BREAKING: New allegations the FBI overstepped its authority conducting investigations against American citizens, and not just a few times, we’re talking in the hundreds of thousands of times. “This court document released just a few hours ago found that the FBI misused a popular digital surveillance tool (Sec 702, FISA) on everyday Americans more than 278,000 times between 2020 and 2021.” “[FISA] gives the FBI and other intelligence agencies the ability to digitally surveil without a court order or a warrant.” “They [spied] on J6 protestors… even political donors (including over 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign).”
Kevin McCarthy Speaks Out after FBI Caught Improperly Using FISC Searches 278,000 Times in 2021. This video file is with thanks to GATEWAY PUNDIT’s Rumble, here is more information on the issue for those in search:
Beyond Partisanship: FBI’s Abuses Affect Americans on All Sides(RED STATE)
FBI Played Fast and Loose with the Facts to Exaggerate ‘Domestic Terror’ Threat(PJ-MEDIA)
Alarm grows over whistleblower claims that FBI scooped up Americans’ bank records without subpoena (JUST THE NEWS)
TWEET THIS!
BREAKING: DOJ Inspector General ADMITS that the FBI has done 3.4 million warrantless “backdoor searches!”
Were there cartel persons in the race? According to one Tweet, a politician was killed… maybe that was the goal?
Two of the victims have been identified as Alonso Arámbula Piña alias “el clover” and José Eduardo Orozco Piña. It is speculated that the attack was perpetrated by an armed group belonging to the CJNG. (Tweet)
Local media attribute the incident to the confrontation between the Los Arellano Felix Cartels and the Sinaloa Cartel Among the victims is the delegate of San Antonio de las Minas, José Eduardo Orozco Piña. (Tweet)
At any rate… it is essentially Ensenada, the one place most cruise ships stop at. I wonder if this will impact any cruise line decisions for travel to — or into — Mexico. Not only that, will the Baja 500 or 1000 be cancelled due to the increased violence and cartel battle for control of the border? We will see.
….According to CBS News, the shooting happened during the annual two-day racing event called “CACHANILLAZO”. The sold-out event was hosted in the small town of San Vicente in Baja, California — a town with a population of less than 4,000.
The exact identities of the victims or suspects are unknown at this time.
“The Government of Ensenada maintains close coordination with the Baja California State Attorney General’s Office to assist in the inquiries that lead to the clarification of the facts,” CBS quoted the government of Mexico and the State Attorney General’s Office as informing.
In April, armed men killed a child and six others after storming a resort in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, a region increasingly plagued by drug cartel violence. It was not clear who was behind the shooting that killed the seven-year-old, three men and three women, Cortazar’s local security department said. One person was seriously injured in the La Palma resort.
In recent years rival drug cartels have been waging brutal battles to control territory and trafficking routes [to the U.S. — RPT addition]through the state.
The Cachanillazo, a meetup and adventure ride for UTVs from Ensenada to San Felipe, was ambushed by a band of armed gunmen on Saturday while on the Mexican Federal Highway 1 (Transpeninsular Highway) near San Vicente. Eleven were reportedly killed with nine wounded.
According to Baja California State Attorney General Ricardo Iván Carpio Sánchez, the attack happened on Saturday at 2:15 PM local time. While Cachanillazo drivers were parked at a gas station in San Vicente, multiple gunmen, hooded and dressed in black, drove a silver van to their spot before getting out and opening fire. Ten men and one woman were reported to have died.
Footage of the shooting surfaced on social media, which showed the gunmen moving in and firing. Passerby videos revealed some of the victims were killed while inside or next to their UTVs. Police at the local, state, and federal levels as well as the fire department and Red Cross assisted in managing the scene.
The AG did not immediately confirm the identities of the attackers, though local news reported they were members of a drug cartel while some of the UTV tour’s participants were part of a rival group. Specifically, the attack stemmed from the ongoing conflict between the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS) and Tijuana Cartel (Arellano Félix Cartel, or CAF); the CDS is one of the largest drug syndicates in the world, whereas the CAF was regarded as a major power in the underworld in the 2000s before diminishing in strength, though they maintain a presence in Baja California and Tijuana.
“The Cachanillazo family joins in this unfortunate tragedy,” reads a statement from organisers. “Unfortunately, what happened during the tour was not in our hands. We are wholeheartedly sorry for those lost and their families. Our sincere condolences. We are as baffled as all of you since we have nothing to do with what happened.”
San Vicente is located just off the 330th mile for SCORE International‘s Baja 500 set to take place in early June; pre-running for the 500 began on Saturday. While SCORE has not commented on the matter, the buildup to last year’s Baja 400 had been overshadowed by a cartel-led crime wave in the area (prompting the United States Consulate in Tijuana to warn against travelling) before decreasing in time for the race which proceeded without issue, with SCORE still coordinating police and military security to ensure racer safety.
Breitbart makes fun of the idea that loans and insurance could ever be had if these Islands are soon to underwater… unless these banks and insurance companies know that “Climate Change” is more political than science
Great news from the scuba-diving tropical paradise Maldives. They’ve just opened another airport.
This means that the Indian Ocean island nation now has four international airports and seven domestic ones. Quite a lot for a country with a population of less than 400,000. Presumably they have high hopes for their tourist industry as they develop luxury resorts on ever more remote atolls.
[….]
Here’s the World Bank: “Climate change presents a challenge for every island in the Maldives, which all lie on the sea level. Any changes in the climate will greatly affect the Maldivian way of life.”
Here’s the UN Foundation: “Climate change is a serious threat to low lying islands like Maldives whose landmass is close to sea level. The projected rise in sea level over the next century due to climate change is commonly agreed to be about one meter. The highest point on this island nation is one meter. Learn more about the existential threat of climate change on this island and learn more about how the country is pressing for global action on climate change.”
And let us never forget the tragically moving, yet cheery-in-the-face-of-disaster underwater cabinet meeting staged by the Maldives government in 2009 to draw international attention to the terrible and imminent threat these poor islands face.
