“He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
With half the US population reportedly unwilling to submit to an experimental Covid-19 shot, a new scientific paper has shed light on how state health authorities might enforce compliance with vaccine mandates.
Published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, thepaperoutlines strategies for circumventing widespread fears over the safety of a rushed-to-market vaccine against the novel coronavirus, providing health authorities with a playbook for coercing a skittish populace.
The writers acknowledge that voluntary measures should be tried first, rather than mandating the vaccine for everyone out of the gate. However, if the target population doesn’t comply within a trial period, a mandate should be rolled out, and the penalties for refusing to submit should be harsh. Given “the costs of a failed voluntary scheme,” the writers warn, authorities should wait no more than a few weeks before rolling out a mandate if uptake falls short of expectations.
The paper says “six substantive criteria” must be met before a Covid-19 vaccine is imposed by the state. A federal body, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, must greenlight administration to certain groups of the populace first, and “only recommended groups should be considered for a vaccination mandate.”
“High-risk” groups should be given priority on that list.
“[T]he elderly, health professionals working in high-risk situations or working with high-risk patients…persons with certain underlying medical conditions,” and people living in “high-density settings such as prisons and dormitories” – as well as active-duty military service members – should be ordered to get the jab as soon as health officials are confident they have a sufficient supply to cover these groups, the paper suggests.
Rather than attempting to pass laws requiring certain populations to get the vaccine, the paper recommends that “noncompliance should incur a penalty” – and a “relatively substantial” one. The non-compliant should be threatened with “employment suspension or stay-at-home orders,” though fines or criminal charges are discouraged, because they “disadvantage the poor” and risk getting the mandate itself challenged in court. Worse, they “may stoke distrust without improving uptake,” it adds.
Whatever they do, authorities should avoid flaunting their relationship with vaccine manufacturers, the paper recommends – a tall order, given that President Donald Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” vaccine development initiative is helmed by Moncef Slaoui, the former head of pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccine division who had to quit the board of directors of Moderna – a frontrunner in the vaccine race – to take the job. Slaoui notoriously was forced to offload over $10 million in Moderna stock after its value briefly skyrocketed following the announcement of promising early trial results.
For the non-high-risk groups, the writers suggest authorities “encourage voluntary uptake…using means such as public education campaigns and free vaccination.” Health officials have been hard at work conducting focus groups on which variety of “influencers” might best convince the American people to embrace what would be the quickest vaccine rollout in history (the standard timetable for vaccine development and approval, complete with post-shot monitoring for side effects, is 10 years or more) and what kind of emotional tone the message should take.
A Yale University study conducted in July evaluated messaging strategies including guilt, economic benefit, trust in science, embarrassment, and community benefit to measure the effects on not only confidence in the vaccine itself but how willing the participants were to persuade others to take the shot – and how much they feared or looked down on those who had not received it. The results of that study have not been published.
The authors of the NEJM paper hail from Yale, Stanford University, and Indiana University, all institutions that have received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation has poured billions of dollars into developing multiple Covid-19 vaccines, setting up seven facilities to manufacture the leading candidates. While the US, UK, and several other countries have already paid for hundreds of millions of doses of multiple jabs, no western pharmaceutical company has yet declared victory in the vaccine race – on the contrary, the clinical trials of frontrunners like AstraZeneca and Moderna have yielded a bumper crop of troubling side effects.
Fears about the rushed rollout of the vaccine coupled with both Republicans and Democrats’ determination to turn the jab into a political football have convinced a majority of Americans that they don’t want to be among the first to get vaccinated. A poll conducted earlier this month suggested less than half the country would take the shot, even if they were paid $100, and polling shows the portion of Americans willing to take it has declined steadily since May.
Poll results that one survey organizer describes as “frightening” show that 3 of 5 respondents say the United States is on the “verge” of civil war and more than half already are preparing for it.
The assessment comes from Engagious, Sports and Leisure Research Group and ROKK Solutions.
“This is the single most frightening poll result I’ve ever been associated with,” Rich Thau, head of Engagious, told Secrets.
Bedard reported his column has been following surveys “that have been sizing up the state of the nation and business since the coronavirus crisis hit.”
This one, he said, is the first to “raise majority concerns about a potential war.”
That’s even though the Black Lives Matter agenda continues to “conduct heated protests to the point of riots” across America.
The polling said 61% believe the U.S. is nearing a second civil war. Forty-one percent “strongly agree” with that. And 52% are “so convinced that it is just around the corner, or after Election Day, that they are putting away food and other essentials.”
