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 discuss Kevin’s background and the focus of Every Black Life Matters, as well as the dangerous and cancerous Critical Race Theory which has not only spread throughout education but is now creeping into churches! Kevin also shares some forgotten history about Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the battle over slavery – who supported racism and who did not. Fascinating and informative conversation with Kevin McGary!
How should Christians respond to recent attacks on our freedom? We discuss concerns about the direction of the country as well as some true, forgotten history no longer taught in most schools; how God’s fingerprints are all over the founding of America and how we have taken our blessings for granted.
Today we discuss several concerning theologies and false teachings that have crept into Christian churches in America, and we look at Jan’s latest article, “Why Many Churches Today Can Never Understand the Times.”
We discuss the most popular issues people are asking about at Got Questions including what the Bible has to say about race, religious freedom, Christian nationalism, “systemic” racism, and the separation of church and state.
And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know the Lord. (Hosea 2:19-20)
Betrothment unto the Lord! What an honor and a joy! My soul, is Jesus indeed thine by His own condescending betrothal? Then, mark it is forever. He will never break His engagement, much less sue out a divorce against a soul joined to Himself in marriage bonds.
Three times the Lord says, “I will betroth thee.” What words He heaps together to set forth the betrothal! Righteousness comes in to make the covenant legal; none can forbid these lawful bans. Judgment sanctions the alliance with its decree: none can see folly or error in the match. Lovingkindness warrants that this is a love union, for without love betrothal is bondage and not blessedness. Meanwhile, mercy smiles and even sings; yea, she multiplies herself into “mercies” because of the abounding grace of this holy union.
Faithfulness is the registrar and records the marriage, and the Holy Spirit says “Amen” to it as He promises to teach the betrothal heart all the sacred knowledge needful for its high destiny, What a promise!
“Christ Is the Living Bible” John 1:1–5; 17:1; Colossians 1:15
In the scriptures there is a draught of God; as coin bears the image of Caesar, but Caesar’s son is his lively resemblance. Christ is the living Bible; we may read much of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We shall study no other book when we come to heaven.
THOMAS MANTON
Ritzema, E., & Vince, E. (Eds.). (2013). 300 Quotations for Preachers from the Puritans. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Truth Does Not Stay Dead John 14:6
Divine truth is immortal, and although it may allow itself to be taken and scourged, crowned, crucified, and buried it will nevertheless rise again on the third day and reign and triumph in eternity.
BALTHASAR HÜBMAIER
Ritzema, E. (2013). 300 Quotations for Preachers from the Reformation. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
All Christians will face persecution (John 15:18–20). Some will be mistreated more than others. The church in Smyrna, for instance, suffered intense persecution that lasted for decades. After commending them for faithfully enduring persecution, Jesus warned them that even more was coming (Revelation 2:9–10). Yet even this church had a reason for hope and endurance.
Christ’s letter to the church in Smyrna closes with a promise of the blessing to come: “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10). Don’t read that as an ultimatum. The Lord was not giving them yet another hurdle to clear on top of everything else they had already endured. Rather, it’s simply an encouragement to keep doing what they had already faithfully been doing, and to bear up under the fierce opposition aligned against them.
In themselves, believers don’t have the capacity to maintain or protect their faith. If we could lose our salvation, we certainly would. Instead, it’s the Lord who holds us steadfast in faith. Christ repeatedly declared this glorious truth to His disciples.
I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. (John 10:28–29)
“This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day” (John 6:39).
In his epistle to the Romans, Paul dismisses any concerns about the security of our salvation:
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? (Romans 8:28–31)
Scripture is clear: If you are a believer, you will persevere in the faith. Not because of any inherent strength in you–you have no such strength in yourself. But God Himself “is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy” (Jude 24). And He does hold His people fast. “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (2 Timothy 4:18). That means if you are truly a believer, your faith will endure to the end. True faith is proven in the fires of persecution. It survives triumphantly.
What does that mean for people who reject Christ and walk away from the faith? John answered that question in his first epistle: “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19).
In that sense the Lord is not merely promising the believers in Smyrna a reward for their perseverance. Perseverance is the reward, as it bears unimpeachable witness to the genuineness of their faith. And those whose faith is validated by a faithful life will enjoy the crown of eternal life with their Lord and Savior.
The letter ends with a comforting note, to the believers in Smyrna and to the wider audience: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death” (Revelation 2:11). Persecution can cost believers a lot. It can damage our livelihood. It can rob us of our homes and possessions.
It can sever families and destroy relationships. It can cost us our freedom and our health. In some cases, it costs us our lives. There is no guarantee that we are safe from any of that while we are in the world.
But the Lord promises that His overcomers, believers (see 1 John 5:4–5), will not face the second death. We may have to endure physical death, but there is no threat of spiritual death for those who know and love the Lord. Revelation 20:12–14 describes the spiritual death we’ve been delivered from:
I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
If you truly love the Lord—if your faith is verified by a life of faithful perseverance—you’ll never experience that. If you are a true believer with a faith that overcomes all the persecution Satan can hurl at you, even to the first death, you will never experience the second death. Instead Christ says to you,
Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city. (Revelation 22:12–14)
In the face of suffering and opposition we need to remember the limits of Satan’s persecuting power and the glorious, eternal rewards that await those who persevere.
It’s worth noting that smyrna is the Greek word used for myrrh, a strong fragrance used by the Jews to mask the scent of dead bodies. John 19:39–40 tells us that Nicodemus brought roughly a hundred pounds of myrrh mixed with aloes to wrap Christ’s body for burial. But myrrh was precious and hard to come by. It was made from the resin of small, thorny trees. Only when it was thoroughly crushed would it yield its pleasing fragrance.
In that sense the church at Smyrna was aptly named. God permitted Satan to crush these believers under constant persecution, and Christ’s letter to them confirms the heavenly aroma of their faithfulness.
The suffering church at Smyrna stands as an example for all persecuted Christians to follow. Although they faced vicious persecution, they were “faithful until death” (Revelation 2:10) because of their unwavering love for Christ, their eternal reward. Like Paul, they boldly faced death because their greatest desire was “to depart and be with Christ” (Philippians 1:23). They understood that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). And because they faithfully confessed Jesus before their persecutors, Jesus will confess them before the Father (Matthew 10:32).
Are you prepared to be faithful to Christ in the face of persecution? Are you willing to suffer humiliation, hostility, and alienation? If Christ has saved you, you will endure persecution, your faith will be proven genuine, and you will receive the crown of life instead of the second death.
