by the orders of state and city governors bent on suppressing freedom of religion, it may be assumed that once again, there won’t be much opposition when and if Christmas is cancelled.  Instead, might the State expect full cooperation with all its directives?

It appears it will remain for the Christian underground and other resistors to stand up and be counted.  It will be the task of Christians to understand the Left is and always has been committed to the death of God and of joy. Certainly, those who believe the celebration of the incarnation of Christ should not be impeded by the State must stand up. 

It also will be up to Christians to think of their fellow human beings, including those who do not share their belief in the coming of Jesus Christ. They must think of their neighbors — the butchers, the bakers and the candlestick makers who simply want to succeed and live quietly.

Resist the left’s attempt to condition Americans to accept a joyless life without holidays except those permitted by and celebrating the god of the State, who tells Christians and others who to worship.  Resist those who issue orders about when and where to celebrate, how and when to hold our religious ceremonies, and even when, how and what to chew and swallow.

Believers in Christmas have reason to celebrate!  So…celebrate!

Happy Thanksgiving and a very merry Christmas to all.

Photto credit: Tony Webster  CC BY-SA 2.0

Fay Voshell received a M.Div. from Princeton theological Seminary, which awarded her the prize for excellence in systematic theology.  Her thoughts have appeared in many online magazines, including American Thinker.  She has contributed to AT for almost a decade. She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com

Kate Brown, the Governor of Oregon, was rather ambivalent in her approach to violence during the time Portland was torched by radical mobs.  In fact, she thanked “Oregonians for expressing their free speech rights largely through joyful celebrations…”

But Gov. Brown apparently did some soul searching since the election.  She found a joyful celebration about to be held by unquestionable enemies of the people.  It turns out actual domestic terrorists are Oregonians who wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving.  It’s extremists who wished to dine on turkey and all the trimmings who are dangerous, as they are potential super-spreaders of disease and destruction.  Therefore, it’s Thanksgiving celebrations that need to be tightly regulated. It’s Thanksgiving celebrants who need to be fined and sent to jail if they transgress the regulations the governor has established by executive order.

Among those regulations?

Private social events are to be limited to two households or six individuals in a closed group (including Thanksgiving); masks are to be worn in your own home on Thanksgiving, only removing them when eating; and you are not to leave your home during the two-week shutdown. Consequences include a fine of $1,250 and possible jail time. Neighbors should report non-compliance.

It is hard to avoid the suspicion the Governor wants the bulk of citizens locked within their domiciles while radicals once again roam free to wreak havoc.

The tight regulations during the holidays do make one think about the examples of the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China.  

We might recall that citizens of the Soviet Union were not permitted to celebrate Christmas until 1991, when the USSR collapsed.  As Emily Tamkin noted in an essay published in Foreign Policy, czarist Russia, which was widely Christianized, celebrated Christmas.  But the Russian Revolution ushered in the communists, who were anti-Christian secularists. She wrote:

“Initially, the Soviets tried to replace Christmas with a more appropriate komsomol (youth communist league) related holiday, but, shockingly, this did not take. And by 1928 they had banned Christmas entirely, and Dec. 25 was a normal working day.”

New Year’s Day was promoted as the masses’ favored holiday. It remains so even today, almost thirty years later. Such is the power of mental conditioning over decades.

Meanwhile, as Yuhan Zu noted in his 2018 article for NPR, in the Peoples Republic of China, some leaders of China’s cities have been cracking down on Christmas celebrations, including the city of Langfang, a city of some four million southeast of Beijing:

“According to a notice issued by local officials, government employees must report public Christmas displays and celebrations to their higher-ups. Vendors selling holiday-related items are to be ‘cleared out…’ Christmas was banned in the name of ‘maintaining stability’ and avoiding social unrest, which is of great importance to Chinese government. That could mean…extreme surveillance measures.” (Italics mine.)

If readers are finding a certain commonality among the former apparatchiks of the USSR, the communist overlords of CCP and the killers of Thanksgiving and Christmas cheer in America, perhaps it is because they see killjoys like Oregon’s and California’s governors just may be under the influence of similar socialist/communist ideologies.  All variants of such ideologies specialize in suffocating joy.

