Why Does the Pledge of Allegiance Include the Words “Under God”?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the addition of the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. Fred Lucas at The Daily Signal considered it to be “both a spiritual and strategic move” for President Dwight D. Eisenhower to sign this bill, on Flag Day, June 14, 1954. I was nine years old when this change took place, and I remember the change.

“From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty,” the president said upon signing the bill….

“To anyone who truly loves America, nothing could be more inspiring than to contemplate this rededication of our youth, on each school morning, to our country’s true meaning,” he continued.

This event was included in “The Soul of an American President: The Untold Story of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Faith,” written by Alliance Defending Freedom founder and former President Alan Sears and two co-authors, Craig Osten and Ryan Cole. It “details how faith was important to the 34^th president well before he entered the White House.

“In World War II, he saw the concentration camps and it shook him to his core,” Osten told the Daily Signal. “He was convinced this is where a godless society ends up. He also looked at what was happening in the Soviet Union and the destruction of their churches.”

During the bill-signing remarks, Eisenhower made a subtle reference to the Cold War. “In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future. In this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons, which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource, in peace or in war,” Eisenhower said.

Critics of the bill have dismissed it as a geostrategic move to claim the moral high ground against the Soviets.

Osten stressed it was much more than that for Eisenhower.

“He looked at what was different about America. He believed the Soviet Union’s weak link was that it was an atheistic society,” Osten said. “it’s not that he was using religion as a weapon, but he did want to remind America of its spiritual roots.”

Osten added the president “wanted to make sure America didn’t drift the way Russia and Germany did.”

After the bill-signing ceremony, the former Supreme Allied commander met with an American Legion gathering at the Capitol, where he and the others recited the pledge with the newly added words “under God.”

As for the pledge itself, it had quite a journey before Eisenhower’s monumental act.

The first version of the pledge, which skipped from “… one nation indivisible …” was interestingly enough written by Baptist minister Francis Bellamy in 1892 to mark the 400^th anniversary of the discovery of North America by Christopher Columbus….

It was during World War II, on June 22, 1942, that President Franklin D. Roosevelt officially recognized the pledge in signing the U.S. Flag code.

It was well after the war, in 1951, that the Catholic group Knights of Columbus resolved to call on Congress to add the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. Rep. Louis Rabaut, D-Mich., introduced legislation adding the words to the pledge; the measure then passed both the House and Senate.

Though Catholics initiated the effort, Protestants weren’t far behind.

It was well after the war, in 1951, that the Catholic group Knights of Columbus resolved to call on Congress to add the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. Rep. Louis Rabaut, D-Mich., introduced legislation adding the words to the pledge; the measure then passed both the House and Senate.

Though Catholics initiated the effort, Protestants weren’t far behind….

Almost two months after the Flag Day bill signing, Eisenhower wrote a letter of gratitude to the Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Luke E. Hart.

“And this year we are particularly thankful to you for your part in the movement to have the words ‘under God’ added to our Pledge of Allegiance,” Eisenhower wrote in the Aug. 6, 1954, letter. “These words will remind Americans that despite our great physical strength we must remain humble. They will help us to keep constantly in our minds and hearts the spiritual and moral principles which alone give dignity to man, and upon which our way of life is founded.”

What Are Your Feelings About the House of the Lord?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to 2 Samuel 11-12 and 1 Kings 3; 6-9; 11 in a lesson titled “Hear Thou in Heaven Their Prayer.” The following information introduced the lesson. 

Saul, David, and Solomon, the first three kings of Israel, all started out with so much promise. Humble, courageous, and wise, they each found favor with the Lord – at least at first. Sadly, each king also gave in to human weaknesses and temptation. They put their own desires before the Lord’s. And as we’ve seen over and over in the scriptures – and in our own lives – that led to tragedy.

