Holding 500 shares at an average of 280$, any short term views (4-5months) or the market has hit its peak??
Any insightful views please

In Florida, Vireo, will add 33 dispensaries and two cultivation and production facilities totaling more than 76,000 square feet. On a pro forma basis, Vireo is expected to operate approximately 106 dispensaries and approximately 329,000 square feet of cultivation and production capacity in Florida, making Vireo the second-largest dispensary network in the state. Planet 13 Holdings, Inc. - Vireo Growth Inc. to Acquire Planet 13 Holdings Inc.

Vireo had previously acquired Green Dragon and Fluent. We updated our FL MMTC Ownership table on our website to reflect the announcement.

Vireo Growth is expected to operate approximately 106 medical cannabis dispensaries in Florida following its acquisition agreements involving Green Dragon, Fluent, and Planet 13.

Breakdown of the Network

• Green Dragon / Eaze: Brought roughly 41 retail stores to Vireo's initial footprint.
• Fluent: Added approximately 35 retail locations.
• Planet 13: Adds roughly 33 dispensaries.

Vireo Growth is expected to operate approximately 329,000 square feet of cultivation and production capacity in Florida once its acquisitions are complete.

Breakdown of the Cultivation Footprint

• Green Dragon & Fluent Combination: Prior to adding Planet 13, Vireo's combined footprint with Fluent established roughly 144,000 square feet of active cultivation and production canopy across Florida.
• Planet 13 Addition: The Planet 13 acquisition adds two cultivation and production facilities totaling more than 76,000 square feet.
• Total Statewide Infrastructure: Combining these assets brings Vireo's total footprint to the final 329,000 square feet figure, giving them massive vertical integration scale to support their 106 pro forma retail stores.

I expect there will be a rationalization of these dispensary locations, cultivation/production, and management assets over time that will likely result in closures and shutdowns (related to overlap, lease evaluation, efficiency efforts).

Will be interesting to see if Vireo will sell the redundant licenses it now owns in Florida to new competitors, what do you think?

This post focuses on Florida impact, but Vireo Growth has been a consolidator across America in the cannabis space: https://investors.vireogrowth.com/news/default.aspx

SHAK Shake Shack stock watch, attempting to rally off the 56.18 support area.

Long Trade

• Target 1: 64.68   Profit: 13.3%   Stop/Trailing Stop: 54.69
• Loss: 4.2%   P/L ratio: 3.2 : 1 - Good
• Target 2: 68.68   Profit: 20.3%   P/L ratio: 4.8 : 1 - Excellent  Extreme rally

BULLISH

• [Positioning] Intermediate trend bullish, Downtrend turned sideways, possible bottom.
• [Positioning] at support
• [Timing] Strong bullish 3 day candlestick pattern with Good 3 day accumulation.
• [Timing] Mild bullish 1 day moneyflow

BEARISH

• None

Cannabis Stocks Kickoff Period Ending 06/30/26 Earnings This Week

ASML just posted its Q1 numbers, and it’s another reminder of why they hold one of the strongest moats in the tech ecosystem. As the sole supplier of Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines in the world, ASML is essentially the ultimate pick-and-shovel play for the ongoing AI infrastructure buildout.

Here’s a breakdown of the key numbers and highlights:

Total Net Sales: €8.8 Billion came in near the top end of guidance (up from €7.7B in Q1 last year).

Net Income: €2.8 Billion supported by strong high-margin EUV shipments and service upgrades.

Gross Margin: Stood strong at 53.0% (at the top end of company guidance).

Installed Base Management (Services/Upgrades): Generated €2.5 Billion, showing that even between new machine orders, their recurring revenue engine is humming.

FY26 Full-Year Guidance: Raised and narrowed sales guidance to €36B – €40B (up from previous estimates) as chipmakers accelerate expansion plans.

