WPCNR NEWS & COMMENT By John F. Bailey. July 4, 2025:

I DID NOT GO  to the fireworks in White Plains New York USA.

There should be no fireworks anywhere in America today.

Because there is little to celebrate about America anymore.

What Americans used to  celebrate on July 4 in the past no longer exists.

It is a memory, a once shining hope  the world always looked to for inspiration.

That America is forever gone.

I miss it so.

We may never see that respect and admiration from the world again.

Our reputation for standing up for the good, the decent, and the just has been smeared and shattered  by persons  who should have known better.

America to the rescue no more. I was always proud of that.

Unselfish acceptance of persons in trouble coming to our shores to start a new life: the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, Latinos, Africans, Asians, Muslims– has been callously, proudly, viciously attacked by our “leaders” in congress.

Both houses of congress and a mean-spirited selfish man have aroused hatred of the different, the oppressed, the  persecuted, and the poor, in citizens who should know better.

There but for the grace of God go you and I, Mr. and Mrs. And Ms. America.

We collectively bear full responsibility for the death of the America Dream, by not paying attention, by  buying into a line and a hate.

How quickly America’s heart hardened to stone.

Cruelty rationalized. Hate defended. Discrimination championed. Truth attacked.

That was never the American Way.

6 months  is all it has taken.

A year of a media circus campaign followed by the nomination of “An American Strongman,” a  man of the people champion who spoke of “Making America Great Again.”

The media carried and publicized dutifully the ranting of this man.  Because he was good copy.  “Everything is copy,” it has once been said. But no judgment was used. Nothing was censored. The media were putty in this man’s hands. Criticism was labled as fake news.

The man who condoned  and  popularized hatred of his opponents, who  courted the cooperation of an enemy of America to influence his election, and who  reveled in his denigration of women and the weak was elevated to an exulted level. Too many of us bought the easy answers.

His opponent in the election underestimated him. She failed to grasp the visceral violence he aroused in voters—voters who  only saw the promise of  their personal getting even with their perceived tormentors and disregarding the premise of this very mastermind.

Half of the voters in the country ate his message up.

That horrendous campaign has been followed up with a march on American values that, like those before him and his henchmen: Mongols, Huns, Cossacks,  Barbarians  and Nazis rampaged across Europe with sword and violence.

The weapons today are  microphones, videos, propaganda, slogans and big lies that play as convenient truths, executive orders laying waste to reason and morality in this nation, forsaking our friends of the past and uplifting the evil leaders of the world. And initiatives ineptly executed, inappropriate, and bungled because of the inability to manage and think.

I and you have seen 180 days of dismantling rights taken for granted by Americans. Courts ruled by idealogues full of their bluster. Justices making rights-robbing decisions virtually one jaw dropper a week.

Ludircrous Leaders in cabinet positions opposed to the missions of their agencies.

How great are we now?

The promise of America has been forever broken.

How great are we now?

It is embarrassing  to be an American  for what this neo-Nazi government  has done in just 6 months.

As  fireworks explosions are prepared to celebrate a government that now rips children away from families at the border . Adequate records not even being kept. Are photographs being taken of the children already in custody with their parents? Who knows? Reporters have not even documented the process of what happens in the separations.

We now have masked police.

Now America, look at you: America has “Children Concentration Camps.”

Look at you America, you now are going to test children’s DNA with the parents who brought them to make sure they are not “Fake children.” The birthright guarantee is going to be revoked. But will it be retroactive?

America did not used to be afraid of children.

But hate was always under the surface that the premise of America had to always fight.

Hate is always poised to raise its horror,  its ugliness, its indifference to the suffering of others. But it is not indifference. The haters love hurting people they consider inferior. It makes them feel good.

Slavery, the segregation of the South and the North (remember redlining?). Other than the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, and the Cavalry revenge massacres at Wounded Knee and the Washita River, and Andrew Jackson’s Trail of Tears (the Cherokee Indian death march), and the burning of Atlanta, and Bloody Kansas, we have forgotten our humanity  conveniently  in favor of the easy emotion: hate and destruction of lives because it makes us feel so good.

Look at you, America: Religious freedom for all. No more.  Muslims are being ostracized by travel bans.