But something important happened during the reign of Soloman that provided some hope for stability in the lives of the covenant people. Solomon built a temple. It was to be a more permanent house of the Lord than the tabernacle had been. And it would represent a more permanent presence of the Lord among His people. Solomon knew that the people would continue to face weakness and trials of various kinds. In dedicating the new holy house, Solomon pleaded with the Lord, “If they … return unto thee with all their heart, … then hear thou their prayer” (1 Kings 8:47-48). That’s part of what temple covenants do for us – they create a connection to God. They secure for us the promise that through our repentance and His mercy, He can “dwell among [us]” and never forsake us (1 Kings 6:13).

This block of scriptures teaches several principles, including the following: (1) The Lord can help me make good choices when I am tempted to sin (2 Samuel 11; 12:1-14). (2) The gift of discernment helps me distinguish between right and wrong (1 Kings 3:1-15). (3) Through covenants in the Lord’s house, the Lord dwells with me (1 Kings 6-8; 9:1-9). (4) “His heart was not perfect with the Lord” (1 Kings 8:61; 11:1-11).

This essay will discuss principle #3 about making covenants in the Lord’s house. Covenants are promises between God and an individual. God sets the conditions, and the individual agrees to abide by those conditions – or not.

The writer of 1 Kings 6-7 wrote a detailed description of the sacred house that Solomon built for the Lord. Although we may not understand the importance of the details, the ancient Israelites knew their importance. The important thing for us to take from these chapters is to get a sense of how important it was to the Israelites to have a house of the Lord. How important is it to you to have a House of the Lord that you can attend or in your community?

Some years ago, I was visiting my daughter and her new baby in Spring, Texas. The Houston Temple was close to her home, so I attended a temple session one day. I knew about where the temple was – particularly from a distance – but I lost sight of the temple as I drew closer to it. I stopped at a little store and asked for directions. There were three people in the store when I asked, and they knew exactly where “their” temple was located. They gave me directions, and I was able to find the temple without any problems. Although none of those people were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the temple was important to their community.

I lived in Alaska for about twenty-five years before a temple was built about one mile from my home. Until that temple was built, I had to travel outside of Alaska to attend a temple. Although our assigned temple was the Seattle Washington Temple, I usually traveled to Hawaii or Utah to attend the temple – Hawaii because it is Hawaii, and Utah because it is home and family. Whenever I was near a temple, I attended numerous temple sessions to soak up the temple spirit because I knew it would be months or even years before I could return.

Now, I live approximately one mile from the Anchorage Alaska Temple. Attending the temple is so convenient now that I feel an obligation as well as a desire to attend often. I usually attend the temple at least once each week because it gives me spiritual strength to face the problems of life.

Attending the temple often is one way that I keep the covenants that I make in the temple. Temple attendance gives me an opportunity to renew the covenants and to remember the promises that I made. It also gives me strength to better keep those covenants. I love to see the temple, and I love to go inside temples to feel the presence of the Savior there.

President Henry B. Eyring, then-Second Counselor in the First Presidency, spoke in the April 2021 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the topic “I Love to See the Temple,” the title of a song that children often sing in Primary. He taught the following information about temples. 

I know that temples of the Lord are holy places. My purpose today in speaking of temples is to increase your desire and mine to be worthy and ready for the increased opportunities for temple experiences that are coming for us.

For me, the greatest motivation to be worthy of temple experiences is what the Lord has said of His holy houses:

“Inasmuch as my people build a house unto me in the name of the Lord, and do not suffer any unclean thing to come into it, that it be not defiled, my glory shall rest upon it;

“Yea, and my presence shall be there, for I will come into it, and all the pure in heart that shall come into it shall see God.

“But if it be defiled I will not come into it, and my glory shall not be there; for I will not come into unholy temples.”

President Russell M. Nelson made clear for us that we can “see” the Savior in the temple in the sense that He becomes no longer unknown to us. President Nelson said this: “We understand Him. We comprehend His work and His glory. And we begin to feel the infinite impact of His matchless life.”

 

How Do Fertility Rates Affect Culture in America?

Families are stronger when parents understand and instruct their children about the numerous ways that culture divides people in America. One of those ways “extends to parenthood, “according to an article by Kevin Stocklin that The Daily Signal published. Here is Stocklin’s explanation for why there is a parenting divide in American culture. 

