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
SPOKANE, WA — During a powerful Sunday sermon delivered by her pastor, a local woman has come under deep spiritual conviction that her husband really needs to repent of his sins.
“Wow, I really hope Dave is paying attention!” said Amy, Dave’s wife quietly. “This sermon is exactly what he needs to hear right now. He has been lazy, inattentive, and impatient, and the Holy Spirit is just laying on my heart that he really needs to listen up and ask God for forgiveness and do better.”
Amy then bowed her head and prayed silently that her husband would realize the error of his ways and ask forgiveness from God and his wife for his failures.
“I’m so glad we came to church this morning,” she said later to reporters. “It’s like God knew exactly what message Dave needed so he could start being a better husband and father. Amazing!”
At publishing time, Amy’s husband Dave confirmed he was overjoyed that his wife had heard that convicting sermon and was praying that it would lead her to repent of her sin.
Can this liberal California couple handle a Texas cookout?
I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls; which I have made. (Isaiah 57:16)
Our heavenly Father seeks our instruction, not our destruction. His contention with us has a kind intention toward us. He will not be always in arms against us. We think the Lord is long in His chastisements, but that is because we are short in our patience. His compassion endureth forever, but not His contention. The night may drag its weary length along, but it must in the end give place to cheerful day. As contention is only for a season, so the wrath which leads to it is only for a small moment. The Lord loves His chosen too well to be always angry with them.
If He were to deal with us always as He does sometimes, we should faint outright and go down hopelessly to the gates of death. Courage, dear heart! The Lord will soon end His chiding. Bear up, for the Lord will bear you up and bear you through. He who made you knows how frail you are and how little you can bear. He will handle tenderly that which He has fashioned so delicately. Therefore, be not afraid because of the painful present, for it hastens to a happy future. He that smote you will heal you; His little wrath shall be followed by great mercies.
“The Law came in so that the offense would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20)
Grace Abounding over Abounding Sin! – Charles Haddon (C.H.) Spurgeon Sermon
Charles Haddon (C.H.) Spurgeon (June 19, 1834 January 31, 1892) was a British Reformed Baptist preacher who remains highly influential among Christians of different denominations, among whom he is still known as the “Prince of Preachers.” In his lifetime, Spurgeon preached to around 10,000,000 people, often up to 10 times a week at different places. His sermons have been translated into many languages. Spurgeon was the pastor of the New Park Street Chapel in London for 38 years. In 1857, he started a charity organization called Spurgeon’s which now works globally. He also founded Spurgeon’s College, which was named after him after his death.
Spurgeon was a prolific author of many types of works including sermons, an autobiography, a commentary, books on prayer, a devotional, a magazine, and more. Many sermons were transcribed as he spoke and were translated into many languages during his lifetime. Arguably, no other author, Christian or otherwise, has more material in print than C.H. Spurgeon.
Question:I am finding inconsistencies in the Gospels that really bother me. But if it contains contradictory accounts, how can we trust what the Bible says?
Answer: I suspect that you are bothered by these things because you believe that the Bible is God’s Word, and therefore, it is true in all that it says, but you also see details, especially here in the Gospels that don’t seem to line up (at best), and sound contradictory (at worst). It is important to keep in mind that the Gospels are essentially eye-witness accounts of the events surrounding the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Matthew was one of Jesus’ disciples and served as an eyewitness of most, if not all that he wrote.
Mark traveled with Peter for a time, and is believed to have written his Gospel based on Peter’s account.
Luke traveled with Paul for a time, and attempted to put together an orderly account from various sources.
John was also a disciple of Jesus and would serve as an eyewitness of most, if not all that he wrote.
Now, if we were to treat these 4 accounts simply as witnesses to the life and death of Jesus, we would expect each of them to convey many of the same things, but also that they might emphasize different details about what happened. This does not necessarily mean that the witnesses are wrong. For example, if 4 people witness a car accident, they will each give different details. Because of each one’s unique point of view, they likely saw some of the same things, and also some different things that were unique to their vantage point. But, where we run into problems is when the witnesses give contradictory testimony.
Let’s look at one apparent contradiction in the Gospel accounts, and see how it is possible to reconcile it. All 4 Gospels record the charge brought against Jesus that was fixed to the cross above Jesus’ head.
Matthew 27:37 says, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” (NIV)
Mark 15:26 says, “The King of the Jews.” (NIV)
Luke 23:38 says, “This is the King of the Jews.” (NIV)
John 19:19 says, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” (NIV)
Now, these are clearly 4 different versions, if you will, of what Pilate had written and placed on the cross. How can we reconcile these differences? John 19:20 says, “Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek.” So, now we have more information! The sign was not written in 1 language, it was written in 3. And so, now we have the likelihood that the translations contained slight variations, and that our eyewitness reports are, in all likelihood, accurate.
God is the only eyewitness that sees every detail. The rest of us are limited by our point of view. We believe the Bible was written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17, ESV). If the words of the Bible were breathed out by God, then they are true.
The New Testament was written almost 2,000 years ago. Since that time, people have been trying to resolve apparent contradictions in the Bible and between the 4 Gospel writers. You can have confidence that any apparent contradictions you find have already been discovered and that they can somehow be resolved—if not by a careful evaluation of the various accounts, then perhaps by a scholarly examination in the original languages. There is nothing new under the sun.
Now, you or I may not be able to answer every apparent contradiction we can find, but there are helpful books out there that address these sorts of things. One that has helped me is Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. I’m praying that this discussion will help strengthen your confidence in the accuracy and truthfulness of God’s Word.
“Let your gentle spirit be made known to all men.” Philippians 4:5 (NASB)
We live in a society that is filled with hurting people, many of whom go unnoticed on a regular basis. Have you stopped to take notice of the people around you?
We often get so consumed with meeting the next deadline, competing for the next promotion, or running to our next obligation, that we lose sight of how we treat the people around us. Sadly, our busyness can lead to harshness, critical attitudes, frustration, or just being overwhelmed to the point that we treat the ones we love unfairly.
How many of your relationships are strained because you need to make an attitude adjustment this very moment? It’s time to push pause. Take a deep breath and release the weight of what you have been carrying. Remember, as a born again believer, you have been called to be a light to those around you. People are taking note of your every move. You are to exhibit Christ’s nature that is within. I know we all have our days… but ultimately, Jesus should be seen, not us.
I encourage you today to put on gentleness, even in the midst of those moments of frustration. Slow down and begin to pay attention to what really matters. It is not the to-do lists that are waiting to be tackled. It is the people connected to you. Let gentleness go before you today. The things you accomplish will mean very little if you have no one to share them with.
Father, help us to be mindful today of our attitudes. Help us to pay close attention to the ones we hurt because we are not paying attention to the little things. May our words and our mannerisms be seasoned with grace. May we pause to take time to commune with You in order to receive the love that we need to share with those around us. Lord, let Your love flow through us like never before. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Schism in the Catholic Church? Catholic media personalities issue declaration Never in the present generation has a pope been as controversial as Pope Francis. A growing number of Catholics are now blaming him for the worsening division in the Church in an era where the World Economic Forum (WEF), growingly perceived as the platform for the rise of the Antichrist of all antichrists, is perceived as papal ally. John-Henry Westen, founder and editor of the LifeSiteNews, who, together with two other prominent Catholic media personalities in a recent press conference, issued their “Declaration of Filial Resistance to Globalist Agenda of Pope Francis.”
US Ambassador to Israel working to “eliminate” growth of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria the US Ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides said, “We do not support settlement growth. Period. I work every day behind the scenes, with the Israelis, to try and eliminate, slow down or avoid that.” He added, “[Israel] is a sovereign country. We can’t dictate to them what they can or can’t do, but I can put as much pressure as I can to make sure they understand our position.”
Paul Tudor Jones Says Russia-Ukraine War Likely To End With ‘Violent Death’ Of Putin: Here’s What It Means For The Markets “We have a dictator who’s losing and typically that doesn’t end well,” Jones said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “Typically, that’s going to end with a violent death and the question is who is he going to take with that?” Jones has suggested the war in Ukraine will end with the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He told CNBC that what Putin chooses to do before the war comes to a close could have significant consequences on broader markets.