There have been allegations on both sides of the political aisle that the other side plans to steal the election.
Democrats across the country are lobbying for mail-in ballots, while Republicans are opposing abrupt and major changes in the election system so close to voting.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even has speculated about being president for a time, if either candidate cannot win a majority in the Electoral College and the vote is thrown into the U.S. House.
Secrets reported, “Predictably, it’s the political extremes who are most ready for war, with 52% of very liberal, 52% of very conservative, 32% of somewhat liberal, 34% of moderate, and 35% of somewhat conservative respondents saying they believe the statement ‘I’m concerned that the U.S. could be on the verge of another civil war.'”
Bedard reported there’s also a contributing factor from the coronavirus, because many people believe it will spike again, and food and other essentials will become scare.
Trump’s job approval is up from 42% earlier in September
Except for approval on economy, issue approvals are below 50%
56% expect Trump will win the election; 40% think Biden will
In Gallup polling conducted over the two weeks leading up to the first presidential debate, President Donald Trump’s job approval rating is 46%, its highest point since May. Although still short of the majority approval that incumbent presidents typically need in order to be confident of reelection, more Americans say they expect he, rather than Joe Biden, will win the election.
Trump’s Pre-Debate Approval Rating Remains Below His Personal Best
Although the increase of four percentage points in Trump’s latest rating is not statistically significant, the poll’s internals suggest a rise in his support the second half of the Sept. 14-28 field period coincident with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death and lying in state, as well as Trump’s announcing that he would quickly make a nomination to the Supreme Court. This suggests that some viewed his handling of the situation positively.
Line graph. President Donald Trump’s job approval rating since January 2019. Currently, 46% of Americans approve, marking a four-point increase from earlier in September.
While the president’s approval rating has edged up, he remains underwater, with 52% of Americans disapproving of his job performance.The current 87-point gap between Republicans’ (94%) and Democrats’ (7%) approval of Trump is still among the largest in Gallup’s history. Independents’ approval of Trump, now 39%, remains significantly below the 46% to 47% ratings for this group from April and May.
Besides Economy, Trump’s Approval Ratings on Issues Are Below 50%
In addition to Trump’s overall job approval, Gallup asked Americans whether they approve of his handling of six issues. The economy is the only one with majority-level approval (54%), marking an improvement from 47% and 48% readings in early June and mid-August.
His ratings on the other five issues are at or above where they were in mid-August but remain below 50%.These include crime (48%), foreign affairs (46%), relations with China (46%), response to the coronavirus (44%) and race relations (38%).
Majority of Americans Predict Trump Will Win Reelection
Regardless of whom they personally support, 56% of Americans expect Trump to prevail over Biden in the November election, while 40% think Biden will win. Although majorities of partisans think their party’s candidate will win, Republicans are more likely to believe Trump will win (90%) than Democrats are to think Biden will (73%). Fifty-six percent of independents predict that Trump will win.
Looking back, Gallup has asked Americans for their predictions in the late summer or fall of every presidential election year from 1996 through 2012, and an ABC News/Washington Post poll included a comparable question in 2016. In each of these polls, Americans accurately predicted the winner of the popular vote, though not the winner of the Electoral College. That is, in 2000 and 2016, the public predicted Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, respectively, would win the election. Although both of these Democratic candidates won the popular vote, George W. Bush and Trump, respectively, won the most electoral votes and ultimately became president.
The prediction of a Trump victory is not consistent with the average of recent national presidential vote-preference polls, which show Biden with a significant lead, but it is consistent with Americans’ expectation of a victory for the incumbent president in every race in which one has been running.The two most recent elections in which an incumbent lost — 1980 and 1992 — occurred before Gallup began asking Americans to handicap the presidential election race.
Bottom Line
While Trump’s approval rating has improved, it remains below the 50% threshold for an incumbent that has historically been associated with presidents winning a second term. In addition, Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going is near its historical low point, and while economic confidence has recovered from its record drop in the spring, it remains negative. Despite these strong indicators that suggest Trump’s reelection is imperiled, more Americans still believed before the debate that he is the favorite to win.
Well folks, Jake Tapper has officially lost his mind.
During a fiery interview with Trump’s 2020 campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh, Tapper lost his cool when Murtaugh started list Biden’s horrific track record with the black community.
Tapper really lost it when Murtaugh brought up Biden stating that “all black people think the same” and his famous line of “you ain’t black” if, as a black person, you refuse to vote for him.
