The post Do Cats Recognize Their Owners? Vet-Verified Facts & FAQ by Ashley Bates appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com. Click to Skip Ahead The Need to Humanize Pets How Do Cats Recognize Humans How Long Do Cats Remember Us We won’t waste any time. Yes, cats recognize their owners—and any cat owner can attest to this. When you get home from work, you are quite sure that the enamored beast meowing, rubbing, and bunting your whole body wouldn’t act this way with just anyone. So, naturally, our cats can recognize us in the fact that we are familiar. But do they notice us more than anyone else they see frequently? Are we special? Do they know they belong with us? Let’s explore it a little! A Human’s Need to Humanize Pets As humans, we have an innate desire to humanize everything around us in a way that makes the environment more relatable to our own experience. Wondering if our cats recognize us is one of the ways we do it. It is pretty obvious after spending any quality time with your cat that not only do they know you, but they also prefer you. While their body language tells us this in every way, we might need more confirmation. So, if it makes you feel better—yes! Your cat definitely recognizes you and it’s not just because you’re the one who fills the food bowl (although, you definitely get bonus points for doing that!). Image Credit: Africa Studio, Shutterstock How Do Cats Recognize Humans? Our cats can recognize us using their same five senses, ultimately. But let’s pick it apart a bit. 1. Vision You may think that one of the most obvious ways your cat identifies you is with their eyes. Cats are not wired to respond to human emotions and facial expressions the way dogs are, but that doesn’t mean they can’t read them at all. One study showed that cats were able to recognize facial expressions and responded better to their owners than to a strangers. They can also respond to social cues like following your gaze. Surprisingly, however, sight is not the most obvious way your cat identifies you. What are the stronger senses? 2. Smell Our cats’ sense of smell is otherworldly. In fact, if we are measuring, it is 14 times better than a human’s—how impressive! Cats can be extremely sensitive to changes in their environment because of their heightened senses. We give information all the time to our cats through scent alone without even realizing it! Cats can have up to 200 million odor receptors that are directly linked to memory. Cats use this sense of smell to help identify you. They may associate your smell with certain feelings. Not only that, but a study has proven that, like dogs, cats can recognize and respond to emotional chemosignals, meaning your cat may understand if you’re happy or scared by your scent! Image Credit: Nailia Schwarz, Shutterstock 4. Sound A 2013 study showed that cats can recognize the sound of their owner’s voices. Your voice is so familiar to your cat, but even the pace of your steps or the sound of your feet on the floor might help your cat identify you. Each of us has a different stride and weight, creating varying sounds as we walk. Your cat can recognize their name, and potentially a few other familiar words. The communication goes two ways as cats will use vocalizations to interact with you. 5. Familiar Routines Our cats know us well. They might not be able to tell the time, but they do develop routines. They wake up at 5 a.m. for food and know you get home at 6 in the evening. Sure, maybe they can’t tell time, but they can tell the time of day. How Long Do Cats Remember Us? Cats are capable of having short- and long-term memories. How they catalog them depends on the importance of experiences. If you have had your cat for a long time and developed a bond, there is a very good chance that they will remember you their whole lives. What’s sad is that if you adopt an adult cat, they might miss and even look for their old family for months. That is why getting a pet is no joke—they truly attach themselves to your family unit. This information should make you feel better if you go on vacation or do something a little more time-intensive, like going off to college. Your cat will remember you and shower you with affection upon your return. Like us, however, cats lose their ability to sharply remember as they age. Cognitive decline usually happens in senior cats, with 50% of cats over 15 years being affected. Image Credit: phM2019, Shutterstock Conclusion Now you know a little more about a cat’s memory and how they view us. Our cats can recognize us in several ways, just like they learn and retain memories of many other happenings in their lives. So, now you can be sure that your cat knows you, they love you, and they’ll never forget you. Don’t worry—they could pick you out of a lineup and that’s all that matters! Sources Frontiers In PetMD VCA Hospitals PetMD Featured Image Credit: New Africa, Shutterstock The post Do Cats Recognize Their Owners? Vet-Verified Facts & FAQ by Ashley Bates appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com.

