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. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “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
We must defy a spiritually dead culture and not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord: not because we hate the world, but because we love our God, and we love them. Do we love them enough to suffer for them? Even if we are chained up like criminals, the word of God is not bound (2 Timothy 2:9) A.W. Tozer once said, “A fearful world needs a fearless church.” The more the world hates the gospel, the more it needs us to preach it.
God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. – 2 Timothy 1:7
It seems many professing Christians live in fear of the world’s disapproval. This fear not only appears to be true of many churchgoers, but it also seems true of many church leaders. This is one reason why, in today’s cultural climate, many churches seem to have little to offer. They have set their focus more on growing their organization than fulfilling their holy calling. They are called to honor God and preach the word, but instead, they measure their success by the fickle approval of man. This causes them to flinch when the world is displeased. It will also cause them to back down from the word of God when it does not help them meet their goals.
This tendency to shrink back is why Paul reminds Timothy that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power (2 Timothy 1:7). Paul was nearing the end of his ministry, he was in jail, and he was about to face the death penalty. Timothy knew this, and he was tempted to shrink back from his calling. Being able to stand for the gospel against cultural pressure is not something we can do in our strength. It requires a spirit of power that can only come from God.
American Evangelicalism is ill. As the secularization of our nation grows more potent, it appears fewer and fewer professing Christians are up for the challenge. This loss of courage is why we need to hear Paul’s words afresh. God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power.
Some Christians might hear these arguments and wonder if they’re beside the point. They might ask: “If notions of corporate guilt and repentance will lead white Christians to be more sympathetic to their brothers and sisters of color and more zealous for justice, isn’t this just theological hair-splitting? Even worse, will it just provide an excuse for indifference or a cover for racism?” Here, we have to underscore that if an idea is false and unbiblical, Christians must reject it. Full stop. The Christian faith doesn’t allow for a pragmatic attitude towards Scripture which measures the truth of doctrines by their utility.
87. What is repentance unto life?
Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience. — Westminster Shorter Catechism
Amid recent discussions of racism, discrimination, and injustice, Christians are asking questions about corporate guilt and repentance: “Are modern-day Whites guilty before God because of the sins of their ancestors?” “Do they need to corporately repent for these sins?” Our thesis in this article is that the answer to both of these questions is no. Whites are not corporately guilty for their ancestors’ racial sins (much less the sins of historical strangers) and do not need to corporately repent for them.
In what follows, we’ll first give several justifications for this thesis. Then we’ll explain why these ideas, although often suggested with good intentions, will ultimately be harmful to the church and to society. Finally, we’ll offer a better model for understanding guilt and repentance with regard to the sin of racism today.
As a side note, when we refer to Whites, we’re referring to the group of people with light-colored skin and predominantly European ancestry who are raced as “white” in our society (with the understanding that race is a social construct).
White Corporate Guilt and Repentance
In arguing that Whites bear guilt for historic sins like slavery, some Christians appeal to three main arguments.
First, they contend that we can see collective sin and collective repentance in passages such as Exodus 20:5-6, Exodus 34:6-7, Numbers 14:18-20, Ezra 9:6-15, Nehemiah 1:4-7, and Daniel 9:1-19. Therefore, they argue, there is biblical precedent for ancestral guilt and repentance for the sins of our ancestors even if we are personally innocent of these sins. In the same way, a particular white person may not be guilty of slavery, but they still bear the guilt of historic Whites’ participation in, defense of, or ambivalence towards slavery.
Second, some Christians will argue that because all human beings bear the stain of Adam’s original sin, it is therefore possible for us to be counted guilty as the result of sins that we did not personally commit. Conversely, we can see the doctrine of corporate solidarity in the fact that Christ’s righteousness can be imputed to us, despite the fact that we are not personally righteous and did not personally attain that righteousness. This idea of corporate solidarity may be unpopular for some given the place of individualism in American society, nevertheless it is often presented as the basis for white corporate responsibility for historic sins such as slavery, lynching, Jim Crow, redlining, denial of GI Bill benefits, and others.
Third, some Christians argue that because Whites receive unearned advantages (i.e. white privilege) from historic injustices, they are morally guilty today and are complicit in racism, even if they aren’t actively racist themselves. This guilt and complicity then demand confession and repentance.
Why are these justifications flawed and inadequate? We offer six reasons.
Argument 1: Explicit Biblical Counterexamples
While there are several examples of a form of corporate repentance in the Bible, there are also numerous explicit statements about the non-transferability of guilt from child to parent or from parent to child. Notice Ezekiel 18:14-20:
Now suppose this man fathers a son who sees all the sins that his father has done; he sees, and does not do likewise… he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live. As for his father…he shall die for his iniquity. “Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
Similar statements can be found in Deut. 24:16 and Jeremiah 31:27-34.
Any doctrine of ancestral guilt must account for the proper exegesis of these passages. If sin cannot be transmitted from parent to child or from child to parent, how much less can it be transmitted to us from unspecified strangers, whom we have never met, who have no connection to us, and whose actions we abhor? It should also be pointed out, even though it should go without saying, that the son who is personally innocent of his father’s sin, is nowhere exhorted that he still needs to repent for his father’s sin because where there is no sin and guilt, there is no need for repentance.
