A century later, who wants to structurally change the foundation of America? Activist groups with ties to No Kings protests, deadly Antifa, and an array of leftist organizations seek a political revolution and an overhaul of the American system.

What better way to make their point than on May Day – the day Marxists and Communists claim as their own.

May Day’s link to communism was the result of social and economic transformation in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Modern May Day began as a workers’ protest growing out of the international labor movement. A key triggering event in the US was the Haymarket Affair in Chicago in 1886 when a labor protest turned violent after a bomb was thrown during a demonstration. At its beginning, May Day was about labor rights, union organizing, and economic fairness for industrial workers. It was not yet specifically Communist, though many organizers were socialists or anarchists.

In the late 1800s, Marxist and Socialist ideas were influential within labor movements, especially in Europe. Many labor activists believed capitalism exploited workers, but socialism could give workers control over production.

In 1889, an international federation of socialist and labor parties, called The Second International, chose May 1 to commemorate the Haymarket martyrs. Because The Second International was dominated by Marxists and Socialists, May Day became ideological. That ideological alignment lay the groundwork for a Communist takeover.

Now, skip forward. As a kid our family went with my father on assignment to Japan (1952-1953) following the Korean war. On May Day we were told not to travel off our Army post. Communists worldwide used that occasion to target Americans (capitalists). Years later when I was on active duty and stationed in Germany with my own family (1976-1979) the same situation arose. The leftist Baader-Meinhof Gang, associated with The Red Army Faction (1970-1998), used the occasion of May Day to demonstrate and to disrupt innocent lives. Little did I realize that someday I would have to be careful where I traveled in the United States of America on May Day!

Far-left activist groups like the Sunrise Movement call for a nationwide strike on May 1, the very holiday celebrated by Communists and Socialist as a day for mass political action.

May Day 2026 demonstrations are being organized nationwide as an economic and political day of action with mass rallies, marches, boycotts, and workplace walkouts across the US. The rallying call is “No Work. No School. No Shopping.” All planned events give lip service to nonviolent action. But who will enforce nonviolence?

Another activist group, May Day Strong, proclaims its mission. “Across the country we are standing up and demanding that we tax the rich so our families, not their fortunes, come first. No ICE. No war. No private army serving authoritarian power. Expand democracy. Hands off our vote. And it’s up to us to organize and act together.”

Here are a few of the Antifa-linked websites coordinating activities advocating “non-violent revolution” (sic): nokings.org; peoplesworld.org; indivisible.org; maydaystrong.org; and sunrisemovement.org. Check out these sites to get some idea as to what to expect on Friday, May 1.

            Planned Actions include:

            -- Economic boycotts: Invoke no shopping and no spending bans on certain businesses.

            -- Workplace walkouts: Employees refuse to work on May 1.

            -- School closures: Cities like Chicago have invoked laws for a city-wide school day off.

            -- Mass rallies and marches: Hundreds of organizations coordinate these activities across cities nationwide.

            -- Local organizing: Organizing includes hosting events, canvassing businesses, and building community power.

            Organizational support will be provided.

            -- May Day Strong: A coalition of unions, labor groups, and community organizations, including the AFT, NEA, NNU, UFCW, and Starbucks Workers United.

            -- Indivisible: Calling for a national economic day of action to show leverage against political leaders.

            -- No Kings movement: Continuing momentum from the March 28 “No Kings” mobilization, with May Day as the next major escalation.

Useful idiots (see Mona Charen’s book by that title) led by nameless leftist radicals backed by billionaires George Soros, Tom Steyer (California gubernatorial candidate), and Neville Roy Singham (American businessman living in Shanghai, China) seek to reshape America.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

These are the principles Judicial Watch runs under. Only eligible American citizens should be allowed to vote in US elections. It supports state efforts to require the use of voter ID and opposes efforts to weaken or abolish traditional honest-election safeguards. It employs the NVRA to compel states to follow federal law by keeping voter rolls free of ineligible voters. The Act also allows private groups like Judicial Watch to review voter registration lists for poor maintenance and voter fraud.

What follows are opponents of the Judicial Watch support for the NVRA.

DEMOCRACY DOCKET / FREE ELECTION FUND. This group was founded in 2020 by Democrat attorney Marc Elias. It pursues lawfare to block and dismantle election integrity measures. Elias has a long history of legal activism and has worked on the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. Working for the Clinton campaign, Elias hired Christopher Steele’s firm, Fusion GPS, to produce the infamous dossier known as the “Russia hoax.” The Elias Law Group received over $300,000 from two of George Soros’s IRS 527 organizations with the intent of influencing political outcomes.

THE CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER (CLC). CLC was founded in 2002 by Trevor Potter, former Federal Elections Commission Chairman. CLC leads in the fight against election integrity initiatives. In a 2025 lawsuit the CLC challenged President Trump’s Executive Order 14248 requiring proof of citizenship to vote. It also sued the state of Louisiana over SB 436 requiring proof of citizenship for voters in the state. Some of the money the CLC received was over $1 million from Soros’s Open Society Foundations since 2016 and more than $2.5 million from convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried since 2021. Trevor Potter is a member of the National Task Force on Election Crises which itself received $1.4 million from the Open Society Foundations.

CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON (CREW). As a left-wing advocacy group, CREW has litigated efforts to expand mail-in voting including the acceptance of ballots received after election day. Beyond that CREW routinely engages in lawfare to block every aspect of President Trump’s fraud prevention agenda. CREW received significant funding from the Open Society Foundations. Other donors include a consortium including George Soros, Tom Steyer (environmental activist and billionaire), and the Service Employees International Union.

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION (ACLU). The ACLU plays a key role in the attempt to dismantle Trump’s election integrity efforts. They have filed more than 100 lawsuits against the administration to date. Here are some of the cases: 1) suing the state of North Carolina over congressional redistricting, 2) seeking to force Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots without proper dates, 3) asking the courts to compel the state of Mississippi to create additional majority-black Congressional districts, 4) filing a legal challenge to New Hampshire’s HB 1569, which required proof of citizenship to register to vote. The ACLU receives extensive funding from the Open Society Foundations including a $15 million grant in 2022 and the dark money network administered by Arabella Advisors.

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND (LDF). The NAACP LDF has filed many lawsuits challenging election integrity efforts. Here are a few: 1) suing Texas and Missouri over their redistricting plans, 2) challenging DOJ efforts to obtain voter registration data from states, 3) challenging Florida’s SB 90, which sought to protect voting by mail from fraud, 4) challenging Trump’s Executive Order requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. Jonathan Soros, son of George Soros, is a member of the Board of Directors of the LDF. LDF has received $16 million from Open Society Foundations and $2.25 million from the Jennifer and John Soros Foundation.

BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE. The William J. Brennan Center for Justice is an independent nonprofit organization working at New York University School of Law. It actively challenges election integrity efforts. Examples include: 1) suing to prevent Michigan, Arizona, and other states from cleaning their voter registration rolls, 2) challenging Texas’ Election Integrity Protection Act (SB 1) which mandates identification requirements to vote by mail, 3) suing to restore voting rights to convicted felons in Mississippi and other states. The Brennan Center received $400.000 in funding from the Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society since 2019. It also received $1 million from the Election Trust Initiative (Pew Charitable Trusts).

If headway seems slow in election reform and the correction of voter fraud, consider the organizations listed above as prime culprits for the delay. These are a few of the organizations, in effect, working against free and fair elections. Take note of them for future reference.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

Here is a little gem from A-I:

“The Law of Cause and Effect states that every action (cause) produces a specific reaction (effect) and every effect has a specific cause.  Often called the “Iron Law” of human action, it posits that nothing happens by chance; rather, success, failure and circumstances are directly created by previous choices and actions.”

Democrats in a panic today because of decisions they have made yesterday which have simple-mindedly caused economic deterrents to residents and businesses remaining in their domains, would do well to read the above straightforward statement and then read it again and see if they can generate any thought about what they’ve been doing.  It shouldn’t take a genius to figure this out.  It was all crystal clear from the get-go.  When you abuse people they don’t stick around for it.  We recognize those who do as having a personality disorder or mental illness.  

Forever, Democrats have been looking at the poor and blaming the wealthy for it.  Ronald Reagan summed it up succinctly back in 1964: "We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one".   And such is the case with much of the Democrat leadership.  

If you hold an anvil over your foot and deliberately drop it on said foot you will feel a great deal of pain.  Most of us, therefore, would not do that.  At least not the second time.  But this is not true of many of these Democrats.  It should be fairly logical that if you tell the players of a game that those who put their chips in the yellow box will have to forfeit half of them before they start to play, and those who put their chips in the green box will not only have the chance to keep all of them but perhaps win more in the course of the game, that the likely winners will not be putting their chips in that yellow box, right?  The strategy would, of course, be to put everything you’ve got in that green box instead and then go on and play the game.  This all seems too simple to have to write down or read, so I apologize for that.  But yet, however simple this logic is, politicians look it right in the face and ignore it as they concoct their mighty schemes to impoverish the wealthy as their bit to help the poor.

I hope my readers, if such there be, would already have this concept well in hand.  And yet many of our states and much of our country and our cities are run on the idea that Reagan described.  Hence the rest of the argument against “privilege” (or should we say “phantom privilege”?).  

After many decades of increasingly weighted taxes intended to suppress financial gain some of these blue states are finding themselves on the edge of the precipice, with major companies and wealthy and successful individuals and those who hoped to become wealthy and successful someday, packing their bags and leaving for sunnier prospects in “red” states like Florida or Texas.  Recently New York’s communist mayor, Zohran Mamdani has exemplified this style of leadership.  He is looking for anything nailed down or otherwise that he can tax.  This is so he can spread the proceeds of this taxation among the homeless, illegal migrants, the flotsam and jetsam of society who either have no idea how to work or simply reject the idea of work.  Governor Kathy Hochul is in a similar bind.  New York has taxed most of its people into a state of despair.  Hochul sees no problem with needing the wealthier people who used to live in New York to come back to her state from Florida or wherever they went because she needs them to fund all of her programs for “the poor”.  Brilliant.  But she hasn’t learned the first principle of making a deal with someone - it has to be good for both parties, not just one, or it won’t happen.  She wants to go down to Palm Beach and do what ?  Talk her prospective marks into coming back because SHE needs THEM?  Has she encountered the word “incentive”?  It seems that’s a hard no.

California, Illinois and New York together lost approximately $28 billion in revenue in the year 2022-2023.  That’s huge.  What is huger?  Florida, South Carolina and Texas increased revenue by approximately $30 billion during the same period.  Hmmm.  I wonder why that could be?  What is going on there?  Coincidence?  Or maybe the “Iron Law”?  