In fact the clergy, the Christians in America, I call you out: What would Jesus say about your failure to take in strangers or your condoning  (as a matter of faith for crying out loud!) administration policies that hurt, displace, deny aid, and safety. There is nothing Christian about that.

Look at you, America, how what you have built in 248 years has been ripped away in 4 feckless days by both houses of congress resulting in a vote that what featured only one Democrat in the House speaking for 8 hours. Where was every Democrat poised to vote against the bill not follow up and delay for days the vote. I guess they all wanted to head off on vacation.

Look at those fireworks, and this year they will represent an America flaming apart in the night falling.

Look at what it takes to be an American of the past now.

You are a drifter still believing in freedom and truth, justice and the American Way in your heart, mourning what America once was and is no more.

I remember not the country whose leadership has betrayed its country’s promise this week with little effort to stop it. This was America’s Last Stand, and no congressman or senator fought to the last man or woman. Seven New York Republicans voted against their own state. Gutless.

Remember their names: Rep. LaLota, the 48,000 in Rep. Garbarino’s, the 52,000 in Rep. Malliotakis’, the 31,000 in Rep. Lawler’s, the 44,000 in Rep. Stefanik’s, the 35,000 in Rep. Langworthy’s, and the 31,000 in Rep. Tenney’s. They could have saved us but did not.

America has died in one week.

Its leadership has betrayed its war dead and veterans who fought for truth, justice and the American Way  and the Pursuit of Happiness.

America, Look at you and remember what you once meant to millions.

The Stars and Stripes are no longer forever.

Old Glory is tattered, the white and red stripes  wrinkled, ripped, furling asunder in the cruel winds of hate, in total disunity, no longer a whole flag. A hydra of hate, no longer proud.

The white stars falling out of the blue background lose their unity. Scatter to the four winds.

Lay a wreath on the flag.

Cancel the fireworks celebrations everywhere.

There is nothing to celebrate  this July 4.

But for those of us old Americans, who remember what America used to stand for, our work is just beginning.

We are the last Americans at the barricades like the first Americans at Bunker Hill in Boston.

Even those of us who may just now are beginning to realize how they have been taken in by slogan, lies and hate and are beginning to feel uneasy.

I want you with us.

We the Americans left have a lot of work to do to make America the Greatest again, all over again.

Give us time, old friends.

You and I have to knit that Grand Old Flag back together again.

Stitch by stitch.

Vote by Vote.

Heart by Heart.

Lincoln by Lincoln.

Every member of congress knows what they did last week.

We all know what happened this week, the U.S. Congress of 2025 has transformed into the American Reichstag  emulating the German Reichstag of 1933 and turned over absolute power to Adolf Hitler  in a bill that none have a clue of how its policies will be carried out, when they will be inacted, ignoring warnings of impact on citizens.

We know too what our job is.

Work will be hard.

We are on the barricades now

We have to work and  take  care of our little space and if all the citizens in every little town, big town, city, rich state, poor state, agriculture state turn their eyes inward to work for the good in our towns and thwart the the strategies that wreak our communities and restore the takeaways just approved with blessings by the representatives who have betrayed their oaths that’s our mission now.

Are you with me?

Lafayette, we are here.

 

 

 

STOVETOP STARTER MAKES FIRST APPEARANCE OF  RAINY 2025 Using the New York Times started Saturday twilight Grill in record time. Superior burning newsprint!

WPCNR GRILLMAN GAZETTE. By The Grillin Gourmet. ReInternetted from The CitizeNetReporter Archives of the Ancient Past. April , 2018:

No matter whether you’re a New York Liberal, a Michigan Wolverine, A Trump supporter, or California free spirit, there’s still one phenomenon the country still believes in the American grill.

Thanks to the chimney charcoal starter and its glowing orange coals, the backyard American barbeque DNA macho in the amateur chef was inordinately delayed by the coldest WETTEST spring in memory.

But today its 73 degrees in White Plains New York USA, Dan Ingram is telling you to “Roll Your Bod,” and the grill is  READY!

Steak was raised outside, it was born to be cooked outside, and the barbequed steak puts the Cartier- priced steakhouse in its place!