Note that biblical examples where people experience God’s collective judgment do not contradict this principle. God does indeed judge nations for their collective behavior. Yet his judgment for particular sins falls on people whom God recognizes are individually innocent of those sins (see, for example, Ezekiel 21:3). We also see this in everyday life: a parent’s sinful behavior often results in consequences that fall on an innocent child. Yet we do not infer that the child must have been guilty of the particular sin in question because of her parent’s sin that resulted in her suffering. In addition to the fact that God at times in his sovereign wisdom chooses to bring his temporal judgement upon those He regards as righteous in the wake of his judgment of those he regards as wicked (Ezekiel 21:3), God also at times in his sovereign wisdom chooses to spare those he regards as righteous from the temporal judgement he is bringing upon the wicked all around them. God expresses this explicitly via the examples of Noah, Daniel, and Job in Ezekiel 14:13-16. These differing scenarios underscore the fact that God does not regard anyone as guilty and unrighteous relative to a certain sin unless they are actually guilty and unrighteous relative to that sin regardless of how his judgment is being worked out in time and space.
What about God “visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 34:17, Numbers 14:18)? These texts have nothing to do with holding someone guilty or morally accountable for someone else’s sin. These texts simply underscore that the sins of parents often end up being the same sins their children commit. For example, children who grow up with an alcoholic parent are at a higher risk of becoming an alcoholic themselves than those who don’t. This is partly due to how God has judged the sin of alcoholism of the parent but it is never divorced from the sinful choices the child has personally made relative to alcohol abuse and alcoholism. As John Piper states, “The visitation of the fathers’ sins on the children is not a simple punishment of innocent children for what the fathers did. The children themselves are always thought of as sinful and rebellious as the fathers’ sin is worked out in their lives” (“Does God “Visit the Sins of the Fathers on the Children”?, Desiring God, 2/1/2000).
Argument 2: Ongoing Sin During Corporate Repentance
Second, the frequently cited texts on “corporate repentance” speak about current and ongoing sins, not sins of the past that have ceased. The language is actually quite explicit in these passages: “From the days of our ancestors until now, our guilt has been great” (Ezra 9:6), “confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against Thee; I and my father’s house have sinned” (Neh. 1:6) “We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws.We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your nameto our kings, our princes and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land…for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Thy people have become a reproach to all those around us” (Dan. 9:5-6, 16). When his prayer is finished, Daniel comments: “I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel” (Dan. 9:20). It is important to note here that Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel are confessing their own sins along with acknowledging the sins of those they are representing.
But would it be correct to argue that Whites today are linked to historic sins like slavery because of their present-day racism? No. The key problem here is in conflating different sins. A person who entertains a racist thought is indeed guilty of sin, but they have not committed the same sin as a man who kidnaps a woman and chains her to the hull of a slave ship. These two sins are light-years apart.
Imagine a man who was a serial domestic abuser but who has repented of and rejected that behavior completely. If he speaks an unkind word to his wife one day, he is indeed guilty of sin, but we would not insist that he is now again guilty of domestic abuse and must again repent of domestic abuse. How much less would we insist that a man who has spoken unkindly to his wife is now guilty of his great-great-grandfather’s domestic abuse or the domestic abuse of some random stranger of 100 years ago who has the same color skin?
We also note that in texts where we see an indictment of people with an action they did not literally commit, their indictment is rooted in the fact that they were complicit in or in agreement with or failed to demonstrate disagreement with the sinful action in question. We see this, for instance, in Acts 2 when Peter indicts the “Men of Israel” (v. 22) who witnessed Jesus (“in your midst” v. 22) and the “miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him” (v. 22) with the charge of “you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death” (v. 23). (We highlight, Peter uses the term “you” and not “we”, even though he was likely present at the crucifixion or at least in the immediate vicinity of it). This principle is demonstrated again in Acts 4 and 5 by laying the charge of the crucifixion of Jesus at the “rulers and elders of the people” and “the Council”. An example of this relative to our topic would be those who stood by in agreement while a lynching took place or those who did not disagree with or contend against slavery, even if they did not own slaves themselves.
We also see how there can be continuity of sinful behavior across time when the type and category of the past sin in question is still maintained and actively expressed by people in the present. We see this dynamic in Matthew 23 as Jesus excoriates the scribes and Pharisees with a series of woes that culminates in him tying their egregious, actual, present sin and sinful complicity against his righteous prophets and wise men to similar sins in type and quality that have been done in the past and specifically done by the Pharisees. An example would be when certain white power groups who are not presently carrying out lynchings still have the same hatred of Blacks as the groups’ past members. Upon the establishment of this connection to lynchings as a group and the continuation of the same species and quality of hatred towards Blacks, they could be legitimately indicted with the charge “You (the present group) carried out lynchings”! But what must be understood in the above examples is that there is actual sin operative in the present in explicit fashion in the current individuals of the same type and quality as those of their group in the past. Where that is actually the case, repentance is needed and required for the current and present sins that have continued from the past.
Argument 3: Covenant Community
Third, a major difference which makes Israel disanalogous to modern-day Whites is Israel’s status as a covenant community. “Whites” are not a covenant people any more than “redheads” or “Spanish-speakers” are a covenant people. The correct analogue to Israel’s corporate confession is the Church’s corporate confession that she has failed to keep God’s commands. As God’s new covenant people, all Christians can confess that they have failed to keep God’s commands, failed to admonish one another in love, and failed to bear one another’s burdens. But that reality applies to all Christians, not just white Christians or black Christians or male Christians or female Christians. And we must underscore, in the context of corporate confession, there is only corresponding guilt and accountability of sin for any specific individual to the extent that the specific individual actually sinned.
