Can We Handle the Truth?

The mark of a true thinker is the willingness to allow information that is contrary to their perception of incomplete and unknown situations to become useful in the intellectual mechanism of how they draw their final conclusions.  Ignoring certain events and facts in order to avoid challenging a narrative plausible only when conceived in their absence veers away from the truth.

The recent events involving missile attacks and scores of killings of alleged drug traffickers in international waters is a great example of the intellectual schism confused as a Right- v -Left issue when it is not that at all.  Strip away the narratives, official statements, opinions and take no position other than an investigative one and then consider the facts.

The public is treated to an aerial screen-shot of a high-speed boat, we’re told somewhere in the Caribbean, just too grainy to identify cargo or faces, carrying drugs we’re told, bound for the US.  Seconds later a flash, fireball and smoke are all that is left.  Clearly those on board are killed and whatever was the cargo is destroyed.  As of this writing, this has happened 22-times with 80 dead, according to the US government.

With the intelligence apparatus of the US military, we are told these boats are full of drugs and we obviously know their location, so given the capabilities of our naval powers, why aren’t we interdicting these boats?  The President simply declaring groups “terrorists” does not permit murder on the open sea.  The Caribbean is not a war-zone and the people piloting these boats are low-level actors, perhaps forced into compliance for fear of death or family suffering.  Those we kill might well be innocent victims.  How do we actually know what is on-board these boats?  They tell us drugs, but are we supposed to simply take their word for it?  There is no proof that the boats are in the Caribbean, or that the bombings happen at all.  Is it really so far-fetched to consider that the whole show is just that, a show?  Just to be clear, I don’t actually believe the whole thing is staged, but we ought to be skeptical.  I do believe the US military has carried out these strikes, but I’m making the point that we all see these snippets of violence and death and we react not with any pity for the dead or dying, but almost like we are winning some real-time video game and because we are making the world a better place, it matters little our methods or tactics.

Conservative television outlets continue to show viewers thousands of times these awful images of human death and destruction.  It is meant to harden us, to justify this by repeating the narrative of the number of drug-deaths in the US but again, where is the proof?  Everything and everyone is conveniently blown into oblivion.  And again, I’m not suggesting some extensive conspiracy here I’m well aware of the drug traffic problems, but it seems that this exercise in getting the public to approve of what is really extra-judicial murder is OK when done in order to save American drug-users.

Unfortunately for the government, the blow-up-the-boats imagery of September 2nd didn’t fit so neatly into the video-game like finish.  After the smoke cleared, it appeared that 2-men were clinging to wreckage.  A second missile strike took care of that but here is where it breaks free from the other neater and more final versions.  Clearly, 2-men were targeted to die and the imagery, formerly akin to a video game became a snuff-film that jolted Americans back to reality.

No one wanted their fingerprints on this one and so conveniently, the US Navy Admiral in charge of this particular section of the world says it was all him and then quickly retires.  The public is promised publication of those videos, but they never come, relying on the strong undercurrents of the news-cycle pressure to sweep it into vague memory.

So with this unprecedented hard-line on alleged drug boats justifying public pay-per-view instant death without proof, force of law or trial, how can we juxtapose Trump’s sudden pardon of former Honduran President Hernandez?  This thug was essentially the King Pin of a narco-state who was arrested, tried and convicted.  His power makes these drug boats inconsequential by comparison yet he walks away from a 45-year prison term, inexplicably, while we slaughter nameless and faceless strangers in the name of justice? Perhaps Trump is using the public execution of all of societies “bad-guys” as a pretext to invade Venezuela, oust President Maduro and exchange our nation-building largess for our own oil supply, justified by the promise to liberate the Venezuelan people from the evils of one man to the evils of another.  This nicely avoids all of the domestic environmental concerns and creates a literal pipe-line of oil to the US, all under the guise of protecting our citizens from drugs, freeing Venezuelans and ousting bad leaders, with the uncomfortable exception of Hernandez, who’s value is entirely entangled in his insider knowledge of the South American drug world, all entangled up in a pretty package of competing interests and the reality of a world in the troughs of an existential crisis of character as the Lord looks upon us and weeps.

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Liberal V. conservative

Kilmar Abrago Garcia was deported mistakenly by the Trump administration, an “administrative error” that has ignited a fierce debate. As a staunch conservative, I believe my side has this one wrong, and here’s why.

