Summer Reads.
Wednesday: July 08, 2026
Dear Patriot,
Take some time today to slow down and read a few stories that float under the cacophony of noise that is all around.
dignity of work restored.
200 year old trees.
Trump stops more stupidity.
removing illegals goes quiet.
must read book.
Enjoy ALL of the above for only $5/ month …. $50 / year
1- We recently fell in love with the HVAC technician who came to restore our air conditioner at 8:30 pm in the rain, during several 100 degree days.
We were considering adoption.
We love Mike Rowe and his commitment to the people who keep everything working.
Click the link for more on this great program written by one of our favorite reporters, Salena Zito.
Salena Zito at The Patriot Post
How Mike Rowe’s ‘Build Freedom’ Aims to Restore the Dignity of American Work
QUOTE: If you stand on the banks of the Monongahela River just south of Pittsburgh, you can still hear the echoes of an America that used to build things. It is a quiet testament to a bygone era, the kind of place where the skeletal remains of old factories, once giant sentinels along the rivers, serve as a backdrop to everyday life. For decades, the story written about river towns in post-industrial Pennsylvania and Ohio, or places like Macomb County, Michigan, and the small communities outside of Fort Worth, Texas, has been one of decline.
It is a familiar, weary Beltway narrative about the Rust Belt and the forgotten middle. But if you actually pull up a chair, talk to the people on Main Street, and look past the talking heads on cable news, you will find that the American spirit has never truly left. It was just waiting for the right spark.
That spark arrived with the launch of “Build Freedom,” a new federal initiative out of the U.S. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Industrial Base Policy that is designed to promote skilled trades in the United States.
Build Freedom launched last week in Texas, Michigan and Pennsylvania, with more states coming on later this year.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Mike Rowe said that the Department of War recognizes the urgent need to close the skills gap and strengthen America’s defense manufacturing and industrial base. “And this initiative will provide opportunities for people to get skilled-trades training and get paid to be part of something that is bigger than themselves (and) keeps them in their communities if they want,” he said. The initiative connects people who are interested in learning a trade by providing scholarships, apprenticeships, training opportunities and job postings through Build Freedom’s newly launched website, BuildFreedom.US.
“There is a significant shortage of skilled tradespeople in our country, and that gap is only widening,” Rowe said, adding that it is deeply concerning for our national security.
“People often don’t connect the dots, but the skills gap deeply impacts our country’s ability to protect itself. We need those workers to build ships, aircrafts, armed state-of-the-art vehicles, defense systems and energy infrastructure,” Rowe said. “It’s also making it hard for the average American to find a plumber or an electrician.
“Build Freedom is a national effort to reinvigorate the skilled trades by shining a light on hundreds of thousands of AI-proof, six-figure jobs currently open in the defense industrial base. My foundation is pleased to offer scholarships for these essential jobs, and I’m honored to help launch the initiative.”
Rowe understands what both the people in this country, as well as the corporations, have known for a long time: There is profound dignity in hard, manual labor.
The strength of America lives in the hands of the people who keep the lights on, fix the pipes, and build the defense systems that keep the rest of us safe. And for the first time in a long time, someone is finally asking them to lead the way back.
5- We have made a goal to read this BIG book through the month of July…reading one chapter a day in order to savor it.
We highly recommend this great read.
Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World
QUOTE: There has never been a nation like the United States of America.
Its impact on the world is unprecedented in all of human history. After two and a half centuries of existence, it is difficult to imagine what the world would be like without it.
But how did it come into existence? Who has really done justice to this astonishing story? Innumerable books have been written about the American Revolution, but the definitive treatment of the full story simply does not exist—certainly not in our generation. And it’s a story, actually a host of stories, that every single American really must know and celebrate.
The Bicentennial in 1976 fell at a rather awkward cultural moment, following the debacles of Vietnam and Watergate and smack-dab in the middle of the especially unexciting presidency of Gerald Ford. The contrast with where America is now could hardly be greater. There is an undeniable explosion of patriotism and a concomitant hunger for the grand and sweeping epic story of our fabled founding. Millions of Americans have adopted the slogan “Make America Great Again.” But in order to do that, we must go back to the beginning and must retell the great story that made us great in the first place.
Metaxas’s The Revolution will do precisely that. With a print equivalent of more than 500 pages, it will be definitive and sweeping, but it will also be fabulously entertaining, containing the dazzling array of extraordinary stories every American should know, ranging from the many events that led to Lexington and Concord, all the way through the twists and turns of the war itself, until Yorktown and beyond.
PRAY for the President as he is out of the country whipping NATO into shape.
PRAY for the health and safety for all members of the adminstration.
PRAY for all children.
PRAY for peace.
KEEP flying that flag.
READ books.
.