Canterbury, New Hampshire – I am a fan of Harry Bosch, the tough, hard-bitten fictional Los Angeles Police Detective created by author Michael Connelly. Passionately devoted to justice, Bosch is nobody’s fool and not easily duped. The same cannot be said for Connelly – who is easily duped by his desire to prove his woke bonafides.

A couple of years back I was shocked when Connelly had Bosch embracing BLM and Antifa as movements for “justice” whose time had come. After it had become obvious to all but the most obtuse that BLM and Antifa are just this generation of Democrats’ version of the KKK, their paramilitary arm, he mercifully never said anything about it again, making it easy for me to pretend he never had, thus preserving my suspension of disbelief when reading his stories.

Alas, in his latest novel, just released, he has gone all in on the J6 narrative as a terrifying insurrection attempt. He calls it a “near miss.” One of his villains is, like me, a veteran of that day. This villain killed his wife because she turned him in. Then he scoured the country for like-minded souls who would, in snarling depravity, shoot up the Malibu pier on a holiday, murdering hundreds of innocent women and children. You know, like leftist mental patients, angry transgenders, and raging Jihadists have routinely done these last few years but conservative activists almost never do. (The only one I can think of, offhand, is Payton Gendron, the genuine white supremacist who killed 10 black folks in Buffalo, New York in 2022. There are a host of lefties who were, originally, described as conservatives before the facts came out, such as the shooter at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando who turned out to be a Jihadist and the shooter of an LGBT Club in Colorado Springs who turned out to be an unhinged gay – or non-binary – man. The gutter press still likes to insinuate that these and other such shooters are “conservative” in order to prop up the pretense that white supremacism, rather than the woke mind virus, is the primary motivator in mass shootings. If you held a convention of all the genuine white supremacists left in the country you couldn’t fill a Denny’s – but it would make for a robust Joe Biden rally. Unhinged leftists, though, are as common as dandelions after a spring rain – but a lot more dangerous.) Connelly is not a stupid man, so I assume he just projects the warped, violent hatred of the unhinged left onto the right in an effort to preserve his woke credibility among his Hollywood pals. He has become something of an idiot savant – a gifted and nuanced storyteller who is making it increasingly hard to suspend your disbelief enough to enjoy his stories.

He is not alone. A few years back, author David Baldacci effectively destroyed his delightful “Memory Man” series by hinging the plot entirely on a Russian influence storyline. And the book came out just as the whole Russian influence hoax was collapsing. Brad Thor, who has written some remarkably fun thrillers, has become unreadable because of his insistence on making all Russians into snarling beasts and all Ukrainians into gentle Ewoks.

Of course, life has become much tougher for some of the thriller novelists who value verisimilitude now that the FBI and CIA have become more villainous than the old KGB. What’s an author to do? Don Bentley who handles the Mitch Rapp series these days, (heavily dependent on the CIA) solved the problem by making his latest thriller a flashback about the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. But for a guy like Connelly, who has made his bread and butter advocating for law and order, trying to square the circle of doing it by supporting BLM, Antifa, and a government weaponizing itself against honest citizens is making his storylines notably schizophrenic and unhinged.

Now rumor has it that Kamala Harris is going to try to close out her campaign by hearkening back to that terrible day on January 6, 2021, when we nearly lost our democracy entirely – to an unarmed tiny slice of 1,200 rioters out of a peaceful crowd of nearly a million who were ushered into the Capitol by Capitol Police, then  proceeded to take selfies and largely stay within the confines of the velvet ropes. How utterly terrifying! There was no plan to seize command and control of the military or the government, nor were any of the rioters armed. There is no chance it could ever become, much less was, an “insurrection.”

It is not just that it objectively was not anything near an insurrection, but that it defies absurdity to pretend it was.   It’s like pretending that a man caught in a bank with a squirt gun was plotting a multi-million dollar heist. Great for a comedy movie, but don’t try to sell it as a taut drama. Of course, Dems are absurd drama queens. Joe Biden repeatedly pretends that a small, quickly doused kitchen fire was a case of his “house burning down.” To call J6 an insurrection is worthy of a Monty Python spot, say the Spanish Inquisition skit. Apparently Dems thought the mainly peaceful protesters were going to take over the country with the soft cushions or the comfy chair. (see Spanish Inquisition skit)

Leftists are inveterate, gaslighting drama queens. Anything that mildly annoys them is the WORST THING EVER and THEY NEARLY DIED while any of the many horrifying things they do is NO BIG DEAL. Thus, J6, a protest in which a tiny slice of people got out of hand (after being instigated on one end with incendiaries fired into the crowd and invited into the Capitol on the other end) and in which nobody died except two Trump Supporters was AMERICA’S DEADLIEST DAY and the George Floyd riots which went on for months, saw the murder of 36 people we know of and the injury of hundreds more was just a little righteous rambunctiousness.

