Inaugural, Mom’s for Liberty, Transportation Sec, the Moon

Here is a guide so you can  jump ahead to the part of this email you find most interesting:

1. Inaugural Weekend Reflections – Moms for Liberty, Transportation Secretary, and the Moon (Photos of my Aunt who married one of NASA’s top 5 people charged with launching and landing spacecraft just like Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson in Fly Me to the Moon)
2. Agenda Overlap – The Common Ground Between Faith, Freedom, and Infrastructure
3. Bridging Innovations: The Role of Judeo-Christianity in Modern Science (Historical Perspectives on Scientific Breakthroughs)
4. Practical Applications: Real-World (name of Duffy’s Reality Show) Infrastructure Decisions, from our local zoning successes to the building of New York subways and the Keystone Pipeline by Tim Michels (photograph with his wife Barbara and several of us team members at the reception for Secretary John Duffy with his first supporter Charlotte Rasmussen)
5. Looking Forward: Conservatives and Common-Sense Governance starting with President Trump’s inauguration Monday
6. More photos at the bottom of this blog and email

Inaugural Weekend Reflections

The magical Inaugural weekend began with the movie Fly Me to the Moon, fitting for two reasons. First, the Hollywood romance of NASA employees, played by Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson, reminded me of the lifelong romance between my Uncle Dale Fahnestock, one of NASA’s top five people (Director of Mission Operations and Data Systems), and his wife and my Aunt Medora, who tracked solar flares for NASA. Both the movie and Dale’s professional life focused on launching and landing spaceships.

Second, after being at incoming Transportation Secretary John Duffy’s event last night with Tim and Barbara Michels and the person Duffy announced from the stage as his first supporter – Charlotte Rasmussen – this email will be sent as I am walking into a 9:30 am ET Mass at Holy Redeemer at 206 New York Avenue NW in DC, within a mile of the 11 am Moms for Liberty Brunch. One of the greatest Moms for Liberty leaders, Scarlett Johnson, whose name, of course, always shows up with Scarlett Johansson in searches. Also in the photo above includes two other Michels’ team members, Amanda Fuerst and George Washington look alike for the day Brandon Rosner.

Agenda Overlap with Moms for Liberty & Transportation/Infrastructure

The Common Ground Between Faith, Freedom, and Infrastructure

The connections between Moms for Liberty and the Wisconsin Faith and Freedom Coalition are clear and strong. We unite in our mission to protect children from the left’s CRT agenda in schools and to keep men out of women’s sports. While the transportation connection might not be as immediately clear, transportation and infrastructure provided by capitalism have historically thrived in countries anchored in Judeo-Christian values.

Reflecting on my experiences after moving to Wisconsin, I gained a deeper understanding of infrastructure while working with Tim Michels, who had the second-best showing of 26 gubernatorial challengers in 2022. Some key lessons I learned while working for Michels include how he built subways in New York and, until the project was halted due to Biden’s war on affordable energy, the Keystone Pipeline during President Trump’s first administration.

It was no surprise when Rush Limbaugh’s former substitute, Mark Belling, reported that Trump had offered the position of Transportation Secretary to Michels. We are happy Michels decided to stay focused on the private sector to provide transportation and inexpensive energy to Americans and that we still get a Wisconsinite in Duffy to run the Transportation Department.

In a recent conversation with my cousin, Elizabeth, one of Dale and Medora’s eight children who spent much time including a recent family reunion with my eight siblings and me, I shared Michels’s explanation to President Trump about how dirt “melts away” during subway construction. To my surprise, she not only understood thoroughly but elaborated upon the process—explaining to me the geological layers involved and which layer you need to dig below to create subways.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised that the daughter of my visionary uncle, who figured out how to launch and land spaceships, would understand how to go UNDER the Earth just like Uncle Dale understood how to get ABOVE the atmosphere. In another Wisconsin connection, Uncle Dale’s brother Dick Fahnestock was one of the lead developers for the first all-electronic combat radar used by the US Navy’s first nuclear aircraft carrier and cruiser and was married in Wisconsin before playing baseball at UCLA, while Uncle Dale was legendary in the NASA softball league.

Bridging Innovations

The Role of Judeo-Christianity in Modern Science

Historical Perspectives on Scientific Breakthroughs

While advancing absurd anti-science theories such as that there are hundreds of genders and they cannot define a woman, liberals pretend that it is those with Judeo-Christian faith who deny science. The opposite has been true for centuries.

While the moon landing may seem far removed from our daily lives, the intellectual framework provided by Judeo-Christianity was necessary for the rise of modern science, making possible the innovations and breakthroughs that can transform life. For example, although the Chinese invented fireworks, they did not foresee how that technology could be applied to develop guns or missiles. Other ancient cultures, despite having some scientific advancements, did not develop “the scientific method” due to differing philosophical and religious beliefs.

As scholars and scientific historians know, the scientific breakthroughs and adaptations of technology from one use to another occur much more often in Judeo-Christian cultures where several philosophical concepts unique to Judeo-Christianity laid the foundation for a self-sustaining science. These concepts include the linear nature of time, the idea of an ordered universe created by a rational God, and the notion that humans are unique above all creation as having been made in the image and likeness of God. These ideas, and others, led to the explosion of science and innovation in the Western world from the 15th century through today.

Practical Applications

Real-World Infrastructure Decisions

Here are three examples of zoning battles I oversaw that highlight the significance of informed decision-making in energy and infrastructure:

• Energy: At a fracking hearing in Pennsylvania, a liberal opponent of our efforts suggested using an outlet instead of fracking, seemingly unaware that the electricity flowing through an outlet is primarily generated from coal—just as some mistakenly believe food is created at McDonald’s instead of on a farm.
• Transportation: During a hearing in Alabama, a liberal opponent claimed we didn’t need rock quarries any more thanks to asphalt now being used for roads, not realizing that asphalt is composed of 95% rocks from quarries and 5% aggregates that hold the rocks together.
• Infrastructure: Liberals like to charge that modern conservatives are no longer pro-business simply because we often support common-sense governance, advocating for small businesses over corporations too cozy with the government or, worse yet, China. I recall a Pennsylvania hearing where we warned local officials that if they allowed a big box development by a major corporation to be built on a ridge in Kilbuck, PA, the ridge would collapse. The corporate lobbyists won approval against our objections, and the people paid as the ridge collapsed as we predicted and shut down the State Route below for months.

Looking Forward

Conservatives and Common-Sense Governance

As we stand together during this pivotal time, conservatives are advocating for common-sense governance in response to local crime issues including those caused by fentanyl and gangs that come through the open border that will be a focus of the White House. We hope to see this path illuminated during this week’s inaugural events, and throughout the following four years and beyond.