Because the people negatively impacted by these nonsensical policies tend to be the more capable - dare we say smartest - people, they have concluded that they are currently sitting in the yellow box and need to get out before the opportunity to survive is foreclosed to them.  They look around for reasonable taxes and other favorable conditions for success, such as adherence to the law and a non-tolerance of crime, large and small.  It just doesn’t work to walk up to someone who has earned a comfortable lifestyle through years of hard work and sensible decisions and say, “Hand it over.  Joe Blow over here, camping on your sidewalk in a tent wants it for a better life.”  The first guy will say no.  If that doesn’t get rid of the tax man at his door he will stick a “for sale” sign in his front yard and simply vamoose.  Because he is not dumb.

Now we have some blue states calling for a “wealth” or “exit” tax on people who want to pull up stakes.  This is a real Pandora’s Box of trouble.  Maintaining a property is no longer a good decision, much less improving it.  And with everyone leaving, property values won’t hold up too long.  We all know how that works, don’t we?  Even Democrats have probably heard of that other law of Supply and Demand.  Or maybe not.  

And businesses won’t stick around either.  And when they go, as is pointed out in the linked video, anything they hand over in excessive taxes will not be their money, but rather that of their investors.  Like you.  If you have a retirement plan, insurance, stocks, an annuity, a 401K, anything remotely related to investment in businesses, it will come out of your future.  So you will pay for California’s free needle program and shoplifting program whether you live in Kansas or Wisconsin,  Louisiana or Iowa.  So this should matter to most of us.  

Washington has a tax on those companies which prospered there and through innovation and application succeeded.  Instead of creating a climate to invite them to stay there willingly they think the way to go is to simply attempt to hold them as hostages.  What are they thinking?  Such a policy might slow the flight of individuals perhaps, for a time, but when a business begins losing big-time they will be nothing but a cloud of dust on the economic horizon quicker than you can say “Jack Robinson”, whoever he is, and poof!  There goes another source of revenue, never to return.  

Illinois’ population dropped by 1% over the past decade.  Its budget has increased by 70%.  It would have to in order to satisfy the demands of the kind of people they have attracted through their social and welfare policies.  California’s population increased, but by only !%, while its budget grew by 100%.  And when you have these kinds of numbers we know what happens with corruption.  California’s highly-touted high-speed rail system has so far rung up a tab of $126 billion.  Well, why not?  It’s been in the works for over a decade, spending enormous sums of money and not an inch of track has been laid so far.  Where did all that go?  Wherever it went, it didn’t go by train.  

All of this, which is so crystal clear to most of us (in fact, I feel embarrassed by writing something so patently obvious), is to say that communism, even communism disguised as socialism, does not work.  Again, something we shouldn't even have to say.  I mean, when you spill water it goes DOWN, not UP because of gravity.  If we promise to take Mr. A’s lunch away and give it to Mr. B we know where Mr. A won’t be in five minutes.  

And, of course, another outcome of this kind of policy making is that such an environment as it creates attracts only those who want something that’s free, not something they can earn.  It just compounds the problems for the earners - the innovators, the inventors, the workers and creators.  We can look at California.  In the 1960s, when I was there last, I remember Fisherman’s Wharf as a lively, exciting destination for dining and shopping.  It was demolished this year.  Due to “challenges following the pandemic”.  A pandemic is something that does not discriminate - it hits everywhere.  That’s what makes it a “pandemic”.  But somehow, the pandemic did not manage to shut down Florida.  Gee.  I wonder how that works.  California and San Francisco turned one of the country’s most interesting and vibrant destinations, with a 100-year history into rubble.  That takes a lot of thinking and planning.  And no one does it better than the Democrats.

In 1620, the Pilgrims, perhaps among the world’s most devout, money-where-their-mouth-was communities, sat on the Mayflower off the coast of Massachusetts and made a plan for how to govern themselves in this new wilderness.  Someone suggested they all pool their talent, their sweat and their meager resources and all work their collective butts off producing.  That sounded fair to these devout Christians, all so interdependent and isolated from any meaningful safety net.  No social services.  No EBT cards.  No free rides, no free lunches.  Within the first year it was evident that this simply could not work.  Some did put their shoulders to the wheel and made a gallant effort, but some did not.  Only when they revised their plan to accommodate free enterprise and a system that rewarded those who were productive, did they make this failure turn around.  

Over the hundreds of years since, we’ve seen a lot of failed attempts at creating a Utopia out of good intentions.  It does not work.  It cannot work because people need incentives to work hard, to produce.  That incentive disappears when the tax man comes to his door with his bag to take it all away so he can give it to Freddy the Freeloader down the road who lives in a tree and to whom the idea of “work” is an absurd novelty.  

People continue to hope for this and are as reluctant to give it up as a child is to admit that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy aren’t really bringing them loot.  Real life, it seems, is for adults, not Democrats.  

Maybe next week I’ll rant about some of their other dumb ideas.  

The most recent wave of protests took place in over 3,000 locations on March 28 this year. The focus was on military action in Iran, anti-immigration enforcement, and pro-illegal immigration. (See https://www.nokings.org/resource-library) Significantly, the coordination efforts of the widespread and sizable protests received little critical news coverage.

No Kings across the land is all about politics and not policy. The effort forms a direct stand against Trump’s administration, his supporters, and the silly notion that he is a threat to Democracy. The real motivation? Hate Trump!