A new report from the Institute for Family Studies states that a fertility gap has opened up between the Left and the Right. Based on a survey of 7,000 Americans, age 18 to 54, the study found that conservative respondents had, on average, 1.4 children, compared to 1.09 for liberals. A birth rate of 2.1 children per woman is the minimum to sustain a population. More than half of liberal respondents reported having no children at all, compared to 40% of conservatives.

“Progressives are more likely to look at marriage and parenthood as decent options to consider but not necessarily as primary vocations,” Brad Wilcox, IFS senior fellow, told the Daily Signal. Conservatives are more likely to see marriage, motherhood, and fatherhood as core parts of their identity.”

Religion likely plays a key role.

“In the U.S. and in other parts of the world, political conservatives tend to be more religious than political liberals, and more religious people tend to have more kids,” Tom Vogl, an economics professor at the University of California, San Diego, told the Daily Signal.

Those on the left often find that purpose in career or social causes rather than children.

“If you’re fighting to save the planet, if you’re fighting against white supremacy, that gives your life meaning,” Timothy Carney, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Daily Signal. “And so, what secularization means is that politics becomes their religion.”

Across the board, America’s fertility rate has fallen by more than half over the last century, from 110.9 births per 1,000 women in 1924 to 53.8 in 2024, according to USA Facts. This brings significant societal ramifications.

“An aging society with fewer young workers must either raise productivity dramatically, attract more workers, reduce government spending, raise taxes or some combination of all four,” Thomas Savidge, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the Daily Signal.

Raising children certainly comes with costs. A new Harvard report, for example, states that house prices rose 54% since 2020, now averaging five times the median income.

Despite this, however, fewer conservatives (24%) than liberals (36%) saw parenting as “very complicated, difficult, and stressful,” the IFS noted.

The IFS survey found that anxiety about parenting also played a role: 18% of liberals doubted whether they would be good parents compared to 9% of conservatives; 19% of liberals said their mental health wasn’t good enough to have children, compared to 10% of conservatives; and 18% of liberals worried about passing down unhealthy traits, compared to 10% of conservatives.

“The act of having children is fundamentally an act of hope,” De Gance said.

“When we’re open to life and want to bring a new child into this world, it’s being hopeful in the future for that child,” he said. “I think our friends on the left are more likely to be fearful of the future.”

Beliefs regarding the impact of people on the environment are also relevant.

“If you want to understand why the birth rate is collapsing, you can’t just look at economics or politics, you have to look at spiritual questions, and one of the questions is: are we good?” Carney said.

“There’s a Christian answer to that, which is that we’re good, but we’re fallen,” he said. “If you’re a secular liberal today, you look at the obvious flaws and it’s hard for you to think the human species is a good thing.”

It’s not just that blue states are having fewer children, many of the families they have are leaving. Since 2000, red states saw a 7% increase in their child population, while blue states experienced a 7% decline, according to the IFS.

“We’re seeing hundreds of thousands of families migrate from blue states to red states,” Wilcox said. “States like Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Idaho have been the recipients of a lot of families looking to move to places that are often more culturally, educationally, and economically attractive to them.”

Despite “family-friendly” mandates on parental leave and childcare in many blue states, parents appear to prefer red states’ lower taxes and housing costs, better job prospects, and school choice.

But all is not lost, even for low-fertility regions.

“Some of the current below-replacement fertility rates may reflect the postponement of births to later ages, so it’s not obvious that population decline is around the corner for the U.S.,” Vogl said.

Indeed, while the number of mothers under 25 has declined, the number over 35 has increased significantly, such that more women over 40 are now giving birth than are teens. And when asked the number of children they ideally wanted to have, conservatives averaged 2.71, and liberals averaged 2.165, IFS reported.

While government programs are seldom effective in boosting fertility, experts say things like increasing child tax credits and cutting regulations that discourage construction of single-family houses could help.