However, holiday cheer is not the only thing in the sights of the leftists in America. Yes, the lockdowns advocated by Democrat state governors and mayors are designed to kill the great joy provided by two holidays beloved by nearly all Americans.

Perhaps less noted is the fact that Main Street, USA is jeopardized by the shutdowns during the holiday season. Main Street is already full of shuttered small businesses that have not survived because of the lockdowns that began in March. Total lockdowns followed by reduced capacities have either finished off mom and pop boutiques, hair salons, restaurants, pubs, fitness centers and other small entities; or they have nearly suffocated them to death. 

Those businesses that have hung on rely on the Christmas season to see them through the year.  Even in good times, most small businesses only turn a profit during the holiday season. Many would be completely finished off if there is a lockdown from Thanksgiving until after New Year’s. The initial push to squash the middle class by literally putting it out of business and starving it of funds did not quite succeed. New lockdowns certainly seem designed to snuff out the nascent resurrection of mom and pop operations — to finish off the kulak middle classes, most of whom voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Of course, big corporations will remain unaffected.

Also worthy of note: By and large, the church did not stand up to protect its right to celebrate Easter. We can charitably assume many clergy were operating under the illusion that the Covid-19 crisis would pass and that things would soon return to normal. The initial threat may have been seen as exceedingly ominous.  It seemed understandable that services were temporarily suspended for a few weeks.

But now? 

Surely now church leaders can see Covid-19 regulations and directives are a mask for dictatorial measures.  If they don’t, they may be either willfully blind or allied with the Left. One thing is clear: Tyrannical governors and mayors are using the fear of the virus to make sure the bulk of the populace are paralyzed from gathering together in any way, including gathering to worship.

Unfortunately, the church has long been subject to secularist ideological infiltration.  But now, literally muted by the orders of state and city governors bent on suppressing freedom of religion, it may be assumed that once again, there won’t be much opposition when and if Christmas is cancelled.  Instead, might the State expect full cooperation with all its directives?

It appears it will remain for the Christian underground and other resistors to stand up and be counted.  It will be the task of Christians to understand the Left is and always has been committed to the death of God and of joy. Certainly, those who believe the celebration of the incarnation of Christ should not be impeded by the State must stand up. 

It also will be up to Christians to think of their fellow human beings, including those who do not share their belief in the coming of Jesus Christ. They must think of their neighbors — the butchers, the bakers and the candlestick makers who simply want to succeed and live quietly.

Resist the left’s attempt to condition Americans to accept a joyless life without holidays except those permitted by and celebrating the god of the State, who tells Christians and others who to worship.  Resist those who issue orders about when and where to celebrate, how and when to hold our religious ceremonies, and even when, how and what to chew and swallow.

Believers in Christmas have reason to celebrate!  So…celebrate!

Happy Thanksgiving and a very merry Christmas to all.

Photto credit: Tony Webster  CC BY-SA 2.0

Fay Voshell received a M.Div. from Princeton theological Seminary, which awarded her the prize for excellence in systematic theology.  Her thoughts have appeared in many online magazines, including American Thinker.  She has contributed to AT for almost a decade. She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com

It’s Thanksgiving and time for “the wokies” to bring up white supremacy along with more about “the stolen land” theories.  It’s also time to read a good article about what happened in Massachusetts many years ago.  I found this one by Tristan Justice really good and would recommend it a lot:   

All we know about the first Thanksgiving extends to a man named Edward Winslow, an eyewitness who devoted a single paragraph to the event describing Massasoit showing up with 90 men who went out and killed five deer to cook with what the English were preparing. The two groups then feasted for three days.

In short, the Pilgrims took a moment to celebrate abundance after nearly a year of pandemic grief following the death of half their settlement alongside their native neighbors who had also suffered recent harrowing losses. Sound familiar?

Yes, it sounds familiar.  Our family didn’t suffer like the Pilgrims or survive a long winter but it was not easy for my dad with two jobs, my mom counting every dollar and making ends meet somehow.  How did they keep so many balls in the air?

