JV Venable

This has become a major flareup -- yes, @XavierBecerra was lying when he said that Trump had endorsed California's voter ID initiative (it's independent, and preceded Trump's SAVE Act). Also, SOS Weber has been lying about how Prop 39 would work. Democrats hoping the lies stick.

Who cares about being blown up when peanut butter is this expensive - Thank you for waking us up Tucky.

"So I don't have to pay anyone else who was set to appear tonight? All the ticket revenue goes to me? I'm good with that."

One of my favorite Charlie Kirk answers of all time.

I don't know who runs this account but I love how it explains America in a way Americans never could. . . unless he is actually American, in which case, "in a way Americans never bothered to before."

How much more plain could their sedition be?

It has been five years now. Although it is hard to do, you should watch this @MichaelPack_ @WSJopinion documentary of the Biden administration's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. The culmination of two decades of misguided US policy. wsj.com/video/series/opinion…

A love letter to America’s national parks The national parks make America feel like mine. Not mine in the petty sense of possession. Mine in the strange, almost sacred sense that something can belong to you simply because you belong to it. We live in an age where everything is brought to us. Food arrives at the door. Entertainment plays on demand. The entire accumulated knowledge of civilization sits inside our pockets. The national parks make you go get the thing. The view does not come to you. You climb for it. You drive down some ridiculous road for it. You wake up before sunrise. You lose reception. You wonder halfway up the trail why you thought this was a good idea. Then the view opens. And there it is. Some enormous piece of America that cannot be delivered, streamed, optimized, or felt through a reduced thumbnail. It is one thing to look at the outline of America on a map. It is another to know what Montana smells like after rain. To feel how cold an alpine lake is when you first put your hand into it or to hear the waterfall before you see it. To wipe the orange dust of Utah off your face. To hear the silence of the caves hundreds of feet below the earth’s surface in Kentucky. To learn that distance in the dunes of Colorado is deceptive. To watch the last light turn a mountain pink in Texas. To see a bison standing in the middle of the road and remember, suddenly, that this continent was once unimaginably wild. Every park reveals another personality of the same country. Yet somehow, no matter how different the landscape, there is a familiarity waiting inside the unfamiliar. You drive hundreds of miles into a place you have never been. You see the sign warning LAST GAS. Civilization thins out behind you. The road stretches ahead into mountains or desert or badlands, and for a moment you feel very far away from everything you know. And then, almost like a mirage, you see it. The brown national park service sign. A little further down the road is the entrance station. And there, beneath that familiar wooden roof, is a park ranger topped with their unmistakable hat. Waiting for you. As if they were expecting you. This arrival stirs something in me. Because no matter how far I have driven, no matter how strange the landscape outside my windshield, no matter how long it has been since I saw another town, there is something instantly reassuring about it. I know this place. Not this place. I have never been here before. But this place. And even though it is a trail I have never walked before, somehow, I am home. See, you think you know America. But that is just the thing about the national parks: they make America mysterious again. You realize how much of your own country has been hiding from you. You understand that to access some of her best parts, you still have to work for it. You have to earn it. We spend so much time talking about America as if it is something we have already figured out. We quickly reduce it to politics and demographics. Red states and blue states. Coastal elites and flyover country. And then you stand on the edge of Yosemite Valley and the arguments become very small. Not unimportant. Just small. These places were here before our political parties. These rivers crossed the continent before our borders. These forests grew and burned and grew again before anyone had invented any of the words we now hurl at each other. And somehow, through an extraordinary act of national foresight, we decided that some of the most beautiful places among them should not belong to a king, or a corporation, or the person rich enough to buy the view. They belong to Americans. Perhaps this is why I have started thinking that hiking, climbing, rappelling, slogging, spelunking, sand surfing, snow shoeing, and paddle boarding through these parks as a kind of claiming. Not claiming the land. Claiming my relationship to it. Every trail walked makes the map a little less abstract. You stop saying “Somewhere out West” because now you know exactly what that particular stretch of America looks like at dusk. You begin collecting the country. The smell of pine. The crisp breeze of the altitude. The sound of boots on loose dirt. A bear spray canister bouncing against your backpack. The circle on your map drawn for you by a ranger. The first glimpse of snow on a distant peak in August. The simple sandwich that tastes better than a Michelin star dinner because you carried it miles up above the treeline. These are the small things. But love of country is built from small things. Patriotism can be grand. It should be. Flags and anthems and fireworks have their place. But there is another, quieter kind of patriotism. It is knowing the place. These parks are ours. Not because we conquered them (which we did). But because, at our best, we had the wisdom to leave them alone. There is another gift these places give us. They are the evidence we didn’t know we needed for ourselves. There are versions of ourselves we can only meet when we go far enough from the familiar – selves that are waiting somewhere in the silence, the altitude, the exhaustion, the danger, the enormity of it all. And once you know that person, you want to know them again. I found parts of myself I didn’t know existed on mountains I didn’t know I could climb. She was stronger, more comfortable in the uncomfortable than I could have predicted. Now, when I stand in front of something daunting and new, I no longer wonder whether I am the kind of person who can do it. I know that I am. I have met this version of myself on too many mountaintops to doubt her anymore. Ah, the national parks. Of course, the goal is to explore them all. And there is something deeply satisfying about watching the map fill in, about turning names I dreamed of visiting into places I have walked and touched and breathed. These places all keep a version of me, too. In the beginning, I was eager to cross off as many parks as I could. Another park, another pin on the map. I wanted to collect them quickly, almost greedy for the next one. But somewhere along all those miles, across all those states, I understood. I love knowing there are still places that remain mysterious to me. Wonders I still get to see for the first time. And after visiting some of the parks more than once, I know that it is impossible to meet the same mountain twice. People often ask me how “quickly” I want to finish the list. How many parks I have left. How many years I think it will take. Finishing is the goal, but it was never the point. See, here’s the secret to this grand adventure: I never want it to end. Arynne Wexler August 25, 2026

Everyone knows that his real masterpiece was the P 38 lightning

One of the most inspiring, captivating, heart-wrenching, and meaningful stories of love, strength, and generosity that I have ever read We can all learn from the example Bill is setting, and we should all pray for his family Refuah Shlema, a full and speedy recovery, to Lucy

Today - Dr. Fauci's former senior advisor, David Morens, pled guilty to conspiracy to defraud the US. Morens and others plotted to conceal/destroy federal records re: COVID-19 and federal grants to avoid FOIA and the Federal Record Act.

He's predicted 27 of the last 3 recessions

I think a better choice, although one also with risks, is to win the war against Iran and to get on a war footing like our survival depends on it. And we should be moving as fast we can to deploy weapons in the Pacific- including to Taiwan- to deter PRC aggression.