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
Often, the hard issues we face are due to circumstances beyond our control. Case in point: flooding disasters in Florida, across the North-central U.S., and California …
South Florida was “under siege and under water,” news outlets proclaimed. A recent storm dumped as much as 25 inches of rain over some coastal areas. Homes and businesses were destroyed, and roads were forced to shut down. A State of Emergency was declared.
The North-central U.S. experienced major flooding as summer-like temperatures led to a rapid thaw following heavy snowfall this winter, turning streets, neighborhoods, and roads into flowing rivers.
After years of drought-like conditions, torrents of rain have drowned thousands of acres of farmland in California’s Central Valley. Crops and livelihoods were destroyed.
These tragedies, pulled from the headlines, affect many people and communities at once. But if I were to sit down across from you and ask, “What difficult circumstances are you facing today?” —I have no doubt you’d have personal pains, family troubles, financial struggles, and more to share.
No hardship is without purpose in the life of a believer! And God promises to use all things for our good and His glory.
Since we have a limited number of days on earth, spending so many of them in pain, sickness, suffering, temptation, and trouble seems a shame. With so few days allotted to us, why are some spent in hospitals and foxholes? Like the weather, some of our days are fair; others are fairly awful. Why, we wonder, is life so hard?
I don’t have all the answers, but God understands everything better than we do. He resides in His holy temple and reigns on His heavenly throne. He took all the suffering in the world, boiled it down to its evil essence, shaped it into the form of a cross, and sent Jesus to pay the necessary price. It took six hours. But in the shadow of Calvary, an eternal answer arrived to the problem of pain:
Because Jesus faced adversity, He defeated the Adversary. Because He defeated the Adversary, we can trust Him with adversities in life. His grace is sufficient.
Why does God allow pain?
The Word of God is brutally honest about the reality of life. Sometimes in the process of growing up in God’s family, we feel the sting of adversity. It doesn’t feel good, and we do not desire it. But God has a purpose in our pain that we may not see or understand in the present. And we can trust that our pain is no secret to Him. Everything that happens to us will become a platform for the glory of Him, who “works all things according to the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11).
Whether Jesus calms the storm around you or calms you in the midst of the storm, you’re safe wherever He is.
God uses problems in our lives to drive us to Him as our only hope, our only source of dependence. Difficulty is often one phase of divine discipline (meaning training toward maturity). It is unfortunate that many teachers today say that if we love God and we walk with Him, we will never be sick, we will never suffer, we will never know poverty or financial hardship. This doctrine is not from the Word of God! Jesus, Himself said, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
How can I remain calm in the midst of chaos?
It’s easy to forget that first-century Israel—especially Jerusalem—was not a particularly peaceful place to live. The iron boot of Rome moved swiftly to keep its version of the peace, and there was a constant undercurrent of religious tensions. Throw in poverty, famine, diseases, and wars—there was plenty to keep the heart unsettled (as there is in our day). So it comes as no surprise to read what Jesus said to His disciples: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).
Jesus knew exactly what was coming in His life, His disciples’ lives, and He knows what is coming in ours. He wants us to find our peace in Him.
Jesus spoke those words on the night of His betrayal and arrest. In addition to everyday disruptions, He knew what the coming events would do to His disciples’ faith and peace of mind. They would be confused about His death and would face certain persecution after His resurrection and ascension. Jesus wanted His disciples not to seek peace in their surroundings and circumstances but in Him. Jesus knew exactly what was coming in His life, His disciples’ lives, and He knows what is coming in ours. He wants us to find our peace in Him.
Even though it may look for a moment like everything is wrong with our world, we can have security, peace, and the confidence that comes with knowing that the One to whom we go in prayer is in control. Regardless of our situation, our heart and mind are guarded by “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.” He is our peace in the time of storm.
If I’m following God, shouldn’t I be exempt from hardships?
Adversity is no respecter of persons. I’ve been in a few “perfect storms” in my life, and during those times, I have never felt those struggles happened because I was out of the will of God. Indeed, just the opposite. Sometimes we experience perfect storms not because we have disobeyed God but because we have obeyed Him. God Himself allows us to experience difficult times and sudden trouble not because we’ve done anything wrong but because we may be doing something right. Jesus always did the right thing, yet “He learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).
Can anything good come from my pain?
The Bible says not to be discouraged when you have a disruptive moment. This is often a difficult truth to embrace in the midst of a painful event. God’s Word assures us, though, that problems and pain can be like a teacher in our life, instructing us in the ways of maturity. For our suffering “yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11). Pain can be our teacher!
God allows no pain without purpose.
Even as we confront illness, pain, and injury, we need to be biblical Christians claiming God’s promises and living with His presence and purposes in mind. When experiencing adversity, it helps to remember that the biblical heroes of old weren’t immunized against pain in life; Scripture is filled with accounts of their suffering. Job lived a life of integrity, yet he lost his family, wealth, admiration of his wife, and health. Peter’s mother-in-law occupied a sickbed. Samuel became feeble. King David was anguished over the condition of his newborn son. Every biblical character called by God experienced problems in life—so pain is not exclusive to us.
So in conclusion, what can we say is the purpose of pain in the Christian’s life? Ultimately, it is so we might become like Christ by living in total dependence on, and perfect obedience to, God. This was the relationship the first Adam (and Eve) had with God, and Christ came as “the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45) to restore it. But change can be painful; every painful experience in life causes us to choose to depend upon our own resources or to depend on God. As we see the fruit of dependence on God, we learn to trust Him more and ourselves less. The apostle Paul said of his own painful experience, “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. . . . For when I am weak [in myself], then I am strong [in Christ]” (2 Corinthians 12:9b-10).
Suffering as a Christian has another purpose: It helps us identify with the sufferings of Christ and grow in anticipation and joy at the thought of seeing Him when He returns (Romans 8:17). As we identify with the suffering of Christ through painful experiences, the life of Christ can be revealed through us. “Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator” (1 Peter 4:19). Even in life’s most difficult moments, God’s love is sufficient.
No hardship is without purpose in the life of a believer! And God promises to use all things for our good and His glory. His great love will certainly see us through fire and flood. Personal pain and struggle. Relational or financial upheaval.
This is a message our world certainly needs to hear right now.
Multitudes are hungry for hope amidst hardship…for purpose in their pain. You and I know that the only answer is Jesus Christ—and together, through Turning Point, we’re pointing multitudes to Him by delivering the unchanging Word of God to an ever-changing world.
Your prayers and generous support make it possible.
The ministry of Turning Point isn’t primarily sponsored by big foundations, corporations, or large churches. It’s friends and partners like you who make it possible to teach the full counsel of God’s Word—and all the hope and answers it contains—on radio and television, in print and online, and by every possible means.
And today, I warmly invite you to stand with us in sharing this message across the country and with multitudes who urgently need to hear it.
Please pray and give generously today as God leads. Thank you!
Sadly, many Christians treat prayer as some magical formula and God as a kind of cosmic bellhop that we can summon to do our bidding if we just utter the right words. While prayer is in a sense just talking with God and asking Him to meet our needs, it is also so much more than that. I believe the more we fall in love with Jesus the more we will treat prayer as something sacred and God honoring.
