Joe Biden and his handlers have demonstrated remarkable contempt for the United States Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights. They have routinely trampled on our governing document and the rights of Americans. This regime of Marxists has attempted to use January 6th as a cudgel to bludgeon Trump supporters into submission. Biden’s Justice Department has imprisoned many who simply attended the J6 rally and then strolled through the Capitol after the doors were unlocked.
The FBI is expected to arrest a Blaze Media reporter on Friday for what appears to be his coverage of demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, without informing him of what charges he’s facing.
On Tuesday, investigative reporter Steve Baker revealed that following months of delay, federal authorities informed his legal team there is a signed warrant for his arrest and that he is to self-surrender for “alleged J6 crimes” in Dallas, Texas, on Friday morning. Baker has been at the forefront of reporting on the more questionable aspects of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
While unlikely to receive significant attention from America’s “democracy dies in darkness” media, the targeting of Baker appears to be in response to his J6 coverage and represents a startling development in which the federal government now seemingly prosecutes journalists for exercising their First Amendment rights. Baker’s ongoing matter is the latest in a long line of cases in which the FBI and Biden DOJ have prosecuted non-violent individuals related to the J6 demonstrations.
The Biden Regime did in fact arrest Mr. Baker after The Federalist article was posted. This should have resulted in an onslaught of outrage by every single news outlet here in the United States. The lack of outrage from the news media proves just how much they worship the Biden Regime. This reaction by NBC was particularly disturbing: NBC News Trivializes Blaze Reporter’s Authoritarian Arrest By FBI (thefederalist.com)
As part of its undeclared role as a mouthpiece for President Biden and his administration, NBC News is trying to whitewash the FBI’s arrest of a Blaze Media reporter for covering the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol.
Rather than highlight the Vladimir Putin-like behavior of the Biden administration arresting a journalist for exercising his First Amendment rights, NBC’s “news” division attempted to delegitimize Baker by referring to him as a “libertarian writer” and “musician,” who “led a David Bowie tribute band” and just so happens to write for The Blaze.
“Musician and libertarian writer who works for ‘The Blaze’ arrested on Jan. 6 charges,” the NBC News headline blared. The article’s author, NBC News justice reporter Ryan J. Reilly, waited until the 22nd paragraph to inform readers that Baker is the first Jan.6 defendant “who was working for an established media company at the time of his arrest.”
You’ve heard it before and probably not from me. No one ever got younger.
Getting old is natural as youth, but our culture of course is focused on the latter–music especially.
Yet, I’ve managed to discover some great songs about aging.
13) “A Lady of a Certain Age,” the Divine Comedy. Neil Hannon, who is essentially the one and only member of this baroque pop act from Northern Ireland, is a first-rate storyteller, along the lines of the Kinks’ Ray Davies. We’ll hear from Davies later. As for that lady of a certain age, Hannon, leaves it up to you whether to like her or not.
12) “Something about England,” the Clash. The self-styled “Only Band that Matters” often went too far with their pedantic politicking, and this song, about a young man (Mick Jones) encountering an old homeless man (Joe Strummer), gets off to a bad start with a condemnation of anti-immigrant sentiment, which has nothing to do with the rest of its poignant lyrics.
“You really think it’s all new You really think about it too,” The old man scoffed as he spoke to me, “I’ll tell you a thing or two.”
Jones’ character learns that he has much in common with Strummer’s old man, just as another old man we’ll encounter later. This track is probably the best matchup of the contrasting vocals styles of Jones and Strummer in the Clash’s catalog.
11) “When I’m Sixty-Four,” the Beatles. You’ve certainly heard this one before. Paul McCartney, who sings lead here, sadly didn’t find out if his first wife, Linda, would love him at 64, she passed away from cancer when he was 55. Linda by all accounts still loved Paul until the end.
10) “Glory Days,” Bruce Springsteen. Lost love is a common topic in songs, here’s one about lost youth. “Glory days, yeah, they’ll pass you by, glory days, in the wink of a young girl’s eye,” is part of this song’s chorus.
9) “Minutes to Memory,” John Mellencamp. Two Hoosiers, Mellencamp and a 70-year-old retired steelworker from Gary, are sitting next to each other on a Greyhound bus, probably heading back to Indiana. The elderly man gives Mellencamp advice, which, years later, he finally sees as sagacious.
The old man had a vision but it was hard for me to follow, “I do things my way and I pay a high price,” When I think back on the old man and the bus ride Now that I’m older I can see he was right.
Another hot one out on Highway 11 “This is my life, it’s what I’ve chosen to do There’s no free rides, no one said it’d be easy,” The old man told me this, my son, I’m telling it to you.
