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JENNY BETH MARTIN: Rubio Rights Ship At State
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JENNY BETH MARTIN: Rubio Rights Ship At State

The State Department is finally undergoing the course correction it has long needed. According to recent reporting from FOX News, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reinstated and promoted a number of…
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Trump Recognizes Kennedy Center Honorees at Medal Presentation Event: 'Some of the Greatest of All Time'
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Trump Recognizes Kennedy Center Honorees at Medal Presentation Event: 'Some of the Greatest of All Time'

President Donald Trump described the 2025 Kennedy Center honorees as “Some of the greatest of all time,” and offered them congratulations as he revealed that he would be hosting the performances Sunday…
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Woman Says There Should Be a Law That All Trump Voters Wear a Trump Hat 24/7
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Woman Says There Should Be a Law That All Trump Voters Wear a Trump Hat 24/7

This editor is a three-time Donald Trump voter and doesn't have a hat. But this woman with the crazy eyes thinks I should be compelled to wear a MAGA hat 24/7 (even in the shower) so that normal people…
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Trump Presents Kennedy Center Honorees with Gold Medallions: 'The Very Best in American Arts and Culture'
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Trump Presents Kennedy Center Honorees with Gold Medallions: 'The Very Best in American Arts and Culture'

President Donald Trump on Saturday night presented the Kennedy Center honorees with freshly designed gold medallions donated by Tiffany & Co. ahead of Sunday night’s program. Trump, sporting a tuxedo,…
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2 hrs

Insufferable Lefty Influencer Flees Twitter After Being “Bullied”
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Insufferable Lefty Influencer Flees Twitter After Being “Bullied”

The post Insufferable Lefty Influencer Flees Twitter After Being “Bullied” appeared first on SALTY.
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A Turning of the Tide for the Latin Mass

The years-long siege on the Traditional Latin Mass may be coming to an end under Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate. According to The Catholic Herald, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW) has been in communication with the Vatican regarding the celebration of the Tridentine Mass, commonly called the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and named the Extraordinary Form of the Mass by the Late Pope Benedict XVI, who liberalized the old liturgy’s celebration in his 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. Several reports have suggested that the apostolic nuncio to Great Britain, Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendía, conveyed to the British bishops that they could receive a dispensation to have the TLM celebrated in their dioceses, should they request it. The new reports out of Britain seemingly indicate a change in tactic from the Vatican, if not an official change in policy. The late Pope Francis issued his sweeping motu proprio Traditionis Custodes in 2021, imposing stringent restrictions on the celebration of the old Mass, ostensibly in response to traditionalists’ schismatic rabble-rousing. (However, as I wrote for The American Spectator this summer, it appears either that the pontiff was deceived by his advisors or else he fabricated the pretense for throttling the flourishing Latin Mass community worldwide.) Subsequent rescripts, issued by Cardinal Arthur Roche of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, imposed further restrictions, such as barring the celebration of the TLM in parish churches. Originally, Pope Francis had allowed individual bishops to determine whether or not to allow the celebration of the TLM in their dioceses. While many leapt at the opportunity to impose the pontiff’s liturgical restrictions, many also brushed off the motu proprio and simply stated that Latin Mass attendees in their dioceses were not problematic and would thus not be stripped of the worship they have come to know and love. In one of his rescripts, Roche took that authority from the bishops and reserved it for himself, requiring any bishop to submit a request to the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments to allow the TLM to be celebrated in their dioceses. The new reports out of Britain seemingly indicate a change in tactic from the Vatican, if not an official change in policy. Traditionis Custodes has not yet been rescinded, but Pope Leo XIV appears prepared to allow the TLM to be celebrated more widely. It is unlikely that the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments would offer dispensations to Britain’s bishops but refuse them to bishops around the world. It is, however, fitting that this news emerges from England. When the Second Vatican Council was still ongoing, the English author and Catholic convert Evelyn Waugh wrote a series of letters to his bishop, Cardinal John Carmel Heenan, expressing his concerns over the potential abrogation of the TLM. Waugh recounted the long history of English martyrs, whose devotion to the Mass led them to give their lives for the Catholic Faith: This was the Mass for whose restoration the Elizabethan martyrs had gone to the scaffold. Saint Augustine [of Canterbury], St. Thomas à Becket, St. Thomas More, Challoner and Newman would have been perfectly at their ease among us; were, in fact, present there with us…. Their presence would not have been more palpable had we been making the responses aloud in the modern