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2PhiloVoid · Friday at 10:00 PM

Hoping2 · Friday at 9:47 PM

Dan Perez said:
And you have said the BAPTISM is part of that witness ?

No, I did not say that.
You did.

Dan Perez said:
Do you have a verse , please !

dan p

Wolseley · Friday at 9:30 PM

I look at unrestricted immigration the same way I look at shipwreck survivors. You have a 15-man life raft, with provisions for 15 persons for 60 days, if allotted correctly. So your ship sinks, and you end up with 15 people in the life raft. So far, so good. But! There are 40 more people in the water, swimming around the life raft. What do you do?

If you try to put 40 extra people in a life raft meant for 15, it will sink, and then you'll *ALL* be in the water, and you will all die. If you try to parcel out food for 15 people to 40 people, everybody will get a mouthful a day, and eventually, you will all starve. There are sharks in the water. If you leave 40 people in the drink, they will die. Is it inhumane to refuse them space on the life raft? But if you take them aboard, the raft goes down, and you will all die. So what do you do?

We have a lot of room in the United States. We could probably find space for possibly millions of aliens here, in places that nobody else is occupying. However, like it or not, most of those places are empty for a reason: there's nothing there to support large numbers of people. You can't set up a town of 150,000 immigrants in the center of Nevada and say, "There you: be well, and prosper." There's no water, no food, and no way to produce any. It would have to be supplied for them from other places inside the country, and again, like it or not, we only have so much surplus that we can dole out before it just isn't there any more. If you go so far as to empty the stores and warehouses and water aquifers in the country supplying millions of freeloaders, eventually the system collapses. Then what have you got?

What you have is a situation where *EVERYBODY* goes down the tubes: aliens, citizens, legals and illegals alike. You cannot sustain 55 people on supplies in a life raft meant for 15. The infrastructure gets overwhelmed, and the country collapses. It ceases to exist. That's what happened when uncounted thousands of Germanic barbarians poured into the Roman Empire in the 5th century. Rome, which had stood for 500 years, ceased to exist. In its place, you had approximately 1,000 years of chaos, anarchy, famine, bloodshed, incessant war, and economic and social stagnation.

I'm not heartless. I know these people are suffering bad times in their own countries. I know the bishops want to follow the injunctions of be good to your neighbor. I know the United States is a rich country with a lot of surplus goods and services and money. I know all this. But the simple fact is, the well, even for a country as rich as the United States, is not bottomless. There is absolutely no possible way we can continue to take in unlimited immigrants month after month, year after year. We don't have supplies for them all. And, just like Rome, we have our own problems: our infrastructure is shaky. Our political system is a corrupt mess. Our economy is exquisitely fragile. If we drive those systems to the point of collapse, they will go down in flames, and then nobody has anything: the aliens will be living in circumstances just like the extreme poverty and hardship that they fled their own countries to avoid, and so will our own citizens. How many is too many? When is it time to say enough? Do the bishops and the leftists want to collapse America until it evaporates and ceases to exist, to be replaced with God knows what, perhaps for millennia? Because that's what's going to happen if we don't send these people back where they came from to solve their own problems in their own countries.

JSRG · Friday at 8:32 PM

Richard T said:
Great points and thanks for the update on the establishment clause. I can see how giving heads of state tax exemptions would not interfere in religion. However, the Congressman quoted in the article says "ensures that any American who answers the call to lead more than a billion Catholics worldwide can do so without risking his citizenship or facing unnecessary tax burdens.”
So the motivation of this member of Congress is not to grant the head of state a tax exemption, but rather the leader of Catholics.

I read that more as them speaking rhetorically than necessarily it being the specific reason.

Richard T said:
My second question is why the Pope has an unnecessary tax burden but no one does? How is it even a burden when he makes according to some about 32 thousand a month? Pope Francis' net worth: Does the Vatican pay a salary to the pope? What are his assets? Could be he will be like Pope Francis and just donate his salary, but even here if it is coming across as income he would be subject to taxes. Assuming he paid into the Self Employment Contributions Act, he would owe taxes on that income as well minus the foriegn exclusion. High earnings as the Pope may have during his tenure too would seemingly reduce his retirement. I get it that the Pope or really any minister or foriegn head of state or both would like to be free from USA taxes. The distraction and having to file forms is quite a task.

