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
In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve.Jeremiah 50:20
A glorious word indeed! What a perfect pardon is here promised to the sinful nations of Israel and Judah! Sin is to be so removed that it shall not be found, so blotted out that there shall be none. Glory be unto the God of pardons!
Satan seeks out sins wherewith to accuse us, our enemies seek them that they may lay them to our charge, and our own conscience seeks them even with a morbid eagerness. But when the Lord applies the precious blood of Jesus, we fear no form of search, for “there shall be none”; “they shall not be found.” The Lord hath caused the sins of His people to cease to be: He hath finished transgression and made an end of sin. The sacrifice of Jesus has cast our sins into the depths of the sea. This makes us dance for joy.
The reason for the obliteration of sin lies in the fact that Jehovah Himself pardons His chosen ones. His word of grace is not only royal but divine. He speaks absolution, and we are absolved. He applies the atonement, and from that hour His people are beyond all fear of condemnation. Blessed be the name of the sin-annihilating God!
“I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago” Psalm 77:11.
Like many people, my life has had its ups and downs, and there have been lingering seasons of uncertainty when I have not remembered God’s goodness in the past. Recently, I had been struggling with a dilemma and the Holy Spirit reminded me of how God had graciously provided the answer and clear direction in a similar situation. Sometimes, I have to look back, and be reminded of God’s incredible faithfulness and power, and see his gracious hand in every detail that has concerned me. Intentional remembering can grow our faith, lead to greater intimacy with God, and reshape our feelings in the present.
Throughout the scriptures, God reminds his children of his faithfulness. Zakar is a Hebrew word meaning “to remember.” In the minor prophet book of Amos, God reveals details to the children of Israel to reinforce his faithfulness. He reminds the Israelites that he conquered the Amorites, rescued them from Egypt, and gave them the promised land (Amos 2:9-12). These details set the example for how we should remember the many times God has shown up during our trials.
We are living in complicated times, and the daily news is filled with all kinds of problems facing the world but when we are anchored to remembering the good deeds of the Lord, we are able to change the way we see ourselves, and our situation. Ultimately, by focusing on God’s grace and remembering his goodness you will be strengthened to face the uncertainties and impossibilities of life. Spending quiet time with God to “zakar” God’s goodness will lead to inward heart transformation and fill you with hope.
Lord, I want to live a life that glorifies you. Help me to intentionally remember all the good things you have done in the past. Thank you for your promises that remind me of your goodness and help me to be thankful even in times of trouble. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
“You are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for He called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light. ‘Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy; now you have received God’s mercy.’” 1 Peter 2:9-10 (NLT)
As a brand new believer, I remember walking into a public health station in downtown Baltimore to acquire health insurance for my son. The place was horrible. The smell of vomit, feces, and urine was thick in the air. It was like I had walked into a war zone.
My first reaction was to feel defeated and worthless; however, God breathed His Spirit into me and I began to remember who I belonged to. His light was alive in me and I could enter these front lines of the world to show His goodness, to be His light amongst the dark places.
Who we are in God is more important than who we are to anyone else in this world. We are His chosen people, and we are His very own. The enemy wants us, as God’s children, to walk through this world feeling defeated. The enemy wants us to forget who we are in Christ, what He has done for us, and how much of a treasure we truly are to Him.
So wherever God leads you today, be His light in the darkness. Remember who you are in Him and how He sees you, not how the world sees you.
Father, we come before You as broken children. Make us holy in You, Lord. Fill us with Your light in that we may be Your light to a very dark world that surrounds us. Fill us with Your mercy. Let us remember Lord who we are in You. Let us remember Lord, by Your Holy Spirit, to whom we belong to. We ask this in the mighty name of Christ Jesus, Amen.
Thought: Are there areas in your life where the devil is shouting defeat in your ear? Take these concerns to God and let Him remind you who you are in Him. Trust Him to transform your mind from how you see yourself into how He truly sees you.
The Unprecedented Events In Israel Are A Reminder For Christians To Get Ready “The church needs to be aware what is happening, and our hearts should be stirred,” Pastor Hamrick said. He encouraged believers to remain vigilant, pointing out how “as we get closer to the return of Christ, we’re going to see more and more anti-Semitism around the world. Complete peace on Earth won’t happen until the Lord returns, but Scripture still tells us to pray for Israel. … these unprecedented events in Israel are a reminder for Christians to get ready for the Rapture.
Hamas Leader Calls For Global Muslim Uprising In ‘Day Of Rage’ On Friday, Report Says A screenshot of a video on X (first posted on YouTube) shows Khaled Mashal, the former leader and founding member of Hamas, who allegedly called on Muslims earlier this week to unleash a ‘Day of Rage’ on Friday. The ‘final words’ of Mashal’s speech included, “Funds are important but today we are asking for your blood and souls [to be sacrificed for Palestine,”
Microsoft Must Pay $28.9 Billion In Back-Taxes In an 8K filed by Microsoft after the close, the company said it received notices from IRS seeking additional payment of $28.9b plus penalties and interest for the tax years 2004-2013; the payments stem from disagreements over the tax treatment of intercompany transfer pricing, a well-known corporate tax black hole. It was not immediately clear if these notices suggested the company had underpaid taxes on purpose or if there was a TurboTax-style glitch, but whatever the reason, $29 billion is a lot of money, even for Epstein island regulars such as Bill Gates.
Pompeo: The United States Must Give Israel A Free Hand To Do What Needs To Be Done former Sec. of State Mike Pompeo urged the United States to take a strong stance in support of Israel. Calling the actions of Hamas “grotesque” and “barbaric,” Pompeo highlighted that “Prime Minister Netanyahu should have a free hand to do what he needs to do.” “I am just hoping that this administration doesn’t slow him down,” he implored. “There are going to be long weeks. There are going to be some pictures that come out of Gaza that are going to be tragic. But make no mistake about it: Prime Minister Netanyahu has the duty to defend his own people in the same way that the United States has that duty.”
Israeli Health Ministry tells hospitals to stop treating terrorists “Since the beginning of the fighting, the issue of treating the damned and despicable Hamas terrorists within the public hospitals has piled up a tremendous difficulty on the health system,” wrote the health minister. “In these difficult times, the health system should focus fully on the treatment of the victims of the criminal massacre, IDF soldiers and readiness for the next [attack],” Arbel explained. “The task of securing and treating the cursed and despicable terrorists within the public health system significantly harms these efforts and therefore, under my guidance, the public health system will not treat them,” he added.
Ben Gvir to police: Prepare for riots and violence in Israel National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) on Wednesday morning ordered Israel Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai “to be prepared for the scenario of Guardian of the Walls 2.” Ben Gvir, who arrived at the Sderot police station following the battle which took place at the scene, said, “The police officers, Counterterror officers, and Border Police, were a ray of light in the darkness.” “They killed over 350 terrorists in face-to-face combat. This war proves how much we need to arm civilians.”
EU expands warning over pro-Hamas content on social media The European Union has expanded its warning that tech companies must remove pro-Hamas content from their platforms, or face legal penalties. Following the Islamist group’s attack on Israel, social media firms have seen a surge in misinformation related to the conflict, including doctored images and mislabelled videos, alongside images of graphic violence.
Netanyahu: Hamas burned people alive in the south Hamas terrorists in an ISIS-like manner burned people alive, raped victims and shot babies in the head when they assaulted southern Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israelis in a late-night address.
Million Person March organizer announces new nationwide protests against LGBT agenda The organizer for the Million Person March held in September to fight back against radical LGBT agendas being taught in public schools has planned a new event for October 21 after getting over ‘12 calls a day” to organize another protest. The “Worldwide Stop the War on Children Rally” to be held throughout the country will be looking at taking a ‘double measure, one cut” approach, said Kamel El-Cheikh, who was the main organizer of the September protest, …there is a huge “appetite coast to coast” to rid Canadian schools of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) indoctrination.
Gaza power plant shuts down after running out of fuel during Israeli blockade Reports coming out of Gaza indicate that the power plant has run out of fuel as a result of the Israeli blockade, which was established after the Hamas terror organization’s barbaric invasion of southern Israel on Saturday. Palestinian Energy Authority Chairman Zhafer Melhem, reported to local media that the power plant had run out of fuel and stopped operating at 2 p.m. today. With no power, water pumping stations will also soon cease to operate.
Instead of complaining, stranded passengers began to pray for Israel at Ben Gurion Airport After many international air carriers suspended or scaled back flights to and from Tel Aviv, hundreds of foreign nationals are stuck in Israel and waiting for their flights out of the country currently at war with the Hamas terror organization Tourists from across the globe remain stranded at Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport on Tuesday after their flights were canceled, but instead of complaining they banded together to pray.