The words justification and sanctification have largely fallen out of use in Western culture. Sadly, they are also fading from sight in the Christian church. One reason this decline is distressing is that the Bible uses the words justification and sanctification to express the saving work of Christ for sinners. That is to say, both terms lie at the heart of the biblical gospel. So, what does the Bible teach about justification and sanctification? How do they differ from one another? How do they help us understand better the believer’s relationship with Jesus Christ?
Justification is as simple as A-B-C-D. Justification is an act of God. It does not describe the way that God inwardly renews and changes a person. It is, rather, a legal declaration in which God pardons the sinner of all his sins and accepts and accounts the sinner as righteous in His sight. God declares the sinner righteous at the very moment that the sinner puts his trust in Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:21-26, 5:16; 2 Cor. 5:21).
What is the basis of this legal verdict? God justifies the sinner solely on the basis of the obedience and death of His Son, our representative, Jesus Christ. Christ’s perfect obedience and full satisfaction for sin are the only ground upon which God declares the sinner righteous (Rom. 5:18-19; Gal. 3:13; Eph. 1:7; Phil. 2:8). We are not justified by our own works; we are justified solely on the basis of Christ’s work on our behalf. This righteousness is imputed to the sinner. In other words, in justification, God puts the righteousness of His Son onto the sinner’s account. Just as my sins were transferred to, or laid upon, Christ at the cross, so also His righteousness is reckoned to me (2 Cor. 5:21).
By what means is the sinner justified? Sinners are justified through faith alone when they confess their trust in Christ. We are not justified because of any good that we have done, are doing, or will do. Faith is the only instrument of justification. Faith adds nothing to what Christ has done for us in justification. Faith merely receives the righteousness of Jesus Christ offered in the gospel (Rom. 4:4-5).
Finally, saving faith must demonstrate itself to be the genuine article by producing good works. It is possible to profess saving faith but not possess saving faith (James 2:14-25). What distinguishes true faith from a mere claim to faith is the presence of good works (Gal. 5:6). We are in no way justified by our good works. But no one may consider himself to be a justified person unless he sees in his life the fruit and evidence of justifying faith; that is, good works.
Both justification and sanctification are graces of the gospel; they always accompany one another; and they deal with the sinner’s sin. But they differ in some important ways. First, whereas justification addresses the guilt of our sin, sanctification addresses the dominion and corruption of sin in our lives. Justification is God’s declaring the sinner righteous; sanctification is God’s renewing and transforming our whole persons—our minds, wills, affections, and behaviors. United to Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection and indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, we are dead to the reign of sin and alive to righteousness (Rom. 6:1-23; 8:1-11). We therefore are obligated to put sin to death and to present our “members to God as instruments for righteousness” (6:13; see 8:13).
Second, our justification is a complete and finished act. Justification means that every believer is completely and finally freed from condemnation and the wrath of God (Rom. 8:1, 33-34; Col. 2:13b-14). Sanctification, however, is an ongoing and progressive work in our lives. Although every believer is brought out once and for all from bondage to sin, we are not immediately made perfect. We will not be completely freed from sin until we receive our resurrection bodies at the last day.
Christ has won both justification and sanctification for His people. Both graces are the concern of faith in Jesus Christ, but in different ways. In justification, our faith results in our being forgiven, accepted, and accounted righteous in God’s sight. In sanctification, that same faith actively and eagerly takes up all the commands that Christ has given the believer. We dare not separate or conflate justification and sanctification. We do distinguish them. And, in both graces, we enter into the richness and joy of communion with Christ through faith in Him.
This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.
We must be intentional about studying and proclaiming all the attributes of our glorious God. From one of our Ask Ligonier events, Steven Lawson considers which divine attributes tend to be neglected today by many professing Christians.
Message us for clear, concise, and trustworthy answers to your biblical and theological questions at ask.Ligonier.org.
“The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” Psalm 27:1
Gideon lived in very troubled times. Foreign armies—the Midianites, the Amalekites and other eastern countries– invaded the country and plundered the fields and killed the livestock. For this reason, Gideon and other Israelites lived in mountain caves and harvested at night. One day an angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon. “The Lord is with you mighty warrior,” he said. Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of the Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you.”
“How can I save Israel?” Gideon said. “My clan is the weakest in the nation and I am the least in my family.”
“I will be with you,” The Lord said. “Go in this your strength.” In other words, “I am your strength and that’s all the strength you need.’
And in that strength, with a very small army, Gideon defeated a huge army and brought peace to Israel.
What challenges of life are you and your family facing right now? Do you sometimes feel like you don’t have the strength to deal with them–like you can’t handle anymore?
God is not up in heaven shaking his head, He is walking with you right now. He wants to infuse His strength into you. How? God is our strength
“Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD” (Psalm 31:24)
How does God’s strength become ours? Must I spend hours in Bible reading and prayer meetings? Yes, those activities help us to focus on God, but we do not work for God’s strength. We do not plug in just when we need strength.
Jesus never said, I am your power cord; you are the iPhone. Our strength comes through a connection with God but it must be ongoing. Jesus says it’s like a branch in a vine.
Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 LAB) Notice the word remain. It’s constant, not sporadic.
A branch does not decide to be independent of the tree. It needs the life of the tree moment by moment. In a similar way, we were not created to live in our own strength, but in the strength of Christ.
We cannot be independent of Christ and expect to flourish.
If Jesus Christ lives in us, we have the resource to conquer all things because there is nothing bigger or mightier than He is. Paul says “I can do everything through him who gives me the strength I need” (Philippians 4:13 LAB). As he infuses his life, his power into you, you have what it takes to live your life as God intended.
God is our victory, our strength Psalm 60:12 Psalm 59:16
What are you facing right now? Remember in Christ you have the resources to overcome that challenge.
Lord Jesus, I need you right now. Infuse me with your strength. Thank you for taking over now and being my strength.
“A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, ”If you are willing, you can make me clean.”Mark 1:40
As a kid growing up, I had the chore of looking for my little brother when it got close to dinnertime. I usually found him playing at a neighbor’s house. But one evening, he was not at any of the usual places. Mom phoned his friends but came up empty. This had never happened before.
I sat in my room without any idea what to do — my heart racing. I dropped to my knees and prayed like crazy, hoping my brother would make it home safely. I never prayed so hard before. A few long minutes passed and the front doorbell rang. It was my brother. “Sorry! I’m a little late,” he said. “Mom, I went to the store to pick up ice cream for dessert.”
In our Christian journey, moments will arise where we find ourselves desperate for something seemingly out of reach. It might have to do with our health, like the leper in Mark 1, financial worries, relationship challenges, or something else in another area of our lives.
In these moments of frantic and worry, our loving God wants us to reach out to him, pleading on our knees as the leper did. Our prayers from the deep places in our hearts will not go unnoticed by our Savior. He hears us and knows what we need.
