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
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.Isaiah 2:4
Oh, that these happy times were come! At present the nations are heavily armed and are inventing weapons more and more terrible, as if the chief end of man could only be answered by destroying myriads of his fellows. Yet peace will prevail one day; yes, and so prevail that the instruments of destruction shall be beaten into other shapes and used for better purposes.
How will this come about? By trade? By civilization? By arbitration? We do not believe it. Past experience forbids our trusting to means so feeble. Peace will be established only by the reign of the Prince of Peace. He must teach the people by His Spirit, renew their hearts by His grace, and reign over them by His supreme power, and then will they cease to wound and kill. Man is a monster when once his blood is up, and only the Lord Jesus can turn this lion into a lamb. By changing man’s heart, his bloodthirsty passions are removed. Let every reader of this book of promises offer special prayer today to the Lord and Giver of Peace that He would speedily put an end to war and establish concord over the whole world.
Have you ever watched a television situation comedy where the characters never knock on friends’ doors, walking in announced, assuming they are welcome? Most of us in the Western world would find this unacceptable behavior. We expect a knock on the door or ring of the bell.
I love my privacy. Because my desk is in the corner of a much-used room, I bought a folding wooden screen to afford at least a small sense of privacy while I am working. I often pray for missionaries who have similar “privacy passions” yet minister in cultures where being alone is considered socially unacceptable.
While my yearning for privacy is frequently necessary to accomplish my work and even desirable in my practice of solitude for spiritual growth, that very hunger to be alone can feed an immature wish that God Himself knock before entering. Do I really want Him to view every secret desire, especially those best described as self-centered? Do I give Him ready access to every corner of my heart and mind or are there spaces I keep securely locked?
David gave God the key to his heart and life, but his words indicate that this ready access was given because David had a personal bond with God. His close relationship with the Creator of the universe almost springs off the page: “How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.”(Psalm 139:17 NLT)
Could it be that the rooms of my life closed off to God are locked because I haven’t sufficiently developed that same love and trust with my Heavenly Father? In addition to gaining information about God in our spiritual growth, deeply embedded in the Hebrew and Greek meanings of the word “know” are the ideas of perceiving, experiencing, and responding to Him. When I consistently pursue not just knowing about God, but unceasingly walk in intimacy so that I ever more deeply love and understand Him, fear of opening myself completely to Him will decrease. Little by little, I will unlock the private rooms.
Scientists finally acknowledge that they got their solar cycle predictions wrong, and that we are fast approaching the sun’s explosive peak Scientists forecasting solar weather have finally acknowledged that their prediction for the current solar cycle was way off. The researchers now say that we are fast approaching an explosive peak in solar activity. Earlier this year, Live Science reported that solar maximum will likely hit harder and sooner than predicted. several experts who forecast that the solar maximum would likely arrive before the end of 2024. … and be more active than expected, including a 20-year sunspot peak, massive X-class solar flares, extensive aurora displays at lower latitudes and rising temperatures in the upper atmosphere, as well as the appearance of streaks of light, known as airglow, and the disappearance of noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds.
Gen. Michael Flynn: Congressmembers ‘compromised by sleeping with children’ “We have the House of Representatives right now is totally, completely broken. And they’re totally owned by the corporate lobbyists and frankly, by the globalists who own many of these people because they’ve been compromised on some of these what they call CODEL trips overseas, where these members of both the House and the Senate get compromised by sleeping with children. And they compromise. And these are real things. These are very real things, or they get them caught up in the world of big bucks, big money.”
Viral Alpha News article shines national spotlight on questions in George Floyd case Court testimony from an unrelated case reveals a conversation between Hennepin County prosecutor Amy Sweasy and Dr. Andrew Baker, the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy of George Floyd. Sweasy recalled that Dr. Baker “called me later in the day on that Tuesday and he told me that there were no medical findings that showed any injury to the vital structures of Mr. Floyd’s neck. There were no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation.” Dr. Baker asked, “Amy, what happens when the actual evidence doesn’t match up with the public narrative that everyone’s already decided on?’ And then he said, ‘This is the kind of case that ends careers.’”