Luckily I have thought up a brilliant solution to this problem. Maybe the lucky Maldives (the thriving tourist paradise) could help the unlucky Maldives (the one about to be drowned by global warming) with money and material aid. Perhaps it could use its vast tourist revenues to mitigate against any problems caused by this terrible “climate change” thing. Perhaps it could use its 11 airports to help evacuate the other Maldives’ climate refugees.
(GATEWAY PUNDIT): Seven years ago ABC News warned viewers that New York City will be under water by 2015 due to global warming. (See also NEWSBUSTERS)
New York City underwater? Gas over $9 a gallon? A carton of milk costs almost $13? Welcome to June 12, 2015. Or at least that was the wildly-inaccurate version of 2015 predicted by ABC News exactly seven years ago. Appearing on Good Morning America in 2008, Bob Woodruff hyped Earth 2100, a special that pushed apocalyptic predictions of the then-futuristic 2015. The segment included supposedly prophetic videos, such as a teenager declaring, “It’s June 8th, 2015.”
“One carton of milk is $12.99.” (On the actual June 8, 2015, a gallon of milk cost, on average, $3.39.) Another clip featured this prediction for the current year: “Gas reached over $9 a gallon.”
The only way food would be soo high is if Obama’s war on affordable energy works it’s course!
How come Manhattan property is through the roof!
(Breitbart) In 2006, on NBC’s Today Show, former-Vice President Al Gore predicted that Manhattan would be flooded in “15 to 20 years.” He added, “In fact the World Trade Center Memorial site would be underwater.” Just 3 years ago, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority predicted that within the next ten years, “Irene-like storms of the future would put a third of New York City streets under water and flood many of the tunnels leading into Manhattan in under an hour because of climate change[.]”
By hook or crook, through super storms or glacier melt, Global CoolingGlobal Warming Climate Change has doomed the Big Apple.
What we have here are two of the most respected environmental voices among the political Left — Gore and the government — warning of dire flooding hitting Manhattan within the next 10 years. And at least according to their activism, the predominantly left-wing, Global Warming believers of Manhattan are listening. Furious about the lack of wealth-distribution that will save the planet and their small island, just 6 months ago, more than 300,000 took to the streets of Manhattan to protest.
And yet, a funny thing is happening in the real world of the free market. Manhattan might be the elite media/entertainment/intellectual hub of the cult of Global Warming, but where the rubber meets the bottom line, the cult obviously doesn’t really believe in its own propaganda. If they did, Manhattan real estate prices would be collapsing, not hitting record highs as they currently are.
If people truly believe an area is going to be flooded as soon as in the next decade, those same people would be selling off their real estate. Not just to escape but to sell before conditions worsened and real estate prices bottomed out further. As the deadline loomed closer, prices would decrease further.
The average Manhattan home price is now over $1.7 million. With some apartment prices now breaking nine figures, it’s time to take a look at the booming New York real estate market and explore where middle class families fit into the picture.
At 157 West 57th Street, the most expensive New York home sale was just completed with the penthouse of this new building going for over $100 million.
Howard Lorber, the chairman of Douglas Elliman, the city’s largest residential brokerage, told me that there is no sign of this trend slowing down. He called New York a safe place for people around the world to invest in real estate.
Maybe what’s happening is that Manhattan’s left-wing Global Warming believers are suckering right-wing Climate Deniers into buying doomed real estate at record prices?
How come those that warn us about sea rise keep buying property by the sea?
BILL GATES:
(BREITBART)Microsoft founder Bill Gates has been exposed as the ultimate climate-denier with the purchase of a $43 million oceanfront home.
Riddle me this…
If you truly believe in Global Cooling, Global Warming, Climate Change, or whatever-these-proven-frauds-are-calling-it-now is a real and imminent crisis, that means you believe the oceans are destined to rise and flood the coasts and that this will happen in your lifetime… So why would anyone who professes to believe such a thing — as Gates regularly does — invest $43 million in oceanfront real estate?
They wouldn’t — unless they are a madman or a liar, and when it comes to Gates and the rest of the climate phonies, my money is always on the latter.
The facts are this…
If you judge Gates by his meaningless words, he is not a climate denier. But where it matters… In his actions, his behavior, his multi-million dollar investments, Gates is one of the biggest climate deniers in the history of climate denying.
No one — not even if you’re worth billions — pisses away $43 million. Which proves that just like CNN and Barack Obama, Bill Gates is a Climate Change activist who knows it’s all a hoax (and trust me, it is) because no one who truly believes the oceans will flood the coasts would invest 43 million goddamned dollars on a doomed house that sits right on the ocean…..
JOHN KERRY:
(DAILY WIRE) In 2017, Kerry bought historic waterfront property at Seven Gates Farm in Chilmark. Using a private realty trust, Kerry paid $11.75 million for 18.5 acres and a house overlooking Vineyard Sound.
“The seven-bedroom house dates to 1924 and sits on one of 39 original sites that were created over time by the Seven Gates Farm Corporation on land originally collected by Nathaniel Shaler in the 19th century,” The Vineyard Gazette reported. “The Seven Gates Farm property is tucked into a rolling hillside with distant views of the Elizabeth islands, where Mr. Kerry, a member of the Forbes family on his mother’s side, has long ties.”
The ironic juxtaposition caught the attention of Charlie Kirk, a conservative commentator and founder of Turning Point USA. “If Joe Biden’s special ‘Climate Envoy,’ John Kerry, actually believed in Global Warming & rising sea levels, why would he live in a $12,000,000 waterfront mansion on the island of Martha’s Vineyard?”
Kerry’s house is not far from the mansion bought by former President Barack Obama, who famously declared that his 2008 election marked “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
The Obamas bought a 29-acre beachfront plot with a nearly 7,000-square-foot main house. It’s got seven bedrooms and 8½ bathrooms, TMZ reported last year. But Obama spent eight years in the White House saying melting ice caps would cause sea levels to rise, at some point washing over islands and pushing into oceanside communities. Take a look here.