The issue in terms of unnecessary tax burden is due to the pope being head of a foreign government. It feels very odd to expect taxes from someone who's leader of another country. How does one even try to enforce taxation when the person in question presumably has complete diplomatic immunity?

As for the reason why they would single out the pope for this, it's the first time to my knowledge someone became leader of another country while being an American citizen. So it makes sense to apply it specifically to the case where it's actually relevant.

But there is also the fact that Vatican City is a very different country from everything else in terms of how citizenship works. No one acquires their citizenship there at birth (I'm pretty sure every other country in the world grants citizenship at birth). Only one person--the pope--has permanent citizenship there. And due to the way papal elections work, people can be elected to it even if they haven't stepped in the country for years prior to their elections, which is implausible for essentially all other countries.

I was curious to see how this applied to previous popes. The fairly close relationship between Vatican City and Italy probably meant the Italian-born popes after the foundation of Vatican City didn't have to worry about these issues, but John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis were from Poland, Germany, and Argentina respectively.

According to this article:

Even as pope, Leo XIV might have to deal with U.S. tax returns

Pope Leo XIV, the newly elected pontiff, must answer to at least one more higher power: the IRS. The United States generally requires all citizens to file an annual tax return, even those who live out of the country. But assuming he doesn’t renounce his U.S. citizenship, Leo - born in the...

www.yahoo.com

Leo’s situation differs from that of other popes in recent memory, because many countries do not assess taxes on citizens living abroad. “Recent popes from Poland, Germany and Argentina were not taxed by their home countries,” said Jared Walczak, a vice president of the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, who called the first American pope’s accounting situation “uncharted.”

So it seems this wasn't an issue for them, because they just weren't being taxed due to being outside of their home country. The US, however, taxes citizens even when they're out of it, and it isn't just a matter of simple income that taxes apply to (the article goes on to give various other possible examples).

I doubt paying taxes would actually be an issue for him financially, but having a foreign head of state paying taxes to the US seems like it could cause potential complications that it might be prudent to avoid by exempting him (though alternatively, he could relinquish his citizenship). I wonder if there has been any attempt to do something about this in regards to Peru? He is a citizen of that also, and as the linked article notes, Peru "also taxes full-year residents on all of their worldwide income."

The Barbarian · Friday at 7:34 PM

RDKirk said:
Like one does not lead to the other.

Right. But asking people to take a huge financial hit for society, is not a very effective way of getting them to change behavior. Fix the problem, and the problem is gone. Bottom line? If corner offices grab too much of the income for themselves, the people actually producing that wealth are going to tighten belts. That means fewer or no kids to keep the system going.

Just economic reality.

BCP1928 · Friday at 6:29 PM

Gramsci was actually an interesting fellow, and is still read by poly sci people on both the Left and the Right, just like they still read Marx. Like Marx, he was a perceptive observer of the socio-economic problems of his day and also like Marx, his solution for them was unworkable. But he is credited with introducing the idea of the cultural hegemony of ideological elites, which is what we are fighting about today. I suppose that is what this thread is about, too: introducing ideological elitists from the Right into universities to counter the domination of ideological elitists of the Left. But as the OP suggests, that attempt is going to backfire, because the Right as it exists today simply hasn't got the talent. I spoke earlier of my old liberal poly sci professor. He managed to just about hold his own coming up against William Buckley when we had him on campus for a debate, but our good old prof would have cut clown acts like David Barton or Kevin Roberts to ribbons in minutes.

Michie · Friday at 6:16 PM

Evangelization doesn’t always mean avoiding the noise. Sometimes it means listening for what’s beneath it.

Ozzy Osbourne has died. The voice of Black Sabbath — a band that leaned into scary-movie aesthetics by naming itself after a 1963 Boris Karloff film — has gone silent at 76, just weeks after the band’s final show. While most headlines focus on the mayhem, debauchery and decades of chaos, I find myself thinking back to something quieter … relatively speaking.