We used to have a lot of conversations about Thanksgiving in those early days.  It was a completely new holiday for us.  I learned the details watching turkey posters in school and hearing kids talk about Pilgrims.

My father once said something really good, and it gets better age.  He reminded me that the Pilgrims said thanks to God for surviving a rough start.  That’s all you have to remember about this holiday he would repeat every time the topic came up.  Everything else, from eating turkey to whether it happened in winter or spring, is just a detail.  

That’s right. Thanksgiving is about giving thanks and counting your blessings.  Everything else is fun but inconsequential.

So enjoy your Thanksgiving Day and give thanks for all you have.  In our case, a new grandson who turned six months this week and a 91-year-old mom who has not lost a step after all these years.  And we live in the U.S. where we can be free in so many ways.

P.S.  You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

Image: Pixnio

It’s Thanksgiving and time for “the wokies” to bring up white supremacy along with more about “the stolen land” theories.  It’s also time to read a good article about what happened in Massachusetts many years ago.  I found this one by Tristan Justice really good and would recommend it a lot:   

All we know about the first Thanksgiving extends to a man named Edward Winslow, an eyewitness who devoted a single paragraph to the event describing Massasoit showing up with 90 men who went out and killed five deer to cook with what the English were preparing. The two groups then feasted for three days.

In short, the Pilgrims took a moment to celebrate abundance after nearly a year of pandemic grief following the death of half their settlement alongside their native neighbors who had also suffered recent harrowing losses. Sound familiar?

Yes, it sounds familiar.  Our family didn’t suffer like the Pilgrims or survive a long winter but it was not easy for my dad with two jobs, my mom counting every dollar and making ends meet somehow.  How did they keep so many balls in the air?

We used to have a lot of conversations about Thanksgiving in those early days.  It was a completely new holiday for us.  I learned the details watching turkey posters in school and hearing kids talk about Pilgrims.

My father once said something really good, and it gets better age.  He reminded me that the Pilgrims said thanks to God for surviving a rough start.  That’s all you have to remember about this holiday he would repeat every time the topic came up.  Everything else, from eating turkey to whether it happened in winter or spring, is just a detail.  

That’s right. Thanksgiving is about giving thanks and counting your blessings.  Everything else is fun but inconsequential.

So enjoy your Thanksgiving Day and give thanks for all you have.  In our case, a new grandson who turned six months this week and a 91-year-old mom who has not lost a step after all these years.  And we live in the U.S. where we can be free in so many ways.

P.S.  You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

Image: Pixnio

There’s a growing body of detailed information explaining both the traditional election fraud and the computer vote theft that threw this election to Biden. Indeed, in the past weeks, our American Thinker authors have added greatly to that body of work. Today, though, there was an explosion of information – including Rudy Giuliani’s stunning statements before the Pennsylvania legislature – so I wanted to put a road map together for you in a single post.

Fasten your seatbelts and hold onto your hats, because this is going to be a wild ride of amazing, horrifying, and fascinating information about the greatest election heist in American history.

1. While speaking before the Pennsylvania legislature, Rudy Giuliani introduced a stunning fact: Pennsylvania sent out 1,823,148 absentee or mail-in ballots. It logged that voters returned approximately 1.4 million of those mail-in ballots. Fair enough. Where things get hinky is that Pennsylvania counted 2.5 million mail-in ballots following the election. Giuliani also referenced mail-in ballots that were returned before they were mailed, the day they were mailed, or the day after they were mailed:

2. One witness whom Giuliani questioned testified about the normal appearance of real-time vote-tallying graphs, even if one candidate is far ahead of the other. No matter what, there’s always a smooth curve rising up on the graph. When there’s a huge spike, it signals fraud. The witness described almost 604,000 votes arriving at once as a huge bolus for Biden, with slightly over 3,200 votes for Trump.

3. Gregory Strenstrom testified before the Pennsylvania legislature that USB drives with data were missing, that people were walking around with bags of USBs that they plugged into voting machines, that the chain of custody for drives and ballots was broken, that unopened mail-in ballots and 47 USB cards vanished, and that various other documents and records were destroyed.