A great insight into this thought on prayer is echoed by the late theologian R. C. Sproul, who once said: “Prayer is not magic. God is not a celestial bellhop ready at our beck and call to satisfy our every whim. In some cases, our prayers must involve travail of the soul and agony of heart such as Jesus Himself experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane. Sometimes the immature Christian suffers bitter disappointment, not because God failed to keep His promises, but because well-meaning Christians made promises “for” God that God Himself never authorized.”1
While God delights to answer a believer’s prayers we must be careful not to claim promises that God never made and to understand that the primary purpose of prayer is not so much that our needs are met but that God is glorified through the answers we receive. Too often we forget that there are conditions we need to first meet before God answers our prayers. For example, are we leading a righteous life. (Psalm 66:18) tells us: “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.” And are our prayers in line with the will of God, which means we need to know the Scriptures in order to know if we are lining up with His will. One other example concerns, as I stated earlier, is our main motive to bring glory to God or just to meet our needs and desires. Too often our prayers are “me centered” instead of God glorifying.
My friends examine your motives when you pray and examine your life to see if you are walking in the will of God. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with praying for your needs, but I believe we can do this in the context of having God both meet them for our benefit and meet them to showcase His glory to the world around us. So, prioritize God’s glory, lead a godly life, and watch how God answers your prayers. And that’s a promise you can count on!
If thou seek him, he will be found of thee. (1 Chronicles 28:9)
We need our God; He is to be had for the seeking, and He will not deny Himself to any one of us if we personally seek His face. It is not if thou deserve Him, or purchase His favor, but merely if thou “seek” Him. Those who already know the Lord must go on seeking His face by prayer, by diligent service, and by holy gratitude: to such He will not refuse His favor and fellowship. Those who, as yet, have not known Him to their souls’ rest should at once commence seeking and never cease till they find Him as their Savior, their Friend, their Father, and their God.
What strong assurance this promise gives to the seeker! “He that seeketh findeth.” You, yes you, if you seek your God shall find Him. When you find Him you have found life, pardon, sanctification, preservation, and glory. Will you not seek, and seek on, since you shall not seek in vain’ Dear friend, seek the Lord at once. Here is the place, and now is the time. Bend that stiff knee; yes, bend that stiffer neck, and cry out for God, for the living God. In the name of Jesus, seek cleansing and justification. You shall not be refused. Here is David’s testimony to his son Solomon, and it is the writer’s personal witness to the reader. Believe it and act upon it, for Christ’s sake.
“Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord.“Jeremiah 17:5
Throughout history, people and nations have depended on financial, military and other worldly strengths for protection and prosperity.
The Israelites of Jeremiah’s day were no exception. They believed they could trust in their army, the diplomacy of their king, and their foreign alliances to protect them from the powerful Babylonian empire.
While they gave lip service to their trust in God, their actions showed where their faith really was: in their military and financial might. God spoke through Jeremiah to warn them that He would not bless those who trusted in anyone or anything instead of Him.
Placing your ultimate trust in anything other than God is idolatry. How can you know if your faith is not truly in God? Ask yourself these questions:
Where do I turn when I experience a crisis? When I am hurting or afraid, to whom do I go? When I have a financial problem, whom do I want to tell first? Where do I seek comfort when I am under stress or discouraged?
Could it be that you are saying you trust in God but your actions indicate otherwise? God often uses other people or worldly sources as His method of providing for you. Be careful lest you inadvertently misdirect your faith toward His provision instead of toward the Provider. God may meet your need through worldly sources, but ultimately your trust must be in God.
The Israelites were so stubbornly committed to trusting in human strength instead of God that, even as the Babylonian army approached Jerusalem, they continued to desperately seek for a person, or a nation, or an army that could rescue them. They realized too late that they had neglected to trust in the only One who could deliver them.
Don’t make the same mistake as the Israelites. Go straight to the Lord when you have a need. He is the only One who can provide for you.
“Why Do the Nations Rage?” Asks Israeli Lawmaker There’s a lot going on in the world. Paris is burning, Iran is arming, and that whole Russia-Ukraine thing is still raging. But the Biden Administration just had to take the time to express how “deeply troubled” it is by a few more Jewish houses being built. Jewish homes, on historically Jewish lands. That’s what the White House is raising the alarm over. The words of the Psalmist (2:1) never rang so true
Israeli political leaders denounce Biden’s ‘extreme’ remarks Members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition slammed U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent remarks that the current government is “extreme.” The U.S. president “needs to realize that we’re not another star on the American flag,” says National Security Minister Ben-Gvir.
Victor Davis Hanson: Illegal Immigration And Western Spiritual Sickness Such American magnanimity is seen, and rightly so, by illegal immigrants and the government who sends them here, as Western spiritual decadence. Thus illegal immigration is to be unapologetically leveraged and forever manipulated—and rarely to be reciprocated with any appreciation.
Musk: It’s “Time For Parents To Fight Back” Against Gender Ideology Mr. Musk, who has a 19-year-old child who identifies as transgender, has been openly critical of transgender ideology. In recent months, he has used his newly acquired platform Twitter to crack down on the use of the terms “cis” and “cisgender,” which are often used by transgender individuals to refer to heterosexual people. Mr. Musk’s condemnation of child sterilization through transgender surgeries goes hand-in-hand with his stated opposition to anything that threatens human civilization.
The Holman rule: The other way Republicans could punish Biden officials The Holman rule is an appropriation power that allows Congress to reduce the salary of or effectively fire a government employee. The rule also allows Congress to cut funding from certain programs the government operates.
The Turmoil Over Israel’s Right To Its Land Will Not Cease Till The End The land promised to Abraham and his descendants was described with clear geographical boundaries. It takes in all the land from the Mediterranean Sea as the western boundary to the Euphrates River as the eastern boundary. The prophet Ezekiel fixed the northern boundary at Hamath, one hundred miles north of Damascus (Ezek. 48:1), and the southern boundary at Kadesh, about one hundred miles south of Jerusalem (v. 28). If Israelis were currently occupying all the land that God gave to them, they would control all the holdings of present-day Israel, Lebanon, and the West Bank of Jordan, plus substantial portions of Syria, Iraq, and, Saudi Arabia.
Hezbollah’s provocations on the northern border bode of imminent war After months of recurring provocations along the Israel-Lebanon border and an attempt to set off a lethal explosive in Israeli territory, Hezbollah hinted that the current situation could lead to a war against Israel, justifying this by claiming they are answering their duty to be the “defenders of Lebanon.”
Israel’s Knesset passes reasonableness standard bill on first reading The first reading of the controversial Reasonableness Standard Bill passed in Knesset plenum by a vote of 64 to 56 with plans to move onto the Constitution Committee. Following the passing of the bill, protests planned throughout the country are expected to occur throughout Tuesday.
‘Gang of lawbreakers’: Anti-reform protesters dragged out of Knesset after blocking MKs from key vote Protesters against the judicial reform were dragged out of the Knesset by security guards after they formed a human blockade preventing MKs from entering the plenum to vote on the contentious “reasonableness” bill on Monday evening. “I fully back and praise the Knesset officer and the Knesset guard who did not let the gang of lawbreakers block the Knesset plenum and removed them quickly, decisively and professionally,” said Knesset Chairman Amir Ohana.