The Opening Riff

I was a teenager when I first heard Sabbath’s thunder. I played bass in a garage band in high school — exactly as glorious and awkward as it sounds. We’d cover their songs (usually not very well), but there was something in those riffs that felt bigger than the music. I couldn’t have named it at the time, but I know now what it was: longing.

They didn’t just sound heavy; they sounded like they were searching for something. That became especially clear the first time I went to Ozzfest in Camden, New Jersey, in 2000 — with my dad. He was far from being a “metalhead,” but he was a good sport and came with me. That day was a lot to take in. The volume, the imagery, the intensity. I didn’t quite know what to make of it all — but it stayed with me.

Continued below.

Ozzy Osbourne, Heavy Metal, and the Sound of Searching Souls

COMMENTARY: Evangelization doesn’t always mean avoiding the noise. Sometimes it means listening for what’s beneath it.

www.ncregister.com

iluvatar5150 · Friday at 5:59 PM

essentialsaltes said:
Our long national nightmare is over!
AOC's on the hook for $2,983.28 after the House Ethics panel closed its probe into her Met Gala appearance

In a 31-page report, the panel said that Ocasio-Cortez had "impermissibly accepted gifts" and said that in order for the matter to be closed, she would need to pay nearly $3,000 in personal funds.

That includes $250 to cover the attendance of her fiancé, Riley Roberts, and an additional [emphasis added] $2,733.28 payment to Brother Vellies, the business that designed her dress.

Her chief of staff, Mike Casca, told BI in a statement that she would make those payments.

The committee said that Ocasio-Cortez had taken proactive steps to comply with House Ethics rules

The report said that the congresswoman's attempts to comply with the gift rules included arranging to rent the dress and accessories that she was provided with and to pay for other services out of pocket, which are usually provided to Met Gala guests for free.

However, the committee said that her fiancé's attendance was an impermissible gift because he is not yet her spouse, and that she initially failed to pay the full fair market value for some of the items she wore.

They should’ve gifted her a 747 instead.

Michie · Friday at 5:15 PM

Kiev has ordered the pro-Russian UOC to sever all ties with the Moscow Patriarchate by 18 August. It currently has around 10,000 parishes, a number now equivalent to that of the autocephalous Orthodox Church. Defending Metropolitan Onufryj – who has always maintained a balance between rejecting war and maintaining ties with the Russian Church – is Larisa Brodetskaja, a veteran of the Ukrainian armed forces in the resistance against Moscow’s troops.

Rozanskij (ZENIT News – Asia News / Kiev, 07.24.2025).- Ukraine’s State Service for Ethnic Policy has ordered the pro-Russian Orthodox Church (UPZ) to sever all ties with the Moscow Patriarchate within a month. It is giving it until 18 August before being dissolved by the authorities for ‘violating the law on freedom of conscience and religious associations’ due to its affiliation with the Russian Church, whose activities are prohibited on Ukrainian territory as they are linked to the aggression of the Muscovite enemy.Pope Francis merchandise According to the latest checks, the state services have again found ‘clear signs’ of this link between the Kiev Metropolis of the UPZ Church and the ‘banned’ Patriarchate, and the month’s notice is the last chance allowed by Ukrainian law, with a maximum extension of one month.

Continued below.
Ukraine’s ultimatum to Russian Orthodox Christians | ZENIT - English

https://zenit.org/

essentialsaltes · Friday at 4:50 PM

Venezuelan team denied entry into U.S. for Little League's senior tournament

The Cacique Mara team from Maracaibo, Venezuela, was denied visas into the United States and will be forced to miss the Senior League World Series for players between 13 and 16 years old,

The Senior League World Series is held each year in Easley, with six teams from the United States and six international teams. A different team from Maracaibo won the tournament last year.

Hm... they are sending us their best.

Vambram · Friday at 4:46 PM

Hulk Hogan's wife reveals shock in emotional tribute after wrestling icon's death: 'I wasn’t ready for this'

Hulk Hogan's wife shared an emotional note to fans on social media Friday, expressing her shock to what she called his "sudden" passing.

www.foxnews.com

essentialsaltes · Friday at 4:37 PM

Texas GOP Rep. Giovanni Capriglione admits affair, denies abortion allegations

A conservative news site published an interview with a woman who alleges a 17-year affair with the Southlake representative, who said this week he wouldn’t seek reelection.

