Political Pistachio
Four historic milestones trace the centuries-long British struggle to limit royal power and build a government ruled by law. They moved England from absolute royal rule to a stable system where Parliament holds the ultimate power. Why are they important? Because they also became key events that ultimately led to American Liberty. Remember, the Founding Fathers were Englishmen, and this was a part of their history and their inspiration.
The Magna Carta (1215)
A historic charter forced on King John by angry noblemen (barons) at Runnymede on June 15, 1215. The basis of the Magna Carta was to establish that the king was not above the law. It enumerated Natural Rights, religious freedom and the Church’s rights, stopped unfair imprisonment, and promised fast justice. It established that the king could not unilaterally set taxes. Taxation would also require noble approval.
The English Civil War (1642–1651)
A brutal armed fight between King Charles I and Parliament over who held supreme power. Parliament argued that the king was not above the people’s represenation, but was co-equal with Parliament. Ultimately, the forces in opposition to the king’s supreme power was victorious. Charles I was put on trial and executed in 1649. England briefly became a republic before the monarchy returned to full and absolute power in 1660.
The Glorious Revolution (1688–1689)
The notion of a divine right of kings was challenged. The largely bloodless ousting of the Catholic King James II by a union of Parliament and Dutch leader William of Orange led to a return of co-equal power between the king and Parliament. Again, the message was that the king was not above the law, and could not largely operate without Parliament’s consent. As a result, James II fled. His Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William took the joint throne after agreeing to respect Parliament’s laws.
The English Declaration of Rights (1689)
The formal list of conditions (later called the English Bill of Rights) was presented to William and Mary before they took power. The document set permanent limits on the king, banning the monarch from making or stopping laws without Parliament, collecting taxes without permission, or keeping a standing army in peacetime. It guaranteed free speech in Parliament and fair trials.
By Douglas V. Gibbs
William Williams was a delegate from Connecticut to the Continental Congress and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. His story illustrates the profound conviction and courage of the patriots who risked everything for American independence.
During a meeting in Connecticut after the Declaration had been signed, a gentleman was expressing relief that he hadn’t signed the document, believing this made him safe from potential British reprisals. William Williams, who had signed the Declaration and thus committed treason against the Crown, confronted this man with his powerful response.
Williams told the man that rather than being safe, he should be “hung for not doing his duty” – suggesting that cowardice and failure to support the cause of liberty when his country needed him was actually more shameful than the “treason” of signing the Declaration.
This story encapsulates the mindset of the revolutionary patriots, who believed that standing for liberty was not just a political choice but a moral obligation. Williams’ response reflected the deep conviction that true honor lay in risking everything for the cause of freedom, rather than in protecting one’s personal safety at the expense of principle.
Like all 56 signers, Williams faced genuine danger. The British considered them traitors with a bounty on their heads. Many suffered personally for their decision – some lost their homes, their fortunes, or even their lives. Yet they remained steadfast in their commitment to the cause of independence, believing that liberty was worth any price.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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By Douglas V. Gibbs
Mere months ago, President Trump called for renovations to the Kennedy Center. Justice Department lawyers explained in court that the building was “dangerously dilapidated, outdated, and [in] decrepit” condition. The estimated time of closure to fully renovate the building was suggested to be two years. Without the work, they warned, “the Center will deteriorate into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down.”
The Democrats fought against it. They argued that Trump had no right to fix the building, nor have his name attached to it. A federal judge then ruled that President Trump could not shut down the Kennedy Center to begin those much needed renovations.
A little over a week ago, a chunk of ceiling fell inside the main hallway of the Kennedy Center during a storm, underscoring the need to shut down the historic arts venue for renovations. There were no injuries, but the reality is that the building is falling apart as indicated by Trump who desperately wants to fix it. The Democrats hate Trump so much, that they will even let the Kennedy Center fall apart, rather than give him the opportunity to fix it.
The court battle to enable the renovation is still ongoing.
Roof of Kennedy Center Partially Collapses After Storm Hits D.C. – WLT Report
Trump was Right About the Kennedy Center… In a Huge Way – PJ Media
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
By Douglas V. Gibbs
It was President Donald Trump’s idea. For the first time in history a political party held a midterm convention, and it was a great success. The two day event took place from September 9 to September 10. President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance officially closed out the final night of the convention with keynote addresses. The stakes are high. The Trump Derangement Syndrome mob has given birth to a communist movement, and it’s rapidly infiltrating the Democratic Party. Early voting is only weeks away, and the Republican Party must keep control of Congress – otherwise, all of Trump’s work goes down the tubes.
The election is about numbers, and the numbers would be against the GOP if this was a typical midterm election. The Democrats have been turning out more voters than Republicans in midterms, and the party of the President typically loses midterm elections and loses control of Congress. So, the playbook is simple. Energize the party’s base, and boost turnout in key races.