Israeli prof. comes forward as whistleblower against Biden family There is a breed of men that brings a curse on its fathers And brings no blessing to its mothers Proverbs 30:11. After much speculation, it has finally been revealed that Dr. Gal Luft was the missing whistleblower who alleged that US President Joe Biden received bribes from foreign governments while vice president. Luft claimed that CEFC was paying $100,000 a month to Hunter and $65,000 to his uncle Jim Biden.
‘Remarkable achievement,’ says former British commander, praising IDF military performance during Jenin operation During and after the completion of Operation Home and Garden last week, the United Nations and various international organizations issued condemnations against Israel. British Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of the British military forces in Afghanistan, and a long-time defender of the IDF praised its performance in Jenin, calling it a “remarkable achievement.” “To conduct an operation of such intensity in an urban area without killing any uninvolved civilians at all is a remarkable achievement by the IDF and probably unprecedented in modern warfare,”
Dutch farmers’ party prepares for power as gov’t of WEF favorite Mark Rutte collapses With elections likely in the near future, it looks likely that the Dutch farmers will see their nation under new management – one which has promised to preserve a way of life worth living. After 18 months in power, the coalition government of the Netherlands, led by World Economic Forum (WEF) favorite Mark Rutte, has collapsed.
Federal court upholds Tennessee law protecting kids from transgender drugs, surgeries Tennessee is likely to succeed in defending in court the state’s prohibitions on minors receiving transgender drugs and surgeries, a three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Saturday. Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, joined by Judge Amul Thapar, ruled against a preliminary injunction to halt enforcement of Tennessee’s law, which was set to go into effect on July 1.
Catastrophic flooding paralyzes Northeast U.S., New York declares state of emergency A slow-moving storm system dumped more than 250 mm (10 inches) of rain over the state of New York on July 9, 2023, causing catastrophic flooding. The deluge led to at least one confirmed death in Highlands, Orange County, and triggered a state of emergency in both Orange and Ontario counties.
Record-breaking rainfall hits southwestern Japan, leaving at least 5 people dead and 3 missing Severe rainstorms resulted in destructive mudslides and flooding in Japan’s southwestern region on July 10, 2023, leading to at least five fatalities and leaving three people missing. With record-breaking rainfall, over 420 000 people were under the highest level of evacuation warning by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
Britain Announces AI Rollout for Its Socialized Healthcare System. Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and “robotic process automation” to shorten growing hospital waiting lists and ease pressures created in part by mass migration. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claims the reforms will make the socialized healthcare system “fit for the future”.
Canadian health agency includes pro-euthanasia slideshow in pension packages to seniors …Included in the slideshow was text on “expressions of wanting to die,” saying that it could be used to “promote a sense of control” as well as talk of being able to die by euthanasia in only a “day.” British Columbia has seen a 24% increase in medical assistance in dying (MAiD). In total, some 2,515 people died from MAiD in 2022 alone in British Columbia.
Kremlin: The US Just Confessed To Imminent War Crimes In Ukraine …Kirby in a fresh interview with ABC was defending President Biden’s approving cluster bombs for Ukraine, which are banned by over 120 countries internationally for being ‘indiscriminate’ and thus more likely to result in civilian deaths.
Viral TikTok Boat Challenge Leads To “Instant Death” A dangerous TikTok challenge has gone viral as summer heats up in the Northern Hemisphere. The trend involves people jumping off the rear of a moving boat. Tragically, this viral challenge has already claimed the lives of four individuals in Alabama.
Is Your Phone Spying on You? Computer Scientists Reveal What’s Hiding in Your Apps People love their smartphones, but did you know they could be spying on you? A recent study by computer scientists from New York University and UC San Diego uncovered the hidden dangers of spyware apps. These apps are not only difficult to detect, but they can also leak your sensitive information without your knowledge. The team warns that it’s important to be aware of this issue and take steps to protect yourself and your privacy.
16-Year-Olds Are Now Voting in the United States Democrats are pushing to lower the legal voting age to 16, and the movement has been successful in some towns around the country. The “Vote 16” campaign reportedly scored victories in some towns in California, Maryland, and Vermont.
Have you ever wondered why the sky is full of chemtrails? The UN was told in 2007 that chemtrails trap warmth and create global warming – helping to convince the nutters that climate change is real. The chemtrails are also killing trees and poisoning drinking water with aluminium, barium, strontium, magnesium, calcium and manganese.
Glastonbury resident schools Council on Agenda 2030 “This has got nothing to do with being green. It’s big business, it’s massive business,” Sandi Adams told Glastonbury Town Council. “You think it’s a green agenda to [ ] save the planet. It is not. It was implemented at the Earth Summit in 1992 by a bunch of oil billionaires – crooks.”
CISA Was Behind the Attempt to Control Your Thoughts, Speech, and Life Keeping up with the corruption of the Covid regime feels like drinking from a firehose. The volume of the fraud, the pace of new discoveries, and the breadth of the operations are overwhelming. This makes it imperative for groups like Brownstone Institute to digest the onslaught of information and communicate salient themes and dispositive facts, particularly given the dereliction of mainstream media.
WORSE THAN CBDCs: Globalists publish plan for worldwide financial ENSLAVEMENT under “unified ledger” …This new plan describes an orwellian, globalist-run “unified ledger” that records the ownership of all assets (checking accounts, real estate, bonds, stocks, etc.) on a centralized exchange run by globalists. All assets will be “tokenized,” a process that the BIS describes as, “recording claims on financial or real assets that exist on a traditional ledger on a programmable platform.”
Maine passes nation’s 1st ‘right to food’ amendment …A statewide referendum asked voters if they favored an amendment to the Maine Constitution “to declare that all individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being.” It was an experiment not tried before by any state.
Genetically Modified Children: Monsanto chemicals permanently alter your child’s genes A 2016 film titled ‘Genetically Modified Children’ exposed how Philip Morris and Monsanto have exploited impoverished farmers since 1966 when the Argentinian government authorized the use of genetically modified (“GM”) crops to withstand Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. As a result, an increasing number of children are being born with severe birth defects and deformities in Argentina.
The Justice Department indicted Biden corruption whistleblower, Gal Luft on Monday just one week after he released a video detailing criminal allegations against the Biden Crime Family.
Gal Luft, a dual US-Israeli citizen, was hit with an 8-count indictment.
Unreal – now Biden and his crooked DOJ are not only arresting their political opponents but also whistleblowers who expose their crimes. https://t.co/3S6vXEsVlq
“LUFT, 57, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen who formerly resided in both Maryland and Israel and is now a fugitive, has been charged with the following offenses, which carry the maximum prison terms listed below. The statutory maximum penalties are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant would be determined by a judge.” – the US Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York announced.
Missing Biden corruption whistleblower Dr. Gal Luft released a 14-minute video to The New York Post on Thursday detailing damning allegations against Joe Biden and his family in a massive international bribery scheme filmed in an undisclosed location while on the run from the Biden regime and Department of Justice.
