Imagine that the cartels took control of Mexico and every year for the last twenty years fired at least a thousand rockets into the United States raining fear and death down on San Diego, Yuma, Tucson, El Paso, and other cities. Then the Mexican cartels conducted a barrage of over 3,000 rockets on American targets. They followed this with an armed invasion. Before the U.S. military could push them out, the cartels killed a total of 1,139 Americans including more than 695 civilians, including thirty-six children, and kidnapped more than 240 hostages. All of that is hypothetical but I ask the reader, what would the United States do if it suffered such an attack across its southern border?

Just over a year ago, I wrote a post titled, Worldview Wars. In that post, I discussed how Tamillia Valenzuela, a self-described “neurodivergent Queer” and member of the Washington Elementary School board in Arizona made national news by opposing the board’s cooperation with a Christian University. Valenzuela opposed cooperating with the university because of the school’s “Biblically-informed values.” Ms. Valenzuela knows her worldview and, through her opposition, defends it. Few Americans can define worldview much less provide support for it.

Today, my wife and I live in Western Washington State, a land of many rivers, streams, wetlands, and rain. So, the danger of flooding concerned us as we searched for property. The house we built sits atop a large hill. Several times the hill has become an island in a sea of flood waters, but the house has never been touched. For me, prepping is like insurance. I buy what I think I need. Our land on this hill is my flood insurance.

I’ve met and talked politics and policy with all three of the commissioners for my county. I thought they were a fairly conservative group, but appear to have been mistaken. Five years ago, a local church established a mobile needle and syringe exchange program here in Lewis County. Such programs enable drug abusers to maintain a safer, but still addicted, lifestyle. Enabling drug addiction and the related homelessness and crime is not what I want for this county.

The next day we knew much more about the situation in the Denver metro area. Thousands remained without heat and light. Many roads were washed away or flooded. We knew all of that about Shaffers Crossing because we were living it. According to radio reports, hundreds of repair crews were working to fix the problems around Denver. No one seemed to be aware that we were also without power and phones. Perhaps, since there were so few of us, we were merely low on the priority list. Armed with more questions than answers my father left to try and find a way out of the hills and valleys where we lived.

In the late 1960’s my parents moved to the tiny community of Shaffers Crossing, high in the Colorado foothills. There along with my older sister and her daughter, we lived on thirty acres of forest and pasture land. The looming slopes that surrounded the tiny community would be called mountains in most other states. Those lofty peaks blocked most of the radio and all television reception from our little valley. Cable TV hadn’t arrived in Shaffers Crossing and satellite TV and cellphones hadn’t been invented. News reached us via the more powerful AM stations, shortwave radio, and the weekly newspaper from the nearby town of Evergreen. We shared one phone line with the seven other households and less than fifty people who made up the community.

On a sunny day last week, I revved up my chainsaw and trudged out just beyond our garden and henhouse to cut down several trees. I notched a large dead tree and then began the cut on the other side. Suddenly the tree snapped near the ground and fell. With chainsaw in hand, I stumbled backward. Fortunately, the tree fell in the general direction I wanted. After my heart slowed to a normal pace, I began cutting on another dead tree. This went well until I heard the snapping of wood and the tree wobbled. Unsure where it would fall, I again stumbled backward, but this time my feet tangled in bramble, and I fell. The tree thundered to the ground across two fences and terrorized our chickens but missed me.

Conservative radio host, public speaker, and author Eric Metaxas has written a new book titled, Letter to the American Church. This bestselling book calls upon the American church not be silent like the German Church was during the rise of the Nazis. He exhorts the American church to speak out against abortion, gay marriage, critical race theory, and the Marxist ideology that he believes is behind it all.

Alex Jones, a radio talk show host, doesn’t like globalists or any group that wants to control humanity. I don’t want that either. Jones uses his radio program, websites, and books to spread his message but, many call him conspiratorial. I’d prefer to avoid that label so, until recently I hadn’t paid much attention to Jones or his favorite targets such as the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Klaus Schwab. The WEF and its progressive, liberal members are convinced that if they ruled the world it would be a better place but are they a real threat?

