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 1517, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg. Little did he know how God would use him to ignite a movement that would change the world. Witness the spark that set the Reformation ablaze by watching Luther: The Life and Legacy of the German Reformer. This documentary is freely available on Ligonier Ministries’ YouTube channel. You can also download the accompanying study guide for free.
What do the sovereignty of God, salvation by grace, justification by faith, and new life in union with Christ mean for the living of the Christian life? For Luther, they carry four implications:
The first implication is the knowledge that the Christian believer is simul iustus et peccator,1 at one and the same time justified and yet a sinner. This principle, to which Luther may have been stimulated by John Tauler’s Theologia Germanica, was a hugely stabilizing principle: in and of myself, all I see is a sinner; but when I see myself in Christ, I see a man counted righteous with His perfect righteousness. Such a man is therefore able to stand before God as righteous as Jesus Christ—because he is righteous only in the righteousness that is Christ’s. Here we stand secure.
The second implication is the discovery that God has become our Father in Christ. We are accepted. One of the most beautiful accounts found in Luther’s Table Talk was, perhaps significantly, recorded by the somewhat mel- ancholic, yet much loved, John Schlaginhaufen:
God must be much friendlier to me and speak to me in friendlier fashion than my Katy to little Martin. Neither Katy nor I could intentionally gouge out the eye or tear off the head of our child. Nor could God. God must have patience with us. He has given evidence of it, and therefore he sent his Son into our flesh in order that we may look to him for the best.2
Third, Luther emphasizes that life in Christ is necessarily life under the cross.3 If we are united to Christ, our lives will be patterned after His. The way for both the true church and the true Christian is not via the theology of glory (theologia gloriae) but via the theology of the cross (theologia crucis). This impacts us inwardly as we die to self and outwardly as we share in the sufferings of the church. The medieval theology of glory must be overcome by the theology of the cross. For all their differences in understanding the precise nature of the sacraments, Luther and Calvin are at one here. If we are united with Christ in His death and resurrection, and marked out thus by our baptism (as Paul teaches in Rom. 6:1–14), then the whole of the Christian life will be a cross-bearing:
The Cross of Christ doth not signify that piece of wood which Christ did bear upon his shoulders, and to the which he was afterwards nailed, but generally it signifieth all the afflictions of the faithful, whose sufferings are Christ’s sufferings, 2 Cor. i.5: “The sufferings of Christ abound in us”; again: “Now rejoice I in my sufferings for you, and fulfil the rest of the afflictions of Christin my flesh, for his body’s sake, which is the Church” &c. (Col. i.24). The Cross of Christ therefore generally signifieth all the afflictions of the Church which it suffereth for Christ.4
The believer’s union with Christ in His death and resurrection and its outworking in daily experience thus became, for Luther, the spectacle lenses through which the Christian learns to view every experience in life. This—the theologia crucis—is what brings everything into sharper focus and enables us to make sense of the ups and downs of the Christian life:
It is profitable for us to know these things, lest we should be swallowed up with sorrow or fall to despair when we see that our adversaries do cruelly persecute, excommunicate and kill us. But let us think with ourselves, after the example of Paul that we must glory in the cross which we bear, not for our sins, but for Christ’s sake. If we consider only in ourselves the sufferings which we endure, they are not only grievous but intolerable; but when we may say: “Thy sufferings (O Christ) abound in us”; or, as it is said in Psalm xliv: “For thy sake we are killed all the day,” then these sufferings are not only easy, but also sweet, according to this saying: “My burden is easy, and my yoke is sweet” (Matt. xi.30).5
Fourth, the Christian life is marked by assurance and joy. This was one of the hallmarks of the Reformation, and understandably so. The Reformation’s rediscovery regarding justification—that, instead of working toward a hoped-for arrival at it, the Christian life actually begins with it—brought stunning deliverance, filling mind, will, and affections with joy. It meant that one could now begin to live in the light of a settled future in glory. Inevitably, that light reflected back into the present life, bringing intense relief and release.
The Christian life is marked by assurance and joy. This was one of the hallmarks of the Reformation, and understandably so.
Standing on Your Head
For Luther, the Christian life is a gospel-grounded, gospel-built, gospel-magnifying life that exhibits the free and sovereign grace of God and is lived out in gratitude to the Savior who died for us, yoked to Him in cross-bearing until death is swallowed up in victory and faith becomes sight.
Perhaps, in 1522, as they sat listening to Luther preaching one Sunday in the church at Borna, some of his congregation wondered what lay at the heart of this gospel that had so excited, not to say transformed, Brother Martin. Could it possibly be for them too? Luther had read their minds. He had come into the pulpit well prepared to answer their question:
But what is the Gospel? It is this, that God has sent his Son into the world to save sinners, Jn. 3, 16, and to crush hell, overcome death, take away sin and satisfy the law. But what must you do? Nothing but accept this and look up to your Redeemer and firmly believe that he has done all this for your good and freely gives you all as your own, so that in the terrors of death, sin and hell, you can confidently say and boldly depend upon it, and say: Although I do not fulfil the law, although sin is still present and I fear death and hell, nevertheless from the Gospel I know that Christ has bestowed on me all his works. I am sure he will not lie, his promise he will surely fulfil. And as a sign of this I have received baptism. . . . Upon this I anchor my confidence. For I know that my Lord Christ has overcome death, sin, hell and the devil for my good. For he was innocent, as Peter says: “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.” 1 Pet. 2, 22. Therefore sin and death were not able to slay him, hell could not hold him, and he has become their Lord, and has granted this to all who accept and believe it. All this is effected not by my works or merits; but by pure grace, goodness and mercy.6
Luther once said, “If I could believe that God was not angry at me, I would stand on my head for joy.”7 Perhaps that very day some of those who heard him preach responded and experienced the “confidence” of which he spoke. Who knows but some of the younger hearers later wrote to their friends in turn and told them that they had gone home and stood on their heads for joy?
Editor’s Note: This post is an excerpt from The Legacy of Luther and was first published on October 29, 2018.
A recurring note in Luther, e.g., Luther: Lectures on Romans, 127, 208, 322. ↩︎
For copious references to this principle in Luther, see Walther von Loewenich, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, trans. Herbert J.A. Bouman (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1976), 112–43. ↩︎
Luther, Commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, 558. ↩︎
I will make them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.Ezekiel 34:25
It is the height of grace that Jehovah should be in covenant with man, a feeble, sinful, and dying creature. Yet the Lord has solemnly entered into a faithful compact with us, and from that covenant He will never turn aside. In virtue of this covenant we are safe. As lions and wolves are driven off by shepherds, so shall all noxious influences be chased away. The Lord will give us rest from disturbers and destroyers; the evil beasts shall cease out of the land. O Lord, make this Thy promise good even now!