GOP lawmakers want answers from Garland, Blinken regarding reported Chinese police station in NYC Republican lawmakers want answers from Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken regarding a reported Chinese police station operating in New York City. Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, Republican Study Committee chairman, Florida Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida, Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher and other lawmakers sent a letter to Garland and Blinken expressing “grave concern” about the Chinese police presence in the city.
PayPal stock drops after outcry over now-withdrawn plan to fine users for ‘misinformation’ PayPal’s stock plummeted by more than 6% on Monday after the financial services firm was forced to reverse course on a policy that would have fined users $2,500 for spreading “misinformation” on its platform. The company on Saturday withdrew the policy, claiming it was incorrectly sent out to users, after the proposed change ignited a firestorm on social media. Prior to PayPal’s reversal, it was set to impose the new terms on Nov. 3, … .
GCHQ chief Sir Jeremy Fleming: We must tackle China’s plans to cripple satellites Beijing is believed to be building a powerful anti-satellite capability that will rival GPS and deny other countries access to space if there is a war. There are fears the BeiDou satellite system, which China wants to export to the world, could also be used to track individuals,
Arm Europe for war with Russia, retired commander tells Nato Nato needs to “adjust its mindset totally” and work on rearming western European countries to prepare for war with Russia, one of Britain’s most distinguished retired generals has said. Richard Shirreff, the former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said he was concerned that the prevailing mood in Whitehall was that Russia had been defeated in Ukraine. He said Whitehall is in danger of putting a new “carrier strike group” to project Global Britain above the need to confront President Putin.
“No Possibility Of Reconciliation” Any Longer: US And China Are Now “Officially In An Economic War” Semiconductor stocks across the globe – in Hong Kong, Europe and certainly in the US – are tumbling after the Biden administration on Friday unveiled new restrictions on technology exports to China which are meant to undercut Beijing’s ability to develop wide swaths of its economy, from semiconductors and supercomputers to surveillance systems and advanced weapons. Chinese state media and officials over the weekend raged against the action, …
Here Comes The Open Revolt: A Reeling Europe Lashes Out At The Fed For “Bringing Us To A World Recession” Josep Borrell, the high representative of the 27-member EU bloc, lashed out all too publicly at the Fed when he said that central banks (across Europe where the recession will be far, far worse than in the US) are being forced to follow the Fed’s multiple rate rises to prevent their currencies from slumping against the dollar, and compared the US central bank’s influence to Germany’s dominance of European monetary policy before the creation of the euro.
Why the Salton Sea is turning into toxic dust The Salton Sea, California’s most polluted inland lake, has lost a third of its water in the last 25 years. New research has determined a decline in Colorado River flow is the reason for that shrinking. As the lake dries up, the concentration of salt and chemicals in the remaining water has increased dramatically, causing a mass die-off of fish and birds, including endangered species. The dry lakebed, coated in the salty, toxic water, becomes dust that causes respiratory problems for nearby residents.
Russian hackers reportedly cyberattack US airports Russian hackers are suspected to have carried out cyberattacks against US airports, The Independent reported on Monday. The hackers took down websites of prominent US airports, such as LaGuardia Airport in New York, and Chicago International Airport, according to the report.
UAE’s Mohamed bin Zayed to meet Russia’s Putin to discuss Ukraine United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan will travel to Russia on Tuesday to meet with President Vladimir Putin, UAE state news agency WAM reported on Monday. The visit came less than a week after OPEC+, a group of oil producers that includes the UAE and Russia, agreed to make steep oil production cuts in defiance of US pressure.
The ancient Jewish practice of Hakhel gets a 21st-century revival Every seven years, in ancient times, Jewish men, women, and children would gather at the Temple on the first day of Sukkot to hear the king of Jerusalem read aloud from the Torah. In 2022, there’s no king and no Temple, and more than half of all Jews live far from Jerusalem — but the ritual is still inspiring Jews around the world to gather together. In fact, the tradition, known as Hakhel, appears to be seeing a resurgence of popular interest.
It Is A Time Of Desperation, And That Means Anything Is Possible the Los Angeles Times ran an article with the headline, “North Korea’s latest missile test reminds the world of Asia’s powder keg.” The article said, “With the war in Ukraine and Russia’s threats to deploy tactical nuclear weapons, it was easy to lose sight of the rising danger North Korea poses.” But with a threat like Russia, such an oversight is understandable. When the nation with the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, repeatedly threatens to use them, it’s hard not to put your focus there.
Netanyahu: Lapid, Gantz surrendered to Hezbollah’s blackmail Netanyahu said that “behind the backs of the citizens of Israel and the Knesset, Lapid and Gantz surrendered to Hezbollah’s blackmail. They are transferring strategic assets of the State of Israel to Hezbollah in a liquidation sale.”
Lebanon satisfied with final draft of Israel maritime border deal, says top Lebanese negotiator The deal will resolve a territorial dispute in the eastern tip of the Mediterranean sea in an area where Lebanon aims to explore for natural gas. Officials from both countries were in close contact via the US mediator over the past days in an effort to resolve outstanding differences.
Pentagon blacklists world’s largest drone-maker DJI as Chinese military company U.S. Department of Defense officially included Shenzhen DJI Innovation Technology (DJI), the world’s largest drone-maker, on a department blacklist. The Pentagon solidifies an earlier blacklisting by the U.S. Treasury Department. Last December, the Treasury Department classified DJI and seven other Chinese technology firms as members of the Chinese military-industrial complex.
US Marines storm South China Sea beach on China’s doorstep U.S. Marines and the Philippine Marine Corps stormed a beach facing the South China Sea in a joint military drill on Friday about 150 miles east of Scarborough Shoal, a disputed chain of reefs and islands currently occupied by China.
Blue States Have Worse Inequality Than Red Ones, New Census Data Shows The more liberal a state is, the more likely it is to be home to income inequality, according to a Daily Wire analysis of newly-released Census data. New York, Connecticut, and California had the biggest gulf between rich and poor, …
Top L.A. Democrat Resigns After Comparing Black Child To Monkey Democrat Nury Martinez resigned as president of the Los Angeles City Council on Monday, one day after a racist leaked audio recording was released. Martinez issued a statement regarding her resignation as council president, although she will remain a council member. “I take responsibility for what I said and there are no excuses for those comments. I’m sorry,” she said.
Massive landslide hits Venezuela, leaving at least 30 people dead and 54 missing A massive landslide hit the town of Las Tejerías, Venezuela on October 9, 2022, leaving at least 30 people dead and 54 others missing. The town is loaded 87 km (54 miles) SW of Caracas. This is one of Venezuela’s biggest landslides in decades.
Child rapist and murderer lauded as ‘feminist’ and ‘advocate’ for LGBTQ Rights Patricia Elaine Trimble, a biological male who raped two 9-year-old girls and who murdered a developmentally disabled cell mate while incarcerated has been recently celebrated in left-wing media as “a transgender woman, feminist, and activist.” Trimble has been spending their time in prison advocating for the rights of “the incarcerated LGBTQ+ community.”
Biden’s Secret Promise To OPEC Backfires In 2020, Democrats blocked Trump’s proposal to buy American oil at $24 a barrel. Yesterday, a Biden official disclosed a secret offer to buy OPEC+ oil at $80 a barrel.
Biden’s politicized FBI now hiding Chinese infiltration of U.S. election software as crucial midterms approach …Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips of True the Vote, have since made another alarming discovery that they say is being covered up by the Biden regime: Namely, that China has managed to infiltrate a major U.S. election software company in a way that could alter the outcome of yet another round of elections, the November midterms.
Unsettling Research Links COVID Vaccine to Parkinson’s The list of complications, conditions, and diseases resulting from the COVID shots is nearly endless and can affect any organ system in the body. Pfizer knew. Here’s their document.
Utility Pumps Customers’ Smart Meter Data To Police Without Warrant Police are routinely breaking the law to enforce the law, which is patently absurd. Smart meter data is on electricity usage is sent via WiFi to the utility company, recording detailed activities within the home or business. Thus, there is no longer expectation of “sanctuary” within your own home. Detailed surveillance has been a key plank of Technocracy since its original creation in 1932.
Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden Are All Talking About The Coming Countdown To Armageddon President Joe Biden said last Thursday the risk of nuclear ‘Armageddon’ is the highest it has been for 60 years after Russian President Vladimir Putin renewed his threats as his military retreats in Ukraine. “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” he said, offering his bluntest comments about the use of nuclear weapons since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Immediately, Emmanuel Macron stepped in to ‘correct the record’.
According to one Washington Post columnist, the crime surge is largely a mirage fabricated by a cable news network.
Douglas Andrews
“I was at Dave & Buster’s,” said a man to the 911 dispatcher. “I heard people screaming, I looked towards my right, and I see someone [laying] down. I’ve never seen anything like this, man.”
That “someone” was 18-year-old Elijah DeWitt — a son, brother, friend, student, and football star for the Jefferson Dragons, a high school around an hour northeast of Atlanta. He was murdered last Wednesday night, gunned down outside that Dave & Buster’s restaurant in the parking lot of the Sugarloaf Mills Mall. Two suspects have since been arrested: one 18, the other 19. According to police detectives, “It appears that the suspects and the victim were familiar with each other and when they encountered each other in the parking lot, an altercation took place and then the shooting.”
We have no particular reason for highlighting this sad story above all others. Were it another day, another victim would be in the news. And that’s the point: We have a serious crime problem in this country, and the Democrats don’t like talking about it. But they have no choice. Behind inflation and the economy, it’s the issue that’s on most folks’ minds. As Natalie Andrews writes in The Wall Street Journal:
Republicans in competitive House and Senate districts are hitting Democrats with a barrage of ads focused on voters’ increased fears about the surge in violent crime in recent years, with the issue playing a central role in many tight races.
Republicans have called Democrats too tolerant of crime after social-justice protests in 2020 swept through the country over policing abuses, and have criticized some Democrats’ support of measures such as eliminating cash bail. They also have tied Democratic candidates to calls from activists to defund police departments and shift money to other resources.
But that’s not all. Philip Bump at The Washington Post wants you to believe all this talk about a crime surge is much ado about nothing. That when Elijah DeWitt gets gunned down at a shopping mall in Georgia, or when two young men get shot just outside of Congressman Lee Zeldin’s Long Island home, just feet away from his twin 16-year-old daughters, well, it’s merely a concoction of Fox News. Why? Because The Washington Post is running interference for the Democrats. There’s an election coming up, and the Post’s “journalists” know, as do the rest of us, that their fellow Democrats will soon be held accountable for their disastrously soft-on-crime policies.
“Crime is surging (in Fox News coverage),” reads the headline of Bump’s recent piece — a piece in which he reports that “murder and shooting incidents are down in New York City relative to last year, though violent crime in general is up,” and that the city “saw lower crime across the board [last year] than two or three decades ago, though, again, it’s now up relative to 2020.”
Then Bump writes, “Data released by the FBI on Wednesday suggested that violent crime nationally didn’t increase much in 2021 relative to 2020.” Got that? It didn’t increase much. This leaves us wondering what, exactly, Bump is trying to argue here, and why he’s blaming Fox News for reporting these facts.
But the weakness of his argument is only part of Bump’s problem. Jarrett Stepman at The Daily Signal gets to the other part of it, writing: “Bump used a Fox segment featuring political analyst Gianno Caldwell questioning Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., about the crime crisis as a jumping off point for his article. How dare Caldwell ask an elected official about crime? The thing is, it wasn’t just any member of the media asking questions. Caldwell’s brother was fatally shot in Chicago in June. It’s quite an exercise in gaslighting to dismiss Caldwell’s concern as just a Fox News narrative somehow divorced from reality.”
Caldwell didn’t take it lightly: “The Washington Post wrote about my segment,” he tweeted. “Dem leaders refused to answer my question on the Crime Crisis and he pretends it’s not legitimate. My brother and many others, were murdered in Chicago and the US this year. Don’t tell me there’s not a crisis.”
As Stepman concludes: “America is a more dangerous country, one where criminals are emboldened and law-abiding citizens are forced to do more to protect themselves or risk becoming victims. It’s why Americans’ worries about crime are at their highest level since 2016. That’s not a narrative, or a conspiracy. It’s reality.”
Crime is most definitely a problem, and it’s not a Fox News concoction. And the soft-on-crime Democrats will have their reckoning on November 8.
The online payment company got caught trying to bilk its customers for spreading what it called “misinformation.”
Michael Swartz
With friends like PayPal, who needs enemies?
Late last week, we learned that the online payment company put out a proposed change to its policy that would allow the service to help itself to up to $2,500 in “damages” if a customer promoted “misinformation” or “hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.” Caught red-handed, PayPal tried to walk back its license to steal, calling it an “error that included incorrect information.”
It’s always some sort of error, isn’t it? In this case, PayPal would have us believe that it was peddling misinformation about misinformation. Regardless, the damage had been done.
UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh does a wonderful job of breaking this down:
So if PayPal “in [its] sole discretion” concludes that you’re using PayPal “for activities that … relate to transactions involving … promotion of” “discriminatory” “intolerance” — presumably including distributing publications, or for that matter buying publications (since that’s an activity related to transactions involving the promotion of certain views) — it can just take $2,500 straight from your account.
Might you, for instance, be sharply criticizing a religion? Or saying things that sharply condemn, say, government officials (police, FBI, etc.) in ways that some might say involve “promotion of hate”? Or praising people who have acted violently (e.g., in what you think is justifiable self-defense, or defense of others, or even war or revolution)? If PayPal thinks it’s bad, it’ll just take your money.
PayPal is the most well known of the alternative payment services, which were founded as part of the explosion of e-commerce at the turn of the century. Rather than work through banks, PayPal allowed entrepreneurs to accept and transfer payments, meaning millions of people opened accounts with PayPal for a variety of purposes. But perhaps those folks ought to take the advice of venture capitalist David Sacks, who warned in a tweet, “Get your money out of paypal right now.” Sacks, by the way, was the founding COO of PayPal.
The problem lies in the fact that most people don’t have $2,500 in their PayPal accounts if they run afoul of its content referees, but many have tied their PayPal accounts with their bank and credit card accounts, and it’s unclear if the monetary “liquidated damages” could come from other accounts linked in with PayPal. That would open up a big ol’ can of worms, and for many it may not be worth the risk. (Ironically, PayPal founder Peter Thiel is considered right-leaning, but he sold the company to eBay back in 2002, and eBay spun it off in 2015.)
There’s always the possibility, though, that this policy change was simply intended as a trial balloon to see what reaction would come from it. Certainly some will close out their PayPal accounts, and that realization led to a $6 billion decline in PayPal’s valuation yesterday.
But while the blue-checked denizens of Twitter might say PayPal users have nothing to worry about if they do nothing wrong, our experience tells us that the list and scope of prohibited items will expand once those leftist camels get their noses under the proverbial tent. It’s a situation similar to the outcry over gun store merchant codes, which were believed to be a backdoor method to build a gun registry.
That decision by the financial services industry drew immediate fire from Republican state attorneys general, and it’s our hope that our vigilance means PayPal’s idea of financial penalties for otherwise protected speech doesn’t again see the light of day.
John Durham’s last case?, Abrams claims “it’s a fallacy” that we know when pregnancy starts, and more.
Thomas Gallatin & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Durham’s last case? Today begins the trial of Igor Danchenko, accused by special investigator John Durham of five counts of lying to the FBI. Durham’s investigation into those responsible for creating the Russian collusion hoax, a hoax that handicapped much of Donald Trump’s presidency, has failed to net any major players or any significant members within the Justice Department. As Judicial Watch founder Tom Fitton observed: “Three years and three prosecutions. Just to describe it is to condemn it as a failure.” The Durham investigation has spent over $5 million and three years investigating the political crime of the century. Its scope and the level of government corruption dwarfs the Watergate scandal, but thanks to a mainstream media beholden to the Democrats’ political narrative, much of the country still believes in the hoax created by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. What may end up being the lasting value of the Durham investigation is that it did expose the scope of the hoax and the degree to which the political corruption has spread into the Justice Department. Unfortunately, however, it appears that those behind this corruption will not face justice.