This column could easily have been titled “Grist for Ridicule”, the grist being the No Kings protests. Ridicule would be a way to deal with liberal-progressive change agents who would force their aberrant views on the rest of us. Laugh at them. Laughter becomes the best medicine in more ways than one. Laughter is neither prohibited nor classified as hate speech.

Ridicule uses humor along with satire to trash an opponent. It is one thing to laugh with a person. It is quite another matter to laugh at them. To laugh at a person, movement, or ideology is the kiss of death. Ridicule portrays individuals, movements, philosophies, and ideologies as the ridiculous and farcical pantomimes that they are.

Liberals have little sense of humor when it comes to their pet issues. That makes ridicule even more effective. They simply cannot and will not tolerate criticism much less ridicule. Liberals go berserk when anyone mocks, ridicules, or satirizes their cherished treasures. And we know their cherished treasures: climate change, animal rights, DEI, government giveaways, and much more.

That said, the Left should know better than anyone else the effects of ridicule and satire. One of their own codified the use of ridicule. Saul Alinksy's “Rules for Radicals” encouraged the use of ridicule against one's opponents. Rule #5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.”

Focus becomes difficult when the point of the No Kings marchers is that we should not have a king. But the US does not have a king. Give credit where credit is due. No King protestors are successful at making people laugh at them.

Many folks showed up for the No Kings demonstrations. Most of them were old white people who could not explain why they’re protesting. In several cases, organizers bused senior citizens out of assisted living facilities and memory care homes. TV footage showed a No Kings protest in North Carolina almost entirely composed of old white liberals. Are the organizers nuts? How did these senior citizens get so brainwashed?

In Minnesota, event organizers did not have much to say. So, they attacked fossil fuels, billionaires, and the Iran conflict. They urged protesters to support universal healthcare, wealth taxes, a higher minimum wage, and rent freezes. Adding to the silliness, the libs at the No Kings rally in Minnesota sang "none of us are free until all of us are free" with zero sense of irony that they're allowed to do all this nonsense with zero government interference or consequence.

No Kings has been exposed as well organized and well-funded by big donors and organizations displaying professionally made signs, marching bands, and matching political costumes. No Kings demonstrations give no sign of spontaneity. They don't even look real!

Behind the eye candy of patriotic pro-Democracy protests exists a coordinated network of tax-exempt nonprofits 501(c)(3), labor unions 501 (c)(4), political action committees 501(c)(5), and for-profit protest consultants. Of note are included the activist Party for Socialism and Liberation, Democratic Socialists of America, and Students for a Democratic Society.

Think twice about the double standard of the No Kings protests. It was the progressive Democrats who refused to hold a presidential primary but instead coronated Kamala Harris without a single vote. They were the ones who sued to keep Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. off the 2024 ballot in several states. Likewise, it was the liberals who tried to also remove Trump from the 2024 state ballots after not winning against him using illegal lawfare schemes. If there was a modern-day monarchy in America there would only be one political party you could point out. The Democrats.

No Kings became an international event when a massive crowd of people gathered in London in support of the American left’s No Kings protest. England, who literally has a King, protested America who does not. You cannot make this stuff up.

Continuing our story, No Kings activists dressed up in costumes. Some dressed up in inflatable frog costumes and danced in protest of Trump and his administration. I am not sure that this reinforced their point. Nonetheless, this silliness is entertaining to see just how freakish and ghoulish Trump’s opposition can be. And it will only get worse.

So goes the street theater of the No Kings circus.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

Culture - tradition and pop culture will eventually emerge as the most powerful influence on political life.  I know too many conservative thinkers who believe that only “serious” approaches are worth their time.  I know a lot of them who never read a novel and pay little or no attention at all to music, classical or contemporary.  But in the end, it will always be the story of a nation that is always going to be the common culture that will determine the outcome.  It is always a mistake to ignore or downplay it.

For two decades and more, serious people like Mark Steyn and Mark Krikorian have cautioned us against unbridled, reckless immigration policies in the West.  Steyn has outlined for us the demographic time bomb that we are planting in our homelands.  Krikorian has reported the catastrophic economic and social effects of massive immigration - both legal and illegal.  Yet our governments and, let’s face it, lots of our  people in the media, in academia, have not only ignored their warnings, they have demonized them.  Now it is unacceptable for a normal, common sense-driven person to question immigration or migrants in any context.  

Tommy Robinson has tried to show us the dangers - he has lived through hell in order to deliver the truth about this.  In his country, whether in metropolitan areas or villages across England, young girls have been attacked, groomed, raped, murdered . . . and in at least one documented case, rendered into kebobs.  Where do we draw the line here?  Tommy Robinson has been imprisoned for pointing out these truths.  IMPRISONED FOR IT.  Not for perpetrating these crimes, but for reporting on them and describing them and cautioning us to safeguard our children.  For that.  Mark Steyn was drummed out of the corps on GBNews (which was supposed to counter the BBC, the government media organ).  People who have shared, liked or tweeted comments contrary to the government’s position have been arrested.  Elderly ladies have had their doors kicked in before dawn and been hauled away.  In Ireland tenants have been evicted from their homes and replaced by migrants - at government expense.  In France cars are burning, while in Canada and the Netherlands churches are burning.  Synagogues are under attack and so are Jews on campuses and on the streets.  King Charles III eschewed an Easter message in favor of a devout Eid message - and he is officially termed “Defender of the Faith” (and the “faith” here is Christianity).  The last straw is a call from these immigrants to ban dogs.  That might be the tipping point.  