The Lord’s people are to enjoy security in places of the greatest exposure: wilderness and woods are to be as pastures and folds to the flock of Christ. If the Lord does not change the place for the better, He will make us the better in the place. The wilderness is not a place to dwell in, but the Lord can make it so; in the woods one feels hound to watch rather than to sleep, and yet the Lord giveth His beloved sleep even there. Nothing without or within should cause any fear to the child of God. By faith the wilderness can become the suburbs of heaven and the woods the vestibule of glory.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and will all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30 (NIV)
Over summer vacation, my daughter loves tie-dying tee shirts. We anticipate this activity as it has become one of our favorite traditions to do together while staying at the beach. Finally the day arrives for Abby to use her creative skills by designing a unique shirt she will cherish for a long time to come.
She decides on the pin-wheel design and I help her place rubber bands tightly on the dampened shirt. Abby quickly picks green and blue, her favorites, as the colors of choice for the shirt and begins squeezing the vibrant colors out of the bottles. At first, she squeezes out only a small amount of the dye but then quickly decides this isn’t to her liking.
My daughter continues squirting more and more color onto the article of clothing.
“Be careful, Abby. You don’t want to use so much dye that it all just runs together. Then it will just make a blurry mess,” I warn.
But she doesn’t heed my warning. Abby proceeds to squeeze, pour, and drop the colors onto her shirt, saturating every available fiber of material. Finally, she uses every single drop of pigment in the bottle and is satisfied with her creation. She has so much dye on the shirt it drips heavily as we place it in a plastic bag for safe keeping for the next twenty-four hours.
As it turns out, Abby knows best when it comes to tie-dying shirts. Her new article of clothing turns out to be a magnificent, saturated work of art. The blue and green colors swirl perfectly together making wonderful circular patterns all over the garment. The pigments flow beautifully together creating a sea of endless pinwheels dancing in unison with each other. It is absolutely gorgeous.
While thinking about the tie-dying adventure, I marvel at how much Abby’s soaked tee shirt reminds me of how I want my heart to be. I desire my heart and soul to be completely saturated with God’s words by studying, pondering, reflecting, and praying over the Scriptures.
I aspire my heart will be like the shirt, soaking up all the spiritual dye the Bible has to offer. I want to be totally absorbent, like a sponge of sorts, with no tissue of my heart left untouched by God’s presence and love. Only then, when I am totally immersed, can I become the masterpiece God created me to be. As my heart is saturated with God’s words, wisdom, and guidance, I can’t help but drip out His unceasing love onto others by my thoughts, actions, and speech. A saturated heart for the Lord is surely God’s most treasured work of art.
Is your heart fully saturated for the Lord?
How can your heart “drip” love onto the relationships in your life today?
“Heavenly Father, You are my Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, and Friend. Thank You for giving me a heart that loves You and desires to be close to You. Place an urgency in me to confess any sin that is preventing my heart from being totally bathed in Your love, kindness, and guidance. Please help me to live my life so that I glorify You in all I say and do. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”
Jesus Christ didn’t set aside His glory and come into the world to be a good teacher, a countercultural philosopher, a political revolutionary, a social activist, or any of the other skewed legacies the world attempts to foist on Him. In fact, His true legacy isn’t for us to determine or discover at all. It’s already spelled out on the pages of Scripture.
Leading Italian Parliamentarian: Rome Wants to Return Temple Vessels to Israel According to Rabbi Eliyahu, the representative of Italy’s ruling party, a leading member of the national parliament, recently requested a Zoom meeting with Israel’s Minister of Tradition. In the request for the meeting, he said it was very important to him – absolutely vital. When they eventually connected, this is what he told Israel’s Minister of Tradition. “We have in Rome the implements of the Jewish Temple. The Golden Menorah and many other Temple vessels and tools that we took from Jerusalem 2000 years ago. With these vessels you brought light into the whole world. They are with us. By keeping them perhaps we’re preventing you from fulfilling your destiny. If so, we will return them to you. If you want them – take them. It won’t be easy, but if this is what will enable you to fulfill your Divine role, then please, they yours. They are laying in our cellars. We aren’t doing anything with them.” This admission comes after over a hundred years of denial by the Vatican that it possessed the Temple implements.
With Stakes High, US President Biden Aligns With Israel at War For over two weeks since the war between Israel and Hamas began, US President Joe Biden has adopted a clear pro-Israeli stance that has broad international ramifications but also comes at a certain political risk for him internally as he is up for reelection in a little over a year. President Biden has put all his political clout into aligning with Israel. With the backing of most of the Democratic Party, the American leader has set aside his many differences with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and provided military, diplomatic, and other support for the Jewish state.
“The Whole George Floyd Story Was A Lie”: Tucker Carlson Tucker Carlson just challenged one of the left’s most sacred of cows – George Floyd, an ex-con who died with an elephant-dose of fentanyl in his system and a history of health issues, while in custody of Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020.
Hamas & IDF Ground Forces Clash For 1st Time Inside Gaza: Israeli Soldier Killed, Others Wounded Hamas has claimed to have repelled a brief Israeli ground incursion, in what marks the first such reported direct ground fight between two sides in Gaza. The Al-Qassam Brigades announced its fighters destroyed two Israeli military bulldozers and a tank as part of an ambush amid the IDF’s conducting ‘limited’ incursions into the strip.
Court docs reveal ‘extreme’ public pressure on prosecutors in George Floyd case According to the deposition of a former Hennepin County prosecutor, the county’s medical examiner told her in a phone call that there “were no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation.” New court documents expose the “extreme pressure” prosecutors faced in Hennepin County to charge Derek Chauvin and three other former Minneapolis police officers in the death of George Floyd. Several attorneys opposed charging the “other three” officers and withdrew from the case due to “professional and ethical rules.” Now, hundreds of pages of sworn testimony of Hennepin County attorneys and other county employees that took place this summer have been made public.
Israel fighting with Gaza, Lebanon intensifies; US bolsters Middle East weaponry Fears that the Israel-Hamas war could mushroom into a wider Middle East conflict rose on Sunday with Washington warning of a significant risk to U.S. interests in the region as ally Israel pounded Gaza and clashes on its border with Lebanon intensified.
Netanyahu: ‘If Hezbollah Decides to Join the War… That Will Be Its Biggest Mistake Ever’ “I cannot tell you right now if Hezbollah will decide to fully enter the war. If Hezbollah decides to enter the war, it will miss the Second Lebanon War,” the Israeli prime minister called back to a previous war with the terror group. That would be its biggest mistake ever. We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine,
Education Ministry removes Greta Thunberg from curriculum after Hamas support The Education Ministry has said it will remove any reference to climate activist Greta Thunberg after she published a post over the weekend supporting the Hamas terrorist organization. “This stance disqualifies her from being an educational and moral role model, and she is no longer eligible to serve as an inspiration and educator for Israeli students.”