While Turkey attacks Kurdish militants in Iraq, Erdoğan slams Israel for not acting ‘like a state’ Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned Israel’s bombings of Gaza on Wednesday as “shameful,” while refusing to condemn Hamas. “Israel should not forget that if it acts more like an organization rather than a state, it’ll finish by being treated as such,” saidErdoğan. Erdoğanrefused to condemn Hamas,
Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, former Israeli defense minister, announce emergency unity government today About an hour after ALL ISRAEL NEWS was the first media outlet to break the story, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Benny Gantz issued an official statement confirming that they have agreed to form an emergency national unity government. Netanyahu, Gantz, and current Defense Minister Yoav Gallant will form a three-person “war cabinet” to directly manage the war against Hamas.
Israel pounds Hamas stronghold in Gaza’s Rimal Israel pounded downtown Gaza City with relentless bombardments Tuesday after it vowed a retaliation that would “reverberate for generations” against the Hamas militant group for its surprise weekend attack
Western Afghanistan hit by third M6.3 earthquake since October 7 A strong and shallow earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.3 hit western Afghanistan at 00:41 UTC (05:10 local time) on October 11, 2023. The agency is reporting a depth of 9 km (5.6 miles). This is the third M6.3 earthquake to hit this area of Afghanistan since twin M6.3s on October 7 in which more than 2 400 people lost their lives.
Wildfires prompt evacuations in Argentina’s Cordoba Province amid heat wave Wildfires exacerbated by an intense heat wave led to the evacuation of dozens of residents in Cordoba Province, Argentina, on October 10, 2023. The fires neared the resort city of Villa Carlos Paz and involved the deployment of 960 firefighters.
Shallow M6.4 earthquake hits west of Macquarie Island A strong and shallow earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.4 hit west of Macquarie Island at 20:04 UTC on October 11, 2023. The agency is reporting a depth of 11.6 km (7.2 miles). BMKG is reporting M6.1, Geoscience Australia M6.2, and EMSC M6.4.
Get Ready, Because The U.S. Is Going To War In The Middle East… We are on the precipice of a major regional war in the Middle East, and the U.S. military is going to be involved. Of course if this war was just limited to a fight between Israel and Hamas, there would be no need for the U.S. military to intervene, because the IDF can handle Hamas quite easily. But Hezbollah is another matter entirely.
Sydney Jews Warned to Stay Home as pro-Hamas Protesters Claim the Streets Members of the Jewish community in Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, were warned Monday to stay home and avoid being identified while supporters of the Palestinian terror group Hamas marched through the Central Business District to gather at the iconic Opera House.
No, the Hamas Invasion Was Not an Israeli ‘Intelligence Failure’ One would have to be almost hopelessly naïve to buy the corporate state media line that the Hamas invasion yesterday morning was an Israeli “intelligence failure.”Mossad is one of, if not the, most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet. It routinely shares intelligence, furthermore, with the “Five Eyes” intelligence services. It has its tentacles deep inside of every ally and foe of import.
Preliminary analysis of UK flu vaccine data suggests they contribute to deaths Joel Smalley has been analysing UK annual flu vaccination data. In 2000, national flu vaccination programmes were introduced for those aged over 65. So, did the flu vaccines save lives? Not according to Smalley’s analysis. His preliminary analysis suggests the opposite is true. Deaths have increased for those aged over 65 after the flu vaccine was introduced.
WHO tries to sneak in IHR amendments without the approval of member states …“These things are specified in the versions of the treaty and the amendments that we’ve seen so far … but they haven’t been negotiated, they haven’t been accepted, they haven’t been voted on,” Dr. Nass said. If this process is about the member nations negotiating and agreeing to the IHR amendments and a Pandemic Treaty, the question is: Why has WHO already started building all these hubs?
BLM’s LA Branch Backs Hamas Terrorism. In a statement posted on their verified Instagram account, Black Lives Matter (BLM) Los Angeles have endorsed the Hamas terror raids on Israel over the weekend, calling their “resistance” an act “of self-defense.”
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” —John Adams (1770)
Fellow Patriots, on this day in 2000, al-Qaida jihadists used a small boat to ram the USS Cole, killing 17 sailors. In today’s news, 25 Americans are dead after Hamas jihadists attacked Israel. Some things don’t seem to change. —Mark Alexander
Democrats aren’t quite in lockstep for a change, as there’s some serious disagreement over Israel and Hamas.
Nate Jackson
Joe Biden has been working for nearly three years to resurrect Barack Obama’s horrendous nuclear deal with the world’s preeminent state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. Last month, he unfroze $6 billion for Iran in exchange for some American prisoners. After years of appeasement and within weeks of that ransom payment, Iranian-backed Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than 1,200, including 25 Americans — so far.
But Joe Biden will have you know he’s not going to stand for any rhetoric from his party that’s favorable to Hamas. He’d certainly rather Americans pay attention to some House backbenchers than to his own failures.
Now, don’t get us wrong. Biden absolutely should condemn the “repugnant” and “disgraceful” Jew hatred coming from the likes of the House Democrat “Squad.” Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Cori Bush in particular have all said outrageous things, going back well before the assault against Israel. At best, they’ve morally equivocated between Hamas jihadists wantonly killing civilians and Israeli retaliation in which there are inevitable civilian casualties because Hamas hides behind children and puts military bases below hospitals.
“I strongly condemn the targeting of civilians,” said Bush, “and I urge an immediate ceasefire and de-escalation to prevent further loss of life.” Israel had barely even had a chance to respond yet.
Omar has a particularly long history of hating Jews, so her response was hardly surprising. “Palestinians have few recourses for justice and accountability,” she complained. “Attacks by the IDF and settlers against Palestinians are regularly met with impunity. Efforts to seek justice in international courts are stonewalled by the Israeli government, with U.S. support. As the world is condemning Hamas’s attacks, we must also oppose an Israeli military response that has already taken the lives of hundreds of Palestinians, including nearly two dozen children.”
She later called the Israeli response “a war crime.”
Tlaib released a statement Sunday, saying, “I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day.” She added, “The path to that future [peace] must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.” It’s Israel’s fault, you see. Shouldn’t have worn that short skirt.
The outrage wasn’t only about what Tlaib said but about what she stubbornly refused to say. Asked repeatedly to condemn the beheading of babies by Hamas, Tlaib offered only an angry scowl at the reporter and just kept walking.
After that video went viral, Tlaib finally weighed in — to blast her critics for making “bigoted assumptions about my faith and ethnicity.”
Oh please.
Other Democrats circled the wagons for the Squad. Congressman Dan Goldman protested, “There are conservative marches in the South with swastikas all the time.” What? The only swastika we’ve seen lately was at the protest in Goldman’s New York — on behalf of Hamas.
Still other Democrats just pretended the whole thing was made up. “[Democrats are] absolutely unified behind Israel’s right to exist and Israel’s right to defend itself,” insisted Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin. What about the comments we just quoted? “Well, I just — I haven’t seen any of those.”
Profiles of courage, right there.
Eventually, Team Biden had had enough. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre didn’t name names, but she didn’t have to.
A reporter asked, “What is the president’s message to members of Congress who seem to be equating the Hamas terror attack with actions that were previously taken by Israel?”
KJP initially wanted to know “which congressional members,” but she quickly abandoned that waffling and came down strongly:
So, look, I’ve seen some of those statements this weekend. And we’re going to continue to be very clear: We believe they are wrong, we believe they’re repugnant, and we believe they’re disgraceful.
Our — our condemnation belongs squarely with terrorists who have brutally murdered, raped, kidnapped hundreds — hundreds of Israelis. There can be no equivocation about that. There are not two sides here. There are not two sides.
We agree. We only wish that such strong comments were coming from a strong administration that hadn’t spent nearly three years enabling the Iranian sponsors of the terrorists they now condemn. Squad rhetoric is indeed reprehensible — what else is new? — but Biden administration policy is far more consequential than the unhinged rantings of a few haters in Congress.
Israel’s response to Hamas, Antony Blinken arrives in Israel, Biden’s “junk” policy on junk fees, and more.
Thomas Gallatin & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Senate to Biden: refreeze Iran’s $6B: Five Senate Democrats are calling on Joe Biden to immediately refreeze $6 billion in Iranian assets that he unfroze last month as a ransom payment for prisoners. All five senators — Joe Manchin (WV), Jon Tester (MT), Jacky Rosen (NV), Tammy Baldwin (WI), and Bob Casey (PA) — are up for reelection in 2024. Manchin and Tester were the most strident in their calls for refreezing the assets. “I wasn’t supportive of the initial $6 billion transfer,” said Manchin. “We should absolutely freeze these Iranian assets while we also consider additional sanctions.” Tester said, “At minimum … freeze the $6 billion in Iranian assets and explore other financial tools we have at our disposal.” He added, “Moving forward, we need to ensure our ally Israel can defend itself from these ongoing deadly attacks against its civilians.” Biden has thus far rejected the calls to refreeze.