Let us never doubt the power of faith and prayer. Show your trust in Jesus and cry out to your Savior when overwhelming circumstances emerge out of nowhere.
Lord, let me never feel ashamed to come to you with my desperate cries for help when I find myself at a dead end. Deepen my faith; do not allow me to doubt your ability and eagerness to come to my aid. Amen.
When you feel worried and overwhelmed, bring your cries to the Lord. Turn to psalms, like Psalm 42, to give you the words to voice your concerns to him.
Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that He is.
BLAISE PASCAL*
Ritzema, E. (Ed.). (2012). 300 Quotations for Preachers. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Consoled in This Life, Blessed in the Next Romans 5:11; 15:17–18; 2 Corinthians 12:9–10; Galatians 6:14; Philippians 3:7; Hebrews 11:26
He who boasts himself in Christ, and despises all things for the sake of Christ, he shall be consoled by Christ in the present life, and in the life to come shall be filled with celestial blessings, and shall felicitously rejoice with Christ and with all saints, world without end.
THOMAS À KEMPIS*
Ritzema, E., & Brant, R. (Eds.). (2013). 300 quotations for preachers from the Medieval church. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
…having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever. – 1 Peter 1:23
Scripture reading: 1 Peter 1:22-25
Peter continues to unpack for us, sojourners, some details of what the call to holiness entails. Sojourners obey the truth. By the work of God’s gracious Spirit, we take hold of the truth and want to live according to it. Peter says this comes to expression in our loving one another fervently with a pure heart.
The reason we want to do this and the reason we can, is because we have been born again. That means the seed of life that has been implanted by God’s Spirit through the gospel is incorruptible, or imperishable. It cannot and will not die.
We’ve probably all planted seeds and been disappointed when they proved useless, dead, or rotten and never germinated. Not so with the life God gives through the gospel. We didn’t give life to ourselves when we were born the first time. We don’t give life to ourselves when we are born the second time, either. It is life that comes from above and it will never die.
The seed God brings to life in you has been planted and is being watered by the living Word. He has done that through the preaching of the gospel. If you have taken hold of the gospel, believed the good news, obeyed the truth through the Spirit and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of your soul, you can be encouraged in your call to holiness and love. God has given you life. You have the life that you need. By God’s grace, you have what it takes.
Suggestions for prayer
Thank God for the new life He gives through the gospel. Thank God for the gospel that is preached to you. Pray that those who do not have this life may also know this blessing. Pray that it will show in fervent love for others.
Rev. John A. Bouwers is pastor of the Hope Reformed Church (URCNA) in Brampton, ON, where he has served since December 2017. He is married to Julie and they have been blessed with six children and twelve grandchildren. This daily devotional is also available in a print edition you can buy at Nearer to God Devotional.
It was time to go, but Joe Biden’s chaotic, dead-of-night departure was a disgrace.
Douglas Andrews
On October 7, 2001, our nation, still reeling from the world-altering terrorist attack of a month earlier, launched Operation Enduring Freedom. We did so with fearsome airstrikes from B-1s, B-2s, B-52s, and assorted carrier-based strikes that pounded our al-Qaida and Taliban enemies where they lived — in Afghanistan. Our ground forces followed soon thereafter, and elements of them have been there ever since.
Said President George W. Bush at the time: “When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at an empty $10 tent and hit a camel in the butt” — an obvious swipe at his White House predecessor, Bill Clinton, who never took the fight to our jihadist foes. Bush’s defense secretary, the recently deceased Donald Rumsfeld, was a powerful presence at regular press briefings, during one of which he disposed of a reporter’s question by remarking, “We aren’t running out of targets — Afghanistan is.”
How times have changed.
Yesterday, President Joe Biden said our military mission in Afghanistan will end by August 31, and he called on the country’s leaders to “come together” to prevent civil war. “We did not go to Afghanistan to nation build,” he said.
Nor did we go there and spend 20 years of American blood and treasure only to slink away in the dead of night. Our troops deserved better. Much better. They deserved to form up and march away in broad daylight, chins up and chests out. Instead, as Fox News reports:
Taliban forces are gaining momentum, pushing the Afghanistan government’s forces out of several districts and taking control of various weapons and military vehicles in the process, while the U.S. withdraws from the country.
Insurgents have taken 900 guns, 70 sniper rifles, and 65 vehicles, Sky News reported. While this happens, the Afghanistan government continues to lose territory, having already left seven districts as the Taliban assumes control. U.S. Central Command announced Tuesday that the drawdown is more than 90% complete and handed over seven facilities to the Afghan military.
The Associated Press reported that the U.S. did not even tell Afghanistan when they were departing the Bagram Airfield. After controlling the space for roughly 20 years, American forces shut off the electricity and left at night without informing the base’s new Afghan commander, the AP reported. Afghan military officials said looters came in and damaged the base before Afghanistan’s army could assume control.
National security analyst Thomas Jocelyn recently outlined the reality on the ground: “Just two weeks after President Biden announced on April 14 his decision to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan … the Taliban launched a massive offensive. Since May 1, the jihadists have captured a large swath of the country, laying the groundwork for the resurrection of their Islamic emirate. America and its allies have remained mostly indifferent — retreating from the battlefield as the jihadists advance. This is what a lost war looks like.”
Imagine that. The Taliban can’t be trusted. Perhaps that’s why Biden got a bit testy yesterday with a PBS journalist.
When asked whether he trusted the Taliban, Biden answered, “Is that a serious question? No, I do not trust the Taliban. It’s a silly question. Do I trust the Taliban? No.”
It should be noted that we negotiated our withdrawal from Afghanistan with the Taliban.
As the Wall Street Journal editorial board reports, Biden dismissed any suggestions that today’s departure from the Afghan capital of Kabul is anything akin to our nation’s departure from the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon in 1975. “Let’s hope he’s right,” they write, “but the trends aren’t good, which is why the press is finally daring to ask hard questions. Mr. Biden denied media reports that the U.S. intelligence community estimates that the Kabul government could fall within six months.”
What must our warriors be thinking? Twenty years, and all our efforts could be overturned in a few months? Here’s a sample of what they’re thinking, and it comes from Captain Sam Brown, a disabled U.S. Army vet who nearly burned to death in Afghanistan: “Our abrupt departure did real damage to the Afghan army’s chances of success. The equipment, vehicles, arms and ammunition we left behind have now been looted by the Taliban, strengthening an enemy that enthusiastically supports terrorism. What we tried to accomplish as a nation, what I and so many other fought for was damaged by the Biden administration’s negligence.”