In February Gal Luft the Merrick Garland-Joe Biden DOJ arrested Gal Luft in Cyprus and accused him of being an arms dealer.
I've been arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request by the US.
The US, claiming I'm an arms dealer. It would be funny if it weren't tragic.
I've never been an arms dealer.
DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe,Jim&Hunter Biden.
In a coordinated attack on their own president, the Leftmedia is making it clear that he can’t be allowed to run in 2024.
Douglas Andrews
If Joe Biden were a man of his word, he’d have fired himself by now.
To understand why, we need only hearken back to his first full day in office, when he took to a videoconference to warn about 1,000 presidential appointees that he’d fire them “on the spot” if he hears that they’ve been discourteous to others within his administration.
“I’m not joking when I say this,” he vowed. “If you’re ever working with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect or talk down to someone, I promise you, I will fire you on the spot — on the spot. No ifs, ands, or buts.”
In saying this, Biden was, of course, taking another lazy swipe at his predecessor, Donald Trump — a man whose record of achievement continues to cast a massive shadow over the weakness and wokeness of the current administration. “Everybody is entitled to be treated with decency and dignity,” said shameless Joe. “That’s been missing in a big way the last four years.”
Welp, as it turns out, “decency and dignity” are in short supply at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue these days — what, with the lying and the grifting and the race-baiting and the selling-out of our nation to Communist China and Ukraine, and with the hookers and the blow and the despicable deadbeatery that are the hallmarks of the current first family.
But beyond that, there’s the matter of Joe Biden’s demeanor. As Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush, said on Fox News this morning: “He’s just not a good guy. … He’s just not a kind, nice guy.”
Fleischer is being too good, too kind, too nice. Joe Biden is a rotten, backslapping, miserable jerk of a human being. It’s just that the media, until very recently, has refused to show us this side of him.
And by “very recently,” we mean until yesterday, when the normally friendly left-leaners at Axios published a piece that recounts numerous examples of Biden doing exactly the thing he warned others not to do on his first day on the job. Yep, there was Old Yeller — Really Old Yeller — tearing into one hapless staffer after another with, “G*d dammit, how the f**k don’t you know this?!” And with, “Don’t f***ing bullsh*t me!” And with, “Get the f**k out of here!”
As Axios gently puts it, “The private eruptions paint a more complicated picture of Biden as a manager and president than his carefully cultivated image as a kindly uncle who loves Aviator sunglasses and ice cream.”
Um, yeah, more complicated. This is Scranton Joey, after all. This is Mr. Nice Guy, the friendly, affable man who was supposed to bring “decency and dignity” back to the White House. The “good Catholic.”
But again, if Joe Biden were a man of his word, these would be firing offenses, right?
This, though, isn’t the mainstream media’s only brand-new broadside at the woefully unpopular 80-year-old president. Take the reliably leftist Atlantic, which last week published a piece titled “Step Aside, Joe” and went on to tell its dozens of readers why this guy has no business running again. Author Eliot Cohen begins by thanking Biden for having rescued the Left from the prospect of four more years of America First torment at the hands of Donald Trump. And it goes downhill from there.
Then there was Biden’s weekend interview with CNN lickspittle Fareed Zakaria, who made the rest of us do a spit-take when he said, straight-faced, “You’ve been a great president,” before getting down to business and suggesting that Old Joe “step aside and let another generation of Democrats take the baton.”
Or take this fourth case of friendly fire on Saturday, in which the New York Times’s own gray lady, Maureen Dowd, with a headline that read “It’s Seven Grandkids, Mr. President,” went directly at Biden’s character — or rather lack thereof. Dowd finished with this shiv to the ribs: “The president’s cold shoulder — and heart — is counter to every message he has sent for decades, and it’s out of sync with the America he wants to continue to lead.”
Ouch.
What we have here, then, is a coordinated effort from the mainstream media. But notice how none of them are calling for Biden to resign. Instead, they’re all calling for him to serve out his one and only term, and then head off into the sunset.
Why aren’t they calling for his resignation? Why aren’t they talking about his impeachable offenses? Because forcing him out of office before the end of his term would necessarily install Kamala Harris as president — and she’s even less popular than he is. Thus, the game is to deny Harris the presidency and force her to make her way through an open Democrat field.
And, as Victor Davis Hanson has observed, all they need to do to ensure that is for Joe Biden to pull an LBJ — to say he’s had enough, and to walk back his decision to run for president in 2024.
The media outcry over the successful film leaves one to wonder why else they would be so upset.
Nate Jackson
The newest front in the Left’s sexual revolution is children. The groomers want to recruit your children into the rainbow community, including by “transitioning” them before they’re even allowed to walk to a neighborhood playground by themselves. Next they’ll be arguing for the rights of “minor-attracted people” — a.k.a. pedophiles. Indeed, that’s already begun.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that the Leftmedia knives are out for the new movie “Sound of Freedom,” which our Emmy Griffin reviewed last week, noting the good news of its surprise popularity at the box office.
In short, Jim Caviezel plays Tim Ballard, a real-life man who quit his job as a Homeland Security agent so he could work full-time via his organization Operation Underground Railroad rescuing children from human trafficking. Back in 2014, when everyone agreed trafficking was bad, CBS profiled Ballard and his work. Recounting how Ballard and his team freed a dozen kids here and scores more there, CBS called it “Liberation, one child at a time.”
Now that the Rainbow Mafia controls the media narrative, however, we’re getting a different version of Ballard’s story and the movie about him.
At best, media pontificators roll their eyes at the exaggeration and dramatization of the story, as if Hollywood has never before turned a tale “based on a true story” into an overblown moral lesson. “Sound of Freedom” is a movie, not a documentary. This just in.
But the media haranguing didn’t stop with a moderate dose of realism or even skepticism. It proceeded to mockery and outright discrediting of the messengers.
Speaking of discredited messengers, Rolling Stone — the rag of rape hoax infamy — headlined “‘Sound Of Freedom’ Is a Superhero Movie for Dads With Brainworms.” The magazine joined numerous other outlets from CNN to The Washington Post to The Guardian in drawing a connection to QAnon, we suppose because one of the QAnon theories involved a sex ring run out of a DC pizzeria and because Caviezel and Ballard have made remarks decrying such things.
According to the International Justice Mission, a $150 billion industry enslaves 50 million people around the globe, more than at any point in human history. As far as the media sleuths are concerned, though, that’s just QAnon conspiracy theory.
Countless Hollywood and Leftmedia types hold utterly insane views that make QAnon seem perfectly normal by comparison, but they want you to be fully aware that they’re deeply concerned with Caviezel and Ballard.
“They just like to throw the word out, ‘QAnon,’” Ballard said. “They make zero connection to the actual story.”
The Guardian also scoffs, “Sound of Freedom pretends to be a real movie, like a ‘pregnancy crisis center’ masquerading as a bona fide health clinic.” Taking care of moms and babies during crisis is absolutely healthcare, unlike killing one of the two people who enter an abortion clinic. The high-minded media folks just want women to abort the kids, not dramatize saving them from sex slavery.