That, too, drew reaction on social media. “If you truly believe that climate change is going to be as devastating as the pundits are saying (ex: the island of Manhattan will soon be underwater), why would you gamble $15M to buy an island estate directly on the water?”….
OBAMA:
(YAHOO NEWS) …Marty Nesbitt, a close friend of the Obamas and chairman of the Obama Foundation, purchased a tract of land in Hawaii for $8.7 million in 2015, miles from where the two families would visit every Christmas during the president’s time in office, and is building a trio of houses on the beachfront estate.
The Obamas are believed to be planning to occupy at least one of the houses when construction is complete.
The project has been controversial locally, in large part because the developers requested and received an exemption from Hawaii’s environmental laws to leave in place an old sea wall on the beach.
Environmental experts say sea walls contribute significantly to beach erosion and should be removed, but plans were submitted to the state to expand the sea wall on the property.
The Obamas own an $11.75 million mansion in Martha’s Vineyard, near the water as well…..
GORE:
Even Al Gore, whose warnings about the danger of climate change have been among the most dramatic from a politician, has invested in property overlooking the ocean he says will wipe out coastal towns. (WASHINGTON EXAMINER)
FAILED PREDICTIONS
For more than 50 years Climate Alarmists in the scientific community and environmental movement have not gotten even one prediction correct, but they do have a perfect record of getting 41 predictions wrong. In other words, on at least 41 occasions, these so-called experts have predicted some terrible environmental catastrophe was imminent … and it never happened. And not once — not even once! — have these alarmists had one of their predictions come true. aei
Below are the 41 failed doomsday, eco-pocalyptic predictions (with links):
1. 1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975 2. 1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969) 3. 1970: Ice Age By 2000 4. 1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980 5. 1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030 6. 1972: New Ice Age By 2070 7. 1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast 8. 1974: Another Ice Age? 9. 1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life (data and graph) 10. 1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent 11. 1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes (additional link) 12. 1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend (additional link) 13. 1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s 14. 1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs 15. 1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not) 16. 1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000 17. 1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not) 18. 2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is 19. 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy 20. 2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024 21. 2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018 22. 2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013 23. 2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles Says we Have 96 Months to Save World 24. 2009: UK Prime Minister Says 50 Days to ‘Save The Planet From Catastrophe’ 25. 2009: Climate Genius Al Gore Moves 2013 Prediction of Ice-Free Arctic to 2014 26. 2013: Arctic Ice-Free by 2015 (additional link) 27. 2014: Only 500 Days Before ‘Climate Chaos’ 28. 1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide 29. 1970: World Will Use Up All its Natural Resources 30. 1966: Oil Gone in Ten Years 31. 1972: Oil Depleted in 20 Years 32. 1977: Department of Energy Says Oil will Peak in 1990s 33. 1980: Peak Oil In 2000 34. 1996: Peak Oil in 2020 35. 2002: Peak Oil in 2010 36. 2006: Super Hurricanes! 37. 2005 : Manhattan Underwater by 2015 38. 1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985 39. 1970: Nitrogen buildup Will Make All Land Unusable 40. 1970: Decaying Pollution Will Kill all the Fish 41. 1970s: Killer Bees!
Update: I’ve added 9 additional failed predictions (via Real Climate Science) below to make it an even 50 for the number of failed eco-pocalyptic doomsday predictions over the last 50 years.
42. 1975: The Cooling World and a Drastic Decline in Food Production 43. 1969: Worldwide Plague, Overwhelming Pollution, Ecological Catastrophe, Virtual Collapse of UK by End of 20th Century 44. 1972: Pending Depletion and Shortages of Gold, Tin, Oil, Natural Gas, Copper, Aluminum 45. 1970: Oceans Dead in a Decade, US Water Rationing by 1974, Food Rationing by 1980 46. 1988: World’s Leading Climate Expert Predicts Lower Manhattan Underwater by 2018 47. 2005: Fifty Million Climate Refugees by the Year 2020 48. 2000: Snowfalls Are Now a Thing of the Past 49.1989: UN Warns That Entire Nations Wiped Off the Face of the Earth by 2000 From Global Warming 50. 2011: Washington Post Predicted Cherry Blossoms Blooming in Winter
But somehow this time will be different, and the ‘experts’ and 16-year olds of today will suddenly be correct in their new predictions of eco-doom and eco-disaster? Not.
[….]
This is my most concise expose of climate fraud. Please pass it around to everyone you know and your elected officials. The video is short, but cuts right to the heart of the matter.
Rep Wesly Hunt: “Under this administration conservatives are being targeted. My first example is the ATF. The ATF is targeting lawful gun owners by crafting a rule that would make 40 million Americans felons overnight.”
(This was originally posted Jan 21, 2013 and the documentary was on my old [defunct] MRCTV account)
FULL MOVIE, one of my favorite Michael Moore responses from back in the day (2004).
(I cry every time I watch the beginning of this, the opener is here: https://tinyurl.com/yrhk6y84) This footage is a great example of how Democrats are joined at the hip with radicals. Again, this is one of my favorite documentaries, and while I doubt any of these have sold in years, get one, you won’t be disappointed (AMAZON). Citizens United Political Victory Fund’s (“CUPVF”)
This December 2004 comment from Amazon is a great intro to the video:
The vicious 2004 Presidential election is evidence of how deeply divided our nation is. The divide goes far deeper than Democrat/Republican or Liberal/Conservative. The divide goes deep into the hearts of all Americans. For over a generation now, our schools have taught that right and wrong is determined by each individual, that you should not let anyone tell you what is right or wrong for you. This has had a disastrous impact on our national soul. Because of this we have people like Michael Moore making films with no concern for truth or accuracy. In Mr. Moore’s eyes, the truth is not important. He truly hates America and he hates George Bush because Pres. Bush has the audacity to love our nation and to believe that all people on Earth should have a chance to be free. Celsius 411 and FahrenHYPE 9/11 were made as an answer to Mr. Moore, and to put forth the real story, if anyone really cares to seek out the truth. In the Bible, when life was good for God’s chosen people, they valued their possessions more than God and turned away from Him. The Bible says then “every man did what was right in his own eyes”. Which is to say they determined their own morality instead of following God’s law. This resulted in God’s punishment and great sorrow, which would then bring them back to the Lord, which then led to His blessings and then the cycle started again. Half of Americans still believe and look to God for guidance. In the other half, every man is doing what is right in his own eyes. This my fellow citizens is the root of our divide. As the numbers in the first group dwindle, the fabric of our society is further torn. How long until…
BONUS: “SHOCK VIDEO: Maricopa County Employee Verifies Signatures in LESS THAN 2 Seconds Each” (GATEWAY PUNDIT)
More on this:
Kari Lake WINS AGAIN, Court Case ADVANCES, Lake Must prove Signature Verification NOT DONE (TIM CAST);
Director of Elections Admits They performed Signature verification in Offices With No Observers – We should Trust they did Everything Right, Right? (RED PILL USA PATRIOTS);
Director of elections admits they performed signature verification in private offices with no observers.