“[Parents} don’t need a huge home, but people want to have their own place,” De Gance said. “One of the big things blue states have done is make it harder to build homes and skewed their policy to high-density and mixed-use communities, and these are things that generally tend to discourage fertility.”

 

 

 

What Is the Difference Between Culture and Race?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the value of knowing the difference between race and culture. America and Americans have welcomed legal immigrants from the beginning of the nation. Most, if not all, immigrants in the early years came from the same nations from which early American Colonists emigrated. Their cultures were similar. Their religions were similar.

Immigrants today come from every nation in the world, and many of them come with cultures that are far different from those that Americans value. Example: most Americans today believe that it is wrong for an adult to marry a child, yet there are immigrants who believe that it is okay. They come from a different culture. Rebecca Downs discussed culture and race in her article published at The Daily Signal. 

Although major sports wins bring celebration, the festivities are often marred in big cities by unruly behavior. That was particularly the case in New York, following the Knicks’ June 13 clinching of the NBA championship. The parade that followed brought more chaos.

Following the victory over the San Antonio Spurs – the Knicks’ first title in 53 years – hooligans took to the streets, vandalizing as they went, including targeting and torching a school bus. Those in the crowd cheered. Police, meanwhile, could not visibly be seen.

As he showed footage of the chaos during Friday’s episode of “The Tony Kinnett Cast” on the Daily Signal, host Tony Kinnett noted how those burning the school bus were both white and black. And the bus driver begging the crowd to stop was black. “The point of the story is that it is not about the race, it is all about the culture,” Kinnett observed.

The revelry of the parade was marred by random gunshots fired into the air to “just cause chaos and panic because that is the celebratory nature that has come out of some of these events,” as Kinnett mentioned.

Meanwhile, New York isn’t doing much to stop lawlessness. “There’s no condemnation of this from the city level. There’s nothing. [Mayor Zohran] Mamdani is busy running around patting himself on the back and p raising Islamic migrant stuff,” Kinnett said, also addressing how liberals excuse such behavior as how “it just happens.”

The New York Department of Sanitation unveiled commemorative garbage cans to celebrate the Knicks’ win. (They’re also available online for purchase.) Fans reacted by stealing them, dumping out trash onto the city sidewalk to do so. People could be heard cheering in the background.

During the parade, an individual appeared to be passed out from a drug overdose on the roof of a platform, as individuals sought to help. Kinnett observed that it took place with a “cop standing there, doing very little, ‘cause this is just normal behavior in New York.”

The passed-out man was revived using Narcan. He then proceeded to try to kiss the woman who gave him that Narcan.

This is a stunning juxtaposition with the amount of support the United States is getting from visitors from around the world who are here for the FIFA World Cup. These visitors, Kinnett said, “realize that everything they’ve been told by people like Keir Starmer about the United States, things that they’ve been told about by, for example, Zohran Mamdani, is a lie and that the United States is freaking incredible.”

Japanese guests receive particular attention for how respectful they’ve been, as they come to games ready with garbage bags to clean up trash afterward. For Kinnett, culture plays a significant role. “There are cultures that are objectively better than others because of how they carry themselves.”

A young Japanese woman picking up trash shared that it is part of their “culture,” but also a matter of respect, “respect for everything, respect for the players, supporters, and also for the stadium.” The young woman shared, “We are honored to be here, so we don’t want to make a mess and then leave it.”

What cultures do we want in America? Do we want more of the type of person who trashed a school bus in New York, or the Japanese who picked up their own mess? Americans must decide what type of cultures they want in America and then act to build those types of cultures. Whether they are imported, or whether they are born and reared in America, we are responsible for building the cultures that we desire. Races can live together if Americans develop the proper cultures in our nation.

Articles of Faith: What Do Latter-day Saints Believe About the Godhead 2?

Article of Faith 1

We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ,

                                and in the Holy Ghost.

This will be the second article on the Godhead in my series on the Articles of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Last week, I discussed a statement by the Prophet Joseph Smith in a lecture on faith titled “The Character of God.” Early in the lecture, he shared three things that are necessary to have faith in God strong enough to lead to salvation. The statement is important enough to repeat in this discussion. 