The mistake is reversible.  This is really all we need to know.  With a phone call, President Trump could have Garcia back on US soil in hours.  If you doubt the president’s ability to act swiftly, consider the executive branch’s recent displays of broad authority and Trump’s propensity to conspicuously display his power.

Despite the administration’s admission of error, Garcia’s detractors justify his deportation by pointing to these unproven allegations:

  1. Garcia is alleged to be a gang member, but without proof or arrest.
  2. He was accused of domestic violence yet his wife defends him and he was never charged or arrested.
  3. Garcia’s detractors point to an incident where he was driving 8-men from Tennessee to Maryland, accusing him of human trafficking.  He explained to Tennessee State police during a traffic stop that he was transporting the men for a construction job and he was allowed to continue and no arrests were made.
  4. Allegations of tattoos on Garcia’s hands indicating MS-13 gang membership have been widely debunked as digitally manipulated. 

Tampering with evidence regarding Garcia’s alleged tattoos is a federal felony, apparently perpetrated by our own government.  This alone should scare the hell out of every American.  The desperate need for the government to resort to such tactics demonstrates their lack of factual evidence.

Garcia has been in this country since 2011 and although he did enter illegally as a sixteen-year-old fearing for his life had he remained in El Salvador, a federal judge granted a “withholding of removal” order which allows him to live and work in the US legally.  To that effect, he has continually met his obligation to report to Immigration & Customs Enforcement annually.  Garcia is married to a US citizen and together they have three-children, all with special needs.  He is also a journeymen member of a US trade union.

He might hate apple pie and the forth of July but none of that matters to the issue at hand.  The man was illegally seized, deported and imprisoned and those on the right are inflaming the situation by fear-mongering with phrases like “MS-13”, “human-trafficker”, “domestic abuser” and “gang-member”, all unproven and unsubstantiated allegations that are dog-whistle code-speech meant to indict by vilification in the court of public opinion.

In an April 10, 2025 unanimous order of the US Supreme Court in Noem v. Garcia the justices said this, in part, regarding the return of Garcia to the US:

“The Government now requests an order from this Court permitting it to leave Abrego Garcia, a husband and father without a criminal record, in a Salvadoran prison for no reason recognized by the law.  The only argument the Government offers in support of its request, that United States courts cannot grant relief once a deportee crosses the border, is plainly wrong.  The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.  That view refutes itself.”

Those of us on the right pride ourselves on being a “Nation of Laws” however, conservative consensus on this matter suggests otherwise and instead demonstrates the unreasonable concept of the ends justifying the means.  I understand the desire for strict immigration enforcement, especially amid concerns about crime, but Garcia’s case shows how overreach undermines the commitment to due process.  Conservatives pride ourselves on actually defending the rule of law. Let’s demonstrate that by bringing Garcia back, giving him his day in court, and showing the world that our principles aren’t just words. If we can’t admit when we’re wrong, what separates us from the hypocrisy we so often criticize about the left?

The liberals got this one right and as uncharacteristic as it would be for a liberal ever to admit a mistake and side with us conservatives, we can and must admit when we are wrong.  And if ever there was an example to illustrate that, this is it. 

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A Letter to the President

March 24, 2025

Mr. President:

You are the most transformational president in my lifetime.  I believe God put you here for what may be one day defined as Manifest Destiny 2.0.  That said, you are mortal and men make mistakes; the hardest of which to admit are those made pursuing righteousness.

Illegal immigration coupled with evil intent and ingratitude insult and sully America’s character.  Confusing our kindness for weakness is a condition you fully understand and clearly detest.  Being taken advantage of is the greatest injustice and your job is to recognize it while protecting our great nation.

Many foreign countries betrayed the U.S. by allowing and even encouraging their worst citizens to crash our borders.  Millions have entered unlawfully and a small subset of those form a microcosm of what defines biblical-level evil.  It is righteous to eradicate that group from our midst, not with national fervor or inflaming over-arching fear, but with the system of justice our nation was formed upon.

Mr. President, the world watches and learns from what we do.  When in our history have we sent hundreds of detainees to a notorious foreign prison, without specific charges and before legal hearings in U.S. court rooms?  Doing so seems overtly punitive and retaliatory when simply deporting them to their home countries will accomplish the same goal of protecting America with little to no legitimate criticism.

And separately but simultaneously, as middle-east tensions rose and Columbia University became the epicenter of collegiate protests and student Mahmoud Khalil the face of that controversy, government reaction again seemed over-reaching.  Detaining a political prisoner thousands of miles from their home and family seems retaliatory and mean-spirited, depriving the man of effective counsel and also preventing him access to his wife, about to give birth.  No defensible rationale has been offered about the choice of Louisiana for Kahlil’s detention.