Daily Minor Planet Volunteers Spot an Asteroid Passing Close to Earth Volunteers working with The Daily Minor Planet have made the project’s first big discovery: an asteroid passing very near planet Earth. Other telescopes from around the world went on the hunt for this space rock to find where it was heading. Observations of the asteroid came in from New Mexico and Croatia confirming the asteroid’s trajectory. It was found that the asteroid would pass by Earth about twice as far as the moon the next week and that it was about 50 meters (164 feet) in diameter!
US to send 300 additional troops to Middle East- Pentagon The United States is sending an additional 300 troops to the Middle East with a focus on providing support in areas like explosive ordnance disposal and communications, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said the troops would be going from the United States, but would not be in Israel.
IDF takes command of Hamas military stronghold in western Jabalya in Gaza IDF troops under the command of the Givati Brigade took control over a Hamas military stronghold in western Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, a military spokesperson said. Approximately 50 terrorists were eliminated by Israeli forces. Furthermore, Israeli fighter jets, under Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) intelligence, killed Ebrahim Biari, the commander of Hamas’s Jabalya battalion, and was one of the leaders of the October 7 massacre. Jabalya is around four kilometers northeast of Gaza City.
The study highlighted a correlation between the COVID shot and nearly 300,000 nationwide fatalities. The battle is not only in Gaza, but also in the heavens. Israel’s enemies understand this, and Netanyahu hinted that he does, too. “Remember what Amalek has done to you,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel on Sunday during a press conference regarding the war against Hamas. “Our soldiers who are fighting today are part of a legacy going back 3,000 years, starting with Joshua Ben Nun.” The reference to Amalek was not lost on Hamas or its Iranian overlords, who howled that Bibi had effectively declared a holy war against them.
Michigan professor exonerated, peer-reviewed journal publishes paper showing 250k+ COVID jab deaths While the original study remains retracted, the peer-reviewed journal Science, Public Health Policy & the Law recently published an updated version of the study titled, ‘COVID-19 Illness and Vaccination Experiences in Social Circles Affect COVID-19 Vaccination Decisions. The study highlighted a correlation between the COVID shot and nearly 300,000 nationwide fatalities.
IDF demolishes Samaria home of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri Al-Arouri, the commander of Hamas operations in Judea in Samaria and the deputy of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, is currently based in Lebanon. The demolition order was signed last Friday. After security forces destroyed the home in the village of Arura north of Ramallah, they hung a combined Hamas and Islamic State flag on its ruins with the inscription “Hamas=ISIS.”
Rabbi: We are in the age of Ahab before Redemption The newscaster opened by asking Rabbi Grossman about the strong wave of unity that has taken hold of Israel since the horrific Palestinian Hamas terrorist attack on October 7. Rabbi Grossman responded … That division has entirely disappeared in the two weeks since the Hamas attack. This year, there will be a great redemption. What we are going through now is all the preparation for redemption.
Danon to EU: ‘Don’t accept the existence of Hamas’ Likud MK Danny Danon urged European lawmakers to support Israel’s campaign to eradicate Hamas. Danon, met in the Knesset with a delegation of parliamentarians from European countries – Belgium, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, France, and Poland.
Man charged for threatening Jewish senator Among other antisemitic comments, John Anthony Miller left a message that referred to “finishing what Hitler started.” A Las Vegas man was arrested Thursday for making virulently antisemitic threats against Jewish Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen.
Hamas leader admits that underground tunnels in Gaza were built for Hamas fighters, not civilians Terror organization has endangered its own civilians to fight against Israel, says ‘responsibility of UN to protect them’ Not only did Marzouk deny that Hamas should have responsibility for protecting Gazans during the war, he claimed that the responsibility belongs to the United Nations and Israel.
