Books, Reviews, Short Stories, Authors, Publicity, a little poetry, music to complement...and other stuff including politics, about life... "Books, Cats: Life is Sweet..."
I may have gone a little overboard with the videos! LOL... yeah, I enjoy Tom Jones, even more as he's older, than I ever did even for Elvis... The power of Jones' voice is outstanding and his moves? Well, I'm sure you can/will make your own decision about them! I loved the short duet with Jones and Jennifer Hudson on The Voice... two powerful voices merging without effort, complementing each other in their greatness! Then I had to include Tom Jones and Pavarotti's to lead off the story... You can play all of the videos, none of the videos and just go for the story about the book... But, I did want to take the time and effort to recognize Sir Tom Jones in all of his Glory! As he said, he was given the voice...
“Delilah” performed by Tom Jones
Part of the fun of writing Delilah: A Ronnie Lake Cold Case was the research, including spending plenty of time online watching Tom Jones perform his many hits. Some of the earliest clips reminded me what a remarkable voice he has, and what an amazing performer he has been from the moment he appeared on the scene in the 1960s. These days, he’s a slightly different kind of amazing. Check out his fabulous 2012 video on YouTube where he sings Leonard Cohen’s, “Tower of Song.” The decades have added a wonderful darkness and dimension to what was already so perfect. Like the proverbial good wine, Tom Jones has aged well—just the way many of us are striving to do. --Nikki Danforth
I met Danforth in 2017 with her book Searching for Gatsby Haven't got to Stunner, yet... So many TBR books, so little time...
The bloodied corpses lay dumped on each other as if they’ve been sorted for the trash. Even with blindfolds covering their eyes, their frozen faces show an unspeakable terror. Two of the teenaged victims appear to have their hands tied behind their backs. The third must have worked out of the rope that’s still twisted around one wrist, her other rubbed raw from the binding. Her arms reach around the two girls as if she’s pulling them close. Were they already friends before this final embrace? I click through the next photographs, close-ups of the girls’ battered bodies. Their clothes are filthy and ragged, as if they’ve been held captive for some time. Other pictures on my laptop reveal the surroundings, possibly a warehouse somewhere in a rundown industrial area. The bleak, abandoned space is light years away from my cozy, safe cottage in Willowbrook, New Jersey, where I complete homework for my "Intro to Criminal Justice class. Warrior, my beloved German shepherd, stirs near my feet on the end of a comfy chaise in my bedroom. This has always been my first choice of where to hunker down with a great book, but at the moment it’s where I study these photos. Suddenly, not wanting to taint my refuge with this Russian mob-related case, I take off my drugstore glasses, sweep up the materials, and head downstairs to the kitchen. I continue reading about this tragic human trafficking case and contemplate whether I’m really cut out for this world of investigative work.
Unexpectedly, the wind picks up. Crack! I jump at the same moment the phone rings and grab it before it can ring again. “Hello? Who is it?” “Ronnie, it’s Will. Are you okay?” his calm voice asks. “You sound panicked.” “I’m fine, I’m fine. A huge noise outside startled me, like a gunshot, but it was probably just a limb that broke off.” I pour a glass of pinot noir. “What’s up?” “Do you want to assist me on a new case? I’m swamped—” “I’d love to, but is it more involved than the gofer work I did last time?” I take a drink. “Not that I don’t appreciate the opportunity—” “It’s a cold case in Parklawn, just west of Paterson. It’s not that far from you, and you’ll have a chance to help a lot in the field,” Will interjects. “We’ll find out more tomorrow when we talk to the client. Meet me at the diner at eight.” “You’re really going to put me in the field?” “With my close supervision,” Will says. “I don’t want to see a repetition of your—”
“See you there. Thanks!” I hang up. I grab my computer and run upstairs to turn in. The wind continues to howl outside, and I pull Warrior’s dog nest next to my bed before sliding under the covers. I look at the computer screen, determined to pick up where I left off with my assignment. Outside, the branches creak spookily. “Who are you trying to kid?” I turn off my laptop. “Enough of the Russian mob for one night.”
~~~~~
Ronnie, our main character, is over 50, living alone in the Carriage House on the family estate, which she is now renting out to a family with children--just like it had once been during her early years. She was quite happy to be able to now begin to enjoy the smaller space and not have those shadows following her through darkened areas where nobody ever entered... Yet, she has two children so didn't want to assume that one or both of them may be one day interested in returning...home...
It's difficult to decide what to do with the rest of your life when a major change has occurred. In an earlier book, she met Will and began considering a personal relationship, while also contemplating whether she was interested in working in his field--as a Private Investigator. She is now taking one course and while reading the grim details of a mock case, seeing what men have been doing to women for ages, and trying to decide whether she has the desire to go so deep into such horrendous acts of mankind, she has the chance to become involved on a new case. This one to include field work, since Will is tied up with another case...
Will is still not certain she can act on her own, and gets her to promise that she will let him know what she plans before she acts... Of course, when you go out in the field and find something out, you tend to go ahead and take that next step without seeking permission... On the other hand, Ronnie seems to have an intuitive and quick mind that, as she reviews all the case files for a Cold Case, in which a young woman had been murdered many years ago, she picks up key factors that she deems important and then starts building the normal "whatifs" that are explored as an investigation moves forward...
Checking out who and why the people at that time were interviewed, then deciding who to try to get in touch with--former boyfriends, girlfriends, officers in charge of the case... That is, if they are still alive. But first, they had to meet with the individual representing the family who were asking for their help. They were to meet with the deceased's cousin who had flown in from Pittsburgh. Doreen Lyla had been murdered in 1972:
“My aunt, Doreen Lyla, was murdered back in 1972, and they never got her killer. “So, why now?” Will asks. “It’s been more than forty years.” “My old man’s got cancer, and we don’t think he’ll make it.” “I’m sorry,” Will and I say almost in unison. “Pop’s dying wish is that his sister’s killer be brought to justice,” Steve says...
Will and Ronnie, after their client had left, continued to put together a plan of action, with agreement of what Ronnie would handle without first coming back to discuss with Will. And, she followed this guidance, at least as far as she felt she could handle without disturbing his busy schedule... And that's how she wound up in a local bar where the victim was known to visit... And, while she gathered pieces of memory from the owner, the crowd was getting noisier as the beginning of a nightly feature of the club was announced--Karaoke! Well, I've sung in public, but never spontaneously as would happen in a bar. And, it was obvious that this crowd included many active participants! All of a sudden a woman was singing loudly, and offkey, I will survive! And the crowd loved her... And, by the way, I've use the karaoke version so you can sing along! You're probably reading this alone, right, so what if you do sing offkey, nobody will hear you...
Ronnie spent the evening there, at least until the Karaoke stopped. (While the author was writing more, I added a few more songs just for the fun of it!) The owner had been younger in the 70s but still remembered everything that happened, and what he thought about it at the time. Once he learned that her brother wanted to know who had killed his sister before he died of cancer, he was all in... And after Ronnie left she spent time going through everything and arrived at who she thought might be guilty...
After talking to Will who said that the only way they could prove it, would be if he confessed... And Ronnie knew exactly how to make that happen... As long as Will was there as her backup! Even though I, too, had identified the guilty individual, I still was shocked at what happened at the confrontation! Perfect ending!
And, if you haven't tried to sing along, I'll share that I did! Especially Respect by Aretha Franklin and of course, Tom Jones' songs! Don't close this out until you've at least tried one! I admit I only did Ok with ones I really knew, like I Got You Babe! Ah Memories!
Didi planted her hands on her hips. “So it’s a peach operation that hides the suffragette operation.” “It sure looks that way.” “Hidden in Grandma Rose’s garden.” I had to hand it to Rose. “It would be the perfect cover for secret meetings.” “Nobody would think to look down here,” Didi said as the double doors overhead flew open on the ghostly side. A hook-nosed ghost above us let out a cry, dropping her basket of fruit. Didi zipped out of the way. I wasn’t as quick and caught a silvery peach to the shoulder. The icy wetness of the other side seared me. “Ow!” I cried as it plowed straight through me and rolled across the cave floor. The hook-nosed woman appeared directly between us. She wore men’s work gloves and an apron smeared with dirt. “What are you doing in my storage room?” “Madge let us in,” I said, rubbing my shoulder. “We’re looking for the lock that fits this key.” She studied the key I held up. “You won’t find it here,” she said grimly. “Then do you know where?” Didi pressed. Her lips thinned. “That’s not for me to say.” “They’re with Rose,” Madge said, shimmering into existence next to me. “I’ve been keeping an eye on them.”
The ghost looked us up and down. “They’re not even wearing corsets.” “It’s a new day,” Didi told her. She frowned at that. “I say we leave this up to Liberty Brown. If she wants these ladies involved, she’ll tell them what to do.” “Liberty Brown?” I’d never heard of her. “She’ll be at the meeting,” Madge said. “You can wait with me.” “When does the meeting start?” Didi asked as Madge led us out of the storage cellar. “Ladies will be showing up any minute,” she assured us. “In fact, I hesitated to leave the meeting room, well, until you startled Viv.” “I think we all did our fair share of startling,” I said. “So what’s with all the peaches?” Didi asked. “I can understand meeting down here, but actually helping with the harvest?” “It’s…complicated,” Madge said, holding the curtain for us. “But you might as well help me peel a few while we wait for the meeting to start.”
I fought off a cringe. “That might be difficult.” Objects on the ghostly plane felt like ice against my skin and fire in my veins. And anything I touched would vanish within minutes. But if we played our cards right, we could try to learn more from Madge. Didi seemed to be thinking the same thing. She commandeered an apron. I skipped that part and dredged up a rickety stool from the corner. It slanted sideways and looked like it’d crumble in a mild breeze, but it was the only seat I could find that wasn’t glowing gray. My rule when it came to the ghostly plane was definitely more of a look, don’t touch approach. The table appeared real enough despite the ghostly sheen. The peaches were on an entirely different plane. “Ready?” Madge said, placing a shimmering silver knife down onto the table next to me. “Sure,” I ventured. Oh, who was I kidding? I was never ready for this. The ghostly knife would be freezing cold. It would make my teeth chatter and my hand go numb. And if I dared touch it, we could kiss it goodbye. Same with the peaches. The basket. And while nuking all the unpeeled peaches would no doubt speed things along, I’d rather stay under the radar. Learn what we could. I made a show of flexing my fingers. Didi grabbed a knife and a peach. “So, seriously, why are we peeling fruit for the vote instead of marching or making ourselves heard?” She was right. I could think of a dozen more effective ways to be heard and inspire change. Madge wiped her hands on her apron before grabbing her knife. “Bake sales are important fundraisers.” Oh, come on. “You have to give us more than that.” “That’s it,” Madge said, not fooling anybody. “We’re in an underground cave,” I pointed out. “This isn’t a baking party. What are you really working on down here?” Madge stiffened. “We’ve been ordered to keep the fundraising going.” “With peaches?” Didi asked, slicing into her first one. “It’s no secret the movement is in danger.” And it was clear they weren’t telling us everything. She eyed me. “Keep at it, and Viv is going to kick you out.” “Let’s not get hasty,” I said as Didi placed a half-peeled peach in front of me. I could pretend it was mine. Madge dug into a peach with her knife. “Let’s be honest. I know everyone in Sugarland, and I don’t know you.” How strange to be on the other end of that one.