Let us here observe, that three things are necessary, in order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto life and salvation.

First, The idea that he actually exists.

Secondly, A correct idea of his character, perfections and attributes.

Thirdly, An actual knowledge that the course of life which he is pursuing, is according to his will.—For without an acquaintance with these three important facts, the faith of every rational being must be imperfect and unproductive; but with this understanding, it can become perfect and fruitful, abounding in righteousness unto the praise and glory of God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Last week I discussed how the Godhead, or Trinity, consists of three separate Beings with the same purpose. They have such powerful unity that they would, “Under any given conditions each would act in the same way, guided by the same principles of unerring justice and equity.” (Elder James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith [1890], p. 41).

This week, I choose to use the words of Elder Talmage to discuss the “personality of each member of the Godhead.”

From the evidence already presented, it is clear that the Father is a personal being, possessing a definite form, with bodily parts and spiritual passions. Jesus Christ, who was with the Father in spirit before coming to dwell in the flesh, and through whom the worlds were made, lived among men as a man, with all the physical characteristics of a human being; after His resurrection He appeared in the same form; in that form He ascended into heaven; and in that form He has manifested Himself to the Nephites, and to modern prophets. We are assured that Christ was in the express image of His Father, after which image man also has been created. Therefore we know that both the Father and the Son are in form and stature perfect men; each of them possesses a tangible body, infinitely pure and perfect and attended by transcendent glory, nevertheless a body of flesh and bones.

The Holy Ghost, called also Spirit, and Spirit of the Lord, Spirit of God, Comforter, and Spirit of Truth, is not tabernacled in a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of spirit; yet we know that the Spirit has manifested Himself in the form of a man. Through the ministrations of the Spirit the Father and the Son may operate in their dealings with mankind; through Him knowledge is communicated, and by Him the purposes of the Godhead are achieved. The Holy Ghost is the witness of the Father and the Son, declaring to man their attributes, bearing record of the other personages of the Godhead (The Articles of Faith [1890], pp. 41-42).

How Many Dan Sullivans Live in Alaska and Are Politicians?

 Daniel Albert Sullivan (born June 16, 1951), American businessman and politician, served on the Anchorage Assembly (1999-2008), as mayor of Anchorage (2009-2015), and was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor of Alaska (2014). He is the son of George M. Sullivan, the longest-serving Anchorage mayor. 

Sullivan announced his candidacy for the Senate on June 1, 2016, to run for the seat currently held by Lisa Murkowski, but he dropped out of the race two weeks later on June 16, 2016. If he had been elected, Alaska would have been represented in the U.S. Senate by two different men named Dan Sullivan.

Senator Daniel Scott Sullivan (born November 13, 1964) is an American politician, attorney, and Marine Corps veteran. He has been the junior United States senator from Alaska since 2015. He is a Republican who served as Alaska attorney general (2009 to 2010) and commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (2009-2010). 

Alaskans may be surprised to learn that a third man named Dan Sullivan lives in the state. Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. registered to run for the seat currently held by Senator Dan S. Sullivan and has been referred to as Dan “Sham” Sullivan. Francesca Cella covered the senator and the would-be senatorial candidate for The Daily Signal. 

An Alaskan candidate for U.S. Senate who ran under the same name and party affiliation as incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan has been declared ineligible to appear on the primary ballot by the state’s elections director.

On Monday, Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher stated in a letter to candidate Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. that his election filing was not to “declare an actual good-faith candidacy for the office of United States Senator, but was instead filed with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality.”

Sullivan filed for candidacy only two days before the June 1 deadline – and as Beecher pointed out, he filed as “Dan Sullivan” and did not include his middle initial or suffix to differentiate himself from the incumbent senator.

Sharing the name with the senator is merely a “matter of fate,” this Sullivan claims. “I am a qualified candidate who followed the rules and filed to run for office under my legal name,” he said last week.

