Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus – Republican press release celebrating Trump’s Presidential win

On Wednesday, 21 August 2019, President Donald Trump turned, looked to heavens and proclaimed, “I am the chosen one.”

Are Republicans asking people to worship them?

The classic Just-War Theory has its origins in Christian theology. Saint Augustine is usually identified as the first individual to offer a theory on war and justice. Augustine referred to the Bible and regarded some wars as necessary to amend an evil. Saint Thomas Aquinas revised Augustine’s version, creating three criteria for a just war: the war needed to be waged by a legitimate authority, have a just cause, and have the right intentions. The moral justifications for a war are expressed in jus ad bellum; whereas, the moral conduct of the war is expressed in jus in bello. The Just-War Theory is a set of rules for military combat.

Principles of Just-War Theory

1. Last Resort
   • A just war can only be waged after all peaceful options are considered. The use of force can only be used as a last resort.
2. Legitimate Authority – Jus ad bellum
   • A just war is waged by a legitimate authority. A war cannot be waged by individuals or groups that do not constitute the legitimate government.
3. Just Cause
   • A just war needs to be in response to a wrong suffered. Self-defense against an attack always constitutes a just war; however, the war needs to be fought with the objective to correct the inflicted wound.
4. Probability of Success
   • In order for a war to be just, there must be a rational possibility of success. A nation cannot enter into a war with a hopeless cause.
5. Right Intention
   • The primary objective of a just war is to re-establish peace. In particular, the peace after the war should exceed the peace that would have succeeded without the use of force. The aim of the use of force must be justice.
6. Proportionality
   • The violence in a just war must be proportional to the casualties suffered. The nations involved in the war must avoid disproportionate military action and only use the amount of force absolutely necessary.
7. Civilian Casualties – Jus in bello
   • The use of force must distinguish between the militia and civilians. Innocent citizens must never be the target of war; soldiers should always avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are only justified when they are unavoidable victims of a military attack on a strategic target.

St. Augustine’s just war theory outlines conditions under which war might be considered morally permissible. He believed that war should be a last resort, undertaken to achieve peace and to punish evil, rather than for the sake of war itself. He emphasized that the desire for peace should be the primary motivation, and war should be waged only when necessary to restore order or prevent greater harm.

Here’s a more detailed look at St. Augustine’s key ideas:

• Purpose of War:
  • Augustine saw war as a means to an end, specifically the establishment of peace and the punishment of evil. He believed that war could be just if it was waged to punish sinners or to return the world to a state of peace.
• Just Cause:
  • A just cause for war, according to Augustine, could be self-defense, defending the innocent, or punishing those who have broken the law.
• Legitimate Authority:
  • War must be declared by a legitimate authority, such as a state or leader, not by individuals or factions.
• Right Intention:
  • The intention behind the war must be to seek peace and justice, not to gain power or territory.
• Last Resort:
  • War should be a last resort, only undertaken after all other peaceful means of resolving the conflict have been exhausted.
• Proportionality:
  • The use of force must be proportionate to the harm being inflicted, and the potential consequences of the war must be weighed against the benefits of peace.
• Reasonable Chance of Success:
  • There must be a reasonable chance of achieving the objectives of the war and bringing about peace.
• Divine Will:
  • Augustine believed that war could be seen as just when it aligns with the divine will, even if it is not explicitly stated in the Bible.

St. Augustine’s just war theory has had a significant influence on the development of just war theory in Western thought, providing a framework for evaluating the ethical implications of war. His emphasis on peace as the ultimate goal and the need for just cause, legitimate authority, and right intention remains relevant in contemporary discussions about war and peace.

Core principles

Modern liberalism supports a blend of classical liberal ideas with a broader social and economic role for government. Key tenets include: 

• Individual rights and freedoms: Emphasis on human rights, including freedom of speech, religion, and the press.
• Consent of the governed: Governments derive their power from the people through democratic processes.
• Rule of law: The idea that all individuals, including government officials, are subject to the law.
• Equality of opportunity: While all liberals believe in equality before the law, modern liberals also support government intervention to address obstacles to equality, such as poverty, disease, and discrimination.
• Market economy with regulation: Liberals generally support a market-based economy but believe government regulation is necessary to correct market failures, prevent corporate monopolies, and protect the public interest. 