A similar argument works against the appeal to original sin and imputed righteousness as justifications for White “corporate guilt.” The missing ingredient here is federal headship. Adam’s guilt is imputed to all human beings because he is our federal head by nature. In contrast, Christ’s righteousness is imputed to Christians because he is our federal head by grace. We are born into sin in the first Adam. We are born again into righteousness in Christ, the second Adam (1 Cor. 15). Just as Whites or redheads or Spanish-speakers are not a covenant people, so also there is no “federal head” for Whites or redheads or Spanish-speakers. All human beings are either “in Adam” or “in Christ,” as we see in Romans 5.
On Tuesday Tucker Carlson opened his show by questioning the CDC rules and data on mask wearing and the COVID-19.
Earlier this week the CDC confirmed that mask wearing was ineffective and over 50% of US coronavirus cases were patients who were habitual mask wearers.
In California, citizens rebelled. In January 1919, five thousand members of the newly formed Anti-Mask League of San Francisco gathered to call for the mayor’s resignation if he didn’t repeal his mask order. Five days later, the mayor complied. Science vindicated that decision in the end.
A year later, a study found that compulsory mask use likely had no effect on curbing the Spanish flu.
We live in a very different time. American society, of course, is far less cohesive than it was a hundred years ago and Americans seemed far more passive than they did. Those who disagree with the prevailing orthodoxy have less power than they’ve ever had.
Mass communications are now controlled by a tiny number of people, all of whom have identical agendas. There is no modern Anti-Mask League, there couldn’t be a modern Anti-Mask League. Facebook and Google would shut it down the first day. The governors of Michigan and New Jersey would indict its leaders.
Dissent used to be a defining feature of American life, but no more. Now, we have mandatory consensus. Masks are good. Anyone who questions the utter goodness of masks is bad…
…So what is the science on masks? Well, as it happened, we have the latest for you tonight. And the science comes interestingly from the CDC whose Director has told you that masks were magic, more effective than vaccines.
But the numbers from the CDC suggests otherwise. A new study conducted by 11 medical institutions analyzed a group of people who tested positive for COVID during the month of July. Here’s the interesting part.
Among those who were infected, more than 70% reported they had quote, “always worn a mask” for the preceding 14 days. Another 14.4% said they had quote, “often worn a mask.” In other words, almost everyone, 85% who got the coronavirus in July was wearing a mask and they were infected anyway.
So clearly this doesn’t work the way they tell us it works. Clearly, someone has been lying to us, many people actually. How did this happen? Well, the short answer is we’re not sure how so many people got the coronavirus were wearing masks, but there are clues, clues that our leaders appear to be ignoring.
Following his commentary, as he predicted, Facebook censored his post.
And then later the CDC sent Tucker Carlson’s show a statement saying he misrepresented their latest CDC report.
The CDC then went further to say, “At no time has CDC guidance suggested that masks were intended to protect the wearers.”
Got that?
So these medical elites who were basically wrong and misguided every step of the way now say masks won’t protect you, the wearer of the mask.
But they want the entire country to keep wearing them!
Twitter has one-upped Facebook’s censorship regarding a story based on alleged emails from Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter about his Ukraine dealings, blocking all users from sharing it via tweet or direct message.
Twitter users were blocked on Wednesday from sharing theNew York Post storycritical of the Bidens published just that morning. The decision was based on a never-before-invoked“hacked materials policy” that Twitter announced hours after Facebook had stomped on the same story.
The Post cited emails that appeared to show Joe Biden – then vice president to Barack Obama – had met with Ukrainian Burisma exec Vadim Pozharskyi at the behest of his son and Burisma adviser Hunter Biden, less than a year before the current Democratic presidential candidate allegedly demanded Kiev fire its top prosecutor.
I’m getting this error when I try to click the link to the New York Post Hunter Biden story above. Incrediblepic.twitter.com/MR7XK2eS6U
Twitter“errors”started pouring in just a few hours after Andy Stone, a Facebook executive with a long history of working for the Democratic Party, warned Facebook was“reducing [the Hunter Biden story’s] distribution”on its platform and seemingly invited Facebook’s fact-checkers to tear the story apart.
While Twitter users were able to share the offending Post link for hours after Stone tagged it for destruction, what Twitter lacked in temporal primacy it made up in intensity.
Users who attempted to share the story on Wednesday afternoon were informed they could not retweet the“potentially harmful”link. Unlike typical Twitter warning screens that can be clicked through, the link to the Post story was not even allowed to be posted.
As speculation swirled regarding the Biden emails, Forbes reporter Jack Brewster posted a statement, allegedly from Twitter, reading that“in line with our Hacked Materials Policy, as well as our approach to blocking URLs, we are taking action to block any links to or images of the material in question on Twitter.”
NEW: Statement from Twitter spokesperson on limiting Hunter Biden article:
“In line with our Hacked Materials Policy, as well as our approach to blocking URLs, we are taking action to block any links to or images of the material in question on Twitter. “
While Twitter has outlawed entire domains in the past – most notably Bitchute.com, a YouTube competitor whose exile it partially walked back after widespread protest from users – nothing like the blanket ban on the Post URL has ever been seen before.
Many readers opined that by blocking the URL and deleting the Post’s tweet Twitter had inadvertently confirmed the authenticity of the Biden emails.
The NY Post story was a minor, largely redundant report even if the docs are real.
The extreme act of censorship by tech giants to suppress it, cheered on by journalists, is a major story of historic proportions.
They always had this undemocratic power; today they used it.