fashion. After Pope St. Paul VI did abrogate the TLM, insisting that the Novus Ordo Missale would be the new standard, a group of British authors, artists, actors, and filmmakers wrote a letter to the Vatican asking that the old Mass not be abrogated, emphasizing its artistic, aesthetic, and cultural significance throughout history. Among the signatories were authors and Catholic converts Graham Greene and Malcolm Muggeridge, art historian Kenneth Clark, poet Cecil Day-Lewis (father of the film actor), Waugh’s friend and fellow writer Nancy Mitford, and renowned mystery writer Agatha Christie. Although Waugh had already passed away, Heenan recalled the author’s love for the Mass and personally delivered the letter to the pontiff. The story is that the Pope read the letter and, upon reviewing its signatories, exclaimed, “Ah! Agatha Christie!” He granted Britain’s bishops an indult to allow the TLM to be celebrated under limited circumstances. That indult has been nicknamed the Agatha Christie Indult, thanks to the pope’s comments. Should the TLM become once again liberalized, as it was under Pope Benedict XVI, Waugh no doubt would find a sense of poetic justice in the fact that the dispensations were announced in England. READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: The Anglican-to-Catholic Pipeline Top Catholics Respond to USCCB’s Immigration Message Bishops Blast Trump on Immigration, but Not Biden on Abortion
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Socrates, Maimonides, Lincoln, Churchill — and Us

An astute reader raised a question in response to my last article’s mention of the golden mean of Aristotle and Maimonides. The question: Given that balance is a fine ideal in the abstract, what relevance does it have in a society that is already far out of balance and in which violent and extreme rhetoric has become the norm, at the very least, among the Party That Must Not Be Named? Must we submit passively and be martyred politically? Must we give up the ability to actively combat the pernicious politics we have suffered under already for so long, and not turn it back by actions immoderate by our own standards? That Lincoln aspired to return to a balance is evident in the astonishingly conciliatory tone of … his Second Inaugural. It should come as no surprise that this is not a new question. Socrates so upset the Sophists, the master demagogues of Athens whom he embarrassed into confusion whenever they debated, that they put him to death. Socrates consoled himself and his followers by making the point that it is better to suffer evil than to do it, and that the truth of the soul for which he sacrificed himself would live forever. Certainly, he was right, and such an extreme dedication to principle is something that religion demands we be prepared to do, if necessary. Perhaps, as Gandhi advised Martin Buber, the Jews should respond to Hitler by committing suicide, and that would be more morally persuasive than armed force. A better case might be that the passive response to Hitler’s serial provocations encouraged and enabled him. The results are exhaustively documented in the Nazis’ own records, the observation of tens of thousands of liberating soldiers (go see Nuremberg). Just as Patton reminded his soldiers that the goal of a successful army is not to have its soldiers die for their country, so too we have a lesson or two from the past reminding us that the goal of good politics is not to die from the society’s sickness, but to heal it and be healed ourselves. Last week’s article quoted from Maimonides’ code of law as well as Aristotle. The law springing from Scripture, the law that he codified, addresses individuals in their private lives as well as in their national lives. Some of these laws are not capable of being enforced by a court. They are meant rather to be internalized. This law is one of them. Maimonides places it almost at the very beginning of his code, indicating that its observance is fundamental, and creates a character that is open to God’s instruction and ready to live as a citizen of a free and peacefully ordered world. The law of the mean is a general guide for our own character development. Just as eating too little food results in malnutrition and eating too much results in obesity, so too in character — too much generosity makes one a pauper and too little makes one asocial and stingy; too much levity makes one a fool but none at all makes one morose and choleric; et cetera. But that is not the end of the matter. The fact of it is that both individuals and the societies constituted by them are often not presently at the balance point. What to do then, in real life, when we have to deal with an obstinate and messy reality instead of the philosopher’s clean abstractions? Maimonides knew the difference well. He was not only a philosopher but a man of practical skill at the highest level of competence. He was the leader and teacher of Egypt’s Jewish community and his advice was listened to by far flung communities whose precarious existence needed an unerring practicality as well as high ideals. Maimonides did not make his living from his role as rabbi, but rather from his practice of medicine. He authored nearly forty treatises on various medical topics and his fame was so great that he was invited to serve as physician in the court of the Mameluke sultan, Saladin, the famous victor of the Battle of the Horns of Hattin and opponent of Richard the Lionheart. Maimonides applied the lessons he learned from medicine to law. He wrote about the applicability of medicine to character in an early work of his known popularly as the Eight Chapters. There he writes: Now just as those who are physically ill imagine that, on account of their vitiated tastes, the sweet is bitter and the bitter is sweet and likewise fancy the wholesome to be unwholesome and just as their