The post How to Get Rid of Cat Spray Smell: 6 Tips & Home Remedies by Catster Editorial Team appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com. Click to Skip Ahead How to Get Rid of Cat Spray Smell How to Stop this Behavior How to Keep Your Cat from Spraying Cat spray smell is a common problem for many pet owners, as our feline friends can develop a bad habit of urinating outside the box when they’re sick, stressed, or threatened. After all, misery loves company, and the extra-pungent odor is a surefire way to ensure everyone in the home is equally uncomfortable. Since it’s more persistent than most everyday odors, cat spray is impossible to tolerate and extra challenging to eliminate. If the smell makes you feel unwelcome in your own house, we’ll provide six tips and home remedies to get rid of the smell quickly, easily, and effectively. How to Get Rid of Cat Spray Smell 1. Search for Spray with a Blacklight The first step in eliminating cat spray odors is finding the sprayed areas. Cats will re-spray in places bearing their urine smell, so if you don’t remove it, you’ll have a recurring cleaning job to manage. Cats often spray around doors or windows if there’s an outdoor stressor or on new items that bring unfamiliar smells into the home. After localizing the odor to a particular room, use a blacklight to pinpoint the spray. The phosphorus in dried urine causes it to glow neon yellow or green under UV light. Darken the room and sweep the light over the floors, walls, and baseboard to reveal spray patterns. Cats are sneaky, and you may have to check behind furniture, in closets, or among piles of clothes. When you find the spray, mark the perimeter to outline where to clean. Image Credit: In The Light Photography, Shutterstock 2. Use an Enzyme Cleaner on the Spray Marks Enzyme cleaners are the most effective solutions to remove cat spray smells. While many cleaners only mask the scent, enzymatic formulas have active enzymes that target and break down odor-causing compounds. The smell goes away for good, and your cat won’t pick up the scent to drive them to re-spray. Enzyme cleaners like Hepper’s Advanced Bio-Enzyme Pet Stain & Odor Eliminator Sprays are easy to use, non-toxic, and biodegradable. Shake the bottle and saturate the spot. The smell will gradually dissipate after you let the cleaner sit for at least 10–15 minutes. Severe stains may require multiple applications to remove all the urine. 3. Sprinkle Baking Soda on the Stain Baking soda won’t completely clean pee stains, but it’s one of the simplest home remedies for removing cat spray smells. The powder absorbs odors and moisture, making it a handy solution for soaking up fresh urine and keeping old stains from stinking. After blotting the spray stain with paper towels to soak up as much urine as possible, sprinkle baking soda on the spot. Let it sit for 30 minutes or until the area is dry. Once the area is odor-free, suck up the baking soda with a wet-dry vac with a HEPA filter, as the fine powder can potentially damage a standard carpet vacuum. Image Credit: New Africa, Shutterstock 4. Air Out the House The fastest solution for quick relief from cat spray is simply opening the windows. While it won’t have a lasting impact, airing out the house with a cross-breeze will make it much more tolerable while you find a more permanent solution. After opening the windows, turn on the fans to move the air and push the cat urine smell out of the house. 5. Spray With Vinegar and Water Vinegar is a versatile kitchen staple that can make a marked difference in a hurry for urine on walls, hard floors, and the carpet. First, blot the stain with a paper towel to remove as much cat urine as possible. In a spray bottle, mix one part distilled white vinegar with one part water. Shake the bottle and saturate the spray mark. Let it sit for a few minutes, blot with a paper towel, and allow it to air dry. Image Credit: Ana Portal, Shutterstock 6. Set Up a Spray Station Sometimes, you can reduce spraying but not eliminate it. If your cat won’t stop spraying, you can make life less frustrating by setting up an easy-to-clean spray station. With this arrangement, your cat will spray into a litter box covering their normal spraying area. Using two litter boxes, nest one inside the other at a 90-degree angle to create an L shape. Fill the bottom section with litter, and set the vertical section against the wall where your cat sprays. As your cat gets used to using the station, you can often move it to a more out-of-the-way location. Though it won’t