Twitter deleted@nypost’s tweet about the Hunter Biden bombshell. This is election interference. We’ve entered the age where we have a “ministry of truth” run by Democrats and only they decide what’s true. They demand that you no longer believe your lying eyes & ears.
Twitter is now banning users from linking to the bombshell New York Post story about Biden family corruption. This is brazen election interference on behalf of the Biden campaign.pic.twitter.com/9109ipLjjp
Meanwhile, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said he wrote to Facebook to complain about executive Andy Stone’s actions, asking if the preemptive shadowbanning pending fact-checking was“normal”and whether the Biden campaign had played some role in reducing the article’s reach.
Does the@Facebook@Twittercoordinated censorship constitute an in-kind contribution to the Biden campaign?
As the furor over Twitter and Facebook’s attempts to censor Wednesday morning’s New York Post bombshell intensifies, Rudy Giuliani, who was named as the source of the documents in the NY Post story, just dropped a new video on Twitter where he outlines some of the alleged transgressions of “the Biden Crime Family”.
Earlier, the NYPexposed never-before-publicized emailssuggesting that Joe Biden’s involvement with his son’s business endeavors was much more active than he led the world to believe.
In other words, if the emails are genuine (and nobody has offered any credible evidence yet to suggest that they aren’t) then it’s clear the Biden lied about having never discussed business with his son.
In a tweet, Giuliani confirmed that he has more material that has yet to see the light of day, and teased the public that it would soon be made available onhis website, which he said he launched to stop big tech from censoring the story.
The emails obtained from Hunter Biden’s hard drive reveal Joe Biden lied about Burisma, and more.
Tonight I react and share a private text message that describes the ongoing schemes by the Biden Crime Family.
e teased more evidence and outlined more allegations against not only Hunter Biden, but “the Biden Crime family”, which he alleged benefited personally (and in the form of large payouts) from Joe Biden’s various “point man” posts during his time as vice president.
Giuliani starts off with Hunter, first relitigating the scandals in Ukraine and China, before claiming that Hunter Biden is was not a recovering crack addict at the time he was making these deals, but an active crack addict, a label Giuliani applied with emphasis.
He went on to claim that some of the photos he has revealed, and more material he has yet to publish (though he teased that more would be coming soon) make Hunter Biden and the activities of the “Biden Crime Family” a national security risk, by making Biden liable for blackmail.
“Every time Joe Biden was named point man by Barack Obama, Joe Biden negotiated for the United States. Each time he negotiated, he failed. Each time, the Biden Crime family got millions of dollars from that country,” Giuliani said.
Giuliani cited Iraq, what he said was the first example of this, outlining a scheme involving a $1.5 billion contract and Biden’s brother, James Biden.
The former NYC mayor continues: “The question is, why did Joe Biden lie about it? The New York Post on its front page shows that Joe Biden has been lying about Burisma for 7 years,” Giuliani added, again claiming that Biden “committed a crime”.
Specifically, he named Hunter Biden, James Biden, Joe Biden and Sarah Biden, along with other unnamed family members, as “the Biden Crime Family.”
The “crime family” framing of course harkens back to the “Clinton Crime family”, as well as Giuliani’s work as a prosecutor where he famously helped break the Mafia’s stranglehold on the underworld, and much of the legitimate business happening in the territories they controlled.
Now, we can’t help but wonder: will Giuliani drop the Hunter Biden sex tape
If you are making less than $3,000 a month, you have plenty of company, because about half of the country is in the exact same boat. The Social Security Administration just released new wage statistics for 2019, and they are pretty startling. To me, the most alarming thing in the entire report is the fact that the median yearly wage was just $34,248.45 last year. In other words, half of all American workers made less than $34,248.45 in 2019, and half of all American workers made more than $34,248.45. That isn’t a whole lot of money. In fact, when you divide $34,248.45 by 12 you get just $2,854.05. Needless to say, it is not easy to survive in America today on just $2,854.05 a month, and this may help to explain why we have been seeing so many people fall out of the middle class in recent years.
And of course all of the figures that I am sharing with you in this article are just for 2019. This year, we have seen more than 63 million Americans file new claims for unemployment benefits as the U.S. economy has imploded during this pandemic, and so the final wage numbers for 2020 could be quite a bit worse than the numbers for 2019 were. Please keep that in mind as you go through the rest of this article.
Once upon a time in America, a single income could easily support a middle class household in most cases, but those days are long gone.
The cost of living has been rising far faster than our paychecks have, and as a result many Americans have been working themselves to the bone just to survive financially from month to month.
To give you an idea of just how bad things have gotten, I would like to share with you some key numbers from the report that the Social Security Administration just released…
-32.26 percent of American workers made less than $20,000 last year.
-44.79 percent of American workers made less than $30,000 last year.
-56.46 percent of American workers made less than $40,000 last year.
-65.91 percent of American workers made less than $50,000 last year.
Today, the poverty level for a household of five in the United States is $30,680.
That means that close to half of all workers in this country do not even make enough to get a family of five above the poverty level.
Wow.
There are tens of millions of Americans that are referred to as “the working poor” because they are living in poverty even though they are employed and are working extremely hard. Many of you that are reading this article know exactly what I am talking about. Some of you are working way more than 40 hours a week, and yet there never seems to be enough money at the end of the month.
Sadly, the truth is that our system has evolved in a manner that makes it almost impossible for most Americans to ever build up much wealth.
If you are making the median monthly wage of just $2,854.05, there simply is not going to be much left over after all of the bills are paid. First of all, you are going to need some place to live. In the middle of the country you may be able to find something habitable for under $1,000 a month, but in most of our major metropolitan areas that simply is not going to be realistic.