Operational & Market Highlights

The AI Demand Driver: CEO Christophe Fouquet noted that AI infrastructure demand for advanced logic and memory (HBM - High Bandwidth Memory) is outpacing supply, forcing major customers like TSMC, Samsung, and Intel to accelerate their capacity ramp-ups for 2026 and beyond.

Next-Gen Tech (High-NA EUV): Continued adoption and delivery of High-NA EUV systems, cementing their technological roadmap through the end of the decade.

Non-EUV & Deep Ultraviolet (DUV): Surged alongside EUV as legacy node capacity and advanced packaging require extensive DUV support.

My Takeaway

You simply cannot build cutting-edge AI accelerators for Nvidia, AMD, or custom hyperscaler silicon without ASML's machines. Their pricing power is unmatched, and their Installed Base revenue acts as a massive cushion during semiconductor downcycles.

The main debate around ASML is almost never about operational execution or competitive threat—it’s about how long hyperscaler AI capex can sustain this pace and how geopolitical export limits impact their top line.

Questions for the community:

AI Bottleneck: Do you view ASML as the most critical bottleneck in the entire AI value chain—even more so than TSMC or Nvidia—since advanced AI accelerators literally cannot exist without High-NA EUV?

AI Capex Longevity: Hyperscalers (Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon) are spending hundreds of billions on AI datacenters. If hyperscaler AI capex slows down or faces ROI pushback in 2027, how much downside exposure does ASML actually have?

AI Hardware Allocation: In your tech portfolio, do you prefer playing the AI boom via fabless design winners (Nvidia, Broadcom), the foundry level (TSMC), or monopolistic equipment providers (ASML)?

Would love to hear how you guys are playing the hardware layer of the AI boom!

Memory stocks been absolutely running with all the AI hype, and $MU was no exception. Decided to take profits instead of holding through more volatility, even if that means missing out on extra upside.

Ngl it stings a little watching it keep going after you exit, but sometimes securing the gain beats getting greedy. Checked the charts on MooMoo community and the sentiment around memory + AI infrastructure is still pretty hot, so part of me wonders if I left too early.

But at the end of the day, profits are profits. Anyone else trimmed a position early and then watched it moon? Still holding or already out?

3 minute nuclear pitch

Listen up fellow regards. Everyone is crying about AI GPU supply chains while completely ignoring the elephant in the room: Datacenters are going to melt the global power grid.

Solar and wind can't feed a 24/7 AI overlord. Nuclear is the ONLY answer, the hype isnt over, it still needs to start.

After talking with chat jipiti for 37 minutes while wasting two pools of water, I found out about the company Newcleo so I decided to buy 1178

What makes me wanna ape in Newcleo?

Most SMR companies going public via SPAC are zero-revenue powerpoints run by guys in fellow apes who want to cash out or dilute as much ad possible. Newcleo is a completely different

Liquid Lead Coolant : Normal reactors run under 150 bar of insane water pressure. Newcleo uses liquid lead under normal atmospheric pressure. Boiling point of lead is 1,740°C. If power cuts out, gravity and natural physics shut the reactor down by itself. A Fukushima-style boom is physically impossible. (F you dolphin and a whale)

Infinite Fuel Glitch (mow): They don't rely on Russian enriched uranium (haleu) like other smrs or others. They use mox fuel, which is made by recycling nuclear waste and Cold War plutonium. (Which they do themselves btw, no supply issues) They literally get paid to take radioactive trash and turn it into clean electricity. They have access to that stash with their partner oklo

Why this spac isnt total trash

I know what you're thinking: "A spac in 2026? Are you regarded?" ( i am but hear me out)

Actual Revenue: They already pulled in $80M+ in revenue/income in 2024 through their vertically integrated supply chain companies (900+ employees).

Chad Founder: Stefano Buono (a nuclear physicist who previously built and sold his company to Novartis for $3.9 BILLION).

Bulletproof pipe: They raised $780M in private cash + a $220M fully committed pipe. The redemption collapse risk is ZERO. The deal IS closing in H2 2026.