US Marine rapid response force moving toward Mediterranean the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, aboard the USS Bataan amphibious assault ship, is making its way toward the eastern Mediterranean Sea. One of the typical roles of a Marine Expeditionary Unit is to help civilians evacuate.
FBI Director: Hamas poses biggest terrorist threat in US since ISIS FBI Director Christopher A. Wray warned during a Senate hearing today (Tuesday) that Hamas poses the greatest threat of domestic terrorism the US has faced since ISIS. “The reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level,” Wray said.
M5.6 earthquake in Jamaica’ Hope Bay leads to building collapse and emergency service strain A shallow earthquake registered by the Earthquake Unit of the University of West Indies as M5.6 hit Hope Bay, Jamaica at 15:57 UTC (10:57 LT) on October 30, 2023. The agency is reporting a depth of 18 km (11.2 miles). The USGS is reporting it as M5.4, EMSC as M5.5, and INGV and Ayiti-Seismes (Haiti) as M5.8.
Deep M6.5 earthquake hits Fiji region A strong and deep earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.5 hit the Fiji region at 11:10 UTC on October 31, 2023. The agency is reporting a depth of 547 km (339 miles). EMSC is reporting the same magnitude and depth.
Strong and shallow M6.6 earthquake hits near the coast of Atacama, Chile A strong and shallow earthquake registered by the CSN Chile as M6.6 hit near the coast of Atacama, central Chile at 12:33 UTC (09:33 LT) on October 31, 2023. The agency is reporting a depth of 46 km (28 miles). USGS and EMSC are reporting M6.7 at a depth of 41 km (25 miles).
Iranian Proxies Are Starting To Join The War, And That Is Really Bad News It is beginning to happen. We have been told that a worst case scenario for the war in the Middle East would be for Iranian proxies to join the war followed by Iran itself. That sort of escalation could lead to an apocalyptic conflict that spirals completely out of control, and so great efforts have been made to try to keep the rest of the “Axis of Resistance” on the sidelines. Unfortunately, those efforts appear to have failed, and that is really bad news.
What Is A Woman?: A War On Biological Reality is Being Fought by Misogynistic & Child Abusing Men As a steadfast advocate for women’s rights and gender equality for decades, my journey has taken me through tides of societal change. I’ve witnessed the evolution of the feminist narrative, growing from a call for equality to a more nuanced discourse encompassing myriad intersecting issues.
Bill Gates Pushes Digital ID for Newborns in Kenya Bill Gates is still pushing his digital ID programmes that are essentially tools to that make “governments more efficient at what they are already doing,” according to the Financial Times, “and can be used as a tool to suppress or discriminate against certain citizens.” This time the Gates development and rollout of a government-backed digital ID programme was announced in Kenya after a recent series of “closed-door meetings” with President Ruto. It includes a biometric vaccination system for newborns to replace birth certificates while also helping to track children from birth to 5 years old to ensure all children receive their vaccines.
Is Deagel’s 2025 Depopulation Nightmare Unfolding?: A Startling Correlation with Shocking Quadruple Vaccinated Mortality Rates Certainly Suggests So… In April 2021, the enigmatic intelligence firm Deagel quietly erased its staggering 2025 global depopulation forecast, a document forecasting a dramatic decline in populations of key countries like the United Kingdom, United States, Germany etc. This drastic prediction, which vanished from the public eye after garnering huge attention during the alleged COVID-19 pandemic, has since been shrouded in whispers and theories, only to resurface amidst startling new health data.
“To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.” —George Washington (1790)
Fellow Patriots, on this day in 1800, John Adams became the first president to live in the newly completed White House. Just four months later, he’d move out after losing the 1800 election to Thomas Jefferson. Here’s hoping for another one-term presidency, this time for Joe Biden. —Mark Alexander
FBI Director Christopher Wray warns that Hamas’s assault in Israel is an “inspiration” to other jihadists.