Evolution and variants

The meaning of liberalism has shifted, especially in the United States, leading to distinctions from earlier forms. 

• Classical liberalism: Emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries in response to monarchies and aristocracy. It advocates for a limited government and laissez-faire economic policies, often aligning with modern American libertarianism.
• Modern liberalism: In the United States, this variant took shape during the 20th century, particularly influenced by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. It combines an emphasis on civil liberties with support for government intervention to promote social justice and a mixed economy. This form is typically what is meant by “liberalism” in the US today.
• Neoliberalism: A more recent variant that emphasizes free-market policies and globalization. It has been criticized for exacerbating inequality. 

Key issues in the 21st century

In the modern day, liberal ideology continues to shape debates on many topics. 

• Social issues: American modern liberals have been strong advocates for LGBT rights, reproductive rights, civil rights, and affirmative action.
• Economic issues: The ideology supports increasing taxes on the wealthy to address income inequality and backs a social safety net that includes expanded access to healthcare.
• Criminal justice: Modern liberals support reforms to address issues of police misconduct and disproportionate impacts on minority communities.
• Environmental policy: The ideology supports government action to address climate change and other environmental issues, as seen in support for measures like the Paris Agreement. 

Challenges to liberalism

Despite its historical influence, liberal ideology faces contemporary challenges: 

• Erosion of social trust: Populist and authoritarian movements are exploiting social media to stoke division and erode trust in liberal institutions and pluralism.
• Inequality and populism: Criticisms suggest that the emphasis on individual rights and capitalism can lead to significant economic inequality, fueling populist backlashes.
• Questioning of institutions: Some on both the political right and left argue that liberalism’s emphasis on rules and procedure can hinder decisive action.
• Inadequate response to modern problems: Challenges like technological change, globalization, and climate change have raised new questions that inherited liberal political institutions are struggling to address effectively.

“We have the ‘water drugs’ — I call them the water drugs — they’ve been pretty much stopped,” Trump declared during the interview. “In fact, I think water fishing, I think almost anything where you have to get into a boat right now in that area would not be doing too well.”

“Basically, what we’re doing is equalizing. There’s a new word that I came up with, which is probably the best word,”

Equalize – May 2025

“You know more people tell me about groceries… the word grocery, I’ve heard it more in the last… year than any other word I think. Other than the word garbage, garbage… “

“I haven’t used the word ‘groceries.’ It’s like an old fashioned word. But really it’s not. And people understand it.”

“We have a term ‘groceries,’” “It’s an old term but it means, basically, what you’re buying, food… it’s a pretty accurate term. but it’s an old fashioned sound”.

“A bag with different things in it.”

Groceries – May 2025

“They’re not sending the good people out. They’re sending the bad people out, and they put them into caravans. I think I came up with that name,” he said, before ultimately declaring, “That was my term, and fake news and lots of other terms we came up with.”

Caravans – Trumps first term

By Elizabeth Stauffer
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/beltway-confidential/3803244/progressivism-is-killing-americans/

Three savage acts of violence, unfolding in rapid succession, reveal just how profoundly progressive ideology has infected America. What began as far-Left dogma spread gradually at first, mostly through academia, then accelerated until it took root in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Today, the consequences are impossible to ignore: progressivism is killing Americans.

In recent weeks, we’ve lurched from one act of depravity to the next. First, a mentally ill transgender man opened fire on children during a back-to-school Mass at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, killing two and wounding 18.

As disturbing as the tragedy was, the surreal, and at times even grotesque, reactions from the Left were nearly as unsettling — responses that ranged from callous indifference to outright empathy for the killer, Robert “Robin” Westman, who identified as a female.

One far-Left activist made it clear that her sympathies lie not with the innocent victims, but with the perpetrator himself. In a video posted on social media, she said, “That poor girl who attended the school and went in there and shot up the school after transitioning and after attending that school, and we can only assume that that school, as a Catholic school, did not welcome her, did not make her feel seen, included, safe, during her confusing years, during her transitional years, during her becoming who she needed to become.

“But the goal was to become happy when you transition. And so this is going to feed a lot of conversation about mental illness around trans people and this is why people shouldn’t encourage people to transition. And it’s just so sad because it affects the LGBTQ+ community.”