In this griller’s opinion, outdoor grilling proves once again to be the equal and superior to the overpriced artificial-tasting steak. Sleek decor and atmosphere cannot duplicate backyard origins. The economy may be whatever you think it is, your home equity quiting, but  take heart even the hobo can grill! It’s part of American DNA. It’s Democracy! WHEN THEY BAN OUTDOOR GRILLING THAT’S WHEN THEY GET IN DEEP TROUBLE.

To do real steak right , you have to do it outside on charcoal.

The instinct of generations of the American backyard barbeque tradition passed up from  the cave, enjoyed at Valley Forge. Lewis and Clark bit into venison discovering the Northwest.

Cowboys sunk teeth into rare beef around chuck wagons on the prairie and up from the Southland , barbeque inbred and passed on from American father to American son – cutting across nationality and station – gives you real steak – not $100 technology  enhanced cuts. Flaming charcoal makes steak a living thing in your mouth!

I thought America can pull itself out of this. As long as the American grilling tradition is handed down, the pioneer “can-do” spirit lives! Look at those glowing babies romancing, enhancing that steak. It makes your mouth water!  

“HOT CHA CHA CHA” as Jimmy Durante would say!

Why go out for dinner when you can tap your inner griller and say I can cook steak better? I can do this. The difference is the air, the smoke, the way marinade just drips down into the coals and gets into the meat. It’s chemistry,  Americans!

What is it about the American Grillman that’s so special that his or hers backyard cuts beat the insider  professionals’ inflation-friendly ostentatious steaks?

It’s the unique chemistry of being American and believing in the charcoal flames.

On Memorial Day weekend, it’s a must. On Independence Day Weekend, it’s not July 4 unless you’re grillin’. On Labor Day, if you’re not workin’, you’re grillin’.

There’s just something about the searing intensity of glowing charcoal combining mystically with the testosterone and instinctual synergy between red meat and the dedicated outdoor griller –  it beats in taste, juiciness and texture the contrived technology of the most expensive restaurant equipment.

No matter how tasty the megabuck meat is in the swank sticker shock steak palaces of the swells, there’s always that artificial packaged taste that betrays the indoor steak. The butteryness. The soft crust of the black topped surface of the indoor steak just does not have the nubile grizzled roughhewn flamed  reluctant yield of the outdoor one-on-one grilled steak that fights your bicuspids with spirit as you crush it!

The Chimney Starter the Secret.

Pour in a helping of those ultimate black beauties, Kingsford charcoal briquettes into the chimney top.

Fifteen minutes before the wife has the sides ready, take a wooden match to the apertures in the base of the starter and light up the edges of the newsprint. Within 10-15 minutes you’ve got coals a firey orange red. You’re ready to outcook the pros.

After the Griller’s wife has marinated the meat –  the bone trimmed Porterhouse is sizzzzzzzlllllllllling in the caressing deep searing heat of glowing orange briquettes – 4  minutes a side in 400 degree heat and deft turning and surgical “rareness checks” – the seasoned grillistabalero  simply has a feel for the meat – passed genetically down from generations of American grillers.

The combination of cauldron, flavored steel grill rods and perfect flames creates the grillmark “brand” lets you know just by looking at the cut, you’re going to get the natural taste of the backyard steak –  No one can do a great cut like you can!

As any redblooded American Grillman will tell you when doing a steak – you can’t deliver a steak by manual or instructions.

You have to feel the meat,man!  Feel it cook. You just know it’s time. Hearty smoke promises juicy meat that melts in your mouth creates an experience only the grillman or GrillGal knows.

Every cut is not the same.

Each deserves a surgeon’s attention to cooking timing and detail. Surgical checks are necessary.

The American Grillman becomes one with the meat.

With eye and knowledge of the hue of red – you just  know  by instinct when she’s done. Cooking is slowed down by moving the meats to the side off the heat to keep the American beauties warm

With the wife’s deft presentation, sweet potato fries, corn pudding, fresh beans and mushrooms the Grillman’s natural art creates the taste of the Fourth of July

Get those grills handy and ready to fire up to get that taste of American Independence once again.

When you’re over the grill, you’re King of the Hill.

Gentlemen Start your fires!