fix the issue, a spray station will make cleanup easier. Stop the Smell at the Source: How to Get Your Cat to Stop Spraying Even with the most powerful cleaning solutions, you can’t expect to get rid of the cat spray smell for long if you don’t root out the reason for your pet’s behavior. Common causes of spraying include: Physical issues, such as hormonal disorders or kidney disease Stressful stimuli, including resident or neighborhood cats Changes in routines or new additions to the family Poor litter box management Intact cats are more likely to spray because they use it to advertise for mates. Spaying and neutering can help reduce the problem, as it removes much, if not all, of the sex drive that motivates cats to mark. Yet, spraying can persist even in desexed cats if they feel stressed enough. Image Credit: Evgeny Haritonov, Shutterstock How to Keep Your Cat from Spraying Keep the Litter Box Clean Scoop the waste daily and change the litter weekly to keep the litter box clean and appealing to your cat. Make sure litter boxes are easily accessible and that there are enough to accommodate every cat in the house. Ideally, you should have one litter box for each cat plus an extra, all positioned in convenient, secure places. You can also try a different litter, such as switching from clumping to clay or paper litter, as some cats prefer certain materials. If the box is the right size, accessible, and clean, and the litter is comfortable, your cat should have no reason to avoid it. Manage Outdoor Stimuli Block other animals from accessing your home and property if they bother your cat. You can also close the blinds or remove access to certain rooms to prevent your cat from noticing outdoor stressors and supervise your cat’s outdoor time to keep them safe. Maintain the Environment New additions to the family or changes in the environment can upset the home’s look, smell, and sounds, often making cats feel uncertain and insecure. Changes should occur slowly to prevent spraying, and you should explore ways to minimize their effect on your cat. For example, items that might upset your home’s scent profile, such as strollers or sweaty running shoes, can stay in the garage. If you’re changing furniture or remodeling, you can do it bit by bit to maintain familiar areas. You can also give your cat a safe spot where they can retreat. You may have to wait to make significant changes until you fix the spraying behavior. Image Credit: evrymmnt, Shutterstock Provide Attention, Enrichment, and a Routine Enhancing your relationship with your cat and providing more enrichment can make them feel content and secure, hopefully leading to less spraying. Supply a rotation of toys and devices like cat trees, scratching posts, and shelves. Strategically placed items will give your cat ways to stay active and places to retreat if they feel stressed. Maintain a consistent routine with your cat. Grooming, feeding, and playtime should occur at scheduled times so your cat can find comfort in the predictability. Give them as much interaction as possible to fortify your bond, using rewards and avoiding punishment to minimize their stress. Using treats, toys, attention, and other rewards to make positive associations with changes to the home can also put your cat at ease. When you take an upbeat approach and give your cat the care they deserve, family additions like pets or babies become less threatening and less likely to ignite new spraying behavior. Talk to Your Vet Talking with your vet is wise if you don’t know why your cat is spraying or if they show other signs, such as behavior changes, weight fluctuations, or illness. Your vet can perform various tests and assess environmental factors contributing to spraying. Then, they’ll offer insights, advice, and treatment, which may include medications. Final Thoughts Cat spray is rarely an issue you can put off until later. Urine odors fill the house fast and only become trickier to remove the longer you let them sit, and your cat will be tempted to keep spraying as the scent persists. Enzyme cleaners are the best way to make odors disappear long-term, but when the smell becomes more than you can bear, following these easy tips and home remedies will give you the immediate relief you need to reclaim your space. Sources Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Featured Image Credit: Sorapop Udomsri, Shutterstock The post How to Get Rid of Cat Spray Smell: 6 Tips & Home Remedies by Catster Editorial Team appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com.