Mr. President, I’m an ardent supporter but not a sycophant.  Getting 90% of policy matters right does nothing to excuse the damage done by the extra-jurisdictional means afforded the remaining 10%.

Mr. President, I believe your intentions are just but you will not be judged by those intentions, you will be judged by the righteousness of those acts.  This can be remedied, if seen through the eyes of a humble man.

Kind Regards,

Bob Kingsley

A conventional letter was mailed to the President today

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AI analysis of the last two article…

After all the back-and-forth with readers about my last two articles, I put all of it including the articles and all reader sesponses into a single document and fed it to Grok.com, the latest IA tool courtesy of Elon Musk. Here is the result.

This is what I said to Grok:

Here below are two article I wrote and the back and forth from them both. What are your
thoughts? I’m a strong Conservative but I won’t go the lawlessness route. Here it is.

This is the response from Grok:


Your articles and the subsequent exchanges reflect a principled stance rooted in a
commitment to the rule of law, even when it conflicts with the visceral satisfaction of
seeing certain individuals—namely Tren De Aragua gang members and Mahmoud
Khalil—dealt with swiftly and decisively. As a self-described strong conservative, you’re
wrestling with a tension that’s not uncommon: the desire for justice versus the
mechanisms by which it’s achieved. Your critique focuses on process over outcome,
which is a refreshing departure from the emotionally charged rhetoric that often
dominates these debates.
In your first article (“I’m Conservative, but…”), you question the methods used to deport
the gang members and Khalil, pointing to the revival of an obscure 1790s statute and the
apparent disregard for a federal judge’s order. You argue that legality should stand apart
from public sentiment about the individuals involved—a gang notorious for its violence
and a student whose anti-American views grate on many. Your point about not bending
the law to fit our disdain for certain people is sharp: “We can’t stand against the things
that insult our values by holding our nose and doing just that.” It’s a call for consistency,
which is tough to maintain when emotions run high, as they clearly do here.
The second article (“Conservative but… Part II”) digs deeper, raising practical and ethical
questions: Why send prisoners to a third-world country? Why televise their humiliation?
Why move Khalil to Louisiana, away from his pregnant wife and legal counsel? You
frame these as retaliatory moves, not lawful ones, and tie it to a broader concern about
America’s moral credibility. The line about wondering “how someone gets radicalized” is
particularly striking—it suggests that heavy-handed tactics might fuel the very problems
they aim to solve.
The pushback from commenters is telling. BADMOON49 aligns with your defense of
principle over expediency, echoing the classic “I disagree but defend your right to say it”
line. CWATTERS113, claiming constitutional expertise, asserts the judge has no power
over the executive—a point you dismantle with a thorough rundown of judicial checks on
executive authority, from Marbury v. Madison to Nixon’s tapes. Your response is
methodical, grounded in precedent, and avoids the personal attacks you later decry.
DENNIS HANNON takes a harder line, defending the president’s authority and
dismissing the judge as biased based on family donations and his daughter’s work. He
sees the 1798 law as fair game and the judiciary as a leftist roadblock. Your rebuttal here
is measured but firm: you acknowledge the statute’s age isn’t the issue, but its rare use
hints at desperation. More importantly, you push back on the ad hominem attacks against
the judge, advocating for appeals over character assassination. The warning about
“accusatory and inflammatory language” unless provable is a standout—it’s a plea for
evidence over outrage, which feels rare in today’s discourse.
My thoughts? You’re navigating a tricky line with integrity. You’re not excusing the
gang or Khalil; you’re just insisting that how we handle them matters more than the
immediate gratification of their removal. That’s a tough sell when people are scared or
angry, but it’s a defensible conservative position—law and order aren’t just about
outcomes, they’re about process. Your frustration with fellow conservatives letting
emotion trump reason mirrors your critique of liberals in the past, which adds credibility
to your argument. It’s not hypocrisy you’re after; it’s coherence.
The risk here is that your nuance might get drowned out by the louder, angrier voices—
like HANNON’s—who see this as a last stand against national decline. But your focus on
appeals and judicial review over knee-jerk accusations keeps you on solid ground. If
there’s a weak spot, it’s that you don’t fully engage with the counterargument that
extraordinary threats (like Tren De Aragua) might justify extraordinary measures. That
could be worth exploring, even if just to refute it more explicitly.
Overall, your stance is principled, not partisan, and that’s what makes it compelling.
You’re asking conservatives to live up to their own standards, not just point fingers at
liberals. It’s a lonely hill to stand on, but it’s a respectable one.