Is a new world war about to begin? The globalist cabal behind The Great Reset plan desperately wants war — the bigger the better — as this will facilitate the transition into their “new world order” War destroys supply chains, the energy sector, food supply and the workforce, which creates dependency on government, which in turn will be taken over by private interests and central banks through the collapse of the global economy
Shin Bit security agency forms new unit to locate, kill every Hamas terrorist from Oct 7 The Shin Bet security service has inaugurated a new unit with the sole purpose of locating and killing every Hamas terrorist involved in the brutal Oct. 7 attack from Gaza. Named NILI – an acronym in Hebrew for “The Eternity of Israel Will Not Lie” – the unit operates independently from others that are focused on dismantling strike cells and eliminating high-ranking Hamas officials. Its specific mandate is to identify and eliminate everyone implicated in the attacks,
Sharp increase in ultra-Orthodox military enlistment amid Israel’s war against Hamas IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Daniel Hagari revealed on Saturday that about 3,000 ultra-Orthodox Israelis have contacted the IDF about volunteering to serve. 2,100 of whom have already filled out questionnaires and expressed concrete interest in immediately joining the defense of the Jewish state.
For first time, Defense Minister Gallant lays out Israel’s strategic war aims in three phases He went on to give an overview of the army’s operations so far, before presenting his strategic aims for the war, which will be reached in three stages. “We are in the first phase, in which a military campaign is taking place with [air]strikes and later with a [ground] maneuver with the purpose of destroying operatives and damaging infrastructure in order to defeat and destroy Hamas,”
Terrorist behind Huwara murders killed in strike on Jenin mosque In a joint IDF and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) counterterrorism activity, the IDF overnight Saturday conducted an aerial strike on a terror compound the Al-Ansar Mosque in Jenin. The mosque contained a cell of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror operatives that were responsible for several terror attacks over the last months, and were organizing an additional imminent terror attack. One of the terrorists killed in the strike was named as Osama Bani Padel, who planned the murder of Shai Nigreker and his son Aivad Nir in Huwara in August.
Defense Minister Gallant: ‘It may take time, but in the end there will be no more Hamas’ Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday held a meeting at the Air Force operations headquarters with Air Force Chief Tomer Bar and high-ranking officers. “In an operational aspect of the maneuver, in the end, nothing will stop the IDF. It is a combination of two things: one – the aerial capabilities, and the second – the ground maneuver. This has to be the last maneuver in Gaza, for the simple reason that after it, there will not be a Hamas,” Minister Gallant stated.
First responder: ‘Those who had hope for peace have cracked’ “It doesn’t matter how much land we give them,” he says. “We took out our people, we gave them land, we gave thousands of them jobs, people ruled by Hamas, and tried to help them have better lives. I hope this helps people better understand what we’re facing. I knew it all the way, I never believed in it for a single second. It is hard to see those who still had hope crack, but now we can see what we’re facing, and we need to see how we will rise up from it.”
Netanyahu to world leaders: ‘Victory over Hamas is victory for the entire world’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Sunday with several world leaders. The Prime Minister spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Netanyahu thanked the leaders for their support of Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas’s brutal terror. President Macron and Prime Minister Rutte will visit Israel on Monday and Tuesday this week and will meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Tropical Storm Otis forms in Pacific while Norma set to make second landfall along Mexican coast Tropical Storm Otis formed in the Pacific from strengthening Tropical Depression Eighteen-E. This happened Sunday between Topical Storm Norma’s two landfalls. Tropical Norma made landfall Saturday as a Category 1 hurricane along Mexico’s Baja California coast, bringing large waves, flooding and high winds.
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.
Biden Border Crisis: 269,735 Illegal Aliens Encountered At Southern Border in September – Highest Number Ever In Single Month No matter what the Biden regime may tell our citizens about the border, statistics don’t lie. September now holds the record for most encounters with illegal aliens at an alarming 269,735. Then total up the fiscal year for 2023 and the number is at 2.47 million encounters with illegals! That is the highest for any year on record. These statistics are from Customs and Border Protection.
Hamas is not Palestine; Palestinians are not benefitting so who is benefitting from the Israel-Hamas War? Hamas is not Palestine. Hamas is a terror group that rules over Gaza. The last elections in Gaza were held in 2006 – 18 years ago. If Hamas is so popular, why don’t they hold elections? An opinion poll conducted in July showed that 62% of Gazans wanted Hamas to uphold the ceasefire, they did not want Hamas to start a war with Israel. Hamas did the exact opposite.
“To prevent crimes, is the noblest end and aim of criminal jurisprudence. To punish them, is one of the means necessary for the accomplishment of this noble end and aim.” —James Wilson (1790)
Fellow Patriots, on this day in 1983, 241 American servicemen were murdered by jihadists using a suicide truck bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. “The echoes of that assault can be heard in the debate over how Israel should respond to the Oct. 7 slaughter of some 1,400 innocents on its soil, including at least 31 Americans,” writes The Wall Street Journal editorial board today. “Will Iran again pay no price for killing Americans?” —Mark Alexander
The Leftmedia made nary a peep about soft-on-crime or anti-police policies, instead blaming guns and a virus.
Nate Jackson
The FBI’s annual report on crime in the nation isn’t what it used to be. As the FBI updates its methods for reporting crimes, and the Leftmedia ramps up its efforts to blame guns and COVID and to make the narrative about crime be one of victim groups, getting to the truth can be a challenge.
The FBI says that “national violent crime decreased an estimated 1.7% in 2022 compared to 2021 estimates.” Murder dropped 6.1%, rape fell 5.4%, and assault and robbery both decreased a little more than 1%. That’s great news, right? Maybe.
The problem is that the previous year didn’t have all the data. And by not all the data, we mean that, as the Associated Press notes, “nearly two-fifths of all policing agencies failed to participate, including big cities like New York, Los Angeles and Miami.”
This year’s report was better, but it still had holes. “In 2022, 83% of US law enforcement agencies submitted data to the federal government, which means that about 10% of the population is not represented in this data,” The Guardian reports.
Also remember that a lot of reporting to police is voluntary, and crimes like rapes and robberies are not always reported.
With the caveats out of the way, we’ll move to the politicization of crime. As far as the Leftmedia is concerned, it’s all about who or what you blame for crime.
Naturally, most outlets blame “an increase in guns,” as NPR framed it. NPR also says crime rose in both Alabama and Massachusetts, so it can’t be blamed on Democrats. The AP offers this bit of related misinformation: “Gun-safety advocates decry the loosening of gun laws, especially in conservative-leaning states around the U.S.” As if law-abiding Republicans are the ones committing crime.
The FBI report “underscores how pervasive gun violence has become,” says The New York Times. In fact, “Firearms were used in almost half a million violent crimes across the country, about the same number as in 2021.”
No news reporters seem to care that firearms are also used at least that many times each year to prevent crimes. Nor do they care that firearms sales were increasing for many years while crime went down, or that black women are the fastest-growing demographic of gun buyers, or that law-abiding, permit-holding gun owners are not the ones committing crime.