Maricopa County Election Director Accidentally Drops 2020 Bombshell During Kari Lake Trial (WESTERN JOURNAL)
Maricopa County Elections Director Reynaldo Valenzuela testified at Republican Kari Lake’s election challenge trial Wednesday that mail-in ballot reviews were done at election officials’ homes in 2020 with no observers present.
Valenzuela also confirmed officials still have the ability to do so now.
Lake is contesting Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ win last November by approximately 17,000 votes, or 0.7 percent of the more than 2.5 million ballots cast statewide.
In March, the Arizona Supreme Court remanded the issue of whether the mail-in ballot legally mandated signature verification process was followed in Maricopa County during the election back to the trial court.
Lake attorney Byran Blehm questioned Valenzuela regarding the places where mail-in ballot verification took place in November and whether independent observers were present.
Valenzuela said there were three locations where mail-in verification took place: Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, known as MCTEC in downtown Phoenix; the Maricopa County Recorder’s office, also in Phoenix; and Maricopa County’s Southeast Regional Center in Mesa.
Whistleblower Jacqueline Onigkeit, who worked as a ballot reviewer at MCTEC in November, had testified before Valenzuela that she thought it was “odd” when she and her fellow reviewers were sent home at 7 p.m. as counting continued of mail-in ballots.
“Why did you think it was odd?” Lake attorney Kurt Olsen asked.
“Well, because we had observers that were constantly watching what we were doing [at the designated vote-counting area]. But there was, I’m assuming, no observers there [at the recorder’s office] who was watching what they were doing,” she replied.
? Huge ?
Whistleblower testifies normal level 1
signature verifiers were sent home early and the signature review function was then performed at the County Recorder’s Office.
— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) May 17, 2023
In light of this testimony, Blehm questioned Valenzuela whether observers are allowed in the county recorder’s office or at the Mesa location.
Valenzuela responded that observers are allowed in “any general area,” but it’s not a legal requirement.
He went on to explain that as a “certified election officer” he and others can do signature verification in their offices with no observers present.
Blehm followed up asking, “Can signature verification be done at a Maricopa County employee’s home?”
Valenzuela answered saying, “We don’t have that currently in place,” but during 2020 with the pandemic ongoing, the county allowed reviewers to work from home.
[….]
On Wednesday, he told that court that a review of data from the county showed at least 334,000 mail-in ballots were in effect not verified, which is far in excess of Hobbs’ 17,000 vote margin of victory.
This bombshell as well about the same guy, Rey Valenzuela –Maricopa County’s Director of Mail-In Voting & Elections Services– telling someone how to vote twice! Obviously this guy can be trusted [/sarcasm]:
This is Rey Valenzuela: Maricopa County’s Director of Mail-In Voting & Elections Services coaching a citizen journalist on how to vote twice in an election.
Elections will continue to be corrupt until the people responsible for them are held accountable. pic.twitter.com/S8zvxLJNtE
Is In this discussion, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, provides findings from the Election Systems Integrity Institute’s recent audit of signatures on 1,911,918 early voting mail ballots in Maricopa County’s 2020 General Election.
Just two commentaries I enjoyed and wanted to share.
Nauseating Woke Lectures Are Masquerading As Ads: Gutfeld
Gutfeld mentions Gillette (see my past posts on that topic HERE and HERE)… to wit I use Jeremy’s Razors now. I have tried both the 6-blade and the 5-blade versions. I suggest the 6-blade for face people (it is a unique design that stays sharp)… I like the 5-blade because I shave my head as well as my face (less space between the blades for the bumpy head.
“So how did this happen? Well, all these nauseating lectures are now masquerading as ads, are the colleges churning out too many useless women’s study grads, so they end up in companies demanding tampons in men’s rooms and jockstraps in the women’s? Hmm. They view buyers as insects: stupid, gross, easily manipulated, someone to be punished, not celebrated.”
TRANS Sports Illustrated Model? Kim Petras Cover | Pseudo-Intellectual with Lauren Chen | 5/17/23 (Video: BLAZETV)
Woke Sports Illustrated Gets SLAMMED For Putting Transgender Model On Cover Of Swimsuit Edition (Video: SPORTS WARS)
Sports Illustrated DESTROYED For Using Trans Woman On Cover Of Swimsuit Edition! (Video: THE QUARTERING)
Watters: Elon Musk Speaks For All Of Us
“Now, everybody won’t be able to make enough money to speak freely. Okay, I accept that. So, we need to take the mob out, get our voices back and Elon speaks for all of us”
This week the left is trying to cancel Elon Musk for anti-semitism. In a tweet, Musk compared George Soros to supervillain Magneto. Apparently, this isn’t allowed because Soros is a Holocaust survivor.