On the bright side, as the Journal notes: “Mr. Biden has finally agreed to have Afghan translators and their families who helped Americans airlifted to a third country as they await the visas to the U.S. they were promised. This is welcome news, but it underscores how perilous life will be for our Afghan allies as the Taliban take more territory.”
Summing up: It was time to leave Afghanistan. On this matter, Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden and the vast majority of the American people agree. But the way we’re leaving is disgraceful. And it was, sadly, an exit all too befitting our current commander-in-chief.
Energy independence under Trump now takes a back seat to climate alarmism.
Brian Mark Weber
The White House proudly announced recently that a 4th of July cookout would cost 16 cents less this year thanks to President Joe Biden. That’s insulting in itself, but the savings isn’t nearly enough to make up for soaring prices as inflation runs rampant and Americans have a harder time making ends meet.
It didn’t have to be this way.
One of the major accomplishments of Donald Trump’s administration was moving America down the road toward energy independence. We began producing more oil here at home, becoming one of the world’s top oil producers and for the first time in 75 years exporting more than we imported. This had a broad impact on our economy by lowering prices on food and consumer goods, as well as making a commute to work more affordable. It also allowed the U.S. to avoid becoming dependent on the political agreements of OPEC nations.
It didn’t take long for Biden to make America energy dependent once again.
On his second day in the Oval Office he signed an executive order immediately canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline permit. And now he’s being sued for $15 billion for that politicized breach of North American free-trade obligations. Taxpayers might get a double whammy — higher gas prices and a $15 billion bill.
Biden’s move was publicized as a way to address the “climate crisis,” but the editors at The Wall Street Journal highlight what’s really going on here:
As cognitive dissonance goes, this is a classic. President Biden’s explicit policy goal is to reduce U.S. oil and gas production, limiting the global supply of fossil fuels in the name of fighting climate change. Yet his Administration is now imploring the OPEC oil cartel to pump more oil so U.S. gasoline prices don’t rise more than they already have on Mr. Biden’s watch.
This is bad timing for U.S. consumers.
Some states are only now finally emerging from COVID lockdowns and more people are heading back to work and other places. All that activity requires energy. According to the Journal, “U.S. petroleum consumption is now roughly where it was at this time in 2019. OPEC estimates that oil demand in industrialized countries will increase by 2.7 million barrels a day this year.”
The argument that oil production contributes to climate change falls flat on its face again. How do we know? Biden and the Democrats are perfectly willing to let other countries produce oil and control the markets at the expense of American sovereignty and economic strength.
The reality is we need to be producing more oil at home during a time when demand continues to increase. The Biden administration knows this, but it’s caving to the climate change crowd rather than taking care of hard-working Americans who could use a break with soaring inflation and rising gas prices.
When other countries call the shots on oil production, American drivers are the losers every time. Now, experts believe infighting among OPEC allies and Saudi Arabia will result in even higher fuel prices in July and August.
Prices are already at a seven-year high. The current national average, according to AAA, is $3.14 compared to $2.18 a year ago. That’s a bit unfair because of low demand a year ago, but $3.14 is high regardless.
Where prices go from here is heavily dependent upon whether or not “Saudi Arabia and UAE can reach an agreement — although it is unclear when talks will resume if at all,” according to Fox Business. “On Sunday, the UAE pushed back against the OPEC Plus group, which includes non-OPEC producers like Russia. The UAE said it supported a proposed gradual increase in production favored by Saudi Arabia, the group’s largest producer, and by non-member Russia. But the UAE said it also wanted an increase in its own permitted level of production.”
In other words, Americans are completely dependent on the outcome of political infighting among oil-producing nations. That’s unacceptable, and so is the Biden administration claiming to be saving us 16 cents on a cookout when our wallets are being gouged at the gas pump.
The Biden administration plans to keep purchasers of Hunter’s overpriced artwork anonymous.
Thomas Gallatin
What constitutes good art may be in the eye of the beholder, but what constitutes sound ethical practice is not. Yet in Joe Biden’s White House, ethics is treated more like art than morality and Rule of Law.
On Thursday, the White House announced its “ethics” plan regarding Hunter Biden selling his crack pipe artwork. (Literally, he creates it by blowing paint through a straw. You can’t make this stuff up.) Hunter is a self-taught “artist” who took up painting just two years ago, and he’s cooked up a deal with artist representative Georges Berges to sell his paintings ranging in price from $75,000 up to $500,000. In an effort to counter the obvious charge of influence peddling, the stink of which wafts from Hunter like the smoke of a crack pipe due to his many dubious foreign business deals, the White House explained that all buyers would be kept anonymous.
“Under an arrangement negotiated in recent months, a New York gallery owner is planning to set prices for the art and will withhold all records, including potential bidders and final buyers,” The Washington Post reports. “Biden’s art sale, expected to take place this fall, comes with potential challenges. Not only has Biden previously been accused of trading in on his father’s name, but his latest vocation is in a field where works do not have a tangible fixed value and where concerns have arisen about secretive buyers and undisclosed sums.”
When pressed on the issue, White House spokesman Andrew Bates insisted that the plan ensures that the sales will be ethical. Swallow your coffee before reading on: “The president has established the highest ethical standards of any administration in American history,” Bates asserted, “and his family’s commitment to rigorous processes like this is a prime example.”
Sure, we trust “the big guy” to manage this on the up and up.
Barack Obama’s former ethics chief, Walter Shaub, also begs to differ with Bates, blasting the Biden administration’s plan as “the opposite of government ethics.” In a series of social media posts, Shaub eviscerated the White House’s decision:
So instead of disclosing who is paying outrageous sums for Hunter Biden’s artwork so that we could monitor whether the purchasers are gaining access to government, the WH tried to make sure we will never know who they are. That’s very disappointing.
Shaub also challenged the White House’s dubious claim that Hunter won’t know who the buyers of his artwork are:
The idea’s that even Hunter won’t know, but the WH has outsourced government ethics to a private art dealer. We’re supposed to trust a merchant in an industry that’s fertile ground for money laundering, as well as unknown buyers who could tell Hunter or WH officials? No thanks.
Regarding Bates’s ridiculous claim that the Biden administration had the highest ethical standards in U.S. history, Shaub observed:
Nobody ever said secrecy was the best disinfectant, but that’s what we have now. And White House officials getting involved in any way other than to request transparency amounts to effectively putting an official stamp of approval on the president’s son trading on his father’s public service.“
If Joe Biden were truly concerned about preventing any semblance of influence peddling, he’d tell Hunter to at least wait until after his term as president was up before selling his artwork. Hunter spending another three and a half years honing his craft could only serve to increase the artistic value, no? Instead, Biden swats away even the objections of his former boss’s ethics chief as if they were purely partisan rancor. And we all have a pretty good hunch why.
Parents want to know what their kids are being taught in government schools.