Regrettably, there are many similar videos out there from progressives whose reactions to this diabolical act were to reaffirm their support for the brave souls who have the “courage” to transgender.

Possibly even more alarming were the messages from Democratic leaders and influencers such as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. At a press conference following the killings, Frey had the audacity to lecture reporters on the hatred being directed toward the trans community as a consequence of the violence.

He made a remarkable statement: “I have heard about a whole lot of hate that’s being directed at our trans community. Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community, or any other community out there, has lost their sense of common humanity.”

Next came the horrifying video of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska being brutally stabbed to death on the Charlotte Light Rail by a repeat offender with more than a dozen priors — someone who would have been behind bars were it not for liberal judges and a no-cash-bail system.

The murder occurred on August 22, but did not make headlines until footage from the train’s surveillance camera surfaced nearly two weeks later. It showed Decarlos Brown Jr. — a large black man with a lengthy rap sheet — pulling a knife from his pocket and, without provocation, savagely stabbing his unsuspecting victim multiple times before walking away, blood from his knife dripping onto the floor as he muttered, “I got that white girl.”

Unbelievably, the legacy media failed to report the story. When they were called out for their silence, they were forced to cover it.

Axios was among the first liberal outlets to acknowledge the story. But instead of confronting the horror, they twisted it into yet another “Republicans pounce” narrative. Their headline read: “Grisly Charlotte stabbing video fuels MAGA’s crime message.”

The article began: “MAGA influencers are drawing repeated attention to violent attacks to elevate the issue of urban crime — and accuse mainstream media of under-covering shocking cases.”

Before even acknowledging the tragic — and preventable — death of a 23-year-old woman, Axios trained its fire on those “opportunistic” Republicans. This framing might please its regular readers, but the author’s barely concealed contempt gives the game away to the rest of us.

Just as we were catching our collective breath after that atrocity, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during a speaking event at Utah Valley University. A towering figure in the conservative movement, his murder sent shockwaves through the Right and ignited outrage across the country.

Even as Kirk lay dying, the character assassins over at MSNBC could not set aside their reflexive contempt, smearing this man of deep faith as a purveyor of “hate speech.” [Derogatory comments from the Left in the aftermath of his death were truly shocking, but are beyond the scope of this article.]

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, Kirk’s assassination was a pivotal moment for America. It changed the dynamic between the Right and the Left and the country will never be the same.

But, rather than rioting in the streets, destroying public property, and looting stores as the Left would do, the simmering rage that lies beneath the surface of our collective grief will turn into a steely resolve to take back our country from those who have quietly engineered its destruction. 

We will grab the reins, ruthlessly rather than politely, and break the dangerous grip of progressive ideology that’s taken hold in our once great nation. We will restore America to its former glory. 

Kilmeade replied, “Or, involuntary lethal injection — or something. Just kill them”

Four months after Liberation Day, President Trump is poised to declare victory in his trade war. In July, he trumpeted his latest agreement with the E.U. as “the biggest deal ever made.”

With the reigniting of Trump’s trade war in early August, the last month has delivered a raft of trade headlines as foreign emissaries have scurried to the White House to make deals. Even if these makeshift agreements result in marked reduction from Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, all indications point to the U.S. entering a far more protectionist era.

Ever the showman, Trump loves touting his trade war’s “success” by pointing to reopened factories and re-shored jobs. Strategically speaking, it’s brilliant retail politics. Ribbon-cutting at revived plants, flanked by dozens of smiling workers, make for great publicity.

Alas, Trump’s cunning marketing ploy has resurrected one of the oldest and most notorious myths in economics: Frédéric Bastiat’s “broken window fallacy.”

Suppose a vandal hurls a rock through a shopkeeper’s window. The shopkeeper is dismayed—this cruel stroke of luck will cost him $1,000. But a local wise guy consoles him, saying, “Actually, there’s a silver lining in this dark cloud!” The broken pane, he explains, creates a job for the local glazier. Perhaps he’ll use those hard-earned shekels to buy shoes from the local cobbler, and so on. Society is ultimately made richer from the shopkeeper’s misfortune — all thanks to the domino effect of spending triggered by two seconds of petty mischief.

t’s a nice story — but as Bastiat illustrates, it’s wildly incomplete. Had the window not been shattered, the shopkeeper could’ve spent his $1,000 on something else he valued. Perhaps he would have bought a new suit, creating income for a local tailor. Or maybe he would have bought some meat, ale, and bread for a party, creating income for the local butcher, brewer, and baker.