Three days after state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione announced he was dropping his reelection bid, the conservative news site Current Revolt published an interview with a former exotic dancer who alleges she had a 17-year affair with the Southlake Republican.

The woman, Alex Grace, alleges that Capriglione paid her for “meetups” and “funded several abortions for his own personal gain.” She declined to provide additional details on the alleged abortions in the interview, saying, “you’re just going to have to go with my word.”

Capriglione said he was “not above scrutiny,” but threatened legal action, seemingly against Current Revolt as well as Grace, for what he characterized as “lying and defaming me.”

Michie · Friday at 4:16 PM

Wolseley said:
I forgot to mention that I also have a complete collection of Currier and Ives engravings, as well!

Not surprising now that I know!

Michie · Friday at 4:12 PM

A Long Island man who authorities say made at least seven homemade bombs and threw at least one of them onto the subway tracks of the Williamsburg Bridge after expressing antisemitic comments and frustration about immigration in New York City was indicted on Tuesday.

Michael Gann, 55, of Inwood in Nassau County, was charged with one count of attempted destruction of property by means of explosives, one count of transportation of explosive materials and one count of unlawful possession of destructive devices.

Collectively, the charges could result in a maximum prison sentence of 40 years if convicted, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Court documents reviewed by The Christian Post say Gann, who was arrested by authorities on June 5, was previously arrested 30 times, including 12 felony arrests. He was also convicted a total of 27 times, including three times for felonies.

He is accused of storing precursor chemicals, at least five of his homemade bombs, and shotgun shells on the rooftops of residential apartment buildings in SoHo, Manhattan.

Two witnesses, including a U.S. Military veteran who reported Gann to police, allegedly witnessed him testing his bomb materials and making antisemitic references.

Continued below.

Man built at least 7 bombs using AI, planned to set them off in Manhattan: DOJ

A Long Island man who authorities say made at least seven homemade bombs and threw at least one of them onto the subway tracks of the Williamsburg Bridge after expressing antisemitic comments and

www.christianpost.com

DaisyDay · Friday at 4:05 PM

wing2000 said:
More evidence the trump administration could care less about our judicial system.

No, they care but they are trying to make it subservient to the presidency. They want it to work fist in glove for the goals of the Donald.

wing2000 said:
....the good people of New Jersey better hope they don't need the services of a professional U.S. Attorney.

For sure.

essentialsaltes · Friday at 3:56 PM

essentialsaltes said:
So-called “active clubs” have proliferated across the US and are a combination of fitness and mixed martial arts groups that often espouse neo-Nazi and fascist ideologies, openly taking their historical cues from the Third Reich’s obsession with machismo and European soccer hooliganism.

Active clubs have emerged as perhaps the most dangerous form of far-right political organizing today. With links to other militant organizations, including Patriot Front, they encourage a seemingly mainstream version of masculinity, layered with ideologies promoting a US race war and using the popularity of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) as a gateway to recruiting.

Earlier this month, their main Telegram account, endorsed “youth clubs”, which are chapters beginning to spring up online across the country, showing pictures of 18-year-olds and under engaging in mixed martial arts, racist meme-ing, and posts referencing genocidal and bigoted literature.

Warning Issued Over 'Explosion' of Neo Nazi Clubs in US

According to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), there has been an "explosion" in the number of active chapters of neo-Nazi Active Clubs (ACs) in the U.S. and other countries. The group is raising alarm about this trend, calling it a "growing transnational threat."

Active Clubs are a transnational network of sports clubs that were founded by the white supremacist Robert Rundo and the Russian neo-Nazi Denis Kapustin in 2020. Rundo is one of the founders of a U.S. far-right organization called the Rise Above Movement (RAM) and was sentenced to jail in 2024 for conspiracy to riot at Californian political rallies in 2017. Kapustin is a far-right figure who runs the Russian Volunteer Corps and has reportedly espoused Adolf Hitler's views.

The decentralised groups engage in physical training with the purpose of being able to attack political opponents and also spread propaganda about white nationalism.