Nate Jackson
More American parents are growing concerned and doing something about the leftist indoctrination that is increasingly taking place in the nation’s public schools. But, as the old cartoon PSA from the ‘80s said, knowing is half the battle. If parents really want to know what, exactly, is happening in the classroom, “Why don’t we have cameras in every classroom?”
That’s the question asked by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who discussed the subject with Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh.
Walsh says we should have cameras. “It makes total sense that, obviously, we should want to know what our kids are being taught,” he said. “Teachers as government employees, in their capacity as government employees working with kids, they shouldn’t get privacy or free speech,” he asserted, addressing the Left’s primary objections. Besides, Walsh wants to know, “Is there anything that could happen inside a public school classroom that you absolutely would not want on film? And if you can think of something that could happen like that, it shouldn’t be happening in the classroom to begin with.”
Given that we already know a lot, Walsh makes a good point. As we noted earlier this week, according to the National Education Association, all K-12 schools should teach children that “white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cis-hetero-patriarchy, capitalism, ableism, and anthropocentrism” form the oppressive foundation of our culture and society.
In other words, the NEA wants the racist and Marxist ideology of Critical Race Theory taught in every classroom in America. No wonder these union thugs don’t want it on camera.
And then there’s the sexualization of children, and sometimes even physical abuse.
Leftist opponents liken the idea of cameras to George Orwell’s 1984, which is almost hilariously ironic given that it is they, not conservatives, who are behaving as Big Brother and the Thought Police. It is they who wish to control the present, past, and future, and to eradicate “wrongthink” by any means necessary.
To be sure, though, not every conservative is on board with the idea of classroom cameras. “I do want parents to know what their kids are being taught at all times,” says Allie Beth Stuckey. “But I care about kids’ privacy, too. I don’t want them to be recorded & watched by other parents all day.” Moreover, she adds, “That’s a lot of potential for creepiness, hacking, AND a lot of pressure on students knowing everyone’s parents may be watching their every move.”
Well then, just focus cameras on teachers and the chalkboard, right? Perhaps, but there are an awful lot of truly good teachers out there, and what if someone — anyone — doesn’t like something they said? We all know how videos can be taken out of context to vilify a disfavored target, and even the best teachers have a bad day or a bad moment.
“BETTER idea than cameras in public school classrooms: homeschool,” says Liz Wheeler.
Dennis Prager agrees, writing before the camera debate even began: “The single best thing Americans can do to counter the left-wing attack on America — against its freedoms, its schools, its families, its children, its governmental institutions, its sports, its news and entertainment media, its medical establishment, the CIA, the FBI, the State Department and the military — is to take their children out of America’s schools.”
The system, he says, “is actively, deliberately miseducating them by the tens of millions,” and our kids are “guinea pigs in the left’s sick and dystopian experiment.”
Homeschooling is indeed growing quickly, but it’s not always an option for parents, and public schools are almost certainly here to stay. So how do parents better know and influence what their kids are learning? That will be an ongoing and healthy debate, the best outcome of which would be more engaged parents and resilient kids who know how to think.
The BSA’s leftist agenda results in a membership drop from 1.97 million to 762,000.
Mark Alexander
“On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” (Oath, Boy Scouts of America)
As an executive board member serving a historic Boy Scouts of America council, a former Troop leader for many years, and a father of two Eagle Scouts, the fall of this once great youth organization established in 1910 has been discouraging, to put it mildly. Our years with Scouting were great — lots of challenges and achievements, stewarding youngsters toward a life defined by integrity and character, many campfire conversations, good friends, etc.
I should clarify that the bankruptcy filing was by the National BSA organization, which has now morphed into just “Scouting,” as the organization is now open to girls. However, Scout Councils across the nation operate as independent entities, and many of those are still rock-solid conservative scouting organizations.
In January of 2013, in a “Letter to an Eagle Scout,” I responded to the dismay over a proposal by the BSA National Board to remove the membership restriction regarding sexual orientation. In May of that year, the BSA’s national board, under the “leadership” of wealthy corporate types who were completely out of touch with grassroots Scouting values, promoted and implemented a national policy to sponsor homosexuals in Scout troops. It was clear then that the next policy change would be inviting homosexual leaders.
Indeed, in May of 2015, the BSA’s national board announced that it would open its ranks to adult homosexuals, a self-destructive policy that the board officially approved two months later. Of course, it would follow then that in 2017, the BSA’s national board announced that it would open its ranks to “transgendered boys.” (As I noted then, there is no such thing as “transgendered.” Gender-disoriented people may “identify” as another sex, but they will always be the same gender they were when first formed in their mothers’ wombs.)
And so it goes. The national board acquiesced to demands for homosexual leadership, knowing that leftist states like California would force that infusion or shut down the BSA units.
They should have stood their ground. Instead, those wealthy corporate board members abandoned the BSA’s “morally straight” code, and the current massive settlement will not be the last of the abuse charges. The BSA will continue to pay the price for its moral bankruptcy.
Apparently, BSA board members learned nothing from the horrendous record of predatory sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Church — almost all same-sex, predatory male adults assaulting male children and adolescents. And they did so all the while under the cloud of the pending BSA abuse charges, which have now thrust the National BSA into bankruptcy.
So, where does that leave BSA’s grassroots membership across the nation? The BSA’s leftist agenda has resulted in a youth membership drop between 2019 and 2020 of a whopping 43%, from 1.97 million in 2019 to 1.12 million in 2020. And the BSA’s bankruptcy filing records indicate membership is now down to 762,000.
How did that work out?
Of course, the decline in the last year has been accelerated by other leftist national BSA policies, including an official letter supporting the Marxist so-called “Black Lives Matter” movement, and now a proposed Eagle-required “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” merit badge.
The crazy congresswoman doesn’t seem to understand that our southern border needs more security, not less.
Douglas Andrews
Sometimes we wonder what makes them say such idiotic things. Marxism is one thing, after all, but insanity is another. Take Democrat Representative and “Squad” member Rashida Tlaib, for example. The other day, on a video interview with some fellow-traveling hard-lefties, she actually said, “We must eliminate funding for CPB [sic], ICE, and their parent organization, DHS.”
That’s right. Tlaib wants to do away with Customs and Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and, since she’s in the neighborhood, the entire 230,000-employee Department of Homeland Security. See for yourself.
Again, why would she say something so obnoxious? Why, given the ongoingcalamity on our southern border — the abject humanitarian crisis in which hundreds of thousands of illegals have already streamed across and human traffickers and drug smugglers have operated with impunity amid the all-but open-borders posture of the Biden administration — would she call for the abolition of the very agencies on the front lines? Is she serious, or is she just trolling us?