desire grows stronger, and their enjoyment increases for such things as dust, coal, very acidic and sour foods, and the like which the healthy loathe and refuse, as they are not only not beneficial even to the healthy, but possibly harmful to those whose souls are ill, that is the wicked and the morally perverted, imagine that the bad is good, and that the good is bad. The wicked man, moreover, continually longs for excesses which are really pernicious, but which, on account of the illness of his soul, he considers to be good. By this, Maimonides connects the ideas of ethics with hard reality. Medicine has to deal with the hard realties; so must our morality. Ethical cogitations out of contact with the world are mere conceits and in themselves do not satisfy what divine truth demands of us. Imagining won’t heal our bodies; they also will not heal our souls or our societies. We need to address the illness of the soul with the same skill, seriousness, and practical wisdom that healing the body requires. Moral illness is no less concrete and real than physical disease. Maimonides writes: “What is the remedy for the morally ill? They should go to the wise, for they are the healers of souls. They will heal them by teaching them how to acquire proper traits, until they return them to the good path.” The wise will then use the ideal of balance as a guide, constantly exerting a pull on the moving line of their behavior to one closer to it. It is the true north, the lodestone, that enables us to correct ourselves constantly. Furthermore, as Maimonides extends it here with the metaphor of the physician, it serves as a true north, guiding us in the world outside towards our purpose. It applies outside ourselves, to our social relations, and to our politics. How is it to be applied? To an individual who is chronically angry, he prescribes training in the opposite quality, requiring the patient to take on a passivity that is as unnatural to him as taking bitter medicines is unnatural to a normal diet. The overcompensation leads the person back to the normal, even if it takes many swings of the pendulum before he can rest easy in a golden mean in which his temper follows a rule, and it is employed only when required to correct the imbalances of others. Anger serves as a limit. He writes: One should take a similar course with each of the other traits. A person who swayed in the direction of one of the extremes should move in the direction of the opposite extreme, and accustom himself to that for a long time, until he has returned to the proper path, which is the midpoint for each and every temperament. This principle then is no mere abstraction, impossible to apply to real life because, instead of making it better, it only makes its believers into sitting ducks for the first mild psychopath that crosses their path. It is a stable pattern that is applicable to human moral behavior at every level, from the individual to the body politic to the world as a whole. In response to the issue the reader raised, upon noting a political situation that is sick — an excess of dishonest language and suppression of opposing views — one following Maimonides’ advice would seek to cure the situation by applying a force in the opposite direction — immoderate freedom of expression that is equal in its power to the diseased imbalance that presents. The goal, though, must always be in mind. That requires personal balance. Two of my favorite examples in modern history come from two political leaders of extraordinary character. Facing an extreme attack on the constitutional order, Lincoln did not hesitate to go to the extreme limit to stop the whole imbalanced structure from toppling over into ruin. Though habeas corpus is the most basic of rights, the Constitution provides for its suspension in times of emergency, though it never specifies who is empowered to do so. With a boldness meant to counterbalance the recklessness of the secessionists, Lincoln asserted that that power was his, and locked up without trial the legislators who were ready to vote Maryland out of the Union. That Lincoln aspired to return to a balance is evident in the astonishingly conciliatory tone of his last great state paper, the text of his Second Inaugural, familiar to our readers already (and if not, remedy that omission as soon as possible). That same spirit of balance is the key to understanding Churchill’s leadership as well. When disaster threatened, he took whatever acts were necessary to keep the great cause alive, whether locking up people like the British fascist Moseley for his political opinions, or bombing the French fleet at Mers el Kebir, or setting up the SOE, also known as the Ministry for Ungentlemanly Warfare. Churchill expressed the balance best in what he originally prosed as an inscription for a World War I memorial and which, rejected there, he used as the moral of his six-volume work The Second World War: In War: Resolution In Defeat: Defiance In Victory: Magnanimity In Peace: Good Will As in any practical matter, all is dependent on the final step of application. The North Star of the principle of the mean gives our own discernment a sure point of reference. But to do that well, we must engage one very specific balance which focuses on integrating our self-interest with our devotion to things beyond the self — our spouse, our family, our community, our nation, our God. On that next week, Deo volente. READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: Extremism and Its Virtue Friends May Betray Us, but Choose Agency Wendell Berry Shows Us How To Love in Loss
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Celebrating Marines While Questioning Their Future