DreamyLaLa · Friday at 3:55 PM

Multifavs said:
Honizu 1 and 2 in 3D
View attachment 367725
View attachment 367726

Love how these turned out! You're getting really good at 3D modeling now! :clap:

essentialsaltes · Friday at 3:34 PM

Stephen Volz, the assistant administrator of NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service, and Jeff Dillen, a deputy general counsel at NOAA, were placed on leave Thursday morning, Volz told NBC News.

“The letter itself gave no information about the cause. It said, ‘You are on administrative leave pending an investigation into your recent public conduct,’” Volz said Friday, adding that he had “no idea” what was being investigated.

Volz and Dillen were figures in the controversy during the first Trump presidency that came to be known as “Sharpiegate,” in which forecasters were rebuked for contradicting the president over a crude alteration to a hurricane map.

NOAA confirmed Friday that the two men had been placed on leave.

“Mr. Dillen was placed on administrative leave by the department’s senior career attorney pending a review of performance issues over the past several weeks,” Kim Doster, NOAA communications director, said in an emailed statement. “Separately, Dr. Volz was placed on administrative leave on an unrelated matter.”

The agency is without a leader as Neil Jacobs, President Donald Trump’s nominee, awaits Senate confirmation. NOAA’s spending is also under close review. The Trump administration has proposed deep cuts to the agency’s budget

[After Sharpiegate,] NOAA hired the National Academy of Public Administration to perform an independent assessment into allegations of scientific misconduct during the incident. The investigation found that Jacobs [acting administrator during Trump 1.0] violated NOAA’s ethics policies.

Volz wrote a final decision about the report for NOAA, which agreed with NAPA’s findings. [Dillen served as legal counsel.]

ozso · Friday at 3:21 PM

Who is he? Does he even have a job?

sjastro · Friday at 3:20 PM

John Archibald Wheeler did not believe in pantheism or panpsychism but was a cosmologist addressing the philosophical question of the role of the observer in Quantum Mechanics.

According to Quantum Mechanics the observer can be my telescope/CCD combination which took this image of the Hydra Galaxy Cluster.

Wheeler came up with the “It from Bit” idea where all physical things ultimately emerge from information where in this case the observer (the human) makes sense of the information in the image by producing a software program that is able to annotate the image and identify all the galaxies in the image by their NGC, IC and PGC numbers. Stars are identified by their TYC numbers.

This raises an interesting question what happens if the observer happens to be AI?
I asked ChatGPT to annotate the image giving it zero prior information.

It is impressive ChatGPT correctly identified the image from nothing despite the annotation being hopelessly wrong including objects that do not appear in the original image, one would expect this deficiency to disappear with advancements in supervised and unsupervised machine learning.
It reinforces the issue the observer doesn't have to be a conscious being.

Maria Billingsley · Friday at 3:16 PM

lifepsyop said:
Do you think it's worth investigating, or nah, nothing suspicious at all?

What's the point? Trump made sure presidents are immune to any and all actions during their presidency. Let us reason. Please.
Thanks for engaging!
Be blessed.

NxNW · Friday at 3:05 PM

Fossils unearthed in Grand Canyon reveal new details of evolutionary explosion of life

CNN - Paleontologists have discovered remarkable fossils in the Grand Canyon that reveal fresh details about the emergence of complex life half a billion years ago.

The newfound remains of fauna from the region suggest that it offered ideal conditions for life to flourish and diversify, in a “Goldilocks zone” between harsh extremes elsewhere. This evolutionary opportunity produced a multitude of early animals, including oddballs with peculiar adaptations for survival, according to new research.

The study team expected to recover mostly the fossilized remains of hard-shelled invertebrates typical of the region. Instead, the team unearthed something unusual: rocks containing well-preserved internal fragments of tiny soft-bodied mollusks, crustaceans, and priapulids (...).

“With these kinds of fossils, we can better study their morphology, their appearance, and their lifestyle in much greater resolution, which is not possible with the shelly parts,” said Giovanni Mussini, the first author of the study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. “It’s a new kind of window on Cambrian life in the Grand Canyon.”

Using high-powered microscopes, the team was able to investigate innovations such as miniature chains of teeth from rock-scraping mollusks and the hairy limbs and molars of filter-feeding crustaceans, providing a rare look into the biologically complex ways Cambrian animals adapted to capture and eat prey.