The Times also offers borderline disinformation: “The profile of the victims has shifted significantly. In 2020, gun violence became the leading cause of death for American children, and in 2022 things became even worse: The number of children killed in shootings increased by almost 12 percent, and those wounded increased by almost 11 percent.” As the “fact-checkers” like to say, that’s “missing context.” Most of those “children” are older adolescents who are involved in gang or drug violence.
Another fascinating and revealing thing from media coverage is the universal effort to blame the coronavirus pandemic, which the AP says “created huge social disruption and upended support systems.” To be sure, crime did spike beginning in 2020, but it wasn’t caused by a virus from China. (Though maybe Democrats tyrannically shutting down everything might have irritated some people.)
Something else happened in 2020 that ignited “mostly peaceful protests,” otherwise known as violence and unrest in urban centers.
As the Times notes, “There were 25 percent more homicides in 2022 than in 2019.” Many of those murders are blacks killed by other blacks. Don’t black lives matter?
Speaking of blacks, another big feature of the FBI report was so-called “hate crimes.” NPR says, “Black people, Jewish people and gay men were the most likely to be targeted.” Well, yeah. Not to be insensitive, but only the Left’s select “marginalized” groups can be the victims of hate crime, so it stands to reason that increases would only happen among those groups. And as noted above, however, black-on-black crime is a huge problem. How often is that also true of gays? We’ve noted the case of Matthew Shepard twice in recent days.
There’s so much more to say, but, in short, we’re outraged at every robbery, carjacking, and rape. We lament every human life needlessly taken. Yet until the media and our elected representatives tell the truth about crime and its causes, and until the Democrats who’ve run our cities (into the ground) for decades change their soft-on-crime policies, more property will be destroyed or taken, and more lives will be lost.
Hamas’s drugs, Biden pocketed $200K from brother’s deal, former PLO spokesperson in DHS, and more.
Nate Jackson & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Israel’s response, Hamas’s drugs: The Israeli Defense Forces ramped up aerial bombing in Gaza in recent days, striking more than 300 terrorist targets in advance of a planned ground invasion. One of those strikes took out what the IDF said was a jihadist “command center” in a mosque, which was being use for “organizing an imminent terror attack.” When Palestinian women and children are killed, remember it’s because jihadists hide behind them for the propaganda effect. Meanwhile, the Biden administration keeps pushing to delay the invasion. Biden claims he just doesn’t want the Israelis to be “blinded by rage,” which is itself an outrageous thing to say after the horrors Hamas perpetrated. Those Hamas jihadists, by the way, apparently committed atrocities while on drugs. A stimulant known as “cocaine for the poor” was found on many of the dead terrorists, which may explain the calm indifference of the murderers.
Jim Jordan dumped: “This is embarrassing for the Republican Party, it’s embarrassing for the nation, and we need to look at one another and solve the problem,” said former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after Jim Jordan was voted out of the speakership nomination Friday. House Republicans are back to square one, says political analyst Byron York. There are nine Republicans who tossed their hat in the ring, and the GOP conference will meet this evening at 6:30 with the goal of a nomination election tomorrow morning. We’re now in week three without a House speaker, and our Republic hasn’t collapsed, but with the world in chaos, sooner is better than later.
Deficit soars: Mention the national debt or the annual deficit and most Americans yawn. But the fact that Washington has already spent your great-great-grandchildren’s money has real consequences for today’s economy. “The federal deficit is projected to roughly double this year,” reports The Washington Post. Joe Biden would always rush out to the nearest microphone to falsely brag about cutting it half. What will he say now? Elsewhere, the Post reports, “The U.S. government spent $659 billion this year paying off the interest on its debt,” which is nearly double what servicing the debt cost two years ago. That’s the price of increasing principal compounded by rising interest rates. When consumers are faced with that reality, they pull back on buying. The federal government plows ahead, straining the economy and future generations. According to the Post, “Within three years, if interest rates remain elevated, payments on the debt could become the second-largest federal program.” In other words, inflation isn’t going anywhere.
Biden pocketed $200K from brother’s deal: On March 1, 2018, James Biden gave his brother Joe a check for $200,000, and he wrote “loan repayment” on the memo line. That same day, James Biden received a wire for the same amount from Americore, his healthcare company, which wasn’t doing well financially. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer has a series of questions he’d like the president to answer. Can he prove the initial loan to his brother? “Did he have similar financial arrangements with other family members?” And what did he know about his brother’s loan the same day as the check? The Biden Crime Family has a lot to answer for.
Former PLO spokesperson in DHS: A Department of Homeland Security employee is now on leave after she was finally vetted by conservative media. Nejwa Ali formerly worked for the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is a designated terrorist organization. For DHS, her job was to vet immigrants coming to the U.S., but her opinions about Hamas proved to be a red flag. “American born” but “Palestinian @ heart,” says her social media profile, where she recently posted, “F*** Israel and any Jew that supports Israel.” In another post, she said, “I hold every Israeli accountable for their governments [sic] actions, IF they do not speak against Israel.” She was also recorded saying of Hamas jihadists parachuting into Israel to kill innocent Jews, “I will abso-f***ing-lutely celebrate them, a**hole, so f*** you!” Seems like such a pleasant lady. She’s from the U.S. government, and she’s here to help.
NYT’s anti-Semite: The federal government isn’t the only place struggling with hate-baiting anti-Semites. Then again, maybe “struggling” is the wrong word. The New York Times just rehired a pro-Hitler journalist from Gaza to do freelance work. The Times claims to have reviewed the work of videographer Soliman Hijjy, “took a variety of actions” to go over company standards with him, and promises that he “has maintained high journalistic standards.” We can hardly wait to see his objective coverage of the conflict in Israel.
Headlines
U.S. orders its non-emergency staff to leave Baghdad embassy (AFP)
Feds warn that Hamas, Hezbollah could be crossing southern border (Daily Caller)
Israel releases unedited video of October 7 Hamas attack to counter “Holocaust denial-like phenomenon” (Fox News)
Majority of Muslim Americans believe Hamas was “justified” in its terror attacks against Israel (Daily Wire)
Associated Press won’t let reporters call Hamas a terrorist organization (Washington Free Beacon)
It’s a record: Three million illegals were caught at the border in FY 2023 (PJ Media)
Biden missed his chance to fill up oil reserve (Townhall)
The Supreme Court has decided to hear Missouri v. Biden, a government censorship case with massive implications for liberty.
Douglas Andrews
Beware of governments bearing emergencies. That’s the lesson of Missouri v. Biden, a landmark legal case that has made its way to the Supreme Court and that has profound ramifications for the future of free speech.
At issue is whether the Constitution permits the federal government to be the ultimate fact-checker — and thus the ultimate decider of which speech is permissible and which speech is forbidden.
Why does this matter, and why might we be a bit skeptical of the government’s ability to act as an unbiased separator of truth from falsehood?