Marines got some recognition on their 250th birthday from PBS and Netflix. On November 10th, they both aired programs about the Marine Corps. Each was of a different era, but both largely told their stories through the voices of the young marines involved. As I mentioned in a recent piece, PBS aired a documentary titled The Last 600 Meters describing the battles of Najaf and Fallujah two decades ago. Netflix began streaming Marines, a description of today’s Marines preparing for a deployment of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and their sister Navy Amphibious Ready Group for a recent deployment in the Western Pacific. I’m not sure I would be quite so confident if I had to make that call today with the MEU assets now available. In both cases the language used is authentic and largely uncut. Neither is recommended for church ladies, but both do a good job of capturing what marines do best in war and peace. I’ll concentrate here on the Netflix offering, Marines because it captures both the strengths and challenges of today’s Marine Corps. In the best of times there are three Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) deployed in the world’s most likely trouble spots. Each MEU has a reinforced infantry battalion Ground Combat Element (GCE), a squadron of fixed winged jump jets, attack and transport helicopters (ACE) and a Logistics Support Element (LSE). This is the smallest standing Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF). Most MEUs deploy with very similar organizations because they have to be ready to do a variety of special operations missions that cannot be anticipated when they sail. These can range from disaster relief, hostage rescue raids, and evacuations of civilians to ship take-downs on the high seas. Marines concentrate on the 31st MEU’s work-up for the deployment and the final exercise which will certify them as capable of accomplishing any of the missions described above. It is called a CERTEX. It is a high stakes practical examination for the marines involved and their Navy partners. The series shows the best of today’s Marine Corps, but it also reveals some of its challenges. I don’t think the filmmakers realize the depth of those challenges, but sometimes they come from the mouths of the Marines themselves. The MEU’s Scout-Sniper Platoon is on its last deployment. The Marine Corps is eliminating such units and has closed its legendary Sniper School. The platoon’s marines are vocally unhappy and morale has plummeted. The situation is exacerbated when the Commandant of the Marine Corps visits the MEU. He tries to explain why the elimination of some legacy capabilities is needed to afford a new strategy initiated by his predecessor called Force Design. This modernization effort calls for the Marine Corps to acquire anti-ship missiles and advanced radars to fire at Chinese warships in the event of a conflict. The elimination of the scout-snipers is one of the things needed to support this effort. Two things are obvious in the documentary. First, the marines aren’t buying what he is selling; second, they don’t understand what Force Design is and why it is so necessary. In that, they join most retired and former marines. What the troops do know is that the discipline and accuracy of precision rifle fire is critical to several of the MEU’s missions. These include assisting in hostage rescue, amphibious raids, and ship take-downs at sea. The way the snipers are integrated into such missions is graphically illustrated as the CERTEX continues. The scout-sniper program was an incredibly small part of the Marine Corps’ budget. Another challenge facing today’s MEU which Marines notes is the lack of tanks. The Marine Corps also did away with its tanks to afford Force Design. This is an area where I have considerable experience. In 1990, the Republic of the Philippines was experiencing a crisis when a number of senior Philippine military officers were reportedly planning a coup against the democratically elected government of Corizon Aquino. The Bush administration was determined to support the Aquino government. The 31st MEU would normally be in Philippine waters to back up administration policy, but it had numerous other commitments in the Western Pacific that year. Accordingly, it was decided to create an Okinawa-based MEU-like Contingency MAGTF formed around my light armored battalion which would be deployed to the Philippines. These ad hoc organizations are now called Special Purpose MAGTFs designed for specific missions. Due to the nature of the potential mission sets, the Contingency MAGTF was slightly larger and heavier than the 31st MEU. It consisted of a GCE of two light armored companies, an infantry company, a tank platoon, an amphibious vehicle unit, and a battery of artillery. The ACE consisted of a section of Harrier jump jets, attack helicopters, and transport helicopters. The logistic Support Element was smaller than that of the usual MEU because much of the support needed was already resident at Subic Bay. Because we were land-based at Subic Bay and its adjacent Cubi Point Naval Air Station, we generally had a detachment of FA/18 fighter-bombers available to ensure air superiority and provide what would later become known as “shock and awe” against any potential coup participants. We had two primary missions. The first was to deter a coup or support the loyalists if one occurred. The second was to assist in the evacuation of the sea-side embassy and other American citizens in the case that order in Manila broke down. My planning in both cases involved the tanks. In the event of a coup, we contemplated a road march from Subic Bay to Manila to assist the loyalists. This required meticulous planning. My staff spent countless hours in ensuring that the bridges along the route could handle our M-60 tanks. In the event that the bridges were blown, they reconned potential fords. The evacuation plan was more complex. We were going to use the tanks as rolling pillboxes to protect the evacuation beach. The best