Michie · Friday at 2:13 PM

The Trump administration has located more than 13,000 unaccompanied migrant children who were previously unaccounted for amid concerns about human trafficking, sex trafficking and forced labor.

At least 13,061 migrant children, who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border unaccompanied by an adult, have been located, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services official confirmed to NewsNation. At least 422 sponsors who cared for unaccompanied minor children upon their arrival in the U.S. had been arrested on charges of abusing the minors in their custody or other crimes, the source said.

An August 2024 report by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General stated that "ICE Cannot Monitor All Unaccompanied Migrant Children Released from DHS and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Custody."

Continued below.

Trump admin. located over 13K unaccompanied migrant children: report

The Trump administration has located more than 13,000 unaccompanied migrant children who were previously unaccounted for amid concerns about human trafficking, sex trafficking and forced labor

www.christianpost.com

LoricaLady · Friday at 2:02 PM

Please pray for a 65-year-old pastor in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, who has recently been sentenced to three years in prison.

Pavel Shreider, who lives in the country’s capital, Bishkek, was arrested last November by members of the country’s secret police. Earlier this month he was convicted on charges of ‘inciting racial, ethnic, national, religious or regional hatred.’ He denies all charges and is preparing to appeal.

The indictment against the pastor stated that Shreider and other unidentified accomplices had ‘conceived of inciting religious hatred in order to undermine the integrity and security of the state.’ It went on to say he had ‘illegally organised a religious cell, based on the principles of Protestant Christianity, in which he exerted a manipulative influence on church members, as well as through religious literature that is negatively aggressive in nature towards other religions.’

Kyrgyzstan is one of a cluster of Central Asian countries that gained its independence in the early 1990s, following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. The country’s constitution provides for freedom of religion.

Release International’s partner said, ‘For many years now it has been impossible to register a single new church in Kyrgyzstan; and as for previously registered communities, their legal legitimacy is currently under great threat, due to the adoption of new legislative acts.’ He added, ‘I sincerely ask all caring Christians to pray diligently for brother Pavel Shreider, as well as for the church in Kyrgyzstan.’

Pray:

for Pastor Pavel Shreider: in particular for a successful appeal against his sentencing;
for his congregation and other Christian churches who may feel under pressure in Kyrgyzstan at this time;
for God to continue building his kingdom in Kyrgyzstan.

Michie · Friday at 1:51 PM

The FBI spied extensively on a Roman Catholic priest who declined to disclose private conversations he had with a parishioner, according to a report released earlier this week from the House Judiciary Committee that has raised religious liberty concerns.

“This new information demonstrates that the FBI not only used its federal law enforcement resources to surveil certain Catholic Americans, but it also used these resources to investigate a clergy member,” the committee said, according to the July 22 report that Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, shared with the Catholic News Agency.

After he expressed reluctance to comply with a January 2023 inquiry regarding a parishioner who had been arrested, the FBI’s Richmond office probed the unnamed priest’s ordination history, examined his finances and coordinated with the FBI’s London office to track his international travel.

Continued below.

FBI reportedly spied on priest for not disclosing private conversation: 'Worse than anyone thought'

The FBI spied extensively on a Roman Catholic priest who declined to disclose private conversations he had with one of his parishioners, according to a report released earlier this week from the

www.christianpost.com

New Posts

New Posts

The Opening Riff​

Our long national nightmare is over!​

AOC's on the hook for $2,983.28 after the House Ethics panel closed its probe into her Met Gala appearance​

Venezuelan team denied entry into U.S. for Little League's senior tournament​

Texas GOP Rep. Giovanni Capriglione admits affair, denies abortion allegations​

Warning Issued Over 'Explosion' of Neo Nazi Clubs in US​

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The Opening Riff

Our long national nightmare is over!

AOC's on the hook for $2,983.28 after the House Ethics panel closed its probe into her Met Gala appearance

Venezuelan team denied entry into U.S. for Little League's senior tournament

Texas GOP Rep. Giovanni Capriglione admits affair, denies abortion allegations

Warning Issued Over 'Explosion' of Neo Nazi Clubs in US