To be sure, it doesn’t matter to those who trust the government’s recent history in such matters. But to those of you who think, for example, that the government’s 2020 “Gang of 51” letter amounted to decisive election interference on behalf of Joe Biden and against Donald Trump; and to those of you who are alarmed by the government’s role in suppressing news and information about critical pandemic-related matters such as masking, vaccinations, lockdowns, and the laboratory origin of the coronavirus, well, you might want to pay attention to what the Supreme Court says and does regarding Missouri v. Biden in the days and weeks ahead. As the New York Post reports:
The Supreme Court said Friday it would hear arguments in a bombshell case in which lower courts have ruled that the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment by leaning on social media companies to yank content the White House deemed false or misleading.
In July, US District Judge Terry Doughty, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, barred numerous executive branch officials from contacting social media companies due to collusion and censorship concerns.
As District Judge Terry Doughty rightly noted in his scathing opinion: “The right to free speech is not a member of any political party and does not hold any political ideology. It is the purpose of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail.”
Again, you can’t trust the government to decide which speech is factually permissible and which speech isn’t. And if you’re foolish enough to trust the government, you’d best buckle up for the censorship you deserve — a censorship that will be emboldened by any ruling that doesn’t uphold Doughty’s exquisitely appropriate July 4th ruling that the Biden administration had perpetrated “arguably the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.”
The problem is that a government fearful of free speech will work tirelessly for excuses to censor it. “If human nature and history teaches anything,” wrote Doughty, who quoted Justice Neil Gorsuch, “it is that civil liberties face grave risks when governments proclaim indefinite states of emergency.” Exactly so. Beware the government that says it must trample your constitutional rights for your own good, or for the public good.
Judge Doughty, for one, has already made his position clear: The government “does not have the right to determine the truth.” Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has stayed Doughty’s ruling until it decides the case — which means that the Biden administration can feel free to continue making mischief and colluding with Big Tech to censor news and opinion it deems inconvenient or inappropriate.
Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas favored rejecting the Biden administration’s emergency appeal and letting Judge Doughty’s order stand. In a scathing dissent joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, Alito opined: “At this time in the history of our country, what the Court has done, I fear, will be seen by some as giving the Government a green light to use heavy handed tactics to skew the presentation of views on the medium that increasingly dominates the dissemination of news. That is most unfortunate.”
One wonders: Where were the other conservative justices during all this? Where was Brett Kavanaugh? Where was Amy Coney Barrett? Where was Chief Justice John … oh, never mind.
As our Nate Jackson wrote in September: “Assuming the case is appealed, here’s hoping the Supreme Court finishes that wall. The Founding Fathers, architects of the First Amendment and defenders of the very idea of free speech, would be appalled to see the lengths to which the censors now go to silence political debate in what should be a free country.”
From Matthew Shepard’s mom to the unquenchable thirst on the Left for hate crimes.
Emmy Griffin
In order to justify doing something horrific, people need to believe that what they are doing is actually righteous. So noted The Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavan in his Friday podcast. This is particularly true of the Left — they need to believe in the oppression of women to justify the murder of babies; they need to believe in the oppression of LGBTQ+ people to justify the butchery and debauchery of children. The list goes on and on. They have to tell themselves these stories to justify the horror they are inflicting.
A perfect example of this is the still-grieving mother of Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in 1998. Shepard was a 21-year-old college student who was murdered because of an entanglement with a sexual partner due to drug dealing. And yet in an interview with “Today” show cohost Katie Couric, the lie that Shepard was a victim of an anti-gay hate crime was perpetuated by both his mother and Couric, all to underline the LGBTQ+ agenda that wants the world to know that anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes are on the rise.
As our Nate Jackson wrote recently: “Democrats and their army of Leftmedia ‘fact-checkers’ seem incapable of telling the truth about Shepard — or much of anything else, for that matter — because doing so would undermine their agenda. Twenty-five years after the murder and a decade after the narrative was thoroughly debunked by one of their own, they’re still lying.”
Matthew’s mother, Judy Shepard, has been an LGBTQ+ activist since her son’s death because she also needs to believe the lie that her son was a victim of a hate crime. It gave her a sense of purpose after her son’s tragic death, but it also has blinded her to the actual harm she is perpetuating in her son’s name.
Judy was trotted out on “Today” to opine on legislation on the docket in several states that seeks to protect children from gender ideology indoctrination and sexualization. “All those who were fighting against the gay community, this is their last gasp,” she asserted. “They know they’ve lost the war, but this battle is just the last, most vicious attack on the community. … It’s already over. That’s what they don’t understand. They’re fighting a losing battle.”
What she doesn’t understand — as she clings to the lie that her son was a victim of anti-gay hate — is that parents are just as fired up to protect their children from this ideology that is leading many down the path of destruction.
The other purpose for “Today” putting this grieving mother front and center was for Couric to state that, according to FBI statistics, anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes are on the rise. According to Couric, there was an 11% increase in any-gay hate crimes. But if you go to the FBI statistics and plug in the parameters for these different crimes, one thing becomes quickly clear: The majority of these hate crimes are intimidation.
This leads to many other questions such as: What constitutes “intimidation”? How many of these instances were unprovoked? Does the offense automatically count as a hate crime if the victim merely feels intimidated? The answers probably depend on the state and the judge, but we do know that LGBTQ folks are automatically now part of a protected class growing because of intense recruitment, which by definition means there will be more “crimes” against them.
This need to talk about the rise in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes is merely another symptom of leftists’ incessant need to have “victims” to justify their atrocious policies. Ultimately, it degrades actual hate crimes and takes away their significance and meaning.
Matthew Shepard’s mother probably will never stop believing what she feels she needs to about her son’s murder, but it is absolutely malicious that the Left is using her tragedy to lie and promote an agenda that is actively harming our children.
Whether supporting the eradication of Israel or the defunding of cops, Black Lives Matter has plenty of blood on its hands.
Douglas Andrews
Since when is gang rape, hostage-taking, and the slaughter of women and children “a desperate act of self-defense”?
Answer: since never.
And yet, that’s what a coalition of 26 Black Lives Matter chapters across the U.S. called the barbaric October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, in which Islamist terrorists murdered more than 1,400 Israeli civilians and 30 Americans, and took more than 200 others hostage.
Worse yet, as The Washington Free Beacon’s Andrew Kerr reports, the Chicago chapter of BLM “shared an image glorifying Hamas gunmen on paragliders, before walking it back amid blowback. And the movement’s Phoenix branch praised Hamas ‘freedom fighters’ for their acts of ‘resistance.’”
Kerr adds that a couple of well-known pressure groups are stirring the BLM-Hamas pot. “Echoing this rhetoric,” he writes, “are two Hamas-friendly groups — American Muslims for Palestine and the Council for American-Islamic Relations — that have for nearly a decade worked arm-in-arm with the Black Lives Matter organization to plan rallies and lobby lawmakers.”