So, with a lot of grumbling and ire growing in the native population - namely, among the English - what was the government’s response?  Surely not listening or discussing.  Certainly not a debate.  Instead, the brains of the UK government came up with a cartoon campaign.  Charlie, an English under-achiever is sore because an Indian immigrant girl beat him out of a job because she’s just smarter and less of a loser than Charlie.  Trouble makers tell Charlie he was dumped on because of “DEI”.  The Indian girl got the  job he wanted because he’s English and she’s , well, an Indian girl.  So he goes to chat with his friend Amelia about this.  Ameilia is a “bad girl”.  She has purple hair.  She wears leather zip-up jackets, she wears combat boots.  She’s a terrible non-conformist and hate monger.  At least that’s what the government says.  

Ameilia tells him to stop kow-towing.  He’s English.  He should love England and English culture.  He should not feel guilty about being English.  And he’s not inferior to people who have come to “conquer” England by the rubber boat-full.  In other words, she is supposed to elicit boo’s and hisses from the mindless masses of English dupes.  This ought to put them in their place.  

But a funny thing happened.   This cartoon drama blew up in the government’s face.  It turns out that Amelia and her message were enormously popular with the people who were supposed to find her embarrassing and hateful..  Instead of being a focal point of public disgust and disparagement, she turns out to be a genuine heroine.  She is today’s Joan of Arc, showing the people of Britain the way back home - back to the England they once called home..  

Someone latched onto Amelia, seeing the potential in her character, observing the positive  effect she has been having on the average English native.  Someone thought, “Why not re-create Amelia as a meme to deliver the very message the government fears?”  and proceeded to create A-! Presentations of Amelia praising the England we used to know, evoking symbols like things anyone can remember fondly - fish and chips and a pint in the pub, tea and crumpets in the afternoon, flower gardens, pork sausage, bulldogs and fashion, James Bond, Paddington Bear, Wallace and Grommet.  The catchy songs proliferate, Amelia the center of this revolution.  

Amelia has been cloned in numerous countries - Italy, Ireland,  France, Spain, Germany, Canada and the US.  In all of them, the message is, “It’s time to say goodbye.  Go home where you belong, feel the sun on your shoulders, smell the spices in the marketplace.  Let us have our country back”.  It is a gentle, kind, way of saying “We’ve had it with you.  It’s just not working out.”  It’s like a gentle break-up of a relationship that just can’t continue.    The message is “Your tickets are on the table.  It’s been swell.  Goodbye.  We won’t miss each other.”

And this is a powerful message.  Because this fool-hardy immigration policy, this casting all to the wind to throw open the doors to people who do not like us or our culture does not work in the end.  Co-existence with those who hate us and disrespect us cannot work unless we are to disappear ourselves.  And who wants that?  

It could be that Amelia, appearing just as this fact is becoming obvious to more and more people in the West - despite the rejection of their own people by Western nations’ governments and the EU - might spur the needed changes.  We have seen the rise of alternative political parties in England - Reform, a proprietary, weak-tea rejection of the Conservative Party, UKIP (UK Independent Party), Advance UK (led by Ben Habib and endorsed by Tommy Robinson) and now Restore Britain.  It would be a very good thing if the “Amelia effect” could power a peaceful return of unwelcome foreigners to their homelands in the East and Africa, the “remigration” we are now hearing more about.  

Something needs to happen.  The people of Britain (and elsewhere throughout the West) are called upon to sympathize with and support the underprivileged people from the ends of the earth while at the same time, right outside their front door, right in the schoolyards, their daughters are being attacked.  Can you imagine the impact on the morale of the young men of England?  The people of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and other Western European countries have been repressed, demoralized, shamed for being “Western” or for having their own cultures.  They are referred to as “colonialist”, which is truly projection, inasmuch as the colonizing is taking place by migrants in the West.  If it is wrong to “colonize” the third world, how is it not wrong to colonize the West?

It is fascinating that all of this invasion has been cast as “diversity”, when it is literally obliterating the many meaningful cultures of Europe and the West.  Diversity has nothing whatsoever to do with migration.  It is, in fact, quite the opposite.  Just take a look at a few of the Amelia (and Maria) memes which celebrate the cultures of their respective homelands and invite the strangers to go back and celebrate their own.  These AI girls look like real diversity to me.  

If this turns the tide it will be in the form of changes in parties and governments in those nations which still have a semblance of government by the people.  It might result in repatriation of people who simply cannot assimilate, people who are demanding that their host nations conform to THEIR customs and cultures - customs and cultures which cannot live parallel to the host nations’.  This would be the  best development in government policy in 20 years.

Amelia conjures the happy memories of simple things loved by her people, dogs, sausages, music, fashion, afternoon tea, literature, history, folk heroes and fish and chips with a pint.  Perhaps there are English kids who are too young to even remember some of this.  To them it is an open window.  To their elders it might well re-connect them with a healthy sense of pride and worth which their government has tried to kick and stamp out of them.  The Amelia phenomenon rejects the inferiority complex that has been institutionalized for so long.  Amelia’s anger seems to be reserved for this government, those she sees as traitors, more than against immigrants.  And this seems totally appropriate.   