8) “Old Man,” Neil Young. Another song you are probably familiar with. The opening line says it all, “Old man, look at my life, I’m a lot like you were.”
7) “Where Have All the Good Times Gone,” the Kinks. Astonishingly, the Kinks principal songwriter, Ray Davies was only 21 when this song was released in 1965. The Kinks have a very loyal support base, but this song, similar in sentiment to Springsteen’s “Glory Days,” was a sleeper fan favorite, not becoming a staple of the Kinks’ live set until a decade later. Davies developed the idea for this song by listening older men reminisce and regret in pubs.
6) “Veronica,” Elvis Costello. Paul McCartney, the co-writer of course of “When I’m Sixty-Four,” penned this tune with Costello. While “Veronica” has a bouncy, British Invasion-type melody, in typical Costello fashion, it’s paired with downcast lyrics. “Veronica,” which was Costello’s highest-charting single, was written about his paternal grandmother, Molly McManus, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. While Mellencamp’s steelworker character in “Minutes to Memories” is filled with memories, tragically Veronica’s have faded away.
5) “100 Years,” Five for Fighting. A solo act in all but name, like Neil Hannon’s the Divine Comedy, Five for Fighting is the work of John Ondrasik. “100 Years” takes the listener from the main character’s teen years deep into old age. It’s a lesson about how seemingly short even the longest lives are.
4) “Father and Son,” Cat Stevens. His birthname was Steven Demetre Georgio–now he’s known as Yusuf Islam–but as Cat Stevens, he movingly wrote about a father who says, “I am old, but I’m happy.” But is he? And while this father has wisdom, he still doesn’t understand his son. Sometimes relationships aren’t destined to be blissful ones, however hard we try.
3) “The Lion This Time,” Van Morrison. Unless you know a lot about Van the Man’s storied career, this song doesn’t seem to belong here. So let me provide the background. Rare for a pop tune as it was written in the 6/8 time signature, “The Lion This Time” is a sequel of sorts of sorts to “Listen to the Lion,” an 11-minute long Morrison masterpiece recorded over 30 years prior. “The Lion This Time” is a standout of his Magic Time album, Morrison’s best collection from the 21st century. Van the Man turned 60 a few months after the release of Magic Time. In a contemporary review for Paste, Andy Whitman wrote of both this song and the album, “You expect to encounter a tired legend, a once-mighty king becalmed and tamed by the miles and years. You find instead an echo of a full-throated roar hanging in the air, the telltale signs of a bloody struggle, and an empty cage. The lion in winter is on the loose.”
And the Belfast Lion is still on the prowl. Last autumn he released his 45th studio album.
2) “Martha,” Tom Waits.Closing Time, Tom Waits debut album, didn’t gather much attention–or sales. But the Eagles noticed, and they recorded “Ol’ 55” from that album for their “On the Border” collection. But an even better song is “Martha.” Waits’ character, Tom Frost, calls an old flame, “Martha,” after forty years apart. They married others, but Frost can’t let go.
I guess that our being together Was never meant to be And Martha, Martha I love you, can’t you see?
Not surprisingly, “Martha” is one of Waits’ most covered compositions.
1) “Hello in There,” John Prine. I’ll let Prine, who as a teen delivered newspapers, tell the story behind this gem. “I delivered to a Baptist old people’s home where we’d have to go room-to-room,” Prine said, “and some of the patients would kind of pretend that you were a grandchild or nephew that had come to visit, instead of the guy delivering papers. That always stuck in my head.”
The chorus is haunting yet beautiful.
You know that old trees just grow stronger And old rivers grow wilder every day Old people just grow lonesome Waiting for someone to say, “Hello in there, hello.”
This song is so good it could be used to recruit volunteers for assisted living homes.
Amazingly, all of the lead singers of the songs in this assemblage are still with us, except for Prine, who, after years of poor health, was taken by COVID in 2020.
Re-entering the workplace after being a stay-at-home mother has to suck. It used to be considered a noble and honorable thing to take care of small children. Heck, it used to be considered a profession that would normally pay on the order of $100K-$120K a year. When you think about it, a stay-at-home mother is balancing checkbooks, cooking meals, taking care of sick children, constantly doing laundry and sanitizing her home (young children are terrible spreaders of disease), and increasingly home-schooling children while driving them to various activities.
Yet most employers look at the “break in resume” as a negative, and don’t view stay-at-home mothers as doing any work. Then again, most of these people probably forget to thank their mothers on Mothers Day, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. My wife recently re-entered the workplace, and although she is working from home (and we still have a 2 year old), it was a challenge to find an employer that didn’t look down on her decision to care more about her children and husband then a career.