Should we be surprised by this partnership between BLM and Hamas? No. As The Heritage Foundation’s Mike Gonzalez writes, BLM’s support of this terrorist organization fits neatly within its anti-white ideology:
Embracing the vilest forms of terrorism as a means of destroying Israel is a feature, not a bug, of revolutionary “decolonization.” Israel must be destroyed, groups such as Black Lives Matter say, because it is a white settler, white supremacist state (which is also how they see us, so consider yourself warned).
This endorsement of Hamas’s recent atrocities has come from organizations that are the leading ideological voices of BLM — not, as the Anti-Defamation League and others claim, from fringe chapters that have gone rogue and are not controlled by the national organization.
Apparently, it isn’t enough for Black Lives Matter to support the everyday genocide within the urban black communities that it pretends to care about. Now, in addition to demonizing the police, calling for their defunding, and thereby facilitating the black-on-black crime that plagues these communities, BLM is also supporting an organization whose original charter called for the genocide of the Jews of Israel. In this respect, BLM and Hamas are brothers in genocide.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, corporate America is largely responsible for bankrolling all this. As our Emmy Griffin reported back in March, the Claremont Institute has compiled a database to track how much money has found its way from corporate coffers into the unaccountable pockets of BLM.
In case you hadn’t noticed, the Democrats have a Jew problem — or, more specifically, a Jew-hating problem. Not all Democrats, of course. Indeed, we’re sure that plenty of them there on Capitol Hill will swear up and down that some of their best friends are Jews.
But while Jews have historically been a reliable part of the Democrat caucus, this loyalty is becoming curiouser and curiouser with each passing year. What must American Jews think about the likes of unrepentant Jew haters like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar or her Muslim sidekick and fellow “Squad” member Rashida Tlaib?
And what must American Jews think of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a practicing Muslim whose chief of staff advertised a pro-Hamas rally disguised as a “March for Palestine” last Sunday in Minneapolis? The rally attracted more than 1,000 pro-Hamas demonstrators who repeatedly chanted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — a stirring little slogan that calls for the eradication of the Jews’ homeland between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.
“The Black and Palestinian struggles for liberation are interconnected,” posted Omar’s and Tlaib’s partner in hate, St. Louis Congresswoman Cori Bush, “and we will not let up until all of us are free.” Bush didn’t bother to explain how these two seemingly unrelated “struggles” are “interconnected,” but whatever.
And so, the struggle continues — for Black Lives Matter and Hamas to wipe out the Jews of Israel, and for the rest of us to wake up to the hatred in our midst.
We are in the middle of the biggest display of raw, murderous anti-Semitism in the history of America.
Gary Bauer
I have spent a lot of time talking to Jewish friends here and in Israel in recent days. All of us have been struck by the enormity of what we’re seeing and what is happening.
We are in the middle of the biggest display of raw, murderous anti-Semitism in the history of America. There has never been mobs marching through the streets of our cities shouting “Death to the Jews” until now.
Jewish students on American university campuses are fearful and hiding in their dorm rooms. The hatred for them is so pronounced that they are hiding on the campuses where their parents are paying $40,000 a year or more for their children to be educated.
Sadly, it’s not just our colleges and universities. Our high schools are infected with this hatred, too. I watched a video of high school students marching through the hallway chanting, “From river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which simply means “Kill the Jews.”
Just imagine being a Jewish student in that school.
Yes, culture wars do matter!
What we are seeing in our schools today, on our college campuses and in the streets of our major cities is explained by the neo-Marxist leftist ideology that has already transformed our university campuses and is rapidly transforming our country.
Part of the responsibility lies with the corporatist, globalist, neocon wing of the GOP that is under the delusion that all people around the world want the same thing; that if left to their own devices they would all choose American-style freedom and democracy.
That’s simply not true. A good bit of the Islamic world wants a caliphate — a religious theocracy under Sharia law. Period. That means no religious freedom and certainly no Jews.
And we have brought that anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-American mindset and hatred into our country year after year after year. And this past week, that simmering, seething anti-Semitism ripped the veil off and revealed itself, in all its rage and ugliness.
Yes, culture wars do matter.
But because the left is all in on transforming America and because too many Republicans are weak and gutless, we are now, as Chuck Schumer might say, “reaping the whirlwind.”
“I know many of you in the Muslim American community or the Arab American community, the Palestinian American community, and so many others are outraged and hurting, saying to yourselves ‘Here we go again’ with Islamophobia and distrust we saw after 9/11.” —Joe Biden
“I cautioned the government of Israel not to be blinded by rage.” —Joe Biden (“Jews all over the world should feel rage against the terrorists who killed more Jews in one day than any time since the Holocaust!” —Gary Bauer)
The BIG Lies
“J.D. Vance has no moral compass. He’s somebody who has sold out his own constituents in pursuit of a cult of personality on behalf of Donald Trump.” —Congressman Jake Auchincloss (D-MA)
“Accountability is a stalking horse for Republicans to try to avoid taking a vote that might anger their Trump base. The funds going to Ukraine have rigorous accountability.” —Jake Auchincloss
Belly Laugh of the Day
“Jim Jordan is a clear and present danger to our democracy.” —House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)
Lack of Self-Awareness
“25 members publicly opposed Jim Jordan and over 100 opposed him privately. Sad so many are willing to hide behind an anonymous vote rather than own it to their constituents.” —Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC), who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy
“The most popular Republican in Congress was just knifed in an an anonymous vote in a secret closed door meeting in the basement of the Capitol.” —Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy
For the Record
“If Republicans can’t choose a leader of their own party, only a fool would trust them to lead the country out of the deadly swamp Biden and the Democrats have led us into.” —Michael Reagan
“H.L. Mencken famously said that ‘democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.’ In Gaza, Hamas was popularly elected and remains overwhelmingly popular.” —Josh Hammer
Re: The Left
“In the eyes of the ‘enlightened’ world, every Jewish death must be closely scrutinized and ‘journalistic ethics’ demands we ‘just ask questions,’ but every claim of Arab death put forth by terrorist-run ‘health ministries’ must be immediately accepted as undisputed truth.” —Josh Hammer
“Postmodern Marxist theorists view the whole world through power dynamics. There are two classes: the oppressor and the oppressed. Because most Israelis are lighter-skinned and many Israeli families once lived in Europe, the postmodernists view them as colonizers and, therefore, oppressors. The Palestinians are viewed as oppressed people who have been colonized. … The Left, because of their views on power, cannot recognize evil when they view it.” —Erick Erickson
“While some portray the issue of crime as complex, it’s really quite simple: Democrats enable crime and demoralize police, which results in more crime, which in turn demoralizes police. It’s no wonder cities struggle to recruit cops.” —Brian Mark Weber
And Last…
“It is so easy to be wrong — and to persist in being wrong — when the costs of being wrong are paid by others.” —Thomas Sowell
Strategic leadership is about action—and rhetoric. When they match, history is made. When they don’t, it’s just a speech that’s soon to be forgotten.
No one would remember FDR’s “Day of Infamy” speech if America didn’t take the war to our enemies and deliver a humiliating defeat in World War II. No one would recall John F. Kennedy’s promise to go to the moon if American astronauts hadn’t kicked up dust later in the Sea of Tranquility.
