Boswell first confronts Johnson with Hume’s ideas in late July 1763, just a few months after his first meeting with Johnson. He spoke of the Politician and agriculturalist George Dempster whose principles had been poisoned by a ‘noted infidel writer’ that is, Hume.

Johnson’s response was that

Hume and other sceptical innovators are vain men and will gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to error. Truth is a cow which will yield such people no more milk and so they are gone to milk the bull.[4]

But what Johnson went on to say is also important:

Everything which Hume has advanced against Christianity had passed through my mind long before he wrote. Always remember this, that after a system is well settled upon positive evidence, a few partial objections ought not to shake it. The human mind is so limited that it cannot take in all the parts of a subject, so there may be objections raised against any thing [5].

What role did religion play in Johnson’s life? Boswell tried to present him as a High Anglican Tory and Christians today of a conservative inclination today see Johnson as an antidote to what they consider to be the optimistic rationalism of some enlightenment thinking. //

Nicholas Hudson, in his book Samuel Johnson and Eighteenth Century Thought, sums this up:

Few writers were so knowledgeable or sociable to combine many sides of contemporary thought into an understanding of life distinctive for its humanity and good sense. His learning and complexity make his writings especially useful as the starting point for a broader investigation of eighteenth century thought. [18]

The point of all the injunctions and restraining orders is to preserve the supreme rule of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats. //

More nationwide injunctions and restraining orders have been issued against Trump in the past month that were issued against the Biden administration in four years. On Wednesday alone, four different federal judges ordered Elon Musk to reinstate USAID workers (something he and DOGE have no authority to do), ordered President Trump to disclose sensitive operational details about the deportation flights of alleged terrorists, ordered the Department of Defense to admit individuals suffering from gender dysphoria to the military, and ordered the Department of Education to issue $600 million in DEI grants to schools.

On one level, what all this amounts to is an attempted takeover of the Executive Branch by the Judicial Branch — a judicial coup d’état. These judges are usurping President Trump’s valid exercise of his Executive Branch powers through sheer judicial fiat — a raw assertion of power by one branch of the federal government against another.

Astonishing news out of Israel today and confirmed by at least one Israeli TV network that Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Gen. Esmail Qaani, commander of the crack Quds Force, is in Jerusalem after being identified as an Israeli intelligence asset.

Dr. Eli David @DrEliDavid
🚨 Breaking: Iran's 🇮🇷 IRGC Quds Force commander Gen. Esmail Qaani is confirmed safe in Israel 🇮🇱

It can now be revealed that he was an Israeli asset, providing intelligence that led to elimination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and Hezbollah leaders Nasrallah and Safieddine.
4:15 PM · Apr 1, 2025

Illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border dropped once again in March, plummeting to a historic low, with Border Patrol encountering just over 7,000 for the entirety of March.

Border Czar Tom Homan praised Trump's leadership for achieving a stunning drop in illegal border crossings in a post on X.

“President Trump’s leadership continues to break records! Border Patrol encounters for the month of March were just 7,181 total,” Homan wrote, emphasizing the historic significance of the figures. “I started as a Border Patrol Agent in 1984, which was 41 years ago. I cannot recall a single month since then that the numbers have been that low.”

These numbers represent a sharp contrast to what the country experienced under the Biden administration.

“It’s a far cry from the more than 11,000 [encounters] a day that we saw for a time period under Biden,” Homan noted. //

“The men and women of the Border Patrol have proven what they can accomplish when they are allowed to do their job and complete the mission of their agency,” he said.

The clock is ticking on Donald Trump's ultimatum to Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program, and an unusual bomber deployment just put teeth like a pit bull's into it.

Defense analyst and retired Israeli fighter pilot/special forces soldier (what a combo, right?) Naftali Hazony reported on X Monday that "At least six U.S. B-2 bombers are now stationed at Diego Garcia air base in the Indian Ocean."

This is kind of a big deal.