“You should, right?” I agreed. “I mean, if you don’t go back five generations, are you really from Sugarland?” “I’d say the true test is whether you’ve put a raft down on Devil’s Bend,” Didi said. “Or gone to Roan’s for a hammer.” I nodded. They’d been in business since 1843. “Or stared up at Rockhill Mansion and wondered what the heck goes on up there,” Madge added. “It’s haunted, that’s what,” I told her. I’d solved the case. “I knew it!” Madge gushed. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times.” She shook her head. “This is fun. I missed chatting. And working together,” she added, eyeing my knife on the table. “Do you really have to worry about spies?” Didi asked, while I wondered if I was brave enough to reach for the knife. At Madge’s raised brow, I did, gritting my teeth as I felt the bracing chill. I stabbed into the skin of the peach without picking it up. “Didi has a point,” I said to our host. “We’re women.” I ignored the goosebumps erupting on my arms. “Why wouldn’t we want the vote?” Madge cocked her head as she ran a knife around the peach, skinning it with swift strokes. “You have no idea the lengths some women will go to in order to give up their power.” She eyed me. “They leave chicken feet on my husband’s desk at work and call him henpecked.” She returned her attention to the peach. “They say he’s not a man because he stays home with the baby while I volunteer.” “My man takes care of my little Lucy while I work,” I said, flicking the peel and stabbing the peach before tossing it into the metal bowl. “Why shouldn’t your partner take care of his family? It’s what good men do.” Madge placed her peeled peach next to mine. “He has been quite wonderful. I’m lucky.”
“You are,” Didi said. “My husband pretended he didn’t know how to work the washing machine. For fifty years.” Madge barked out a laugh. “Mine can take apart a carburetor but needs me to make his toast.” She pursed her lips. “Although I do cut it into hearts for him. He likes that.” “You’re lucky,” I said, making note to try the heart toast with Ellis. “Mine can’t cook to save his life. The bacon is either raw or burned to a crisp, but he keeps trying.” “Pretend you like it, and he’ll get better,” she said, placing another peach in front of me. “That’s been my plan now that my husband has been fixing dinner every night for the kids. He saves a plate for me.” She brought a hand to her head. “I’ve been gone so much.” “Doing important work,” I assured her. “It may not look like it, but it is,” she assured us. She flicked her knife toward the peach she’d laid out for me. “I already did one,” I said, looking to the metal bowl. The entire bowl had begun to fade. Oh no. It was disappearing! Fast. I hadn’t touched it. But I had touched my peach, which I’d tossed in with the other peaches, which set off a chain reaction of disaster.
“What the—” Madge stood, her chair falling backward as the entire bowl evaporated. Oh my goodness. I stood quickly. “I’m so sorry.” She shrieked, pointing as my knife began to disappear from the table. “I’m sorry about that, too,” I cried. Viv dashed into the room. “What’s the matter?”
“They’re—” Madge pointed at me. “I—” “I’m alive.” There. I’d said it. “I messed up the peaches because I’m alive.” Viv rested a hand on her hip. “Of course you’re alive. Everyone is alive. And peaches don’t disappear.” “I saw them,” Madge said breathlessly, staring at the table. Didi placed her knife down and rose from the table. “What year do you think this is?” Viv rolled her eyes. “It’s 1919, of course.” They didn’t know they were dead. Or that I was alive. “And when is the meeting supposed to start?” I asked Madge. “Tell me. What date? What time?” She looked at me funny. “June 20th. Two o’clock.” “1919,” Didi finished. That poor woman really had been peeling peaches for a century. “I don’t think we can wait around anymore.” Liberty Brown wasn’t coming. Nobody was. These poor ghosts didn’t realize their time was long past. And if they hadn’t noticed by now, I wasn’t sure how to convince them. “Is Liberty the only person who can help us?” “The only one who’ll be at the meeting,” Madge maintained. “Rose and Hope were the only ones trusted with keys,” Viv said from the door. “Where is Hope?” Maybe we could track her down.
“Hope died last week.” Madge’s voice broke. “She died in jail.” “How awful,” I said, rubbing my hands on my dress. They were still tingling. “They locked her up for disturbing the peace,” Viv said. “In truth, it was to scare us. To keep us from organizing.” “Or asking questions,” Madge added. “About what?” I asked. They both clammed up. Viv’s hands formed into fists. “Now Rose is locked in the same jail. I feel so awful for her. No one is allowed in, and she’s in the same cell where Hope died.” The musty air clung to my skin, and I could hear water dripping somewhere in the distance.
I stood as primly as I could, fingering Grandma Rose’s filigree necklace. “I’m dating a police officer. I might be able to help.” Viv gritted her jaw. “We can’t trust the police.” Not again. Not in Sugarland. “Why would you say that?” Madge drew a hand to the button brooch at her throat. “Eleanor Blackwell has vanished. She’s slated to speak at the rally tomorrow. It’s crucial to our cause.” Didi crossed her arms. “When did she disappear?” “Two days ago,” Viv said. “She left the Sugarland Hotel after dinner. We thought she was coming straight here to the house, but she disappeared on the way. Several of our members went to the police, but they’ve done nothing.” “At least that’s kept it out of the papers,” Madge added. “If we have to cancel the rally, we’ll lose a lot of support.” For now. But I could offer some comfort. “The good news is I do believe it will all turn out in the end.” Viv scoffed. Madge’s cheeks flushed gray. “How can you say that?” she demanded. “Our vice president died in her jail cell. Our speaker has been kidnapped. Our president has been arrested. Our lawyer is trying to get her out, but she’s on a hunger strike. She could die in there, just like Hope.” “Grandma Rose will make it,” Didi murmured to me. “But at what cost?” From the way she’d treated Didi in the afterlife, it was safe to say Rose had been through a lot. Didi nodded. “Grandma Rose is alone in the world. Her husband, Grandpa Jack, died in 1915.” “We already lost Hope. If we lose Rose and Eleanor both, we’ll have no shot at the grand plan,” Viv added. “We’ll never stop, but that doesn’t mean we’ll succeed.” “Or live.”
Madge wiped her eyes. “I’m so sorry.” I’d had no idea. And they might be more right than they knew, seeing as they were still trapped down here a century later. Didi had the same idea. “Hang tight and stay where you are. We’ll see what we can find out.” Would we? “If Rose is in jail, we can talk to her about the key,” Didi said. She was right. Even if Rose had moved on, Hope might still be haunting the place where she died. She’d be able to tell us about the key as well. Viv brought a hand to her head. “Rose is the one we trusted to keep the key safe.” “It’s safe,” I insisted. And soon we’d secure Rose’s legacy as well. “Which jail is she in?” The ghosts shared a meaningful look before Viv answered, “Occoquan Workhouse.” I nodded, committing the name to memory. I turned to leave, pausing at the curtain. “Stay here. Have your meeting. We’ll be back with news,” I promised, my voice barely audible as I ascended into the world above.
~~~
I've been a fan for Angie for many years (do a search in the right column to check out all the other books I've talked about!) but, Secrets, Lies, and Fireflies is, not only a personal favorite for 2025, but, in my opinion, is the best book she's written--so far! Let's face it, with all that politics is causing in America, we have all begun to question just how soon women will be next on the chopping block... After all the president has been indicted for sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll...
DEI actions are so diverse in implementation that you cannot keep up...people are being fired, then have to file legal actions!!! Chaos from one man who has already shown he cares nothing about women (E. Jean is not the only individual who has attempted to sue the president), Social Security, and Medicaid...
I could have continued to illustrate what is presently happening, but I hope all of you already know of the catastrophic mess that Trump and MAGA is forcing on America citizens... Still, it needed to be illustrated because many people have gone through this type of discriminatory action before! This book takes us back to the historical story of what was happening as women were fighting to gain the right to vote--and if we don't stop this madness, that could be next by this misogynist... and white supremacist...
“Where is she?” He blazed toward the house. “Is she in there? She can’t hide from me.” At this rate, she might want to. I was no expert, but I had to assume hell hath no fury like a gangster in penny loafers.
Fox takes readers on a very different direction in her latest, which had to be planned for Women's History Month! Kudos Angie! We still have our regular gangster ghost, Frankie, who is stuck on earth when his ashes was accidentally spilt... This time, it is the family who is spotlighted in both good and bad ways... You see, other than the main character and her sister, all the rest of the family are dead or ghosts...
It all began when a fire is started in the Sugarland Library! Where Melody was working! Verity, our main character, was already hurrying toward the library when she heard somebody shouting her name... Yes, she realized that it was indeed her grandmother, Didi, who was calling her. We learn later that she saw Verity talking with Frankie, a ghost, so she realized that Verity might be able to hear her. She had been sent to be with Melody as she died...but when she saw there might be a chance to help her, all plans were changed! Soon Verity was leaping past everybody and on her way to find her grandmother, who then showed her where Melody was...
Melody was standing, staring into space. A child was still lost and Melody wouldn't leave until she found her... So all three women began searching and ultimately found and saved the little girl, as well as Melody... But a strange thing happened on their way out, Didi saw a white scarf, went and grabbed it and gave it to Verity. At that time, Verity thought Didi wanted her to cover her mouth from the smoke...
What evolved from that was the finding of a key within that scarf which started a search for a lock it would fit!
By the way, before we go any further, you should be aware that Lucy had won an award at the Annual Pet Parade and Festival. Lucy, by the way, is a delightful character who happens to be a skunk and who is also very protective of her loved ones and actually catches the criminal--with her back feet... You really have to read it to understand...LOL
Once the fire was under control, Didi returned to her home... Yes, she had left her home to Verity who had shown she loved it as much as Didi did... But, immediately the fun starts because Didi immediately created her vision of that house as she lived there... Which Verify loved and hoped she could stay... At the same time, Frankie felt it was his home now and wasn't happy with what she represented. You see, when Didi returned into her former home, she became the dominant ghost. Soon Frankie's home had been returned to a garden shed! Then Didi, thinking about her late husband, began to dress Frankie in a sweater, with a pipe... Well, hopefully you all who have been reading Fox for years know what Frankie thinks about himself...He...was...dominant! LOL Just like all men think so, right?
Which leads us to the main thrust of the mystery... During the Women's Suffrage movement, Sugarland had also become involved. However, it was not well received by the town's men. So women, at first, started meeting secretly. Rose, one of Verity's ancestors had been a major part of those activities. Unfortunately, all of the records had been entrusted to Didi, who knew nothing about Suffrage activities and after skimming the mountains of papers, had boxed it up and donated it... to... the... library! And, by the way, during the fire, a skeleton was found hidden in a wall there...
I laughed often, but I teared up as well... Learning what was happening to women, how they were treated but so dedicated that, even after death, when they didn't know they'd died a century before, continued to work to make money to support those speakers who were traveling across the nation working to ensure women would be given the right to vote!
Must we continue to have similar types of situations over and over and over as men strive to override those votes that result in something different than candidates want! I'll never forget how a mother and daughter had lies made about them by the president and his lawyer! We must continue to fight to CONFIRM that ALL PEOPLE ARE CREATED EQUALLY as the Constitution guarantees... Then, why oh why must we repeat each step forward, while men want to go backward to the time when white men were the only ones allowed to participate in determining the type of government under which we live?!
And, why, Lord, do people continue to forget the only real things we needed to do for Him: Love and Speak Truth??? I thought Fox did an excellent job in the creation of the villain in this case... So very perfect an example of how some children are raised, taught, or simply, feel entitled to lie, cheat, and even murder if needed to get what was required for the life chosen... Angie, I hope you'll continue to take diversions into family life from time to time! Best book yet!
They shake Frank’s hand. He seems befuddled, surrounded by all this power. “Sofia’s father.” I mouth the words to Harry and Gwyn. “Oh.” Riggins draws back a step and puts on a more sober expression. Jolting music, blasting horns, and a bass drum makes us all jump. Somewhere there’s a sound system. Powerful speakers under the eaves of the house blast down on us. Aaron Copland, “Fanfare for the Common Man.” It’s a nice tune, but not at this volume, and certainly not something Sofia would have picked. I look over and one of her roommates, Tess, I believe, is telling someone inside the house to turn it down. A few seconds later the ear-shattering noise quells to background music. We can hear ourselves again. Copland on the quiet. Tess must know the owner of the house. Maybe it’s her family...