In honor of her decision, and given the increasing desire to hire older workers over younger workers, I asked Microsoft CoPilot to build some resume bullets for a stay-at-home mom re-entering the workplace, and I got these:
Multitasking & Time Management: Successfully managed a busy family schedule, including educational activities, sports commitments, and doctor appointments, while maintaining a clean and organized home.
Budgeting & Financial Planning: Effectively managed household budget, making strategic decisions to ensure financial stability and meet long-term family goals.
Conflict Resolution & Problem Solving: Developed strong problem-solving skills through mediating sibling disputes and addressing unexpected household issues.
Communication & Interpersonal Skills: Fostered an open and supportive family environment that encouraged open communication, emotional support, and mutual respect.
Project Management: Led and executed various projects, such as planning family events and home improvement tasks, demonstrating strong organizational and leadership skills.
Not bad CoPilot, but I think I can do better:
Professional chauffeur. Successfully balanced the extracurricular needs of five individuals whose activities are always located during rush hour traffic and at opposite ends of the city. Managed to avoid accidents, get children to places on time and yet still get dinner on the table.
Skilled negotiator. Can successfully argue with children from 2 to 18 years old, providing persuasive arguments in the wide spectrum of age ranges. Able to bribe without being discovered by peers.
Outstanding Communicator. Able to switch seamlessly between soothing words needed to calm a 4 year old to the angry words needed to vivisect a school administrator that decided pornographic books are a great idea in school libraries. Utilizes full volume range, from sweet whispers to banshee-level screaming to prevent small children from playing in traffic.
Multitasking Momma. Can you take a shower, get dressed and put on makeup, balance a checkbook, take out the garbage cans, make four lunches and boot a cantankerous teenager out the door to school, all before 7 AM and without the luxury of coffee?
Long Range Planner. Provided life guidance to children otherwise lost in the world. Able to keep a husband motivated despite a soul sucking job that cares little of him. Builds her own world that might look messy on the outside, but has more love and charisma then any corporate party.
Given that the next generation seems to whine about showing up on time, putting on real clothes (no, pajamas at your job interview don’t count), and can’t think out more than 2 days…I’ll take a stay-at-home mom as an employee over a whiny 20-something any day.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.
Well over a century ago Progressives began a systematic dismantling of the United States These Marxists chose to operate slowly, by stealth and subterfuge to accomplish their fundamental transformation of our Constitutional Republic into a Socialist Democracy. To accomplish this progressives have incrementally weakened all of the pillars supporting this great nation. The founding principles, the Constitution, and the Christian heritage of the United States have particularly drawn the ire of the American political left. With one video Heidi Przybyla of Politico demonstrated remarkable ignorance in her attempt to denigrate all three of these fundamental pillars.
HEIDI PRZYBYLA: I talked with a lot of experts on this and I have seen it with my reporting, Michael, which is that the base of the Republican Party has shifted. Remember when Trump ran in 2016, a lot of the mainline evangelicals wanted nothing to do with the divorced real estate mogul who cheated on his wife with a porn star, and all of that.
So what happened was that he was surrounded by this more extremist element. We are going to hear words like Christian nationalism, like the “new apostolic reformation.” These are groups that you should get very schooled on because they have a lot of power in Trump’s circle. And the one thing that unites all of them because there’s many different groups orbiting Trump.
But the thing that unites them as Christian nationalists, not Christians because Christian nationalists are very different, is that they believe that our rights as Americans and as all human beings do not come from any Earthly authority. They don’t come from Congress, from the Supreme Court, they come from God. The problem with that is that they are determining, men, are determining what God is telling them. In the past, that so-called “natural law,” it is a pillar of catholicism for instance, it has been used for good in social justice campaigns. Martin Luther King evoked it in talking about civil rights.
But now you have an extremist element of conservative Christians, who say that this applies specifically to issues including abortion, gay marriage, and it is going much further than that as you see, for instance, with the ruling in Alabama, this week that judges connected to the dominionist faction, and talking about a lot of other issues including surrogacy, IVF, sex education in schools, there’s a lot in addition.
Heidi Przybyla must not have been paying attention in history class when they discussed the Declaration of Independence. Considering the abysmal state of our educational system it is also likely that that document was never discussed in any school she attended.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Thomas Jefferson openly borrowed from John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, which was written in 1689.
The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions… (and) when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.
Heidi Przybyla’s Christian Nationalism slur is particularly dangerous because it is meant to undermine one of our Constitution’s most important pillars, that of God-given Natural Rights. Heidi Przybyla is far from alone in her use of the Christian Nationalism slur. It has become all the rage on progressive faux news sites in an attempt to intimidate lovers of liberty into silence.
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