Our sense is she’s dead serious. What triggered her? A question about the Biden administration’s day-late, dollar-short request for additional funding for border technology to support CBP. As Fox News reports:
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) border request includes $665 million in investments toward modernizing land ports of entry and $47 million to invest in detection capabilities in addition to investments in border surveillance technology.
But activists have expressed concern that such funding, along with other methods like facial recognition and DNA testing, are used to ultimately prevent migrants from entering the U.S. Tlaib was asked how they could “turn the tide” at the congressional level on the funding for such methods.
We’ll say this: Eliminating every border enforcement mechanism available to us would certainly “turn the tide.” Clearly, even the thought of a secure border is too much for Tlaib to bear.
“Time after time,” she said, “we have seen it as advocates on the ground … that these agencies are inept to humanely guiding migrants through our immigration system and instead they further continue to terrorize migrant communities located within our communities.”
At least Tlaib isn’t blaming Donald Trump for Joe Biden’s border mess. But she doesn’t have to — not when she has Leftmedia lickspittles like NBC’s Hayes Brown to do the dirty work. “Trump’s border security theater hasn’t ended,” he wrote recently on the NBC News website, “it’s gotten worse. Now GOP governors are sending National Guard members to Texas and Arizona as political props.”
If by “theater” Brown meant “effectiveness,” he might have a point. But he didn’t, so he doesn’t. National Review’s Jim Geraghty rightly takes him to task. “First, it’s amazing that former president Donald Trump is managing to ‘worsen’ ‘border security theater’ almost six months after leaving office,” writes Geraghty. “Trump no longer holds any authority over any portion of the military, U.S. National Guard, or Border Patrol officers or policies. If he did, things would be quite different.”
Things would be different all right, but the mainstream media would still be churning out fake news. As Geraghty points out, Biden’s own DHS requested the additional Guard support for its Customs and Border Protection efforts, and it wasn’t just “GOP governors” deploying those “political props” — unless Wisconsin Democrat Governor Tony Evers, who committed 125 of his state’s National Guardsmen to the effort, is a closet Republican.
The Democrats have a hard-earned reputation for being weak on border security. And no amount of media misdirection is going to change it.
Another government defense contractor goes woke to appease Biden’s Pentagon.
Thomas Gallatin
One of the leading critics of Critical Race Theory, Christopher Rufo, recently alerted folks to yet another major defense contractor that has gone woke. “Raytheon,” Rufo wrote in a recent social media post, “the nation’s second-largest defense contractor, has launched a critical race theory program that encourages white employees to confront their ‘privilege,’ reject the principle of ‘equality,’ and ‘defund the police.’”
Rufo further expanded on his allegation in an article published in City Journal. He observes that last year, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes launched a company-wide “anti-racism” program based upon CRT ideology that explicitly rejects “equality” in favor of outcome-based “equity.”
“According to documents and videos I have obtained from a corporate whistleblower,” Rufo writes, “the program begins with lessons on ‘intersectionality,’ a core component of critical race theory. Intersectionality maintains that the world can be divided into competing identity groups, with race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and other categories defining an individual’s place within the hierarchy of oppression.”
Like defense contractor Lockheed Martin, it appears Raytheon has jumped on board the woke train, likely out of business concerns in an effort to appease the leftist mob and bow to the cultural zeitgeist. If this is the way the world — and Joe Biden’s Pentagon — is going, the execs at Raytheon want to make sure they’re positioned at the front of the line for winning those government contracts.
However, Raytheon’s execs might want to consider the implications of going woke. “What is the end goal of this program?” Rufo writes. “The rejection of the principle of equality under the law. A Raytheon toolkit explicitly instructs employees to oppose ‘equality,’ defined as ‘treating each person the same … regardless of their differences,’ and strive instead for ‘equity,’ which ‘focuses on the equality of the outcome.’ The company claims that the colorblind standard of ‘equal treatment and access to opportunities’ is not enough; ‘anti-racist’ policies must sometimes utilize unequal treatment to achieve equal outcomes.”
That’s not a recipe for success or justice. In fact, it flies in the face of the very aim of a genuinely anti-racist society, wherein individuals are judge by their merits alone.
Emails raise new questions about Wuhan coronavirus lab’s safety protocols prior to pandemic (Just the News)
FDA trims use of contentious Alzheimer’s drug amid backlash (AP)
Annals of the “Social Justice” Caliphate
Chicago Public Schools will now make sure students grades 5 and up will have access to essential supplies like condoms (Not the Bee)
San Francisco gay choir literally sings “we’re coming for your children” in new music video (Not the Bee)
MLB and Ticketmaster targeted with negative ads for bowing to woke pressure ahead of All-Star Game (Washington Times)
Robin DiAngelo’s race-baiting sequel flops with only 3,500 copies sold in first week (PM)
Around the Nation
Nine states cutting income taxes to promote post-pandemic economic growth (Fox Business)
New York AG can try to sue gun manufacturers under pernicious new law (AP)
Closing Arguments
Policy: Cyber threats need attention at every level (AEI)
Humor: Tokyo Olympics to prevent COVID spread by restricting events to short outdoor walks (The Onion)
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Upright: “The problem for individuals and nations when standards of right and wrong are abandoned is where it leads. Moral anarchy has been one of the contributing factors to the collapse of empires and great nations of the past. Apparently, we think we can escape the judgment of history and the judgment of God by ‘believing whatever our itching ears want to hear’ and doing ‘whatever seems right in our own eyes.’ Those two quotes are from Scripture. Look them up before a court decides they are not inclusive.” —Cal Thomas
For the record: “There is a connection between bad schools and lack of parental involvement. When you have strong parental involvement, parents pressure their schools to remove such teachers. Because of strong, protective teachers unions, these teachers are rarely fired, merely shuffled from school to school, until they land in one where few parents complain. And while the vast majority of teachers do not fall into that ‘bad’ category, look at where public school teachers send their own school-age children. Nationwide, approximately 10% of kids attend private school. Six percent of Black kids do so. But more than 20% of public school teachers send their own kids to private schools.” —Larry Elder
The bottom line: “We aren’t trying to prevent schools from teaching about racism. We are trying to prevent schools from engaging in it.” —an anonymous friend of Glenn Reynolds on teaching Critical Race Theory in schools
Precisely: “It is vital to understand that the [Capitol] ‘insurrection’ obsession is itself grounded in another claim of far more serious import: that there was no fraud in the Nov. 2020 election, and that Joe Biden won the presidency ‘fair and square.’ While this is certainly possible … the still-inexplicable simultaneous vote count stoppages in multiple battleground states, coupled with millions of unverified mailed-in ballots and massive middle-of-the-night vote dumps for Biden, raised legitimate suspicions that Americans deserve to have addressed.” —Laura Hollis