Tapper shot back at Murtaugh, declaring he wasn’t “Chris Wallace” and cut the interview abruptly off.
What a whack job!
Watch the video:
***Related commentary starts around the 5:00 mark***
Ted Cruz recently told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that “Trump broke you guys” when Cuomo flew off the handle while discussing also discussing Trump’s condemnation of white supremacy.
Sen.@TedCruz:@ChrisCuomo, “there was a time when CNN actually cared about being journalistic and talking about facts. Donald Trump broke you guys. Your entire network now is how much you hate Trump.”
McEnany, during a heated White House press briefing on Thursday, called the news coverage of the president’s comments “shameful” and claimed the media “refuses” to cover his response.
“The president has denounced white supremacy, the KKK, hate groups of all forms, he signed a resolution—just last week, he expressed his desire to see the KKK prosecuted as domestic terrorists,” McEnany said.
“His record on this is unmistakable and it is shameful the media refuses to cover it,” McEnany said.
McEnany said the president has “continuously condemned” white supremacy.
“His record is not mixed in the slightest,” McEnany said.
I mean he’s condemned it on countless occasions, what more do these people want?
At this point it’s clear that they only want to push this lie as a desperate attempt to lower his approval.
Over the last few days, a swarm of almost 600 earthquakes has shaken southern California, and a lot of people are becoming extremely concerned about what will happen next. In fact, if you go on Twitter right now you will find a tremendous amount of speculation that “the Big One” could be coming. The experts are trying to calm the general public by assuring them that it is probably not likely that “the Big One” is imminent, but they don’t know for sure. Forecasting earthquakes is not like forecasting the weather, and experts will continue to tell us that a major event is not likely until the day when one finally happens.
But what everyone can agree upon is that earthquake swarms cause the probability of a major event to rise. Of course that doesn’t mean that there will be a major event associated with this current earthquake swarm, and there may not be a major event if an earthquake swarm occurs next month. But without a doubt what is going on in southern California right now is worth watching.
According to the Los Angeles Times, this current swarm of quakes has been centered “around the town of Westmoreland in Imperial County”…
A swarm of hundreds of small earthquakes struck in and around the town of Westmoreland in Imperial County over the past couple days
The Southern California Seismic Network recorded nearly 600 earthquakes, the smallest a magnitude 1.1, as of 6 a.m. Thursday, according to a report from the project by Caltech and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Most of the rumbling has been relatively minor, but during a period of less than three hours on Wednesday there were 45 earthquakes of at least magnitude 3.0…
‘In just 2.5hr Westmorland swarm has had 45 quakes of M≥3.0. One of the largest swarms we have had in the Imperial Valley – and it is historically the most active swarms in SoCal,’ seismologist Dr Lucy Jones wrote on Twitter on Wednesday night.
A magnitude 4.9 quake has been the largest event so far, and we shall see what else happens over the next several days.
According to Dr. Lucy Jones, this earthquake swarm has occurred along some small faults “that connect the San Andreas and Imperial faults”…
None of the earthquakes that have been happening in the Imperial Valley are anywhere near the San Andreas fault. They are in the Brawley Seismic Zone – a network of small faults that connect the San Andreas and Imperial faults.
This is an area that has had some pretty serious earthquake swarms in the past.
In fact, the USGS is telling us that there were also large swarms in the area in 1981 and in 2012…
The quake swarms “are located in an area of diffuse seismic activity between the San Andreas fault in the north and the Imperial fault to the south,” the USGS says. Previous swarms in the area happened in 1981 and 2012.
“Past swarms have remained active for 1 to 20 days, with an average duration of about a week,” the USGS reported.
Obviously the swarms of 1981 and 2012 did not produce something much larger, and hopefully this one will not either.
But the USGS is warning that there is a “very small probability” that a quake of magnitude 7.0 or above could potentially happen…
‘The ongoing swarm could trigger an earthquake significantly larger than the M4.9 that occurred on the 30 September (i.e., M7.0 and above),’ they warned.
‘While this is a very small probability, if such an earthquake were to occur, it would have serious impacts on communities nearby and would be followed by aftershocks that would increase the number of smaller earthquakes per day.’
However, as I noted above, the truth is that they don’t really know.
None of the experts has any way to reliably forecast earthquakes in advance, and someday when “the Big One” finally strikes there may not be any sort of advance warning at all.
But the experts do believe that it is inevitable that eventually “the Big One” will arrive, and one particularly alarming study concluded that the full length of the San Andreas fault could potentially “unzip all at once”….