Nate Jackson
Islamofascist terror has been a threat to Americans for decades. We just passed the 40th anniversary of the Beirut bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks that killed 307 people, including 241 Americans. To name but a few other attacks, there was the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 embassy bombings, the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, and, of course, 9/11/2001.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress Tuesday that the threat is elevated once again. “The reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023,” Wray told the Senate Homeland Security Committee, “but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level.”
“We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration, the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate several years ago,” Wray said. “In just the past few weeks, multiple foreign terrorist organizations have called for attacks against Americans and the West.” He added, “We also cannot and do not discount the possibility that Hamas or another foreign terrorist organization may exploit the current conflict to conduct attacks here on our own soil.”
Note that among the roughly 1,400 innocents murdered when Hamas jihadists backed and trained by Iran attacked Israel on October 7 were 33 Americans. That makes it “one of the deadliest terrorist attacks for Americans in history,” notes political analyst Charles C.W. Cooke. “If, as Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken suggests, another ten Americans remain captive in Gaza, then the attack of October 7 was also — is also — one of the worst hostage situations for Americans on record.”
So, yeah, you could say the terror threat is elevated.
As for Wray’s testimony, however, there are a couple of problems to note. One is Wray himself and other intelligence leaders. That there haven’t been more jihadist attacks against Americans or on American soil is in large measure a credit to the vigilance of the good men and women of the FBI and other U.S. counterterrorism agents. Yet beginning with Barack Obama and continuing through Joe Biden, U.S. intelligence has sometimes been weaponized against American citizens for the crime of supporting the “wrong” political party, politician, or policy.
If a terrorist slips through the cracks and kills Americans, part of the reason may be that distraction with the wrong “extremists.”
Another major problem is the Biden administration’s obsession with “Islamophobia.” Biden and his underlings/handlers always manage to inject that phony word into any conversation that addresses the alarming rise in anti-Semitism at home and around the world.
That isn’t to say it’s not reprehensible to attack a person because they’re Muslim. Criminal behavior should be punished accordingly. But it is to say that conflating those rare crimes with the far more widespread problems of Islamofascist terrorism or anti-Semitic hate crimes is to put speeding on your local interstate on the same level as the crisis at the southern border.
Which, come to think of it, is point number three. Wray works for a president who has allowed an intentional invasion of the border from our south, and along with him at the hearing was DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Among the millions and millions of illegal aliens coming to the border and being released all over the country — or never encountered in the first place — are some number of possible terrorists.
During a press conference Tuesday, Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso observed, “We have just returned from our southern border, and it is painfully clear that with Joe Biden’s open border policy, our country is really at an increased threat for a terrorist attack.” Indeed, Border Patrol agents have seized explosive devices from illegal border crossers.
As for Mayorkas, Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley challenged him in a heated exchange about the former Palestine Liberation Organization spokesperson who works for DHS vetting immigrants. “That individual has been placed on administrative leave,” Mayorkas replied, while also theatrically taking great offense at something Hawley never said — that Nejwa Ali is “emblematic” of other DHS employees. For good measure, Mayorkas was sure to point out that he’s “the child of a Holocaust survivor.”
Histrionics aside, the entire hearing about the threat of Islamofascist terrorism against Americans is also another huge warning to Democrats: Quit “standing with the Palestinians” and smearing Israel as an “apartheid state” and such. Wray called the attack on Israel an “inspiration” for would-be jihadists, and we’d argue that Democrats’ apparent major problem with Jews — along with moral equivalence about “Islamophobia” — is likewise an inspiration to jihadists who want to kill Jews and Americans.
On top of the racial, ethnic, and religious division, the Biden administration’s weakness abroad and feckless enforcement of the law here at home poses the real security risk. American lives are at stake.
Biden threatens to veto Israel bill, Republicans were suppressed 10x more than Dems, Yale’s “Holocaust denial,” and more.