"Good Morning America" anchor George Stephanopoulos had to retract a statement he made about President Joe Biden after commenting to a pedestrian who recorded the interaction. 'I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldn't have.' TMZ called it a "stunning" admission made by the former campaign aide to Bill Clinton on Tuesday. "Do you think Biden should step down? You've talked to him more than anybody else has lately," the pedestrian asked Stephanopoulos. "I don't think he can serve another four years," he responded simply. TMZ obtained the footage and published it, which led to Stephanopoulos contacting the outlet to say he should not have made the comment. "Earlier today, I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldn't have," he said. ABC News also distanced itself from his statement. "George expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News," the company said. 'That's not what our polls show.' Biden subjected himself to an interview by Stephanopoulos after Democrats called for him to step down from the campaign over the debacle of the first presidential debate on CNN. While the questioning was supposed to quell questions about Biden's competence, it only fueled the angst and division in the Democratic Party. “Do you really believe that you’re not behind right now?” asked Stephanopoulos. “Just when you look at the reality though, Mr. President." "Well, I don't believe that's my approval rating. That's not what our polls show," said Biden when told he was at 36% approval. He went on to claim that he was exhausted before the debate and admitted that it was not a good night for his campaign. The president has since said emphatically that he is not going to leave the race and that he believes he can beat Trump. "I want you to know that despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Trump," read a statement attributed to Biden. "I can respond to all this by saying clearly and unequivocally: I wouldn't be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024," he added. Many polls have shown that Trump has increased his lead over Biden after the horrendous debate. In one poll, a majority of respondents said that Biden should not serve as president over his mental and cognitive deficiencies. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

CBS News Looks Into Project 2025, the 'Blueprint' for a Second Trump Term

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"They plug in their guitars and just didn’t mess around." The post The classic album Kiss’ Gene Simmons claims saved rock ‘n’ roll from “a terrible time” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

I came in for some guffaws — and, I’m happy to say, more than a few bouquets — a while ago when I wrote here at The American Spectator that the 2024 election is shaping up as a classic hero’s journey story starring Donald Trump as The Hero. I’ll admit that framing things that way was, more than a little bit, some bait for the unhinged Left out there, and maybe particularly the ubiquitous trolls who occupy the comment section and pile up so much extra traffic here at the site. Thanks for all you do, guys! (READ MORE: Deny Them Abortion and It Doesn’t Matter Who the Dems Nominate) What I said in that initial piece is that Trump has emerged as the heroic figure in the epic tale this election is becoming, not so much for his own virtues as for the comparative abomination the Democrats have become. Yes, of course, you could argue the Democrats have always been abominable, and you’d mostly be right. But there was a time when they were both abominable and well-meaning —  well, that time is long gone. At This Rate, Democrats Are Trying to Make Trump Look Like a Hero Telling your idiot voters that you’re fighting to preserve “Our Democracy” while you’re trying to put your political opponent in prison for (take your pick) paying hush money to Stormy Daniels; demanding an inquisition into Fulton County election night ballot-stuffing; keeping presidential documents the Constitution says he has a right to keep; or telling protesters to go home when they get unruly, perhaps as a function of agents provocateur not sent by Trump into that crowd — well, that doesn’t really make you the hero, now does it? Nor does screeching that Trump will be a dictator, when he pretty conclusively proved in four years as president that he was anything but that (after all, a true dictator would likely have hung Marc Elias and Peter Strzok from lamp-posts on the Washington Mall and thrown Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx in the deepest, dankest dungeon he could find), based on a tongue-in-cheek line he gave to Sean Hannity that he’d be a “dictator for a day” in issuing presidential executive orders to reverse Joe Biden’s reversals of his own far more successful policies. Don’t believe me? I brought receipts. Does this come off like a dictator to you? Remember, these are the people who, when Trump won the election in 2016 as a direct rebuke by the American people to the abusive and anti-American policies and actions of the eight Obama years, responded by fashioning themselves “The Resistance,” weaponizing a Clinton campaign hoax about Russian