We start the posting day with a bit of good news, followed by …
Christians arrested for maskless outdoor church service to get payout from liberal college town
Arrests in Moscow, Idaho, drew condemnation from then-President Trump
A liberal college town in Idaho is paying $300,000 to three Christian churchgoers who sued the city after being arrested for not wearing masks at an outside service during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city of Moscow announced this week that it would settle with Gabriel Rench, as well as Sean and Rachel Bohnet, who brought a case against city leaders in March 2021 that alleged their rights under the First and Fourth Amendments were violated ...
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Rench and the others were charged with violating the city's repeatedly extended health ordinance, which carved out exemptions for activities protected under the U.S. Constitution and the Idaho State Constitution, including religious activity.
A magistrate judge later dismissed the city's case against them, and U.S. District Court Judge Morrison C. England, Jr., wrote in his Feb. 1, 2023 memorandum and order denying the city's motion to dismiss that the "plaintiffs should never have been arrested in the first place, and the constitutionality of what the City thought [its] code said is irrelevant."
"Somehow, every single City official involved overlooked the exclusionary language [of constitutionally protected behavior] in the Ordinance," the judge further wrote.
Rench told Fox News Digital that he has nevertheless become a pariah in his predominantly liberal community since the arrest and subsequent settlement. Rench says members of his community have accused him of being "an idiot" who does not "love his neighbor" and have urged him to "take your money and run" since the payout.
The article itself is fairly full. I urge readers to check it out, for what it says about much of America. Who thought we needed laws to allow the continued exercise of enumerated Constitutional rights? There’s also a very good video interview of Rench with Laura Ingraham which provides needed perspective..
At the same time these psalm singers were arrested—even though their conduct was specifically lawful—Bluto Barr was allowing BLM and Antifa to burn down cities across the land. Go figure, right? The city had falsely arrested these people under color of law, attacking enumerated constitutional rights, and Bluto did nothing. To get rid of the Orange Man.
Here also is where we’re headed, because people will knuckle under and live their own lives without concern for their neighbors—or their neighbors’ children. Who is my neighbor? Well …
Note, too, that Rench specifically states to Ingraham that the police officers didn’t want to arrest him. But they did. What does this tell you about the worldview of most Americans and the relation of communities of Americans to the governing authorities? Not healthy.
AI-generated images are opening doors to a disturbing trend targeting children
This is a UK based story, but I don’t doubt it’s happening here. Maybe we’re not hearing about it in America because the “Department of Justice” and the Zhou Regime have quietly downgraded concern about sexual crimes involving children.
Moving on, yesterday I received an email from a retired FBI agent. He’s written me before and I’ve shared his experiences here previously. His latest missive seems very relevant to our concerns these days, so I’ve anonymized the email and present it below. He writes from a state that would be widely regarded as Deep Red:
I hope this finds you well. I have been regularly reading your posts and continue to be impressed. Thanks for doing what you do with the Meaning In History.
I have not written to you lately but having read this post [Presidential Politics, Plus Incredible Sachs Interview And Ukraine Update], I felt compelled to comment.
As regards the GOP, I had the opportunity to attend the [state] GOP convention in June of this year as a proxy for one of our local legislators. I have been heavily involved in local GOP politics since shortly after the 2020 Presidential election. While I am glad I went to the convention, I came away with a couple of conclusions. First, the GOP is hopelessly muddled, poorly organized, and not a serious threat or opposition force to the Democrat/Marxist party. The [state] GOP was given a choice to continue our present losing path or change direction due to the increasing problems facing the Republic. The [state] GOP chose to stay the course. Second, there is no real statewide organization behind the GOP. We have only a couple of staffers and there is no support or assistance provided by the GOP to grassroots folks. Third, I have concluded that this is by design as opposed to chance. There is a huge divide between the GOP elite and the grassroots. People are waking up and asking the hard question of just what the hell does the GOP actually do? The short answer is hold lavish conventions, raise money, ignore the concerns of the grassroots and little else. We are currently getting ready to challenge Democrat Senator XYZ ... The [state] GOP, via [its GOP senator], has "picked" ABC as their choice. This is not the result of a swell of grassroots enthusiasm, but rather a selection by party elites. People are not happy about that.
This next paragraph was particularly interesting to me, as coming from someone involved in conservative politics at the local and state level. It tends to confirm the concern I voiced a few days ago that the GOP could, in effect, commit political suicide if it continues its jihad against Trump. Speaker Kev appears to at least understand that dynamic. Will it make a difference?
Regarding President Trump, there is a growing sentiment among the grassroots that it's Trump or nothing. There is also a growing discontent with the GOP. I suspect that the GOP would like to prevent Trump from being the nominee. If that comes to pass, the GOP will, in all likelihood, cease to be a party. Far too many people will just walk away. The GOP has squandered years of good will of its members and it is catching up with them. The recent statement by Senator Lisa Murkowski about leaving the GOP is truly offensive. The lack of action about the 2020 and 2022 election fraud, the failure to curb the weaponization of the government, the failure to secure the border among other issues is convincing folks that the GOP is not their champion. Paraphrasing a 1960s saying, "either you are part of the solution or you are part of the problem." People are realizing that the GOP is truly part of the problem. I am among them. I will support individual candidates but not the party. I tried to help fix the GOP in [state], but the GOP doesn't want to be fixed. I suspect that if Trump runs and loses, that the GOP will cease to exist. If Trump runs and wins, it will not be because of any real assistance from the GOP and that Trump will, hopefully, rid the GOP of the folks who oppose America. In either event, good riddance.
The final paragraph describes the ideology based mindset. I would add that this mindset is present across much of the political spectrum. For example, you can see the same self defeating behavior in Never Trumpers, based on an ideology that rejects culture and religion based solutions. The solution, as our Founders understood, is personal conversion.
Lastly, concerning Ukraine, I believe that one of the unintended consequences of all of this woke nonsense is that the people in the regime surrounding Biden, truly believe the lies they tell themselves. If someone actually believes that a man can get pregnant, it isn't much of jump to believe that Russia is the "boogey man', that sanctions will break Russia etc. or any other of a number of falsehoods. That these folks are now being confronted with reality would ordinarily be a great source of discomfort for them. However, I believe they are "true believers' and simply dismiss those facts/reality that are not conducive to their cherished illusions. The danger with this state of affairs is that when reality intrudes on their illusions (and it always does) , they are left with little or no real ability to analyse things or think their way through a problem. This is when these folks are most prone to making dangerous decisions. I encountered something similar during my career. I was always more concerned about arresting white collar criminals than typical drug and violent crimes subjects. White collar criminals were about to meet reality head on and their world would be crashing down upon them. People in those situations do dumb/stupid/dangerous things.
The Pennsylvania GOP is a great example of a do nothing, Never Trump, money grabbing state party. A disgrace. Maybe a third party is the only answer but Trump did not go that route and he’s probably right that getting through the state’s labyrinths of voting laws is nigh on impossible in most states and certainly in all of the blue states. I think the 2024 election will be brazenly stolen in PA - there is no election law enforcement. Allegheny County has fallen to the Dems and I think, for now, it’s game over here.
"...the “Department of Justice” and the Zhou Regime have quietly downgraded concern about sexual crimes involving children."
I know, I know, "correlation is not causation," but -- after all, the current *Resident of the Oval Office IS "Sniffy Zhou".
Just sayin'.