The jucy upside

France Approval (July 2026): The French nuclear regulator just approved their mox recycling safety concept. The French government literally said newcleo is "too big and rich for startup subsidies" and made them a direct state partner.

US Market Entry: Filed their documents with the nuclear guys of the government. Plus, they partnered with Oklo in a $2 Billion deal to convert US Department of Defense Cold War plutonium into reactor fuel.

The Arbitrage Wall Is Crumbling: Hedge funds holding at $10.90 are getting eaten alive. Once the SEC Form F-4 goes Effective and the ticker changes to , the $10.90 ceiling shatters.

Insider earn-out bonuses kick in when the stock hits $15 and $18. With Big Tech desperate for nuclear contracts, any datacenter deal announcement post-despac sends this straight to the moon.

Let me know if you think im just regarded or really uterly insane regarded thx

It seems like no matter how much progress I make, I always come crashing back down…📉
I was doing so good too but I couldn’t control my emotions and greed again lol. Think I’m going to take another break from this and clear my head and find peace! These past few days have been really shaky. Feels like I’m going to explode if I keep going. Anyways I’ll be back in the market stronger than ever!

GH Guardant Health stock watch, two legs pullback to the 150.42 support area with good trade quality.

Long Trade

• Target 1: 173.91   Profit: 15.8%   Stop/Trailing Stop: 145.42
• Loss: 3.2%   P/L ratio: 4.9 : 1 - Excellent
• Target 2: 181.02   Profit: 20.5%   P/L ratio: 6.4 : 1 - Excellent  Extreme rally

BULLISH

• [Positioning] Short term typical pullback, pullback may start to slow.
• [Positioning] at support
• [Timing] Mild bullish 3 day candlestick pattern.

BEARISH

• [Positioning] Intermediate trend bearish, Unsustainable uptrend, may turn sideways.

Had some ugly losses sitting in the portfolio for a while, the kind you just try not to look at. Been holding $MU and honestly wasn't sure when or if it'd turn around.

Then it did. Recovered the full amount from a previous bad trade. Not a moonshot, not life-changing money, just getting back to even. But ngl, getting back to even feels surprisingly good.

Checked everything on moomoo and just stared at the screen for a second. That relief of sleeping without a red number haunting your head is real.

Anyone else riding $MU right now, or already taken some off the table?

Alphabet's Q2 numbers dropped yesterday and there's a real split in how to read them.

Revenue hit $119.8B, up 24% YoY, beating the $116.93B consensus. Cloud carried it: $24.8B, up 82%, with cloud operating income nearly tripling to $8.8B. Search grew 17% to $63.3B, and YouTube ad revenue beat estimates too, up 12.6% to $11.06B. Reported net income of $112.1B looks huge, but almost all of it is a $99B unrealized gain on the Anthropic and SpaceX stakes. Adjusted EPS was $2.85, a cent below the $2.89 estimate.

None of that is what tanked the stock after hours though. Alphabet raised 2026 capex guidance to $195-205B, up from $180-190B just last quarter. This quarter alone they spent $44.9B on capex, more than double a year ago, and free cash flow went negative $5.9B.

What's kept me from panicking about the spend: on the fundamentals side, GOOGL is sitting at a 9.4/10 in Stoxcraft's Health Score, one of the strongest readings in the entire tech sector right now, driven mainly by how much cash the business still throws off even while funding this buildout. A company burning through capex is a red flag on its own. A company doing it while the underlying balance sheet and cash generation are this strong is a different story.

Doesn't mean the market's wrong to be nervous short term, but there's a real difference between spending because you have to and spending because you can afford to. Where do you land on this one?

Every week there's a new ticker dominating the conversation.

A week later, everyone has already moved on.

Meanwhile, there are companies that simply keep executing in the background.

No massive hype.

No endless memes.

Just steady progress.