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I’m Conservative but… Part II

If you’re still in doubt or even have overt disagreement with me concerning my sentiments about how our government “deported” the Tren De Aragua gang-members, ask yourself this:

  • When was the last time the US “farmed out” the detention of prisoners to a 3rd world country?
  • When was the last time we showcased the demeaning and head-shaving of prisoners on national TV?
  • How can defense lawyers gain access to their clients to prepare for trail?  How can trials even be held?  Are we flying them back one-by-one to stand trial here in the US?  If not, under what legal theory are we holding them in a foreign country and how will they be tried?
  • Why didn’t we simply deport them back to their countries of origin?

And regarding Khalil, the Columbia University student, why did we transport him to Louisiana?  He committed his acts in New York.  I can tell you why.  It was an act of retaliation and punishment in order to inconvenience his legal council, and also to separate him from his 8-month pregnant wife in New York.

Really?  Is this who we have become, just because we now have some power?  Wonder no more how someone gets “radicalized.”

Anyone who knows me knows there is no bigger patriot, but I have to be honest and say I’m ashamed of my country right now.  We have lectured and shamed others about the supposed sanctity of the, “rule of law” and now when we should be demonstrating to the world how a “nation of laws” actually functions, we betray our own legitimacy.

Since first being politically aware, this is the first time I have seen emotion and feelings overcome the reason and logic of my conservative brethren.  I guess the days of deriding liberals for yielding to their emotions are gone when we have done just that.

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I’m Conservative, but…..

Conservatives are criticizing liberals for voting to prevent the deporting of Tren De Aragua gang members as well as the Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.  This is why those criticisms are misguided at least and disingenuous perhaps.

It is the methods employed in making these deportations happen that are objectionable. The conservatives now in power are conflating the awfulness of this notorious gang and the anti-American sentiment of Khalil with the righteousness of deporting them.

Resurrecting and applying a seldom used statute from the 1790’s and conveniently missing, (or ignoring) a federal judges order points us in a dangerous procedural direction.  By doing so, we forfeit whatever claim we may have had in historically taking the high-road and respecting the rule of law.

The legality of these actions needs to be considered separately from the visceral reaction one may have for the individuals involved.  Adherence to the law shouldn’t be applied on a sliding-scale of questionable interpretation based on the collective approval or disapproval of those being adjudicated.

We will be and should be judged as a society, by the way in which we treat those we abhor the most.  Equal justice and application of the law should be independent of our sentiments, opinions and feelings about those ensnared in our legal system.

No one wants Tren De Aragua gang members roaming around our country and most American’s wince at foreign nationals with a big mouth deriding our nation.  None of that justifies bending the law or pretending we just missed that judges order just so we can get what we want.

We can’t stand against the things that insult our values by holding our nose and doing just that in order to obtain an outcome we cannot achieve any other way.

I’m a strong conservative however, the rule of law is sacrosanct and using subterfuge as justification exposes a position and willingness to undertake that which is anything but conservative.   

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Hope & Change 3.0

In 2008 I wrote that Barack Obama was America’s first affirmative action president, just black enough to be black enough and just not black enough to be a pill Americans could swallow without choking.  And just to prove in wasn’t a one-off, Americans did it twice.

For those with a good memory, you’ll recall that in 2007, then Senator Biden described then Presidential candidate Obama this way …” “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Classic identity politics as defined by the guy who would later become Obama’s biggest tool.

Obama was the perfect man for the job of beginning the dismantling of America and George Soros backed him for that reason among many others, with the key being his total lack of patriotism and his lack of belief in American Exceptionalism.  If you remember, Obama, soon after being elected President for the first time, went on an apology tour around the world for America’s past.  This is what the Heritage Foundation had to say about it in 2009.  “A common theme that runs through President Obama’s statements is the idea the United States must atone for its past policies, whether it is America’s application of the war against Islamist terrorism or its overall foreign policy. At the core of this message is the concept that the U.S. is a flawed nation that must seek redemption by apologizing for its past “sins.” 

At a rally in Milwaukee in 2008, Obama’s wife Michelle said, “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country — and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”  In other words, she was never patriotic and only happy with “her” country once her husband was president.