Secondly, you are going to need to pay your utility bills. If you can keep the combined cost of your power, water, phone, television and Internet bills to about $250 a month, you are doing quite well.
Thirdly, you will need a vehicle in order to get around, and these days it is hard to buy or lease a vehicle for less than $300 a month. In addition, you will also need insurance, and that will set you back even more.
Fourthly, you will need health insurance. If you are young and single, maybe you can find a plan for just a few hundred dollars a month, but most Americans pay far more.
Fifthly, you will probably want to eat, and that will cost you several hundred dollars a month as well.
At this point almost all of your money is already gone, and there are so many expenses that I haven’t even mentioned yet.
And of course you never even started with $2,854.05 in the first place, because all sorts of taxes were taken out of your paycheck before you even got it.
Are you starting to understand why so many families in America are deeply, deeply struggling today?
We have an economy that works for those at the very top of the food chain, but pretty much everyone else is desperately trying to stay afloat.
And now we have entered an economic downturn during which tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs. According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if honest numbers were being used the real unemployment rate in the U.S. would be 26.9 percent right now, and that would rival the worst levels that we witnessed during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Others have come up with similar numbers. For example, Axios is reporting that the “true unemployment rate” in the United States is currently 26.1 percent…
A person who is looking for a full-time job that pays a living wage — but who can’t find one — is unemployed. If you accept that definition, the true unemployment rate in the U.S. is a stunning 26.1%, according to an important new dataset shared exclusively with “Axios on HBO.”
No matter how you want to crunch the numbers, everyone should be able to agree that millions upon millions of Americans are really hurting financially and are deeply concerned about the future.
And they have good reason to be concerned about the future, because our economic system is in the process of imploding.
For decades, the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world allowed us to enjoy a level of debt-fueled prosperity that was far greater than we actually deserved.
Now the party is ending, and our society is going to experience an enormous amount of pain as everything changes.
And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.—Luke 22:31, 32.
THERE is no one beyond the reach of the tempter. Keep that in mind. Life may run smoothly for a while, but the testing time is coming.[1]
Fox News host Tucker Carlson used his megaphone tonight to outline the scale and scope of tech overlord manipulation in the 2020 election. Carlson also walks through the details of the explosive story that has sent the tech oligarchs into apoplectic fits of censorship.
The more you study history, the more ominous our present times appear:
In the light of the corona crisis and how so many states in the West have resorted to draconian lockdown measures which have meant crippling restrictions on personal freedoms, civil liberties, and basic human rights, we need to look to history – and look to it really carefully.
Here in Victoria, Australia where I happen to love, we have witnessed the most severe and longest-lasting lockdown measures of anywhere in the world. Various ‘Emergency Powers’ and the like have been run with, extended, or enacted, to give the government quite alarming powers over the lives of 6.5 million Victorians.
With the normal workings of Parliament effectively stymied, and dodgy deals done between the Labor government and a few Upper House “independents,” even more powers have been handed over to the state, including the ability to keep this ‘state of emergency’ going on and on with no clear end in sight.
And as any shrewd and power-hungry politician knows, part of the way you can gain ever greater power and control is to put forward various ambit claims. For example, Andrews had wanted a full 12-month extension of his emergency powers at first, but that was knocked back to 6 months.
And in his horrific Omnibus Bill he wanted to give carefully selected citizens the right to effectively become paramilitary forces with the power to arrest folks simply suspected of one day possibly committing a crime! That too was knocked back, but in both cases 98 per cent of what he wanted he has gotten. And of course he can say this was all done legally and democratically.
Well, not quite. Inquiries into his dodgy dealings are still under way, and it looks like various laws may have been broken or pushed aside along the way. We may yet – hopefully – see the Premier losing his job, and more appropriately, thrown in jail for among other things, the death of over 800 Victorians and the destruction of its economy.
So time will tell just how all of his grabs for power will turn out. Will he keep getting away with it, and keep taking more control of things, while he continues to whittle away the rights and freedoms of ordinary Victorians? Or will his day of reckoning finally come? Time will tell. But this is exactly why we need to be up on our understanding of history.
So let us reconsider the nation of Germany during last century. How did a civilised and democratic state turn into a cruel, murderous dictatorship? And what lessons, if any, can we learn from this today? While I and other critics of the Premier’s power grab are NOT saying we are in the same boat as Germany was in the early part of last century, it is not at all amiss to refresh our memories here.
Timeline
Let me begin with a very brief timeline:
Late 1918, early 1919 – Germany becomes a republic as Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates. The Weimar Republic lasts until 1933.
1919, September – German Workers’ Party (DAP) formed.
1920, February – DAP changes its name to National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDP – Nazis).
1921, July – Hitler becomes leader of the Nazis.
1923, November – Hitler leads a coup attempt. Jailed for a year.
1928 – His party gets 0.8 million votes in the elections.
1930, September – His party gets 6.4 million votes (18.3%) in the Reichstag (Parliament) elections, winning 107 seats.
1933, January 30 – Nazi seizure of power. Von Hindenburg capitulates and appoints Hitler chancellor.
1933, February 27 – The Reichstag fire, which Hitler blamed on the Communists.
1933, February 28 – The Reichstag Fire Decree.
1933, March 5 – Federal elections held in Germany. The Nazis get 43.9% of the votes.
1933, March 23 – The Reichstag meets and passes the ‘Enabling Act’.
1933, April 1 – Government takes first official actions against the Jews.