As a reminder, it’s illegal to destroy voting records. Moreover, the doctrine of spoliation holds that when people destroy records they’re required to maintain, the law will presume the records were adverse to them.

4. “Anomalies in Vote Counts and Their Effects on Election 2020.” We’ve been hearing since November 4, about those bizarre vote spikes for Biden, all of which occurred in the wee hours of the morning. If you mention them to a Biden supporter, you’ll find them dismissed. You’ll be told that it was normal for Biden to receive votes in the hundreds of thousands, all at once, because he was the king of mail-in ballots.

At the link, you can see a summary of all of those weird spikes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia, none of which can be explained away simply by saying “mail-in ballots.” There’s math, but it’s accessible and will help you understand what everyone is talking about.

5. “2020 Election: Could Trump’s claims have merit?” This is another analysis of the voting data from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin showing data spikes that cannot be accounted for in the natural order of things.

6. Russell Ramsland Jr., is a co-founder of Allied Security Operations Group, LLC (ASOG). His company has been tracking problems with computer voting systems (including Dominion and Smartmatic) for years. You can read here his affidavit explaining how the computer data shows vote manipulation in the contested states. I especially appreciate the huge voter turnout for Biden, with many places recording that more than 100% of registered voters showed up.

Additionally, I cannot recommend highly enough the following 45-minute PowerPoint discussion that Ramsland gave for Jerome Corsi’s broadcast. It’s not specifically about the election. Instead, it is about how these computer systems work and why they are so vulnerable to fraud. I thought I’d be a bit bored with all the technical information, but I was mesmerized. If you want to understand inexplicable elections (including, in my opinion, Obama’s 2012 reelection), this video is a must-see:

(I assume that Democrats didn’t bring significant fraud to the 2016 election because they didn’t think they had to. They were so confident that Hillary couldn’t lose they skipped taking out their “insurance policy.”)

7. Joseph Hippolito has a solid summary of the facts showing why Trump will win when all the fraud is exposed. You might want to pair reading it with reading the complaint Sidney Powell filed in Georgia just before midnight on Wednesday.

8. The Thomas More Society’s Amistad Project filed a lawsuit in Georgia “arguing that more than 200,000 votes in Georgia may have been either illegally counted or improperly uncounted. . . .” This number matters because Biden’s alleged lead over Trump is only a little over 12,000 votes.

9. And here’s a bonus (hat tip Gateway Pundit) just to remind you about the huge wellspring of love those 80 million Americans who (ahem) “voted” for Joe Biden feel for the man:

Image: Rudy Giuliani testifying before the PA legislature. Twitter Screengrab.

There’s a growing body of detailed information explaining both the traditional election fraud and the computer vote theft that threw this election to Biden. Indeed, in the past weeks, our American Thinker authors have added greatly to that body of work. Today, though, there was an explosion of information – including Rudy Giuliani’s stunning statements before the Pennsylvania legislature – so I wanted to put a road map together for you in a single post.

Fasten your seatbelts and hold onto your hats, because this is going to be a wild ride of amazing, horrifying, and fascinating information about the greatest election heist in American history.

1. While speaking before the Pennsylvania legislature, Rudy Giuliani introduced a stunning fact: Pennsylvania sent out 1,823,148 absentee or mail-in ballots. It logged that voters returned approximately 1.4 million of those mail-in ballots. Fair enough. Where things get hinky is that Pennsylvania counted 2.5 million mail-in ballots following the election. Giuliani also referenced mail-in ballots that were returned before they were mailed, the day they were mailed, or the day after they were mailed:

2. One witness whom Giuliani questioned testified about the normal appearance of real-time vote-tallying graphs, even if one candidate is far ahead of the other. No matter what, there’s always a smooth curve rising up on the graph. When there’s a huge spike, it signals fraud. The witness described almost 604,000 votes arriving at once as a huge bolus for Biden, with slightly over 3,200 votes for Trump.