The fatal flaw in the wise guy’s analysis, Bastiat concludes, is confining his theory to “that which is seen” — the income earned by the glazier, the cobbler, etc. In so doing, he ignores “that which is unseen” — everything else the shopkeeper could have bought, had his window not been smashed.

Regrettably, we’ll never see what the shopkeeper would have done with that $1,000. All the products he might have bought and the jobs he might have helped create remain forever hidden in counterfactuals. All we know for certain is that society is poorer to the tune of one window.

Bastiat’s broken window fallacy wasn’t originally about tariffs, but it could have been. The logic is identical: Whether breaking windows or blocking imports, the visible gains in one sector come at the expense of unseen losses elsewhere. In the former case, resources are diverted towards less desirable uses (repairing windows). In the latter, they are diverted to less productive ones.

Should the goal of U.S. trade policy be to raise an army of millions of Americans to assemble iPhones, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested? Not if it comes at the expense of better jobs — for example, designing iPhones. If a $25,000 assembly job displaces a $125,000 design job, Americans aren’t $25,000 richer — we’re $100,000 poorer, and plus we will be stuck paying much higher prices for iPhones. Dave Chappelle had it right: Americans want to buy iPhones, not make them.

Today’s protectionists echo this fallacy with uncanny precision. The fact that trade gets such a bad rap in American politics today is a sad testimony to this myth’s resilience. Tariffs are a clever way for politicians to smash economic windows, then brag about the jobs they create to fix them.

When Trump hails the “return” of American manufacturing thanks to his tariffs, he is cleverly drawing our attention to that which is seen: Look! New factory jobs! New, American-made products! But beware the sleight of hand. Those gains, while real for a few, come at a hidden cost to the many.

Economists often focus on the visible consequences of tariffs (higher prices). It’s an understandable instinct, since tariff surcharges are easy to point out. But Bastiat’s parable highlights the unseen consequences — difficult to measure, impossible to point to, but they’re every bit as real and destructive to the economy.

Free trade, in contrast, avoids breaking windows in the first place. Buying cheaper imports saves Americans money, which they can spend, save, and invest elsewhere in the economy. Globalization doesn’t merely give us cheap washing machines and plentiful dolls. It frees us to specialize in better, higher-paying jobs.

The result isn’t a hollowing out of the middle class or a “giant sucking sound” of jobs leaving the country — it is mass flourishing.

The Trump administration launched today’s trade war on the basis that our persistent trade deficits since 1975 constitute a “national emergency.” Yet over those 50 years, U.S. real GDP per capita has more than doubled, and the real net worth of U.S. households has more than tripled. All the while, the share of the world’s population living in poverty plummeted from 50 percent to 8.5 percent.

Trump is a brilliant escape artist. He routinely defies the laws of political gravity. But he can’t escape the laws of economics. Restricting trade doesn’t bring us prosperity, any more than paying vandals to destroy property creates wealth. All protectionism delivers is higher costs and a stagnant economy.

Scott Burns is the Charles E. Blackwell associate professor of economics at Southeastern Louisiana University. Caleb S. Fuller is an associate professor of economics in the Winklevoss School of Business at Grove City College and a Research Fellow with the Independent Institute.

Alternet on MSN: Bloodthirsty Republicans need to stop their praying | Opinion

US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks during a meeting with House Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington, DC, U.S., on November 13, 2024. ALLISON ROBBERT/Pool via REUTERS© provided by AlterNet

More than 60 people, including two dozen children at a summer camp, are dead in Texas because of yet another tragedy that might have been prevented if one of the two major parties in this failing country would come to its warped senses and take the deadly heating of our planet seriously.

You are goddamned right I am going to politicize this gruesome event.

I am absolutely furious and will call this what it is, with the hope that everybody who has a brain in their head will join me. Are you listening, corporate media?

The Republican Party has had it out for America and Americans for decades.

They are a collection of stone-cold killers, who have never seen a single life worth saving just as long as there is enough money involved to allow them to cock their fat heads and look the other way.