collusion with the Trump campaign into a soft coup d’etat against a duly elected president, impeaching Trump for having asked the Ukrainians about some fairly out-in-the-open corruption involving Joe Biden, corruption the idiotic Biden advertised on camera at a Council on Foreign Relations event, and now prosecuting him for things which are not crimes in front of kangaroo courts in Democrat-dominated jurisdictions. (READ MORE: Biden Is Outing the Mainstream Media) And they’re doing those things while they’re busy sexualizing kids, and grooming them for destructive, damaging lifestyles — leading to medical dependency, substance abuse, and sky-high suicide rates — waging war against family life in America, exporting good jobs abroad in the name of The Climate (name one thing the Biden administration has done, or that congressional Democrats are for, which would incentivize China and India to promote “green” manufacturing or anything else supposedly beneficial to The Climate while they hamstring American industrial production) and a host of other villainous activities. But now we’ve come to the true pièce de résistance. You simply can’t go any lower than this: Although it’s already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, “there is no mechanism to ensure that only those registering or voting are actually citizens,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday in a press conference held on Zoom. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as the “motor voter law,” to require that states obtain documentary proof of citizenship from someone before he or she may register to vote. The legislation also would require states to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls…. House Democrats’ leaders oppose the SAVE Act and claim it would impose “an extreme burden [on] countless Americans” who just want to vote, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., told caucus members in a memo. Clark added that “there has been zero evidence of the widespread fraud that this bill purports to target.” Several states make illegal aliens eligible for driver’s licenses and other benefits, providing ample opportunities to register to vote illegally in federal elections. In 2017, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortes resigned after the state admitted to registering illegal immigrants for several years. Heritage Action for America, the grassroots arm of The Heritage Foundation, noted that over 70% of Americans say they oppose proposals to allow noncitizens to vote and over 80% support proof of identity at the ballot box. Joe Biden, in a fit of villainous lucidity, said he’d veto the bill. It won’t even come to that, because Chuck Schumer won’t even bring it to the floor for a Senate vote. Elon Musk had this exactly right: Those who oppose this are traitors. All Caps: TRAITORS What is the penalty for traitors again? https://t.co/lyREyskPv4 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2024 We’ve come far, though perhaps not quite so far, from the old days when the Democrat Party was known for “rum, Romanism and rebellion.” The modern equivalent is projection, perversion, and perfidy. And They’re Trying to End Your American Citizenship And the bald-faced promotion of illegal voting by foreign nationals is the Dems’ opposition to the SAVE Act. Give Mike Johnson and the House Republicans credit for smoking this out, because there can be no further illusions now that The Great Replacement Theory the Democrats decry as a tinfoil-hat superstition is their official civilizational doctrine — it isn’t the half of it. Elias, one of the key architects of the Trump-Russia hoax who never saw the faintest lick of consequence for that naked bit of sedition, is now in court in Ohio trying to invalidate a new state law that prevents foreign money from influencing elections there. He’s doing it on behalf of a Swiss communist billionaire and certifiable James Bond villain named Hansjörg Wyss who is a sizable chunk of the money behind both Arabella Advisors and the George Soros-led Democracy Alliance. Foreign money + foreign voters = the effective end of your American citizenship. You’ll be canceled out of a stake in your own country’s future. And from top to bottom, it’s pretty clear that’s what the Democrat Party is all about now. But they sure as hell won’t admit it. They won’t admit anything, of course. This brings us to the most obvious, and perhaps most underhanded, of the expositions of Democrat villainy: These are the people who didn’t just bring you Joe Biden, they attempted to force you to believe he wasn’t a mental cripple. (WATCH: The Spectacle Ep. 124: Biden Is Not Okay: The Media Is Gaslighting the American Public) They have been gaslighting the American people for five years on this subject. Not all that well, mind you; most of the country could tell this man was unfit for the presidency quite some time ago, but until that disqualifying debacle of a debate performance last month the Democrats were in lockstep spouting the lie that Biden was “sharp” and “on his game.” And despite what it looks like when he walks and moves around you can be sure that he absolutely does not have Parkinson’s