A blind squirrel finds a nut: “We must have the balance of outrage, where we are outraged if police do things in blue uniforms, but outrage when we have people in blue jeans that are openly being criminal, acting like it’s normal in our community. … You can’t love our people when they’re shot by police, and then look the other way when we’re shooting each other. We have to deal with both.” —Al Sharpton
Nope: “The federal government has spent trillions of dollars to try to keep Americans alive during this pandemic. So [vaccination status] is absolutely the government’s business.” —HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra (“These are the same people who argued just last year that the U.S. government can’t ask during a census if you’re an American citizen or not, despite the fact that the Constitution straight-up requires a census of all citizens.” —Sean Davis)
Lack of self-awareness: “We have members of Congress who are wildly out of the mainstream, who vote to overturn the results of an election, and who use their powerful platforms to spread lies and disinformation. As a result, nearly two-thirds of Republicans now incorrectly believe President Biden was not legitimately elected.” —Hillary “Russia Stole the 2016 Election” Clinton
Grand delusions: “If your best strategy for winning elections is to block huge swaths of the electorate from voting, what does that say about the strength of your candidates and policies? … We are witnessing a concerted attempt to destabilize the democratic process and delegitimize our multi-racial democracy, carried out in full view of the American people. … Today’s voting restrictions are no different from the Jim Crow past. … We need to call these attacks on voting what they are: part of a clear attempt to move away from a pluralistic, multi-racial democracy and toward white supremacist authoritarianism.” —Hillary Clinton
Hot air: “We’re just not moving fast enough [on climate change]. And so we’ve got to come together with the same mentality with which we have fought wars. I mean, you’ve got to spend what you need to spend. You got to do what you need to do. You have to do it as fast as you can.” —climate czar John Kerry
And last… “The same people on the Left who rant ceaselessly about expensive, supposedly endless wars with no exit strategies are in favor of the counterproductive and endless War on Poverty, in which we economically burned villages in order to save them.” —Ben Shapiro
Palestinians start applying for citizenship under family unification laws Palestinians who are married to Israeli citizens but who have not been able to obtain Israeli citizenship or residency due to the Citizenship Law which the government failed to renew…have begun filing requests…with the Interior Ministry. NGOs, including the Hamoked civil rights group, have begun filing requests for citizenship and residency on behalf of their clients, and are encouraging others to do so as well.
Russian fighter jets intercept US Navy plane over Black Sea A pair of Russian Su-30SM fighter jets intercepted a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft over the Black Sea on Tuesday…Russian Defense Ministry said, “On the eve of July 6, Russian means of airspace control detected an air target approaching the State border of the Russian Federation over the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea…
Afghan pilots assassinated by Taliban as U.S. withdraws Afghan Air Force Major Dastagir Zamaray had grown so fearful of Taliban assassinations of off-duty forces in Kabul that he decided to sell his home to move… Instead of being greeted by a prospective buyer at his realtor’s office earlier this year, the 41-year-old pilot was confronted by a gunman who walked inside and, without a word, fatally shot the real estate agent in the mouth.
Israel beings targeting Hamas’ cryptocurrency accounts Israel said Thursday it will begin seizing cryptocurrency accounts used by the Palestinian Hamas group to raise money for its armed wing. Defense Minister Benny Gantz ordered security forces to seize the accounts after a joint operation “uncovered a web of electronic wallets” used by Hamas to raise funds using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the ministry said.
Congress OKs budget for reopening U.S. Consulate for Palestinians The U.S. Congress’ Budget Committee Thursday approved the budget for the reopening of the American Consulate for the Palestinians in Jerusalem…Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was asked to report to Congress on the reopening date and the return of the consulate staff to operations, and to describe the implications of the opening of the consulate on U.S.-Palestinian relations.
Israel, UAE economic ties falter as U.S. freezes projects The enthusiasm surrounding the Abraham Accords, particularly the seemingly flourishing relationship between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, seems to have taken a backseat following reports that none of the economic projects promised by the U.S. as part of the agreements have take off the ground.
Jordan, Israel agree to water deal; more West Bank trade Israel and Jordan reached a deal on Thursday for the Jewish state to sell an unprecedented amount of water to the kingdom, while significantly boosting Jordanian exports to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The agreements, concluded during a meeting between their foreign ministers, signaled improved relations with Israel’s new government following years of strained ties…
Pentagon sees increased chances of nuclear conflict, newly disclosed report says A Pentagon report secretly published in 2020 and first disclosed this week, raises the potential for some form of armed conflict between nuclear-armed powers. … The report states, “Despite concerted US efforts to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in international affairs and to negotiate reductions in the number of nuclear weapons, since 2010 no potential adversary has reduced either the role of nuclear weapons in its national security strategy or the number of nuclear weapons it fields.” “Rather, they have moved decidedly in the opposite direction,”
Bennett: It’s the Bible That Binds America to Israel Yes, the two nations share a set of values, but those values are wholly based on the Hebrew Scriptures. Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett this week said it’s not the shared moral and democratic values that bind America and the Jewish state in everlasting friendship. It’s the Bible.
Trump Announces Class Action Suit Against Facebook, Twitter and Google “The American people’s birthright of freedom must prevail against Big Tech and other forces that seek to destroy it,” former President Donald Trump declared Wednesday. “Through this lawsuit we are standing up for American democracy, by standing up for free speech rights of every American.” With that, Trump announced he was leading a class action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter and Google and their CEO’s Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai.
Prophetic? Iran’s Clock Counting Down to Israel’s Doom Stops Working In 2017 Iran placed a massive digital clock in Tehran’s Palestine Square counting down the days until Israel’s destruction. This week that clock went dark. The digital countdown showed the number of days remaining until the Jewish state’s demise. It was based on a 2015 “prophecy” by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that in another 25 years (by the year 2040), Israel would no longer exist.
Gay chorus threatens: ‘We’re coming for your children’ “We’ll convert your children, happens bit by bit, quietly and subtlety and you will barely notice it, you can keep them from disco, warn about San Francisco, make them wear pleated pants, we don’t care – “We’re coming for them, we’re coming for your children! We’re coming for them, we’re coming for them, WE’RE COMING FOR YOUR CHILDREN!!!”
Bennett said to have met secretly with Jordan’s king last week in Amman Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met secretly with Jordan’s King Abdullah II last week at his palace in Amman in what was the monarch’s first meeting with an Israeli premier in three years, Ynet learned on Thursday
Bill submitted to strip terrorists of citizenship This coming Sunday, a bill will be submitted to the Ministerial Committee for Legislation to deny citizenship and residency to Israeli terrorists who received financial assistance from the Palestinian Authority while in prison.