"The B-2 is the only aircraft that can deliver the massive GBU-57," Hazony continued, "one of the only bombs that can destroy Iran’s nuclear sites at Natanz and Fordow." The GBU-57 is a massive, 30,000-pound bunker-buster. Lacking heavy bombers, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) simply doesn't have a plane capable of delivering anything of that size and weight. //

In other words, six of maybe 12 flyable B-2s are ready to go at a moment's notice, just 2,000 miles from Iran. Typically, Spirits fly missions almost anywhere in the world from their home at Whitman in Missouri. Forward-deploying them at Diego Garcia gives them a much quicker turn-around time for a sustained bombing campaign.

The clock is ticking, and I don't just mean Trump's ultimatum that expires in the first week of May. While there's no smoking gun, the Gatestone Institute's Majid Rafizadeh has a detailed report this week on Russia and China's effort to make sure "Iran goes nuclear before end of Trump’s ultimatum" next month. "What remains overlooked is the significant role that China, North Korea, and Russia have been playing to make sure that Iran achieves nuclear weapons breakout before US President Donald J. Trump’s 'two-month ultimatum' runs out." //

anon-officer
a day ago
As an Artilleryman, the GBU-57 is near and dear to my heart sense it's made out of 8" howitzer barrels when that platform was decommissioned.

Nothing would put a smile on my face more than to show it off to the Mullah's in Iran, if you know what I mean.

anon-officer anon-pkys
a day ago edited
Yeah, you couldn't just throw a projectile up on the tray by hand with those baby's! I miss them. I got to command a 2 x 4 Paladin btry so that was highlight of my career.

I kind of got on a nostalgia kick and looked up some old videos:

My favorite Ft. Sill video featuring 8", 105's, MLRS, Paladin's, and block house Signal Mountain ha, ha. It's an oldie but a goodie. Wish someone would do it in high res:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBJNt76IMsA

Best video after 9/11. It's time the Houthis experience this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEbs_0WM2P8

.. and while searching for these, I came across an inspirational 1st term Trump video I thought was pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2PNOokBh1Y

One added note: The DOJ sought to have the case dismissed without prejudice — meaning it could be brought again at some later date. Ho declined to grant that request, opting instead to dismiss it with prejudice, and noting:

In light of DOJ’s rationales, dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the Mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents. That appearance is inevitable, and it counsels in favor of dismissal with prejudice. //

raswhiting Random US Citizen
an hour ago
Yes, it seems the corruption encouraged and allowed by the leftist Democrats is a feature, not a bug in the system, with one reason being it gives the top Democrats leverage over the lower, corrupt Democrats, i.e., the threat of prosecution.

Lee asks how one does such a thing unintentionally, and while I'm not a psychologist, there are studies that show conscious intention does take a back seat, but it only makes the person look worse, not better. Definitely not any more innocent.

In 2014, a study was done to see if leftists actually allow their emotions to guide their decision-making more than right-leaning people, and sure enough, every test was found to be true. Moreover, it didn't even matter the subject or population. If the person was left-leaning, their reactions were more emotionally driven.

"Across different conflicts, emotions, conflict-related contexts, and even populations, leftists' policy support changed in accordance with emotional reactions more than rightists' policy support," reads the report.

Keep that in the back your mind, because there's more science to be considered here, and this research was conducted back in 1980 by a German psychologist and published in the Schriftenreihe der Polizei-Fuehrungsakademie. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/psychological-analysis-vandalism

The German researcher found that vandalism in Europe and the United States, where it seems to happen very often, is often the result of psychological feelings of oppression and anger toward something, with vehicles actually being one of the most popular targets: //

So we have a perfect storm here. Leftists are easily manipulated because emotions are easy to manipulate. As they embrace their anger, empathy, or prejudices far more readily than others, causing them to think in terms of catastrophic outcomes — especially when their side is losing cultural or political battles — they're far more likely to act out before thinking. //

It's only when confronted directly with consequences does the emotionally driven person seem to truly get the hint that they goofed, just like the man did in the video above. When he says he didn't intend to scratch a swastika into the man's car... he's partly telling the truth. He wasn't thinking at all. He was letting his emotions guide him, and he ended up doing something stupid he could've avoided if he just allowed himself a moment of common sense.

WascallyWabbit
2 days ago
“Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.”

-- Atlas Shrugged //

Oyarsu
2 days ago
Israel, Romania, Brazil, England, And now France. These judges are creating a lawless world while insisting they aren’t. Its all insane. //

Buckeye28
2 days ago edited
For all the shrieking about Trump being a threat to democracy, these anti-democratic moves throughout Europe are becoming more and more troubling: machinations in France and Germany to prevent conservative parties from winning parliamentary elections; the popular conservative candidates in Romania and France being removed from the ballot by courts; conservative protest being criminalized in the U.K. and Ireland. European governments are undermining democracy, and that’s a point I hope our side really starts making to justify us distancing ourselves from Europe.

Having said that, I have to ask: did La Pen actually do something illegal under French law? It’s one thing if this is a rigged prosecution, like what happened to Trump in NYS. It’s another if she actually is guilty. (And selective prosecution arguments—“the other guy did it too but didn’t get charged”—are usually losers. If A and B both drive 40mph in a 25mph zone, and A gets a ticket and B doesn’t, doesn’t mean the speed limit isn’t a law.)

Without any inside information, this is pure speculation, but it looks like the method of carrying out the reduction in force was either needlessly ruthless or HHS had an indication that if staff were given warning they would create a media-friendly incident. Sending the layoff notices at 5 a.m. and disabling key cards is not the way things are usually done.

Removing leaders en masse strips away institutional memory, experience, and expertise, he and others say. “A more reasonable approach would be to ask for resignations for those who have served more than 5 or 10 years rather than an across-the-board, build-from-scratch strategy,” says Robert Cook-Deegan, a policy expert at Arizona State University who has co-authored histories of NIH.

I would counter that these are not reasonable times at HHS. The leadership is deeply compromised both by its role during the COVID panic and by relations with industry and academia. The workforce is politically hostile to President Trump and to Kennedy, and most of it went along willingly as public health was used as a deliberate wedge to undermine civil liberties. RFK Jr. wants to take the agency in a very different direction, and he could not reasonably count on the leadership or the workforce for support. So, he had to build from scratch, and that is what he is doing. //

anon-isiz
11 hours ago
These people destroyed in 24 months good will toward public health that had taken 100 years to create. They deserve to go. And some of them may have helped create a virus that killed millions and then a “vaccine” that injured millions more. //

jtt888
9 hours ago
Good lord, the last thing we need is people with institutional memory.

There's a very simple process here. "Is this person in the United States illegally?" If the answer is "No," fine. If the answer is "Yes," then back they go to where they came from.

Their faith, whatever it is, simply isn't a factor. //

Those are all fine, noble sentiments. But they are sentiments that have no place in law enforcement. And no Christians in the U.S. should be concerned that most of those who could be deported share their faith. What they should care about is that our immigration authorities are enforcing the law and not playing favorites. //

What the government does for anyone, it must do for everyone, or it must do for no one. //

anon-o9rf Bearsblow
4 hours ago
Five out of of five illegals are...

ILLEGAL !

Kick them out, all of them.
Now. //

Outerlimitsfan
5 hours ago edited
We shouldn't deprive their home countries the important missionary work they could be doing upon their return. //

RedinOR
5 hours ago
If they're such devout, religious people, why are they so comfortable breaking our laws?

You are absolutely correct, Ward. A criminal's particular faith does not change the fact that he/she broke our laws.

MAN: Hi, I was a worker at HHS. I was fired illegally on February 14th. There are many people who are not getting social service programs, especially people with disabilities. Are you going to do anything to stop what's happening?

BANKS: Eh, you probably deserved it

MAN: I deserved it?

BANKS: You probably deserved it

WOMAN: Oh, dude, that's so rude and sad.

MAN: Yeah, that's great to hear. Why did I deserve it?

BANKS: Because you seem like a clown

(The elevator closes)

And with that, a thousand memes were born, including Banks himself making the following his profile picture. //

anon-lmlj
3 hours ago
Should have said "shouldn't you be out looking for a new job?". //

Cynical Optimist
12 hours ago
In the '90s Clinton laid off 377,000 federal government workers and no judges blocked their firings or declared them "illegal," and no HHS workers yelled at Senators as they got on elevators.

That, folks, is the climate panic-mongers' entire agenda in a nutshell - flawed analysis, lack of full disclosure, questionable science and mathematics, and, as noted, the models are junk. //

But the best part, of course, is that the local people, folks who live near the construction site, got involved. It may have started over concern of messing up their ocean views, but it swiftly became more than that. People looked at the math, they looked at the numbers and the analysis from Shell New Energies and EDF Renewables, who were backing the project, and they didn't like what they saw.

They organized, filed a challenge against the permit, and won. //

The climate-industrial complex is finally facing a breeze it can’t spin.

there's plenty to say about Chen's reasoning as well. Should a judge be overruling the executive branch based on his own personal feelings about "economic activity" and "public health?" How would "safety in communities" even be affected?

I would posit that none of that should be considered. The only thing Chen should have been analyzing was what the law says and whether the administration was within its legal right to remove TPS in this case. Not only did he not do that, but it appears he completely contradicted the law.

You see, this issue was already litigated under the first Trump administration, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that TPS is not subject to judicial review.

Bill Melugin @BillMelugin
·
Replying to @BillMelugin
Notably, U.S. law says this is not subject to judicial review, and the 9th Circuit upheld that in Trump’s first term.

8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(5):

“There is no judicial review of any determination of the [DHS Secretary] with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of

Bill Melugin @BillMelugin_
·
Here is that Prior 9th Circuit decision siding with the Trump admin when he sought to terminate TPS for Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua, and El Salvador and a district judge tried to block it.

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2020/09/14/18-16981.pdf
8:48 PM · Mar 31, 2025.

In other words, not only is Chen violating the law with his order by ruling on something already deemed not subject to judicial review, but he's then demanding the administration meet a legal standard that doesn't even exist. //

CaptainCall
7 hours ago
This seems like a perfect judicial order for Trump to ignore. He can simply explain that he is not ignoring the courts...he's following the ruling by the 9th circuit, not the district court.

This online course is tailored for individuals with technical backgrounds involved in designing or procuring solar powered water systems (SPWS). It offers the flexibility to work on your own schedule while also benefiting from interactive group discussions.

Syncthing, an open-source, decentralized file synchronization tool, provides a continuous, bidirectional sync alternatively that operates in real-time. Unlike OCI Functions, which rely on an event driven model for object replication, Syncthing synchronizes entire file structures efficiently between virtual machines (VMs) while supporting local and OCI Object Storage mounted directories.

In this tutorial, we will deploy Syncthing on OCI Compute instances across two regions using an OCI Resource Manager stack, enabling automatic, bidirectional synchronization between local VM storage and OCI Object Storage mounted directories.

Kennedy then asked the assistant AG nominee to "explain how this works."

You have a plaintiff and you have a defendant. And the plaintiff files a lawsuit and goes in front of a federal judge. a federal judge has a certain jurisdiction ... and subject matter over the parties; the plaintiff and the defendant. They're the only two people in court. How can a federal judge issue an order that affects everybody else — other than those in front of him or her? How's that possible?

Shumate was on it:

It shouldn't be possible, Senator. But district courts do it all the time. I think on the theory that the courts need to enjoin a federal policy from going into effect, and they also will enjoin it nationwide so all non-parties are protected by that injunction. //

John Kennedy @SenJohnKennedy
·
The universal injunction has become a weapon against the Trump admin.

It’s long past time to put an end to this lawless practice.