Disease, regardless of whether the Walter Reed specialist in Parkinson’s has visited the White House eight times since August of last year. Because, as the Washington Post will inform you, there is nothing amiss with respect to those visits. And while there is a delicious amount of grumbling by people like Jerry Nadler and James Carville, neither one of whom has much room to talk when it comes to castigating others for their poor health, the majority of the muckety-mucks among the Democrats’ political class seem either paralyzed to oppose or fully bought in to continue, the gaslighting of the American people about Biden’s fitness for the office. Given all of this, Donald Trump doesn’t have to be much of a hero to be the hero of this story. If he’s a regular slob, or even a roguish brute with a common touch, he still fits the role just fine. Anybody who opposes this gang of group-thinking goons comes off as a hero. The question then becomes something else: How does this hero’s journey end? Do the villains win and an age of darkness fully descends upon the land? Or is there redemption after a slog through the filth that our political process has become? You might think it’s absurd to pin hopes for revival on a guy like Donald Trump. You might be right about that. But like even Trump says, it isn’t about him. It’s about the villains. It’s about them getting what’s coming to them. They’re the ones who framed this story, not Trump, and their fate is now the inverse of ours as a nation. The post Again, These Democrats Are the Villains appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

After Biden’s disastrous debate, do anti-Trumpers still see him as a viable vehicle? This is a valid question because it hinges on who these voters see running the country should Biden win. It is also an important question because anti-Trumpers are perhaps 2024’s last moveable voting bloc — and until the debate, this election looked likely to be decided by a small margin. For anyone who watched the debate, the question overriding all others is: How is Biden still viable? Biden went into the debate seeking to quell concerns about his next four years; he came out of it needing to quell concerns about his next four months, or perhaps days. His performance was not marred by a lone gaffe — these we have come to know all too well from Biden as they occur in virtually each of his appearances as stumbles, mumbles, and bumbles. Biden’s debate held all of those and more. He seemed utterly lost and was indisputably inarticulate, factually wrong, confused, and nonsensical. It was arguably the worst presidential debate performance in American history. (READ MORE: The Biden Obsession: Should Quit, Won’t Quit, Should Quit, Won’t Quit) And contextually it was even worse. Everything in the debate favored Biden: His ground rules, a friendly network, and moderators who had opposed Trump in the past. Despite all this, Biden could not pull himself together for 90 minutes. While the focus on the fallout from this fiasco has been centered on the Democrats — the same people who, for three years, have assured us that all was a-okay with their standard bearer — the political epicenter lies with anti-Trumpers who have seen Biden as an viable vehicle for their opposition. Biden Isn’t Doing Well in the Polls To understand this group’s importance, look at Biden’s dwindling support, which is approaching his party’s political floor. According to RealClear Politics’ 7/5 average national polling on July 9, in a two-way race, Biden registers just 44.0 percent and in a five-way race, he comes in at just 37.9 percent. His job approval is 38.9 percent and his favorability rating is only 39.7 percent. All these are perilously close to the 37 percent of voters who identified as Democrats in 2020 exit polling. (READ MORE: ‘The World Needs Bad Men:’ The Good Thing About Dangerous Men Like Donald Trump) With his ratings dramatically below the 51.3 percent of the popular vote that he won in 2020, it is safe to assume that the only people who are actually for Biden are Democrats. His support among Republicans and independents is likely all based on opposition to Trump — with little to none coming from those who support Biden himself. Biden’s biggest concern therefore must be maintaining his viability as a vehicle for opposition to Trump. The biggest question following the debate is: How is this still possible? Anti-Trumpers Don’t Have Another Option Who do anti-Trumpers presume will be running the country over the next four years, should Biden win in November? Never-Trump bravado only goes so far: It is one thing to profess that you would vote for anyone other than Trump when believe you that the preferred alternative is up to the job of being president; it is altogether another when it is clear — as it is now — that the preferred alternative is not up to the job. Do they presume that, should Biden be elected, he would immediately resign? Certainly, nothing in the Biden family or the White House’s behavior indicates this. Both camps insist Biden is capable of running, winning, and governing. Would that change should he win? Would someone within the administration invoke the 25th Amendment? Again, nothing — and certainly no one — in the Biden administration has given any indication of being so forthright with the American people. Just the opposite. After the debate, there has been a lack of candor about Biden’s contact with his doctor. If Biden was somehow removed while in office, Vice President Kamala Harris would take over. Are anti-Trumpers comfortable with effectively having elected Harris as president? And who would then fill the vice presidency? Anti-Trump voters would have given a new Harris administration wide latitude to put someone just a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. (READ MORE: They Lied to You) Do they imagine that the so-called “Deep State” could somehow just navigate the ship of state in Biden’s name? For a group professing a desire to preserve democracy, this seems a strange stance indeed. These are pivotal questions for this election’s last pivotal group. There is little if any pro-Biden vote, and Biden’s debate performance has undoubtedly diminished it. The pro-Trump vote is solid and appears to be growing: Trump won 46.9 percent of the popular vote in 2020; and, according to RCP, in a two-way race, Trump is polling at 47.5 percent. The next biggest bloc of voters is anti-Trump voters. In 2020, they were pivotal. Then, a quarter of exit poll respondents voted against their candidate’s opponent; 68 percent of those voted for Biden. They gave Biden a 4.4 percent popular vote margin of victory. The question after Biden’s debate implosion is: Can they, in good conscience, do so again? J.T. Young was a professional staffer in the House and Senate from 1987-2000, served in the Department of Treasury and Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004-2023. The post Do Anti-Trumpers Still See Biden as a Viable Vehicle? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

“Be careful what you pray for,” the old saying goes, “because you may get it.” In Oklahoma, every school district will now be required to include the Bible in its curriculum on the obvious grounds that, if you are ignorant of the Bible, you will be in no position to understand most of Western history, literature, and art. It would be like trying to understand ancient Greece without reading Homer, Hesiod, and the great tragedians of Athens. The question is not whether such a thing might be possible, but why on earth you would propose to try it? You may hop for five miles on one leg, but what is the point, when you could use both, and enjoy the ease of looking about you as you do so? (READ MORE from Anthony Esolen: Higher Ed Can’t Study Art Because It Drained the Brains) The problem has nothing to do with the Constitution, which does not demand, in this crucial regard, that a child in a public school be an ignoramus. And make no mistake, an ignoramus he will be. When I made this point on social media, someone countered, saying that the plays of Shakespeare, for instance, are “not exactly dripping with Scripture.” Well, if you don’t know Scripture, you can hardly tell whether they are or they are not. In fact, the plays are steeped in Scripture, as Shakespeare is by far the most theologically engaged of all his contemporary playwrights, and his echoes of Scripture are not incidental, but of the essence. “There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,” says Hamlet, just before he agrees to a fencing match with Laertes, which will be the death of both of them. Measure for Measure the play is called, whose central problem is the interplay of justice and mercy; the title is straight from the Sermon on the Mount. “O dear father,” says Cordelia, who has returned to England to save King Lear from her wicked elder sisters, “It is thy business that I go about,” echoing the words of the boy Jesus in the Temple; an echo that is the more poignant from the lips of one who lived in pagan Britain before the time of Christ. No, the problem has to do with where our teachers are coming from and whether we can trust them to treat Scripture with the honor that a world-transforming text deserves, even if they do not accept it as the word of God. I would like to believe that they would not be so puerile as to take out their resentment on the text, gleefully picking passages out of context and with no attempt to understand them on their own terms or in the historical situation, to make them appear stupid, wicked, or a hopeless mass of self-contradictions so that those who treat the Bible as sacred will appear likewise. “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,” says Antonio, the merchant of Venice in the play by that name, though the purpose here will be the reverse of what Antonio’s enemy Shylock desires. For Shylock sincerely believes he honors Scripture, while the teachers I have in mind will intend no such thing. Are Oklahoma Teachers Up to the Task? People do not enjoy having their deficiencies laid bare. They do not like to be shown up. Most English literature written before 1900 is an alien land to teachers and students, so it is mainly ignored, as I have gathered from nearly forty years of quizzing college freshmen. It is not a matter of teaching too little of Tennyson, for one glaring example, but of teaching nothing at