At one point, Sullivan listed “S,” rather than “J,” as his middle initial, exactly mimicking the senator’s name.

Even the two candidates’ logos are hard to distinguish. Both include the last name “Sullivan” and the Alaska north star in white and yellow lettering on a blue background, with slightly different fonts.

Beecher further cited that Sullivan did not usually go by “Dan,” and observed he had only recently registered as a Republican.

Beecher’s statement came in response to a letter from the National Republican Senate Committee noting that Sullivan’s campaign manager is a consultant and longtime supporter of the opposing Democrat candidate, Mary Peltola, and that Sullivan himself has donated several hundred dollars to Democrat candidates nationwide.

“The only plausible explanation for someone with this record running for office as a ‘registered Republican’ is to mislead unwitting Alaska voters who intend to cast a ballot for incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan,” the NRSC stated.

“Sham Candidate Sullivan” is merely a Democrat ploy to confuse Republicans and split their votes between two candidates in order to bolster Peltola’s chances of victory, according to the NRSC.

It’s no secret that Alaska is a crucial state for Democrats. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has listed Alaska as one of its top five target states this cycle since February 2025, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer listed Alaska as one of “the four states we have to pick up to win back the Senate.”

Sullivan has 30 days to appeal the decision before his candidacy is officially terminated. Alaska’s primary elections are set for Aug. 18, and the top four candidates will advance to the general election.

Alaska does not need more confusion in its elections because there is already plenty with the ranked-choice voting system. RINO Lisa Murkowski was instrumental in driving through the change in voting. Alaskans are trying again to get rid of it, while also attempting to get Murkowski out of office.

Someone suggested that Senator Dan Sullivan add to his campaign the notation that he is Dan S. (Senator) Sullivan while the sham candidate is Dan J. (Joker) Sullivan. Alaskans would have understood the notation.

Who Is Donald Trump?

My VIP for this week is President Donald Trump. It is good for us to ask, who is this man who leads the United States? He has survived three assassination attempts with one of the shots coming within one-quarter of an inch of killing him. In addition, he has the Midas touch in that he has so many successes – so much winning. His latest “win” is his announcement of a peace deal with Iran to end a conflict in the Middle East. Victor Davis Hanson shared his thoughts about the agreement in a video at the Daily Signal. 

There’s a lot of confusion, controversy, and disagreement about the latest phase of the Iran war. Remember, we bombed kinetically 38 to 40 days, then we had 60 days of negotiation, then here we are in mid-June, in which [President] Donald Trump has announced yet another time there is going to be a peace deal coming with a 60-day period for all the elements of the deal to be enacted.

A lot of people are upset. They feel that Iran was on the ropes, they’re going broke, and that had we continued, or if we were to continue now, we could put them out of commission and then dictate a non-conditional surrender to them.

That’s absolutely true, but what this deal then hinges on – because there’s no history of Iran ever keeping their word or following any agreement, explicit or implicit – is the willingness to keep maybe one carrier group in the region to ensure that the strait stays open, that the missiles are not launched against our allies, and of course, the enriched uranium is turned over.

And if we’re willing to do that and hit them hard every time they break it, then it might eventually work.

There’s a lot of misconceptions, though, about the deal and the war in general. I’d like to address just a few of them. A lot of critics of this administration are saying, I think [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries said that not long ago, “Well, the strait was open and now it’s closed, so the deal didn’t accomplish anything. In fact, it made it worse.”

Well, the strait was open because Iran had no reason, as it did now, to close it. And the reason they didn’t have any reason to close it was the seven prior presidents, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden didn’t want to disarm Iran. They didn’t want to go in there and try to stop their proliferation agenda. Donald Trump did. Anybody who did was going to be confronted with a desperate effort of Iran to close the strait. Now we’ll open the strait. But the idea that we made things worse is ridiculous.

And then second, people are saying, “Well, it’s just like the Obama deal. Why did Trump get out of the Obama deal?” Well, they enriched uranium all through the Obama deal. We know that. They wouldn’t let inspectors in. During Joe Biden’s presidency, he begged them to go back into the Iran deal. They didn’t wanna do it.