For years, scientists believed the mighty San Andreas—the 800-mile-long fault running the length of California where the Pacific and North American plates meet—could only rupture in isolated sections.
But a recent study by federal, state and academic researchers showed that much of the fault could unzip all at once, unleashing a rare, singular catastrophe. Now, insurers have used that research to come up with a new analysis of the damage that could be caused by statewide break of the San Andreas.
Could you imagine the utter devastation that such an event would cause?
Scientists have discovered that enormous earthquakes in the distant past caused the ground to sink by as much as three feet in some portions of southern California, and some scientists have warned that if such an event happened today that “it could plunge large parts of California into the sea almost instantly”…
The Big One may be overdue to hit California, but scientists near LA have found a new risk for the area during a major earthquake.
They claim that if a major tremor hits the area, it could plunge large parts of California into the sea almost instantly.
If you have read my new book, you already understand why I keep relentlessly warning people about these things.
Unfortunately, one day the time for warning will be over and disaster will strike. According to Cal State Fullerton professor Matt Kirby, a big enough quake could cause vast stretches of southern California to sink dramatically “relatively instantaneously”…
‘It´s something that would happen relatively instantaneously,’ Kirby said.
‘Probably today if it happened, you would see seawater rushing in.’
Right now, most people living in California are not thinking about earthquakes because they are dealing with the worst wildfire season in the history of the state.
Millions of acres have already burned, and the skies have been filled with smoke for weeks on end.
For many residents, this has been the final straw and they are finally moving out of the state.
But of course most Californians will just continue to stay where they are no matter what happens, and one day “the Big One” will turn all of their lives upside down in a single moment.
Scully’s social media posts prompted one Trump sympathizer to wonder aloud: Do they ever hire Republicans to moderate these debates?
“No, Not Trump, Not Ever”: Second Debate Moderator Worked For Biden, Tweeted Resistance ScreedTyler DurdenThu, 10/01/2020 – 19:43
Update (1930ET):Since PJ Media and a handful of other conservative reporters first drew attention to the fact that the chosen moderator for the second debate, Steve Scully, has a long history of anti-Trump tweets (he also got his start in politics by interning in then-Sen. Joe Biden’s office during his college days, before taking a job in the office of Sen Ted Kennedy), more of Scully’s ramblings attacking Trump during the 2016 race and after have surfaced online.
In one now-infamous tweet, Scully shared a column from the NYT along with the line: “No, not Trump, not ever.”
Here’s the guy who will be moderating the next debate.
And this photo of Scully grinning alongside Biden has also gone viral (we shared it earlier below).
Second Debate moderator, Steve Scully, interned for Joe Biden when he was in college. at this rate the third debate will be moderated by Jill Biden.@greggutfeldpic.twitter.com/dlSCSnO18O
Scully’s social media posts prompted one Trump sympathizer to wonder aloud: Do they ever hire Republicans to moderate these debates?
Here we go again. C-SPANS Steve Sculley, who will moderate the next debate, interned for then Senator Biden as a college student and he worked on Senator Ted Kennedy’s re-election campaign in 1980.
Are there ever republicans that moderate these debates?
President Trump is debating Joe Biden and Chris Wallace. Next debates will be worse. Radical left will be moderating. Yes, the same people whose one liners Joe Biden is repeating tonight at the Presidential Debate.
Will this be enough to prompt the organizers of the presidential debates to abandon plans to give the moderator new “tools” to stop the debate from going ‘off the rails’ and devolving into a chaotic “shitshow”, as CNN termed the first one?
* * *
President Trump tweeted Thursday that he wouldn’t allow the Commission on Presidential Debates to move ahead with promised changes to the debate formate, which the organizationannounced yesterday.
In a statement, the Commission on Presidential Debates said it was mulling what to do, and also raised the possibility of equipping moderators with new “tools” – perhaps including the ability to cut a speaker’s mic.
“Last night’s debate made it clear that additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues,” the statement read. Although it didn’t say what changes were coming, the commission said it “intends to ensure that additional tools to maintain order are in place for the remaining debates.”
But Trump in a series of tweets sent Thursday afternoon, Trump boasted that he won the debate, and questioned “why would I allow the Debate Commission to change the rules for the second and third Debates when I easily won last time?”
It’s a good question.
I won the debate big, based on compilation of polls etc. Thank you!
Trump’s campaign held a 1500ET phone call with reporters to discuss the opposition to tweaking the format. During the call, the campaign told reporters that they don’t want to change the rules, and accused “swamp monsters” on the debate committee of having unseemly ties to Democrats.