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Biden threatens to veto House Israel bill: In a rare primetime address to the nation two weeks ago, Joe Biden tried to make the case that Israel’s war with Hamas and Ukraine’s war with Russia were two peas in a pod, equally worthy of our attention and our taxpayer dollars. House Republicans aren’t buying it. The president’s ask is for a princely $106 billion, including $61.4 billion for Ukraine, $14.3 billion for Israel, $13.6 billion for border security, $9 billion for “humanitarian” aid, and $2 billion or so for Taiwan. House Republicans, though, led by new Speaker Mike Johnson, have proposed something completely different. As the New York Post reports: “The $14.3 billion [House] bill would decouple aid for Israel. … The spending measure would also strip humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians … and would be paid for in part by cuts to Internal Revenue Service funding allocated under the president’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act.” A Biden spokesman says he’ll veto such a bill. “I think President Biden is bluffing,” said Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. “I like what Speaker Johnson has done. I think it’s the conservative thing to do. … Friend or foe, whoever we’re giving the money to, it ought to be paid for, because our national debt is threatening our national security.” In sum, this is a smart, shrewd move by House Republicans, and it exacerbates a growing rift between the Democrats’ “Hamas” wing and the main body of the party.
Hamas now allows Americans to leave Gaza: In a weird reinforcement of its own propagandists’ claims that the Gaza Strip is an “open-air prison,” Hamas has been imprisoning hundreds of Americans there, blocking them from leaving the territory through the Rafa crossing that connects Gaza to Egypt. That changed earlier today, however, with a deal hammered out among the U.S. State Department, Qatar, and Egypt. As CBS News reports: “Hundreds of foreign passport holders and the wounded trapped in Gaza started leaving the war-torn territory Wednesday as the Rafah border crossing to Egypt opened to them for the first time since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.” The opening clears the way for some 545 foreigners and dual nationals to leave, as well as injured Gazans seeking medical attention. According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, those heading through the crossing include some of the “more than 15,000 wounded in retaliatory Israeli strikes, which the ministry says have killed more than 8,500 people, two-thirds of them women and children.” Meanwhile, 15 Israel Defense Forces soldiers have been killed so far.
Musk says Republicans were suppressed 10x more than Dems: We knew the social media censors had it out for the Right, but we didn’t know it was this bad. During a recent appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” X owner Elon Musk shared the grim news. “The degree to which Twitter was simply an arm of the government was not well understood by the public,” he said when asked by Rogan about the transparency efforts of the Twitter Files, which were released in late 2022 and early 2023. Musk said Twitter was “propped up” and compared it to Soviet news agency Pravda, saying that Twitter was “a state publication.” As for where Twitter drew the censorship line, Musk’s assessment is even more grim: “There was basically oppression of any views that would even, I would say be considered middle of the road, but certainly anything on the right. And I’m not talking about like far right, I’m just talking about mildly right.” Granted that Musk isn’t a perfect messenger for free speech; he’s a bit too cozy and accommodating of China for that. But it’s hard to imagine what conservative speech would be like today had the Tesla billionaire not put his money where his mouth is last year.
Maine law enforcement was alerted to assailant: In the fallout from the mass murder in Maine last week that left 18 people dead and 13 wounded, it was learned that weeks prior to the assailant’s attack, the U.S. Army Reserve had alerted local law enforcement officials to “veiled threats” he had made against the Army base. Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry responded to the warning by sending officers to the threat-maker’s home, but were unable to locate him. Merry issued a statewide “awareness alert.” Receiving the alert, Saco Police Chief Jack Clements responded by sending officers to patrol the local Army base for two weeks, as it was the presumed target of the threat. However, “the guy never showed up,” Clement observed. The problem, Clement contends, was that the alert was a “generic thing that came out saying, hey, you know, we’ve had some report that this guy’s made some veiled threats.” He added that his department “never came in contact with [the suspect], never received any phone calls from the reserve center saying, ‘Hey, we got somebody who was causing a problem.’ We never got anything.” Unfortunately, for leftists, realizing that the system doesn’t always work causes them to push harder for wider gun confiscation.