Part of the story of “Sound of Freedom” is that it was filmed five years ago and then no studio would distribute it until Angel Studios came along. A few years ago, Netflix released “Cuties,” a film that actually sexualized children in order to supposedly fight against their exploitation. Yet Netflix wanted nothing to do with “Sound of Freedom.” Neither did Disney, which you may recall thanked the ChiComs for allowing filming of “Mulan” in the same district where slaves endure forced labor.
On a final note, it seems that Joe Biden’s Department of Social Justice edited its page on child sex trafficking. A lot of material that was on that site during the Trump administration has been cut — notably the entire section titled “Domestic Sex Trafficking of Minors.” See for yourself: Compare Trump’s page and Biden’s page.
Why was this change made? Is sex trafficking in America just QAnon? Is the DOJ too busy tracking down the 17 remaining “white supremacists” in the country to bother with exploited children?
One of the disappeared sections says that traffickers “use physical, emotional, and psychological abuse to keep the child trapped in a life of prostitution,” and “victims are heavily conditioned to remain loyal to the trafficker.” Which sounds an awful lot like what the rainbow groomers do. Just sayin’.
What the alarmists are calling the hottest spell in “at least 100,000 years” is what we call “summer.”
Michael Swartz
For those who were near a beach, lake, or swimming pool on Independence Day, consider yourself lucky: You had a means of cooling off on what was considered perhaps the hottest day in 125,000 years.
Wait. It didn’t seem all that steamy to you? That’s odd, because The Science™ told us it was warmer in northern Quebec than in Miami; that records were set in Siberia; and that Argentina and Chile, Southern Hemisphere countries that are in the dead of winter right now, hit 30 degrees Celsius — which is 86 Fahrenheit to us American rubes.
“This week’s records are probably the warmest in ‘at least 100,000 years,’” said someone named Jennifer Francis to the gullible folks at CNN. Francis, who’s apparently a senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, called the records “a huge thing.”
And she’s a Scientist, so she must be right, right?
Here’s the problem, though: It’s not all that unusual for places like northern Canada or Siberia to have heat waves, and the northern extremes of both Argentina and Chile come about as close to the equator as the southern tips of Florida and Texas, which aren’t known for frigid winters. This recent hot spell is toppling records that are only about 20 years old, not 100,000 years old, because we have no idea what the weather was like on a particular day back then.
“The idea that we actually know what it was on a given day 100 years ago, or 1,000 years ago, never mind thousands of years ago is sheer fraud,” says climate blogger Paul Homewood, who, despite not being a true Credentialed Scientist, makes a spot-on assertion. And, as another Non-Credentialed Non-Scientist, Power Line’s John Hinderaker, adds: “Wait, what? I didn’t know they had SUVs 125,000 years ago. What made it warm then? You’re not supposed to ask.”
Why not? Isn’t asking questions part of what’s supposed to be The Science?
And then there’s this: “Another problem is that our temperature data are imprecise.” So says Steve Milloy, yet another Non-Credentialed Scientist who is nonetheless a senior legal fellow. “It has been estimated that 96% of U.S. temperature stations produce corrupted data. About 92% of them reportedly have a margin of error of a full degree Celsius, or nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit. The lack of precision of reported temperatures, whether estimated or measured, is not reassuring.” Milloy also points out that much of the Earth’s surface gets no temperature measurements at all.
Still, we wonder: Can these laypeople be trusted? They certainly seem to raise some good questions about The Science.
Yet whenever John Kerry — the haughty, Non-Credentialed Climate Czar — goes on about global climate change, he’s listened to like he’s preaching the gospel. “This will be the hottest June and July, it’ll be the hottest summer, it’ll be the hottest year,” he says, “and we all know that because the science is telling it to us and because Mother Earth is responding by telling us exactly what’s going on.”
Is Kerry now the Earth Whisperer too?
We’ll admit that it’s been a somewhat unusual year for weather, but whether it’s snow in Hawaii or a pronounced heat wave, the answer for it from The Science is always the same: more money from your pockets and more government control over your lives.
However, back here in Realville, if it’s a couple degrees warmer tomorrow, we’ll just call on that wonderful invention of Willis Carrier to get us through the day. And we’ll grumble about the electric bill later.
We humans have this wonderful capacity to adapt and adjust. So regardless of what the climate does or what The Science says, we’ll find a way to muddle through somehow.
Biden’s Hunter trouble continues, Bud Light boycott still going strong, GDP malaise, and more.
Thomas Gallatin & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Biden’s Hunter trouble continues: And here we thought all whistleblowers were heroes. Dr. Gal Luft, a 57-year-old Israeli American who back in 2019 blew the whistle on Hunter Biden, has been indicted by the Justice Department. Luft claimed to have provided the FBI with damning information about the Biden family’s bribery scheme and ties to the Chinese military. Among the charges Biden’s DOJ has raised against Luft is failure to register as a foreign agent — the same violation as Hunter Biden, though of course he has not been charged. Speaking of Hunter’s violations, the federal prosecutor who was investigating Joe’s son, Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, denies that he was blocked by Attorney General Merrick Garland from raising charges against Hunter. Weiss’s denial runs counter to IRS whistleblower Gary Shapely’s claim that Weiss told him he had been denied special counsel status. So why was Hunter not charged with failure to register as a foreign agent?
Bud Light boycott still going strong: Dylan Mulvany may prove to be the iceberg to Bud Light’s Titanic. The formerly best-selling beer in America is seeing its sales continue to sink, now down nearly 28% from this same time last year. Bud Light now doesn’t even make the top 10 list of best-selling beers in America. But it’s not just Bud Light that’s sinking; other beverages of parent company Anheuser-Busch are taking a hit as well. Michelob Ultra sales fell 4.3% from this week last year, and Busch Light is down 8.5%. Consultant Bump Williams noted that this is especially bad news for the beer company: “Budweiser trends have been slipping for a very long time, but it’s the Michelob Ultra negative numbers and now Busch Light negative trends that are most alarming to me.” He added, “They were very healthy prior to April 1.”
Turkey concedes on Sweden in NATO: Sweden will soon be joining NATO as the final roadblock to membership was removed Monday. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan agreed to end his nation’s hold against Sweden over his claim that the Nordic nation had not done enough against members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, which Turkey views as terrorists. Hungary, which has also been a holdout against Sweden’s NATO entry, signaled that it would follow Turkey’s lead. Some believe that the real reason for Turkey’s holdout was to leverage the Biden administration over the sale of F-16 fighters. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blasted Biden over his recent rejection of any notion of Ukraine membership in NATO.
Delta bans TikTok, warns of China data grab: Employees working for Delta Airlines will no longer be permitted to use the popular Chinese-owned social media app TikTok on any devices that connect to company-owned systems. The reason for the ban has everything to do with concern over Beijing’s use of the app to suck up gobs of data. This should come as no surprise since Chinese President Xi Jinping expressly stated his mass data-collecting strategy when he took office back in 2013. “The vast ocean of data, just like oil resources during industrialization, contains immense productive power and opportunities,” Xi explained. “Whoever controls big data technologies will control the resources for development and have the upper hand.” Now, Delta is just the latest American company to act to prevent more of its data from being sucked up by China’s social-media-based espionage efforts.