Israel’s response: Israel’s immediate response to Hamas’s shocking attack was to launch a massive air strike against Hamas targets in Gaza. Furthermore, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a full-scale siege of the Gaza Strip, vowing that Hamas “will be crushed and eliminated.” Over 300,000 Israeli military reservists have been called up, as the military prepares for a ground assault. All services have been cut off to the Gaza Strip, including power, water, and food, and yesterday Gaza’s sole power station was shut down as it ran out of fuel. At least 25 U.S. citizens have been killed, with 17 others unaccounted for and feared to be hostages of Hamas.
Blinken’s trip to Israel: Early Thursday morning, Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel in a move designed to reiterate U.S. support for Israel following Hamas’s unprovoked attack. Upon arriving, Blinken released an unequivocal statement: “The United States stands with Israel and its people, and we will always stand — resolutely — against terrorism.” He further told reporters, “We’ve seen the almost indescribable acts committed by Hamas against Israeli men, women, and children.” He added: “Every day we’re learning more, and it is simply heartbreaking. Not since ISIS have we seen this kind of depravity, and we will continue to stand very resolutely against it.” Let’s hope that marks a real change in administration policy.
Inflation rises again: The September consumer price index (CPI) found that inflation rose 0.4% last month, and it’s up 3.7% from this time last year. This continues a trend of rising inflation, as both July and August saw increases after a year of steady decline. The cost of food and energy was the leading cause, as those two core CPI items rose 0.3% last month and have risen by 4.1% over the last 12 months. Meanwhile, that inflation is rising once again means that workers’ wages have effectively decreased, dropping another 0.2% on the month, with average wages growing just 0.5% for the year. This is especially the case for many retired Americans on fixed incomes. Social Security recipients are set to receive a 3.2% increase in benefits, but that falls far short of matching the growing rate of inflation — not to mention the fact that cumulative inflation since Biden took office is more than 17%.
Biden’s “junk” policy on junk fees: Reeling from bad polling numbers tied to his failed effort to dupe the American public into believing that his “Bidenomics” policies are benefiting the economy, not to mention his disastrous decision to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian assets, Joe Biden on Wednesday touted his new plan to crackdown on junk fees. “Folks are tired of being taken advantage of and played for suckers,” Biden said as he argued that companies sneak hidden charges into all sorts of bills. “These junk fees can add hundreds of dollars weighing down family budgets, making it harder to pay family bills,” he added. While all Americans can agree that junk fees are frustrating, Biden’s maneuver still doesn’t change the fact that his policies are responsible for making us all poorer. Furthermore, Biden’s propping up of the unconstitutional Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an entirely unaccountable institution, is not a solution for reversing a bad economy.
Amber Alert for intersectionality: In an effort to ensure that racism is injected into everything, California has enacted a new “Ebony Alert” system. The new law, which will go into effect on January 1, 2024, will utilize electronic highway signs as well as push radio, TV, social media, and other systems to alert the public to missing persons of color ages 12 to 25. Evidently, the Amber Alert system, which sends out alerts to the public for missing children who are believed to have been abducted and does not take race into consideration, is racist. The issue is that the Amber Alert system make a distinction between runaways and abductions, only issuing alerts for the latter. Since a higher percentage of black kids are reported as missing after running away from home, an Amber Alert is not issued.
Headlines
Biden appears to back up reports of Hamas “terrorists beheading children” (National Review)
Israel forms emergency government after five days of Netanyahu-Gantz talks (Jerusalem Post)
There is no U.S. ambassador to Israel — does it matter? (Hot Air)
X removes hundreds of Hamas-linked accounts (Fox Business)
Dem congressman renounces membership with nation’s largest socialist organization over Hamas praise, anti-Semitic rally (Daily Wire)
North Carolina Republicans override Democrat governor vetoes on election bills (Daily Wire)
ACT test scores fall to lowest levels in 32 years (Axios)
Christianity Today’s magazine staff made significant campaign donations from 2015 to 2022 and every dollar went to Democrats (Not the Bee)
Policy: Refreeze Biden’s $6 billion gift to Iranian terror (Washington Examiner)
Humor: The New York Times and eight other great toilet paper alternatives (Babylon Bee)
When it comes to social media, the former NSA and CIA director can’t seem to shut his lousy soup-cooler.
Douglas Andrews
It’s hard to believe that such a vile little pipsqueak as Michael Hayden was once an Air Force general and George W. Bush’s CIA director. Then again, given the Air Force’s leftwardlurch and the steady rise of the deep state in recent years, perhaps his appointment was a harbinger.
Hayden, whose big mouth and bottomless Trump hatred would seem to make him an excellent fit for a weekend gig on MSNBC, picked a fight with Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville on Monday when he responded to a click-baity X post from someone named Nathalie Jacoby, which asked whether Tuberville should lose his seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee for his lonely but principled stand in defense of the Hyde Amendment and the unborn by blocking the Biden Department of Defense policy that reimburses military personnel who circumvent their state’s laws by traveling to another state to have an abortion.
“Should Tommy Tuberville be removed from his committee?” asked Jacoby.
To which Hayden sophomorically responded, “How about the human race?”
“This morning,” Tuberville replied, “my office was made aware of a statement made by General Michael Hayden calling for a politically motivated assassination. This statement is disgusting and it is repugnant to everything we believe in as Americans. Given General Hayden’s long career in Washington, he must have known that, by making such a statement, he was committing a serious crime.”
Tuberville then reported Hayden to the Capitol Police. But we won’t hold our breath.
On Tuesday, an indignant Hayden posted that he was “surprised to wake up this morning and discover MAGAnuts had lost their minds over my suggestions that ‘Coach’ Tuberville not be considered a member of the human race.”
Hayden, it should be noted, was one of the 51 treacherous “intelligence” officials who signed the infamous letter claiming that Hunter Biden’s laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
In fairness to Hayden, he suffered a stroke in 2018, and it’s possible that his current state of mind is due to that debilitating cognitive event. But if that’s indeed the case, it seems to us that his loved ones should’ve protected him by closing his Twitter account.
Tuberville, who played safety in college for the Southern State College Muleriders, and who coached young men in football at Auburn while Hayden was helping to perfect our nation’s domestic spying apparatus as NSA director, has consistently out-hit and out-strategized his political opponents on the Left and their mainstream media cheerleaders. The most recent example of this would be the aforementioned denial of unanimous consent in the Senate, which allows senior military nominations to move speedily forward. As Tuberville has repeatedly made clear in the face of withering opposition, “The hold will remain in place as long as the Pentagon’s illegal abortion policy remains in place.”
Good for him. And shame on Joe Biden for using our nation’s military as a tool for the furtherance of his party’s pro-abortion zealotry. As our Thomas Gallatin noted recently: “The Rule of Law only matters if it supports Biden’s political agenda. And abortion on demand anywhere and everywhere is the ‘good Catholic’ Biden’s policy position.”
Lest anyone think our national security is being compromised by the coach’s intransigence, our Nate Jackson noted that the months-long standoff partially ended “when [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer folded and scheduled three votes on promotions, including for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” Schumer’s move, he said, “was a tacit admission that Tuberville was right all along and it was really intractable Democrats who’d rather pay for abortions than promote military officers.”
It’s hard to say how many babies have had a chance to be born due to Tuberville’s one-man stand, but as The Daily Signal reports: “The Pentagon’s policy provides three weeks of taxpayer-funded paid leave and reimbursement of travel expenses for military personnel and dependents who are seeking abortions. An estimate from the Rand Corp. predicts the number of abortions in the military eligible for taxpayer-covered expenses would skyrocket from 20 to more than 4,000 each year.”
That’s a lot of life-saving, and the old coach is doing his part to ensure the future of the human race. And for it, Tuberville deserves our respect and our gratitude — along with a rousing War Eagle.
Why should anyone be surprised that a country will break its promises to foreign allies when it callously disregards its obligations to its own citizens?
Laura Hollis
In the aftermath of Hamas’ horrific attack on Israel last weekend, and the barbaric kidnappings, torture and slaughter of hundreds of civilians, Jews across the world are asking hard questions about who they can truly count on.
Author and podcaster Liel Leibovitz penned a scathing essay in the online publication Tablet, laying much of the blame for the attack at the feet of the U.S. government. In “America’s Betrayal of Israel,” Leibovitz both condemns U.S. foreign policy and criticizes what he views as Israel’s foolhardy reliance upon America as an ally.