all, so that in a class of 20 college freshmen you will be lucky to have as many as two or three who even recognize the name of the most celebrated and beloved English poet of his age. If you require somebody to teach what he does not know, what is the most obvious thing he will now do? He will turn to the internet — that crashing waterfall of facts, half-truths, misunderstanding, and folly. We assume here that he is motivated by goodwill, though his patience will be tried, and he will resist putting any great effort into the task. (READ MORE: Oklahoma Public Schools to Include the Bible in Curriculum) But why should we assume goodwill? Our schools have gone all in for the latest and maddest instantiation of the sexual revolution, and Scripture stands most obviously against it. Thus I have seen someone pretending to be eager to teach the Bible in school, picking out the passage in Genesis where Lot’s daughters get their father drunk so they can bed down with him and have children by him. That the descendants of these children will be Moabites and Amorites, Israel’s enemies, escapes the scoffer’s notice, as also that the author presents Lot and his family as tarred by having lived in Sodom too long. Would you have Al Capone teach tax law? He might do a decent job, mainly to show people how to duck or skirt it. At least they would know what it is. Better to have Capone teach tax law than to have anybody who hates what Scripture says about his way of life teach the Bible. But suppose you do not have a teacher with a personal stake in making Scripture look ridiculous, or in twisting it for his own benefit. Suppose he has a modicum of goodwill and some knowledge, although usually vague. Can we expect something decent and instructive to come from him as he presents, say, Genesis to his students? Not likely. There are two reasons. First, the whole “culture,” if we can call widespread amnesia by that name, makes it extremely difficult for people to see that books written in the past are worthy of our attention. We apply the pattern of technological progress, which is easy to see, to all other matters, and assume that as far as the internet is above the carrier pigeons that began the Reuters news enterprise, so far is our moral wisdom above that of the past; and so too with music and the arts, and philosophy, and human institutions such as the family. This prejudice is utterly tenacious. I can show my students the astronomy that is everywhere in Dante — its precision, subtlety, and consonance with careful observation; I do so for students who do not know where the sun will appear in the sky at dawn in early spring, what path it will take if you are in the northern or the southern hemisphere, and how the height of that path at noon will depend upon how far you are above or below the equator. They will still revert to believing that medieval men were all dunderheads who thought the world was flat. And that is just a matter of physical science. When it comes to the way we live our lives, they can behold all the splendors of medieval art and architecture, the boisterous and frequent celebrations, the color of folk traditions, the love songs and the Christmas carols, the invention of the university, the restless penchant for going on pilgrimages, the beginning of international banking, the mirth that characterizes so much of the poetry before global cooling and the Black Death struck in the 14th century, and still they will call the centuries of the High Middle Ages an era of darkness. No television, I guess. (WATCH: The Spectacle Ep. 123: Louisiana Makes The 10 Commandments Great Again) The second reason is that the whole past has become an alien land. You may believe that Jane Austen has a lot to teach us about the relations of men and women, but unless you can set your own age’s understandings and misunderstandings aside and enter imaginatively into a world that is not your own, you will not discover what that lot is. And this is a sort of work that nothing in your usual experience will help you to do. You have to understand not only that Elizabeth and Jane Bennett believe that what their foolish sister Lydia has done — leaving home with a rake to whom she is not married — is scandalous. You have to understand why they believe it, and not just as an abstract notion, but as something real, something that arouses a reaction from the whole person. In other words, you have to set aside our typical indifference to such a thing, and to try to feel the force of the wrong with its full power. But in a Western world that grows more homogeneous, turning every land into one or another shade of modern gray, you will have had little call to exercise any historical or cultural imagination. If Jane Austen seems to come from another planet, the Bible will seem to come from another universe entirely, and though you will be able to read the words on the page, they might as well be scratches and squiggles for which there is no Rosetta Stone. And yet — the thing should be done. Who will do it, and how, and with what results, I cannot say. The post Oklahoma School Districts Must Teach Scripture. Is That a Good Thing? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.