Whether it’s climate change, guns, healthcare, a woman’s right over her body, poisoning our air and water, or rounding up hardworking landscapers and shoving them in alligator-protected detention camps, these bloodthirsty ghouls have proven to the world time and time again they aren’t interested in preventing catastrophes, they are interested in causing them.

Vaccines are being wiped away, measles are making a comeback, and more children will die needlessly because the sickly orange ghoul inside in the White House intentionally appointed a complete madman to incinerate our Department of Health and Human Services.

My God, even tooth decay is making a comeback in America because Republicans throughout the country, starting in Utah and Florida (it’s ALWAYS Florida), are removing fluoride from our drinking water.

Here’s a quote from the aforementioned madman, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on his attack on clean teeth:

”The more (fluoride) you get, the stupider you are, and we need smart kids in this country, and we need healthy kids.”

Are you reading this?

People who wear masks to suppress the spread of deadly disease are the enemy in Trump’s America, and people like Trump who attack our country are praised by the monster as “great people.”

What the hell are we supposed to do with this?

These Republicans aren’t interested in alleviating pain and suffering, they are interested in bringing it.

This heinous disaster along the Guadalupe River this weekend might have never happened if Republicans weren’t certifiable monsters.

Flash-flooding due to astronomical bursts of rain are happening with increasing frequency across the globe, and most certainly Texas, where they have become a regular deadly occurrence. In fact, it is the No. 1 storm-related killer across America. This is due to a fast-heating planet caused by burning fossil fuels.

There’s no dispute here. There’s no question.

So what do Republicans do?

They call it all “a hoax.”

THAT’S what they do.

Oh, and they also do whatever is inhumanly possible to make it worse. Because they ALWAYS make things worse. They attack science, and places like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is working tirelessly to study our warming planet and sound the alarms to millions of people who refuse to listen.

So what do Republicans do?

They devote pages and pages to it in their roadmap toward the end, Project 2025, where they describe NOAA as the “climate change alarm industry” adding “it should be broken up and downsized.”

Which, of course, is exactly what they are doing.

Public servants are treated as public enemies, and heinous Republicans treat themselves to the spoils by moving money from these vital programs into the bank accounts of the bloated billionaires who then move them around the halls of Congress to do their ghastly bidding.

So, tell me again how the tragedy in Texas and thousands of other places aren’t a byproduct of this sickening, soulless political game.

And when things get bad, I mean REAL bad like they are this weekend, here’s what else Republicans do every single time:

They pray.

Here’s House Speaker Mike Johnson, out Mike-Johnsoning himself in response to the senseless deaths of our children:

“In a moment like this, we feel just as helpless as everyone else does … all we know to do at this moment is pray.”

All the man who laid the groundwork for this massive loss of life knows to do is pray. All the man who degrades science and the people whose groundbreaking work can save lives knows to do is pray.

Johnson is a gruesome, pointy-nosed little man, who has never grown out of his oily smugness. Whenever he has nowhere to go, which is often, the man who would sooner burn a book than read one, leans on his two-ton Bible to keep him in the neighborhood of straight.

Lately he’s been seen on his knees of OUR House floor praying for the passage of a bill that will mean unmitigated holy hell for millions of Americans, who will no longer have healthcare or protections from killer storms like the one we are dealing with in Texas.

His orange idol uses him as a Christian circus prop while he fills his bottomless pockets with money that should be going to hardworking Americans who so desperately need it.

How long will we continue to let them get away with this?

How long will we put up with devils like this who make things easier for killer diseases, killer storms, and outright killers in Minnesota to wipe us out?

When the next ghastly shooting happens in one of our schools, and Republicans hit their knees to pray, we better be crystal-clear that the blood will already be on their clasped hands.

Among scores of poisonous ingredients that are stuffed into their big, brutal bill that are too awful to imagine was the provision that Senate Republicans have eliminated the $200 tax stamp for firearm silencers and scrapped a similar tax for short-barrel rifles.

I guess killing quietly is more palatable to these sickos.

And who was behind this push?

Why TEXAS Senator John Cornyn, of course.

Republicans are killing millions of us out loud, and it is a national emergency.

(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.)

Perhaps he was was sent by ‘God’, but to test you.