I turn to the computer, punch up Google, and type in “45th Infantry Division.” In seconds the site list pops up. There’re a bunch of sites. I open one of them. It spills across the screen, a map of Western Europe with text underneath in big letters. “The 45th Infantry Division drove on Munich in the closing days of the war and, in the process, it liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. The division crossed the Danube River on 27 April, 1945, and liberated 32,000 captives of Dachau on 29 April. The division captured Munich during the next two days, occupying the city until V-E Day and the surrender of Germany. During the next month, the division remained in Munich and set up collection points and camps for the massive numbers of surrendering troops of the German armies. The number of POWs taken by the 45th Infantry Division during its almost two years of fighting totaled 124,840 men.” “Dachau concentration camp,” says Harry. “I see it.” “You think Brauer was there?” “I don’t know.” “We could ask Emma.” “She says she doesn’t know anything. According to her, her dad never talked about the war. All she knows is little bits and pieces from letters he’d written to army buddies and a few telephone conversations she overheard. Whenever she asked him about the war, the men he served with, he’d go silent. Didn’t want to talk about it. She assumed it brought up bad memories, so she never pressed him.” “It is possible the swastika on the wall is something Brauer captured, like the pistol. Maybe they go together,” says Harry. “Herman looked at the Luger and said he thought it was authentic.” I punch up another site, wait a couple of seconds, and sit there staring at it. “I’ll be damned.” “What is it?” says Harry. “The unit emblem for the 45th Infantry Division of the United States Army.” “What was it?” “Come take a look,” I tell him. Harry steps around the desk so he can look over my shoulder. It’s an item from the 45th Infantry Division Museum, their online site, an organization dedicated to the history of the unit. I know from other readings that the symbol in question has a history dating back thousands of years. It is formed by an equilateral cross, the outward legs of which are bent at a ninety-degree angle. It has been used by various cultures and religions from time immemorial, including Hindus, Buddhists, and followers of Jainism. In ancient Sanskrit it was known by the word svastika. We know it as the swastika. According to the article from the 45th Infantry Division Museum, the unit wore the swastika on their divisional arm patch for a period dating from around 1920 until 1933. To the unit it was an ancient American Indian icon, a symbol of good luck. The 45th was headquartered in Oklahoma City and trained at Fort Bliss. It was made up of recruits mostly from Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona. This was Indian country for many of the western tribes, so according to the article the symbol made sense. From reading we find out that the problem arose when the swastika became known worldwide as the symbol of Hitler’s Nazi Party in Germany. Apparently the 45th abandoned the swastika in 1933. They wore no arm patch insignia until 1939. After much thought and a contest to come up with a new insignia, the army settled on another American Indian motif. It was gold and red, the same colors as the old patch, but this time it was the Thunderbird—the symbol of the “sacred bearer of happiness unlimited.” They marched with it on their shoulders through World War II and the Korean War. The 45th Infantry Division was deactivated in 1968 and rolled into the 45th Infantry Brigade along with its battle flags, storied history, and Thunderbird shoulder insignia. “That proves what they say,” says Harry. “What’s that?” “There’s nothing stranger than history. Could have knocked me over with a thunderbird feather. We can forget the theory that Brauer was a Nazi.” “Looks like it.” “Where did they end up?” says Harry. “Who?” “The 45th, at the end of the war?” I look through some of the materials online. “Looks like Munich. Why?” “Munich was a hotbed,” says Harry. “It’s where Hitler got his start. The Beer Hall Putsch, remember? Early twenties.” “That was before my time,” I say, and start to smile. “I know it’s fashionable to be ignorant with regards to history,” he says, “but the Millennials will end up reliving it if they aren’t careful. Our own American version of Hitler. Country’s in trouble, in case you haven’t noticed. And most people haven’t a clue as to current events. They know even less about history.” He’s getting wound up. I can tell. Harry’s lecture series, new season, episode one. “If a nuclear war happened before four o’clock yesterday, they don’t know about it. If another one is scheduled for tomorrow, the only question they’ll ask is whether they can catch it on YouTube. The definition of being cool. The younger generation is ignorant,” he says. “You tell my daughter that, tell Sarah that the next time she’s down, and I’ll take odds she hits you with a book.” “You can bet it won’t be a history book,” says Harry. I start to laugh. “It’s not funny,” he says. “The world’s coming apart and the kids are gonna inherit it.” “You did pretty well last year. Have you checked your portfolio balance lately?” “I’m not talking about money,” says Harry. “Forget the money. Do you realize you’d have to dig up at least three generations of elementary school teachers in any major city in this country before you find one who knows what World War Two was and when it happened? I’m not kidding. Stop anybody on the street under eighty and ask them who Stalin was, and they’ll tell you it’s a rock group. We’re gonna wake up someday and find his clone sitting with his feet on the desk in the Oval Office,” he says. I need to buy Harry a bullhorn and sandwich board so he can go out on the street and scream at the kids. See if all those noise-canceling headphones really work. “They can either learn it or relive it,” he says. “Well, I suppose every so often the world needs a refresher course,” I tell him. “That’s not funny,” says Harry. “That’s not funny at all. That’s learning the hard way.” “Yeah, well, maybe it’s a lesson they won’t forget,” I tell him. I have my back to him looking at the screen. “Can you find that little box with the key? It’s on the desk there somewhere.” “What, this?” I turn. “Yeah. There’s another piece of paper folded up inside. Take it out and take a look.” He does it. It’s the brown wrapper. “Do you see a return address on it?” “Yeah, there’s a small sticker.” “What does it say?” “Law Offices of Elliott Fish. There’s a P.O. box, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and a zip.” “It was sent from a law office?” “Looks like it,” says Harry. Harry gives me the name again and I punch it into the computer. Sure enough, I find a website with a phone number. I pick up the phone and dial. A receptionist answers: “Elliott Fish Law Offices, can I help you?” “Is Mr. Fish in, by any chance?” “Who may I say is calling?” “Attorney Paul Madriani, from Coronado, California.” “Just a moment please.” I get an earful of elevator music. A few seconds later a male voice comes on the line. “This is Elliott Fish. Who am I speaking to?” “Mr. Fish, this is Paul Madriani. I’m a lawyer out in California.” “Yes, what can I do for you?” “I have a client whose father received a small package from your office. His name was Robert Brauer. Can I ask who you represent and why you sent it to him?” “Do you represent Mr. Brauer?” “No. No, I’m afraid Mr. Brauer is dead.” “Oh, I see. Do you represent his estate?” “I represent his daughter, Emma Brauer.” “May I ask when Mr. Brauer died?” “About six weeks ago.” “And may I ask how you know about the package?” “It’s sitting here on my desk right now.” “I see. Then you should be able to tell me the contents of the package.” “A key. Looks like a safe-deposit key. And some kind of an ID, very old. In German, the name Jakob Grimminger.” “Yes.” He clears his throat. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.” “Am I correct in assuming that you sent the package to Mr. Brauer?” “I did.” “Was it on behalf of a client?” “It was.” “May I ask who the client was?” “That I can’t tell you.” “May I ask why?” “It’s confidential lawyer-client information,” he says. “Well, let me explain. Mr. Brauer’s daughter, Emma Brauer, is my client. She has her own set of problems at the moment.” “Yes?” “Well, she’s charged with homicide. Mr. Brauer, who was quite ill before he died, was in a VA hospital out here, and it seems the authorities have reason to believe that he may not have died of natural causes. They seem to believe that my client may have put him out of his misery in a mercy killing.” “I see.” “At the moment it’s a single charge of voluntary manslaughter, but I’m concerned that if I can’t determine what’s happening here it could become more serious.” “What makes you think that the package has anything to do with your client’s case?” “Before Mr. Brauer died, his home was burglarized. Whoever broke in was looking for something. Mr. Brauer told his daughter that he was fearful both for himself and for her, and told her to place the package in a bank vault for safekeeping.” There is a lot of heavy breathing on the other end of the line. “Last week an employee of my office, a young woman, went to Brauer’s house on an errand for the office. Ms. Brauer was not there because she was in jail. That employee was found murdered Monday morning. We have reason to believe that she was killed at the house and that her body was deposited at another location.” “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says. “But if, as you say, Ms. Brauer placed the package in a bank vault and it wasn’t in the house, how can you be sure that it’s in any way connected to the death of your employee?” “The placement of the package in the bank was a private matter known only to Mr. Brauer and his daughter.” “I see. This does complicate things,” says the lawyer. “I’m not certain whether I can disclose the identity of my clients.” The way he says it makes it clear that there is more than one. “When did you say Mr. Brauer died?” he asks. “About six weeks ago.” “Do you have a death certificate?’ “I can get one.” “You might send me a certified copy,” he says. “He would have been the last.” “Last what?” “I’m sorry, I can’t say. But I should advise you that there may be other claimants.” “Claimants to what?” “I can’t say. But you should be aware that since you hold the box and its contents you may be on the receiving end of one or more lawsuits.” “For what? By who?” “By persons with a valid legal claim to the item in question.” “What’s the item?” “To tell you the truth, I don’t know the answer to that myself. I’m simply carrying out the instructions of my clients.” “Can you tell me when you were hired?” “The specific date? I’d have to look, but it was several years ago.” “Can I ask you—and you don’t have to answer if you can’t, but I’m really up against the wall here. I’m assuming that whatever’s going on here has to do with Mr. Brauer’s former military service with the 45th Infantry Division in Europe during the Second World War.” Nothing but breathing and silence from the other end. “Hello?” “I’m here,” he says. “There is one peculiar thing.” “What’s that?” “You did say that the police believe that Mr. Brauer may not have died of natural causes, is that correct?” “That’s right.” “It’s a strange coincidence.” “Yes, what’s that?” “There’s another individual out here in Oklahoma City who says his father died under similar circumstances. He was in a nursing home. And according to what I’ve heard, there is at least one person who doesn’t believe he died of natural causes. He’s requested an investigation by authorities, but so far they have no evidence to establish foul play.” “Am I to assume that this other individual, the man who died, is somehow connected with Mr. Brauer?” There is no reply from the other end of the line, but I can still hear him breathing. In this case I construe silence as assent. “Was he by any chance a member of the 45th Infantry Division?” More silence. “You put me in a very difficult position,” he says. “You don’t have to answer. My client told me that the package came from one of her father’s military buddies. That’s what he told her before he died. The wrapper has your return address on it. So I have to assume that the group you represent consists of Mr. Brauer’s former military associates. I would further assume then that whoever is raising questions about the man’s death, the gentleman back there in Oklahoma City, must be a relative or a friend of one of these men?” More silence. “Let me ask you, do you have an attorney-client relationship with the individual who is complaining about the death of this gentleman?” The lawyer finally exhales and says, “As a matter of fact, I don’t.” He seems almost relieved to give up the information. “Do you have something to write with?” “I do.” “His name is Anthony Pack.” He gives me the man’s phone number and address. “I think if you contact him, he may be able to help you.” “Thank you very much.” I hang up.
~~~
I find I'm watching more of the legal shows on television these days. And, when I saw this book by Steve Martini I decided to read it...Would you believe I hadn't read any of his books since 20 years ago! And, frankly, I was shocked by that post. LOL I hope my presentations have improved greatly since that time... In any event, I was immediately hooked into this storyline, especially when Paul Madriani, the main character, had learned that his young legal assistant who had volunteered to pick up the dog of his client who had been put in jail, was dead! Readers read what had actually happened to her, but then her body was later found in an entirely different area, moved after she'd been murdered... It's these little switches that pulled me further into the mystery because this one won't be the last, I warn you. Even being on the alert will not help, at least it didn't for me...