Abrams claims “it’s a fallacy” that we know when pregnancy starts: Georgia Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is not a scientist, nor is she a medical professional, although she apparently believes she should be. Fresh off denying a baby’s heartbeat, Abrams — who advocates that there should be no limits placed on abortion — was questioned as to her extreme views on abortion. She responded: “The arbitrary standards of timelines ignore the medical reality that it is a fallacy we know exactly when the pregnancy starts, that we know exactly where we are in the system, I mean, in the term.” The truth is that modern science has long known the exact moment of a pregnancy — it’s when the sperm fertilizes the egg. At that exact moment, a zygote is formed, the beginning of a new human life. Even Planned Parenthood doesn’t deny this scientific reality, as information on its website notes, “Pregnancy officially starts when a fertilized egg implants in the lining of the uterus.” Any politician who would blatantly deny reality shouldn’t be seriously considered by voters.
Russia loses a bridge, targets civilians: Over the weekend, Ukraine attacked a critical bridge leading into Crimea from the Russian mainland. The attack on the Kerch bridge did significant damage, but not enough to destroy the bridge. The Kerch bridge serves as the main supply line from Russia into Crimea; putting it out of commission severely impacts the Russian military that has been slowly losing ground to the Ukrainians over the last month of the war. A clearly frustrated Vladimir Putin asserted that the attack on the Kerch bridge was a “terrorist” act, and soon afterward Russia retaliated by launching 84 missiles that indiscriminately targeted civilian areas across Ukraine, including the capital city of Kyiv. Several civilians were killed in the missile attacks. Evidently for Putin, it only counts as terrorism when Ukraine strikes targets that hamper his military’s ability to fight a war that he started. Meanwhile, all Russia’s indiscriminate attacks have accomplished is to further cement NATO’s support for Ukraine.
Headlines
Tulsi Gabbard announces she’s leaving the “cowardly” Democrat Party in fiery takedown (Fox News)
Joe Biden falsely claims that he personally created 10 million jobs (Based Politics)
Kelly C. Tshibaka projected to defeat 20-year incumbent Lisa Murkowski, election forecaster says (Fox News)
Conservative PACs inject millions into local school races (AP)
Colorado officials “incorrectly” sent out 30K voter registration postcards to noncitizens (Daily Wire)
Twitter blocks — and then restores — COVID vaccination post from Florida’s surgeon general (Politico)
Harvey Weinstein’s sex crimes trial in Los Angeles opens with jury selection (NBC News)
Supreme Court rejects appeal from Dylann Roof, who killed nine (AP)
Gavin Newsom signs bill getting rid of plastic produce bags (Daily Wire)
Tyson Foods latest large business to flee Chicago (Fox Business)
Nissan pulls out of Russia, sells all assets to state for 1 Euro (Fox Business)
New Zealand farmers fume after government proposes animal gas tax (Daily Wire)
Policy: Liberal media spin rising violent crime as vast right-wing conspiracy (Daily Signal)
Satire: Kamala Harris demands to know who locked up all these drug offenders (Babylon Bee)
Seth Meyers missed multiple opportunities to even lightly poke fun at Harris and Biden.
Nate Jackson
Cacklin’ Kamala Harris visited “Late Night with Seth Meyers” for a few yucks in a pre-recorded episode that aired last night. It was her first appearance on one of the late-night shows, and someone must have watched because reporting on it this morning made us laugh for a couple of reasons: Pot and the border.
And we’re not just talking about the border going to pot — [rimshot].
When Meyers asked for feedback about Joe Biden pardoning convicts of simple marijuana possession, Harris responded, “Let me just start with saying this: I strongly believe in, and the majority of Americans agree, nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed, right?” She then added, “We are urging governors and states to take our lead.”
Hahahahahaha!
Harris took the lead as California attorney general from 2011 to 2017, when she prosecuted nearly 2,000 people for marijuana-related offenses. As funny as it would have been for Meyers to make her squirm over her own history and Biden taking the opposite approach, he ignored it and so did she.
Okay, so we didn’t mention it up top, but Harris opined about another issue that we’ll insert here: abortion. The pair discussed what two more Senate seats would allow Democrats to do — meaning kill the filibuster in order to pass Democrat legislation to codify Roe v. Wade. Harris lamented that the Supreme Court “took a constitutional right” (that’s nowhere in the Constitution), thereby denying “the women of America” (doesn’t she know Democrats believe men can get pregnant?) the right “to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do.”
Hahahahahaha!
As hilarious as Meyers could have been asking Harris about the Biden administration’s mandate that people put a novel vaccine into their bodies just to keep their jobs, the “comedian” must’ve dropped that cue card because he didn’t bring it up.
Next up was the border. Meyers indignantly scoffed at the “political theater” of Texas Governor Greg Abbott (among others) sending migrants, in some cases, to Harris’s “doorstep” in (the sanctuary city of) Washington, DC. That’s “playing games with people’s lives,” Meyers complained, leaving it up to Harris to tee off on his softball.
Harris gladly hit it hard, including blaming the previous administration for breaking the system. If she wasn’t serious, it would’ve been a great joke. As for Abbott, “I just think it’s an absolute dereliction of duty,” she lectured. “If you see a problem, and if we agree that we need to address it, then if you’re a leader, participate in a solution, right?”
Hahahahahaha!
Meyers could have humorously mocked the hypocrisy of such complaints coming from the administration’s “border czar.” He could have smirked while pointing out that Harris has barely even visited the border, so Abbott was just bringing her border crisis to her. He could have fretted that Biden and Harris have laid out the welcome mat for three million migrants, which might just qualify as “playing games with people’s lives.” Instead, Meyers sadly agreed with everything Harris said and moved on to the next unfunny subject.
All in all, Harris and Meyers reminded everyone that Democrats really don’t even know how to be funny. We suppose that’s simply because they are the joke.
Grooming and other outrages occurring on the gender identity front.
Emmy Griffin
There is a backlog of unheard stories that deserve a few lines of comment.
Seventy Percent Increase
According to The Daily Signal, there was a 70% increase in gender dysphoria diagnosis from 2020-2021. There are several reasons.
First, gender ideology is largely a social contagion. It is a fad with social consequences like anorexia/bulimia and cutting. It is reinforced by social media and the incumbent peer pressure that accompanies venturing into this ideology. It also doesn’t hurt that identifying as a “victim class” (LGBTQ+) offers some power to these children who otherwise are struggling with normal growing-up issues.
Second, the public schools are encouraging and even pushing kids to adhere to the gender ideology at increasingly younger ages. The motivations for this are many. Having a child who identifies as trans is allowing ever more government usurpation of parental rights. Having a child identify as trans also means he or she is fast-tracked into the medical hamster wheel that screws up the child’s life but thoroughly enriches the hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. This indoctrination of children by teachers who are either LGBTQ+ or consider themselves “allies” tries to stigmatize normal heterosexual relationships as weird and cringy as opposed to being the ones that actually promise a continuation of the human race.
Studies do indicate that 90% of children who have honest-to-goodness gender dysphoria and are not encouraged to transition in any way reconcile with their bodies and accept themselves in adulthood. So the indoctrination pushing children to identify as transgender is serving to further confuse and hurt them.
School Indoctrination
President Joe Biden’s administration has actively declared transgenderism to be a civil rights issue. New Jersey has now determined that schools will be penalized for not teaching about gender identity. According to The Daily Caller: “Under the new standards, by the end of fifth grade, students should be able to explain the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation. The 10-year-olds must be taught to ‘describe gender-role stereotypes’ and how those stereotypes affect themselves and those around them.”
This harkens back to a powerful piece by columnist Laura Hollis regarding condoms for fifth graders in Chicago. She points out: “Most 10 and 11-year-olds have not even gone through puberty. They do not have secondary sex characteristics. And yet, according to [Chicago doctor Kenneth] Fox, these children are developmentally capable of having sex and of making the responsible choice to use a condom during sexual intercourse,” which Fox puts among the “health decisions” kids can then make. Teaching elementary kids how to have sex is a lot of things, but it’s most definitely not a “healthy decision.”