Trump campaign says on a call they do not want any changes in debate, criticizing “swamp monsters” on the presidential debate commission for trying to change the rules.
“We look forward to participating in the second and third debate.”
Meanwhile, debate moderator Chris Wallace griped in a Fox News interview that the president had “put his foot” in the “beautiful cake” Wallace had baked.
“I never dreamt that it would go off the tracks the way it did,” Wallace added.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden on Wednesday said he was “looking forward” to additional debates but would not “speculate” on possible rules changes.
Before the call,PJ Media reportedthatthe moderator for the second debate, C-SPAN’s Steve Scully, had interned in then-Sen. Joe Biden’s officewhen he was in college, before going on to work full time in the office of Ted Kennedy, another Democratic Senator. Of course, many of the president’s most rabid supporters accused Wallace of being too hostile of an interviewer to fairly preside over the debate.
Finally, the biggest irony of all this farce, as National Review’s David Harsanyi put it, is that the answer isn’t to crack down on the candidates but to let them fight it out.“As with most issues pertaining to the debates, the Commission has it backward: We don’t need more rules, we need more open-ended discussion.”
US President Donald Trump has denounced the Ku Klux Klan, white nationalists and the Proud Boys – a faction of right-wing provocateurs he was asked to condemn at a recent debate – while goading Joe Biden to do the same for Antifa.
“I’ve said it many times, and let me be clear again: I condemn the KKK, I condemn all white supremacists, I condemn the Proud Boys – I don’t know much about the Proud Boys, almost nothing, but I condemn that,”Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday night.
But [Biden] should also condemn Antifa. Antifa is a horrible group of people – they kill people… They’re causing insurrection, they’re causing riots, but the press doesn’t go after him.
President Trump again condemns the KKK and White Supremacy on Hannity and calls for Joe Biden to condemn Antifa.pic.twitter.com/5jJ7KhCwKq
Trump came under fire during the first presidential debate on Tuesday night after moderator Chris Wallacepressedhim to“condemn white supremacists.”
“What do you want to call them? Give me a name! Give me a name! Go ahead! Who do you want me to condemn?”Trump replied. When Biden jumped in with“Proud Boys,”Trump said:“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by!”– but critics slammed him for declining to give a more direct answer.
Opponents have repeatedly assailed the president throughout his term for allegedly“dog whistling”to racists and“hate groups,”with Joe Biden often reviving a regularly misquoted exchange from a 2017 press conference in which Trump is alleged to have labeled white supremacists“very fine people.”A look at thetranscriptfrom the presser, however, shows the“fine people on both sides”remark was confined to those debating whether Confederate monuments should be torn down, not neo-Nazis.
Biden has alsofrequently accusedthe president of failing to condemn former Klan leader David Duke, who has voiced support for Trump, though even the establishment-friendly Politifact has deemed the charge“mostly false.”He has, in fact,explicitly disavowed Duke, the Klan and white supremacists, saying in 2017 that such groups are made up of“criminals and thugs,”and are“repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.—Romans 5:8.
I KNOW of no truth in the whole Bible that ought to come home to us with such power and tenderness as that of the Love of God. There is no truth in the Bible that Satan would so much like to blot out. For more than six thousand years he has been trying to persuade men that God does not love them. He succeeded in making our first parents believe this lie; and too often he succeeds with their children.
The idea that God does not love us often comes from false teaching. Mothers make a mistake in teaching children that God does not love them when they do wrong, but only when they do right. That is not taught in Scripture. You do not teach your children that when they do wrong you hate them. Their wrongdoing does not change your love to hate; if it did, you would change your love a great many times. Because your child is fretful, or has committed some act of disobedience, you do not cast him out as though he did not belong to you! No! he is still your child; and you love him. And if men have gone astray from God it does not follow that He hates them. It is the sin that He hates.[1]
WR2020-1001•Story Time. •Charles Spurgeon and Karl Marx were contemporaries with radically diff. worldviews. •Current social justice view is very closely aligned with Marxism. •Today you see rioting in the street, buildings being burned – it’s Marxism. •Karl Marx hated God and was bitterly racist. •Spurgeon’s sermons, while always full of fire, were also happy and full of joy in the Lord. •Marx used the “N word” A LOT in his communications. •Some preachers today preach against slavery, while some apologize for it. •Social Justice has NO part of the gospel. •Marxism is anti gospel, anti God, anti forgiveness, anti grace.