On one hand, I was very unhappy that she was murdered so early in the book. On the other hand, Madriani, and his wife, were so upset, that it pushed them both to work to discover what had happened... And, you will find that all of the people working in this legal firm are top-notch and characters who "care" about solving the case--the kind of legal firm you'd wish to find if you need one... Indeed, determining the actual plot was practically impossible... Then it hit me, when I began to stumble and go back and rethink a scene, I realized one thing. Somebody was lying... And we have all learned just how much disinformation, even from a individual you think you should be able to trust, is later determined to be lying... Often... Relentlessly... And, seemingly, with no reason... I finally caught on but it was only by reviewing that one scene where I knew it had to be "created" as a "gotcha" by the author...
I have learned over the last decade that not knowing history has been a downfall, or, maybe, a blessing in a way, for me. In school I was working, choosing classes that I would need to immediately get a job and start working right after graduation. At that time, I had already decided I wanted to help another individual by becoming a secretary. I succeeded and by July, 1963, I was working in the Office of Personnel at West Virginia University. Thereafter, all of my reading and training was based upon advancement... By the time I had retired nearly 40 years later, and moved on into publishing, book reviewing, and ultimately by 2016, I began to learn that, through fiction, I had learned much more about history than I ever had from a public school education. That is not saying it negatively, but rather, realizing that within 12 years, there was no way that routine and basic education classes could possibly have prepared me for what I was discovering of what had taken place in America! Continuing education, which I had done all of my life, is normally pointed at a goal; only reading can provide a way to ensure you learn a sufficient amount of information to prepare you for living in a country as diverse as can be found across the world...
Thus, I did not have the background upon which to evaluate the Blood Flag historical facts that were shared in the book, nor will most readers. So, here's the basic story. Three men were together in a group during WWII and fighting against Hitler's plan to take over the world, kill all Jews...and more... We learn enough to understand how and what the Blood Flag was and where it was first "created..."
These three men had returned home, returned to life and family, until suddenly, we learn, all three men were sent the same package. Some family knew of that package--the client of Paul Madriani--who has been accused of a mercy killing of her father... The normal investigation of the law firm begins and readers will learn of the connection of this package and the fear of each of the individuals who received them. All are dead now, with the last being Madriani's client's father...
Folks, at first I thought it was going to be a "treasure hunt" book where we will have to hunt clues to find what it is the key(s) opens... But, soon, it turned to be a murder mystery where it became clear that the deaths of all three soldiers had succeeded in happening... Your job, is to enjoy the book, to try to follow carefully all that happens, and to discover before the end of the book whodunit! I was close, but never quite sure... Dare you work to solve an 80-year-old mystery that started during WWII? I highly recommend you do!
“We’ve already issued a Missing Persons bulletin to the media,” the chief said. “I asked the state to do a Silver Alert, but—” “Anybody can get a Silver Alert, even on the mainland,” Fay Alex sniffed. “Isn’t there a premium version for people like us? A Platinum Alert, something like that?” “Silver is the highest priority, Mrs. Riptoad. However, it’s only for seniors who go missing in vehicles.” Crosby had learned the hard way never to use the term “elderly” when speaking with the Palm Beach citizenry. “Since Mrs. Fitzsimmons wasn’t driving the other night, the best they can do is a Missing Persons bulletin.” Fay Alex said, “You didn’t give out her real age to the media, did you? There’s no call for that. And which picture of her did you post?” “We’re required to list the age provided by her family. One of her sons sent us a photo from a family gathering on Christmas Day.” “A morning picture? Oh, dear God.” Fay Alex groaned; noon was the absolute earliest that Kiki Pew allowed herself to be seen by civilians. When the police chief inquired if Mrs. Fitzsimmons was known to use psychoactive drugs, Fay Alex threatened to have him sacked. “How can you even ask such a vicious question?” she cried. “A pill was found among your friend’s belongings, next to the fish pond. Actually, part of a pill. Our expert says it was bitten in half.”
Mauricio looked as if he’d rather be in the front row at a German opera. He told Angie that one of his mowing crew had spotted the giant snake in the tree that afternoon. “It hasn’t moved an inch since then,” he said. “We’re hoping the damn thing is dead,” Teabull added anxiously. “Oh, it’s the opposite of dead,” Angie informed him. “It’s digesting.”
The trunk of the ancient banyan presented a dense maze of vertical roots. Angie wasn’t wearing the right shoes for such a slippery climb. “I’ll need an extension ladder,” she told Mauricio, “and a pistol.” From Teabull: “Absolutely no gunfire at this event!” “Well, we’re looking at about eighteen feet of violent non-cooperation,” Angie explained. “The recommended approach is a bullet in the brain.” “Hell, no! You’ll have to do it another way.” “Then you will have to find another wrangler.” The band had started playing—Cuban music, a well-meaning tribute to the Buena Vista Social Club. Soon the guests would be twirling drunkenly all over the grounds. Teabull wore the face of a climber trapped on a melting ledge. “Five thousand cash,” he whispered to Angie. “But we’re running out of time.” Angie put a hand on Mauricio’s shoulder and said, “Sir, would you happen to have a machete?”
— The Burmese python is one of the world’s largest constrictors, reaching documented lengths of more than twenty feet. Popular among amateur collectors, the snakes were imported to the United States legally from Southeast Asia for decades. But because a hungry baby python can grow into an eight-foot eating machine within a year, owners often found themselves having second thoughts. Consequently, scores of the pet snakes were set free. Only in southern Florida did the species take hold, the hot climate and abundance of prey being ideal for python reproduction. A relatively isolated population exploded to a full-blown invasion during the early 1990s, after Hurricane Andrew destroyed a reptile breeding facility on the edge of the Everglades. The storm liberated fresh, fertile multitudes, and today the Burmese is one of the state’s most prolific and disruptive invasive species. An adult female can lay as many as ninety eggs, which she will encircle and guard from predators. Like all constrictors, pythons encoil their prey, squeezing the breath out of it. By disengaging their jaws, the snakes are able to swallow animals of much larger girth, which are typically consumed head-first. In this way the furtive intruders have decimated native Everglades wildlife, including marsh rabbits, raccoons, otters, opossums, and full-grown deer. Adult Burmese pythons will even drown and devour alligators. To the chagrin of suburban Floridians, pythons will leave the wetlands to travel long distances. Frequently they are discovered prowling residential neighborhoods, the signal clue being a sharp dip in the cat population. To stem the onslaught, authorities have recruited both lay hunters and experienced reptile handlers by offering hourly wages and bounty payments that escalate per foot of snake. While the frenetic capture videos are wildly popular on YouTube, the removal program has so far proven to be biologically inconsequential. Although hundreds of pythons have been caught and removed, biologists believe that many thousands more are still on the loose, mating insatiably. Despite their startling size, individual specimens aren’t easy to find. Their skin is lightly hued, with chocolate-brown patches creating puzzle-board patterns similar to that of a giraffe. Even the beefiest of pythons can be astonishingly well camouflaged in the wild, and experts cite their “low detectability” as a primary challenge for hunters.
“Where the hell did it come from?” Tripp Teabull grumbled about the one in the tree. “And why did it show up here, of all places?” “Sir, you’ve got a pond full of slow, dumb fish. However, that”—Angie cocked her trigger finger at the exceptional lump in the python—“is something else.” Mauricio and a co-worker arrived with a ladder that unfolded to twenty feet. With Angie’s assistance they notched one end into a cabled tangle of banyan branches directly beneath the quarry, which remained motionless. “You think there’s more of those fuckers around here?” Mauricio asked. Angie said this was the first one she’d ever heard of on the island. “What do you suppose she ate?” The groundskeeper exchanged a tense glance with Teabull. “How do you know it’s a she?” he asked Angie. “The biggest ones always are.” “Then maybe she didn’t eat anything,” Teabull cut in. “Maybe she’s just pregnant.” Angie chuckled. “Sir, that’s not a baby bump.”
Scientists in the Everglades have implanted transmitters in captured pythons and released them to help locate “breeding aggregations,” groups of randy males that communally cavort with a lone large female. That telemetry tracking has led to the interruption of many amorous assemblies, but so far, it has failed to stop the epochal march of the species. Although many pythons were found dead one winter after a rare hard freeze, the hardy survivors rebounded and—thanks to natural selection—produced new generations able to withstand colder temperatures. Nonetheless, Palm Beach County, which on some January nights experiences temperatures in the thirties, was believed to be safely north of the invaders’ comfort zone.
“We should fill in that damn koi pond,” Teabull said, “if that’s the big attraction.” Angie asked him if any domestic animals were allowed to roam the grounds of Lipid House. Teabull said absolutely not. Mauricio spoke up. “We got a few iguanas. Everybody’s got iguanas.” “Have any neighbors complained that their pets have gone missing? Like maybe a Rottweiler,” Angie said, “or a miniature pony.” “That’s not funny,” Teabull snapped. “Sir, I’m serious.” Angie’s habit of saying “sir” was the result of a childhood rule imposed by her father, whose own father had been a career Marine. She said, “These snakes feed only on live prey. Are you sure no animals have disappeared in the neighborhood?” Teabull shot another uneasy look at Mauricio before saying, “I’ll ask around.”
Angie turned to the groundskeeper. “All right, let’s see that blade of yours.” Because of their gluttonous threat to Florida’s shaky ecological balance, all captured pythons are supposed to be euthanized. A gunshot is the most humane way, but another state-approved method is decapitation by machete. The one that Mauricio loaned to Angie Armstrong was practically new. Teabull said, “One more thing, Ms. Armstrong. Could you please move that thing off-site before you kill it?” “Sir, I’m loving your sense of humor.”
“There are nine hundred guests here tonight!” “Okay, we’ll do it your way,” Angie said. “But I’ll need four of your strongest security guys to help me wrestle it out of the tree. My experience is that large men are often terrified of snakes, so please find me a crew that isn’t. FYI, their tuxedos are going to get trashed big-time. A python that size shits like a fire hose.” As he eyed the immense silent presence up in the banyan, Teabull reconsidered his position. Trying to take the beast alive would turn into a spectacle. The wrangler was right—an inconspicuous removal would be possible only if the snake was limp and unresisting. In other words: dead. Teabull sought assurances from Angie that the act could be carried out quietly, and with a minimum of gore. She said, “I’ll try not to bloody your landscaping.”
Her tone rankled the caretaker, whose priority was to prevent guests from learning of the reptile’s presence on the property. The fallout would be devastating. Hosting parties, weddings and fundraising galas such as the White Ibis and “Stars for SARS” was a lucrative industry in Palm Beach. Competition among mansions had always been intense, but it had turned cutthroat after the social drought inflicted by Covid-19. This was supposed to be the season of the big rebound. Owners of old island estates were counting on event revenue to offset their overhead—parabolic property taxes, criminally priced hurricane insurance and six-figure landscaping fees. Half the fucking pool boys drove Audis. Sponsors of charity balls were seldom fazed to learn that the one-night rental fee for Lipid House was a quarter of a million dollars, not including custom catering.
However, rumors of goliath pythons could wipe out a season’s worth of bookings. The five grand that Teabull had offered the female wildlife wrangler was a bargain; the trust that owned the estate had been prepared to pay ten. Still, the machete and all its messy possibilities made Teabull nervous. In particular he was fretting about that dowager-sized lump in the snake. “So, you’ll be cutting off its head,” he pressed Angie Armstrong, “and that’s all, correct? No further chopping.” “Sir, I’m not fixing cutlets. I’m neutralizing an invasive.”