I have been on the road for a little over a month, entirely in blue or purple states. A new mood has settled over the country, a new resolve. Ordinary Americans have had enough – and they are not taking anymore. That is why, though leftists are airing all their greatest hits, they are getting no traction, whatsoever.

The establishment media can’t help anymore, either. The folksies are wise to their serial lies – and getting wiser by the moment.

When the media says a Republican said, “Without evidence,” we read, “With overwhelming evidence.”

When the media says a Republican claim has been “debunked,” we read “confirmed.”

When the media says “expert,” we read “ignorant, partisan hack.”

When the media says, “safe and effective,” we read “poisoned placebo.”

It is over for the establishment media. Until there is a convulsive and visible revolution in their ranks, their influence is done – and they can help regime capos no longer.

If even a half-honest count takes place, Republicans will win by an unprecedented landslide. I’m not just talking about Donald Trump: I’m talking from the top to the bottom of the ballot. Personally, I think the Dems will inject about 30 million fraudulent votes into the till…and the shock of the night (for them) will be that it is not enough.

It is over for the woke left…and it doesn’t even matter if they cheat enough to put up a tattered simulacrum of victory. People are done.

Listen leftists, you can send out your modern version of the KKK – Antifa, BLM, and Hamas supporters to set our cities to burn (and you Dems do love you some burning crosses, don’t you? Helps to make clear to people of faith that they are at the wrong rally.), you can keep arresting protestors for taking selfies in your sacred spaces, grandmas for praying near abortion clinics, parents for trying to protect their children at school board meetings, Catholics for going to the wrong Parish, teenagers for stepping on the rainbow flag you painted on the sidewalk, and whatever new excuses you can dream up to jail people for wrongthink. You can keep up the Orwellian drumbeat that hate is love and love is hate, that open lust is love and respect for decency is hate, that boys can be girls – and should smash every girls’ sports record in existence while invading their locker rooms and restrooms, that anyone who defends actual girls and women is a “hater” (we do hate your violent and hideous depredations) all you want. And it is still over for you.

This time when you riot and try to kill people to enforce submission, those people are going to hit back and shoot back. States are going to start ordering police to arrest federal “officials” who try to arrest people for wrongthink. Just as everything you touched in this pitiful parody of a presidential campaign turned to dust, your imperious orders are going to be met with a yawn. Even many of your flying monkeys have flown the coop – for some of them, too, have figured out it is over for you. Your successful insurrection against a free, self-governing people is coming to an end. You and all your self-anointed experts can pound sand (though I would prefer you pound rocks in Alcatraz). People are done with your antics. You can cry and scream all you want and the people, like exasperated parents, will give you something to cry about.

You can surrender the easy way or the hard way. If you go the easy way of standing down, most of you will just lose office and spend a little time in jail. If you choose the hard way of trying to brutalize ordinary Americans to the end, many of you will go the way of Benito Mussolini and Nicolai Ceausescu. It is over for you.

The worst may be yet to come, but our long, national nightmare is now almost over.

Let us press on to victory, and then devote ourselves to building anew a nation of objective law, committed to liberty for all, under God.

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For a couple of years now I have been working on The CORAC Handbook and Manual for Forming Functional Communities. I essentially had it done early last summer, but the defense component has given me fits. I worry about not triggering the excitable into making stupid, futile gestures while simultaneously worrying about getting those afflicted with terminal normalcy bias into seeing that we truly are going to have to make a practical stand.

I have said frequently that this election will not bring resolution, but force confrontation. Our culture has been degenerating for a very long time…multiple generations. We are actually fortunate that in the last decade and a half the degeneration has been so rapid and dire that only the most obtuse can continue to kid themselves that everything is okay. We are literally going to have to rebuild a healthy culture from the ground up. That is true no matter who prevails in the presidential election. But many of the practical requirements are going to vary dramatically, depending on who prevails.

If Donald Trump wins, it will be good to have an ally at the helm of state. But if you think it relieves you of your obligation to stand for faith, family and freedom, Trump’s term will only be a brief pause in our descent into the maelstrom rather than a revival of Godly and American values and traditions. We are going to have to take hold of our communities, one by one, banishing the insane leftist advocates of wokism without degenerating into a bloodbath of vengeance. That will take sustained resolve and committed practical work.