3. Gregory Strenstrom testified before the Pennsylvania legislature that USB drives with data were missing, that people were walking around with bags of USBs that they plugged into voting machines, that the chain of custody for drives and ballots was broken, that unopened mail-in ballots and 47 USB cards vanished, and that various other documents and records were destroyed.

As a reminder, it’s illegal to destroy voting records. Moreover, the doctrine of spoliation holds that when people destroy records they’re required to maintain, the law will presume the records were adverse to them.

4. “Anomalies in Vote Counts and Their Effects on Election 2020.” We’ve been hearing since November 4, about those bizarre vote spikes for Biden, all of which occurred in the wee hours of the morning. If you mention them to a Biden supporter, you’ll find them dismissed. You’ll be told that it was normal for Biden to receive votes in the hundreds of thousands, all at once, because he was the king of mail-in ballots.

At the link, you can see a summary of all of those weird spikes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia, none of which can be explained away simply by saying “mail-in ballots.” There’s math, but it’s accessible and will help you understand what everyone is talking about.

5. “2020 Election: Could Trump’s claims have merit?” This is another analysis of the voting data from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin showing data spikes that cannot be accounted for in the natural order of things.

6. Russell Ramsland Jr., is a co-founder of Allied Security Operations Group, LLC (ASOG). His company has been tracking problems with computer voting systems (including Dominion and Smartmatic) for years. You can read here his affidavit explaining how the computer data shows vote manipulation in the contested states. I especially appreciate the huge voter turnout for Biden, with many places recording that more than 100% of registered voters showed up.

Additionally, I cannot recommend highly enough the following 45-minute PowerPoint discussion that Ramsland gave for Jerome Corsi’s broadcast. It’s not specifically about the election. Instead, it is about how these computer systems work and why they are so vulnerable to fraud. I thought I’d be a bit bored with all the technical information, but I was mesmerized. If you want to understand inexplicable elections (including, in my opinion, Obama’s 2012 reelection), this video is a must-see:

(I assume that Democrats didn’t bring significant fraud to the 2016 election because they didn’t think they had to. They were so confident that Hillary couldn’t lose they skipped taking out their “insurance policy.”)

7. Joseph Hippolito has a solid summary of the facts showing why Trump will win when all the fraud is exposed. You might want to pair reading it with reading the complaint Sidney Powell filed in Georgia just before midnight on Wednesday.

8. The Thomas More Society’s Amistad Project filed a lawsuit in Georgia “arguing that more than 200,000 votes in Georgia may have been either illegally counted or improperly uncounted. . . .” This number matters because Biden’s alleged lead over Trump is only a little over 12,000 votes.

9. And here’s a bonus (hat tip Gateway Pundit) just to remind you about the huge wellspring of love those 80 million Americans who (ahem) “voted” for Joe Biden feel for the man:

Image: Rudy Giuliani testifying before the PA legislature. Twitter Screengrab.

There has been a lot of talk among campus progressives in recent years about the need to “decolonize” Thanksgiving. For example, the University of Oregon held an event titled “Thanks, But No Thanks-giving,” the description of which read in part: “Thanksgiving is, foundationally speaking, a celebration of the ongoing genocide against native peoples and cultures across the globe.” Sure. Show me a family that doesn’t gather around the dining room table with bowed heads saying, “We thank Thee for the ongoing genocide against native peoples and cultures across the globe. Let us celebrate!”

The Huffington Post recently suggested that Thanksgiving be cancelled due to its large carbon footprint.

Ironically, the coddled and entitled, like many students and professors on college campuses, are often the least grateful. Those who seem to have everything are often the least thankful. Rich, spoiled Hollywood types foam at the mouth (when they’re not stuffing it with caviar and expensive champagne), railing against Trump and his supporters and/or a laundry list of supposed “systemic” injustices inherent to the country that has allowed them to get rich pretending to be someone they’re not. Meanwhile, those in “flyover country” with comparatively little are often deeply thankful for what they do have, and grateful to be living in the United States of America.