Make Fauci pay: Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra observing that 13 NIH officials, including the now-retired Dr. Anthony Fauci, were not formally appointed to their positions as of December 2021, and therefore should not have been paid. The letter notes that the law “requires the Secretary of HHS to reappoint NIH IC [institute and center] directors, including those who were serving at the time of the law’s enactment when their five-year terms expired on December 12, 2021.” The problem is, “The failure to reappoint the above NIH IC directors jeopardizes the legal validity of more than $25 billion in federal biomedical research grants made in 2022 alone.” If these NIH officials accepted a federal salary while knowing that they had not been reappointed, then according to Robert Moffit, a former senior official at HHS, “they would be required to reimburse the federal government for their salaries, and the grants would at least be subject to litigation from competitors in the research community who lost grant opportunities in a lawful process.” Fauci “earned” $434,312 in his last year at NIH.
GDP malaise: India poised to pass U.S.: Last Thursday, Joe Biden touted his economic agenda: “I’m not here to declare victory on the economy. I’m here to say we have a plan that’s turning things around quickly.” Well, talking is one thing, but Americans have been experiencing a much different reality. To wit, a recent forecast from Goldman Sachs Research indicates that if current trends continue, the U.S. economy will fall to third place in the world behind China and India by 2075. This is due to India’s expected GDP growth reaching $52.5 trillion by 2075, over $1 trillion more than the U.S. India is currently the fifth-largest economy with a GDP of $3.73 trillion, while the U.S. is number one with a GDP of $26.85 trillion. If Bidenomics continues, the gap will narrow more quickly.
Headlines
Federal debt explodes by $1 trillion in five weeks since deal suspending limit became law (Fox News)
Republicans roll out new national voting law, warn Americans to watch out for Democrat deception (Fox News)
Judge nixes Biden request that would allow contact with social media companies (Daily Wire)
Nearly 40% of U.S. attack submarines are out of commission for repairs (Bloomberg)
DOD destroys last chemical weapons in arsenal (Defense.gov)
Marine Corps is without confirmed leader for first time in 164 years (Fox News)
John Kerry: The problem with war in Ukraine is it’s contributing to climate change (Daily Wire)
UN report says anti-LGBT religious beliefs not protected human rights (Christian Post)
Good news: Kansas judge orders Kelly administration to stop allowing gender changes on driver’s licenses (Kansas City Star)
Study points to worse mental health outcomes for women who have abortions versus giving birth (Washington Times)
Chicago suburb starts paying reparations (Hot Air)
Gavin Newsom watches Fox News “every night” but urges Dems not to appear on the network (National Review)
Satire: Hollywood confused by new movie that depicts child sex trafficking as bad (Babylon Bee)
Satire: Democrats conduct investigation to see if Constitution played a role in recent Supreme Court decisions (Genesius Times)
This concept is coming to a community near you. What is it?
Emmy Griffin
Fifteen-minute cities, or FMCs, are the latest fetish of the leftist elite, though in a way we can understand the appeal. The infrastructure planners see this innovation as a way to recreate the old-timey neighborhood where everyone knew their neighbors and everything they needed was within walking distance.
Naturally, this means an FMC is only going to be about a mile and a half wide. The 15 minutes is figured by the distance it takes to walk from one side of town to the other. This idea was the brainchild of Carlos Moreno, a professor of business working in Paris, France. He started developing this idea in 2010, and many places around the globe latched on to it as a way to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. It would be a reset of sorts whereby communities could reorganize and become less fast-paced than the typical urban sprawl.
One can understand the motivation perfectly. We want people to have easy access to the essential goods and services they need like schools, doctors’ offices, their jobs, and community events. It would ideally reduce car dependency and encourage healthier lifestyles.
Mayors in the United States are very interested in creating these types of cities. In a different time and era, this sort of city might be welcomed. However, since the pandemic — and even since Donald Trump’s election in 2016 — there is a recognition amongst the American people that the elite and the people who are run the government hold the populace at large with a great deal of contempt.
As a former mayor of Lake Elsinore, California, put it, “This haughty reality-shifting attitude somehow pervades the elites despite the deserved devastation of the public’s trust in its institutions in the wake of the pandemic, the response to which involved lies, half-truths, spin, lies, mistakes, lies, the threat of force, lies, the threat of unemployment, the ordered home confinement, the mass destruction of small businesses, and lies.”
The mask is off with the government nanny state, and the American people are highly suspicious of ideas like FMCs. The smaller cities would be easier for a larger government to control. These cities may well be the testing grounds for other “environmentally friendly” boondoggles.
It should be noted here that whenever choices are made in the name of environmentalism and preventing climate change, the cost is human lives, livelihoods, and quality of life. FMCs would supposedly make implementing a surveillance state much easier, and surveillance is a big part of these sorts of cities. If you don’t conform to the rules, you will be fined. CO2 emissions will be tied to a social credit score. The smaller cities will be subject to woke ideas like equity. Forced homogeny and diversity are probably going to be another stipulation. Each FMC must be the same.
People have every right to be suspicious toward and even heavily opposed to the implementation of such cities. This idea, seemingly harmless and even convenient at first glance, was adopted by Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum. This creepy group of shadowy global elitists led by the eccentric Schwab openly wants to run the world.
There is a scene in Madeleine L’Engle’s children’s book A Wrinkle in Time in which the main characters have to go into Camazotz, a city taken over by the force of evil called “it.” As they walk along the streets, they are presented with a scene of a neighborhood where all the children are called out to do their playtime. They bounce the ball at the same time, they skip rope at the same time, and all their “playing” is dictated by the rhythm of “it.” The one kid resisting the rhythm was dragged off for painful reeducation.
This picture of Camazotz is an extreme example, but knowing the minds behind 15-minute cities, are Americans not justified in worrying about a similar sort of dictatorial outcome? Conforming to the powers in charge for the sake of “green” cities seems like a trap.
In the United States, two cities in particular have been selected as the testing ground for other future American FMCs: Cleveland, Ohio, and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
I never thought anyone could make President Biden seem more articulate. She does, with or without a teleprompter.
Cal Thomas
If President Biden is serious about seeking a second term, he must fix the problem of his vice president, Kamala Harris.
Though Biden’s poll numbers are currently not much better than Harris’, latest polling by the Los Angeles Times finds as of this month “41% of registered voters had a favorable opinion of Harris and 53% had an unfavorable opinion — a net rating of -12 percentage points.” One wonders what those 41 percent see as Harris’ accomplishments, because there have been none, as far as I can tell.
Republicans will likely make Biden’s age an issue in the coming campaign and whether Harris is qualified and smart enough to become president should something happen to him. That has always been important in choosing any vice president.
Harris may be unique among modern vice presidents because in addition to what would look like a weak resume if she were applying for a second term, she has the additional baggage of being inarticulate.
Earlier this month at an event sponsored by Essence magazine in New Orleans, Harris said things I defy anyone to translate:
“Culture is (pause) It is a reflection of our moment in our time, right? And, and present culture is the way we express our feeling about the moment. And, and we should always find time to express how we feel about the moment that is a reflection of joy ‘cause, eeeh, you know, it comes in the morning (cackles). We also have to find ways to also express the way we feel about the moment in terms of just having language and, and and, a connection to how people are experiencing life and I think about it in that way, too.”