Magnitude 6.2 earthquakes strikes central California A magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck central California on Thursday, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said, adding the quake had a depth of 10 kms (6.21 miles)
Israel warns: Mideast on verge of arms race Speaking during the Israel Defense Prize ceremony, Gantz added that “in the face of all of these threats, our eyes our open. Our defense systems, most of which were developed in Israel, are deployed, and intelligence is working overtime to create targets and identify intentions.” Israel is pursuing a zero-tolerance approach to any harm to Israeli sovereignty, he stated.
Largest ritual bath from Temple Period has just been uncovered under Temple Mt “They found what she believed to be the largest mikveh in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period,” Wander said. A small section of the mikveh was excavated. They didn’t excavate all of it because they wanted to leave remnants or ensuing conquests.” “There were two big rooms that were built before the destruction of the second temple. They were built as VIP rooms where they would honor dignitaries coming into Jerusalem before entering the temple mount. It was a VIP party. One of these rooms was renovated into a giant mikveh” “This is, without a doubt, one of the most magnificent public buildings from the Second Temple period that has ever been uncovered outside the Temple Mount walls in Jerusalem.
CONFIRMED: Feds Were Embedded In 1/6 Crowd Alongside Militia Members Court documents pertaining to the indictment of a man named Fi Doung over alleged crimes relating to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 reveal that DC Metropolitan Police had at least one undercover federal employee embedded within the pro-Trump crowd ahead of and during the civil unrest at the Capitol.
Racial justice top social issue among InterVarsity Christian students: poll The issue of racial justice topped social concerns for members of the prominent religious student group InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, according to a recent survey. Racial justice was ranked higher than the social concerns of “reducing abortion” and “religious tolerance/freedom.”
Analysts say China building up to 100 missile silos in northwestern desert A number of analysts said China has started building more than 100 new missile silos in the northwestern province of Gansu. Satellite images revealed construction work being done at identical sites across square miles of desert near the city of Yumen. The new missile silos would symbolize China’s renewed pivot toward expanding its nuclear capabilities.
As Democrats Push To Defund The Police, Violent Crime In Cities Run By Democrats Like New York And Chicago Is Literally Off The Charts Last month, in an attempt to shift the crime wave blame onto Republicans, the Biden Administration falsely accused the GOP of “defunding the police. Both Biden advisor Cedric Richmond and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had made accusations, with Richmond claiming “[Republicans] defunded the police,” and Psaki insisting the GOP has pushed to defund the police by not voting for Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan — also known as the COVID-19 Stimulus Package.
Global death toll surpasses 4 million; delta variant dominant strain in the US The global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 4 million Wednesday as the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and highly contagious variants. The tally of lives lost over the past year and a half, as compiled from official sources by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the number of people killed in battle in all of the world’s wars since 1982, according to estimates from the Peace Research Institute Oslo.
FAA fines passenger more than $10,000 for barefacePosted: 08 Jul 2021 07:24 PM PDTThe Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced Tuesday that it had fined a passenger $10,500 for refusing to wear a face mask during a February flight. In a press release, the agency said that a passenger had taken an Allegiant Air flight on Feb. 27 going from Provo, Utah, to Mesa, Ariz., and allegedly refused to wear the mask properly over both his nose and mouth. “Flight attendants instructed him seven separate times to wear his facemask properly, and each time he moved it off of his nose after the flight attendant walked away,” the release said.Continue reading FAA fines passenger more than $10,000 for bareface at End Time Headlines.
In this episode, Dinesh reviews Trump’s case against Facebook and Twitter, affirming Alan Dershowitz’s claim that this could be “the First Amendment case of the twenty-first century.” Dinesh ponders the prison strategy of Michael Avenatti, offering some personal tips about when to pick up the soap.
Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stormy Daniels whom the left fawned over for weeks and weeks in 2018, the former Democrat presidential hopeful, the “savior of the republic,” yesterday was sentenced to 30 months in prison for his attempted extortion of Nike.
For years Attorney Ty Clevenger requested this information on the case from the FBI.
This week the FBI released the information without notifying Clevenger.
Now this…
The FBI documents included these two documents that mention Robert Mueller and Hillary Clinton from pages 134 and 135.
This email mentions Mueller holding the name of the hitman.
This email says Clintons hired to murder Seth Rich.
No explanation is given.
And this was posted on page 59. That it was “conceivable” that an individual or group would want Seth Rich dead.
Why was this redacted?
Did the FBI know that Rich was behind Wikileaks emails?
Did the FBI lie to the American public for years about this?
This raises more questions about the case and why the FBI lied to the American public about his death for years.
Will it be the parents, and their elected representatives, or will it be national teachers unions and their minions in the educational bureaucracy that former Secretary of Education William Bennett called, “the blob.”
Elie Mystal, who writes for ATL and is The Nation’s justice correspondent…lashed out at “white society” and how he strives to maintain a “whiteness-free” life. On MSNBC, Mystal declared, without any contradiction from the host, that “You don’t communicate to [Trump supporters], you beat them. You do not negotiate with these people, you destroy them.”
(Jonathan Turley – The Hill) Free speech on American college campuses has been in a free fall for years. From high schools through law schools, free speech has gone from being considered a right that defines our society to being dismissed as a threat….
According to polling, the result is arguably one of the most anti-free-speech generations in our history. The danger is more acute because it has reached law schools where future judges and lawyers may replicate the same intolerance in our legal system.
A recent controversy at Duke Law School highlights this danger. “Law & Contemporary Problems” is a faculty-run journal that recently decided to do a balanced symposium on “Sex and the Law” — including transgender issues — and asked Professor Kathleen Stock of the University of Sussex (who has criticized transgender positions) to participate. View article →
Voters overwhelmingly believe “fake news” is a problem, and a majority agree with former President Donald Trump that the media have become “the enemy of the people.”
A new national telephone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports finds that 58% of Likely U.S. Voters at least somewhat agree that the media are “truly the enemy of the people,” including 34% who Strongly Agree. Thirty-six percent (36%) don’t agree, including 23% who Strongly Disagree. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Another 83% of American voters see fake news as a problem.
But there was some agreement on “fake news,” another Trump phrase, being a serious problem. A supermajority of Republicans, 92%, said it is a problem, as did 74% of Democrats. Overall, 83% said it is a big problem.
Notably, said Rasmussen, independents generally agree with Republicans on the “enemy of the people” question, at 61%.
Fox News contributor Kayleigh McEnany discusses the issue with Big Tech companies ‘monopolizing’ the space on ‘The Evening Edit.’ #FoxBusiness #TheEveningEdit
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