1933, May 2 – Trade Unions are banned.
1933, July 14 – All political parties except the Nazis are banned.
1934, August 2 – President Hindenburg dies. Hitler combines the post of President and Chancellor and calls himself Fuhrer.
1938, November 9-10 – Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass), in which Jews, synagogues, and Jewish shops are attacked.
1939, September 1 – Hitler invades Poland.
1939, September 2 – World War II starts.
1945, April 30 – Hitler commits suicide.
Let me speak briefly to several laws mentioned above that were passed early on in 1933 allowing the Nazis to take on far more power and control. In February 28, the Law for the Protection of the People (also known as the Reichstag Fire Decree), was signed. Talk about a euphemism. As Article 1 of this stated:
Sections 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. Therefore, restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, on the right of assembly and the right of association, and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications, warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations, as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.
And consider the March 23, 1933 ‘Enabling Act’. This helped pave the way for the full Nazi dictatorship. The Holocaust Encyclopedia says this about it:
The Enabling Act allowed the Reich government to issue laws without the consent of Germany’s parliament, laying the foundation for the complete Nazification of German society. The law was passed on March 23, 1933, and published the following day. Its full name was the “Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich.”
When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany by Array
And a German government discussion of the Acts says this:
The adoption of the Act on 23 March 1933 enabled Adolf Hitler’s government to enact laws without the consent of the Reichstag, which continued to exist, or of the Reichsrat and without the countersignature of the President of the Reich. These extensive powers also applied, almost without restriction, to constitutional amendments and to treaties with other states. The Act thus marked the final eclipse of the democratic state based on the rule of law and the abolition of parliamentary democracy. All the legislation of the National Socialist state was based on the Enabling Act. It served to centralise the public administration, the judiciary, the security apparatus and the armed forces in accordance with the ‘Führer principle’, to standardise political life in accordance with National Socialist principles (Gleichschaltung) by banning political parties and mass organisations and to abolish freedom of the press. The concentration of power in the hands of the government, and hence in the person of Adolf Hitler, sealed the transition to dictatorship. The Enabling Act was initially adopted for a four-year period but was extended in 1937, 1939 and 1943. It remained the basis of all legislation throughout the Nazi dictatorship and was finally abolished after the capitulation by Law No 1 of the Allied Control Council on 20 September 1945. http://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/189778/d0f948962723d454c536d24d43965f87/enabling_act-data.pdf
Notice that these were pushed through under the pretext of protecting the people and nation, and of keeping them safe. Under the guise of helping the people what was really happening was the complete squashing of democratic rights and freedoms, and the establishment of a full-blown dictatorship under Hitler.
Early in 1933 Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, wrote this in his diary: “It is almost like a dream… a fairytale… The new [Third] Reich has been born. Fourteen years of work have been crowned with victory. The German revolution has begun!”
Let me appeal to one writer here. Erwin Lutzer offers us some important truths in his important 2010 book When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany (Moody):
Laws reflect a nation’s priorities, agenda, and values. In Nazi Germany, where religion was privatized and God was separated from government, not even natural law was recognized as having validity. When Hitler got the Reichstag to give him the power to make the laws, the laws he made were arbitrary, drafted to fulfill the goals of a totalitarian state. The Nazis proclaimed, “Hitler is the law!” As Goering put it, “The law and the will of the Fuehrer are one.” Right and wrong were determined by Hitler and his cronies.
The Nuremberg Laws of September 15, 1935 deprived the Jews of German citizenship, confining them to the status of “subjects”….
Then there were laws against treason. Treason was defined as anything that was contrary to the will and the purposes of the Reich. Criticism was treason; freedom of the press was treason; a failure to further the agenda of the Reich was treason. The Law of Moses was replaced by the law of a man – Hitler….
In 1934, the People’s Court was established to try acts of treason….
The experience of Nazi Germany reminds us that whoever control’s a nation’s laws also controls a nation’s agenda and its values.
I must recommend another key work by Lutzer: Hitler’s Cross (Moody, 1995, 2012). These two books provide us with quite a bit of useful information about the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, as well as vitally imperative lessons we all need to learn today.
As I said, I am not saying that we are seeing exact parallels between what happened in Germany last century and what we see in far too many Western jurisdictions today because of government hysteria about, and overreaction to, COVID. But there are some ominous concerns here nonetheless.
Increasingly we see the rule of law and open and accountable government shrinking. In Victoria we have Andrews and his gang of eight running the entire show, ignoring the wise advice and counsel of countless experts. And they include all those who have warned us about how dangerous these interminable lockdowns are and how they are causing far more harm than good.
But power corrupts, and the more political control you get, the more you want. So power-hungry leaders will refuse to listen to others, and will simply believe in the righteousness of their own cause and their own ways. I see this happening in Victoria and elsewhere. And because I know a little bit about history, this frightens me to death to be honest.
James MacDonald preaches at Harvest Bible Chapel in February, 2019.
Harvest Bible Chapel today disclosed that it gave all digital and physical assets of Walk in the Word—including $1.2 million and a parcel of land—to its disgraced former pastor, James MacDonald, in a recent settlement.
The church said it also gave MacDonald deferred compensation, previously reported at $1.2 million, as well as $250,000 cash reimbursement connected to the sale of MacDonald’s prior home.
Socialism is hitting America like a tidal wave striking at our values, our private property rights, at parental authority, at religious freedom and the very heart and soul of our U.S. Constitution. As we discussed on a recent program, this issue is really a revolution in the making to completely dismantle our constitutional republic and turn it over to socialism. It’s confronting us in numerous ways and what happens in this election will greatly determine the destiny of our nation.