Leibovitz starts by slamming the $6 billion that the Biden administration released to Iran, the largest state sponsor of terror in the Middle East, if not the world. Iran’s financial support of Hamas is undisputed; this administration’s flaccid protests to the contrary, money given to Iran is money in the bank accounts of Islamic terrorist organizations everywhere. (Leibovitz doesn’t mention that Biden chose to announce release of the funds on Sept. 11, the 22nd anniversary of the worse terrorist attack on U.S. soil; if the largesse to Iran was a betrayal of Israel, the timing was a deliberate kick in the teeth to Americans themselves.)
Second, Leibovitz references the recent revelations that Iranian spies infiltrated the U.S. intelligence apparatus and have been pushing our government to do Iran’s bidding for years (with a notable hiatus during the Trump administration). These shocking facts came to light only days before the deadly Hamas attacks; it will be months or years before we know the extent of the damage, if indeed it is even possible to ascertain.
Leibovitz acknowledges that Joe Biden and his puppet regime are only continuing what Barack Obama started during his presidency: a policy of appeasing and empowering Iran, and of denying the deleterious effects it would have on Israel or the wider Middle East. It was Obama who pushed through the “Iran Deal” in 2015 that not only lifted sanctions on Iran and gave them nearly $2 billion in “pallets of cash,” but effectively permitted the regime to pursue its nuclear weapons program by attaching “conditions” that were wholly specious, unverifiable and/or explicitly temporary.
Leibovitz looks back at the decisions of the past two Democrat administrations, and makes his closing argument:
“When you champion Iran; when you send it and its proxies money; when you reward Palestinian violence; when you go out of your way to portray Bibi (Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister) as a dangerous fascist; when you finance and champion his opponents, contributing to further instability and unrest; when you hand over U.S. intelligence keys to Iranian agents; when you have your spokespeople declare it ‘disinformation’ for people to connect obvious dots; when you do all of this, you know what’s going to happen. You mean for it to happen.”
America has abandoned other allies to whom we had earlier promised our support: the Afghans fighting to overthrow the Taliban were overrun when we unceremoniously left Afghanistan (leaving tens of billions of dollars in military equipment, materiel and ammunition to fall into enemy hands, by the way); the South Vietnamese fighting against communist encroachment during the Vietnam War; the Cubans fighting communist dictator Fidel Castro, who we left unaided at the Bay of Pigs.
Now Israel.
But why should anyone be surprised that a country will break its promises to foreign allies when it callously disregards its obligations to its own citizens? Consider what we have observed our government do over the past few years:
— Illegally spying on Americans and spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a “collusion” investigation they knew was fraudulent.
— Lying about the origins of a virus that caused a global pandemic.
— Forcing experimental “vaccines” on an unsuspecting public.
— Working with broadcast, print and social media to censor anyone trying to get out the truth about the virus, risks of the mRNA shots, and safe alternative drug treatment protocols.
— Locking down the entire economy, but allowing “protests” that turned into riots, burning, looting and carnage.
— Allowing violent crime and theft to run rampant and unpunished, but attacking pro-life pastors and parents objecting to pornography in schools as “domestic terrorists.”
— Prosecuting the current president’s chief political rival with frivolous and transparently false accusations of crimes, while ignoring and suppressing evidence of actual corruption by the president himself and his family.
— Lying to Americans about a “secure” border, while allowing millions upon millions of unvetted people to enter the country illegally, most of whom are now military-age males, and many of whom come from countries actively hostile to the U.S.
In the wake of Israel’s retaliation, the threats are coming now, thick and fast. The head of Hamas has called for a global jihad and attacks against Israel, Jews and those who support them, everywhere they can be found. How many people inclined to follow those orders have made their way to the United States because of our government’s deliberate neglect of its most basic responsibilities?
With only minor edits, Leibovitz’ accusations sound like ominous warnings of what Americans could find ourselves saying in the not-too-distant future:
“When you fail to punish violence; when you go out of your way to portray Donald Trump as a dangerous fascist and millions of Americans as “the enemy” in need of “formal deprogramming”; when you weaponize law enforcement against people with different political views; when you champion lawless rioters, contributing to further instability and unrest; when you fund dangerous research and then have your spokespeople declare it ‘disinformation’ for people to connect obvious dots on important matters of public health; when you allow millions of foreign men into the country without any background checks or safeguards against malevolent intentions; when you do all of this, you know what’s going to happen. You mean for it to happen.“
Latest PodcastPopCon #17: A Haunting in VeniceWill this be a disturbing supernatural horror spectacle as the trailer suggests? Or will moviegoers be surprised and delighted instead?
It’s not book banning but discernment to remove pornographic material from the children’s section.
Emmy Griffin
Last week was ”Banned Book Week,“ and the Left was milking it for all it was worth. With the collusion of the American Library Association (ALA) — which is headed up by a self-proclaimed lesbian Marxist — this week was named “Let Freedom Read.” The ALA even has merchandise available, including this bookmark listing the top 13 books that were challenged in 2022. All had sexually explicit content.
The absolutely correct call by parents to have these books removed from libraries and schools is not a “book ban.” It is clear and obvious that the ideas and content in these books are not appropriate for children. One only has to read the books out loud. It is hardly surprising though that the leftists that run the ALA are pushing for these books to be widely available to children. The ALA president herself has posted on her X (Twitter) feed her support for exposing children to sexual material.
Marxists don’t believe in the innocence of children or that it’s worth protecting. They believe that children are adults without the milage.
Like the ALA president, those who advocate for this “freedom” for kids to read about sexually explicit acts and depictions don’t actually care about kids or freedom. In fact, exposing children to this kind of material at ever more youthful ages is condemning them to a kind of slavery of the mind. It teaches them that the only thing of value about themselves is what they have to offer sexually. This is not a worthy message to implant in an elementary schooler’s, middle schooler’s, or even high schooler’s mind.
What exactly constitutes a ban according to these leftists? Well, those standards have been set by a left-wing advocacy group called PEN America. Its definition is so broad that the term “ban” becomes meaningless. According to The Daily Signal: “If a book has been temporarily removed, reviewed, and then returned to the shelves, it has been banned, according to PEN. If a school places a parental permission requirement on a book, it has been banned, according to PEN. If a school moves a book to a guidance counselor’s office, it has been banned, according to PEN.”
In other words, it has taken a term like “book ban” and made it mean absolutely nothing just so it can use it as a weapon to force parents to allow their children to read inappropriate books.
To call what concerned parents are doing — calling for the removal of inappropriate and sexually explicit books from their children’s schools and libraries — a “book ban” and “censorship” is ridiculous. It’s especially laughable when one considers that it is the Left that is the party deeply in favor of censorship and believes that we as the American people have “too much freedom.”
Leftists are the party that happily wield cancel culture with indiscriminate aplomb and use social media as their own personal censorship platform.
They don’t care about consistency, only power. That includes the power to corrupt children while simultaneously demonizing their parents.
Pope Francis seems less than fully committed to upholding church doctrine.
Thomas Gallatin
Trust demands consistency, yet what has come out of the Vatican recently is anything but consistent. Indeed, much of the confusion is due to the pontiff himself, as Pope Francis has repeatedly made statements that appear to challenge long-held church doctrine.
The issues most concerning to many Catholics are those surrounding the ongoing sexual revolution that has effectively taken over the whole of Western culture and is now proliferating throughout the Christian church, both Protestant and Catholic.
Recently, five conservative cardinals from five continents sent five questions to Francis seeking clarification. These formal questions, known as “dubai,” Latin for “doubts,” included a question on liberal priests, predominately in Germany, giving blessings to same-sex couples.
According to church doctrine, marriage is only between one man and one woman, in accordance with God’s intended design for marriage. Anything that deviates from this God-given design is viewed as sinful, and in the case of homosexuality, disordered.
Therefore, since the church does not bless sin, and since homosexual relationships are recognized by the church as sinful, how can priests issue blessings to inherently sinful unions?
Francis responded to the question by reiterating church doctrine. Marriage is an “exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to conceiving children,” he said. “For this reason, the Church avoids all kinds of rites or sacramentals that could contradict this conviction and imply that it is recognizing as a marriage something that is not.”
However, rather than leave it there, Francis proceeded to muddy the waters. Concern for pastoral charity requires a “defense of the objective truth,” but that “is not the only expression of that charity, which is also made up of kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness, encouragement,” he said. “For that reason, pastoral prudence must adequately discern if there are forms of blessing, solicited by one or various persons, that don’t transmit a mistaken concept of marriage.”