Leftists in entertainment and media tend to angrily rant. Democratic-Socialists demonize America, her founding principles, traditions and success. Antifa and BLM thugs take to the streets to loot and destroy. They, literally, trash the country. Meanwhile conservatives tend to devoutly appreciate much of what came before them– as well as what they have now. And they pick up the trash. Their own and what progressives leave behind.

Many tenured professors at “elite” universities and so-called “journalists” at “elite” media outlets smugly denigrate the very society that afforded them the platform to reflexively denounce it… while many military veterans past and present were and are thankful for the freedoms—and the nation– they fought for despite the immense sacrifices they made.

Decade after decade, it seems the better off we’ve gotten, the less religious and appreciative we’ve become. Our material wealth has not led to spiritual wealth. In fact, it appears to have led to a certain Sodom and Gomorrah-like moral poverty. Memo to elites: this is not “sophistication,” but ennui, a sad and ironic sickness of the soul. And it has ultimately led us to where we are now: the most powerful nation on Earth appears to have lost its soul. It is said that Rome finally fell when its citizens forgot what it meant to be Roman. Too many of us residing in this country have forgotten what it means to be an American.

The smartest people realize how little they know. (This makes clear the ignorance of many of our arrogant elites.) However, the luckiest people realize how lucky they are.

Though times are tough at the moment, in large part due to our power-hungry elitist leaders, perhaps we should look around, bow our heads, and give thanks that we have anything at all.

And rededicate ourselves to saving the last, best hope of Earth…no matter what it takes to do so.

Image credit: Pixabay public domain

There has been a lot of talk among campus progressives in recent years about the need to “decolonize” Thanksgiving. For example, the University of Oregon held an event titled “Thanks, But No Thanks-giving,” the description of which read in part: “Thanksgiving is, foundationally speaking, a celebration of the ongoing genocide against native peoples and cultures across the globe.” Sure. Show me a family that doesn’t gather around the dining room table with bowed heads saying, “We thank Thee for the ongoing genocide against native peoples and cultures across the globe. Let us celebrate!”

The Huffington Post recently suggested that Thanksgiving be cancelled due to its large carbon footprint.

Ironically, the coddled and entitled, like many students and professors on college campuses, are often the least grateful. Those who seem to have everything are often the least thankful. Rich, spoiled Hollywood types foam at the mouth (when they’re not stuffing it with caviar and expensive champagne), railing against Trump and his supporters and/or a laundry list of supposed “systemic” injustices inherent to the country that has allowed them to get rich pretending to be someone they’re not. Meanwhile, those in “flyover country” with comparatively little are often deeply thankful for what they do have, and grateful to be living in the United States of America.

Leftists in entertainment and media tend to angrily rant. Democratic-Socialists demonize America, her founding principles, traditions and success. Antifa and BLM thugs take to the streets to loot and destroy. They, literally, trash the country. Meanwhile conservatives tend to devoutly appreciate much of what came before them– as well as what they have now. And they pick up the trash. Their own and what progressives leave behind.

Many tenured professors at “elite” universities and so-called “journalists” at “elite” media outlets smugly denigrate the very society that afforded them the platform to reflexively denounce it… while many military veterans past and present were and are thankful for the freedoms—and the nation– they fought for despite the immense sacrifices they made.

Decade after decade, it seems the better off we’ve gotten, the less religious and appreciative we’ve become. Our material wealth has not led to spiritual wealth. In fact, it appears to have led to a certain Sodom and Gomorrah-like moral poverty. Memo to elites: this is not “sophistication,” but ennui, a sad and ironic sickness of the soul. And it has ultimately led us to where we are now: the most powerful nation on Earth appears to have lost its soul. It is said that Rome finally fell when its citizens forgot what it meant to be Roman. Too many of us residing in this country have forgotten what it means to be an American.

The smartest people realize how little they know. (This makes clear the ignorance of many of our arrogant elites.) However, the luckiest people realize how lucky they are.

Though times are tough at the moment, in large part due to our power-hungry elitist leaders, perhaps we should look around, bow our heads, and give thanks that we have anything at all.

And rededicate ourselves to saving the last, best hope of Earth…no matter what it takes to do so.

Image credit: Pixabay public domain