Joining Jim for in-depth discussion on this issue was William Federer. William is a nationally known speaker, historian, author, and president of Amerisearch, Inc, a publishing company dedicated to researching America’s noble heritage. He’s the speaker on The American Minutedaily broadcast. He has authored numerous books including, America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations, The Original 13: History of Religion in America’s First Thirteen States, Who is the King in America? and the newly released Socialism: The Real History From Plato to the Present in which he analyzes how the deep state capitalizes on crises to consolidate control.
Jim quoted from William’s latest book where Plato said: ‘When the true philosopher-kings are born in state they will set in order their own city. They will take possession of the children who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents. These they will train in their own habits and laws.’
According to William, the children are the prize. He used the analogy of computers. In that realm you have software and hardware. The question then remains as to who gets to load the software. God has given children the hardware which is their bodies and brains. They also have their ‘software’ which is the ideology they’re taught that gives them their identity and purpose. In God’s plan that includes family and loving each other but those opposed to God want to load viruses and malware. It’s all about who gets to program the next generation. Take the children away from the family before they’ve been affected by the habits of their parents and indoctrinate them with what Plato described as ‘noble lies.’
This is all about giving up your values and embracing the state’s values. An example from the Bible includes King Saul telling his soldiers to kill priests. They wouldn’t because they knew individually they are accountable to God. Doeg the Edomite took out a sword and killed them all. In essence, Doeg had surrendered his conscience to Saul, being willing to do whatever Saul ordered. This is what dictators want, a population that will simply obey them.
William went on to explain that the nation is controlled by laws. Laws are controlled by politicians. Politicians are controlled by voters. Voters are controlled by public opinion. Public opinion is controlled by education, the media and the Internet. So whoever controls education, the media and the Internet controls the nation.
Since the forces behind socialism control these variables, it’s easy to see who gets to ‘load the software’ onto the next generation.
Review this edition of Crosstalk to learn more as well as hear what others around America had to say.
More Information
Socialism: The Real History from Plato to the Present is available for a donation of $18 or more to Crosstalk. Go to vcyamerica.org or call 1-800-729-9829.
Former Vice President Joe Biden previously said he did not have anything to do with Hunter Biden’s sketchy dealings with Ukraine energy company Burisma. Today the New York Post has released specific documents showing that claim was absolutely false.
New York Post – […] The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email reads.
An earlier email from May 2014 also shows Pozharskyi, reportedly Burisma’s No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf.
The blockbuster correspondence — which flies in the face of Joe Biden’s claim that he’s “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings” — is contained in a massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer. (more)
The emails come from a laptop computer reportedly dropped off for repair in Delaware that was never picked up. The Delaware FBI took custody of the computer and it was eventually turned over to the U.S. Attorney Office in Delaware in December of 2019. However, there was a duplicate of the hard-drive made by the repair shop owner.
It appears the FBI took custody of the Hunter Biden laptop with the intent to bury the information contained within it. The laptop was then provided to the DOJ in Delaware, under the auspices of a grand jury subpoena; however, so far no action has been taken.
Everything Joe Biden and the Obama administration previously denied was taking place with their Ukraine engagement is now documented as having taken place. The eventual outcome was Vice-President Joe Biden threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. financial aid to Ukraine if the Ukrainian government did not fire the prosecutor and drop their investigation of Burisma. Ukraine fired the prosecutor and dropped the investigation.
In addition to the emails there are reportedly very compromising videos and pictures on the laptop that could be used to leverage or blackmail the Biden family.
[…] The FBI referred questions about its seizure of the laptop and hard drive to the Delaware US Attorney’s Office, where a spokesperson said, “My office can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.”
Hunter Biden’s lawyer refused to comment on the specifics but instead attacked Giuliani. (link)
One of the pictures of Hunter Biden shows him sleeping with a crack-pipe. Obviously it wasn’t Hunter Biden who took the picture so the question becomes were these pictures taken with the intent to carry leverage and blackmail material over Vice-President Joe Biden, either at the time or for use later on.
There are also reported pictures of Hunter Biden engaged in explicit sex acts with prostitutes which would align with the gathering of blackmail material.
Obviously this story is explosive and presents a litany of questions that need to be asked. However, the media is and social media tech censors are working overtime to block the story from surfacing.
Did the FBI and U.S. Attorney in Delaware bury the laptop in order to stop the information from surfacing? Was U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr aware this laptop and content was in the custody of the Delaware USAO?
Who took the pictures and videos of Hunter Biden and what where they going to be used for? Was this a corrupt Ukrainian effort to compromise U.S. officials; or are there Russian interests involved?
On Wednesday members of Congress denounced the censorship and retaliation by Twitter and Facebook of the New York Post’s bombshell report about connections between Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings and his father’s vice-presidential tenure.
Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent letters condemning the censorship and calling for answers from the big tech companies.
In Cruz’s letter, he requested that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey answer why Twitter chose to censor that particular article, claiming it was “hypocritical” and an attempt to influence the presidential election. Cruz demanded that Dorsey submit Twitter’s answers to the Subcommittee on the Constitution.
“Twitter well knows its incredible ability to influence public dialogue by promoting some stories while suppressing others and it has plainly decided that the American should not be seeing or discussing this particular story which could significantly influence voters’ views of candidate Biden,” Cruz said.