In the end, it is the narrative that will guide nations - the stories - Beowulf, Paddington, King Arthur, James Bond.  This is why culture is so important.  People need their culture to put things in proper order.  Perhaps conservatives have been losing ground because they focus on abstract principles rather than the embodiment of the principles.  We have Ayn Rand’s “Howard Roarke”, Huckleberry Finn, baseball, Johnnie Appleseed, popcorn,  Stephen Foster, the Wild West, ”Yankee Doodle Dandy”,  Lassie and John Phillip Sousa.  Our stories and songs hold a huge nation of many varied people and colorful history together.  England has Admiral Nelson, Winston Churchill, King Arthur, Sherlock Holms and Shakespeare.  France has wine from Bordeaux, Renoir, Victor Hugo, Debussy and Collette.  Spain has Cervantes, Goya, guitars, flamenco and castanets.  Italy has Rossini, chianti, lasagna, gondoliers, the de Medicis, the Sistine Chapel, the fountain of Trevi and Dante.  I could go on.  The cultures and beauty of Europe are not to be abandoned in a frenzy of some kind of misplaced guilt because more than a hundred years ago some fools decided it was a good idea to try to settle in Africa or Asia.    Policies of mass immigration in order to “transform” these cultures will not make history “right”.  The best thing we can do is to encourage every people to take pride in their own culture.  

Right now we are engaged in a great struggle to survive culturally (and perhaps literally).  We are denied permission to live our own culture, to take pride in our own history.  We have the absolute right to these things.  As Paul Sorum once said, and said again and again by Ron De Santis, “It doesn’t have to be this way.”  They are right.  It doesn’t.  And it doesn’t have to be ugly or violent.  It can just be simply, “goodbye”.  That is what happens when things go way too far.  

When guests come into our home and tell us to get rid of the dog it’s time to say goodbye.

            --Set up a multitude of hospitals from the Middle Ages onward.

            --Founded many universities also dating from the Middle Ages.

            --Fostered literacy and education across cultures; includes translating world’s languages.

            --Developed the economic basis for free-enterprise.

            --Gave the world the foundation of representative government and civil liberties.

            --Started the struggle against slavery.

            --Laid the foundation of modern science.

            --Established charities and benevolent organizations.

            --Laid the groundwork for higher standards of justice.

            --Provided a sense of value of human life especially for the elderly, infirm, and unborn.

            --Inspired some of the world’s greatest works of art, music, and literature.

This heritage followed the impact of the Gospel by those who believed in, lived by, and sacrificed for it. Today, whether from naiveté, historical illiteracy, or the voiding of traditions, western culture sadly became separated from a knowledge of its own roots -- including Easter. Faced with the growing reproach of Christ, Easter becomes even more significant.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ becomes more than a word describing an event. He was not resurrected to institute a social welfare system or set up a university of well doing. Scripture makes clear that God through Christ came to restore fellowship with mankind. A recounting of several verses from the New Testament points to a mystery revealed within believers every day if they will accept Christ for who He said He was.

John 14:20 “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”

II Corinthians 4:6-11 “For God… hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, … Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.”

II Corinthians 13:5 “…Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you…?”

Galatians 1:15-16 “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:”

Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Colossians 1:26-28 “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach,… teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus;”

These verses illustrate the point. There are many, many more.

A wayward and rebellious people could be restored to fellowship with their God if they replaced the kingdom of Self with the kingdom of God in their hearts. Sin and the sin nature in rebellion against God, of “doing one’s own thing,” could be expunged and replaced by Christ’s nature. All sense of placing oneself first above God would be displaced.

And Jesus said, “…The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21-22) Paul’s definition: “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” (Romans 14:17) If allowed, Christ may rule in that kingdom. In this way God the Father may be glorified by each believer through His indwelling Son made manifest day by day. The resurrection of Jesus Christ signifies more than just going to Heaven in the sky in the sweet bye-and-bye. That is true, of course. But it starts now!

There is no substitute for Christ living His own life through believers. We are meant to function as dead men -- dead with Christ. He is meant to be the Resurrection and the Life within us. We can try to love better, pray harder, and read our Bible more, but these efforts are hopeless without the Life of Christ filling us. It is only the Divine Nature that pleases God. We are at odds with God if we are trying to live up to biblical standards without Christ. He is not just our helper and healer. Sooner or later, we realize that we are not the central focus of God’s plan. Christ is. God’s desires rest with Christ His Son as the True Vine, and we are His intimately joined branches. If this is good news to you, then you will discover a fulfilling way of relating to God.

No one should take offense. May the reality of the indwelling Christ be genuine this Easter in the life of all believers.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

The reticence and foot-dragging by Democrats opposing the bill comes as no surprise. Let’s review the bidding.

No definition of “citizen” exists in the US Constitution. Furthermore, no stipulation occurs that only US citizens can vote. In view of the millions of foreigners who entered the US illegally during the Biden administration, the time has come to decide on parameters for citizenship and voter eligibility.

In a country of 340 million people dispersed in over 50 states there are a lot of different ways to vote. Access to power comes by way of the ballot box. Politics is a power game and since power is allotted via the ballot box, there are bound to be different ways to gain power through voter fraud.

A good statistical probability of vote fraud exists in America. According to federal statistics, there are at least 11 million crimes reported every year. This includes homicides, robberies, auto theft, muggings, kidnappings, forgeries, embezzlements, arsons, rapes, assaults, and more. These are just reported crimes.