option was to do it by sea, but there was one problem; no Navy ships to land the tanks or do the evacuation were immediately available. The 31st MEU had most Western Pacific ships, and the remainder were in reserve in Okinawa and were days away if we needed them quickly. We solved this by partnering with the resident Army logistics unit to use some of their auxiliary supply ships some of which could carry and land the tanks. All of the options were war gamed and we rehearsed continuously. One disturbing factor was that intelligence reports indicated that senior Philippine Marine Corps commanders were among the coup planners. Once settled at Subic Bay, one of my first orders of business was to invite the commander of their First Marine Regiment, which was located nearby, to dinner at the Cubi Point Officers’ Club. We had been classmates at Quantico, Virginia when we were captains. The club overlooks the runway at Cubi Point. Over cocktails I had ordered a capability demonstration of our combat power. The Ground Combat Element paraded over the runway while the helicopters and jets did a fly-by at eye level from our perspective. I had our combat camera crew film the event on VHS. Over dinner, he told me that he was opposed to any coup and was particularly impressed with the tanks and jets. I presented him with the video cassette when he left and suggested that he share it with his seniors. There was no coup and my MAGTF was eventually replaced by a larger one commanded by a brigadier general. I’m not sure I would be quite so confident if I had to make that call today with the MEU assets now available. You can’t prove the negative, but I believe we played a meaningful role in averting a crisis. The current commandant insists that today’s MEU remains as capable as ever. I hope he’s right — but hope alone is not a strategy. READ MORE from Gary Anderson: The Drug Boat Incident, a Decision-Making Simulation The Marine Corps Could Not Fight Fallujah Today The Best Birthday Present for the Marine Corps Gary Anderson retired as the Chief of Staff of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, and later served as a civilian advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
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The First Snowfall’s Bitter Welcome

The first snowfall isn’t magical; it’s a mess and always has been. Clean roads turn grimy overnight, coated with cinder, ash, and salt that seemingly sticks around until April. And if that is not enough a hodgepodge of stray screws and nails are mixed in as cruel bonus hazards that bike riders like me find scattered along the road’s berm courtesy of Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation. With every storm, the debris multiplies, turning winter into a season of dodging tire punctures as much as falling snowflakes. The only thing falling harder than the recent snow is our collective snowballing illiteracy of science. In northeastern Pennsylvania, a good number of folks hope that first snowfall will hold off until January, but such hope is mostly vain. This year, the snow arrived in force shortly past 6 a.m. on Tuesday, December 2, much too soon as it is still autumn by the calendar. Autumn or not, December has always carried winter with it no matter what the solstice may dictate. The air sharpens, the ground hardens, and the season announces itself before the calendar allows. Advent may signal a spiritual beginning, but in the world outside, the first snowfall announces the arrival of Old Man Winter, and the earlier he comes, the longer he lingers. Such seasonal early arrivals remind us that nature does not bend to our wishes. Winter comes when it chooses, and we have no choice but to adjust. That first snowfall is not just a weather event; it is a reminder that expectation and reality often part ways and that the rhythm of the seasons is its own truth. Snow changes things. It muffles sound and imposes a stillness as it softens hard angles into graceful curves and drives some inside, while others take to the road. The roads quickly turned white, masking a slippery slide as drivers and pedestrians alike have yet to gear down their commute still moving like they are in the middle of summer heading to the beach, while quietly cursing the whiteness. Nothing says “global warming” quite like shoveling heavy, wet snow in the wee hours of a subfreezing morning three weeks before the winter solstice officially begins. The snow on this fateful morning was so profuse it was as if planet Earth hit “refresh” on the Ice Age. Yet, the climate change debate waddles on like a penguin in a blizzard, slow, awkward, and somehow still wearing a tuxedo and resembling Burgess Meredith. For over a generation, we have been lectured about how we are to expect a fiery climatic Armageddon with rising seas, melting glaciers, and sunbathing polar bears. So, what does Mother Nature do? She responds by dumping snow like she is trying to bury the evidence. Thanks to the sub-freezing temperatures, it is almost as if the planet is trolling us as the world outside still resembles a snow globe on steroids.  If this is global warming, you could only imagine what global cooling will look like. Wasn’t that supposed to happen back in the early ‘70s? The only thing falling faster than the snow that day was the irony.  On one hand, scientists warn us that the planet is heating up faster than a microwave burrito. On the other, my bike is currently encased in an ice sculpture worthy of an outdoor January Iceland art exhibit. Weather often struts around like a prima donna being unpredictable while throwing tantrums and demanding attention.  Meanwhile, climate trends quietly update the record book, which in the annals of human existence is so new it still needs a tutorial. The only thing falling harder than the recent snow is our collective snowballing illiteracy of science. Such ignorance allows myths to multiply and the truth to hibernate far longer than any early snowstorm. READ MORE from Greg Maresca: Importing Chaos: The Paradox of Nation-building When Sanctuary Policies Hit the Highway Penny for Your Thoughts