Tonight President Trump is holding a Make America Great Again rally at Des Moines International Airport in Iowa. The Anticipated start time is 7:00pm ET. With all the breaking news about Joe Biden, this should be fun. [Livestream Links Below]
It’s imperative that we fully understand the Gospel so that we spread the CORRECT Gospel. In today’s episode, Todd shows us some consequences of spreading the wrong Gospel and how we can know we are sharing the true one.
Facebook and Twitter took action on Wednesday to limit the distribution of a New York Post story making unconfirmed claims about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, leading President Trump’s campaign and allies to charge the companies with censorship.
There is outrage tonight all across social media as Conservatives are finding their articles not being allowed to be shared, and in some cases, finding themselves locked out of their accounts on Twitter and Facebook. Why is this happening? Because the New York Post released a story showing emails from Hunter Biden proving that Democratic candidate for president Joe Biden lied repeatedly about what he knew about the Burisma Ukraine scandal. When that much truth gets out 20 days before the election, the Liberals who run Twitter and Facebook start turning off Conservative voices. It’s the only way they can win, but as we see, it is only increasing voter support for President Trump.
On our Monday Prophecy News Podcast, we told you as we have been telling you all year that the social media purge is coming. the purge is here. Follow us on Parler.com @NTEB.
LEGIT BOMBSHELL AS IT’S REVEALED DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN LIED ABOUT INVOLVEMENT WITH SON HUNTER AND UKRAINE BURISMA SCANDAL
Facebook And Twitter Limit Sharing New York Post Story About Joe Biden Prompting Outcry Of Censorship
FROM NPR: Both social media companies said the moves were aimed at slowing the spread of potentially false information. But they gave few details about how they reached their decisions, sparking criticism about the lack of clarity and consistency with which they apply their rules.
Stone said Facebook sometimes takes this step if it sees “signals” that something gaining traction is false, to give fact-checkers time to evaluate the story before it spreads widely. He did not give more detail on what signals Facebook uses or how often it takes this approach.
Twitter went further. It is blocking users from posting pictures of the emails or links to the Post stories referring to them, spokesman Trenton Kennedy said, citing its rules against “directly distributingcontent obtained through hacking that contains private information.”
Users who try to share the link on Twitter are shown a notice saying, “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.” If a user clicks on a link already posted on Twitter, they are taken to a warning screen saying “this link may be unsafe,” which they have to click past in order to read the story. Twitter also required the Post to delete its tweet about the story, Kennedy said.
Twitter said it decided to block the story because it couldn’t be sure about the origins of the emails. But the company declined to comment on how it had reached that decision or what evidence it had weighed. READ MORE
In November 2019 memos were released that revealed reveal Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian natural gas company, pressured the Obama State Department to help end the corruption investigation during the 2016 election cycle just one month before then-Vice President Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire Viktor Shokin, the prosecutor probing his son Hunter.
Joe Biden bragged about getting Viktor Shokin fired during a 2018 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The media immediately covered for Biden and said his targeting of Mr. Shokin was totally unrelated to the prosecutor’s corruption investigation into Hunter and Burisma Holdings.
New memos released because of a FOIA lawsuit filed by award-winning investigative reporter John Solomon show Burisma Holdings contacted the Obama State Department several times during the 2016 election to discuss ending the probe.
In fact, Burisma Holdings actually name-dropped Hunter Biden when requesting help from the State Department.
According to CD Media last week former Ukrainian official Oleksandr Onyshchenko said Hunter Biden was receiving “off the books” payments from Burisma in the millions.
Then days later, in November 2019, CD Media posted leaked records of payments to Hunter Biden from Burisma Holdings totaling millions.
After years of leadership from the likes of Robert Mueller, James Comey and Christopher Wray, the FBI’s name is severely tarnished. Numerous major criminal activities were brought to the FBI’s attention but were ignored and never addressed because the participants were from a protected class. The actions by the FBI are the major reason Americans believe there is a two-tiered system of justice in the US.
Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon, via The New York Post dropped an October surprise on Joe Biden on Wednesday and the media hacks are scrambling to run cover for crooked Joe and his crackhead son Hunter.
The New York Post reported Wednesday that a laptop computer abandoned at a Delaware repair shop contains emails between Hunter Biden and a senior Burisma adviser that indicate Hunter Biden arranged a meeting between his father then-Vice President Joe Biden and the adviser in Washington, D.C. in 2015.
Joe Biden is going to hide all day in his Delaware basement so he doesn’t have to answer why he sold out his public office to enrich his family.
Biden previously claimed, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316371821990731778&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.com%2Fread%2Ffeeds%2F8941419%2Fposts%2F2966321654&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
Of course Biden lied. But another problem, if not greater than the Bidens lying about their involvement in Ukraine, is that the Feds never dug into the case.
The the FBI took the controversial Biden computer after a subpoena.
According to the New YorkPost:
Photos of a Delaware federal subpoena given to The Post show that both the computer and hard drive were seized by the FBI in December, after the shop’s owner says he alerted the feds to their existence.
The FBI again took the computer and the information but buried it – nothing has been done to date since they took ownership of the computer.
The FBI is one of the major reasons that Americans feel there is a two-tiered system of justice. The Democrat Party and its leadership are immune to investigations for their many corrupt deeds but Republicans are indicted for made up lies they didn’t make to the FBI.
How many stories landed with the FBI that were ignored because the participants were on the team protected by the FBI? How many criminals walk free because the FBI buries their crimes and refuses to investigate? Maybe it is time to shut down the FBI and start over.
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