I tried reading her comments backward, thinking she might be speaking in code, but that wasn’t any clearer.
Two women on stage with Harris are seen nodding as if they understand what she is saying. They should tell us.
Critics have called her verbiage a “word salad.” She seems to be picking words at random from a dictionary without connecting verbs, thoughts, or relevance.
I never thought anyone could make President Biden seem more articulate. She does, with or without a teleprompter.
Effective politicians need to be able to communicate with voters and the larger public. Not all our presidents and vice presidents have the gift of speaking well like Daniel Webster, Winston Churchill or in recent times, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, but at least most could speak “the king’s English” and be understood.
Imagine a presidential speech from Kamala Harris that begins “Good evening, my fellow Americans” and quickly descends to the level of her remarks in New Orleans. Worse, does she understand and can she articulate the administration’s foreign and domestic policies? She was tasked with doing something about the border, but has done nothing, chiefly because in some fairness to her, President Biden appears to want it kept open.
There is not a single accomplishment any of those 41 percenters who have a favorable opinion of Harris can point to.
It is why President Biden must replace her as his running mate. He would face a backlash from groups that have hailed her as the first female and person of color vice president and who appear more interested in diversity than in real accomplishments. A stronger, more accomplished and articulate vice president would be the best insurance policy for Democrats should Biden win and not be able to finish a second term.
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.
Joe Biden Soaks Up the Sun — Biden relaxes on the beach, an activity that takes up much of his presidency.
Satire: SCOTUS Changed My Sex Life Forever — It’s been one whole year since Roe v. Wade was overturned, which means they’ve been making abortion illegal all over the place. So these are dark times…
“When you have bombs going off, and you have damage to septic tanks or to power centers, etc., you have an enormous release of greenhouse gas, of methane, you know, all of the family of greenhouse gases. And the result is it’s adding to the problem.” —climate czar John Kerry regarding the Russia/Ukraine war
Braying Jennies
“These Supreme Court justices have been receiving financial benefits from billionaire benefactors with interest and cases before the Supreme Court. And that is something that we have to put a stop to right now. … I believe that there should be congressional investigations into the Supreme Court and into this unethical activity. The Senate asked Chief Justice Roberts to … testify before the Senate regarding these deeply disturbing revelations, and the chief justice said no. … If they refuse to come up, then I believe we should submit a subpoena in order to investigate.” —Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)
“I don’t believe the administration deserves any blame for [Afghanistan]. We have to remember that Donald Trump made this agreement with the Taliban. Secondly, the Trump administration literally gutted our State Department and our diplomatic core.” —Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA)
Dumb & Dumber
“It’s not that [Chinese President Xi Jinping is] a bad guy or a good guy. The circumstances are enormously complicated.” —Joe Biden
“The president and I have been closely monitoring what must happen to ensure that the federal bench reflects the faces and the names and the numbers of all people in our country.” —Kamala Harris
The BIG Lies
“Let’s not forget, when [Biden] walked into the administration, the economy was at a freefall.” —White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (“When Biden took office, inflation was at 1.4% and gas was $2.39/gal. Today, inflation has been at or above 4% for two years and gas is $3.54/gal.” —RNC)
“Bidenomics is working. It is actually working.” —Karine Jean-Pierre
“The price of oil is actually down, not up.” —Joe Biden
Hunter, Call Your Office
“We have to hold every drug user accountable, because if there were no drug users, there would be no appetite for drugs and there’d be no market for them.” —Joe Biden in 1989
Delusions of Grandeur
“It is truly an honor and privilege to be speaking for this president because of everything that I have gone through and everything that I represent.” —Karine Jean-Pierre
Belly Laugh of the Week
“Very often when I meet with colleagues or individuals that I have not met with before, they are surprised that I do my homework a lot.” —Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Village Idiots
“Show me all the trans people who are nefariously taking advantage of being trans in sports. It’s just not happening. … I see trans women as real women.” —U.S. women’s soccer player Megan Rapinoe
“This film [‘Sound of Freedom’] is being marketed to either specific QAnon believers or to people who believe all of the same tenets as QAnon but claim they don’t know what it is.” —author Mike Rothschild
“Sound of Freedom: the QAnon-adjacent thriller seducing America.” —The Guardian
“The QAnon-tinged thriller [‘Sound Of Freedom’] about child-trafficking is designed to appeal to the conscience of a conspiracy-addled boomer.” —Rolling Stone
“‘Sound of Freedom’ is a box office hit whose star embraces QAnon.” —The Washington Post
“‘Sound of Freedom’ Is an Anti-Child Trafficking Fantasy Fit for QAnon.” —Jezebel
For the Record
“Netflix paid for Cuties… and they turned down the Sound of Freedom.” —Tim Young
Ecofascism
“Because of mandates from the EPA and other government agencies around the world, automakers like GM and Chrysler pay Tesla, one of their competitors, hundreds of millions of dollars for emissions credits. The legendary Hemi engine is arguably dead because this arrangement is no longer economically feasible for Stellantis, which now owns Dodge and Chrysler. In what kind of world does one company pay a penalty to a competitor? A socialist one.” —Nate Jackson
Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer weighs in as NATO leaders meet to discuss mounting crises and discusses a report President Biden yells and curses at aides and the cocaine discovered in the White House. #FoxNews
Using the power of the federal government to pressure Big Tech into censoring “disinformation” is a modern Pandora’s box. Sure, the Biden administration may decrease the influence of its critics—in an astonishing violation of the First Amendment—but it also enables bad actors to weaponize this very tool against the U.S. government itself, in an utterly embarrassing cautionary tale.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an astonishing report Monday, revealing that the FBI under President Joe Biden urged Meta, Instagram’s parent company, to remove the U.S. State Department’s official Russian-language Instagram account.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the FBI routinely forwarded lists from the Secret Service of Ukraine, or SBU, to Big Tech companies, warning that the social media accounts allegedly “spread Russian disinformation,” according to the report.
The SBU flagged the accounts for Big Tech and the FBI, and the FBI often would follow up to ensure that Big Tech took action against these social media accounts. The lists from Ukraine’s secret police often included U.S.-based accounts, and the House subcommittee faults the FBI for failing “to respect fundamental American civil liberties.”
A tremendous catch affected the scheme to combat “Russian disinformation,” however. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, had infiltrated Ukraine’s SBU. This may not come as a surprise, since both Russia and Ukraine established these agencies as replacements for the old Soviet secret police, known as the KGB.
In July 2022, Zelenskyy fired the head of the SBU on account of Russian infiltration of the security service. Earlier this year, Maj. General Viktor Yahun, the Ukrainian secret service’s deputy chairman between 2014 and 2015, said the SBU long has had an overly close relationship with the Russian security and that Ukrainian patriots in the agency “have been in the minority.”
The subcommittee’s report notes that “the SBU was compromised by a network of Russian collaborators, sympathizers, and double agents at the time of its interactions with the FBI,” yet the FBI engaged in “uncritical cooperation” with the Ukrainian agency.