Typically, political parties try not to have their president on the ballot during the midterms, but in this case they are purposely making sure that Donald Trump is clearly on the ballot. His policies and successes are being put front and center. Trump floated the idea a year ago to showcase his signature policy achievements and encourage MAGA voters to go to the polls – something they don’t typically do when Trump’s name isn’t on the ballot.
Who’s the best showman to get voters to the polls? Donald J. Trump. He is an expert at rallying the troops, and that has proven to be the truth three times during presidential elections, so why not for the midterms?
The convention was held in Dallas with President Trump closing out the convention with a blockbuster speech after a slate of some of the biggest conservative voices in politics. Vice President J.D. Vance. Representative Brandon Gill. Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton.
When Trump took the stage, the thousands in attendance went absolutely wild. White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung described the environment as electric. During his speech President Trump encouraged voters to go out and vote as if he’s on the ballot. The choice is simple. Continue Trump’s economic agenda, or not only return to Democratic policies, but watch communism try to seep into our republic. “The choice in this election is very, very simple,” Trump told the crowd. “Democrats are asking you to vote for their failed far-left agenda… and I’m asking you to let us finish the job.”
The Trump administration has delivered economic success after the four-year disaster of Biden and Harris. Zero illegal aliens are crossing the border. Crime is down. Foreign investments are flowing into the United States, and manufacturing is on the rise. Some prices are stabilizing, and others like gasoline are on the verge of dropping to reasonable levels. Inflation is lower than it was under Biden, and it has been announced that the federal government is seeking to reverse anti-family benefits schemes of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” welfare rules that massively boosted benefits to women who had children, but did not share a home with a man.
While the Left seeks historically failed policies that will drag this country down culturally, economically, socially and politically, the Trump agenda has placed us in a position for growth and prosperity. While the Democrats tamper with communism, Trump calls for a return to the American Principles and free market capitalism that made this country great.
I know it sounds cliché, but this upcoming election may be among the most important elections in the history of this country.
It’s simple. Make America Great Again, or drag us down into the fatal pit of failures that have haunted the rest of the entire planet for centuries.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
9/11, Twenty-Five Years Later
By Douglas V. Gibbs
September 11, 2001 is still etched clearly in my memory.
I will not get too deeply into the various theories about 9/11. Is it possible, and even likely, that segments of the U.S. Government could have stopped the attacks, and may have even had a hand in 9/11? It’s possible. Despite alleged evidence, the reality is that from the point of view of the world, it was a Muslim terrorist attack on New York City, the Pentagon, and another target that Flight 93 did not reach on September 11, 2001. Islam had shown its animosity against the “Great Satan”, and there had been an attack against the World Trade Center in New York City before. After 9/11, Muslim populations in the Middle East, and around the world, were dancing in the streets with glee. Today, Muslim Communists on the rise in our own country proclaim not only that it was an Islamic attack against America, but from their point of view America brought it upon itself and deserved it. And, twenty-five years after the 9/11 attack, as America proclaimed they would never forget, New York City has a Muslim/Communist mayor.
The Islamic enemy allegedly behind the 9/11 attacks hates America. That is a no-brainer.
I try to stay away from arguments that dance along the extreme. I am the type of person that doesn’t tend to jump to conclusions. I need to study the evidence. I need to come to my own point of view based on that evidence. So, I don’t necessarily chase any of the various conspiracy theories regarding what happened twenty-five years ago. Unfortunately, we live in an age where if you disagree with one side it is assumed you must be an extreme inhabitant of the other side. If you don’t believe the conspiracy theories, then you must believe the entire official narrative, hook-line-and-sinker. If you don’t want to defund the police you must love everything that police officers do. If you don’t hate Israel, then you must approve of every move by the Israeli government. If you are against socialism then you must love all corporations and support fully the misshapen form of capitalism that currently exists in the United States. If you support an originalist view of the Constitution and Donald J. Trump then you must be an insurrectionist, bigot, and rightwing extremist. If you agree with Donald Trump’s operations in Iran then you support illegal wars and you are a war-monger.
The reality is, there are more often than not reasonable varying degrees in between.
9/11 is no different.
The reality is, we’ve been in a forever war for over two-hundred years, and 9/11 was simply the latest manifestation of that war. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison fought the war we are in with Islam during their presidencies when they engaged the Barbary States. 9/11, however, was more than a mere attack by Islam. So much more was connected to it, and since then the war against America has expanded. 9/11 seemed to be an opening salvo on a new fiercer battlefield that also includes globalism, progressivism, cultural Marxism, and the Democratic Socialists who have all increased their campaigns aimed at destroying American Liberty from within.
On that fateful day in 2001, I was working in the construction industry. I first saw the image of New York City’s Twin Towers at the World Trade Center being hit by airplanes as I walked in the door at home from a long day at work.
We had heard about it at work, but the information was sketchy until I got home. But when I saw the image of that second plane plunging into one of the towers, I knew that what was going on was not just some tragedy. It was an act of war.