It is also inappropriate to invite drag queens to “perform” for high school Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, a point that an outraged mom made clear to her Iowa school board. She arrived at the school board meeting dressed in an outfit that one of the drag queens wore. When board members protested, she said: “Does this outfit make you turn your head? Does this outfit seem appropriate for anybody here to see? This is what the man dressed like in front of our kids. So if this makes your head spin — if this pisses you off in any way, shape, or form — it should. Because I’m embarrassed to stand here in the outfit that I am in today, but I have a point to prove — that this outfit should not be ever accepted in our schools anywhere.”
Grooming Behavior
There is an even darker side to this trans agenda. Not every person who identifies as “trans” is a pedophile, but the activists and a minority of pedophiles within this identity group are acting like sexual groomers.
Amy Cannava, chair of the National Association Of School Psychologists’ (NASP) LGBTQI2-S Committee, openly talked about rehoming queer teens in a meeting with the Pride Liberation Project — the group that has taken credit for organizing the high schooler walkout in Virginia last week.
According to them, queer kids who need rehoming ranged from those who had been kicked out of their parents’ house to kids who simply did not like their parents. This rehoming would entail giving the child money, a new identity, helping them disappear so their parents couldn’t find them, and finding them new homes with “queer friendly” adults. There really isn’t a way to read this that doesn’t sound like child exploitation. It’s all of a piece, though, with the radical Left’s overall agenda to pit child against parent and destroy families. This rehoming idea is simply making it much easier for the vulnerable — the children — to be preyed upon by those who don’t actually care about them. It should absolutely be stopped.
Puberty Blockers
On the medical front of the transgender wars, puberty blockers are being distributed at a much higher rate than ever before. Planned Parenthood is claiming that puberty blockers are “safe.” Some pharmaceutical companies are refusing to even do safety trials on drugs like Lupron — a drug used to chemically castrate criminal sex offenders.
Detransition Testimonies
Meanwhile, the first wave of detransitioners is starting to raise a ruckus and sound the alarm about medical transitions. Last week, a letter was written to the DOJ asking for it to have Big Tech silence sources like political pundit Matt Walsh or Libs of TikTok, both of whom have drawn attention to children’s hospitals that are preforming “gender affirming” surgeries to minors. Several detransitioners responded by penning a letter of their own to the DOJ. They write that silencing voices like Walsh is “nothing more than an attempt to silence the reasonable voices of concerned critics calling for a more cautious approach to experimental medical practices impacting vulnerable children.” They further point out that their own voices are being largely ignored, and their voices are perhaps the most valuable of all.
There are so many more stories, but the bottom line in all of them is that the Left’s lies are hurting our children and our society.
The feckless organization is now more controlled by Chinese interests than concerned over verified human rights abuses.
Thomas Gallatin
The United Nations has never lived up to what it was originally conceived as by the ideologues. As a result, it has proven itself more often than not to be an inept club for the nations of the world to do little other than virtue signal. But increasingly the UN can’t even get that right.
The UN’s 47-member Human Rights Council has failed to pass a motion condemning China’s abusive treatment of its Uyghur minority. Back in August, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights released a report from some of the Uyghurs who had been detained in China’s Xinjiang province. The report described “a consistent theme” of “constant hunger and, consequently, significant to severe weight loss during their periods in the facilities.” Moreover, “Almost all interviewees described either injections, pills or both being administered regularly.”
The report noted that “some also spoke of various forms of sexual violence, including some instances of rape,” and that “several women recounted being subject to invasive gynaecological examinations, including one woman who described this taking place in a group setting.” The Uyghur detainees were also forced to sing patriotic songs, kept from sleeping, and forbidden to pray.
The report called on Beijing to investigate the “allegations of torture, sexual violence, ill-treatment, forced medical treatment, as well as forced labor and reports of deaths in custody.” The UN High Commissioner also reiterated that if the reports were indeed true, it “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.” One of the primary reasons for the creation of the UN was to prevent the type of genocidal human rights abuses witnessed during World War II.
Yet thanks to China’s growing influence in the world body, the motion failed even to gain the floor for discussion, going down by a 19-17 vote with 11 countries abstaining entirely. The Wall Street Journal editorial board noted the hypocrisy: “If pathological optimists still think the U.N. Human Rights Council cares about human rights, they might want to note events last week.”
This despicable result serves to underscore why Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the feckless UN Human Rights Council back in 2018. Trump’s then-ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, stated at the time, “If the Human Rights Council is going to attack countries that uphold human rights and shield countries that abuse human rights, then America should not provide it with any credibility.” The UN has now offered further evidence in support of Trump’s decision to pull out of an organization that seemingly only exists to provide a veneer of international acceptability and accountability to corrupt and abusive governments like the Chinese communists.
Finally, Joe Biden’s decision to reverse Trump’s action and reenter the Human Rights Council has now effectively blown up in his face, and Xi Jinping is likely laughing as he humiliates the U.S. and has proven that he has more clout now in the UN than does the U.S., which of course pays the lion’s share of the UN’s bills.
Douglas Andrews: Who’s Been Visiting Joe Biden? — The administration’s secrecy about the visitor logs to Biden’s two homes in Delaware makes him look like he’s hiding something.
RCI: Federal Bureaucrats Packing Heat — Executive agencies are broadly empowered to effectively create their own laws and go out and enforce them with armed federal agents.
Editor’s Note: Each week we receive hundreds of comments and correspondences — and we read every one of them. Click here for a few thought-provoking comments about specific articles. The views expressed therein don’t necessarily reflect those of The Patriot Post.
Why I’m Leaving the Democrat Party — Former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard observes that today’s Democrat Party stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite.
What the Media Is Actually Doing to our Country — Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake talks about the detrimental effects the mainstream media is having on our country today.
‘You Can Kiss My Grits’ — Former Republican congressional candidate Vernon Jones blasts the Democrat Party in the wake of the Los Angeles City Council scandal.
Kamala Decriminalizing Weed — How many people did she lock up for weed while she was California attorney general?
The Full Tim Pool Interview — John Stossel did a short video on citizen journalists like Tim Pool. But the entire story of Pool’s career deserves more time.
Satire: Satanic America — Vladimir Putin has accused the West of Satanism, infuriating Western leaders by interrupting their child sacrifices to the bull-headed demon god Moloch.
“This triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it.” —G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
“The best way for radical activists to ensure their bad ideas take root is to plant them in the most fertile soil possible — the mind of a young child. So the war on truth and virtue is being waged not on a battlefield, but in classrooms and on little iPad screens and in public libraries where drag queens — raunchy male caricatures of women — occasionally take breaks from reading aloud to teach children how to twerk.” —Seth Dillon
Re: The Left
“OPEC and its plus one Russia (OPEC+) announced they would curb production by 2 million barrels per day. … It’s understandable to see this announcement as a betrayal by OPEC, but the real betrayal is the Biden administration’s actions in weakening America’s energy independence and dominance. America should never be put in a position where our energy policy is dictated by foreign nations. … American energy producers used to be the world’s largest swing producers — a mighty force able to counteract the price-fixing measures of foreign cartels like OPEC+. Today, however, the Biden administration prefers to fight fire with surrender.” —former Energy Secretary Rick Perry
“Biden really ought to look in the mirror. The OPEC+ embarrassment was the latest reminder that he, not Putin nor Saudi Arabia, is the chief author of the Democratic Party’s current woes. On issue after issue, the instructions that Biden gave at the outset of his presidency have made America less prosperous, less independent, and less secure. … Biden’s regulations and restrictions accomplished what he wanted: more expensive oil and gas. His problem is that voters do not want the future the climate Cassandras have in store for them. Voters blame him for the inflation they encounter as commuters and consumers. He can’t go back in time to his early days at 1600 Pennsylvania any more than he can betray the progressive base of his party. He’s left to stew in a crisis of his own making.” —Matthew Continetti
Friendly Fire
“I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war. I believe in a government that is of, by, and for the people. Unfortunately, today’s Democratic Party does not. Instead, it stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite. I’m calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party. If you can no longer stomach the direction that so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, I invite you to join me.” —former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
“We made a mistake by canceling the Keystone pipeline. We made a mistake by slowing down all kinds of permitting activity. We made a mistake by being hostile as a country to natural gas.” —former Obama economic advisor Larry Summers
“The economic headwinds are so tough, and Biden just doesn’t have the oomph as a candidate anymore. People don’t really want him around. And he can’t really make his case — I don’t think the Democrats are in any better place.” —ABC News’s Terry Moran
Spin Doctor
“We are on track to reduce the deficit by more than $1 trillion this year — and that’s on top of a $350 billion deficit reduction last year. Don’t let anyone tell you we can’t afford to invest in America’s families.” —President Joe Biden (“Dad I only added $1.1 trillion to our credit card this year unlike last year’s $2.7 trillion, now we only have $34 trillion to pay off — aren’t you proud of me?!” —Tom Elliott)
The BIG Lie
“It is a fallacy we know exactly when a pregnancy starts.” —Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey “There Is No Such Thing as a Heartbeat at Six Weeks” Abrams
“Squad” Members, Call Your Offices
“There is absolutely no room in this country or world for antisemitism. It is important to see how harmful + dangerous Kanye’s words are — not only to our Jewish brothers, sisters, & siblings, but also to our collective society at large.” —Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
President Joe Biden will turn 80 on Nov. 20, causing “trepidation in the West Wing” and a plan to downplay the celebration, Politico reported Tuesday. The post Report: White House Feeling ‘Trepidation’ Over 80th Birthday of Oldest President Ever appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russia does not threaten anyone with nuclear weapons, Western capitals are introducing nuclear rhetoric, trying to make it look like Moscow is preparing to deliver strikes using weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Sputnik.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson on Monday, October 10, Vaughn told the Fox News host that when the FBI came to his house, some of his kids were just heading to the car to go to school. One of the FBI agents held the children off with a long gun.