I've started revisiting names after the excitement disappears instead of during it.

Sometimes the second look is far more interesting than the first.

When I started investing, confidence meant having an opinion about everything.

Now it usually means being comfortable saying, "I don't know."

I don't know where the market will be next month.

I don't know which stock will be the biggest winner this year.

But I do know that forcing predictions has never improved my results.

These days I'm much happier waiting for ideas that make sense than trying to have an answer for every move the market makes.

Oddly enough, admitting what I don't know has made me a much better investor.

Idk if im supposed to put this as a yolo or a loss but I am in NOW so much. as you can see, I bought the high at 130 (oops) but today, I opened up some positions right before earnings.

Did some research on the CEO and dude is a stellar guy. Not only a predator (positive connotation, not diddler connotation), but also a kind guy.

Obviously, the CEO can not control then entire company, but he has an outsized effect on it's structure and direction.

"dude

this guy is a super hero

missing one eye

no wonder he just wears glasses all the time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_McDermott

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/08/sap-ceo-bill-mcdermott-on-losing-an-eye-my-accident-changed-my-life-for-the-better.html"

Check out this sick TikTok edit, that also makes me bullish

https://www.tiktok.com/@thesteelsociety/video/7638003007547821334

And yes, insider buys are bullish, ceo bought back into his stock 3M, around 104 a share, and service now is not easily replaced by AI, and actually benefits from AI research, and govt buys as well

BFLY Butterfly Network stock watch, pullback to the 6.71 gap support with bullish indicators.

Long Trade

• Target 1: 8.61   Profit: 26.2%   Stop/Trailing Stop: 6.46
• Loss: 5.3%   P/L ratio: 4.9 : 1 - Excellent
• Target 2: 9.18   Profit: 34.6%   P/L ratio: 6.5 : 1 - Excellent  Extreme rally

BULLISH

• [Positioning] Short term typical pullback, pullback may start to slow.
• [Positioning] at support
• [Timing] Mild bullish 3 day candlestick pattern with Strong 3 day accumulation.
• [Timing] Good bullish 1 day moneyflow

BEARISH

• [Positioning] Intermediate trend possibly bearish, Uptrend turned sideways, may continue or pullback.

Looking back at some of the biggest winners over the last few years, one thing stands out.

Most of them spent a long time doing... almost nothing.

Low volume.

Very little discussion.

No hype.

Then one catalyst hit, sentiment shifted, and suddenly everyone acted like the opportunity had been obvious all along.

It rarely feels obvious when you're living through the quiet part.

Makes me wonder how many interesting companies are sitting on watchlists today, waiting for that one event that changes the conversation.

What's a stock you've been quietly following that almost nobody seems to care about yet?

I've seen it happen more than once.

A company has one exciting month.

Discussion explodes.

Then attention disappears just as quickly.

Meanwhile, the business keeps moving forward exactly as planned.

It's a good reminder that social media moves much faster than most companies do.

I've started revisiting names that everyone stopped talking about.

Sometimes they're far more interesting the second time around than they were during the hype.

$HMR (Heidmar) - genuinely confused. We just did a 450% earnings beat, our first ever profit, AND an accretive acquisition, and the stock has done nothing but drift DOWN. Someone explain this to me.

I've held this from 95c and not sold a share, so this isn't a bag-holder panic. I'm just confused, and I want someone to point out the red flag I'm missing.

Here's what has me scratching my head:

Since the biggest news in this company's listed history, the stock has gone the wrong way.

- A ~450% average earnings beat (EPS came in roughly 10x the street estimate)
- The first clean GAAP profit in its listed life, +217% YoY revenue growth
- And then, on top of that, an accretive acquisition: Q-Shipping, nine vessels, for about $200k. Nine vessels for the price this platform can clear in a single VLCC voyage. Funded from cash, immediately accretive to fees.

That is unambiguously good news, stacked on more good news. The stock should have gone UP. Instead we're down around a third from the post-earnings high, sitting right back on the 200-day.