That’s the standard for presidents who want to deliver historic speeches that propel Americans to greatness. By that measure, Joe Biden fell a hundred yards short of the goal line Thursday night in his televised address on the Israel-Hamas war from the Oval Office.
There were so many red flags that Biden has no plan to put his soaring promises to lead Americans into action, they could outfit a rally in Red Square. Here are some of the biggest.
Biden continues to dodge addressing the father of chaos in the Middle East—Iran. The president declared he would “continue to hold Iran accountable.” He never has held Iran accountable.
In fact, hours before the president’s speech, Iran’s proxies committed over a half dozen attacks against American forces in the region. Biden’s promise to deal with Iran could not ring more hollow.
The president also clung to geopolitical nonsense, repeating his commitment to a two-state solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. Who thinks that negotiation is going to happen anytime in his lifetime?
If Biden could magically sprinkle fairy dust and create a Palestinian state, what would it look like? It would be a state sponsor of terrorism. It would be a tool of Iran. It would be an enemy sworn to the destruction of Israel. It would be thoroughly corrupt and oppressive of the Palestinian people. What reasonable person could believe that is a reasonable idea?
Biden also disparaged antisemitism and, indeed, all religious oppression. This is a president whose antisemitism strategy couldn’t even define the term. He’s also the one who engaged the Council on American Islamic Relations, a thoroughly antisemitic and racist organization, as a partner for writing a report on how to combat antisemitism.
Biden’s White House has unleashed the Justice Department on pro-life Christians. He has labeled his political opponents as violent extremists. He has demanded that the State Department campaign for woke social policies that offend the religious beliefs of America’s friends and allies.
After all of that, Biden wants us to believe he’s champion of religious liberty?
There are more disconnects in Biden’s speech between rhetoric and reality than there are mines in a Russian minefield in the Donbas region of Ukraine.
Perhaps the most cynical act of Biden’s speech is to wrap yet another supplemental budget request in an American flag, binding funding requests for Israel and Ukraine. Biden has exploited the good will of Republicans in Congress with supplemental requests for national security spending, only to attach to all of them even more spending for the president’s woke priorities.
The president knows this approch strains the good will of the political opposition, pitting Republicans against Republicans, because he also ignores concerns about deficit spending, accountability, and honest debate over the content and appropriateness of supplemental spending.
When the war against Israel broke out Oct. 7, Biden latched on to the opportunity again. This isn’t leadership, it’s crass, inside-the-Beltway swamp politics.
There was little of real constructive leadership to be found in Biden’s speech. We heard nothing new, interesting, or promising for a new direction to fix the many missteps that led to triggering the wars against Ukraine and Israel.
We might, perhaps, be impressed that Biden managed to stay up late to deliver it.
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.
FOX News contributor Joe Concha joined ‘FOX & Friends First’ to discuss why Americans don’t trust the media and why misinformation can have deadly consequences. #FOXNews
Jews held hostage by the Hamas barbarians in Gaza.
The New York Times is reporting that Hamas may release 50 Israeli hostages with duel citizenship that they captured on October 7, 2023 during their military attack on innocent Israeli communities near the border with Gaza.
There are an estimated 220 hostages being held by the terror group today in Gaza following the barbaric attack on Jews earlier this month.
The Gateway Pundit reported last Monday that Hamas had made the same promise to release foreign nationals a week ago.
Hamas killed or is holding foreign nationals from 41 countries.
Photo: Israel Government
Here are a few of the young, beautiful women who are being held by the barbarians.
The New York Times reported that an Israeli official said that Hamas will probably release 50 prisoners with dual citizenship.
The Times also reported that an official with knowledge of the hostage negotiations, which are taking place mainly through Qatar, said Hamas had warned that a ground invasion would make hostage releases much less likely. Qatar has close ties to the political leaders of Hamas and hosts much of the Hamas leadership.
“A senior Israeli military official said that based on conversations between the United States and Qatar, Hamas could possibly release about 50 dual nationals separate from any broader deal” the report stated.
Hamas and other terrorist organizations kidnapped at least 222 Israelis and foreign nationals on October 7,
These are our families and we will never stop fighting to bring them home.
Since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has called for a ceasefire and de-escalation.
While many have focused on radical, Islamic fundamentalism following Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has decided to point fingers elsewhere: at Christian extremists.
“The country that is Israel today is not the Israel of the Bible,” the politician, known as AOC, told the New York radio program “Hot 97/WQHT” last week.
“It’s not just Islamic. It’s not just Jewish. It is also Christian,” the congresswoman said on Oct. 12 of the conflict. “In the United States of America, Christian fundamentalism and nationalism—which has also been extremely antisemitic—has also aligned itself with some of the most right-wing and authoritarian and inflammatory powers in the region.”
A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez told JNS that her schedule was “slammed” and declined to comment.
On Oct. 20, Ocasio-Cortez wrote: “Release the hostages. Protect the innocent. De-escalate. Ceasefire now.” Similar words were used the day before as part of a protest in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building, which led to the arrests of 300 far-left activists.
“What angers me about the GOP’s attempts to turn the United States into a far-right Christian theocracy is how dishonest they are about it,” she wrote in 2019. “At least be forthright about your desire to subvert and dismantle our democracy into a creepy theological order led by a mad king.”
LTRP Note: The following news story is posted for informational and research purposes. Courtesy of Olive Tree Ministries.
By John Nantz Front Page Magazine
As reports of Hamas war crimes, inhuman atrocity, and medieval Muhammadist brutality continue to stream into our consciousness, a steady parade of terror apologists bugle their inveterate support for all things barbaric.
We’ve heard unimaginably callous statements from The Squad, Ivy League students, and the “social justice” organization BLM regarding the manifold cruelties perpetrated on Israeli citizens. Hamas swine have carried out their diabolical tasks with a relish not witnessed since the genocidal mania displayed by Hitler, Mengele, and Himmler.
Then, as now, the usual suspects have appeared to offer their heartfelt support for the forces of tyranny and homicide. The New York Times famously lent the considerable weight of its commentary to the budding dictator and would-be second coming of Alexander the Great — Adolph Hitler. You’d have thought the Times learned a lesson with Adolph, but the Grey Lady’s sages swooned for the Iron Curtain and one of history’s most accomplished butchers, Joseph Stalin. Click here to continue reading.
“Censored and Controlled” is a documentary that details the coordinated effort by the government and Big Tech to censor and suppress information on topics such as Hunter Biden’s laptop, COVID-19, and election debates.
The documentary features interviews with people who have taken leading roles in exposing the collusion between government and social media to control what Americans see and hear. Included in the lineup of experts is:
Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) who as attorney general of Missouri filed a lawsuit in 2020 against President Biden and other administration officials, alleging they were working with social media platforms to censor information related to COVID-19 and other topics.
Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Jordan’s committee is leading the House investigation into government-led censorship on social media.
Journalist Matt Taibbi, one of the journalists who covered the release of the “Twitter Files,” which exposed government involvement in Twitter and other Big Tech censorship of Americans. Taibbi testified before Congress about what the “Twitter Files” revealed about the partnership between government and social media to censor information and opinions.
Chris Nelson, senior investigator at Judicial Watch, formerly a career counterintelligence officer with the U.S. Government.
And, Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, which has filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits and other litigation concerning government and Big Tech censorship.
There was finally some good news in the war in Israel when Hamas released two US citizens it was holding hostage. However, the conflict is threatening to escalate as Israel engages terrorists in Gaza, clashes with Hezbollah in northern Israel, and responds to threats in Syria and the West Bank.
There have been multiple attacks on US forces as well; the US defense secretary announced over the weekend that American forces are increasing their presence in the area to “bolster regional deterrence efforts.”
As you follow the news, if you’re feeling anxious and even overwhelmed these days, you’re not alone.
Former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus is warning that there is a very real chance the Middle East conflict could escalate significantly. What’s more, the battle between Hamas and Israel is dividing world opinion, pitting nations against nations in ominous ways.
According to former US Defense Secretary Bob Gates, America is facing the most crises since World War II ended seventy-eight years ago. None can be solved; all could spiral into something much worse:
A massive spread of doctored or wholly fake videos to manipulate world news and opinion.
US officials are especially worried that all five threats could fuse into one. The State Department recently issued a rare “Worldwide Caution,” warning US travelers abroad of “increased tensions in various locations around the world” that raise “the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations, or violent actions against US citizens and interests.” This at a time when the US House is without a speaker, a government shutdown may be looming, and another toxic presidential campaign with rising domestic unrest is on the horizon.
“I will not refuse to do something I can do”
Helen Keller was stricken deaf and blind after contracting a high fever at nineteen months of age. Nonetheless, she went on to graduate from college cum laude and later became the first woman to be awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard University. She wrote numerous books, became a tireless advocate for those with disabilities, met with twelve US presidents, and was awarded the highest American honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
She explained her life’s passion this way: “I am only one, but I am still one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do.”
One practical way to respond to the rising anxiety and fear of our day is to adopt her motto. Like those who rebuilt the gates of Jerusalem in Nehemiah 3, we each have a kingdom assignment, a thing we can uniquely do to serve God and others. Using our influence to share God’s love and grace is not only vital to our personal well-being—it is absolutely crucial for our broken world and every lost person we know.
Pastor and author Paul Powell once invited readers to imagine a graph of human progress with regard to technology, economics, standard of living, and so on. Such a graph would be easy to draw and largely positive. Then he asked them to graph moral progress.
That would be a different story, as Hamas’s recent brutality makes clear.
For all our medical and scientific advancements, for all our breakthroughs in technology and medicine, do we not battle the same inclinations as did our Bronze Age ancestors? Women are still objectified: almost one in three women worldwide is a victim of physical and/or sexual violence. How is it that the twentieth century was the most murderous in history? Wars and genocides took more than two hundred million victims in one hundred years.
According to Jesus, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander” (Matthew 15:19 NIV). The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart.
Here’s the good news: God can “give you a new heart” (Ezekiel 36:26). When we turn to him by faith, he promises to “put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (v. 27).
Imagine a world in which every person truly made Christ their Lord and thus experienced such godly transformation. Crime and war would end as we follow the leading of the Prince of Peace who calls us to mutual love (John 13:34–35). Lust and adultery would be replaced with love and fidelity (cf. Matthew 22:39). Lies would cease as we speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).
We would still struggle with temptation, of course, but when Christ is our Lord and his Spirit empowers and controls us (Ephesians 5:18), there is no temptation we cannot defeat in his strength (1 Corinthians 10:13).
This is why Oswald Chambers’ assertion is so vital for our souls and our broken world: “There is only one relationship that matters, and that is your personal relationship to a personal Redeemer and Lord. Let everything else go, but maintain that at all costs, and God will fulfill his purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God’s purposes, and yours may be that life.”
Will God “fulfill his purpose through your life” today?
“More school choice is the way to begin weakening the unions and their stranglehold on the Democrats. There’s been a lot of progress on this front, but much more work needs to be done.”
(Stephen Kruiser – PJ Media) One of the more disheartening things we’ve witnessed in the past couple of weeks is the spectacle of American college students marching on campuses in support of the Palestinian front for Hamas. Their ignorance is truly galling given the current price of higher education in this country.
While it’s true that the young minds of college students are polluted by leftist radicals in Academia, those who arrived at universities via the American public education system did so with brains that were ripe for whatever progressive nonsense their professors threw at them. The far-left thoroughly evil teachers’ unions who control public schools and the Democratic Party saw to that. View article →
IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said there would be no ground operation if Hamas surrenders and releases all hostages
Israel will not conduct a ground operation in Gaza if Hamas surrenders “unconditionally” and frees all its hostages, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus has said.
If the looming offensive goes ahead, however, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant estimates that it could take up to three months.
In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Monday, Conricus dodged a question as to why Israel appears to be delaying its ground operation. Instead, the spokesman simply vowed that the Israeli military would “dismantle Hamas totally” and “bring our people home.”
He explained that Israel would prefer to rely on airstrikes and avoid exposing its troops to danger unnecessarily. He suggested, however, that such an approach may prove insufficient to root out the militant group.
“If Hamas were to come out of their hiding places that they hide underneath the civilians … and return our hostages, all 212 of them, and surrender unconditionally, then the war would end,” Conricus stated.
He concluded that, if the Palestinian militants fail to comply with these conditions, “we will probably have to go in and get it done.”
Meanwhile, speaking at the Israeli Air Force’s headquarters in Tel Aviv on Sunday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant insisted that “this needs to be the last [ground] maneuver in Gaza, for the simple reason that afterwards there will be no Hamas,” as quoted by several Israeli media outlets. He went on to suggest that the offensive might take up to three months.
Since the surprise attack by Hamas on October 7, Israel has called up some 360,000 reservists and amassed considerable forces around Gaza. Its air force has also been pummeling the densely populated enclave with massive strikes. However, a final order to enter Gaza has yet to be issued.
On Friday, US President Joe Biden appeared to confirm that he was urging Israel to delay sending troops into Gaza. However, less than an hour later, White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt claimed the president had misheard the question, and was not attempting to influence Israel’s decision-making.
It came as Bloomberg reported that same day that the US government and some European allies were pushing Israel to postpone its ground attack on Gaza in order to negotiate the release of more hostages held by Hamas.
According to officials on both sides, the latest escalation has left at least 1,400 Israelis and 5,000 Palestinians dead, with thousands more injured.
“More school choice is the way to begin weakening the unions and their stranglehold on the Democrats. There’s been a lot of progress on this front, but much more work needs to be done.”
Truth2Freedom's Blog 