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The Traitor Who Warns of Traitors

Nick Fuentes wants you to believe that American Jews are dangerous. Not because of anything they’ve done, but because of where their loyalties supposedly lie. According to Fuentes, the 26-year-old white nationalist American Jews are a fifth column, their true allegiance pledged to Israel rather than the United States. He frames this as a national security concern, a matter of protecting America from internal subversion: Jews have U.S. institutions under their thumb and use their power to advance Israeli interests at America’s expense. He hasn’t just hinted at divided allegiance. He has declared it openly and repeatedly. The claim collapses under scrutiny, but not for the reasons you might expect. The problem isn’t just that the facts contradict Fuentes. The problem is that Fuentes himself embodies the precise disloyalty he claims to expose in others. His accusation is thus a confession. Who Is Nick Fuentes? Fuentes, born in 1998, hosts the “America First” podcast and calls the movement he leads the same name. His followers, known as “Groypers,” engage in organized campaigns to promote his views. He gained notoriety for his presence at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville and his participation in the January 6, 2021 Capitol events. Fuentes advocates explicitly for a white ethnostate and opposes racial integration. He has denied the Holocaust, asking on his show, “How many Jews do you think really died in the Holocaust?” He has praised Adolf Hitler, stating “Hitler is awesome. Hitler was right. And the Holocaust didn’t happen.” He has called for a “holy war” against Jews and compared the six million killed by the Nazis to “cookies being baked in an oven.” He wants the U.S. government under authoritarian “Catholic Taliban rule” and has been vocal about his disdain for women, Muslims, the LGBTQ+ community, and others. “All I want is revenge against my enemies and a total Aryan victory,” Fuentes said in 2022. His speeches frequently attack Jewish influence in media, finance, and politics. He frames Israel as evidence of Jewish disloyalty to America, arguing that American Jews prioritize Israeli interests over American welfare and therefore cannot be trusted as citizens. The Accusation: Jews as America’s Fifth Column Fuentes’s core claim is straightforward: American Jews cannot be trusted because their loyalty lies with Israel rather than the United States. In one typical statement, he declared: “The American government is Israeli-occupied territory … Jews are disloyal to America and loyal to Israel.” He presents this as a matter of national security, suggesting that Jewish Americans form a fifth column within the country. According to his logic, support for Israel among American Jews proves they place foreign interests above American ones. On Tucker Carlson’s show in October 2025, he argued that “the main challenge” to conservative unity is “organized Jewry in America.” He told Carlson that Jews are “a stateless people” who are “unassimilable”  and said Judaism is incompatible with Western civilization, asserting that “they hate the Romans because the Romans destroyed the Temple. We don’t think that, as Americans and white people.” He frames his position not as antisemitism but as legitimate concern about conflicted loyalties in positions of power. This argument appears repeatedly across his broadcasts and public appearances, forming a central pillar of his political worldview. The accusation sounds almost reasonable if you don’t think about it too hard. Dual loyalty. Conflicted interests. Foreign allegiance. But when you examine the argument with any rigor, it collapses immediately. Why the Accusation Fails: The Selective Standard Start with the basic problem: Fuentes applies a standard to Jews that he applies to no one else. The United States is a nation of immigrants. Millions of Americans maintain strong connections to other countries. Irish Americans celebrate Ireland. Italian Americans preserve Italian culture. Polish Americans engage with Polish politics. Greek Americans lobby for favorable U.S. policy toward Greece. Cuban Americans advocate specific positions on Cuba. According to Pew Research, approximately nine million Americans hold or qualify for dual citizenship. These connections provoke no suspicion. No one suggests that Irish Americans who supported Irish independence were undermining America, or that Greek Americans in government pose a security risk. But Fuentes singles out Jews. Only Jewish Americans face this interrogation. Only their cultural and political connections to another country become evidence of disloyalty. If his concern were really about divided allegiance as a general phenomenon, he would apply it consistently. He doesn’t, which means the accusation isn’t actually about dual loyalty. It’s about Jews. Research consistently shows that American identity is layered and complex. The General Social Survey has documented for decades that Americans maintain multiple, non-competing identities. A person can be fully American while also feeling connected to Italian culture, Mexican heritage, or Jewish tradition. The accusation of dual loyalty treats this normal aspect of American life as suspicious only when applied to Jews. The selective application becomes even clearer when we examine who else Fuentes attacks. His problem isn’t dual loyalty; it’s racial and religious identity he finds objectionable. He has attacked Vice President JD Vance and his marriage to Usha Vance, a Hindu Indian American, with incendiary rhetoric “replete