In other words, Francis will not rebuke priests who have been blessing same-sex unions, while at the same time claiming to uphold the church’s doctrine. The problem is that just two years ago, Francis was explicit on the issue, denying that same-sex unions were permissible. Now he says that “pastoral charity should permeate all our decisions and attitudes” and that “we cannot be judges who only deny, reject, and exclude.”
If anything, it appears that Francis is trying to have it both ways. He’s clearly gotten soft on the issue and appears frustrated by the conservative faction of the church that keeps pressing for clarity and consistency with long-established doctrine.
In short, the conservatives want the church’s practice to match its orthodoxy. And this is where the rub is.
According to recent reporting, Francis criticized the U.S. church for developing “a very strong, organized, reactionary attitude,” which he called “backward.” “Doing this,” he warned, “you lose the true tradition and you turn to ideologies to have support. In other words, ideologies replace faith. The vision of the doctrine of the church as a monolith is wrong. When you go backward, you make something closed off, disconnected from the roots of the church.”
So, in an apparent effort to reinforce his views, the Vatican is holding a “Synod on Synodality” this week. National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty contends, “The aim of the Synod, rather plainly, is for a large group of bishops to debate each other about survey material they guided some small number of lay Catholics through in their home diocese, and whether this pile of papers gives sufficient cover for the pope to begin chucking certain moral and dogmatic teachings of the church overboard in favor of newer understandings.” He adds that Francis is “basically … going to ask a bunch of bishops to write up a document showing that the church in general has come to a new understanding of itself.”
There is a clear divide developing in the Catholic Church, with the current pontiff siding with the liberal faction. One wonders how the church will bridge this growing theological gap. And this is no shallow ditch, but a deep crevasse.
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.
MSNBC Caught Following Hamas’s Script — Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt on Monday called out MSNBC for referring to Hamas terrorists who massacred Israeli civilians as “militants” or “fighters.”
Hamas’s Goal Was Never Freedom — The @ApostateProphet discusses the true intentions of Hamas, explaining the real root cause of the seemingly unending conflict between Palestinians and Israel.
To Protect and Destroy? — What happens if police destroy your property while trying to catch a bad guy? Do they compensate you? For many the answer is: NO!
“Like Reagan, Biden battled a nasty inflation issue at the start of his term.” —MSNBC’s Chuck Todd (Unlike Reagan, Biden caused the inflation he’s “battling.”)
Belly Laugh of the Day
“[Biden] has done a record amount of work in reducing the deficit.” —White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
The BIG Lie
“[Democrats are] absolutely unified behind Israel’s right to exist and Israel’s right to defend itself.” —Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
Non Compos Mentis
“We know Hamas doesn’t represent the Palestinian people, or their legitimate aspirations to live with equal measures of security, freedom, justice, opportunity, and dignity.” —Secretary of State Antony Blinken, himself a Jew, seeming to forget the fact that the Palestinian people elected Hamas to power
A Broken Clock Is Right Twice a Day
“These last few days have been a real eye-opening period for a lot of people — a lot of Democrats, a lot of progressives — in terms of anti-Semitism on the Left.” —CNN’s Jake Tapper
Observations
“Hamas claims their wish is to build an independent Palestinian state. They could have started the process then 15 years ago. But they did not because although they say the words, their priority is not a state for their people but the destruction of their Israeli neighbors to the north.” —Star Parker
“If you can’t see the difference between terrorists who behead babies, celebrate it, and hide behind their own children to avoid consequence, and soldiers who attempt to avoid civilian casualties, you are not ‘morally sophisticated.’ You are a fool, and a dangerous fool at that.” —Ben Shapiro
“To clear up any confusion for the morally bankrupt… Who would Hitler be rooting for right now? Thanks for playing.” —Dave Rubin
“It seems that many Westerners have forgotten how terrible Nazism actually was and how its anti-human ideology plunged the world into the deadliest war on record.” —Joshua Arnold
“The real existential threat we face as a nation is the destruction of American Liberty at the hands of the Marxist cultists typified by the Biden administration. That Marxist cult involves not only climate but race and gender as well.” —Nate Jackson
“The vast majority of alcohol users possess and use it legally and responsibly. Likewise, the vast majority of firearm owners possess and use them legally and responsibly. Enacting a prohibition on firearms is tantamount to enacting a prohibition on alcohol. In both cases, only law-abiding users are penalized while outlaws ignore the law.” —Mark Alexander
On Thursday’s “The Chris Salcedo Show,” former State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus calls for the freezing of the $6 billion to Iran from the Biden administration after Hamas attacked Israel. Watch NEWSMAX, an independent news network with a conservative perspective, available in 100M+ U.S. homes.
‘There is no reasonable explanation as to why this many White House employees and lawyers were so concerned with retrieving boxes they believed only contained personal documents and materials,’ Comer wrote.
A senior Hamas official cited President Joe Biden’s prisoner swap deal with Iran as evidence that taking hostages will further the terrorist group’s aims.
Israel said on Thursday there would be no pause in its siege of the Gaza Strip for aid or evacuations until all its hostages were freed, as Washington urged it to protect civilians and the Red Cross warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave.
As flu—and coronavirus—season approaches, Dr. Anthony Fauci is again saying that wearing face masks protects individuals from spreading the coronavirus.
Politics and the fear of coronavirus may have held sway the past few years, but common sense and rational science need to prevail now. Masks are ineffective, and mask mandates are unnecessary.
We offer several explanations from our National Association of Scholars report and peer-reviewed study to refute doomsayers’ warnings about the effectiveness of wearing masks.
Viruses Go Around, Through Masks
Coronaviruses are very small, with a size range of 0.06 to 0.16 micron. For perspective, 1,000 microns equals 1 millimeter. Respiratory viruses like the coronavirus are transmitted through secretion fluids during breathing in the form of small aerosols (less than 5 microns in size) or larger droplets (greater than 5 microns in size), rather than isolated viruses.
When viral-infected humans breathe, talk, eat, cough or sneeze, they emit aerosols and droplets containing viruses.
Aerosols emitted from simple breathing are small (size range 0.2 to 0.6 micron), and once emitted can be present in an enclosed setting for several hours. A person showing no symptoms of viral infection does not cough and sneeze, and therefore they do not emit large droplets.
Aerosols less than 0.5 micron are not easily filtered out of air by any physical mechanism. The openings in medical masks range from 0.3 to 10 microns in size. The latter dimension is much larger than small aerosols emitted from an infected person.
Now, there are a couple of ways in which virus-laden aerosols can infect a person wearing a mask when the aerosols are present in their breathing zone. One way is aerosol penetration through the mask during breathing because mask openings are too large.
A second way is breathing air containing aerosols from the side of a mask due to incorrect wear, increased mask resistance, or poor string tension. A mask wearer breathes out moist air, which increases mask resistance by plugging up the openings. Simple breathing has been shown to emit up to 7,200 aerosols per liter of exhaled air. While this can reduce aerosol penetration through a mask, it worsens the problem of inhaling virus-laden aerosols from the side of the mask.
Both of these studies concluded that it is uncertain whether wearing masks help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses. Outside of the Cochrane organization’s influence, one of the senior authors of both studies (Jefferson) was more to the point: “There is just no evidence that [masks] make any difference. Full stop.”
Jefferson’s findings are consistent with viral transmission basics. Is he right? To answer this, we independently evaluated his data used in the 2020 review using a novel statistical p-value plot.
A p-value plot is used to visually inspect characteristics of a set of test statistics addressing the same research claim; for example, do masks make any difference? The plot is well-respected, being cited more than 500 times in the literature. The plot examined whether p-values support no association (randomness) or a real association between community mask use and viral infections.
Jefferson’s 2020 review looked at 15 separate community (that is, non-health care worker) controlled trials comparing medical masks to no masks. We took the results from these 15 trials—risk ratios and confidence intervals—and converted them to p-values.
The p-values were plotted according to rank (smallest to largest values). The plot is interpreted as follows:
If p-values follow an approximate 45-degree line, the data set supports randomness (no association); that is, masks don’t work.
If p-values approximately follow a line with a flat/shallow slope, where most of the p-values are small (less than 0.05), then the set of p-values provides evidence for a real association; that is, masks work.
The p-value plot of the 15 controlled trials clearly shows p-values aligned approximately 45 degrees, indicating randomness. This is consistent with what Jefferson found: Masks don’t work.
A Natural Experiment Shows Ineffectiveness
A final explanation is a natural experiment of World Health Organization-reported daily new COVID-19 deaths in Germany and Sweden during the second wave (October 2020 through July 2021). At the time, Germany had a mask mandate, whereas Sweden did not, as they followed a strategy to let herd immunity develop naturally.