I have had a friend ask me a question about ghosts. They have stated that they have seen a ghost, a man who stands by a window. The ghost walks by them but does not do anything to them. They also asked if this could this be a family member who died and has returned from Heaven? Are ghosts real? Annon
Dear Annon, Surprisingly—or, perhaps not—the Bible has a lot to say about ghosts. Let’s begin with several definitions that give us a foundation from which we can work.
Bible Definition of a Ghost
A ghost may be defined as“the spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats.”
A ghost may be defined as “any faint shadowy semblance; an unsubstantial image; a phantom; a glimmering; as, not a ghost of a chance.”
A ghost is sometimes said to be “the apparition of a deceased person. The word ‘ghost’ may also refer to the spirit or soul of a deceased person, or to any spirit …”
Ghosts in the Bible
Ghosts are encountered several times in the Word of God. In Job 4 Eliphaz, one of Job’s three argumentative “friends”, described a night-time encounter with a ghost who enforced Eliphaz’s incorrect assumption that Job’s problems resulted from his sin. Eliphaz’s night-time demonic (?) encounter makes for fascinating reading (Job 4:12-19):
“A word was secretly brought to me, my ears caught a whisper of it. Amid disquieting dreams in the night, when deep sleep falls on people, fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake. A spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body stood on end. It stopped, but I could not tell what it was. A form stood before my eyes, and I heard a hushed voice: “Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker? If God places no trust in his servants, if he charges his angels with error, how much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed more readily than a moth!”
Several things stand out in this ghost encounter.
First, he experienced what to him was a visual, auditory and physical event.
Second, the conclusions drawn by the apparition (ghost) were not from God.
Third, it is not beyond the realm of imagination to think that Eliphaz made up the encounter in order to give some credence to his philosophical position on sin and suffering.
Finally, under times of great stress, the brain is perfectly capable of conjuring up a seemingly very real human experience (like seeing a ghost) which, in fact, never occurred at all!
Another infamous “ghost” experience occurred with King Saul and the Witch of Endor in 1 Samuel 28:4-25 Again reading the passage is fascinating:
When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart. He inquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. Saul then said to his attendants, “Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her.” “There is one in Endor,” they said. So Saul disguised himself, putting on other clothes, and at night he and two men went to the woman. “Consult a spirit for me,” he said, “and bring up for me the one I name.”… Then the woman asked, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” “Bring up Samuel,”….The king said to her, “Don’t be afraid. What do you see?” The woman said, “I see a spirit coming up out of the ground.” What does he look like?” he asked. “An old man wearing a robe is coming up,” she said. Then Saul knew it was Samuel, and he bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground. Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” “I am in great distress,” Saul said. “The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has turned away from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what to do.” Samuel said, “Why do you consult me, now that the LORD has turned away from you and become your enemy? The LORD has done what he predicted through me. The LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors —to David. Because you did not obey the LORD…”
Let’s make several observations. First, this is an enigmatic passage. Nothing like it is found anywhere else in the Bible. Second, God recorded in Deuteronomy 18 a list of ocultic practices which are an abomination to Him. This passage is God’s glossary of the occult. He specifically mentioned that consulting mediums is detestable. Third, Saul’s behaviors were in direct disobedience to the will of God. Fourth, it is most probable that the “person” who appeared to Saul was not Samuel but what the Bible refers to as a “familiar spirit”—a demonic spirit who masqueraded as the then-dead prophet Samuel.
Fifth, the Bible is quite clear that no one returns to earth and makes appearances after death. Jesus made this fact quite clear in Luke 16:26 In reiterating Abraham’s answer to the rich man who wanted a chance to return to earth from Hell and warn his brothers, Abraham said: “And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” In addition, the writer to the Hebrews declared in Hebrews 9:27 that the “after-death process” includes no option for a return to earth: “Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.”
Are Ghosts Real? Four Direct Conclusions from the Bible:
First, your friend may very well have seen a ghost. The ghost might appear to be a familiar spirit impersonating a departed family member.
Second, the apparition they observed is certainly not a returned-family member. Once we die, there exists no possible pathway to return to the land of the living. This fact rules out the return of a dead person as a “ghost” to haunt a house or place of their death—or wherever.
Third, the apparition could be an actual demonic manifestation. This happened to Martin Luther when he was in the process of composing his “Ninety-Five Theses” for posting on the Wittenberg Door. The Devil appeared in his room at night and Luther actually threw an ink bottle to drive him away.
Fourth, let’s consider the possibility that our minds are perfectly capable of fooling us into experiencing a ghost that doesn’t exist!
Contrary to popular belief, the brain is not a tape recorder. It records “highlights” and then fills in the blanks between the “highlights” according to what the brain “thinks” most likely happened—based on previous experiences. This is why four people who witness a traffic accident from four different corners of an intersection can have greatly varying accounts. It is not just that they are looking from different angles. Their brains each record the “highlights” most meaningful to them. One observer may focus on the horror on a passenger’s face at the moment of impact. Someone on another corner may be fascinated by how the front of the engine collapsed back into the firewall. Each brain then fills in “facts” that it thinks most probably occurred between the recorded “highlights”. Each observer believes that they have the real truth of what happened at the accident.
By the way, stored memories are never retrieved in the same form in which they were laid down. The “highlights” emerge relatively unscathed but the “in betweens” can vary considerably over time. Walking in scary places at night can provide all sorts of possibilities for “ghostly” encounters—especially when someone thinks he or she might actually see one. Memory of strange noises, frightful moments, mewing cats, imbedded pictures of horror movies—just to name a few stored emotional triggers—can bring up “highlights” that remind us of ghosts. Stress, tension, fear and/or expectations can cause “ghostly” highlights to emerge. It is possible for the brain to fill in a “ghost” between the recorded “highlights. Then, we actually “see” a ghost. The various parts of the brain that would be involved in actually encountering a ghost light up positive simultaneously during fMRIs.
Well, Annon, I hope this helps to give you some insight into how to respond to your friend. Share with him some of the possible explanations for what he saw–or didn’t see. Gently tell him that whatever he saw was not his mother portraying a ghost. I have not seen my long-time dead child, Jesse, since we buried her. I don’t expect to see her again until we meet in Heaven’s glory. Nevertheless, I have much comfort when I am praying to take a moment and tell Jesse that we love and miss her and are looking forward to seeing her soon. May God bless you in loving and helping him.
Love, Roger
Editor’s Note: Pastor Roger Barrier’s “Ask Roger” column regularly appears at Preach It, Teach It. Every week at Crosswalk, Dr. Barrier puts nearly 40 years of experience in the pastorate to work answering questions of doctrine or practice for laypeople, or giving advice on church leadership issues. Email him your questions at roger@preachitteachit.org.