Every activity in America, commercial and non-commercial, is plagued with crime. Businesses have departments in their organizations devoted to combatting crime. Warehouses have security cameras. Stores add anti-theft devices to merchandise. Banks lock up currency in safes. Shoplifters steal products from grocery stores and tools from hardware stores.

Federal, state, and local governments keep policemen and sheriffs; prosecutors and judges; and courtrooms and prisons to process the multitude of criminals committing crimes.

So, what are people really saying, when they claim that there is no voter fraud? Again, eleven million crimes are reported each year committed by people risking prison time for offenses ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. How could anyone assert that voter fraud would be exempted from criminal activity? Read on.

If we were a society in which there was no shoplifting or burglaries or other types of crime, then we might have reason to believe that voter fraud was not a problem. However, if people are willing to steal cars, loot stores, or rob banks then they would be willing to forge ballots, vote more than once, or stuff a ballot box to gain access to more government cash than any store or bank ever had.

The ways to steal votes are as varied as there are states and cities. Here are a few ways. City poll workers load voting machines before the polls open. Busloads of patronage workers drive around the city casting ballots under assumed names. Poll workers bribe voters to fill out their ballots with the precinct captain’s tacit approval. Green-card holders or illegals are brought to the polls to vote having been automatically registered by the motor-voter program. There are nursing homes with senile, comatose, or heavily medicated patients who could never cast a ballot. Their nurses or nursing home managers do it for them.

Governments across the US have budgets with tens of trillions of dollars to spend. There are people willing to cheat to get their hands on some of those dollars. Then consider this. Between September 2023 and September 2024, at least 66 elections in the U.S. were decided by fewer than ten votes. A percent here, a percent there – it doesn’t take a lot of voter fraud to have an influence.

Cut across all demographic groups -- conservatives, independents, liberals – and according to recent polling, support for the SAVE America Act was reported at 80%. If adopted, this law would require proof of citizenship to register, proper identification to vote, and a valid address to exercise the privilege. This requirement would not stop voter fraud, but it would go a long way to curtailing it. It may not guarantee perfectly clean elections, but it would make them cleaner than they are now.

In the end, the goal is to preserve our republic and to ensure that the people in charge are truly the people the public want to be in charge. That should not be difficult to understand.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

In recent decades, “Climate Alarmists” and “Class Envy Marxists” seemed to have overtaken “End-of-times” Religious Fundamentalists in our ongoing Fear-Mongering Olympics.

The attempted destruction of the US fossil fuel industry that began with the blocking of oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and was continued with the cancellation of construction of the Keystone XL pipeline within the United States (after the Canadian portion had been all but finished) represented two major examples of severe setbacks to United States Energy Independence.

Capitalists vs Islamic Terrorists

Despite the attempted destruction of our fossil fuel industry, along with the economic prosperity such industry created, we appeared to have stopped the nonsense, largely due to changes in national leadership. Then came the culmination of a 47-year war waged against the civilized world by Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism (Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, et al) … the June 22, 2025 obliteration (Operation Midnight Hammer) of the nuclear threat of Iran’s terrorist clerics and their proxies.

Capitalists vs Consumers

Operation Midnight Hammer did not result in even a modicum of change in the intent of Iran’s Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists. Their obsession with martyrdom condemns their movement. Operation Epic Fury has been implemented to PREVENT the delivery of Iranian nuclear-tipped ballistic missile(s) from vaporizing one or more Western cities, now or ever.

What we should NOT have expected was the resulting rise of fossil fuel prices in our Energy Self-Sufficient nation. These abrupt fossil fuel price increases are not a result of Operation Epic Fury. They are a result of monopolistic power held by the oil and gas industry in the United States.

It takes a considerable amount of time for interruptions in our crude oil supply to affect gasoline and diesel fuel prices at the pumps… likely about two to six months depending on the finished product. Furthermore, with only about 1% of our crude oil coming from the middle east, we should expect those price increases to be very modest.

Capitalists vs Democratic Socialists -Part II

Do not place the blame for higher fossil fuel prices on anyone or any event other than our own capitalist greed. Such greed has been abundantly evident in our marketplaces ever since COVID-19 turned everything upside down. The solution to monopolistic activity in the marketplace is to avoid the purchase of the items being over-priced. No efforts of Marxists and Climate Alarmists to promote electric vehicles and discourage fossil fuel production could have been as successful as the recent gouging performed on consumers at fossil fuel stations throughout our country.

The Fossil Fuel Industry must immediately call for a return to sanity by its network of gasoline and diesel fuel stations if it wishes to remain the fuel choice of voters. To do otherwise would represent self-assisted industry suicide.

Why has the fossil fuel industry delivered the voters to Bernie Sanders?

Love = Work + Courage

Mark Steyn has an interesting take on the current war in Iran.  He says it may be Trump’s “Suez” moment, referring to the events of 1956, where then President Nasser of Egypt nationalized the British/French Suez Canal.  It was the moment in time when the powers of Britain and France were revealed as “secondary” only and left just the two “super powers” of the United States and the Soviet Union.  Steyn’s point was that he thinks Iran is to the United States what the Suez crisis was to Britain - in other words, he anticipates that the US will be humiliated and lose status as a super power because Iran will be a disaster.