Many factors contribute to mortality risk. Numerous influences may be at play in the airborne respiratory virus-mortality chain across populations; for example, access to health care, health status, lifestyle, standard of living, etc., which complicates efforts to draw conclusions from observational data.
However, Germany and Sweden are members of the European Union with similar national health policies. Both should have had similar capacities to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, in 2020, Germany and Sweden ranked closely in the top 10 countries of the world with the United Nations Human Development Index: Germany sixth and Sweden seventh. So, comparing the two should control for many factors affecting mortality.
Moreover, mask wearing was very dissimilar in the two countries. Survey data on mask compliance during the pandemic was captured in many countries by the University of Maryland Social Data Science Center and Facebook. Using these data, we observed that monthly average mask compliance in Germany was never less than 80%, whereas in Sweden it was never more than 21%, during the second wave.
Those figures shows that mask use had little or no benefit in preventing COVID-19 deaths in Germany and Sweden during the second wave. Despite similar health care capacities, similar Human Development Index measures, and obvious differences in mask compliance for the two countries, daily COVID-19 deaths per million population were not much different.
Policymakers Should Learn From Experience
It is the obligation of those espousing a theory to provide solid supporting evidence. Undoubtedly, more studies on the medical maskrespiratory virus infection research question, including COVID-19, will be presented in literature in the coming years as those in favor of mask mandates look for empirical support.
However, the evidence to date offers no support for mask mandates.
While research continues, experience and common sense can serve as a complement to the existing empirical results. An old-timer told one of us (Kindzierski) that he spent almost 40 years in the grain industry in Canada. He got used to using N95 masks to protect against grain-dust exposure. He said it used to state on the boxes containing the masks: Not effective against viruses.
Masks didn’t work then, and they don’t work now, to slow the spread of respiratory viruses. Full stop.
The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.
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.
In the wake of the recent Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, nearly all mainstream media coverage has condemned the attacks as barbarism. The general expectation is that the Israeli military will respond with unrelenting force, treating the terrorists who murdered, raped, and kidnapped in the same manner that the Western world summarily extinguished the scourge of ISIS in the Middle East following their reign of terror.
A Christian response toward terrorist organizations such as ISIS or Hamas should be a prayer that God would bring their members to immediate repentance, coupled with an imprecation that if his will is not to bring them to repentance, he would swiftly and decisively bring about their demise in a way that demonstrates his justice, for his glory.
Leftist media and so-called progressive Christians have found it difficult, however, to make direct and unequivocal statements that condemn terrorism and recognize the validity of Israel’s right to defend itself as a nation. Baptist News Global, the faux journalistic outlet that is neither Baptist, Global, or a reliable source of news, has spent a significant amount of time equivocating for the terrorism of Hamas against Israel.
BNG has been known for its increasingly mind-numbingly heretical and downright brain-dead takes, including recent deconstructionist gems “Nature is Queer” and “Why I don’t Invite Would-Be Friends to Church”. Since the recent large-scale attack on Israel by Hamas, BNG has published several pieces that attempt to cast blame on the nation of Israel, painting the attacks by Hamas as merely another cycle in the violence of the Middle East.
BNG’s initial response by executive director Mark Wingfield, In This War, There Are No ‘Good Guys’ posits that everyone in the Hamas-Israel war has the same moral standing.
To hear most American media tell it, Israel is the “good guy” in this conflict and the Palestinians — particularly Hamas — are the “bad guys.” We long for easy dichotomies, but that’s simply not possible here despite what the U.S. State Department says. What Hamas has done is despicable, but what Israel has done and continues to do also is despicable.
Imagine a journalist in the midst of the West’s war against ISIS declaring in the wake of ISIS terrorists raping women and murdering children that while what ISIS has done is despicable, the victims of ISIS are not innocent. Such whataboutism flies in the face of common human decency and the standard of God’s law. A Christian doesn’t have to adopt a dispensationalist view of Israel to see the kidnapping, rape, and murder by Hamas terrorists as unequivocally evil. Wingfield quotes numerous leftist activists who support his claim that Hamas and the Israeli state are morally equivalent, including liberation theologian and former Southern Baptist chaplain at Harvard University Ashlee Wiest-Laird:
“What is happening now in Palestine/Israel is a natural outcome of 75 years of colonization and oppression.”
“The unexpected Hamas incursion into Israel, and the resultant deaths that are yet occurring, bring to mind our own experience of 9/11. The rhetorical choices made after 9/11 included labeling the attackers as “terrorists” rather than “criminals,” designating 9/11 as a singular metonymy, implicating all “Muslims” as terrorists as well as other rhetorical tropes that felt like errors in our judgment…..I hear the same universal tendencies to label Hamas as a bunch of “terrorists” and all Muslims as terrorists as if a label solves the problem.”
Like many leftist journalists, Kennedy wants to play word games instead of plainly reporting on the fact that Hamas members, like the 9/11 hijackers, are clearly terrorists. Kennedy argues that we must attempt to understand the motivations behind what Hamas has done. According to Kennedy, Hamas attacked Israel because they themselves were victims.
“….words like “evil” and “terrorists” serve only “to shut down thought.” The hardening of the categories causes us to cede our agency to a military solution. There is, in this case, only one option: a clarion call to preemptive arms….Don’t look for a political explanation. It is a wonderfully time-saving device. If terrorists are simply Satanic, then you do not need to investigate what lies behind their atrocious acts of violence. You can ignore the plight of the Palestinian people, or of those Arabs who have suffered under squalid right-wing autocracies supported by the West for its own selfish, oil-hungry purposes . … You cannot acknowledge that the terrible crimes which terrorists commit have a purpose behind them, since to ascribe purposes to such people is to recognize them as rational creatures, however desperately wrongheaded.”
Kennedy compares the trajectory of Christian Nationalists in the United States to Hamas, equating Hamas’ genocidal attitudes and actions toward Israel to antisemitism in the United States, going even so far as to say that in the United States, “We have our own Nazi problem”. He then proceeds to make a comparison between the actions of Hamas toward modern Israel and those of the nation of Israel towards the surrounding pagan nations in the Promised Land.
“The condemnation of Hamas fails to accept that Hamas did not invent the notion of genocide. That has been with us from the beginning of human existence…. For instance, there is the reality that the ancient Hebrews felt commanded by “God” to destroy the Canaanites. The Deuteronomic party line: “The only good Canaanite is a dead Canaanite” can be clearly seen in Deuteronomy 7: “The Lord your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you — the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you — and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them.”
In his piece, Here Are Some Ways to Listen to Palestinian Christians, BNG faux journalist and stay-at-home dad Rick Pidcock makes the same tired leftist argument that both Hamas and Israel are at fault, and criticizes evangelical Christians for making the statement “we stand with Israel.” Pidcock argues that because more Hamas terrorists have been killed in the past 15 years than Israelis, the anger of Palestinians against Israel is legitimate.
“According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, during the time of 2008 through September 2023, there have been 6,407 Palestinians killed compared to 308 Israelis. Given the disparity in the numbers of deaths, it seems reasonable to wonder if there is some legitimacy to Palestinian anger even if one does not condone violence.”
Clearly, the Overton Window has shifted in Christian discourse. On September 11, 2001, I remember seeing the twin towers fall, live on television. I was sitting in a public-school American history class taught by a Marxist former University Professor. In the days that followed, the professor spent numerous hours explaining the mentality behind the terrorism that extinguished nearly 3,000 lives. He believed that America deserved what it received, and he reviled the use of the word terrorist to describe those who took planes and used them to murder civilians. The same tired old arguments persist to this day. Now, instead of merely occupying the minds of Marxists and Secularists in academia, they occupy the lecture halls of left-leaning seminaries, the pulpits of liberation theology spewing churches, and the vacuous thoughts of those at Baptist News Global who claim the title of Progressive Christian Journalists.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged that terrorists from abroad are taking advantage of the Biden-manufactured border crisis to enter the United States.
Released last month by the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the “Homeland Threat Assessment” for fiscal year 2024 includes an admission by the agency that international terrorists are looking to capitalize on the Biden administration’s open border policies and the resulting influx of illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border to enter the American homeland.
Under the section titled, “Border and Immigration Security,” the report specifically noted how “terrorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United States.”
The agency further acknowledged that “individuals with potential terrorism connections” are actively attempting to enter the U.S. thanks to the ongoing crisis.
About 160 people on the Terrorist Screening Data Set (TSDS) or “watchlist” were encountered by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) before the end of the 2023 fiscal year, surpassing the 100 or so encountered in the entire 2022 fiscal year.
According to the report, “Inclusion in the TSDS ranges from known associates of watchlisted individuals, such as family members, to individuals directly engaged in terrorist activity.”