Dr. Roger Barrier retired as senior teaching pastor from Casas Church in Tucson, Arizona. In addition to being an author and sought-after conference speaker, Roger has mentored or taught thousands of pastors, missionaries, and Christian leaders worldwide. Casas Church, where Roger served throughout his thirty-five-year career, is a megachurch known for a well-integrated, multi-generational ministry. The value of including new generations is deeply ingrained throughout Casas to help the church move strongly right through the twenty-first century and beyond. Dr. Barrier holds degrees from Baylor University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Golden Gate Seminary in Greek, religion, theology, and pastoral care. His popular book, Listening to the Voice of God, published by Bethany House, is in its second printing and is available in Thai and Portuguese.His latest work is, Got Guts? Get Godly! Pray the Prayer God Guarantees to Answer, from Xulon Press. Roger can be found blogging at Preach It, Teach It, the pastoral teaching site founded with his wife, Dr. Julie Barrier.
Fox News contributor Guy Benson evaluates how Vice President Kamala Harris has handled the southern border crisis thus far on ‘The Guy Benson Show.’ #FoxNews #TheGuyBensonShow
How should we treat others who are made in the image of God? In this clip, R.C. Sproul illustrates the serious evil of harming another human being and encourages us to show the love of Christ to our neighbors.
In Dr. Sproul’s ebook titled Abortion, he provides balanced and compassionate answers to the difficult questions this topic raises. Remember, you can always download this ebook for free: https://gift.ligonier.org/2261/abortion
TONIGHT: GLOBAL CRISES; NEW ATTACKS IN THE WAR IN UKRAINE, THE LATEST AFTER AN EXPLOSION ON THE HUGE BRIDGE CONNECTING RUSSIA TO ANNEXED TERRITORY OF CRIMEA.
THE WORLDWIDE TENSIONS COME AS PROTESTS IN IRAN INTENSIFY AND AMID DANGEROUS NEW MISSILE LAUNCHES FROM NORTH KOREA.
PLUS, THE GREAT REALIGNMENT: REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS ARE BANKING ON A DIFFERENT TYPE OF VOTER IN THE UPCOMING MIDTERMS.
FOX Business’ Stuart Varney argues Joe Biden has been ’embellishing’ his life story. … STUART VARNEY: Thirty-five years ago, then Senator Joe Biden was running for the presidency. In campaign speeches, he claimed three undergraduate degrees, a full scholarship to law school where he finished in the top half of his class.
The Great Political Realignment: how key voting groups, including Hispanics, are changing their minds about the Democrats, and the impact that could have on this year’s midterm elections; Russia strikes back in the intensifying war in Ukraine- but will their attacks be effective?; aging expert Dr. Michael Roizen, author of “The Great Age Reboot,” talks to CBN’s Healthy Living program about some health tips that can help make 90 the new 40; inspirational speaker Shantia Coleman, author of “Wake U….
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: Happy Columbus Day! Remember Columbus Day? That’s the day that we celebrate the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus and all that happened after, which was the creation of the freest and most humane society in the history of man. We’re still celebrating it, but we’re also assessing what happened to that society because it is changing. We want to tell you the story of a man called Paul Vaughn leading off tonight. Paul Vaughn does not fit the profile of a terrorist. You’d never guess. He’s 55 years old. He’s a former pastor who now runs a small Internet service business in middle Tennessee. He and his wife are gentle people. They’re faithful Christians. They spend most of their time raising their 11 children. Last Wednesday morning, at about 7:15 a.m., a bucolic scene at the Vaughn household. Several of Paul Vaughn’s children are standing in the front yard about to head to school. Suddenly, out of nowhere, their world falls down around them. A team of FBI agents armed with automatic rifles swoop in in their SUVs and begins pounding on the front door of the family home. Inside the house, Paul Vaughn is watching this and he shocked, as he said later, “When I opened the door and saw the guns pointed at me, I asked them what they wanted. They said they wanted me,” and they did. The agents led Paul Vaughn away. Inside the house, his wife who had been at the back with their newest child, an 18-month-old baby, ran to the front door. Confused and terrified, she asked what anyone would ask, “Who are you and why are you taking my husband away?” We don’t need to guess about the exchange because it’s on tape. Here’s what it looked like. AGENT: If you’re not going to let me in… PAUL VAUGHN WIFE: I want to know why you were banging on my door with a gun. You’re not going to tell me anything? AGENT: I tried m’am WIFE: No, you didn’t. You did not try. This is not acceptable. Can I have your name? You’re not going to give me your name? You’re not going to give me any information? Body armor, little watch caps, automatic weapons held at the ready, taking off with her husband. “Why are you taking him? Who are you?” she asks, but of course they completely ignore her. “No, we’re not going to answer. We tried” – when they didn’t. They don’t have to answer because when your husband is a domestic terrorist, the government doesn’t owe you an answer to the most basic questions. So, Paul Vaughn, we now learn, is a terrorist, but what did he do? You may be wondering that by this point. Well, as the Department of Justice explained later in the statement, Paul Vaughn opposes abortion and not just in a quiet, personal way. That would be bad enough, but Paul Vaughn is outspoken about his views on abortion. He still believes, being 55, this is a free country with a Bill of Rights that allows you the freedom to say what you want and even have protests on behalf of your ideas. He believes that was the freedom that built this country. So, a year and a half ago, on March 5 2021, Vaughn and ten volunteers from a Christian pro-life group in Tennessee staged a protest at an abortion clinic in Mount Juliet. Now, we don’t need to speculate about what happened next, and that’s a good thing for Paul Vaughn. It was broadcast live on Facebook by one of the volunteers. That would be 73-year-old Chester Gallagher. Protesters sing church hymns. COP: We’re going to need you guys to disperse outside, ok? This is your last warning. We need everyone to step outside and go to the sidewalk. You’re more than welcome to protest out on the sidewalk, ok? I’m just asking nicely for you to leave and go outside on the sidewalk. Protesters continue singing. So, you live in the United States and you watch nightly the chaos in your city, buildings burning, people being pushed in front of subway trains, people getting knocked in the face on the street for no reason, carjackings, murders up in every city in America. So, you look at that and you think, is that really it? That’s why armed FBI agents with automatic rifles arrived at Paul Vaughn’s home last Wednesday? Because of that? Because more than a year ago, a group of Christians, many of them elderly, sang hymns? Yeah, that’s it. That’s what he did wrong. Now we should note that we only have this video evidence because of the hard work of Mia Cathell at Townhall, which broke this story. God bless. Without this documentary evidence, without this video, you might be tempted to believe the Biden administration when it tells you that Paul Vaughn “used force and physical obstruction to injure, intimidate and interfere with employees of the abortion clinic.” Oh, but he didn’t. He didn’t use physical force. He sang hymns, but for doing that, Joe Biden’s Department of Justice now tells us Paul Vaughn deserves to spend 11 years in prison. 11 years? Vaughn’s “coconspirators” from that day in March of 2021, meaning other pro-life activists, are also facing long prison sentences. This group would include 87-year-old Eva Edl. Now, if that name sounds familiar to you, it’s because she is something of a celebrity in Christian circles, pro-life circles, and that’s because she survived a Yugoslav concentration camp before escaping to this country, where she spent decades advocating against abortion. She has seen firsthand what happens when the government denies the essential humanity of a person. In this picture, you can see her sitting in front of an abortion clinic as a police officer towers over her. Within seconds, two officers are shoving this 87-year-old into the back of a car. Now, again, contrast this with the country you watch every night on television or the one you experience if you live in a city where people are afraid to go to the grocery store, where Wendy’s burned down in the name of civil rights, and no one does a thing about it. Watch how they’re treated. Same thing happened to 58-year-old Heather Idoni back in March of 2021. It took a whole team of police officers to remove her. Really? You wonder why. How dangerous does she look? Then there was 57-year-old evangelist Calvin John Zastrow. He was also arrested that day in March. Here’s a video he shot discussing it: ZASTROW: When we have national revival, this is what every abortion clinic’s gonna look like right here, a field of rubble. Not through violence, through peace, through God bringing the high places down. So, let’s go show up in front of those high places, trust him, rescue, preach sing pray, and see this happen to the rest of ’em. Now, you may not share his views. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but be as honest as you can with yourself. Does that guy look dangerous and if so, compared to what? There are a lot of dangerous people wandering around completely unimpeded. In fact, they’re celebrated by this administration. Is that guy a dangerous person? Of course, he’s not. He’s a Christian. Maybe you’re not a Christian. Maybe you’re pro-choice. But even if you are, you are not, if you’re being completely honest, going to conclude that that guy poses a threat to you or this country because he doesn’t and neither is his daughter, who’s 24 years old, Eva Darlene Zastrow. She was also apprehended at the clinic with her father. Here’s her violent manifesto. DARLENE ZASTROW: I’d seen the pictures before, and I heard that it was murder before, but the connection went from knowing it here to knowing it in my heart. I just praise God that he gave me the opportunity to rescue, and Lord willing, abortion will end. So imagine sitting back at Department of Justice headquarters assessing that video and saying to yourself, “You know what? They need an armed FBI raid. Get out the body armor. That’s a terror manifesto.” Apparently, they did conclude that because now Joe Biden’s Justice Department, the FBI, to its eternal shame, is rounding up everyone associated with Paul Vaughn’s entirely nonviolent Christian organization. Take a look at the mug shots from the FBI’s investigation into this event in March of 2021. It’s on your screen right now. They’re telling you, the FBI is telling you, bragging about it, that these people are dangerous. and of course, you know what they know, which is in America 2022, whether you’re dangerous or not, depends almost entirely on who you voted for. DARLENE ZASTROW: I’d seen the pictures before, and I heard that it was murder before, but the connection went from knowing it here to knowing it in my heart. I just praise God that he gave me the opportunity to rescue, and Lord willing, abortion will end. So imagine sitting back at Department of Justice headquarters assessing that video and saying to yourself, “You know what? They need an armed FBI raid. Get out the body armor. That’s a terror manifesto.” Apparently, they did conclude that because now Joe Biden’s Justice Department, the FBI, to its eternal shame, is rounding up everyone associated with Paul Vaughn’s entirely nonviolent Christian organization. Take a look at the mug shots from the FBI’s investigation into this event in March of 2021. It’s on your screen right now. They’re telling you, the FBI is telling you, bragging about it, that these people are dangerous. and of course, you know what they know, which is in America 2022, whether you’re dangerous or not, depends almost entirely on who you voted for. 20-year-old Samuel Elliot Frey was sentenced to just over two years in federal prison for setting fire to a health food store, but it was for a good cause. It was for Joe Biden, so not a big deal. All of those crimes and countless others that are happening around the country at a scale we have not seen in our lifetimes, all of those crimes are being treated as less serious offenses than a man who sang hymns in an abortion clinic. So, what’s going on here? Well, a day before the FBI’s raid on Paul Vaughn, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris announced their new policy, which is pro-lifers, because they disagree with Joe Biden and upset the base, are now terrorists. VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: What we believe, and I certainly believe, that a woman should have the freedom to make decisions about her own body and that her government should not be making those decisions for her. Today’s extremist so-called leaders are attacking the freedom and liberty of millions of women. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: We’re not going to sit by and let Republicans throughout the country enact extreme policies to threaten access to basic health care. My message to folks across the country who are worried about what we’re seeing is first, that we have your back. So, you think to yourself as you watch something like that, “Well, of course, there’s an election coming up in just a few weeks and a lot of the Democratic base believes that abortion is the key to freedom and happiness and they’re very upset about the Roe v. Wade decision. Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land and so Biden and Harris and the rest of the leaders of that party are pandering to them.” It’s okay. We’re on your side. What you don’t think as you watch something like that, that its effect will mean sending guys with automatic weapons to Paul Vaughn’s house and scaring the hell out of his 11 children. You never would have imagined that in real life, people who sang hymns in an abortion clinic could be facing 11 years in prison. So, you have to ask, since the parallels are very clear, this is effectively the modern version of Bull Connor’s fire hoses and German Shepherds, has a single Democrat pointed out that this is insane, that an 11-year sentence for him singing might be a little punitive? Has Sandy Cortez said anything? Wait a second. We’re pro-choice and everything but 11 years for a 55-year-old father of 11? Has Rashida Tlaib? What about George Gascon or Larry Krasner? The guys who think, “Well, we put away too many people in prison. We got to pull back a little bit. We got to rehabilitate them.” What about the compassion mongers at CNN or MSNBC? Have they said a word about this? As their country becomes totalitarian, have they even noticed? We checked. No. The only clip we could find was Nancy Pelosi, where she endorses violence against her political enemies. Here she is.: REPORTER: There has been a number of attacks on churches, on crisis pregnancy centers. Republicans are going after Democrats for not saying anything and they’re saying that your rhetoric is contributing to these attacks on these crisis pregnancy centers. HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: Well, let me just say this: a woman has a right to choose, to live up to her responsibility. It’s up to her, her doctor, her family, her husband, her significant other and her god. I’m a very Catholic person and I believe in every woman’s right to make her own decisions. First of all, you’re not a Catholic. I mean, this is ridiculous. Let’s stop pretending. Second, you don’t believe at all of the right to choose. You applauded as nurses got fired because they didn’t want to take the mandatory vax because they did want to hurt their own fertility. They wanted to have children maybe some day and you thought that was great. So, it wasn’t their body, their choice. You’re a liar and a fraud. You’re not a Christian. Be quiet. But what’s really stunning is nobody the people who’ve lectures for years, the criminal justice system is just to mean that MS-13 are children of God. They have a problem with us at all. The people who claim to hate mass incarceration, it turns out, are strongly for the mass incarceration of anyone who disagrees with them, and they’re doing it. As Julie Kelly has reported relentlessly, judges have sentenced dozens of January 6 defendants to months in prison, followed by probation. Why? Oh, because they entered a public building as police officers stood by, lifted the ropes for them. What was that about, by the way? Don’t ask, shut up. They belong in jail. As of this week, dozens of January 6 defendants are still being held in pretrial detention. No one notices. Where’s the Republican Party in that? Nowhere. At the same time, the FBI has made zero arrests, none to protect pro-lifers from actual violence, not hymn singing, firebombing. The CompassCare Pregnancy Services center in Buffalo was firebombed in June. No arrests have been made. In fact, the FBI seized surveillance footage from the facility and never gave it back. REPORTER: This building was up in flames this morning when police and firefighters arrived and this is the aftermath: broken windows, shattered glass and graffiti which the CEO says gives him an indication as to who is behind this. CEO Jim Harden says this didn’t come as a shock. Recently, CompassCare has received threats online and in person. The graffiti on the side of the building says “Jane was here” and Harden says he thinks the abortion rights group Jane’s Revenge is behind the attack. It’s a reference to Jane’s Collective which was provided underground abortions in Chicago in the 60s. The group took responsibility for firebombing a pro-life facility in Wisconsin last month. Harden says it’ll take months to repair the $100k worth of damage to the facility. See how this works? So, a group aligned with Joe Biden firebombs a building (firebombs!) and the FBI does nothing. Instead, they send agents with automatic rifles to the home of a 55-year-old man with 11 children because he sung hymns in an abortion clinic. This is too much actually. There’s always going to be disparities in justice. There’s always going to be disparities in law enforcement. You have to believe they’re unintentional. This is not unintentional. This is intentional. It’s right in our face, and it’s completely unacceptable. Chris Wray, who runs the FBI, purportedly a good guy, a decent man who cares about justice, what does he think of this? Is this all right, sending FBI agents automatic weapons to arrest hymn singer? So, we called Chris Wray’s office today and asked a simple question: Are you okay with this? You know this is happening? You run the FBI. No response just like Paul Vaughn’s wife just shut the door. We don’t have to answer your questions. These are political raids, and they’re exactly what the most recent FBI whistleblower Steve Friend warned about last month. The FBI didn’t respond to those warnings from one of its own agents. It just suspended Steve Friend. So, the raids are continuing. People need to see this. This is going too far, and it’s getting scary.
Fox News contributor Miranda Devine reacts to the New York Times calling out Biden’s ‘falsehoods’ over his political career on ‘Varney & Co.’ #foxbusiness #varney
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