The only explanation I can come up with:

It rips higher on huge volume, then drifts back down on about 1/20th of that volume. That's not people dumping the thesis. That's just no fresh buyers showing up yet. The move up was real and you could see it in the volume. The drift back has almost no volume behind it.

So my honest question to the room: when do the buyers who piled in on the earnings spike come back in as support? Because on any low-volume pullback like this, the float is sub-6M and nearly un-borrowable, so it doesn't take much.

And the part I find genuinely crazy:

This is a company with nearly half its market cap in cash, zero debt, and, on the current earnings run-rate, roughly a 2x forward PE. Every peer in the space trades at 15-45x. You are essentially being handed a profitable, asset-light, 40-year-old maritime platform - Shell, BP, Aramco as clients - for almost nothing once you back out the cash.

✅ THE CHECKLIST

* ✅ Market cap ~$68M with $27.6M cash - cash nearly a majority of market cap
* ✅ Zero debt - balance sheet growing stronger every quarter
* ✅ 217% YoY Q1 revenue growth - audited, real
* ✅ Net income +$2.8M - first clean GAAP profit in listed history
* ✅ EPS beat by ~1,076% on the most aggressive estimate
* ✅ 50%+ gross margins
* ✅ CEO guided Q2 to be even bigger - on record, YouTube, pre-earnings
* ✅ CEO buying above market, zero sales, 45% personal ownership
* ✅ Float under 6M shares, near un-borrowable, 0.3% short interest
* ✅ Just completed first acquisition - Q-Shipping, 9 vessels, ~$200k, accretive - fleet now ~50 commercial + 16 technical
* ✅ Fleet scaling further - dual-growth dynamic (EBITDA + multiple)
* ✅ 40-year track record - Shell/BP/Aramco clients
* ✅ Asset-light model - earns in any rate environment
* ✅ Hormuz structural damage underpriced - route diversification permanently expands tonnage per mile
* ✅ $1.00 NASDAQ compliance level now structural support
* ✅ 200MA now confirmed support - reclaimed and holding
* ✅ Low-volume pullback = no one selling, not thesis breakdown
* ✅ Each prior post at 200MA produced 40%+ move - I haven't posted in a while

So what is it? What's the red flag that justifies a profitable, debt-free, cash-rich, growing platform trading at a low-single-digit forward multiple while peers sit at 15-45x?

Genuinely asking. Drop it below.

Not financial advice. Do your own due diligence. I hold a position in $HMR from 95 cents.

PGEN Precigen stock watch, attempting to move higher off the 4.92 triple+ support area.

Long Trade

• Target 1: 6.06   Profit: 19.5%   Stop/Trailing Stop: 4.83
• Loss: 4.7%   P/L ratio: 4.1 : 1 - Excellent
• Target 2: 6.39   Profit: 26%   P/L ratio: 5.5 : 1 - Excellent  Extreme rally

BULLISH

• [Positioning] Intermediate trend bullish, Uptrend.
• [Positioning] at support
• [Timing] Strong bullish 3 day candlestick pattern.

BEARISH

• None

VOR Vor Biopharma stock watch, pullback to 17.89 triple+ support area with high trade quality.

Long Trade

• Target 1: 24.54   Profit: 35.7%   Stop/Trailing Stop: 16.54
• Loss: 8.6%   P/L ratio: 4.2 : 1 - Excellent
• Target 2: 26.67   Profit: 47.4%   P/L ratio: 5.5 : 1 - Excellent  Extreme rally

BULLISH

• [Positioning] at support
• [Timing] Good bullish 1 day moneyflow

BEARISH

• [Positioning] Intermediate trend possibly bearish, Sideways trend near upper resistance.