Less than three years ago, I wrote an article about a tiny company that had allowed users to set custom filters to block explicit content on streamed movies. As you might think, the big studios didn’t like someone filtering swear words and nudity from their movies. In 2016, Disney, 20th Century Fox, Lucasfilm, and Warner Bros. filed a federal lawsuit against the upstart company and in 2017 VidAngel was forced to file for bankruptcy protection. But that isn’t even close to the end of the story.

Battle for the American Mind, Uprooting a Century of Miseducation, is the latest book on American education by Pete Hegseth, co-host of Fox and Friends Weekend on Fox News. For this release, Pete has teamed up with classical educator David Goodwin.

As a teacher, I had a growing awareness of problems in American education even before such concerns spread like wildfire during the pandemic lockdowns.

My great-uncle Paul Sullivan, an outspoken, self-educated World War I veteran, ranted for years about his spineless, weak-willed father who allowed his mother to be railroaded into a mental institution so that relatives could raise her baby girl as their own.

As I watched the South Park episode “Joining the Panderverse,” hope swelled within me that the recent progressive insanity might be crumbling.” Briefly, the episode shows Disney CEO, Robert Iger, and executive Kathleen Kennedy making woke decisions that drive the company’s share price down. That bit of delightful mockery was soon followed by the latest movie from the Daily Wire, Lady Ballers.

When I ponder the politics of this last year, I think of growing federal debt, rising interest rates, Critical race theory, DEI requirements, radical progressives in Congress, wars, and a president in cognitive decline. But this time of year I’m often drawn back more than thirty years to a dark period of my life that taught me to see the most precious blessing.

As a child, I admired politicians. They were smart people, tackling difficult problems as they served their city, state, or the nation. Then I learned more about history, and read books like 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451. I’m much more cynical today. I still respect a few of our leaders, but they must earn that respect. I don’t give it.

Police State is a one-hour, fifty-minute docudrama written and directed by Dinesh D’Souza, Debbie D’Souza, and Bruce Schooley, and stars Nick Searcy and Dan Bongino a former New York City Police (NYPD) officer, who then served as a Secret Service agent, and is now a radio commentator.

Every day, the government allows thousands to enter this country illegally. Women and girls are routinely raped and sex trafficked while crossing. Drug cartels move massive amounts of narcotics into the county along the very porous southern border. Over the years, many concerned citizens have urged officials to take stronger action—and now they have. The Biden Administration has ordered a German Christian family to leave the country.

What if the government decided you should only drink two beers a week or that you shouldn’t own a rifle or gasoline-powered car? All of these restrictions and many more have been proposed or enacted, but how could the government enforce them? They could make them illegal, but prohibition and the war on drugs prove that some people would ignore the law. What if the government could make money not work if someone tried to buy a prohibited item? The book of Revelation talks about a time when no one will be able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast. When I was young, the idea that any government could control every transaction seemed impossible to me. But today, with modern computers, digital banking, artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrency it is more than possible it’s almost here.

The Founding Fathers believed that people should be elected to public office, serve for a few years, and then return to their private professional lives. Today, we have a president who has held public office longer than most Americans have been alive. But he is not alone, many politicians make it a career serving in the House, then the Senate, and moving on to other positions in the government. While professional experience often improves decision-making, it doesn’t appear to help in politics.

Lewis County is one of the most conservative areas in Washington State. Sixty-two percent of its citizens voted for Trump in 2016 and Sixty-five percent voted for him in 2020. When Trump supporter Joe Kent ran for congress in 2022, Lewis County voters helped him oust moderate Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler in the primary. But, despite those conservative credentials, it seems that nowhere is safe from progressive nonsense.

Like most people, when I meet a candidate it is usually at a rally or similar gathering. Security personnel and a throng of voters surround them. That makes it tough to ask questions. I might be able to ask one or two but there won’t be any discussion. I’ve grown adapt at surfing the internet for information about candidates. However, I recently had the chance to sit down and talk with congressional candidate Joe Kent at length.