Russian infiltration certainly would explain some of the incongruities of the reports that the Ukrainian secret service—and, by extension, the FBI—flagged to social media for censorship.
Aleksandr Kobzanetz, an FBI agent based in Ukraine, forwarded a list of Instagram accounts that the Ukrainian secret service “suspected” to be “involved in [the] spread of disinformation.” He forwarded the SBU’s list, specifically noting that the agency requests that the accounts “be suspended.”
That list from Ukraine’s secret service included the Instagram account “usaporusski,” the verified Russian-language account of the U.S. State Department.
So, according to the SBU, the U.S. State Department has been “used in the interests of the aggressor country to distribute content that promotes war, inaccurately reflects events in Ukraine, justifies Russian war crimes in Ukraine in violation of international law,” and more.
Ultimately, it appears the State Department survived this round of social media purging, but other accounts may not have been so lucky.
The House subcommittee report notes that the FBI, on behalf of Ukraine’s secret service, also flagged multiple pro-Ukraine Facebook and Instagram posts from Americans. Some of these posts currently are unavailable, while posts from Russian government officials—to whom the pro-Ukraine posts had been responding—remain on the platforms.
Kobzanetz, the FBI agent, sent a list of 5,165 Facebook accounts to parent company Meta on March 1, 2022. Although most of the account holders lived in Russia or Belarus, many of them lived in the U.S.
The subcommittee verified that these flagged accounts belonged to real Americans: a photographer working with a studio in New York; a manager of a moving company in South Carolina; a musician and vocalist based in Minnesota; a professor at a university in California; and a children’s book author living in Washington state.
Perhaps most chilling, an FBI agent reached out to a Meta employee after agents had flagged certain accounts for removal. The agent asked “if these accounts were taken down, or if you need some legal process from us,” ostensibly to cover for the targeting of American citizens on social media.
Last week, in a first-of-its-kind temporary injunction, a federal judge ordered the Biden administration to stop strong-arming Big Tech into silencing Americans’ free speech online. Although the Biden administration asked for a “stay” of the order, the judge rejected it, noting that his order was narrowly tailored to protect First Amendment rights.
This latest report from the subcommittee shows just how important the judge’s injunction truly is.
If Russia can infiltrate Ukrainian intelligence and thereby get the FBI to urge Big Tech to censor pro-Ukraine accounts in the name of fighting Russian disinformation, perhaps it’s better for the federal government’s own interests that a judge closes this Pandora’s box. It’s certainly better for America’s global reputation if the FBI stops telling Big Tech to censor the State Department’s official accounts.
Someone has to be the adult in the room and tell the Biden administration, which seems increasingly drunk on power, “Enough!”
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
One of the nation’s leading Christian-based entertainment websites is urging parents not to take their children to watch the new Barbie movie.
Movieguide, founded by Ted Baehr and his wife, Lili Baehr, posted a warning on Monday to parents, asserting that the PG-13 Barbie film includes adult content – LGBT themes, among it – that many moms and dads will not want their kids to see.
Why people and businesses are fleeing some of America’s largest cities, which suffer from serious crime, homelessness, and at the same time, high taxes, not enforcing drug laws and other progressive policies also driving many away; heavy … CBN News. Because Truth Matters™
American confidence in higher education has dropped dramatically over the past decade. A Gallup poll released Tuesday revealed that 36 percent of U.S. adults reported having “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, compared with 48 percent in 2018 and 57 percent in 2015.
Progressive Co-Pastor, Anna Helgen, led her Lutheran congregation, in one of possibly the most blasphemous creeds ever written. If you listen closely you can hear Martin Luther spinning in his grave like a Costco rotisserie chicken over The Sparkle Creed. —
Fox News’ Raymond Arroyo has the latest on the success of ‘Sound of Freedom,’ President Biden’s blunders in the U.K. and Kamala Harris’ word salad on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’ #foxnews #fox #seenandunseen
Coronavirus Disease 2019 Rotator Graphic for af.mil. (U.S. Air Force Graphic by Rosario “Charo” Gutierrez)
The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a damning report Tuesday asserting a coordinated effort to downplay the lab-leak hypothesis of COVID-19’s origin and suppression of scientific discourse.
The report implicates none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Previous evidence uncovered by the Select Subcommittee directly revealed that Dr. Fauci prompted the drafting, publication, and critical reception of the infamous “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” (“Proximal Origins”) to disprove the lab leak theory in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Below are some of the takeaways from the Select Subcommittee:
In an email in February 2020, co-author Kristian G. Andersen confirmed that their primary goal of drafting the “Proximal Origin” was debunking the lab-leak hypothesis.
“Our main work…has been focused on trying to disprove any type of lab theory…”
In another email, Anderson sent an email to Clare Thomas stating, “…none of this helps refute a lab origin…”
Former NIH director and co-author Dr. Robert Rambaut has admitted in a private Slack channel with the other authors of the Nature Medicine article that “Proximal Origin” is an attempt to protect communist China.
Select Subcommittee wrote, “Dr. Rambaut expresses concern about China being accused of an accidental release of COVID and suggests the group should deny any evidence of a specifically engineered virus.”
“Given the sh-t show that would happen if anyone serious accused the Chinese of even accidental release, my feeling is we should say that given there is no evidence of a specifically engineered virus, we cannot possibly distinguish between natural evolution and escape so we are content with ascribing it to natural processes.”
Dr. Andersen responded to Dr. Rambaut’s message by saying, “Yup, I totally agree that that’s a very reasonable conclusion. Although I hate when politics is injected into science – but its impossible not to, especially given the circumstances.”
Immediately following the phone call on February 1, 2020, Dr. Ron Fouchier expressed concern in an email that the ongoing controversy over the lab leak would “do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.”
According to the Subcommittee, the co-authors of “Proximal Origin” were so ‘comfortable’ about the NIH’s inappropriate engagement that they came up with the nickname “Bethesda Boys” to refer to Drs. Fauci and Collins.
“He’s sent it to the Bethesda boys… I suspect Bethesda will be sending it round already?”
The Select Subcommittee asserted that the co-authors manipulated the data so that Fauci’s vision could be realized and the paper could be published in Nature Medicine.
“Proximal Origin co-authors — aided by Drs. Fauci & Collins — successfully vilified the lab-leak theory during the height of the pandemic. Americans deserve to know why this happened & who was involved so we can prevent future suppression of scientific discourse,” the Select Subcommittee wrote.
In summary…
“Proximal Origin” co-authors — aided by Drs. Fauci & Collins — successfully vilified the lab-leak theory during the height of the pandemic.
Americans deserve to know why this happened & who was involved so we can prevent future suppression of scientific discourse.
— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) July 11, 2023
Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio)held a hearing titled “Investigating the Proximal Origin of a Cover-Up” on Tuesday to examine the potential conflicts of interest and suppression of scientific discourse by the National Institutes of Health.
Below is Rep. Wenstrup’s opening message on today’s hearing:
COVID-19's origins require a thorough and comprehensive investigation — not a snap judgment based on questionable motives.
Chairman @RepBradWenstrup opens today’s hearing with a clear message for the authors of “Proximal Origin:”
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