Despite President Joe Biden and his administration’s repeated claims that they want a “secure” border, they have actively worked to dismantle such measures.
Shortly after taking office, Biden rescinded the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy and began auctioning off construction materials for the border wall. Those who crossed the border illegally and sought asylum were required to remain in the Latin American country until their court hearing.
The New York Post reports that since Joe Biden became vice president, close to 7 million illegal immigrants have been “encountered” at the U.S.-Mexico border. The millions of “got aways” who evaded CBP officers are not included in this estimate.
Hamas, a terrorist organization based in Gaza that receives Iranian support, killed at least 1,200 people in a series of unprovoked attacks on Israel last month. Most of the victims were civilians. The DHS assessment had been issued weeks earlier.
Since the attacks, fears have arisen that terrorist groups based outside the United States could use the country’s porous borders to gain entry and carry out attacks here.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an order for “heightened public safety measures,” emphasizing the protection of the state’s Jewish community and working in tandem with local and federal law enforcement to counteract any potential terrorist attacks.
DHS has released a new threat assessment in which it singles out Iran as the leading state-sponsor of terrorism worldwide and notes that Iran “intent to plot attacks against current and former US government officials.”
“Iran relies on individuals with pre-existing access to the United States for surveillance and lethal plotting—using dual nationals, members of criminal networks, and private investigators,” the report reads, adding that Tehran has even attempted to carry out plots “that do not require international travel for operatives.”
The report also mentioned Hezbollah, a terrorist organization based in Lebanon that receives support from Iran.
The number of border jumpers arrested by the Border Patrol rose by more than 30 percent in August, according to a report in The Washington Post.
Over the course of the last month, an unprecedented average of nearly 6,000 people crossed the border illegally, with half of them traveling in “family migrant units” that included children.
Government data obtained by CBS News show that the United States has carried out fewer than one hundred deportations under a program established by the Biden administration in May to deter unlawful entries by migrant families.
Hamas-cheering protesters pose a threat to Europeans, the former US secretary of state has suggested
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has said that nations in Europe were wrong to take in many people who are now supporting Hamas’ actions against Israel. Unless the militant group is punished for its hostage-taking, Europeans risk being targeted similarly, he warned.
In an interview published on Wednesday, Mathias Dopfner, the CEO of German media group Axel Springer, asked the veteran statesman about “Arabs celebrating” in the streets of Berlin after Hamas’ incursion into southern Israel last week. Kissinger, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, said he found such gestures of support for criminal acts “painful.”
“It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different cultural and religious concepts because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that,” he noted.
Asked what Germany and the EU should do in the current situation, Kissinger said he expected “unconditional” political support for Israel – as well as military support if needed.
“There has to be some penalty; there has to be some serious limitation on their capability of taking this kind of action,” he said of Hamas tactics.
“I would say that every European nation has the same interest because the same attitude might erupt in the direction of Europe,” he warned.
Washington’s former top diplomat recalled peace talks that resolved the Yom Kippur War five decades ago, saying that Western nations and Israel were lucky to have an Arab leader “with a vision of the future” in Anwar Sadat, the former president of Egypt.
“I don’t think it is possible to find leaders among the Hamas group [with a similar vision],” he said, “I think Hamas should be excluded from a political role.”
Pro-Palestinian rallies were held in multiple European cities amid the escalation in the Middle East. In Berlin, police broke down a spontaneous demonstration on Saturday, which was associated with the NGO Samidoun. The German law enforcement said the protesters posed an “immediate threat to public safety” due to “anti-Israel” chants “glorifying violence.”
The German government was at the forefront of welcoming asylum-seekers during the 2015 influx, when some 1.3 million people arrived on the continent in just one year. Anti-migrant sentiments surged in many nations during the crisis, with some Eastern European members of the EU adopting policies to curb immigration.
Dr. Jim Denison shares biblical insight and expert knowledge on the many questions swirling around the ongoing war in Israel:
What is a kibbutz, and why was one so brutally attacked by Hamas?
Is Hamas really a terror organization, or are they an oppressed group fighting for legitimate survival?
Does Hamas truly and rightfully represent the Palestinian people, or are they self appointed power mongers who refuse free elections and retain power by intimidation?
If a group is oppressed or attacked, are all means of retaliation legitimate?
Is all of history the story of one person oppressing another or one group or nation oppressing another?
Dr. Mark Turman is the Executive Director of Denison Forum and Vice President of Denison Ministries. Among his many duties, Turman is most notably the host of The Denison Forum Podcast. He is also the chief strategist for DF Pastors, which equips pastors and church leaders to understand and transform today’s culture.
An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from southern Israel toward the Gaza Strip, in a position near the border, Oct. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Erik Marmor)
(RNS) — Addressing policymakers at home and abroad, American evangelical Christian leaders responded Wednesday (Oct. 11) to the attacks on Israel by Hamas by issuing a letter calling for moral clarity, both supporting Israel’s right to defend itself and proclaiming the need to protect the lives of innocent civilians.
“In the wake of the evil and indefensible atrocities now committed against the people of Israel by Hamas, we, the undersigned, unequivocally condemn the violence against the vulnerable, fully support Israel’s right and duty to defend itself against further attack, and urgently call all Christians to pray for the salvation and peace of the people of Israel and Palestine,” the letter reads.
The letter, signed by 60 institutional leaders, will be delivered to the White House, Congress and leaders at the United Nations, said Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which helped organize the letter.
In a phone interview, Leatherwood said the letter was prompted by what he said were responses to attacks on Israel that drew “false equivalence” between the attacks by Hamas, a group identified by the United States as a terrorist group, and the actions of Israel’s military.
“It is time for clear-eyed thinking and moral certainty,” he said.
SBC officials are strongly represented among the signers, including the denomination’s president, Texas pastor Bart Barber, as well as SBC seminary presidents Al Mohler, Danny Akin, Jason Allen and David Dockery, and several SBC state convention leaders. Other signers are the president of Awana, a popular children’s ministry, and several Christian college presidents.
Two former ERLC presidents — Russell Moore, now editor of Christianity Today, and Richard Land, now executive editor of the Christian Post website, also signed the letter.
The letter draws on the Christian justification for war known as just war theory to support Israel’s right to defend itself from attacks.
The letter also ties the current violence to past attacks on Jews and Israel.
“Since the inception of the modern state of Israel in 1948, Israel has faced numerous attacks, incursions, and violations of its national sovereignty,” the letter reads. “The Jewish people have long endured genocidal attempts to eradicate them and to destroy the Jewish state. These antisemitic, deadly ideologies and terrorist actions must be opposed.”
Leatherwood said that just war theory clarifies Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks but also puts limits on the response to those attacks. Leatherwood said the letter’s signers are concerned about civilians who will be harmed in the current war in Israel.
“Our concern first and foremost for innocent, vulnerable individuals in Israel and throughout the region that are caught in the middle of this,” he said. “It is a war that is not of their choosing.”
Leatherwood said organizing the letter is part of the ERLC’s broader mission of “protecting the vulnerable.” That mission, he said, has become even more important to him in recent months — earlier this year, the school in Nashville, Tennessee, that his children attend was the site of a mass shooting in which three students and three adults were killed. That shooting led Leatherman to push for gun violence reforms.
“The Lord has taught me to continually have an eye out for vulnerable individuals in a number of different contexts,” he said.
Evangelical Christians are among the staunchest supporters of the state of Israel. The ERLC cited a 2017 study of evangelical attitudes toward Israel from Lifeway Research, an evangelical firm, that found that 73% of those polled supported Israel’s right to defend itself from attacks.
Dan Darling, director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and one of the letter’s signers, was encouraged to see evangelical leaders speak out for Israel. He also said that evangelicals are concerned about Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who will be harmed by the war.
He said there is no justification for the “atrocities inflicted on innocent Jewish people by Hamas.”
“The geopolitics of the region are complex,” he said. “Condemning what we are seeing from Hamas is not complex.”
Leatherwood drew a distinction between Palestinians, who include a number of his fellow Christians, and the actions of Hamas.
“Hamas is the enemy, not innocent civilians,” he said.
I’m monitoring the news about the Hamas attack on Israel. I’ve gotten two questions so far. First, how could Israeli intelligence (Mossad), which is supposed to be the best, not know about this attack in advance. Second, Why didn’t the Iron Dome missile defense work to stop the missiles. I’ll answer those below, and see the latest about the Biden administration funding terrorism.
First, the national security / foreign policy people I follow on Twitter and listen to on podcasts are saying that national security and the military in Israel have gone hard woke in recent years, and they have stopped being able to defend Israel from real threats. Similar to how our own federal agencies are now largely engaged in attacking enemies of the Democrat party, while ignoring actual security threats like military-aged foreigners from enemy nations coming over the southern border in droves.