If Kamala Harris prevails, the Deep State will mount a full-scale assault on basic liberties, religion, and the Constitutional order to complete the fundamental transformation of America into a totalitarian command state run by a bureaucratic oligarchy that Barack Obama began in 2009. It will be the beginning of a genuine counter-revolution to throw off the chains that the leftist coup and genuine insurrection have used to drain our Constitutional order of its potency – just as the Lilliputians once chained the much stronger Gulliver while he slept. There are effective ways to neuter the pretenses and depredations of the Deep State and its acolytes with very little violence and strife. They require discipline, prayer, sound judgment, strategic coherence, cold calculation and the refusal to be captured or swayed by inflammatory emotional rhetoric, from any side of the spectrum.

As much as I have tried to convince myself that I can present a one-size-fits-all manual, I just have not been able to bring myself to issue such a document – that I cannot help but believe would be lukewarm, despite my intentions to the contrary. The handbook will be tailor-made to fit the situation we actually find ourselves in.

Part of me fears that not enough people will take it to heart to stop our descent into darkness, particularly if people get complacent after a Trump win. Fortunately, only a tiny sliver of a population is required to act in a genuinely committed, coordinated fashion to launch a true revival. I am heartened that the people of CORAC have already done so much together. Check out the nearly 600 instructional videos and pdf’s on our website. While many organizations have settled for being debating forums which highlight the outrage of the day, CORAC has focused on helping others obtain the practical skills to endure and prevail in a battle for godliness and freedom. I can’t tell you how proud and grateful I am for that. (Though we do occasionally vent about the outrage of the day, that is not our primary focus.)

While I must apologize to you all for the many false starts I have had towards issuing the handbook, I am nonetheless not sorry it has happened this way. While it will focus on the specific situation we face come November 6, I have had to spend so much time thinking and rethinking the first principles involved that I believe, if that small critical mass of people do take up the banner with committed resolve, the Handbook has the potential to become a primer for the ages – a definitive method to prevent tyranny before it starts and conquer it where it pops up. That may be my small delusion of grandeur, but the real potential for it is worth all the sacrifice involved.

I pray that, come the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, I will be able to retire to a cabin in the woods. That, of course, is for God to decide. But I pledge to you that, with God’s help, I will not falter, I will not let grief overcome me, I will not let nostalgia for what was distract me from what, together, under God can be if we devote ourselves to it, I will not give up, but continue to stumble forward in service to God and His people – and all the people that, by our efforts, are yet to become His people. I know many of you see me limp, notice that I get short of breath easily since Covid (but I also recover quickly), notice that I fatigue easily and must rest when I do. But do not be deceived. All of this is just God’s leash on me. He gives me what I need when I need it, in His service. I walked 3,200 miles across the country when I was supposed to be paralyzed on my right side – and if it was needed again, God would give me what I need to do it. I will die with my boots on in His service. This is the joyful work of a lifetime – and a work I am grateful to be able to stumblingly do. So long as I draw breath, this is my commitment.

I needed to get that off my chest.

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The Vatican just renewed its hideous deal with China, betraying orthodox Catholics in that country. If that was the only offense to come out of this Vatican, it would be one of the worst betrayals in the history of the Catholic Church. But since this Vatican has spent over a decade systematically betraying orthodox Catholics by trying to reverse the commands of Christ and the Apostles, it is just one of many offenses.

“Offenses must come, but woe to him by whom they come!” -Luke 17:1

This is an offense that God has allowed for a time for His mysterious purposes. Perhaps it is a scourge for our infidelity and presumption. Whatever, in God’s own time it will be swept away. Woe to those by whom it came – and blessed are those who keep faith and fidelity in this time of trial.

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It has not been a spectacular fall in New England. It has been what I would consider a good fall in the Midwest – a variety of colors with patches of real vibrance.

I was lucky enough to live a genuinely spectacular fall in New England decades ago. I will try to arrange my travels so I get a chance to see another one. When it is spectacular, the fall colors in New England are not just vibrant hues; they have an amazing texture and depth. Look at a hillside and it is more vivid than a van Gogh painting.

If you have never experienced it, it is worth it even in years when it is not spectacular. It is still better than anywhere else in the country’s best. When it is spectacular, it is a great act of God, every bit as awesome and majestic as the great mountains, tall ships on the ocean, or a spectacular cavern. These are the things I have found that look far more majestic in person than any panoramic portrait can begin to capture.

If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.

Find me on Twitter at @JohnstonPilgrim

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