I visited Ground Zero thirteen months later. I bought a hat with an image of the twin towers, and the words “Never Forget,” on it, and a small painting with the iconic image of the firemen hoisting the American Flag.
When I walked up to the green fencing surrounding the hole that used to be the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, I didn’t know what to expect. I had never seen the Twin Towers in person. This was my first trip to New York City.
I peered through a hole that had been torn in the green fabric on the construction fencing, and as I looked down I witnessed a huge hole in the ground with twisted subway tracks at the bottom. To my left, on a building that had sustained a little damage, hung a giant mural of the American Flag, and the words “Never Forget.”
A man standing beside me looked through the hole in the fencing as I pulled away from it. After he spent a few moments looking through the hole, I said, “I never saw what they looked like.”
“You mean the towers?” he asked.
“Yeah, the World Trade Center. This is my first trip to New York. I’m from the Los Angeles area, and I never saw what the towers looked like.”
The man lowered his eyes, and said, “The New York skyline is not the same. They dominated the skyline. It’s not the same.”
“Were they tall?” I asked.
“They towered over the other skyscrapers. Now, when you are outside the city, and you look towards the city, you can tell that something is missing. The skyline is not the same.”
We were silent for a moment, then he asked, “Have you seen the Statue of Liberty?”
“Yes,” I replied. “This morning. She’s beautiful.”
“Yes,” he said, “she is lovely.”
“I was at the Arlington Cemetery yesterday. Saw the Statue of Liberty this morning. Then we came here.”
The man turned to face me, his eyes, and the cheeks below them, were wet. “I worked in the towers,” he said. “I was running late to work, that morning. I watched the planes fly into the towers from my car. I was supposed to be in them that morning. The towers, I mean. I haven’t been back here since. Today is my first visit to the hole that once was the twin towers since it happened.
“I lost a lot of friends, that day,” he continued. “People were running in all directions. We didn’t know what to think. We just knew that what was happening was horrible. When the second plane flew into the tower, I knew it was no accident. They meant to do this. They meant to kill thousands of people.
“It only took a couple hours for the towers to fall. I was far enough away so I wasn’t in danger, but the white cloud after they fell was horrendous. The smoke and dust covered the entire city. It seemed like there was no escape. The people. All of those people in the towers. All of those people in the streets near the towers. They were dead. All of them. They were dead.”
I didn’t know what to say, but as I looked around I noticed that we were no longer alone. A group of about twenty people had surrounded us, listening to the man tell me about the day the towers fell. Some of them were probably locals, but most of them were probably tourists. Nonetheless, they were all crying. They were crying with him, feeling his grief. Feeling his pain.
Reaching over, I placed my hand on the man’s shoulder, and he suddenly, to my surprise, reached over and pulled me into a hug. He wept on my shoulder like a child, releasing the anger and pain of a year’s worth. Nobody walked away. Everyone remained around us, each with their head bowed, mourning with him, praying for all of us.
We stood near that green fence around the hole that used to be the World Trade Center Twin Towers for quite a while, in a tearful embrace. At that moment, I was no longer a Californian, and he was no longer a New Yorker. We were both Americans. We were both Americans grieving for our fallen.
Afterward, we shook hands, and as he looked me in the eye he said, “Never forget.”
Another tear rolled down his wet cheeks.
I nodded, but said nothing as our hands separated, and the man walked away. The crowd slowly dispersed, and my wife walked up to me, after approaching from around the corner asking, “Did I miss something?”
“Yeah,” I said, “But I couldn’t describe it properly if I tried.”
It was at that moment that 9/11 truly became alive to me. The disconnect I had before, being a West Coast Southern Californian, was gone. The image of the hole below became etched in my memory. The tears of the people around me as the man that had lost his skyline wept remains with me still.
A family member later bought a book for me titled “Portraits 9/11/01,” which is the collected “Portraits of Grief” from the New York Times, and I read each and every one of the portraits of the people listed in that book. Another book, given to me by my mother, titled “Report From Ground Zero” by Dennis Smith, who was one of the firefighters on the scene, served to educate me more on what happened that day, and each day that followed.
I have a portrait of the World Trade Center on the wall. It has two images in it, both showing what the skyline looked like before 9/11, with the two towers dominating the scene. At the bottom the words read, “World Trade means World Peace.”
Unfortunately, to those 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001, peace was the last thing on their mind. Instead of peace, on that morning, two hijacked jetliners struck the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The 110 stories of both towers collapsed. Between the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United 93, the death toll was 2,977. Nearly 3,000 men, women and children died that day in an act of war against the United States committed by an angry hybrid of politics and religion still embracing middle ages barbarism that claims to be a religion of peace. Islam is a political ideology that claims to be a religion. Simple as that.
The man who wept told me to never forget.
I shan’t.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary