He states the universe came from the vacuum and energy fluctuations within the vacuum. I don’t think that’s correct. To have the vacuum there needs to be spacetime. However, the Big Bang basically says it was spacetime itself which came from nothing. How that happened, I think, is an open question. The video is also out of date as it states the galaxies came from the irregularities we see in the microwave background…that is true. However, the Webb telescope is now throwing that nice model into disarray as it finds galaxies (and older generation stars) that should not be there in terms of age under the now old theory.
On politics:
Campus reform has a fantastic summary of the higher ed targeting in the BBB. As a former denizen of that now discredited institution of higher ed, the provisions in the BBB are very welcome, and will have a profound effect if implemented. I didn’t realize such reforms were even in the bill. However, I’m sure the schools are already gearing up their legal teams to fight every reform. If they don’t, it will mean a complete revision of higher ed.
yes but there had to be a pre existing driver, a Prime Mover as it some might call it,
where does space time arise out of, something that isn’t made clear it was a circular motion that expands it all direction, like a saucer, more like a bubble?
Atheism plus cosmology is a dead end. Big Bang is patent nonsense. Can’t get something out of nothing. There has to be a Creator.
The clips’s narrator is bald, with British accent, dressed all black, out on some moor. I guess that makes him credible. This clip cost money to make! Why make it?
Cicero – Do you know that “big bang” was an epithet meant to discredit the theory because it was proposed by a Catholic priest – Georges LeMaitre?
On the other side, the pope at the time wanted LeMaitre to promote the theory as proof of creation. LeMaitre counseled against that, arguing that the big bang theory was not complete and would likely be proven wrong someday. Smart man, that Georges LeMaitre.
At 52:05 in the video they show a map of the cosmic background radiation (CMB). One of my favorite physics history stories is the story of the two engineers at Bell Labs who built one of the most sensitive microwave antennas for the purpose of telecom and radio astronomy and accidentally discovered the CMB of the early big bang. And won the Noble prize for it.
They might have missed it entirely, except for the fact that they were quite “anal” about their measurements and kept trying to fix or understand the tiny residual noise level of their instrumentation. They figured that if they pointed their antenna towards a piece of empty outer space, they should measure that residual instrumentation noise, which should have been extremely low and wasn’t.
They spent many days looking at all of their electronics, and dirt on the surfaces of their antenna and everything imaginable, before considering the possibility that there might actually be EM noise coming from otherwise empty outer space.
primal explosion (which would be a great name for a band) might be more apt, I suppose an origin point, has to be pivotal
there is a certain prestige factor even if your content is absolutely bunkum see richard dawkins,for example but if your philosophy is at odds with some element of the wider culture,
Why is the BB “patent nonsense”. Do you have alternative theory for the cosmic microwave background and the observed expansion of the universe? If you don’t, then your statement is nonsense. I think you misunderstand the BB…it makes no claim as to how everything started, just that there was an initial very hot, dense, universe that expanded. How that initial state came into being is not addressed; though some try with no success. What is being called into question by Webb is the timeline and details of the expansion. Will Webb totally destroy the BB? Maybe. But its replacement still has to fit the observations.
I never cease to be amazed at the lengths people will go to in order to deny the existence of The Creator. They have concocted the looniest Rube Goldberg (anyone else remember that reference?) explanations in order to preserve their precious materialistic religion. They have no trouble conceding that the car they drive is designed and built rather than merely having fallen together out of an explosion in an auto parts store, but deny that the universe–the mostly exquisitely complicated and complex entity imaginable–simply came into being by accident. They deny the undeniable maxim that nihil ex nihilo and call it “science.” All in order to preserve their imaginary autonomy and avoid the consequences of their actions.
Ron DeSantis has proposed, for Elon Musk, a project better for the country and for Elon’s goals than trying to start a third party, which will end in electing Dems. He suggests Elon put his money into efforts to call a convention of the states to pass a balanced budget amendment and, perhaps, a term limits amendment.
For the more exotic (or esoteric), the Zohar has some ideas on the matter…
Kate, the problem with a convention of states is that there’s no limit to the amendments they can propose to the constitution. They may start with a balanced budget amendment and term limits, but end up with a socialist takeover of the country or an innocuous sounding nationwide majority president election. Each amendment requires approval by 3/4 of the states but the approval can be done by rump state conventions, forcibly instituted in each state by the left. IMO better the evil that we know than a potentially worse evil created.
Each amendment requires approval by 3/4 of the states but the approval can be done by rump state conventions, forcibly instituted in each state by the left. IMO better the evil that we know than a potentially worse evil created.
==
“The left” cannot force you to vote for their preferred delegates to a state convention.
yes don’t fix what isn’t broken, the bill of rights aren’t broken, only the judges and bureaucrats who interpret them, and you can’t send them back,
Re: physicsguy on July 8, 2025 at 10:11 am
Interesting changes at universities indeed. I recall that Obama changed the student lending landscape considerably. It used to be that qualified private lenders initiated loans and maintained them, with backing from the federal gov. when losses were incurred.
Under Obama’s reform, many (but not all) of these loans were initiated and maintained by the feds. Obama claimed that this would save the feds and students money, which was true, if all other things would stay equal. And of course, details would not stay equal. The big difference is that banks or other such lenders really care about losing money, and Democrat politicians don’t.
The instant I heard of this change, I knew that Dems would get around to loan forgiveness programs before too long.
A couple quotes from physicsguy’s link:
“We’re going to see huge growth of the private student-loan market as a result of this bill,” said Bryce McKibben,
– – – – –
University Endowments
The legislation imposes a new tiered federal tax on private university endowments, with rates as high as 8% for schools holding more than $2 million per student. The tiered system replaces the previous tax rate of 1.4%.
Ouch! That will sting for many of the uni’s.
A better project for Elon is to create the web of relationships. Which congress critter’s relations are working cush jobs in NGOs, media and the like, ID the corrupt spendaholics and primary them.
Bauxite and physicsguy-
Here is Wiki on the Big Bang:
“The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, and large-scale structure. The uniformity of the universe, known as the horizon and flatness problems, is explained through cosmic inflation: a phase of accelerated expansion during the earliest stages. Detailed measurements of the expansion rate of the universe place the Big Bang singularity at an estimated 13.787±0.02 billion years ago, which is considered the age of the universe. A wide range of empirical evidence strongly favors the Big Bang event, which is now widely accepted.”
The Big Bang is said to have come out of something infinitely dense (thus infinitely tiny?) and infinitely hot. My mind cannot grasp this construct.
Kate wrote “[DeSantis] suggests Elon put his money into efforts to call a convention of the states to pass a balanced budget amendment and, perhaps, a term limits amendment.”
Given the corruption of our society and political system, I wouldn’t trust our politicians to pull this off, without possibly disastrous unintended consequences. Years ago I emailed my congressman, a “blue state” Democrat, to advocate for a Convention of States, and he replied that he enthusiastically supported the idea.
Steve,
Please show where I said the universe came into existence by accident. If you read carefully I noted that science does not address the actual moment of the creation of the universe, just the aftermath. And yes, using the strong anthropic argument, the laws of physics seem to be exquisitely tuned to allow life.
I know another apparat, Schwab’s big shin dig isn’t sufficient, I know it’s rare for a Justice to step down, Abe Fortas was a rare example, and there is a host of reasons why this wouldn’t happen,
Cicero,
The BB is currently the best model that fits the observations. Is it right? Maybe, maybe not. That’s the fun of science. Now that Webb is poking holes, someone may come up with a better model that doesn’t involve a hot, dense, planck size initial state.
Just because The Convention of the States is in The Constitution doesn’t mean we actually ought to try and use it, because those liberals will get the best of us! It’s better to bitch and not do anything.(nope)
but where does the hot dense planck state come from
I agree it’s a reasonable hypothesis except for that detail
which amendment do we need to chain the 16th Amendment, possibly, but then
could come out of it, the 14th is already misinterpreted to serve the State’s functions,
I would prefer to see Elon put his money into promoting candidates for the House and Senate who put reducing federal spending as their first priority. A well-funded actually conservative senator to replace Thom Tillis, for instance, and some of the others in the House and Senate would be a big help. With a larger majority and fewer squishes, deficits could be reduced.
Also, I understand that the recission package is in jeopardy in the Senate, and maybe in the House. This is where the DOGE spending cuts can be passed into law. Everyone should be pressuring their senators and representatives to vote for these spending cuts.
A few days late, but worth reading as always.
The post ends with the text of the Declaration of Independence.
The final three paragraphs always make me tear up.
It’s OK to declare independence from the schemes of men to keep us in subjection.
That is the statement that comes to me as we celebrate America’s Independence Day on 4 July 2025. We are 249 years on from the original declaration, published on this day in 1776.
…
I think, in fact, that it is not only OK but necessary to declare independence: not as a contingent aspiration – as if it matters only because a particular king or other sovereign is a bad one – but as a matter of principle.
Something is always lurking around the corner to enslave us anew. So it’s important to keep alive within us the principled ideas of personal liberty and national liberty. We need to be organized in thought, as much as in political arrangements, to stand up to whatever seeks to enslave us: to trouble our house from within, and undermine and destroy us.
…
Arrangements that are effectively slavery persist today in every part of the world – but there is no attempt at mounting a moral or even pragmatic defense of slavery. Its existence is now consigned to official repudiation, even where it is unofficially tolerated in the darkness, in euphemism and excuses, outside the abrasive light of day.
That point, however, serves to set up the one I’m really going for today. The point is this: just as America was struggling to deliver a blow against slavery as an institution, a successor idea for justifying slavery was being born. That successor idea was Marxism, as brokered by Fredrich Engels and others who followed him into a scheme for political organization, and usurpation of the respected function of civic government.
The various versions of Marxism became, in politics, a new theocratic package, a demand to wield the power of collective dictatorship over everyone in society in service of a concept for moral expiation.
There’s no question that robbing all the humans of their exercise of independent discretion and will is at issue. It’s slavery we’re talking about. Collectivism under any name – communism, socialism, fascism – is an enterprise to enslave human beings.
…
As abolitionist sentiment was building in the United States after the Constitution was adopted, beginning its crescendo in the 1840s, just when Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels were writing the “moral” justification of a new excuse for slavery. In ingenious fashion, Engels and Marx didn’t call it that. The Communist Manifesto spoke instead of a proletariat “throwing off its chains,” and labeled “capitalists” in the industrial age as the slavers.
But collectivism is something that intends for almost everyone, except the privileged organizers, to end up in chains. An it is something no one chooses to be on the enchained end of. It has to be imposed by force, as the generic implementation of slavery must be.
…
For now, I propose that each one think his own thoughts about why slavery was being opposed and ultimately eliminated by the world’s upcoming superpower, at the same time radicals in Europe were dreaming up a new order of slavery and fanning the flames of “revolution” to open windows for it.
The important point for me, on our national Independence Day, is that adhering to the principles of liberty for and among free men and women will never go out of style. It will never be superfluous to refresh our understanding of why we do it, or renew our commitment. The world is always lying in wait to enslave, again, as many as it can.
In New York City in 2025, the “mainstream” Democratic Party is apparently about to run a coercive collectivist, Zohran Mamdani, as its candidate for mayor. Mamdani has spoken, literally and unapologetically, of obtaining privately-owned residential property in order to do away with private ownership and turn the structures in question into socialized public housing. This was a key measure for the communists who took over Russia in the 1917 revolution.
…
Building the dependent class of residents who would inhabit such socialized housing is about creating a new set of slaves. Gradually, everyone who can’t escape would be sucked into it. So in 2025, we are 162 years on from Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, and one of the two major political parties from 1863 is running a candidate who wants to bring back slavery: of everyone in NYC to collectivist agencies that would control how people are to live, as restrictively and arbitrarily as ever under previous methods of slavery.
It matters, and matters very much, whether we are paying attention to the purpose, benefits, and preservation of liberty. There is always a fresh attack coming against it.
Herewith, then, the annual TOC presentation of the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
…
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
they have been coasting on a certain reputation for forty or fifty years,
the iraq invasion allowed them to gain regional autonomy in the oil rich north,
for a time, and they may hold on,
a plurality of the Democrats do not believe in the same things we subscribe to, something as freedom of speech on certain topics but not others,
in power, they seek to proscribe the opposition, Delta House January 6th served as a good enough pretext as any, and they had the command staff of the military and the security services,
if their had been an actual insurrection among a certain cohort, they might have been tempted to
try to physically crush them
The Founders of the American Republic did everything possible to avoid violent separation from their British compatriots.
It’s beginning to look like the Democrats want to accelerate the separation from their fellow American citizens, sometimes as violently as possible.
A few posts, all from Jonathan Turley, on current events supporting that assertion.
And this is by a single writer (by no means a radical conservative MAGA Trumper, or any of those terms individually) in just the four days since Independence Day.
You ever want to get spending down you need Line Item Veto in the Executive Branch.
60 vote in the Senate to overrule and they must vote on each line item separately to overrule that part if the president uses line item veto.
President Trump Cabinet Meeting – Full Video July 8, 2025
I think it would be agreeable if Elon took to recruiting candidate of his kidney and worked to finance primaries to knock out the McConnell-types.
Haven’t seen anyone talking about the recent Epstein “client list” news yet. I’d like to credit neo with prodding me to change my thinking. Much of what I thought I knew was just impressions from tabloid-style coverage, and the more I’ve been digging in, the more wrong I have found those impressions to be.
The Democratic Party beef regarding Trump and that old-fashioned, retrograde Constitution he and his degenerate ilk keep referring to…
…SHORT VERSION:
The Diabolical Trump and that DAMNED document PATHETICALLY known as “The Constitution”, behind which Trump and his FASCIST supporters SO COWARDLY and DESPERATELY—AND ILLEGALLY—hide…are DENYING US OUR LIBERTY AND INALIENABLE RIGHT TO DESTROY THIS GROTESQUELY IMPERFECT COUNTRY….
This, by the way, is precisely why KJT, in spite of not knowing how to define “woman” knows exceedingly well just what her role is in the Democratic Party juggernaught, will never step down from her prestigious position from which she intends to hollow out the country from the inside.
Oops, “KJT” should be “KBJ”…
In spite of everything, the Epstein affair continues to be one huge unholy mess…and will likely NOT go away…unless—UNLESS WHAT??
As to “There needs to be Blood,” it has for some time seemed to me the States are no longer United. And have not been.
There is a slow, massive demographic shift underway, manifest in regional politcal and cultural differences. Mamdani is NOT in Houston, DFW, El Paso, Albuquerque, OK City, etc., etc. The South shall rise again! Has risen !!
And then there’s this Declaration of Incontinence—just another desperate, hysterical Democratic Party THREAT to “save Democracy”.
“The left” cannot force you to vote for their preferred delegates to a state convention.
— Art Deco
Who is ‘you’? If a constitutional convention is called, there’s absolutely no guarantee that the delegates to the amending convention will be popularly elected, nor the delegates to the ratifying conventions.
If the delegates to the amending convention are chosen by the State Legislatures, which is highly probable, then partisan elected officials will be choosing them and for the most part will follow the dictates of the national party leadership. So those States currently with Democrat-majority assemblies will have their delegates chosen, in effect, by Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Barak Obama, etc.
The GOP is not nearly as ideologically unified as the Dems. The libertarians will be eager to write Ayn Rand into the Constitution. The business wing will want to lock in free trade and open borders, and guess what? So do the Democrats.
So there’s a non-trivial chance that the business wing GOP delegates will team up with the Democrat delegates to do what they’ve been doing de facto since the Clinton Administration: the GOP business wing gets free trade and open borders immigration, the Dems get their social agenda and open borders immigration. That ‘deal’ has been the foundation of our politics for thirty years, up until Trump. Big swaths of the GOP and the vast majority of the Dem apparatchiks want desperately to get back to it.
A Constitutional Convention is a dangerous roll of the dice, unless we can force both the amending convention delegates, and the ratifying convention delegates (if any, Congress could choose the traditional State Legislature means of ratification) to be popularly elected, we’d be entrusting the whole process in effect to the Establishment.
Just because The Convention of the States is in The Constitution doesn’t mean we actually ought to try and use it, because those liberals will get the best of us! It’s better to bitch and not do anything.(nope)
— om
No, we should do what we’ve been doing, and what is slowly working: retail politics. Grind out one win after another, day in day out. It’s a hard slog, but it’s working. Compared to where we were in 2015, we’ve made enormous progress.
Doubly so when you consider that where we are now in 2025 should be compared not just to where we were in 2015, but where we would have been by now if things had kept going on their former track.
A Constitutional Convention is a shortcut. It’s an attempt to bypass that hard slog and win all at once, and odds are good it would hand a huge victory to the Left when all is said and done. The terrain would simply favor that outcome.
And even if we got the amendments we wanted, we’d still have to do the hard slog to put judges and politicians in place who would actually interpret them accurately and enforce them! So, the shortcut doesn’t help us even if it worked.
Re: convention of states
Wow, lots of interesting thoughts on it!
HC68, thanks for elucidating some big risks
I was on the fence, because it’s such an obviously lengthy way to attempt any improvements (– since ratification would be a bitch in such a divided country.)
But now, the risks seem to outweigh even that concern.
…
Kate– recession bills:
“Everyone should be pressuring their senators and representatives to vote for these spending cuts.”
Indeed! Schumer & the other lying, drama queens took no time to gear up their hateful fear mongering.
They never need to refuel, do they?!
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On the video:
He states the universe came from the vacuum and energy fluctuations within the vacuum. I don’t think that’s correct. To have the vacuum there needs to be spacetime. However, the Big Bang basically says it was spacetime itself which came from nothing. How that happened, I think, is an open question. The video is also out of date as it states the galaxies came from the irregularities we see in the microwave background…that is true. However, the Webb telescope is now throwing that nice model into disarray as it finds galaxies (and older generation stars) that should not be there in terms of age under the now old theory.
On politics:
Campus reform has a fantastic summary of the higher ed targeting in the BBB. As a former denizen of that now discredited institution of higher ed, the provisions in the BBB are very welcome, and will have a profound effect if implemented. I didn’t realize such reforms were even in the bill. However, I’m sure the schools are already gearing up their legal teams to fight every reform. If they don’t, it will mean a complete revision of higher ed.
https://www.campusreform.org/article/trumps-big-beautiful-bill-overhauls-student-loans-introduces-higher-ed-reforms/28175
yes but there had to be a pre existing driver, a Prime Mover as it some might call it,
where does space time arise out of, something that isn’t made clear it was a circular motion that expands it all direction, like a saucer, more like a bubble?
Atheism plus cosmology is a dead end. Big Bang is patent nonsense. Can’t get something out of nothing. There has to be a Creator.
The clips’s narrator is bald, with British accent, dressed all black, out on some moor. I guess that makes him credible. This clip cost money to make! Why make it?
Cicero – Do you know that “big bang” was an epithet meant to discredit the theory because it was proposed by a Catholic priest – Georges LeMaitre?
On the other side, the pope at the time wanted LeMaitre to promote the theory as proof of creation. LeMaitre counseled against that, arguing that the big bang theory was not complete and would likely be proven wrong someday. Smart man, that Georges LeMaitre.
At 52:05 in the video they show a map of the cosmic background radiation (CMB). One of my favorite physics history stories is the story of the two engineers at Bell Labs who built one of the most sensitive microwave antennas for the purpose of telecom and radio astronomy and accidentally discovered the CMB of the early big bang. And won the Noble prize for it.
They might have missed it entirely, except for the fact that they were quite “anal” about their measurements and kept trying to fix or understand the tiny residual noise level of their instrumentation. They figured that if they pointed their antenna towards a piece of empty outer space, they should measure that residual instrumentation noise, which should have been extremely low and wasn’t.
They spent many days looking at all of their electronics, and dirt on the surfaces of their antenna and everything imaginable, before considering the possibility that there might actually be EM noise coming from otherwise empty outer space.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background#/media/File:Horn_Antenna-in_Holmdel,_New_Jersey_-_restoration1.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background#History
primal explosion (which would be a great name for a band) might be more apt, I suppose an origin point, has to be pivotal
there is a certain prestige factor even if your content is absolutely bunkum see richard dawkins,for example but if your philosophy is at odds with some element of the wider culture,
https://twitchy.com/samj/2025/07/08/abc-detainees-n2415360
Cicero,
Why is the BB “patent nonsense”. Do you have alternative theory for the cosmic microwave background and the observed expansion of the universe? If you don’t, then your statement is nonsense. I think you misunderstand the BB…it makes no claim as to how everything started, just that there was an initial very hot, dense, universe that expanded. How that initial state came into being is not addressed; though some try with no success. What is being called into question by Webb is the timeline and details of the expansion. Will Webb totally destroy the BB? Maybe. But its replacement still has to fit the observations.
I never cease to be amazed at the lengths people will go to in order to deny the existence of The Creator. They have concocted the looniest Rube Goldberg (anyone else remember that reference?) explanations in order to preserve their precious materialistic religion. They have no trouble conceding that the car they drive is designed and built rather than merely having fallen together out of an explosion in an auto parts store, but deny that the universe–the mostly exquisitely complicated and complex entity imaginable–simply came into being by accident. They deny the undeniable maxim that nihil ex nihilo and call it “science.” All in order to preserve their imaginary autonomy and avoid the consequences of their actions.
Ron DeSantis has proposed, for Elon Musk, a project better for the country and for Elon’s goals than trying to start a third party, which will end in electing Dems. He suggests Elon put his money into efforts to call a convention of the states to pass a balanced budget amendment and, perhaps, a term limits amendment.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/dmitri-bolt/2025/07/08/desantis-gives-elon-musk-an-suggestion-n2660047
Not according to King Lear.
(OTOH, his track record wasn’t exactly stellar…)
For the more exotic (or esoteric), the Zohar has some ideas on the matter…
Kate, the problem with a convention of states is that there’s no limit to the amendments they can propose to the constitution. They may start with a balanced budget amendment and term limits, but end up with a socialist takeover of the country or an innocuous sounding nationwide majority president election. Each amendment requires approval by 3/4 of the states but the approval can be done by rump state conventions, forcibly instituted in each state by the left. IMO better the evil that we know than a potentially worse evil created.
Each amendment requires approval by 3/4 of the states but the approval can be done by rump state conventions, forcibly instituted in each state by the left. IMO better the evil that we know than a potentially worse evil created.
==
“The left” cannot force you to vote for their preferred delegates to a state convention.
yes don’t fix what isn’t broken, the bill of rights aren’t broken, only the judges and bureaucrats who interpret them, and you can’t send them back,
Re: physicsguy on July 8, 2025 at 10:11 am
Interesting changes at universities indeed. I recall that Obama changed the student lending landscape considerably. It used to be that qualified private lenders initiated loans and maintained them, with backing from the federal gov. when losses were incurred.
Under Obama’s reform, many (but not all) of these loans were initiated and maintained by the feds. Obama claimed that this would save the feds and students money, which was true, if all other things would stay equal. And of course, details would not stay equal. The big difference is that banks or other such lenders really care about losing money, and Democrat politicians don’t.
The instant I heard of this change, I knew that Dems would get around to loan forgiveness programs before too long.
A couple quotes from physicsguy’s link:
“We’re going to see huge growth of the private student-loan market as a result of this bill,” said Bryce McKibben,
– – – – –
University Endowments
The legislation imposes a new tiered federal tax on private university endowments, with rates as high as 8% for schools holding more than $2 million per student. The tiered system replaces the previous tax rate of 1.4%.
Ouch! That will sting for many of the uni’s.
A better project for Elon is to create the web of relationships. Which congress critter’s relations are working cush jobs in NGOs, media and the like, ID the corrupt spendaholics and primary them.
Bauxite and physicsguy-
Here is Wiki on the Big Bang:
“The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, and large-scale structure. The uniformity of the universe, known as the horizon and flatness problems, is explained through cosmic inflation: a phase of accelerated expansion during the earliest stages. Detailed measurements of the expansion rate of the universe place the Big Bang singularity at an estimated 13.787±0.02 billion years ago, which is considered the age of the universe. A wide range of empirical evidence strongly favors the Big Bang event, which is now widely accepted.”
The Big Bang is said to have come out of something infinitely dense (thus infinitely tiny?) and infinitely hot. My mind cannot grasp this construct.
Kate wrote “[DeSantis] suggests Elon put his money into efforts to call a convention of the states to pass a balanced budget amendment and, perhaps, a term limits amendment.”
Given the corruption of our society and political system, I wouldn’t trust our politicians to pull this off, without possibly disastrous unintended consequences. Years ago I emailed my congressman, a “blue state” Democrat, to advocate for a Convention of States, and he replied that he enthusiastically supported the idea.
Steve,
Please show where I said the universe came into existence by accident. If you read carefully I noted that science does not address the actual moment of the creation of the universe, just the aftermath. And yes, using the strong anthropic argument, the laws of physics seem to be exquisitely tuned to allow life.
speaking of matter from nothingless,
https://x.com/julie_kelly2/status/1942660541002006980
I know another apparat, Schwab’s big shin dig isn’t sufficient, I know it’s rare for a Justice to step down, Abe Fortas was a rare example, and there is a host of reasons why this wouldn’t happen,
Cicero,
The BB is currently the best model that fits the observations. Is it right? Maybe, maybe not. That’s the fun of science. Now that Webb is poking holes, someone may come up with a better model that doesn’t involve a hot, dense, planck size initial state.
Just because The Convention of the States is in The Constitution doesn’t mean we actually ought to try and use it, because those liberals will get the best of us! It’s better to bitch and not do anything.(nope)
but where does the hot dense planck state come from
https://twitchy.com/amy-curtis/2025/07/08/bill-melugin-man-threatened-to-murder-ice-agent-and-his-children-n2415383
what is the catalyst, to this whole process,
I agree it’s a reasonable hypothesis except for that detail
which amendment do we need to chain the 16th Amendment, possibly, but then
could come out of it, the 14th is already misinterpreted to serve the State’s functions,
I would prefer to see Elon put his money into promoting candidates for the House and Senate who put reducing federal spending as their first priority. A well-funded actually conservative senator to replace Thom Tillis, for instance, and some of the others in the House and Senate would be a big help. With a larger majority and fewer squishes, deficits could be reduced.
Also, I understand that the recission package is in jeopardy in the Senate, and maybe in the House. This is where the DOGE spending cuts can be passed into law. Everyone should be pressuring their senators and representatives to vote for these spending cuts.
A few days late, but worth reading as always.
The post ends with the text of the Declaration of Independence.
The final three paragraphs always make me tear up.
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2025/07/04/independence-day-4-july-2025-refreshing-the-commitment-to-liberty/
hmm
https://x.com/Osint613/status/1942673207095443622‘
they have been coasting on a certain reputation for forty or fifty years,
the iraq invasion allowed them to gain regional autonomy in the oil rich north,
for a time, and they may hold on,
a plurality of the Democrats do not believe in the same things we subscribe to, something as freedom of speech on certain topics but not others,
in power, they seek to proscribe the opposition, Delta House January 6th served as a good enough pretext as any, and they had the command staff of the military and the security services,
if their had been an actual insurrection among a certain cohort, they might have been tempted to
try to physically crush them
The Founders of the American Republic did everything possible to avoid violent separation from their British compatriots.
It’s beginning to look like the Democrats want to accelerate the separation from their fellow American citizens, sometimes as violently as possible.
A few posts, all from Jonathan Turley, on current events supporting that assertion.
And this is by a single writer (by no means a radical conservative MAGA Trumper, or any of those terms individually) in just the four days since Independence Day.
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/07/02/the-end-goal-of-seizing-the-means-of-production-yup-mamdani-is-a-hardcore-marxist/
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/07/04/did-jesus-pack-hit-maine-college-professor-accused-of-mocking-and-abusing-religious-student-over-gun-rights/
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/07/04/justice-kagan-joins-colleagues-in-rebuking-liberal-boston-judge-over-his-defiance-of-the-court/
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/07/05/smithsonian-institution-under-fire-for-political-and-social-commentary-in-american-pop-exhibit/
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/07/07/never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste-press-and-pundits-push-false-story-on-trump-cuts-causing-texas-tragedy/
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/07/07/hit-us-please-americas-left-issues-a-broken-arrow-signal-to-europe/
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/07/08/have-you-tried-gasoline-democrats-admit-followers-are-embracing-violent-rhetoric/
You ever want to get spending down you need Line Item Veto in the Executive Branch.
60 vote in the Senate to overrule and they must vote on each line item separately to overrule that part if the president uses line item veto.
President Trump Cabinet Meeting – Full Video July 8, 2025
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2025/07/president-trump-cabinet-meeting-full.html
I think it would be agreeable if Elon took to recruiting candidate of his kidney and worked to finance primaries to knock out the McConnell-types.
Haven’t seen anyone talking about the recent Epstein “client list” news yet. I’d like to credit neo with prodding me to change my thinking. Much of what I thought I knew was just impressions from tabloid-style coverage, and the more I’ve been digging in, the more wrong I have found those impressions to be.
The Democratic Party beef regarding Trump and that old-fashioned, retrograde Constitution he and his degenerate ilk keep referring to…
…SHORT VERSION:
The Diabolical Trump and that DAMNED document PATHETICALLY known as “The Constitution”, behind which Trump and his FASCIST supporters SO COWARDLY and DESPERATELY—AND ILLEGALLY—hide…are DENYING US OUR LIBERTY AND INALIENABLE RIGHT TO DESTROY THIS GROTESQUELY IMPERFECT COUNTRY….
This, by the way, is precisely why KJT, in spite of not knowing how to define “woman” knows exceedingly well just what her role is in the Democratic Party juggernaught, will never step down from her prestigious position from which she intends to hollow out the country from the inside.
Oops, “KJT” should be “KBJ”…
In spite of everything, the Epstein affair continues to be one huge unholy mess…and will likely NOT go away…unless—UNLESS WHAT??
Compare and contrast:
1 – Michael Shellenberger
https://tinyurl.com/49enxzay
H/T Blazingcatfur blog.
2 – “There Needs To Be Blood”: Democrat Lawmakers Say Their Base Is ‘Preparing For Violence’
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/there-needs-be-blood-democrat-lawmakers-say-their-base-preparing-violence
As to “There needs to be Blood,” it has for some time seemed to me the States are no longer United. And have not been.
There is a slow, massive demographic shift underway, manifest in regional politcal and cultural differences. Mamdani is NOT in Houston, DFW, El Paso, Albuquerque, OK City, etc., etc. The South shall rise again! Has risen !!
And then there’s this Declaration of Incontinence—just another desperate, hysterical Democratic Party THREAT to “save Democracy”.
“Democracy Experts Scorned By Trump Are Plotting To Sabotage Democracy”—
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2025/07/08/democracy-experts-scorned-by-trump-are-plotting-to-sabotage-democracy/
— Art Deco
Who is ‘you’? If a constitutional convention is called, there’s absolutely no guarantee that the delegates to the amending convention will be popularly elected, nor the delegates to the ratifying conventions.
If the delegates to the amending convention are chosen by the State Legislatures, which is highly probable, then partisan elected officials will be choosing them and for the most part will follow the dictates of the national party leadership. So those States currently with Democrat-majority assemblies will have their delegates chosen, in effect, by Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Barak Obama, etc.
The GOP is not nearly as ideologically unified as the Dems. The libertarians will be eager to write Ayn Rand into the Constitution. The business wing will want to lock in free trade and open borders, and guess what? So do the Democrats.
So there’s a non-trivial chance that the business wing GOP delegates will team up with the Democrat delegates to do what they’ve been doing de facto since the Clinton Administration: the GOP business wing gets free trade and open borders immigration, the Dems get their social agenda and open borders immigration. That ‘deal’ has been the foundation of our politics for thirty years, up until Trump. Big swaths of the GOP and the vast majority of the Dem apparatchiks want desperately to get back to it.
A Constitutional Convention is a dangerous roll of the dice, unless we can force both the amending convention delegates, and the ratifying convention delegates (if any, Congress could choose the traditional State Legislature means of ratification) to be popularly elected, we’d be entrusting the whole process in effect to the Establishment.
— om
No, we should do what we’ve been doing, and what is slowly working: retail politics. Grind out one win after another, day in day out. It’s a hard slog, but it’s working. Compared to where we were in 2015, we’ve made enormous progress.
Doubly so when you consider that where we are now in 2025 should be compared not just to where we were in 2015, but where we would have been by now if things had kept going on their former track.
A Constitutional Convention is a shortcut. It’s an attempt to bypass that hard slog and win all at once, and odds are good it would hand a huge victory to the Left when all is said and done. The terrain would simply favor that outcome.
And even if we got the amendments we wanted, we’d still have to do the hard slog to put judges and politicians in place who would actually interpret them accurately and enforce them! So, the shortcut doesn’t help us even if it worked.
Re: convention of states
Wow, lots of interesting thoughts on it!
HC68, thanks for elucidating some big risks
I was on the fence, because it’s such an obviously lengthy way to attempt any improvements (– since ratification would be a bitch in such a divided country.)
But now, the risks seem to outweigh even that concern.
…
Kate– recession bills:
“Everyone should be pressuring their senators and representatives to vote for these spending cuts.”
Indeed! Schumer & the other lying, drama queens took no time to gear up their hateful fear mongering.
They never need to refuel, do they?!