(This was originally posted Jun 27, 2015 — I make a prediction herein [also HERE~n~HERE])
I wanted to post some of my early thoughts [rant] on the decision, followed by more rantings:
Two… yes, the number two, has now become an objective concept in law over and above millions of years of evolution (Natures Law), or God’s Law (Natural Law) honing or creating the ideal that is the “male-female” relation. Both of these ideas, Natures Law and natures God (from the Declaration), under-girded the philosophy of the movement that wrote the greatest document/contract in human history. [Take away that philosophy and you lose the document.]
The mission of the church in the West has just changed. Soon the number 2 will fall by the relativistic roadside to plural marriages. All these non-ideal familial structures (according to Nature or natures God) will erode the religious freedom the Founders set up.
But we have a generation that neither looks to history for guidance or to any religious/moral authority outside themselves.
This experiment will eventually fall into the edict of the French (Jacobin) idea of equality in outcome… And to be clear, the guillotine soon followed. Tyranny never follows far behind forced outcomes.
The priority of the male-female relationship is just a larger piece to the puzzle called “deconstructionism.”
My other thoughts for here is something I have said for quite a while now: “
“Leftism” eats itself
It always has. We have seen socialist groups fight for their agenda to be paramount (thinking of Russian and German historical hegemony that led to many deaths to accomplish this goal… before the end result of the power structure and well-known leaders took power — which caused even more deaths — Pol Pot, Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, just to name a few well known 20th century Lefties). To Wit,
Because of the flag issue, already there is talk of the Jefferson Memorial (the founder of the party running around from activist issue-to-issue ~ they do this because they replace the God shaped vacuum with politics)… banning Gone with the Wind (even though a black woman [the first time in our history] won “Best Supporting Actress)… etc.
The hubris of the left can be seen as well in thinking that they [politicians] can control weather (the sun) by legislation. Or changing gender by the stroke of a pen. Pride predates the fall.
In the “rights” area I always point out that these “special rights” [not equal rights] are shown in conflict. Here is one example theorized by Dale Berryhill:
“If homosexuality is really genetic, we may soon be able to tell if a fetus is predisposed to homosexuality, in which case many parents might choose to abort it. Will gay rights activists continue to support abortion rights if this occurs?”
Another example comes from an activist site:
“The gay rights movement has won rights and recognition that largely serve the interests of white, wealthy cisgender* gay men to the detriment of poor queers and queer people of color, and to the detriment of racial and economic justice more generally.” (*…related types of gender identity perceptions, where individuals’ experiences of their own gender agree with the sex they were assigned at birth.)
So you can see when you move from equal under the law to special interest groups getting special protections, these camps begin to battle each-other. They “eat” each-other.
This is how I see it.
On one level it shows a proclivity to self destruct when you remove God from the equation.
The God that includes 100% justice, 100% love, 100% grace, 100% hatred for sin, etc. (not emphasizing parts of God one agrees with or on and demphasizing or muting aspects of God one disagrees with). You know, the Judeo-Christian concept of God, the bedrock to our Republic.
GK Chesterton said, “When a man ceases to believe in God he does not believe in nothing, he believes almost in anything.”
So I like it because the chaos of the secular world shows the Christian-theistic worldview works. I also like it because this dysmorphism exists primarily on the left of the political spectrum ~ which makes sense because they are a) more secular, and when religious they b) have more of a proclivity to emphasize one aspect of God over another in their theology (pick-and-choose the God they serve).
So I like it because it shows that while the GOP is also chaotic to some extent, it works better when its ideals are leaned on (trade-offs). (The Utopian ideal of the lefts base do not believe in trade-offs.)
(RPT PREDICTION) ALL THAT BEING SAID… there is a dangerous aspect to this. As the left eats itself, they have historically looked for scape-goats. Jews and Christians are typically the fall-guy… especially in the 20th and 21st Century. More violence will follow.
The left “KNOWS” its goals are well meaning, and so find acknowledgment that they are true and society “NEEDS” them ~ again, based on the “well meaningfulness.”
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. But to be punished, however severley, because we have deserved it, because ‘ought to have known better,’ is to be treated as a human persons in God’s image.”
C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002), 292 (Full text).
So, in the West as these “well-meaning” ideals works themselves out, expect more legal, cultural, and violent expression against those who hold to a historical, conserving theology and expressing this in public life.
This is the downside, and as RJ Rummel pointed out in his fourth book in his series, “Death by Government,” that as democracies become more undemocratic, policies begin that cause more death to its own citizens. Of course this is not an immediate happenstance, but legal and jail-time pre-date these outcomes. For instance, the next move will be gay-couples demanding to be married in churches and bringing those cases to the courts.
I will end this rant with a quote from a man who knows personally about this “secularization”
“More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.’ Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; … [and] if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.'”
Quoted in Ericson, Edward E. Jr. and Daniel J. Mahoney, The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings 1947-2005. Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2006, page 577.
Dennis Prager first reads from a year-old article about Jennifer Sey’s predicament (PART ONE), then he has her on to interview her (the below video is part 2). Jennifer’s book is:
This Silent Majority Showed Up in A Decisive Manner: Jennifer Sey (LAURA INGRAHAM | February 18, 2022)
Executive Shares Why She Walked Away from Woke Culture | Will Cain Podcast (FOX NEWS | November 21, 2022)
Cancel Culture with Jennifer Sey | Phil in the Blanks Podcast (DR. PHIL | July 9, 2022)
UPDATE: Vivek Ramaswamy Interviews Jennifer Sey
In this episode, Vivek Ramaswamy and Jennifer Sey engage in a thought-provoking conversation about the definition and potential dangers of “woke” culture, particularly in relation to free speech and corporate America. Jennifer Sey, a former executive who left her job after expressing an unpopular opinion on school closures, shares her personal experiences navigating the world of wokeness. They discuss the impact of wokeness on various aspects of society, including the creation of hostile work environments, censorship, and the importance of maintaining apolitical spaces in a diverse democracy.
Jennifer Anne Sey is a former artistic gymnast, author, and business executive born in 1969. She has an impressive athletic background, having been a seven-time member of the U.S. Women’s National Team and winning the 1986 U.S. Women’s All-Around National Championship. Sey also represented the U.S. in international competitions such as the 1985 Women’s World Championships and the 1986 Goodwill Games. After retiring from gymnastics, Sey transitioned to the business world, where she has had a successful career.