with references to ‘race mixing,’ mockery of their son’s Indian name,” and criticism of the vice president’s weight. If loyalty to America were really his concern, why attack a sitting vice president for his choice of spouse? What American Jews Actually Vote For The empirical evidence makes the failure of Fuentes’s argument even clearer. If American Jews were primarily motivated by loyalty to Israel, we would see it in their political behavior. The 2024 presidential election provides a perfect test. Donald Trump positioned himself as strongly pro-Israel. His administration moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, brokered the Abraham Accords, and withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal. Trump campaigned explicitly on his record of support for Israel and received enthusiastic backing from the Israeli right. Kamala Harris, while not hostile to Israel, represented a Democratic position that included more criticism of Israeli settlement policy, greater emphasis on Palestinian rights, and willingness to condition aid to the Jewish state. The Democratic platform was measurably less aligned with current Israeli government preferences than the Republican one. If Israeli interests drove Jewish voting, Trump should have won overwhelming Jewish support. He didn’t. Approximately 32 percent of American Jews voted for Trump. This pattern holds across decades. American Jews vote Democratic by large margins even when Republican candidates align more closely with Israeli government positions. Consider the recent election of Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York City. The mayor-elect holds positions sharply critical of Israel, the region’s only liberal democracy. If American Jews were indeed primarily motivated by loyalty to Israel, as Fuentes claims, we would expect near-universal rejection of such a candidate. Yet approximately one-third of Jewish voters in New York supported Mamdani. This presents a useful thought experiment: How many American citizens of German descent would vote for a candidate who claimed there was excessive German influence in American politics, that German Americans constituted a disloyal fifth column, or that Germans effectively controlled the country? Substantially fewer than one-third, we can reasonably predict. The counterfactual clarifies what actual dual loyalty would look like. Yes, if armed conflict ever arose between the United States and Israel (an eventuality approximately as probable as discovering a square circle), there would undoubtedly be profound distress within the American Jewish community. But the same emotional conflict would arise for any American community facing hostilities between their country of citizenship and their ancestral homeland. This is the normal complexity of identity in a nation of immigrants, not evidence of disloyalty. What actually drives Jewish voting? Surveys show that American Jews prioritize domestic issues: the future of democracy (44 percent cite as top priority), abortion (28 percent), the economy and inflation (24 percent), climate change (19 percent), healthcare (12 percent), and church-state separation. According to the Manhattan Institute’s 2024 survey of Jewish voters, abortion topped the list at 33 percent, followed by the economy (28 percent), and democracy/election integrity (27 percent), while “security, Israel, and antisemitism” ranked fourth at only 22 percent. They also express concern about antisemitism and extremism, which they perceive as more threatening from the far right. Their voting reflects American political priorities, not Israeli ones. Notably, despite 72 percent of Jewish voters feeling emotionally attached to Israel, only 6-9 percent consider it a top concern when deciding how to vote. Fuentes ignores this data because it destroys his narrative. Fuentes Dismisses the Constitution The projection becomes even more explicit when we examine Fuentes’s own statements about governance and loyalty. He hasn’t just hinted at divided allegiance. He has declared it openly and repeatedly. Donald Trump has ignored Fuentes and his policy preferences so thoroughly since taking office (e.g. bombing Iran, backing Israel and, with less enthusiasm, Ukraine) that a frustrated Fuentes has had to publicly break from Trump over the course of the last year. So it may be hard to recall that at one point Fuentes called for Donald Trump to “rule by decree.” He tweeted his support for giving Trump dictatorial powers and declared his allegiance to Trump over the U.S. Constitution. This isn’t a casual comment. It’s a systematic vision of governance that mirrors fascist models. His call for “rule by decree” is reminiscent of the powers attained by Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini in 1926 and German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler under the 1933 Enabling Act. Fuentes elaborated on his vision in segments of his America First show. He advocated for the arrest and imprisonment of state governors, media figures, and political enemies. He called for measures to bring constitutionalists and libertarians “to heel.” He described the situation as binary: “You have two options. You can go to jail, or you can put your enemies in jail. There is no third option.” In January 2024, Fuentes gave a Nazi salute during a Rumble stream while stating his willingness to commit violence for “Supreme Leader Trump.” He declared: “I am not a Republican…. I want everyone to know that…. I am part of the Revolutionary Guard. I do not answer to the Pentagon. I do not answer to the civilian government.” He continued: “If Donald Trump ordered me to do an extrajudicial killing, I would perform it.” This is not theoretical speculation about divided loyalties. This is explicit rejection of constitutional governance in favor of personal allegiance to a leader. Fuentes openly states that he does not answer to civilian government. This is dual loyalty in its purest and most dangerous form. His accusation of dual loyalty toward American Jews reflects a projection of his own mindset. His commentary draws heavily on fringe notions, and he has adopted these ideas to a degree that exceeds even the usual bounds of such discourse. The Vision: Theocracy and Racial Hierarchy Fuentes’s disloyalty to American constitutional principles goes beyond his vision of installing a dictator. He advocates for a complete restructuring of American society that would require dismantling the Constitution itself. He has called for “Taliban rule in America, in a good way.” When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, he celebrated it as the advent of “Catholic Taliban rule” and said it meant that “banning sodomy is back on the menu, banning contraceptives is back on the menu.”  This explicitly theocratic vision contradicts the entire framework of constitutional rights. His vision for America is even more explicit in its rejection of constitutional principles. On his show in March 2025, Fuentes stated: “Jews are running society, women need to shut the f*ck up, Blacks need to be imprisoned for the most part, and we would live in paradise … White men need to run the household, they need to run the country, they need to run the companies. They just need to run everything, it’s that simple. It’s literally that simple.” This vision of racial hierarchy directly contradicts the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under law. Fuentes’s ideal America would require nullifying the Constitution’s most fundamental provisions. His loyalty isn’t divided between two nations. It’s divided between the Constitution as written and a racial-religious ideology that contradicts it at every level. Fuentes is an effective communicator, though his rhetoric is directed toward deeply hostile themes. Earlier periods in American history might have treated such speech as incitement punishable by law. We do not endorse that approach. We support broad protections for free expression. What remains puzzling is why Tucker Carlson chose to host Fuentes and offered almost no substantive challenge to his claims. To be clear, we do not advocate canceling Carlson’s program, nor restricting Fuentes’s online platforms. We favor strong speech rights for all parties. At the same time, we find the conduct of both figures open to criticism, and as Jews, we also exercise our own right to speak in response. Fuentes has also stated that he would join antifa if they were “waving the banner of Benito Mussolini…waving the banner of Falangism,” referring to Spanish fascists, “and they were saying ‘Catholic fascism now.'” His allegiance is to fascist governance models, not to American constitutional principles. He calls himself a “reactionary” who wants to turn the Republican Party into “a truly reactionary party.” The Question Fuentes Can’t Answer So here’s the question that cuts to the heart of the matter: if Fuentes had to choose between the Constitution and his racial ideology, which would he pick? If the Constitution protects the equal rights of non-white citizens and his ideology demands their subordination or removal, which loyalty prevails? The answer is obvious. Fuentes would choose his ideology. The Constitution’s colorblind principles are obstacles to the America he wants to create. His vision demands subordinating constitutional law to racial hierarchy. His pledge to “not answer to civilian government“ means rejecting constitutional governance entirely. That is dual loyalty in its purest form, except instead of loyalty to a foreign state, it’s loyalty to an ideological program and a “supreme leader“ that contradicts the nation’s legal and moral foundation. Here stands a man who openly calls for racial hierarchy that would nullify the 14th Amendment, who rejects civilian government entirely, yet he dares to question the patriotism of American Jews whose voting record proves their commitment to American democratic values. This is classical projection at its most transparent. The patriot who isn’t questions the patriotism of those who are. Why This Matters Now: Fuentes’s Growing Influence The exposure of Fuentes’s contradictions matters more now because his influence is growing, not diminishing. According to conservative writer Rod Dreher, “something like” 30-40 percent of staffers under the age of 30 working for Republican Party officials or institutions in Washington DC are Groypers. Political commentator John Ganz notes there is a “marked” generation gap in the conservative movement, with younger staff members “much more open to Fuentes’s ideas” while the older generation’s “horror of the holocaust, support for Christian Zionism and Dispensationalism, and taboos against antisemitism” are “fading or gone.” Fuentes’s recent interview with Tucker Carlson on the Tucker Carlson Network was seen over 20 million times. Despite being banned from most major platforms, he was reinstated on X (formerly Twitter) by Elon Musk in 2024, where he now has over a million followers. His message is reaching an increasingly mainstream conservative audience. This makes it all the more important to expose the fundamental contradiction at the heart of his message. He warns about traitors while articulating a vision that would betray the Constitution. He claims to defend America while rejecting its foundational principles. He accuses others of dual loyalty while pledging loyalty to racial ideology over democratic governance. The traitor who warns of traitors has given us a confession, not an argument. READ MORE from Walter E. Block and Oded J.K. Farah: The New York Times , Kristof, and the Ethics of War Reporting Why Some Jews Support Their Enemies Who Is to Blame for Civilian Deaths in Gaza?
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