12:50 PM · Mar 26, 2025. //

anon-l1t0
15 minutes ago
I remember when Obama wanted to make changes in the law but could not get Congress to agree. He found a willing plaintiff to sue the government, and a friendly judge, and then entered into a Consent Decree to accomplish his desired outcome. Then if someone sane objected, Obama simply pointed to the court order and said that his hands were tied by the court. Lawfare working for rather than against the President and his agenda. That is how it is done.

There's a guy by the name of Antonio Gracias, who, as founder and managing partner at Valor Equity Partners, has proven to be a pretty smart fellow in his own right. As a patriotic American, he was willing to work with Elon at DOGE.

And how lucky are we?

Because what Gracias revealed he and the DOGE team found at Social Security 'by accident' after, as he said...

'There are a lot of good people in the system who pointed us in this direction and I want to honor them right now. That work in the government today. Who took risks to show us these numbers and tell us this was going on.'

...is gobsmacking.

What is the 'this' he's referring to that they found?

That the Biden administration in 2024 - one year - gave 2.1 MILLION NON-CITIZENS social security numbers.

There's only one reason to do that. //

The defaults in the system from social security to all of the benefit programs have been set to max inclusion, MAX PAY for these people and minimum collection.

We found 1.3 million of them already on Medicaid as an example. We've gone through on every benefit program we went through, we found groups from this particular group of people, this 5.5 million people in those benefit programs.

And then what was really, really disturbing us was why we're asking ourselves why. So we actually just took a sample and looked at voter registration records and we found people here registered to vote in this population. Yes.

Who did vote? We found some by sampling that ACTUALLY DID VOTE.

We have referred them to prosecution at the Homeland Security Investigation Service. Yeah. Already, already. That is already happening right now. The truly disturbing thing though, I just want you to know this, a truly disturbing thing to me, and the darkest thing about this, to me, the voter fraud is terrible.” //

MUSK: "People think that Biden was asleep at the switch. They weren't asleep at the switch. It was a massive large scale program to import as many illegals as possible, ultimately to change the entire voting map of the United States and disenfranchise the American people and making it a deep blue one party state from which there would be no escape."

GRACIAS: "Human Traffickers made $13-15B off of this. This is a human tragedy. We created a system that created an incentive for people to come here and get taken advantage of by these traffickers."

MUSK: "This is not made up by the right. This is absolutely true...The real reason for these attacks and the burning of the cars, is that we're going to turn off the payments to illegals...I think this is the biggest voter fraud in the history of America by far. If the machine behind the Kamala puppet had won then they would have legalized all the illegals and there would be no swing states."

A customer received $100,000 from American Airlines after getting a ticket they bought for $1,000 refunded. //

The honest customer did not want to keep the money since it wasn't theirs. So the person dialled customer care at American Airlines and told them about the mistake. However, every agent insisted that the refund was perfectly correct. When that didn't work, the person wrote emails to the airline's Revenue Protection group and even put the matter on social media. But nothing worked. //

So the customer then filed a "dispute" about the refund with American Express. //

The refund was received on Feb 21, and the airline acknowledged that a mistake had happened days later. However, it still couldn't be fixed. The airline processed an adjustment on Feb 27, and to the shock of the passenger, charged them $28 million.

This spiralled into a whole other issue since American Express suspended their account due to “high credit exposure" on March 1. The person tried to get in touch with people at Amex but could not reach a person of authority outside of normal business hours. Others who were available at those hours did not have the authority to correct a $30 million error.

Finally, Amex acknowledged the multiple errors on March 3 and removed the $28 million charge the next day. Things didn't end there as the process of fixing the problem had led to $300,000 being refunded, besides currency conversion costs and losses of $75,000.

American Airlines and American Express have apologised for the error and offered an undisclosed amount as compensation to the passenger.

My crime: I had four kids, now growing into adults, and they are all wonderful. Truth be told, I hadn’t planned on four: we had two, a boy and girl, and life seemed perfect. But I wanted one more: I was one of three, and that seemed like a perfect number. Then we were blessed with twins, something that I never even considered, but which has turned out to be amazing.