Angie hated to kill anything, but the magnificent python had signed its own warrant.
Dead or alive, it would be delivered to wildlife officers. The next stop was a biologist’s dissection table. Angie expected to collect no bounty for the specimen because Palm Beach was outside the state’s hunt-for-pay zone. “We’ve moved your vehicle to our rear gate,” Teabull informed her, “to expedite the departure phase. Is there anything else you need?” “A backhoe would be swell,” Angie said. Teabull hoped she was joking. “I’ll leave you to your work,” he said, receding into the cover of the topiary.
“Wait—what about my money?” “Your fee will be in the console of your vehicle, Ms. Armstrong.” “Just call it a pickup truck, sir. That’s what it is.” But Teabull had already slipped out of earshot. Mauricio steadied the ladder while Angie climbed. The machete was sharp. It worked fine.
~~~
Mea Culpa to me, first... I saw the author's name and thought I had read him before and enjoyed it... I was wrong... Mea Culpa to me and you, you will be subjected to a satire that includes much about the rich and famous that live or visit that "White House of the South..." Where you will be subjected to meeting the group of cult members:
...the POTUS Pussies, a group of Palm Beach women who proclaimed brassy loyalty to the new, crude-spoken commander-in-chief. For media purposes they had to tone down their name or risk being snubbed by the island’s PG-rated social sheet, so in public they referred to themselves as the Potussies. Often they were invited to dine at Casa Bellicosa, the Winter White House, while the President was in residence. He always made a point of waving from the buffet line or pastry table. During the pandemic lockdown, he even Zoom-bombed the women during one of their cocktail-hour teleconferences. News of Kiki Pew’s disappearance at the IBS gala swept through the Potussies faster than a blast sales alert from Saks. The group’s co-founder—Fay Alex Riptoad, of the compost and iron ore Riptoads—immediately dialed the private cell phone of the police chief...
Yes, this book is a satire and is especially well done. So well done, that the satire actually reads as the reality of those four years--at least to those, like me, who knew that what was written...was...true... as it related to the sycophants and their love of powerful people... Because, after all, when they are introduced, you will learn not only the name of the individual, but you will be told that they are of the family of...such and such--whatever big corporation(s) their family is. or maybe both. if the husband and wife merged to create an even bigger, richer, set of people who are above all the rest of us--dontcha know... And, frankly, if you don't use a double last name you would never be invited to these events...No, I really don't write satire, but I do a good job with sarcasm, when warranted...
Also, these rich and famous have nothing better to do than celebrate all the charitable events they can on behalf of any disease that you can think of...and then spend, spend, spend, drink, drink, drink, maybe do some drugs...you get the idea...Seriously if there was research for the elimination of hammertoes, hey, maybe I'd even attend...NOT...
And so it was during one of these fabulous events that one of the potussies disappeared. She liked to use Kiki Pew as her social name, which of course, was changed to Kikey when the president got involved... Now that, slight of name was quite a fancy play on words since Hitler had already been brought into the picture during that first 2016 administration, even though it has been brought much more to the front these days!
The one bright spot is a young woman who wants to be called Angie... She's rough and tough, after being in jail for placing the hand of a man where it could be bitten off at one point in her life... He and his prosthetic hand now calls Angie every night at 6PM to tell her just how much he hates her, ending with threats...and more... This latter delightful character will continue throughout the book, or at least until he's... gone... Which reminds me, actually I did like the climax brought about by a retired governor...and his pets...
Angie loves animals of all kinds and has become an individual who takes care of pests, although mice or rats is a little too small a job unless it is an emergency... Well, Angie has handled quite a number of pythons since they had found their way into Palm Beach and she knows exactly what she is going to find inside of the huge snake that she was forced to kill at the event where Kiki disappeared... Of course, just the title and the snake on the cover surely has given you that idea, right?
But she took it away, froze it, and planned on getting it to be examined ASAP... Except that, first, she had a breakin at her home which got her wondering... And, then, when somebody got into her rented storage place and took only that snake... Well, she knew for sure... In fact, back at the half-million dollar rented mansion, somebody had actually seen Kiki disappear... And now the head honcho knew what had to happen. They could not afford for anybody to know that not only had Kiki disappeared... but knowing How...was just not going to happen!
Now up until this point, other than a few references to the women who excitedly pant over the president, it was kinda a humorous murder mystery. Quite Unusual, even...
But, you see, in order to keep this confidential, power would be needed to control the media... Really, did they think that the rich and famous cared whether a business went bankrupt--any publicity is always good publicity, even if it is bad...for somebody else... And, so, the potpussies wanted to hold an event at the winter white house, where they always lunched when meeting, thinking that the president knew them as true supporters and as individuals...LOL Yeah, Kikey was to be celebrated...
And that's when the twist of the book moves into the presidential family events... Let me just say that, if satire is supposed to be based on some basis of truth, this writer sure chose the wrong spouse to spotlight, at least in my opinion... But, hey, sex sells books, they say... No matter whether the chosen subject has actually been involved in events provided... Throwing in lots of gratuitous vulgarity made it even better, right?
Ok, there were some bright spots with Angie and other "regular" people in the book... Perhaps it is the devastating actions being wrought on America right now by that same president, however he got back in office after two impeachments, becoming a felon...and so much more... Nah... for me, reality colliding with satirical fiction is beyond my willingness to praise... And even the potpussies got upset when the individual security guards for each of the women for whom it had been provided "because of their fear that, like Kiki, they would also disappear, thoroughly enjoyed their status of being accompanied by private guards... And... these women, when the guards were pulled back, thought nothing of a few threats of blackmail to ensure they could keep those guards at their sides... Yeah, dontcha just love the rich and famous... egotistical, selfish, glamorous, and drinking their way through all charitable events where millions pass hands, held for every disease known...
Why the fxxx couldn’t they play Pearl Jam?
A final note from me. One of my bosses used to tell me I didn't have a sense of humor--I never laughed at his jokes... I don't... I don't have a sense of humor where somebody makes fun of somebody else just to get a laugh... At that time, Polack jokes were often shared... Nope! Not my kind of humor... The first time I watched Archie Bunker, I hated it. But, you know, satire does have its place in literature. After awhile, I started to realize what that television show was trying to do...and I "got" it thereafter...
So, what I'm saying is that if you enjoy humor within satire, then this book is well written and sometimes funny in a strange sort of way. But I really resent that the Office of our President can easily be used--quite easily in fact--to laugh at and make fun of... Me, I need to respect somebody in positions of authority over me. If that is not possible, then I need to act to replace that individual... America deserves to have a man leading America that works to represent ALL of us living in the United States... When a man stops aid to children in need, fires veterans, works to prevent regulations for protection of our world, takes away public education...and I could keep on going... then this man needs to be not laughed at in satire, but simply to be removed from office... So, you decide, if making fun of the rich and famous works for you, go for it... Many others enjoy this author's words...
Looking for humor is not something I do...finding humor in small things, like sharing tidbits about my niece's children is what makes me smile and laugh... I happen to like that about myself...
Note: I have not watched this movie series. These are selected based upon relevancy
There is no world in which America will become the “Christian nation” that it never actually was; there is only a world in which a theocratic oligarchy imposes a corrupt and despotic order in the name of sectarian values. These visions turn out to be thin cover for an unfocused rage against the diverse and unequal America that actually exists. They are the means whereby one type of underclass can be falsely convinced that its disempowerment is the work of another kind of underclass. They are expressions of pain, not plans for the future. Perhaps for the same reason, some of the movement’s political projects often have a strangely performative character. Fantasy, cosplay, snark, the validation of heroic self-images, and the ritual infliction of pain on their political opponents—not changes in policy or material conditions—seem to be the point. The best label I can find for the phenomenon—and I do not pretend it is a fully satisfactory label—is “reactionary nihilism.” It is reactionary in the sense that it expresses itself as mortal opposition to a perceived catastrophic change in the political order; it is nihilistic because its deepest premise is that the actual world is devoid of value, impervious to reason, and governable only through brutal acts of will. It stands for a kind of unraveling of the American political mind—a madness that now afflicts one side of nearly every political debate.
~~~
If it has not yet sunk into your thinking, the above is a great way to start thinking clearly... Which political party is ALWAYS voting against issues that concern the majority of us? Gun laws immediately come to mind!