Second, the Iron Dome missile defense system only has a certain number of interceptors available. I think the number is 200 interceptors. (10 launchers x 20 missiles per launcher). Even with careful targeting, they were not able to shoot down all of the 2200 incoming missiles from Hamas.
One more point. Israel is a left-wing country, and has some of the toughest gun laws of any nation. Most law-abiding people are not properly armed to deter the threat of criminals or terrorists. So, the attack did a lot worse than it would have in say, Texas or Tennessee or Florida. Israeli voters thought they could “stop crime” and “stop terrorism” by banning law-abiding people from owning scary, noisy, smelly guns. It didn’t work. Feelings-based policy didn’t work in Israel, and it doesn’t work in America, either.
But where did Hamas, a terrorist group, get all of the money for 2200 missiles? How could a group of rapists and child-murderers plan such an attack? Well, they have said that they had help from Iran. The same Iran that Obama helped with pallets of cash when he was president. And Biden is helping Iran with cash, too.
Many of the articles surrounding the atrocities of the Hamas attacks this past weekend have referenced the recent $6 billion “deal,” in which the U.S. gave this money to Iran in exchange for five Americans. It already seemed like the worst trade in history.
But it’s more nefarious than simply unleashing $6 billion to Iran, a known terrorist state and the most existential threat to the free world. In reality, this one detail hyperlinked quickly in most articles is part of a larger spider web of hidden details.
In a recent article, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former National Security Council official Richard Goldberg traces the money trail. He confirms: It is so much worse than we think.
[…]The revelations do not end there. U.S. officials have also quietly acknowledged that they’ve uncapped Iranian oil exports to China. These export levels, previously held around 775,000 barrels per day under Trump’s sanctions, are now estimated to be between 1.4 and 2.2 million barrels per day. Modest estimates value this relief at $25 billion annually.
Not only that, but the Obama administration and the Biden administration want Iran to have nuclear weapon capabilities:
We know Iran has already ejected international nuclear inspectors and are on their way to building a facility that is believed to be so deep underground that it would be impenetrable to any air strikes. Iran did not even have to stop their production of high-enriched uranium. They’re merely producing it at a slower rate. But the Biden administration chose to pick up the Obama era’s decision to unrestrain Iran based on a pinky promise.
Most recently, we learned that top officials were influencing the U.S. government in favor of Iranian nuclear power. A series of recently leaked emails have focused on Ariane Tabatabai, the chief of staff to the secretary of defense for special operations. Messages show her involvement with the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI), a direct Iranian government initiative to allegedly “improve the country’s image abroad.”
[…]We’ve also come to learn of other aides who were directly corresponding with the Iranian government from their U.S. government posts, such as Ali Vaez and Dina Esfandiary.
Democrat party policy is not just about putting Israel in harm’s way, it’s also making sure that the American military can’t do anything to save Israel once they are attacked:
We’re stopping oil production in America while allowing Iran to export more, all under the facade of “green energy.” The administration has given the green light to increase oil production in the country that is the greatest existential threat to the free world. Meanwhile, Biden has choked American oil production with the fewest number of offshore oil and gas leases “in history.” This is after Biden canceled all remaining leases in Alaska. But since these leases are for 2024 to 2029, he’s pushed off Americans truly feeling this at the pump until, quite conveniently, after the election.
Squeezing the American wallet is far from the most dire consequence of this policy. Biden has drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) to multi-decade lows. Despite claims that they would be replenishing the reserves, the administration has not only yet to refill the reserves, they even pulled an offer at the end of this summer because of “market conditions.” Namely, oil is already too expensive, and we are drained of our most important backup resource.
Eventually, American voters are going to realize how electing Democrats creates problems here at home:
At this point, America has not simply left the world stage — it is funding terror.
The extent of this hidden money trail has yet to be fully realized. It isn’t only Gaza. It’s Lebanon. It’s Syria. It’s Iraq. It’s Afghanistan. It will be Paris and London. It is likely pouring over the U.S. southern border.
And it’s coming to a neighborhood near you.
Why do so many self-described Jewish people vote for the Democrat party, when the Democrat party clearly hates them? Well, when I listen to real Jews, like Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager, they seem to think that many self-described Jews are just secular leftists, who disagree with what the Bible teaches.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As tensions escalate in the Middle East following the deadly terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham sought to resolve the conflict and restore peace to the region by calling for the United States to begin bombing every country in the world.
“It’s the only solution,” Graham said to reporters while advocating for even more hostilities. “If we want to restore peace throughout the world, the only realistic answer is to lay waste to every single nation around the globe.”
“What about nations that have no involvement in the conflict?” asked reporter Michael Fuller.
“They’re all involved,” Graham answered. “Bomb ‘em all. Gone. All of ‘em. Bombs, bombs, bombs. Burn it all down, baby!”
“What about Paris?” Fuller asked.
“Have you seen the demographics of their population?” Graham responded. “Bomb ‘em.”
“Montreal?” Fuller pressed.
“Make it a parking lot,” Graham said resolutely.
“Tokyo?” Fuller asked, finally.
“Glass the place,” Graham answered.
When asked what he expected to be the result of so much widespread bombing, Graham was indifferent. “They’ll all know who’s boss,” he said. “Nothing will stabilize the entire world and ensure the safety of the American people like making every single country in the world hate the United States. On top of all that, some of us will also make massive amounts of money, so I’m very much in favor of this idea.”
At publishing time, Graham had reportedly already made a series of phone calls to the Pentagon to inquire about how many “gigantic nukes” the U.S. currently has on hand.
Kyle Mann was just minding his own business, when- BOOP! A wild Gender Fairy appeared!
It is astonishing how quickly Western attention shifted from the war in Ukraine to the war in Israel. As I noted in some recent interviews, Ukraine’s Zelensky is frightened and stunned by this reversal and is trying desperately to stay relevant and attract Western attention. Good luck with that. The media prefers to focus on the new narrative of Arab hordes sweeping down on Israeli civilians rather than try to come up with excuses for Ukraine’s failure to even breach the first line of the Surovikin defense. One visible sign of Zelensky’s panic — he changed his wardrobe. Now, when he appears in public, instead of wearing his Fidel Castro costume (i.e., sporting an Army green t-shirt or sweatshirt and tactical pants) he is now outfitted like a younger, shorter version of Johnny Cash. Black is his new fashion choice.
With Western eyes glued to the Middle East, Russia is on the offensive a pushing Ukrainians back all along the line of contact. Russian war correspondent Marat reports:
For example, yesterday near Kleshcheevka, on the right front of the Bakhmut defense, our paratroopers from the 106th division, which had been holding the defense here for more than four months, unexpectedly launched a counterattack, occupying several enemy strongholds. The same is true in the Rabotino sector – the 1430th and 70th regiments, who heroically fought here for many days, have been conducting regular counterattacks for the third week.
On the one hand, this speaks of the good shape that our army is in, and on the other hand, it completely dispels the myths of Ukrainian propaganda about our great losses.
Units that suffer heavy losses are simply physically unable to instantly go from defense to offense. Even if they are regularly replenished with new recruits.
And now, in fact, this sends the Ukrainians into an ever greater panic – they are beginning to understand that with their tactics of endless suicidal counterattacks and obstinacy on every piece of land, they provoked Russia into creating an army of such power that is now beginning to roll them into flat cakes.
Once again, the enemy provoked this himself.
Ukraine can forget about any new mass infusion of weapons from the United States or NATO. Israel is now at the head of the line and gets first choice. One other sign that things are going from bad to worse for Ukraine — the Institute for the Study of War is admitting grudgingly that Russia is advancing. The ISW is still in the business of painting a pig’s lips with shiny gloss and are trying their darnedest to down play Russian success. But the facts are these. Ukraine’s forces have been decimated over the last four months and there is no ready reserve in sight to replace the killed and wounded soldiers that were bloodied as they hurled themselves against Russian defensive positions.
NATO is not ready to cut the cord, but it also is not in a position to shower Ukraine with a limitless supply of tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers and ammunition. What was once a flood of support is turning into a trickle.
The West is now caught in the trap of trying to sustain two proxy wars without the industrial clout to even fully supply one. I expect the U.S. Congress to act quickly to get military material to Israel. There is wide bipartisan support for that. Not so with Ukraine. A growing number of members of Congress, mostly Republican, are questioning the wisdom of sending precious Himars, Patriot batteries and tanks to a Ukrainian Army incapable of pushing the Russian backwards.
I discussed these issues last Friday with Nima while attending my high school 50th reunion. Yes, I’m an old guy.
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