Why? Because we now know they had pretty much already enriched to the point, 60 or more percent, that they could make a bomb in a month should they want to.

But here’s the big difference. In the Obama, atmosphere of that deal of 2015-16, Iran was ascendant. Everybody was scared of it. Its military was heavily equipped with Chinese and Russian weaponry. People were afraid of it. Israel didn’t want to attack it. The Gulf States didn’t want to attack it.

Europe was advising caution. It was an appeasing deal because nobody wants to use force. Now, whatever your disagreement is with the current war, most people, and we don’t have boots on the ground, we don’t have journalists on the ground, but they agree that the Iranian military and its economy are devastated through forty days of intense bombing with probably a thousand planes in the air at any one time.

So we’re dealing with a much-diminished Iran that we can hit again and again because they have no air defenses. Obama was dealing with an ascendant Iran that he was scared to even mention the use of force to make them comply.

There’s a third misconception. People say, “Well, now we’re isolated. We’re all isolated. We have no allies. China and Russia are ascendant.” Nothing could be further from the truth. This is the first time in all of our lifetimes that the Gulf Council, for all their double-dealing over the years, basically are more attuned to an alliance, maybe unspoken, with Israel than they are with Iran.

We know now that some of the 600 combat aircraft based in the Gulf were stealthily flying missions, and that meant alongside the Israelis.

We know that there are Israeli technicians in the Gulf helping them with missile defense. We know the Gulf states and most of the moderate Arab countries believe that Iran, not Israel, is the existential threat.

In other words, we’ve never had a closer relationship with the Gulf states vis-à-vis America, nor has Israel.

As far as Russia and China, they’re both shut out of the Middle East. They have lost their client in Syria. They have lost, and they’re going to lose their client in Iran. They have lost their client in Venezuela. They have an enormous problem. Russia cannot sell weapons to Iran anymore. They may smuggle some in, and China can’t get discounted oil anymore.

There’s another misconception, that is the apostate right, that is the Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens right, has said that they were going to fracture the party, and maybe their influence will turn the MAGA movement against Donald Trump.

Well, first of all, on all the other issues, maybe except the Iran war, most of the conservative[s], if not all, agree with Donald Trump….

But on this question of the war, the MAGA and Republican parties still overwhelmingly, 75%, support Donald Trump.

And the reason they do is they don’t feel this is a forever endless war, as the apostate right do. They believe that we have not used ground troops, and we have lost fewer soldiers than the accident rate that the military suffers daily over that period of 38 to 40 days of kinetic operations.

Finally, everybody says we’ve lost the midterms.

The midterms are four and a half months away. If the strait is open, suddenly you’re going to have a traffic jam of two things. One, tankers leaving, trying to get out full of oil, and tankers waiting to get in.

But there may be 200 or 250 tankers full of a million to 2 million barrels at a time when the United States and Russia and the Middle East and Venezuela are upping production.

So, there could be a substantial drop in prices.

And if you do get a deal the Left is going to be sort of flummoxed because they said that we had lost the war and we didn’t achieve our objectives. But if you do get a deal and the deal is enforced by military action on the part of the United States, it wouldn’t hurt Trump, it could help him.

And then there’s a larger context of redistricting. In this redistricting war, it turns out that so far the Republican legislatures will outdo the Democratic legislatures, and the Republicans may pick up anywhere from three to four to five seats.

And the Supreme Court that said it is a racial obsession, a fixation to create congressional districts on the basis of race, and you can’t do it, may lend the Republicans anther four to five.

I’m not suggesting that Donald Trump can overturn historical precedent. Remember that of the last 40 presidents, 95% lost their first midterm election. So, his history is on the wrong side, but he will not lose the Senate. And it doesn’t really matter, to tell you the truth, if they lose the House.

It would be nice to get legislation through, but most of his legislation has already been through. He can still use executive orders, but most importantly, they can’t… They may impeach him as a performance art act, but the Senate will never convict him.