(This was originally posted Nov 19, 2015, I have refreshed media and edited esthetics a tad)
I have been too busy as-of-late to keep up with “Concepts,” an article in a local small paper. This recent article did, however, peak my interest and awoke me from my slumber. (As usual, you can click the graphic to enlarge to be able to read the article if so desired [below].) Per John’s modus operandi he conflates separate issues and then makes his point at the end that has nothing to do with his previous points or set-up. I myself will jump around Mr. Huizum’s article a bit, clarifying and expanding [correcting mainly] his thoughts as space surely does not allow him but it does me.
Let’s jump into this statement and where I think John, as an atheist, puts all his cookies into the “science” bag, otherwise known as “scientism.”
“To my knowledge, science has not yet discovered a purpose for the universe,…”
This is key (*Big Booming Voice w/Echo Effects*): science will NEVER find a purpose for the universe.
“Purpose” — as such, is the area exclusively reserved to that of philosophy and theology, not science. From reading previous article’s by John, he seems to have a distorted view of epistemology and how one expresses “truth statements” with a coherent foundation/worldview. Let us define some words and concepts as we continue on our journey brought to us by “Concepts.”
Epistemology – “the branch of philosophy concerned with questions about knowledge and belief and related issues such as justification and truth.”
C. Stephen Evans, Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2002), 39.
What John seems to place as his “ultimate truth” is science. This view is commonly referred to as “scientism.” What is scientism, you ask?
Scientism constitutes the core of the naturalistic understanding of what constitutes knowledge, its epistemology. Wilfrid Sellars says that “in the dimension of describing and explaining the world, science is the measure of all things, of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not.”‘ Contemporary naturalists embrace either weak or strong scientism. According to the former, nonscientific fields are not worthless nor do they offer no intellectual results, but they are vastly inferior to science in their epistemic standing and do not merit full credence. According to the latter, unqualified cognitive value resides in science and in nothing else. Either way, naturalists are extremely skeptical of claims about reality that are not justified by scientific methods in the hard sciences.
William Lane Craig and Chad Meister, God is Great, God is Good: Why Believing in God Is Reasonable and Responsible (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2009), 35.
In another article scientism is explained as well as naturalism and the differences:
CODE ~ Accidental?
One gram of DNA – the weight of two Tylenol – can store the same amount of digitally encoded information as a hundred billion DVD’s. Yes, you read correctly, I said a hundredbillion DVD’s. Every single piece of information that exists on the Earth today; from every single library, from every single data base, from every single computer, could be stored in one beaker of DNA. This is the same DNA/Genetic Information/Self-Replication System that exists in humans and in bacteria (which are the simplest living organisms that exist today and have ever been known to exist). In short, our DNA-based genetic code, the universal system for all life on our planet, is the most efficient and sophisticated digital information storage, retrieval, and translation system known to man.
…scientism (an epistemological thesis) with naturalism (an ontological thesis). Scientism is the view that we should believe only what can be proven scientifically. In other words, science is the sole source of knowledge and the sole arbiter of truth. Naturalism is the view that physical events have only physical causes. In other words, miracles do not happen; there are no supernatural causes.
One should keep in mind that a coherent worldview answers at least four important questions about life that science (especially “scientism”) cannot, getting back to purpose. Ravi Zacharias makes accessible these questions by stating that a “coherent worldview must be able to satisfactorily answer four questions: that of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny” (Ravi Zacharias, Deliver Us From Evil [Nashville, TN: Word Publishers, 1997], 219–220). Science can be used, and should be used, as a tool in making a reasonable case for purpose and meaning in life.
Science, then, is merely a handmaiden of these richer studies in life’s ultimate meaning, not the determining factor.
“Scientism is the view that all real knowledge is scientific knowledge—that there is no rational, objective form of inquiry that is not a branch of science” (Edward Feser, Blinded by Scientism [March 9th, 2010]). Which is one reason that it is self refuting, because, it itself is a philosophical proposition ABOUT science while claiming not to be. Which two philosophical naturalists admit in a moment of honesty:
Lewontin: “we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
Searle: “There is a sense in which materialism is the religion of our time, at least among most of the professional experts in the fields of philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and other disciplines that study the mind. Like most traditional religions, it is accepted without question and it provides the framework within which other questions can be posed, addressed, and answered.”
Again, the belief that science alone gives us knowledge is a philosophical statement, not a scientific one. This is no longer science, but the scientistic worldview of naturalism, which affirms that nature is all there is and that only science can give us knowledge. As the late astronomer Carl Sagan put it: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” Dawkins, like Sagan, speaks more as an amateur metaphysician than as a scientist.
I dealt a little with origins in a previous review of one of his articles in the past, but the point is that John places on science’s plate a proposition that it will never be able to answer. Maybe a Tennyson poem will assist in explaining to John the meaning of the universe without God:
In writing the poem, Tennyson was influenced by the ideas of evolution presented in Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation which had been published in 1844, and had caused a storm of controversy about the theological implications of impersonal nature functioning without direct divine intervention. The fundamentalist idea of unquestioning belief in revealed truth taken from a literal interpretation of the Bible was already in conflict with the findings of science, and Tennyson expressed the difficulties evolution raised for faith in “the truths that never can be proved”.
Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life;
That I, considering everywhere Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear,
I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world’s altar-stairs That slope thro’ darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope.
This poem was published before Charles Darwin made his theory public in 1859. However, the phrase “Nature, red in tooth and claw” in canto 56 quickly was adopted by others as a phrase that evokes the process of natural selection. It was and is used by both those opposed to and in favor of the theory of evolution. However, at the end of the poem, Tennyson emerges with his Christian faith reaffirmed, progressing from doubt and despair to faith and hope, a dominant theme also seen in his poem “Ulysses.”
…Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation’s final law Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek’d against his creed…
…So runs my dream, but what am I? An infant crying in the night An infant crying for the light And with no language but a cry…
…If e’er when faith had fallen asleep, I hear a voice ‘believe no more’ And heard an ever-breaking shore That tumbled in the Godless deep;
A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason’s colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer’d ‘I have felt.’
No, like a child in doubt and fear: But that blind clamour made me wise; Then was I as a child that cries, But, crying knows his father near…
Atheists themselves say that nothing matters in a universe without God giving it meaning:
Which leads me into another statement John makes near the end of the article, and, has in it a self-refuting statement of sorts. I will explain, John says:
I do not think atheists are more or less happy than believers, so it is possible to live a useful life without a belief in a god. Scientists may not know what the purpose of the Universe is, but we the living find our own purpose for living, which is often just to help or be interested in others.
The mass murderer or tyrant may find his purpose in doing what he does. The rapist as well. Those actions we rightly abhor may be the ones that provide purpose or fulfillment in theirs. You see, John has no code that he can ascribe to himself and expect others to follow… outside of wish fulfillment that is.
He says that life’s meaning is “often just to help or be interested in others.” What a trite explanation of existence! Mussolini explains to John the related topic of relativism and John trying to impose HIS MEANING onto the masses, or think that the masses should agree with him when Tennyson so pointedly says that nature’s purpose is “red in tooth and claw” ~ here is another view that lines up more with John’s view rather than the Judeo-Christian ethic:
“Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition…. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an objective, immortal truth… then there is nothing more relativistic than fascistic attitudes and activity…. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable.”
Mussolini, Diuturna pp. 374-77, quoted in A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist (Ignatius Press; 1999), by Peter Kreeft, p. 18.
Again, let us see what another person who may understand the complexities of the issue a bit more than John shows us, and that is Malcolm Muggeridge (a British journalist, author, satirist, media personality, soldier-spy and, in his later years, a Catholic convert and writer), who said:
“If God is ‘dead,’ somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Heffner.”
Ravi Zacharias, The Real Face of Atheism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004), 32.
I know John HOPES people see reality like he does, but he does not have a meta-narrative that is internally consistent to express to mankind the need to “help or be interested in others.” The Nazi’s thought they were doing this? Why are they wrong and John right? He has no epistemology that is internally consistent to help him ask these non-scientific questions. So while he can feel that the atheist can have a happy life, aside from this Epicurean goal, happiness is not synonymous with moral, or meaningful in the ultimate sense.
Epicurean ~ “Epicurus (341-271 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher who was born on the isle of Samos but lived much of his life in Athens, where he founded his very successful school of philosophy. He was influenced by the materialist Democritus (460-370 B.C.), who is the first philosopher known to believe that the world is made up of atoms…. Epicurus identified good with pleasure and evil with pain.” He equated using pleasure, diet, friends, and the like as “tools” for minimizing bad sensations or pain while increasing pleasure or hedonism.
Taken from Louise P. Pojman, Philosophy: The Quest for Truth, 5th ed. (New York: Oxford Press, 2002), 499; taken from a chapter from my book dealing with homosexuality and natural law, footnote #42.
I will zero in on a point that John makes, but that is lost on him in his making an either/or distinction in the extremes.
“If God created the natural laws and if God were omnipotent, I would have to assume that God could also destroy them or make them unworkable or eliminate them.”
True enough, but, we can ad a third understanding to John’s statement: He [God] could intervene from-time-to-time in nature. For example, the virgin birth. The miracle was in no way the development and birth of Jesus, the miracle was in the conception. God introduced unique genetic material to Mary’s womb. The Laws of Nature took over from there. There was a standard nine month pregnancy followed by a normal birth.
Lewis defines a miracle thus: “I use the word Miracle to mean an interference with Nature by supernatural power.” He describes the integration of miraculous intervention and the natural world in this way: “It is therefore inaccurate to define a miracle as something that breaks the laws of Nature. It doesn’t. … If God creates a miraculous spermatozoon in the body of a virgin, it does not proceed to break any laws. The laws at once take it over. Nature is ready. Pregnancy follows, according to all the normal laws, and nine months later a child is born. … The divine art of miracle is not an art of suspending the pattern. … And they are sure that all reality must be interrelated and consistent.
Now, I think John also confuses some laws that he uses all the time. The Law of Morality for instance.
John Huizum has complained about the evils done in the name of religion in the past, and so posits a “law” that he expects others to see and adhere to, namely, murder in the name of God is morally, or absolutely wrong. However, in the naturalist view of the world, evil is not absolutely wrong… just currently taboo.
Books like, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 1997), and, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual (Coercion Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000), make the point that rape — for instance — was a tool of survival in our evolutionary past, and so not “morally wrong” in any absolute sense. Not morally wrong because it aided the only real principle of nature, survival. If not absolutely wrong in the past, than theoretically rape is useful for our survival in the future. A position taken by Islamists in some part of our world surely.
Here are three short examples by atheists themselves making my point… er… really their point:
E X H I B I T ~ A
Atheist Dan Barker Says “Child Rape Is Morally Okay”
Richard Dawkins Says Rape Is Morally Arbitrary!
William Provine Evolution and the Meaning of Life
You see, who can REALLY say Hitler was wrong? “What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question” ~ Richard Dawkins. Ahh, no its not. Granted, it is for the person (John) who looks to nature alone for meaning, and his HOPE is that others see his view of life.
“Some unfortunate humans—perhaps because they have suffered brain damage—are not rational agents. What are we to say about them? The natural conclusion, according to the doctrine we are considering, would be that their status is that of mere animals. And perhaps we should go on to conclude that they may be used as non-human animals are used—perhaps as laboratory subjects, or as food.”
James Rachels, Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 186.
Um, in other words, the evolutionist has no way to say that the mentally ill cannot be made into chum/food, or NAZI like experiments.
But this “hope” wasn’t the basis for important decisions in our nations history, thank God! Like the writing of the Constitution for instance, written in the language of Natural Law, or in the Nuremberg Trials. A great example for what we are talking about here.