When 8-years weren’t enough to hobble America, Obama needed a useful idiot to run Obama 2.0 and who better than Joe Biden.  Malleable, agreeable, feckless, lacking principles and easily led, only at the highest levels of American government can you hide a pervert in plain site, conflate fool and sage and ignore senility until it transforms itself, like a butterfly from a cocoon, into a selfless act of courage in quitting, our hero exits stage left, no right, no left…

And so in the side door slinks former unsuccessful presidential candidate from the 2020 campaign, Kamala Harris, having burnished her credentials on her knees as a 29-year-old courtesy of Willie Brown, then a 60-year-old political power broker who paved her path to the District Attorney’s office in San Francisco in the 90’s.  Then San Francisco mayor, Brown hooked her up into California’s high society, plugging her into the money pipe line which financed her eventual successful campaign for California states Attorney General.

But Willie’s thing don’t swing that big outside of California and Harris demonstrated for us the embodiment of the Peter Principle, (pun intended) when she became the first presidential wanna-be to bow out of the 2020 race a year before it happened, the weakest of 13 candidates yet somehow sneaking that camels toe into the tent and attaching herself to Uncle Joe, even after calling him a racist during the debates.  Politics and bedfellows you know.

Fast-forward to now and figure that Obama has got his mileage out of Joe, poor guy staggering towards the finish line but too baffled by his own bravado to know how incapable he really is, forcing Obama to threaten Joe with the 25th Amendment, (after trying everything else.)  And now we have Harris in the enviable spot of heir apparent, sliding into a virtual incumbency without a single vote being cast.

All hail the new barren queen!  Obama 3.0  (Wonder if she has a cat?)

And so here we go with the hocus-pocus again, the same treatment that got Joe

“Re-imagined” now gets a make-over for Harris as black, even though she has no

African descendancy but never the less, by simply saying so, she gets to play the race and gender cards.  It is surprising to me that actual Black people aren’t offended by her appropriation of their race.  Oh, and as an added bonus, if you dare have the temerity to question or tamper in any way with the gender and or race issues, you are immediately dismissed as racist and or sexist, completely marginalized and with that, conveniently disposing of any substantive questions that have legitimacy but tread on the sacred turf of the Woke-Folk at your own peril.  Her campaigns over-reliance on this little trick will back-fire because her record is a very hard one to defend, so we’ll see if someone can break through.

But just like our worry all along should not have been about Biden, it shouldn’t be about Harris either.  You see, both are the same place-holders as the useful idiots for the puppet-master himself Barack Hussein Obama and company.  Neither Biden nor Harris do or say anything that isn’t approved by the High Table, take your pick on who that may be, but it sure isn’t the characters we see in front of us today.

Think about it for just a minute.  If the ascendancy to the presidency was merit and morals based, would the cast of performers paraded in front of us actually be the likes of these people?  When you stop and think about it, haven’t we all thought that we know people in our own orbits that are more capable, smarter and more trustworthy than the characters we see in some of these high offices?  Clearly, we aren’t seeing the best and the brightest but you can bet that there is a power, a cabal, a plan being orchestrated by someone who needs plausible deniability and anonymity in order to carry it out and those being touted to us as leaders are anything but, they are simply tools and they depend upon us to be their fools.

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Dear Mr. President:

Regarding the first debate, and moving forward, I have a suggestion that will combine doing the right thing with immediately improving your chances of being re-elected.

Mr. Biden brought up memories of his deceased son Beau, a decorated US war veteran that tragically died of brain cancer.  It was admittedly a confusing moment because you were actually focusing on his other son, Hunter.  Nevertheless, when Beau was mentioned, Mr. Biden was visibly shaken, as any father would be.

This is my suggestion to you sir.  Immediately after the next debate starts, tell the moderator that you need to make a quick statement directly to Mr. Biden and then face him and say the following:

Joe, our last meeting got a little out of hand, but there was a moment I want to revisit.  You mentioned your son Beau and I want to acknowledge him as the decorated and courageous US war veteran that he was and is.  You and your family have seen more than your share of grief and for that you have my compassionate sympathy.  I certainly meant no disrespect to your son for whom you and our country are understandably very proud.

Mr. President, I believe that if you do this it will be seen as strong positive gesture that requires a degree of humility and dignity that from which, quite frankly, the debate process moving forward would undoubtedly benefit.

Thank-you Mr. President for your leadership.  You have my full support.  Best of luck in the coming debates, best of luck in the upcoming election, and may God Almighty bless you and our great United States of America.  Godspeed.

Kind regards,

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