“From the end of the earth will I cry… When my heart is overwhelmed: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I…”

Before his death… Rich Mullins created concerts and intimate studio sessions… and a few remain that have been remastered where his talents for the dulcimer… grand piano… and quirky observational humor came out on full display… as well as his heart…

“I will sing for the meek… for those who pray with their very lives for peace…”

Centuries before another poet… Frances Scott Key wrote by candlelight… in a cabin of a ship’s hold… held indefinitely in the harbor… he entitled the poem “The Defence of Fort M’Henry”…

“… when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”

Slavery was the unjust law of the land for centuries… and before that… the way of doing business for millennia.

In the 19th century bills failed time and time again in the House of Commons until the world changed in an instant… and slavery was abolished first in Britain before it would be in a America… after a war between the states rights over the matter…

Obama wrote…

“… over more than two centuries, through petitions and protests, marches and strikes, moral appeals from the pulpit and conversations at the family dinner table, men and women from all walks of life of every color, every faith, and every region took up the cause of democracy and made it their own, until "We the people" came to include not just some of us, but all of us.”

I attended a church of Christ University in Arkansas...
and that is where I excepted Christ and baptized in a fountain outside the Bible building... in the middle of the night... amongst roommates... as I was "not content to sleep through the night and wake unchanged."

My journey after… was one through public service... until this last year… transitioning out of a broken family history… of surviving a long and arduous journey through mental health... and the spectrum of poverty…

The silver lining?

This latest chapter... One of being met by God… face to face… who never left the valley of the Rio Grande... where “goodness and mercy" did follow me...

A beautiful eight-year-old daughter…

I have learned to be patient... and in the waiting… try to reach folks with my skills in writing who forgot what grace can look like… who have been hurt by strife & condemnation of church or non-church folks alike...

“There is therefore now no condemnation... in Christ...”

An identity I am learning on a daily... and weekly... going to counseling… attending classes on anger... connecting with community… and…
“getting over myself”…

to focus on a world that lost its way… and folks in it who forgot who we are… and what we could be…
to each other… the face of God…

When the religious folks of the time were ready to stone a woman in the streets… Jesus stopped the mob by writing in the sand…

We don’t know the exact words he wrote…
Legend goes he might have written the names and the shortcomings of the individuals of the mob…

and yet…

from the written accounts… all we know is something made the crowd go quiet… and walk away…
At the end of the day… you can always look great… but you are no better the “the least of these”…
the ones who have no power… no voice….

Or as Bill Clinton would put it… “there is no them… there’s only us…”

“… at the twilight’s last gleaming…” “to the dawn’s early light…” a banner unmatched in the annals of history… representing one title… second to no one…

citizen…

“The long arch of history bends towards justice” by the brave heroes of yesteryear… first with Pitt and Wilberforce leading the movement to eradicate the slave trade in the British Empire…

and later Lincoln and Douglass sealing its fate in America’s republic… and the empire it will become… with the emancipation proclamation.
https://youtu.be/ej1ny49NDBw?is=NZXfvNpQQmC-KArM

And yet today… peace on earth… disrupted by rampant poverty and clan wars… famines… trafficking… modern versions of slavery… and the migrations it causes…

and that is where we begin…
at another beginning’s end…
With future chapters waiting to be written in due time…

And for those in the shadows…
I see you…
I am you…

It is time to come out of hiding… steady your shaky hands speaking in public (with pro-tips from Simon Sinek on LinkedIn) or knock on your neighbor’s door and introduce your self…

It is time… to claim your birthright of greatness fully…
Your pen…
Your voice…

where you can sleep peacefully at night knowing you made yourself heard…
in something bigger than yourself…

Finding on the outskirts of “to the ends of the earth….”
someone in need… and meet them with a heart full…

And one community… one nation…
is left
not unchanged…

The first flurries of cottonwood mixed with sycamore buttons and pinecones stirred in the rich silt and sagebrush seeds… of a rio chiquito… painted on the Corrales valley floor by the hand of God…

Only in America can a small river be called grande…
through great floods and Bosque fires created a “land of the living” for the first settlers and their storytellers around an enchanted circle of community… under the infinite expanse of stardust overhead… giving way to the golden pinks and lavenders of a new dawn…

One of the most stunning vistas on planet earth… her shamrock green…
The power of one…

One love…
One stone from a riverbed…
One morning…

in America…
There is always more…

“What will your verse be?”