At the Nuremburg trials, when the judges/magistrates from Germany were being defended, one of the strongest arguments was that they were operating according to the law of their own land (cultural relativism). To that, a legitimate counter-question was raised, “But is there not a law above our laws?” John Warwick Montgomery, in his book The Law Above The Law, describes their argument:
“The most telling defense offered by the accused was that they had simply followed orders or made decisions within the framework of their own legal system, in complete consistency with it, and that they therefore ought not rightly be condemned because they deviated from the alien value system of their conquerors”
John Warwick Montgomery, The Law Above the Law (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1975), 24.
Nevertheless, the tribunal did not accept this justification. In the words of Robert H. Jackson, chief counsel for the United States at the trials, the issue was not one of power – the victor judging the vanquished – but one of higher moral law. Mr. Huizum has no foundational ethic or moral to make life meaningful in this ultimate sense. Which is the inclusion that real justice truly exists.
Men do not make laws. They do but discover them. Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness.
So far from John not seeing “the God-factor expressed in any law of nature he is aware of,” the Laws of Logic, the Moral Laws, Mathematics, and the like are glimpses into the “God-Factor.” Whether John admits to this or simply defines the proposition out of being considered (see below) is his convoluted lot in life of competing/self-refuting propositions guided by a metaphysical assumption about reality… not mine.
Professor: “Miracles are impossible Sean, don’t you know science has disproven them, how could you believe in them [i.e., answered prayer, a man being raised from the dead, etc.].”
Student: “for clarity purposes I wish to get some definitions straight. Would it be fair to say that science is generally defined as ‘the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us’?”
Professor: “Beautifully put, that is the basic definition of science in every text-book I read through my Doctoral journey.”
Student: “Wouldn’t you also say that a good definition of a miracle would be ‘and event in nature caused by something outside of nature’?”
Professor: “Yes, that would be an acceptable definition of ‘miracle.’”
Student: “But since you do not believe that anything outside of nature exists [materialism, dialectical materialism, empiricism, existentialism, naturalism, and humanism – whatever you wish to call it], you are ‘forced’ to conclude that miracles are impossible”
Norman L. Geisler & Peter Bocchino, Unshakeable Foundations: Contemporary Answers to Crucial Questions About the Christian Faith (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House, 2001), 63-64.
This leads me to my final correction of some bad thinking on John’s part. When he says, “No scientific formula ever needed an asterisk or a caveat that said ‘God willing,'” the asterick merely precedes the formula and is next to the word “science.” Without the Judeo-Christian metaphysic, science would not be possible:
…as Whitehead pointed out, it is no coincidence that science sprang, not from Ionian metaphysics, not from the Brahmin-Buddhist-Taoist East, not from the Egyptian-Mayan astrological South, but from the heart of the Christian West, that although Galileo fell out with the Church, he would hardly have taken so much trouble studying Jupiter and dropping objects from towers if the reality and value and order of things had not first been conferred by belief in the Incarnation (Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book)
To the popular mind, science is completely inimical to religion: science embraces facts and evidence while religion professes blind faith. Like many simplistic popular notions, this view is mistaken. Modern science is not only compatible with Christianity, it in fact finds its origins in Christianity…
Again, Mr. Huizum seems to have strayed — as usual — far away from rational inferences based on a good understanding of the issues, rooted in history, easily accessible to him. Again, he just opines in the hope that others will dote over his “wisdom.” Not me, someone has to keep him honest.
(Hat-tip to THE RENEGADE INSTITUTE FOR LIBERTY) When Hong Kong’s basic freedoms come under attack, newspaper publisher and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai finds himself in the crosshairs of the state and must choose between defending Hong Kong’s long-standing liberties, or his own freedom.
A copy of The Road To Serfdom was given to Mr. Lai. He — tearfully — said in this film, “it changed my life”
Jimmy Lai personifies Hong Kong’s entrepreneurial spirit. This spirit, coupled with an embrace of freedom, unleashed economic prosperity for Hong Kongers and made Jimmy a billionaire. Jimmy’s native China underwent a similar prosperity by undertaking an experiment with personal and economic freedoms, lifting an astounding 800 million Chinese out of poverty. Today, it’s a different story—and the stakes couldn’t be higher for Jimmy Lai, the citizens of Hong Kong, and the people of China.
Jimmy fled Maoist revolutionaries as a 12 year old and began a new life as a simple textile laborer in Hong Kong. Within 30 years he started a fashion house and built Giordano into an enormously successful clothing retail business with thousands of stores worldwide. In reaction to China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Jimmy launched Next Media and published Hong Kong’s most successful newspaper, Apple Daily. As guardian of freedom of speech and the press, Apple Daily provided an independent voice for Hong Kong following its 1997 transition from British rule to Chinese control.
Reassured by Beijing’s “one nation, two systems” approach, much of Hong Kong’s prosperity and freedom continued—until a palpable shift occurred under the leadership of Chinese president Xi Jinping. As China retreated from its “one nation, two systems” policy and began installing pro-Beijing leaders in Hong Kong, Jimmy became a leading voice against repressive policies. Jimmy could have fled but he chose to stay, marching alongside millions of his fellow Hong Kongers in defense of freedom and democracy. He was soon arrested and jailed. International banks froze his assets. Apple Daily was raided and key executives arrested. In June 2021, Apple Daily printed its final edition and shut its doors.
Today Jimmy perseveres in a Hong Kong prison cell awaiting trial. Featuring Lord Christopher Patten, Rev. Robert Sirico, Mary Kissel, Victoria Hui, Joey Siu, William McGurn, Lord David Alton and others, The Hong Konger chronicles Jimmy’s story of heroic sacrifice and symbol of the freedom movement. From his own testimony as well as through exclusive interviews with diplomats, citizen activists, scholars, and friends from across the globe, one thing becomes clear: Jimmy’s fate is in our hands. His cause must not die in a prison cell—for freedom is not merely his cause, but the cause of all Hong Kongers, the Chinese people, and indeed all humanity.