Now, we understand Steyn’s position here.  He figures history is going to repeat itself and the US will be dragged through another no-win war, such as the fiasco of Viet Nam.  Or the idiotic adventures of George Bush in Iraq or Afghanistan, where we came out of it with a lot of egg on our face.  But there are variables that need to be taken into consideration.  Not the least of these was the deliberate decision by Lyndon Johnson to slowly continue a losing war which was enriching his friends the longer it lasted.  And a lot of us had no idea why we were even in Iraq.  

Our modern history with Iran could be summed up as follows: a) good relations during the period of the Shah (prior to 1979);  b) Jimmy Carter subsequently undoing our stable relationship and cementing a tyranny of ayatollahs - desperately extremist Islamists who chanted “Death to America” - which situation brought about the downfall of the one-term Carter administration and some dramatic rescuing of Americans stuck there when the Shah’s government fell; c) the Shah ending up in the US undergoing treatment for fatal cancer.  The conditions in Iran deteriorated suddenly and steadily under the Ayatollah Khomeini.  The strictest form of Islam was imposed on the Iranian people.  Those people had, to a large extent, been  deceived as to the intention of the Islamists who ousted the Shah.  

Since the takeover, the Iranian economy failed.  Iranian leadership invested everything in military weaponry and terrorist funding around the world.  Iran has posed a serious and continuous threat both from inside that country and throughout the world by means of various “fatwahs”, like the one against Salman Rushdie for publishing The Satanic Verses, which embarrassed Islam.  They were the chief support of Hamas and Hezbollah and other terrorists.  They have been found to be infiltrating the US by various means.  Of course, Obama was famous for sending them pallets of cash to use in some of this terrorism, and unfroze Iranian assets.

So, why is the current unrest in Iran so very different?  There have been, after all, several uprisings against the reigning mullahs.  And how is this war different from the other endless conflicts we’ve found ourselves mired in?

First of all, we need to look at the actual threat now posed by the very existence of this regime of Islamist extremists in Tehran.  Iran has nuclear weapons - lots of them (or they did before this war started) and they were allegedly (and almost certainly) aimed at major US cities.  So what, you say?  Russia and China do, too.  Well, neither Russia nor China is being run by people who are eager to unite with 72 virgins on the other side of the rainbow.  They are not leading choruses of “death to America”.  The leadership of Iran for the past 47 years has no interest in the future of Iran, nor in their children or grandchildren, nor in their own longevity.  They are mad with holy war.  They are most certainly a threat to us.  Vietnam was not.  Iraq was not.  Afghanistan was not.  

Secondly, the people of Iran are not at all sympathetic to their erstwhile Islamist government.  Throughout the past decades there have been attempts to overthrow this regime but every time the government - the IRGC - have put them down with terror and brute force.  Now there is a different climate.   Iranians have, in fact, been defying the worst the government can dream up for them - torture, death, mass killing.  This government has mowed down tens of thousands of unarmed civilians in the streets.  They have shoved injured people into body bags and left them unlabeled and demanded that their families pay for the bullets that killed or almost killed them.  Can YOU imagine being put into a body bag and left for dead?  And plenty of them WERE dead.  Many, many thousands, the government unprovoked except for a few signs and unarmed men, women and children standing up in the streets.  And they have not been going home (until, at least, the US has told them to in order not to drop bombs on them) - they have remained steadfast in their resolve, and in their streets, in the face of this brutality.  They have since been cheering for the demise of one after another of their evil leaders at the hands of Israel or others.  The religious affiliations of Iranians are not Islamic.  The rule of Islam and Sharia have been imposed on them by force.  The punishments for minor infractions of their draconian laws do not bear the light of day.  Women have died for having worn their hijabs incorrectly.  It has been a literal hell on earth since 1979.  So - a force to destabilize the middle and near east and spread terrorism throughout the world while brutally abusing their own people.

Thirdly, unlike in most of these conflicts, the people of Iran are uniting behind one public leader - the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the face of Iran for these people.  This means that we are not looking at some kind of swirling chaos there that will end up with some kind of communist rising to the top or reinstatement of the same old bunch of Islamists under new titles.  Our history has shown that the Shahs have been leaders we can live with and form worthwhile alliances with.  And unlike some of our other misadventures, the people of Iran do have an ancient identity and culture that is in no way a part of Islam.  They have moral resources in this regard.

There is also a very strong Israeli component here, with some very good intelligence and capability.  The Iranian people are welcoming them.  The people of Iran are also calling for intervention of anti-Islamist western help.  It is an important factor to note that Saudi Arabia and other middle east nations have been alienated from Iran and are opposing the Iranian Islamic regime now.  When we consider the progress Trump made in his first term toward helping to foster peace among Arab nations and Israel this is not to be overlooked.

These are reasons - most of them in America’s self-interest, which they ought to be, after all - why the involvement in Iran is at least arguably vastly different in character and context from some of these other conflicts.  We have no crystal ball, of course, but there is reason to believe that this nightmare of Iranian ayatollahs could not be finally ended, to everyone’s benefit.  I do not want to see war.  I am probably like most Americans who give it serious thought.  I am sick to death of endless wars.  But what has been the source of this continuous state of war?  To a great extent, Iran has been.  And what if we do not take advantage of the state of mind of the Iranian people right now to remove a clear threat to American security and hopefully put an end to the random terrorism in our own country as well as others, perpetrated by these insane mullahs?

I think Steyn is wrong in the bigger picture here, although he has brought up some excellent points and some worthwhile history to ponder.  But in the end, I disagree with his assessment of the Iranian situation.  This could all go horribly wrong, however, if Trump does not play this perfectly.