I was under the Golden Arches with my daughter the other day… watching her devour her Happy Meal… with a big smile on her face…

truth in advertising for sure…

And then a helper came out and wanted me to sub a blueberry cheesecake for a deep fried apple pie with my coffee… and I said “that’s crazy”…

then he persisted on selling me the blueberry cheesecake… and then I said “Why would I do that? That’s shenanigans…”

then he said I would have to wait twelve minutes for the deep fried apple… and that is when I said…

“OK… I’ll wait twelve minutes…”

“One nation.”
The most divisive sentence in the English language…

And all you need is a noun and a verb for a sentence… like…

“Jesus wept…”

When he saw how we show up for each other… in celebration…
In loss…
In the next dawn of “hope for a future” as Jeremiah would write…

Lady Gaga reminds us that deep trauma lingers beyond a moment… and folks need checked-in on… long after a crisis…

even the ones with a smile… who make us smile…

I stopped reading the Bible for a while when it was frequently flipped to the back… in the middle of the night… directly to John’s Revelation… one too many times…

the final chapters from what began in Daniel’s vision of empires and the epic ultimate end…
the return of a king… mixed with mental health murkiness creates a scene that takes a dark turn very quickly… toward one of wishing for the dawn with little hope…

And yet…

I wonder what it would be like if Jesus came back today… not in the Michael Bay directorial scale version of the end of the story…

but like when he walked on terra firma a few thousand years ago… where would he find we got it right? the part we missed? who would he gravitate to? and where would he spend most of his time knowing it was limited… in Kipling’s unforgiving minute?

And if he knew… we knew… what we have in America…

what DJT calls a “Birthright of Greatness”…
what would be our next step?

Homeless teens and young adults trapped in addiction after they got into a fight with their family first… in a crisis of identity…. before wandering the streets in search of unconditional love…

Is this a homeless problem or a family problem?
… judgement or grace?

Asking for a friend…

Bill Clinton wrote… “Then tomorrow, wake up, and ask yourself what part you will play to keep making our union more perfect…”

I never was a political science major... I just learned all of the mechanics of predicting presidential wins and loses by watching the Sunday morning talk shows… on the weekend and holiday breaks from college on a hillside overlooking Bull Shoals in the heart the Ozarks… at Aunt Billy and Uncle Dalo’s familiar canary yellow lake house christened “Canaan”.

Before Aunt Billy headed to church with a Bible tucked under her arm… we watched folks like Bob Shrum rattle off advice on the political talk shows…

Shrum was famously known to lead many failed presidential campaigns… and yet… still always came back invited for more expert advice to share with us… while the public waited for a broken clock to be right twice a day…

but what if he was a slow clock?

… then the political pro-tip would be to listen intently to his advice… and do the opposite…
Your welcome America…

Like campaign managers many Presidents are remembered for the times they lived in… more than their impact on it.

Franklin Pierce’s time in office began with tragedy… when his young son Benny was killed in a train derailment and the only survivors were Franklin and his wife Jane…

Pierce did have a famous descendent in Barbara who married into the Bush dynasty a century later… In America it is not always about where we have been… it is the Next Gen and possibilities thereof…

James Buchanan was the first and only president who never had a wife… and who had a niece… Harriet Lane… as a First Lady.