Abraham Lincoln had it right when he said that the United States is dedicated to a proposition. The American idea, as he saw it, is the familiar one articulated in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. It says that all people are created equal; that a free people in a pluralistic society may govern themselves; that they do so through laws deliberated in public, grounded in appeals to reason, and applied equally to all; and that they establish these laws through democratic representation in government. In the centuries after 1776, in its better moments, the United States exported this revolutionary creed and inspired people around the world to embrace their freedom. But in recent years a political movement has emerged that fundamentally does not believe in the American idea. It claims that America is dedicated not to a proposition but to a particular religion and culture. It asserts that an insidious and alien elite has betrayed and abandoned the nation’s sacred heritage. It proposes to “redeem” America, and it acts on the extreme conviction that any means are justified in such a momentous project. It takes for granted that certain kinds of Americans have a right to rule, and that the rest have a duty to obey. No longer casting the United States as a beacon of freedom, it exports this counterrevolutionary creed through alliances with leaders and activists who are themselves hostile to democracy. This movement has captured one of the nation’s two major political parties, and some of its leading thinkers explicitly model their ambitions on corrupt and illiberal regimes abroad that render education, the media, and the corporate sector subservient to a one-party authoritarian state. How did such an anti-American movement take root in America? That is the question I aim to address in this book. As a reporter, I like to look first and theorize later. I am interested in facts, not polemics—though I won’t stand in the way of facts when they lead to pointed conclusions. This book is therefore a collection of dispatches from the front lines of the current assault on American democracy. My goal has been to record what I have seen and heard from the leaders and supporters of the antidemocratic movement in the auditoriums and breakout rooms at national conferences, around the table at informal gatherings of activists, in the living rooms of the rank and file, and in the pews of hard-line churches. The story features a rowdy mix of personalities: “apostles” of Jesus, atheistic billionaires, reactionary Catholic theologians, pseudo-Platonic intellectuals, woman-hating opponents of “the gynocracy,” high-powered evangelical networkers, Jewish devotees of Ayn Rand, pronatalists preoccupied with a dearth of (white) babies, COVID truthers, and battalions of “spirit warriors” who appear to be inventing a new style of religion even as they set about undermining democracy at its foundations. I don’t pretend to cover all the angles. Others have found new and important ways to report on the subject, and I reference or cite the work of as many as I can throughout the book in the hopes that it will inspire further study. Even so, I think I have scouted enough of the territory to say something about the origins and nature of the antidemocratic movement in America. In this preface—the last of the pages to be written for this book—I will offer a handful of principal findings. Let me begin by repeating the obvious: this movement represents a serious threat to the survival of American democracy. Even at this late date, I continue to hear feel-good suggestions that the political conflicts of the moment are the result of incivility, tribalism, “affective partisanship,” or some other unfortunate trend in manners that affects every side of the political debates equally. All will be well, the thinking goes, if the red people and the blue people would just sit down for some talk therapy and give a little to the other side. In earlier times this may have been sage advice. Today it is a delusion. American democracy is failing because it is under direct attack, and the attack is not coming equally from both sides. The movement described in this book isn’t looking for a seat at the noisy table of American democracy; it wants to burn down the house. It isn’t the product of misunderstandings; it advances its antidemocratic agenda by actively promoting division and disinformation. In the pages that follow, I will bring the receipts to support these uncomfortable facts. For now, I will venture that few who have familiarized themselves with this movement will be tempted to minimize the danger it represents to our collective well-being. What are the root causes of this development? There is no simple answer. But I will get the ball rolling with an observation about time frames. It can sometimes seem that the antidemocratic reaction snuck up on us and suddenly exploded in our living rooms. I confess that when I look back over the decade and a half that I have spent reporting on the subject, the escalation of the threat appears breathtaking. In 2009, I was reporting on an antidemocratic ideology focused on hostility to public education that appeared to be gaining influence on the right. By 2021, I was writing about an antidemocratic movement whose members had stormed the Capitol—and about a Republican Party whose leadership disgracefully acquiesced in the attempted overthrow of American democracy. In the 2024 election, that party was rewarded for its betrayal of American values. Yet the swiftness of the fall should not distract from the long duration of the underlying causes. The present crisis is deeply rooted in material changes in American life over the past half century. The antidemocratic movement came together long before Donald Trump descended on a golden escalator in 2015 to announce his candidacy for president. The outcome of the 2024 election only confirms the fundamental calculus described in this book. The forces hurling against American democracy will long outlive the current political moment, and they will continue to feast on the carcass of the Republican Party. Their various elements have emerged along the fissures in American society, and they continue to thrive on our growing educational, cultural, regional, racial, religious, and informational divides. Of particular note, the antidemocratic reaction draws much of its energy from the massive increase in economic inequality and resulting economic dislocations over the past five decades. In the middle of the twentieth century, capitalist America was home to the most powerful and prosperous middle class the world had hitherto seen. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, capitalism had yielded in many respects to a form of oligarchy, and the nation had been divided into very different strata. At the very top of the wealth distribution arose a sector whose aggregate net worth makes the rich men of earlier decades look like amateurs. Between 1970 and 2020, the top 0.1 percent doubled its share of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 90 percent, meanwhile, lost a corresponding share.3 For the large majority of Americans, the new era brought wage stagnation and even, within certain groups in recent years, declining life expectancy. In the happy handful of percentiles located just beneath the 0.1 percent, on the other hand, a hyper-competitive group has managed to hold on to its share of the pie even as it remains fearful of falling behind. I do not mean to suggest that the political conflicts of the present can be easily reduced to economic conflicts. Far from it. My point is that the great disparity in wealth distribution is a significant contributor to the wave of unreason that has swept our politics and our culture. It has fractured our faith in the common good, unleased an epidemic of status anxiety, and made a significant subset of the population susceptible to conspiracism and disinformation. Different groups, of course, have responded differently. The antidemocratic movement is not the work of any one social group but of several working together. It relies in part on the narcissism and paranoia of the subset of the super-rich who fund this movement, having decided to invest their fortunes in the destruction of democracy. They appear to operate on the cynical belief that manipulation of the masses through disinformation will enhance their own prosperity. The movement also draws in a sector of the professional class that has largely abdicated its social responsibility. Much of the energy of the movement, too, comes from below, from the anger and resentment that characterizes life among those who perceive, more or less accurately, that they are falling behind. As these groups jockey for status in a fast-changing world, they give rise to a politics of rage and grievance. The reaction may be understandable. But it is not, on that account, reasonable or constructive. Although the antidemocratic movement emerged, in part, out of massive structural conflicts in the American political economy, along with investment, by antidemocratic forces, in the infrastructure of their movement, it does not represent a genuine attempt to address the problems from which it arose. The new politics aims for results that few people actually want and that ultimately harm everybody. Grounded in resentment and unreason, the new American fascism is more a political pathology than a political program. What are the main features of this pathology? In America, just as in unstable political economies of the past, the grievances to which the daily injustices of an unequal system give rise inevitably vent on some putatively alien “other” supposedly responsible for all our ills. America’s demagogues, however, have a special advantage. They can draw on the nation’s barbarous history of racism and the fear that the “American way of life” is slipping away, abetted by an out-of-touch elite. The story of this movement cannot be told apart from the racial and ethnic divisions that it continuously exploits and exacerbates. The psychic payoff that the new, antidemocratic religious and right-wing nationalism offers its adherents is the promise of membership in a privileged “in-group” previously associated with being a white Christian conservative, a supposed “real American,” with the twist that those privileges may now be claimed even by those who are not white, provided they worship and vote the “right” way. At the same time, I will also show the movement is the result of the concerted cultivation of a range of anxieties that draw from deep and wide roots. Another glaring and related attribute of this pathology is perhaps already in evidence in the description above of the man with the SIZE MATTERS T-shirt. Anxiety about traditional gender roles and hierarchies is the rocket fuel of the new American authoritarianism. Among the bearded young men of the New Right, it shows up in social media feeds bursting with rank misogyny. In the theocratic wing of the movement, it puts on the tattered robes of patriarchy, with calls for “male headship” and female subordination, and relentlessly demonizes LGBT people. On the political stage, it has centered around the long-running effort to strip women of their reproductive health rights and, in essence, make their bodies the property of the state. That effort has had significant consequences at the ballot box—which is why a sector of movement leadership is starting to speak openly about stripping women of the right to vote. The tragedy of American politics is that the same forces that have damaged so many personal lives have been weaponized and enlisted in the service of a political movement that is sure to make the situation worse. This movement rejects the primacy of reason in the modern world at the same time that it rejects democracy. This is the darkest aspect of the phenomenon, and I describe it only after having grimly ruled out more charitable explanations. The bulk of this movement is best understood in terms of what it wishes to destroy rather than what it proposes to create. Fear and grievance, not hope, are the moving parts of its story. Its members resemble the revolutionaries of the past in their drive to overthrow “the regime”—but many are revolutionaries without a cause. To be sure, movement leaders do float visions of what they take to be a better future, which typically aims for a fictitious version of the past: a nation united under “biblical law”; a people liberated from the tyranny of the “administrative state”; or just a place somehow made “great again.” But in conversations with movement participants, I have found, these visions quickly dissipate into insubstantial generalizations or unrealizable fantasy. There is no world in which America will become the “Christian nation” that it never actually was; there is only a world in which a theocratic oligarchy imposes a corrupt and despotic order in the name of sectarian values. These visions turn out to be thin cover for an unfocused rage against the diverse and unequal America that actually exists. They are the means whereby one type of underclass can be falsely convinced that its disempowerment is the work of another kind of underclass. They are expressions of pain, not plans for the future. Perhaps for the same reason, some of the movement’s political projects often have a strangely performative character. Fantasy, cosplay, snark, the validation of heroic self-images, and the ritual infliction of pain on their political opponents—not changes in policy or material conditions—seem to be the point. The best label I can find for the phenomenon—and I do not pretend it is a fully satisfactory label—is “reactionary nihilism.” It is reactionary in the sense that it expresses itself as mortal opposition to a perceived catastrophic change in the political order; it is nihilistic because its deepest premise is that the actual world is devoid of value, impervious to reason, and governable only through brutal acts of will. It stands for a kind of unraveling of the American political mind—a madness that now afflicts one side of nearly every political debate. Though this be madness, to borrow from Shakespeare, yet there is method in it. Too often, the analysis of the antidemocratic movement comes to an end with psychological and sociological observations about the voters who lend support to it. But what I have found in my reporting is that this is a leadership-driven movement, not merely a social phenomenon. A central finding in this book is that the direction and success of the antidemocratic movement depends on its access to immense resources, a powerful web of organizations, and a highly self-interested group of movers and backers. It has bank accounts that are always thirsty for more money, networks that hunger for ever more connections, religious demagogues intent on exploiting the faithful, communicators eager to spread propaganda and disinformation, and powerful leaders who want more power. It takes time, organizational energy, and above all, money to weaponize grievances and hurl them against an established democracy—and this movement has it all. To be clear, there is no single headquarters for the reaction. There are, however, powerful networks of leaders, strategists, and donors, as well as interlocking organizations, fellow travelers, and affirmative action programs for the ideologically pure. That matrix is far more densely connected, well-financed, and influential at all levels of government and society than most Americans appreciate. History shows, however, that better organization does not always flatten the contradictions. On the contrary, it can sometimes amplify the conflicts. This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the antidemocratic movement to appreciate and the source of both its weakness and its strength. This movement is at war with itself even as it wages war on the rest of us. It consists of a variety of groups and organizations, each pursing its own agendas, each in thrall to a distinct set of assumptions. Viewed as a whole, it seems to want things that cannot go together—like “small government” and also a government big enough to control the most private acts in which people engage; like the total deregulation of corporate monopolies and also a better deal for the workforce; like “the rule of law” and also the lawlessness of a dictator and his cronies who may pilfer the public treasury; like a “Christian nation” that excludes many American Christians from the ranks of the supposedly righteous. It pursues this bundle of contradictions not merely out of hypocrisy and cynicism but because the task of tearing down the status quo brings together groups that want very different things and are even at odds with one another. To sort a complex grouping of people into admittedly simplistic categories in the interest of making this project manageable, I have divided the principal actors of the antidemocratic reaction into five main categories: the Funders, the Thinkers, the Sergeants, the Infantry, and the Power Players. It is the interactions and tensions among these groups, I have come to think, that are key to understanding the origins and evolutions of the American crisis. Before getting on with the reporting I will therefore say a few more things about each of these groups. The Funders come from the minute ranks of beneficiaries of the massive concentration in wealth over the past five decades. Some of the Funders you will meet here are already quite famous: former secretary of education Betsy DeVos, the Wilks brothers, Rebekah Mercer, Tim Dunn, and the Koch brothers among them. Others are less well known, and quite a few make a point of hiding in the rooms where dark money lives. There you will find the secretive Chicago billionaire who likes to go by the pseudonym Elbert Howell (a mash-up of references to the Midwestern anarchist Elbert Hubbard and the millionaire from Gilligan’s Island?); a minor-league California real estate scion who has taken it upon himself to join in the destruction of the system of public education in the name of Jesus; his neighbor, the wife of a Pepsi heir, who helps fund election disinformation operations; a Wall Street hedge funder whose think tank sustains ideological extremists caught up in the January 6 coup attempt; a number of energy tycoons; some tech bros; and a surprisingly diverse cast of eccentrics that are transforming our country in ways you likely never thought possible. The