The truth is, raising kids is God’s work, and there’s nothing like it that can bring meaning to your life—not career accomplishments, not money, not fame—only family. There are those out there on social media and the like claiming that they’re oh so happy with childless life—they’re able to travel!—but they just don’t understand what it means to raise a child. Meanwhile, call me when you’re 80 and need a helping hand—suddenly, your phone will grow silent. //

The left, in their insanity, has now made having multiple children a bad thing. This directly contradicts the order from the Bible, which commands: "Go forth and multiply." Not to mention Mother Nature, who says basically the same thing

To me, raising children has been the ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate joy. It certainly hasn't been easy; I can tell you that, but I can also argue that for America to return to prominence, we must acknowledge that children are our future.

Without them, humanity ceases to exist. //

anon-jzmf
4 hours ago
You do make sacrifices for your children. But it's not hard. It's easy to make those sacrifices because you love your kids so much that it's easier to give them what they need than it is to short-change them. //

St. Joseph, Terror of Demons
4 hours ago
Here’s where I am more conservative and traditional than even self-described conservative Republicans.

Once a woman has had a child, her primary function is to be at home raising her children. Certainly there are circumstances that require women to go back to work (e.g., the husband can’t work, is unemployed, or is no longer around).

However, the point of this life is not to strive to accumulate as much wealth, items, and comforts as possible, especially when you have a family. The point of this life is to know, love, and serve God, and to do everything that you can to get you and your family to Heaven. //

misterright St. Joseph, Terror of Demons
3 hours ago
When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, if your mom worked outside the home (as it was called back then) you were pitied. The notion of warehousing kids in daycare centers not only didn't exist, it was resisted because "that's what they do in the Soviet Union!" How far we've gone downhill in 60 years.

The Left argues that children who don't go to daycare are not properly socialized. My experience teaches me that children who are raised in daycare centers and spend time only with their age group in schools are not well socialized at all. I have never met such a child who could look you in the eye and carry on a conversation with adults. Children raised by their parents and especially if they have the blessing of growing up in close proximity to extended family are much better socialized and able to interact with others of all ages. Children of parents who, in addition to the above, are active in their church are even better socialized. In other words, the Left is absolutely wrong once again.

Marxists need to get their grip on children at an early age. The fact that stay-at-home moms are denigrated by the Left is not an accident. The fact that all daycare centers must be licensed (read: controlled) by the state and are thus turned into indoctrination centers is not an accident. The Left viewed the Soviet Union not as a cautionary tale, but as a model. If we don't drastically change course, our fate will be that of the Soviet Union. We need to start with families and education. //

7againstthebes
4 hours ago edited
The left, by their nature are anti-child. They are pro consumerism, pro hedonist, pro abortion, and pro drug and alcohol.

So, they are childless, materialistic, drug users and drunks. Welcome to your empty life.

As a country, we need to do more to encourage marriage and children. Some of that certainly pertains to an active faith in God as a society.

More than that, as a society we need to return to the traditional roles of society and the acknowledgement of the value added for each role. Further, those that are outside of those roles should be widely viewed as not as valuable to society.

The US tax code needs to be rewritten to substantially increase the child tax credit. To decrease the tax rate of married filing jointly. To offer more far reaching tax write-0ffs for child education costs, and daycare costs.

New civil laws that offer mortgage rate discounts for married couples. Civic planning that encourage and foster community planning that centers around children centric families.

These changes are a good way to start a focus on marriage and child rearing. Let the anti-child left be scorned and seen as valueless. Let their behavior be enough to mark them as useless to society. //

misterright 7againstthebes
3 hours ago
The family is the single most successful social unit in the history of civilization. For that reason, the Left cannot tolerate the existence of a society centered on strong nuclear families. Your comment that "society must be returned to traditional values that work to provide those goals and not against them" is spot on. Expect, however, that the Left will fight strenuously and with everything they've got to make sure that never happens.