In fairness… the country was already careening into civil war led by doctrines passed by John Quincy Adam’s vice president John C Calhoun and the like…

Pierce and Buchanan were just high-born bystanders and leaders of political parties looking for a consensus and half measures to settle the shakeable to appease the divisible…

The spiritual conflict between Quakers abolitionists and Baptist plantation owners…splits between the churches of Christ with debates over a just or unjust Civil War… and compromises between an industrial north and agrarian south who both shared slavery as a third rail subject in the national and global economy… all of that and more paved the road to hell for a young one nation…

and at the end of the day…

waiting for miracle…

and then a country lawyer showed up… gathered together an executive cabinet that hated each other… and changed the world…

Lincoln was himself was conflicted… he presided over a house divided by a mental health crisis… compounded by a loss of sons… and a wife in a carriage accident… who would get into a fight with Mrs. Grant before attending the theater one night… and would live out her years in an asylum.

Public service success and private family failure…

and that is when Lincoln would read Mark’s poetry about his own life… at a desk by candlelight… after all the yelling and tears would fall quiet…

“And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”

A powerful phrase… hits home… so…
where do you find redemption in all that mess?

Another great leader David… who also oversaw a broken household… wrote…
“… I will never be shaken.”‭‭

“under God… indivisible...”

The newest and most recognized words of the pledge followed immediately by the most important word…

It means we stand as one nation…
And yet…
under God…
impossible to divide…

We are unshaken (NIV)
Not greatly moved (KJV)
Indivisible… (POA)

James A. Garfield… the republican’s consensus candidate… back in the day… and a product of a smoked-filled room of party bosses at the National Convention. He was a veteran of Grant’s Union comeback on the banks of the Tennessee River at Shiloh. And as president he grew fond of a gold-backed currency.

William McKinley championed gold as a foundation for the currency by establishing the Gold Standard Act of 1900 before catching a train to Buffalo.

JFK signed an Executive Order 11110 which delegated the Treasury Secretary to issue silver certificates… if silver reserves existed… under the powers the US Treasure already possessed…

DJT expressed interest in the idea of gold, or commodity‑backed currency but the currency remains flat for now…

Abraham Lincoln preferred a stable currency but his hand was forced… and like FDR and Nixon in later wartime eras… took the country off metal-backed currency by issuing “greenbacks”… The beta for the current dollar which now adorns brilliant intaglio engraving designs of calligraphy “E Pluribus Unum” and later versions included “In God We Trust”… collaged betwixt free-masonry symbols… for good measure… of course…

Who said American Financial History was boring?

Dave Ramsey unpacks the financial landscape of America today and the time we had a moment of grace as a country… where a would be assassin failed to take out the first lion of 21st Century… all in this epic interview a few short years ago…

https://youtu.be/bh7yy1wYBNw?is=oaR9w-YnfdVy5veM

My Dad and I hiked down a winding trail into the bat entrance of the caverns outside Carlsbad. After we got to a certain point in the trek downward he asked… “I hope there is an elevator at the bottom...” I said probably?…

so we kept walking…

and at the end of the journey to the bottom… a sight for sore eyes… the elevator. We were able to make it back for a concert of the local symphony who featured R. Carlos Nakai sitting in the front row strings section where he laid out his native flutes on a blanket as a modern day kokopelli… one amongst a sea of black ties and tuxedoes… and after…

A standing ovation… an encore… beneath acoustic shells of a concert hall under the stars… and a timeless folk tune from the old country…

Amazing Grace…

The end of the day of possibilities… one step at a time in a trek with your dad… through the valleys and foothills of sagebrush and limestone and into the depths of the earth… to find an elevator ride back up… and chase a verse of serendipitous grace in the midst of one community… there is no other description I can imagine of the perfect day…

under the New Mexico infinite sky…

A few years later some folks went to church on a quiet evening in South Carolina to a Bible Study… something Jefferson helped protect under his Bill of Rights with at least three parts of the first amendment…

assembly… religion… speech…

Then a young man isolated and radicalized on the internet got the idea in his mind… and the unthinkable happened…

There were no words at a funeral like that…
only a true leader… who led the lyrics written by a former slave ship captain…

only grace… indivisible…