distinguishing feature of the Funders is that they have chosen to invest their fortunes in the subversion of democracy. Given their successes in business and the cultural power of money in America, they are often pictured, even by their critics, as masterminds overseeing an intricate and well-conceived plan to rule the world. I regret to report that they do not appear to be, on balance, geniuses. Too often, they operate on the basis of remarkably simplistic, reactionary ideas about politics and society. And they are dangerously wrong in their biggest idea—that destroying democracy is a means of creating wealth. Apart from the cognitive and emotional limitations that at times accumulate alongside unmerited wealth, the main reason why the Funders are confused about their own genuine interests is that they have outsourced much of their thinking—just as they have outsourced so much else—to other people. The Thinkers are a subset of the increasingly insular professional elite that has emerged in the modern American economy. They spend much of their time shuttling around a number of densely connected institutions with anodyne names, often drawn from grand figures or moments in history: the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, the James Madison Center, and so on. Many of the Thinkers can boast of credentials from the nation’s elite educational institutions, though they may consciously have set themselves against their former teachers. They are the “anti-intellectual intellectuals,” as it were. Quite a few are amphibious; they travel freely between the genteel world of reactionary think tanks and the alt-right spaces where young men who deploy the “Pepe the Frog” emoji in their social media monikers trade misogynist, racist, and anti-Semitic aperçus. In revealing moments—like when the academically well-polished leader of the Heritage Foundation declared that the “second American Revolution” that he and his fellow Trump supporters are leading “will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be”4—it becomes clear that the Thinkers’ credentials are often thin cover for ferocious levels of aggression and insecurity. I will pay special attention here to the men of the Claremont Institute—they are almost all men—whose erstwhile reverence for America’s founders has been transfigured, with the help of political theorists purloined from Germany’s fascist period, into material support for Donald Trump’s attempted coup against the United States. Many of the Thinkers subscribe to an ideology that now fits mainly under the label of “the New Right”—even though it is neither new nor conservative. Their core doctrine isn’t so much a political theory as an unwavering conviction about the root of all evil in modern society. That root, they say, is a supposedly all-controlling “woke” elite that cancels right-wing speakers at campus events and controls the rest of the nation from the back rooms of diversity offices. In the real world, the Thinkers themselves represent a far more powerful professional elite, sustained in a lavish welfare system at a network of think tanks and advocacy groups, and serving at the pleasure of the billionaires who pay their salaries. When you peel back their intellectual claims and political programs, or so I have found, it becomes clear that many of these Thinkers are primarily engaged in an intra-elite struggle with their real nemesis: the group at the other end of the faculty lounge. The Funders and Infantry are, for them, useful fodder in a psychic conflict driven by a highbrow form of reactionary nihilism. The Infantry are drawn mostly from the millions of Americans in the middle and lower-middle sections of the nation’s widening economic, educational, and regional divides. This group is large and diverse, and includes many different identities, ideas, and agendas. You will meet some of the Infantry in these pages at school board meetings, where they hope to save the nation by banning books with LGBT or sex-related themes from school libraries (even when such books are nowhere to be found), or by suppressing instruction on the brutal history of slavery and segregation in America. You’ll come across others on the ReAwaken America Tour—a traveling Christian nationalist series of events that offers to prepare American patriots in “fifth generation warfare” so that they can take on an ever-rotating cycle of conspiracies. You will find many of them in the pews of America’s hard-line churches, where radicalized pastors nurture a cohort of “spirit warriors” intent on waging battle with the moderate-liberal-left “demons” that have purportedly commandeered the culture. The Infantry includes many of those that the knowledge economy left behind, the people who get riled up with rhetoric about “elites.” Satisfying the economic and emotional needs of this group is always the ostensible source of legitimacy of the antidemocratic movement, but it is never the actual goal. The real role is to supply the Funders, Thinkers, and key players with enough votes to win (or, as we saw in 2020, enough to pretend to win) power. Within the Infantry there’s a special group of unit leaders, or “Sergeants,” that turn the movement’s money and messages into votes and political action at the local level. This group includes culture warriors moonlighting as school board members and “moms” who think “liberty” means banning books they don’t like. But the least appreciated subset consists of the tens of thousands of pastors at America’s conservative churches. Many belong to groups with militant names like the Black Robe Regiment, Watchmen on the Wall, Faith Wins, and Pastors for Trump, and some number encouraged or defended the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. But not all Sergeants are evangelical. Indeed, they are not all Christian; among the Sergeant cohort you will find some people who are not religious at all. Stitching the movement together is a tiny elite I will call the Power Players—leaders of the Christian nationalist movement’s policy and networking groups, legal advocacy organizations, messaging initiatives, and other features—who amass tremendous personal power by mobilizing others around their agendas. Some are celebrity preachers that outgrew their local congregations and took on a national profile, on the model of Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority or D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries. Others are super-lobbyists with tremendous influence on elections and elected politicians, like Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. Many of them get together at Council for National Policy or Ziklag gatherings, or at the National Prayer Breakfast, where they trade favors on the path to still greater power. Most sit astride organizations with budgets in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, command media and pastoral ministries that reach tens or hundreds of millions of Infantry, and have the ear of presidents and other political leaders. They are the operational masterminds of the antidemocratic movement, and their organizations turn the Funders’ money and the Infantry’s votes into political power. The dominant ideology they cultivate among the rank and file of America’s antidemocratic movement is Christian nationalism. But this label can be misleading. Christian nationalism is not a religion. It is not Christianity. It is a political identity with a corresponding political ideology, and the ideology in question doesn’t have a lot to do with the way many if not most Americans understand Christianity. You don’t have to be a Christian to be a Christian nationalist, and plenty of patriotic Christians want nothing to do with Christian nationalism. “White evangelical,” as I will show, should no longer be regarded as interchangeable with “Christian nationalist.” Sectors of other varieties of Christianity and other religions, along with members of other racial and ethnic groups, are moving in, while at least some of the old members are moving out. More importantly, what matters is not formal or denominational religious identity but partisan political identity—and this partisan identity has in turn become something like a substitute religion. Christian nationalism does not just draw on old strands of a diverse religion but has also fabricated a radically new, intensely politicized religion centered on a newly concocted “pro-life” theology and—among a large number—the idea of “spiritual warfare.” Although it is at bottom a political ideology, moreover, Christian nationalism is not merely a policy program; it is perhaps best understood as a political mindset. That mindset, as I explain in further detail below, includes four basic dispositions: catastrophism; a persecution complex; identitarianism; and an authoritarian reflex. Catastrophism in this context is the foreboding conviction that the nation is doomed and that the blame falls squarely on the faithless. The persecution complex rests on the belief that conservative Christians are the principal victims of discrimination in America. Identitarianism is the belief that a “real” or “authentic” subset of Americans are entitled to rule over the rest. And the authoritarian reflex always calls for a strongman savior, on the grim assumption that only the cruel and lawless survive in a cruel and lawless world. The chief limitation of the label “Christian nationalism,” however is that it represents only one end of the antidemocratic movement. It is a tool for mobilizing the grievances of the people; but a stadium crowded with resentments would not add up to a political program without a tremendous amount of financial and organizational support. This is where the Funders and the Thinkers come in. The Funders might share the Christian nationalist mindset with their followers but they certainly don’t have to, and many do not. Some identify with other religious traditions, and some appear to have confessed to no religion more than the worship of money. The core of their belief system is that democracy in its current configuration threatens their power and privilege—as well as freedom and prosperity for all, or so they like to add. Some of the Thinkers are even less committed to specific faith traditions than their rich patrons. One branch is essentially atheistic, another espouses hard-line Catholicism; some are Jewish, and many don’t appear to have much personal interest in religion. They leave the Christian nationalism and all that for the little people whom they half-heartedly pretend to care about. They may be against the “woke” elite, but they aren’t against elites as such. Indeed they see themselves as members of a new elite, destined to rule over a population that can never be brought to virtue on its own. In brief, what the Funders are buying is not always what the Thinkers and Sergeants are selling or what the Infantry is hearing. Each gains power by deceiving the others. Inevitably, they attempt to deceive the rest of us, too, and then they begin to deceive themselves. The interactions among the elements of the antidemocratic reaction bring out the worst in each, as it were, and ensure that the whole will be worse than the sum of its parts. It would be nice to think that the movement will crumble under the weight of its internal contradictions, but that may be wishful thinking. Many such movements throughout history have destroyed the nations from which they arise before getting around to destroying themselves. The chief threat to American democracy comes from a kind of collective psychosis. The age of economic and cultural fracture has yielded a politics of unreason. But the politics of unreason is not a random walk. It unravels in a particular direction. Unreason is the first and last resort of the enemies of democracy. In the final analysis, the antidemocratic movement is a symptom, not a cause, of the American crises. This fact, as I will lay out in a brief afterword, can be a source of hope for the future. It can serve as a guidepost for the deep structural and organizational solutions that this crisis demands. In the meantime, I invite you to leave behind the land of political theory, buckle up, and join me on a journey through the madness and the beauty of the American political landscape.
I know there are a lot of non-biblical arguments for the separation of church and state. Some Christians also support it on biblical grounds, but I've never looked into the matter myself. Which passages of the Bible support the idea? (if you need more info, click over to Wiki link!
Many people cite the phrase as if it was included in the founding documents of the United States (Declaration of Independence or Constitution or Bill of Rights), when in fact as your link shows, it comes from Thomas Jefferson's personal correspondence. It is also not intended to keep religious faith and civic involvement completely separate (as some suggest), but to insure that government does not interfere with religious worship. In this light, the question can be read "what is the biblical basis for making sure government does not interfere with religious worship?
@DanielStandage I disagree. The separation of church and state goes far beyond the de-regulation of worship. Many of our forefathers came from societies that used protection of religious values as a mask for political and economic oppression, even war. For example, while England and its neighbors worshiped the same God, they warred for centuries because the monarchs of England (recognized as the religious as well as political authority there) sought to prevent Catholics from recognizing the Pope.
@HedgeMage Are you implying that religion itself is not used as a mask for political and economic oppression and even war? The majority of the founding fathers were deists. Who didn't want to be forced into a specific religious dogma. It is one of the big differences between America and other countries - that you can be the religion of your choice and practice it as long as you do not harm or impede others. If we force people into a religion or dogma, we're doing a disservice to America and the religion which we are pushing AKA tyranny of the majority
17 And Jesus answering said unto them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And they marvelled at him. This has always been the easiest clarification for me...
The argument goes something like this: The government is here to govern the society here on Earth. God give to us Spirit to govern our hearts, minds, and souls. So, we should allow the government to do what it does best and allow God to be in control of all the other things.
The argument is generally followed with the idea that we need to elect Christians into government and pray for our government officials, but that religion should be separate from the state.
Personally, I think this is a bit of a stretch. The more solid arguments are the non-biblical ones (prevention of the majority overriding the minority, insuring freedom of religion, etc.)
!!!
I don't know about you, but I've reached my "Too Much Information" (TMI) Point... In fact I feel totally saturated and drowning... I have to assume that this is just what is intended by the present presidential administration as they act first and then get hauled into court afterward, much to the detriment (and financial costs) of the fears and frustration of most Americans. Let's face it, when the republican legislators are being told not to talk to their constituents or face hatred and derision...
Soooo, I decided that I would have to take a hard look at what I was reading, including emails, and/or newscasts. I'm limiting time for TV news to no more than 2 hours daily and being very selective who/what I tune into. I'm deleting all political emails, most of the substacks who have found their way to my email address, along with all the crappy ads that are run/allowed...And, still, I feel overwhelmed!
I have recently purchased two books, one of which is Money, lies and God by American Journalist, Katherine Stewart. Many of you will already know that I picked up on the "God" issue during the 2016 election and have read a number of books, as well as shared many videos about those who have either left religion, altogether, or who have written books and/or developed a YouTube Station to discuss the part of the political crisis which is rarely actually spotlighted, even by the political parties. Could it be because more and more is being found out that what many (Christians) were told has since been proven to be lies?
Well, if you have a similar interest in the role God actually does or doesn't play in politics, I highly recommend you get this book if you can. What I have read so far is much more devastating than I ever could have imagined! For me, it is both fascinating reading as well as quite, frankly, disgusting... The book is thoroughly researched with a ongoing reference listings. The presentation is logically presented, so that you learn about the structure, as identified by the author, but which are totally understandable even with any level of political knowledge you may possess. And, most importantly, provides the basic answers that you've been possibly searching for, but not able to find, as to why the body of Christians has become divided over political objectives related to American Democracy.
Unlike the recent serialized activities for Fantasy Five by Harold Michael Harvey, which included authority to include as many excerpts as I felt important, I will be limited for this book. So, I will be reading and regurgitating through discussion what was important to me, which, in turn, may be responsive to those you may have. If you have specific questions, just leave them on below comments and I will do a search in the book to see if I can find a response and how it fits into your concerns... Hopefully, we can work together to dig deep into three of the primary issues for me that has been so frustrating...
The Total Lack of Truth in the present (and 2016) administration and the subsequent abuse of the legal system and its officials...
The use of big, possibly dirty, money to have resulted in the re-election of a convicted felon, as well as an impeached (twice) and insurrectionist who incited the attack on our Nation's Capitol... Plus the total acceptance (forced) of all new cabinet members and more...
And, most importantly for all of us, the falsification and creation of disinformation of what God/Jesus says about the role of religion within a nation...
To begin her presentation, Stewart identifies the groups of characters which will be discussed:
As he prepares me a cup of tea, he relates a story from his childhood. “I shared a bedroom with my older brother who loved to terrorize me with stories about ‘the bogeyman’ who would attack me in the middle of the night.” He laughs at the memory. “And I think it’s very interesting that there are political and religious forces in America that want to make this debate about religious freedom or religious liberty the new bogeyman in American politics. What they are trying to do with their scare tactics is create a myth they can hold up and say, ‘This bogeyman is coming after your religious freedoms, and pretty soon we’re going to be communist Russia or communist China or communist Cuba, where faith is exiled.’ ” We bundle into Baines’s car, and after a short drive we arrive at the sanctuary of the Community Baptist Church. We pick up our Chick-Fil-A breakfast sandwiches and take our seats. I am one of only four or five women in the room, and I feel relieved to be Baines’s plus-one. He is the official attendee; I am just there to smile and nod affirmatively. While I am putting on my best smile, however, he is fidgeting. He seemed comfortable enough on the ride over, but this setting seems to trigger something in him. “Just a little PTSD,” he whispers. He grins bravely, but I can see that the wounds from a childhood lived in shame for who he is are still tender. Then the meeting comes to order, and an organizer calls on the first speaker. Chad Connelly bounds onto the stage bursting with energy.
“We are in the middle of doing over forty cities, just like this, in sixteen states between Labor Day and Thanksgiving,” he says breathlessly. He rattles off some statistics from an earlier leg of his “American Restoration Tour”: eighty-nine meetings with 2,965 pastors across the country who command flocks totaling 741,000 potential voters. A former chair of the South Carolina Republican Party and director of faith engagement under Reince Priebus at the Republican National Committee for four years, Connelly is both a political veteran and a key player in the Christian nationalist movement. In 2017 he appeared on a membership list of the United States Coalition of Apostolic Leaders (USCAL), a group associated with a religious movement that argues that conservative Christians should control all aspects of government and society.13 Notably, Connelly serves on the CNP, where he sits on the board of governors. (Joan Lindsey, presumably by virtue of her open pocketbook, is a Gold Circle Member.)14 The council was founded by Paul Weyrich, Tim LaHaye, and others at the dawn of the Reagan era. Today it is one of the movement’s key networking operations, the apparatus that connects the “doers and the donors,” as Rich DeVos, Betsy DeVos’s father-in-law, put it, of Christian nationalism and the conservative political machine.15 “You’re about to hear a presentation that’s going to elevate your ability to understand what’s going on, and it’s also going to inspire you to say, ‘I’m not doing enough,’ ” Connelly says, his voice cheerful but firm. “Everybody you know needs to have voted. Everybody you know needs to go vote early. Every church you know needs to do voter registration. Every pastor you know needs to make sure one hundred percent of the people in their pews are voting, and voting biblical values.” As in most Christian nationalist gatherings, “voting biblical values” is a transparent euphemism for voting Republican. Connelly happily makes clear that his work owes everything to the generosity of Joan Lindsey and her family foundation. “Joan Lindsey just started talking to me about this,” Connelly tells the crowd. “So a couple years ago we really started this thing called The Church Finds Its Voice.” He nods. “If y’all have ever seen Christian leaders on television, Joan Lindsey’s likely trained ’em. She’s a media guru. An expert.” There is a part of Connelly’s message, both here and in his social media presence, that will be familiar to anyone who has taken in a minimum dose of Christian nationalist rhetoric. But it’s worth paying attention to the language because it reveals something about what Christian nationalism is and is not. There is a tendency on the outside to characterize the movement in terms of faith identities (“the evangelicals”), political doctrines (“America is a Christian nation”), and policies (like abortion bans). But on the inside, it looks more like a specific collection of feelings. What unites its varied constituencies is a certain mindset, or a common way of reacting to specific features of the outside world. And the first element of this mindset, as Connelly understands intuitively, is that America is going to hell real fast. A refrain heard across the movement, in various forms, is a hyped-up fear of the modern world meant to get people to the barricades, even if the enemy is illusory. “This is a crucial time in our nation’s history,” Connelly says. “Is this our 1776 moment? Or is it 1944?” He adds, “I’ve never voted for a pro-death person. Never voted for anybody of any stripe that was okay with killing a baby in a mommy’s tummy.” In Christian nationalist circles today, every election is a contest against absolute evil, and the consequences of failure almost too dire to imagine. Only radical action can stop the apocalypse just around the corner. A second element of the mindset is the conviction that we face the immediate reality of persecution. The “we” here refers to conservative Christians—and mostly to white conservative Christians. A 2023 survey, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), which conducts research at the intersection of faith, culture, and public policy, shows that 85 percent of people who subscribe to Christian nationalist ideas also agree with the proposition that “discrimination against white people is at least as big a problem as discrimination against minorities.”16 An earlier report, this one a partnership between PRRI and the Brookings Institution, shows that three-quarters of Republicans and Trump supporters and nearly eight in ten white evangelical Protestants believe that discrimination against Christians is as big of a problem as discrimination against other groups.17 Indeed, as PRRI founder Robert P. Jones, author of The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future (Simon & Schuster, 2023), tells me, “The protection of white Christian dominance, rather than the advancement of policy priorities, is the animating force among the political conservative movement today.” In essence, as he notes, it’s identity and not policy that drives divisions—and creates opportunities for movement funders and strategists to curate identitarian grievance and then exploit it on a wave of cash! It is important to add that, whatever their ultimate causes, both the catastrophism and the persecution complex find expressions more frequently in status or cultural anxieties than in economic anxieties. “Compared to cultural factors, economic factors were significantly less strong predictors of support for Trump” in 2016, according to Jones. “Trump’s ‘Make American Great Again!’ slogan tapped anxieties that were less about jobs and economic mobility but more about a deep sense of protecting a white Christian America from what they perceive to be a foreign and corrupting influence.”18 A 2018 study from the National Academy of Sciences agreed that fear of status loss was a major driver of support for Trump. “It’s not a threat to their own economic well-being; it’s a threat to their group’s dominance in our country overall,” said Diana C. Mutz, the author of the study and a political science and communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania.19 While political uprisings are often about downtrodden groups rising up to assert their right to better treatment and more equal life conditions relative to high-status groups, she said, “the 2016 election, in contrast, was an effort by members of already dominant groups to assure their continued dominance and by those in an already powerful and wealthy country to assure its continued dominance … Those who felt that the hierarchy was being upended—with whites discriminated against more than blacks, Christians discriminated against more than Muslims, and men discriminated against more than women—were most likely to support Trump.”20 Connelly certainly appears to feel the threat. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he wrote that “government leaders decided—in their flawed wisdom—that church gatherings were not ‘essential’ to society. You heard that right.”21 In religious right circles, the pandemic was a radicalizing event. It confirmed many Christian conservatives in their conviction that they are the most persecuted group in American society. It made many feel that they would soon be arrested, injected, and/or poisoned on account of their beliefs—that the tyrannical, Orwellian government long familiar to them from their bedtime stories suddenly had a very real face, and it looked a lot like Dr. Fauci. A third element of the Christian nationalist mindset is the conviction that “we” have a unique and privileged connection to this land. The “we” here, again, is not “the people” mentioned in the Constitution; “we” are conservative Christians, mostly white, the supposedly original and authentic population of the land. (Wrong) It all starts, as Connelly understands, with the belief in a golden age of yore. “This place has been ordained by God,” he said in a September 2020 podcast episode. “When the founders determined that, of course they were reading the Bible, and they were believers of the word of God," (doubtful given the final document on freedom of religion) he explained. “And so America became unique and special because the founders understood that the founding had to tie in to God.” (Really?Why does it say that ALL men are created equal, not just white people?) 22 The idea that conservative Christians therefore have the right and the duty to rule the nation and impose their values on others, by force if necessary—all this follows closely upon this mindset.(Keep saying a lie and somebody's going to believe you.) A fourth and final piece of the mindset of Christian nationalism involves a rather dark picture of the nature of the world: Jesus may have great plans for us, but the reality is that this is a cruel place in which only the cruel survive. In the more self-conscious exercises of Christian nationalist thought, this perspective expresses itself in explicit critiques of the social gospel, or the idea that Christianity has something to do with cultivating empathy, loving thy neighbor, and caring for the least of these.Each of us has a part of God within us and were asked to love our neighbors; this totally contradicts Jesus who Lives Today Within Us!)Nineteenth-century versions of populism sometimes made use of social gospel Christianity, typically as a prelude to wealth redistribution programs, and progressive Christians today continue to draw on scripture in their pursuit of a more just society. But today’s Christian nationalists have no time for the Jesus-is-love crowd. They want their Jesus to lift weights and carry a sword, and they are counting on Him to come down hard on the moochers and layabouts and those who challenge supposedly righteous hierarchies. The belief in cruelty in a cruel world finds expression in radical economic doctrines that embody a cold and punitive spirit, favoring total deregulation of exploitative monopolies and the elimination of the social safety net. (A Lie of the Worst Kind!) As Connelly puts it, the other reason for America’s uniqueness and specialness—apart from the fact that it was ordained by God—“is the free-market system, which of course is God’s biblical economy.”(Didn't Jesus say that a rich man must give up his wealth and help the poor to enter God's Kingdom...Definitely a Lie) Exactly where in Deuteronomy one is to find the commandments of hyper-capitalist orthodoxy, he does not say. No matter—next comes the fear and loathing. Connelly says on the podcast. “It’s actually a godless, communistic, Marxist style of government.”23 It would be hard to find a mindset more at odds with the spirit of the American founding and the actual foundations of the American republic.Have you noticed that republicans choose lies about democrats that exactly or nearly represent what the party is actually doing? Nobody should be fooled by their lies) Andrew Seidel, a constitutional attorney and author whose books include The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American (Sterling, 2019), told me bluntly: “America was not built on the Bible, and that book had little to no influence on the creation of the American Constitution. The framers almost never referenced the Bible when they were debating the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787. The separation of church and state, on the other hand, is an American original—that idea was born in the Enlightenment and first implemented in the American experiment. That separation ensures that we all have freedom without favor, and equality without exception.” There is no room in Christian nationalism for the separation of church and state encoded in the Constitution, however, no recognition of the pluralism that characterized the American experiment from the start, no interest in the rationalist, scientific spirit of America’s founders. But there is also relatively little self-awareness, and if there is a heavy irony hanging over Connelly’s bombastic claims about America’s uniqueness and specialness and his defense of Donald Trump’s effort to subvert the “sacred” Constitution, no one in Chantilly—perhaps with the exception of Steve Baines—appears to detect it. The bottom line for Connelly—hardly surprising, given his past as a Republican Party operative—is to harvest votes. More precisely, his goal is to get the pastors present to harvest the votes. The Faith Wins website encourages event attendees to help lead voter registration in their churches with the help of a “Pastors Tool Kit,” become poll watchers, and assist “with Voter Integrity Efforts” and other actions. “Every Christian in every church in America needs to be registered to vote—and then needs to SHOW UP and vote Biblical values on Election day,”(Folks, you know what this reminds me of? The story of when Jesus threw out the money people in front of the temple, to me, meant that a church was the sacred place to worship our God and NOT to deal with early things, like elections... (all highlights, italis, responses are mine...)
~~~
Finally, here are the groups of characters in the plan to destroy Democracy in America:
I have divided the principal actors of the antidemocratic reaction into five main categories: the Funders, the Thinkers, the Sergeants, the Infantry, and the Power Players. It is the interactions and tensions among these groups, I have come to think, that are key to understanding the origins and evolutions of the American crisis.
Think about where you think you fit in this list and we'll start discussing Part 2 next time!
.jfif)