Yale’s “Holocaust denial”: The nation’s oldest independent student newspaper, the Yale Daily News, was recently accused of “Holocaust denial” after it edited an article submitted by sophomore Yale student Sahar Tarak. Tarak, who is no stranger to writing, as she serves as an editor for the Yale Free Press, responded to pro-Palestinian protesters celebrating Hamas’s murderous October 7 attack on innocent Israelis with an article titled, “Is Yalies4Palestine a hate group?” In her article, Tarak observed that Hamas terrorists had raped and beheaded some victims. Well, that factual information was evidently a bridge too far for the Yale Daily News, as editors removed Tarak’s references to rapes and beheadings and included a note stating, “This column has been edited to remove unsubstantiated claims that Hamas raped women and beheaded men.” The fact of the matter is there are multiple credible reports of rapes and beheadings, as well as evidence on the bodies of victims of torture and rape carried out by Hamas terrorists. To deny this is to deny truth in favor of pushing a false narrative that paints Hamas as freedom fighters and not the inhumane terrorists that they are.
China scrubs Israel from its online maps: Evidently, for those living in China, the nation of Israel no longer exists, at least on online maps. Searching the world map online in China ever since Hamas’s October 7 murderous attack, the name “Israel” failed to show up. Yet nations like Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon are present and accurately noted. The fact of the matter is that Beijing has long played these political games with maps. For example, earlier this year, India leveled an official complaint against China over a so-called “standard map” wherein part of India’s territory that Beijing has laid claim to just happened to be depicted as part of China. In this latest move of scrubbing Israel, Beijing is placating its largest trade partner in the Middle East, Iran. By the way, China still refuses to recognize Taiwan as a separate nation and pressures the rest of the world to follow suit.
NJ Gov. Murphy’s taxpayer-funded Taylor Swift party: Recent reporting from Politico exposed one way New Jersey Democrat Governor Phil Murphy used funds from the governor’s office account — provided by taxpayers to be used for “Official Receptions, Official Residence, and Other Official Expenses,” but not to be used for “personal purposes.” Roughly $12,000 was used from the account to pay for such things as food and drink at a Taylor Swift concert and a number of sporting events at MetLife Stadium dating to as far back as 2018. According to Murphy’s office, the taxpayer money will be reimbursed by the state’s Democrat Party. The question is, why is this reimbursement taking so long, and would it ever have been offered without media exposure?
Headlines
Comer: Joe Biden got $40K from bro James in “laundered” China funds (New York Post)
Biden will meet Xi Jinping face to face in San Francisco, White House confirms (Fox News)
Man in body armor with guns, extra mags, and “improvised explosives” found dead at Colorado amusement park alongside cryptic note (Not the Bee)
DC freshens up “Black Lives Matter” street art despite Hamas endorsements (Daily Signal)
LA County wants its social workers to ask kids as young as 10 about their sexual orientation (Not the Bee)
Policy: How climate alarmists’ obsession with overpopulation wrecks human welfare (The Federalist)
Humor: Secret Service mistakenly spends four hours protecting Halloween butler decoration (Babylon Bee)
Try as he might, this president seems rather powerless to stem his party’s hard-left tide of Jew hatred.
Douglas Andrews
It shouldn’t be that hard a decision, really. Either you’re with the tiny, ancient, peace-loving tribe of people who are fighting for their very existence, or you’re with the ones who post stuff like this verbatim threat on social media: “if you see a jewish person on campus follow them home and slit their throats. rats need to be eliminated from cornell.”
Or this: “watch out jews. watch out pig jews. jihad is coming. nowhere is safe. your synagogues will become graveyards. your women will be raped and your children will be beheaded. glory to Allah.”
Or this: “gonna shoot up 104 west, allahu akbar! from the river to the sea, palestine will be free! glory to hamas! liberation by any means necessary!” (104 West is the location of Cornell’s Center for Jewish Living and the university’s kosher dining hall.)
Again, not a hard decision. Democrats, though, have a Jew problem. From Joe Biden on down. These social media posters, after all, aren’t conservative Republicans. They’re hard-left Democrats, and they’re aligned with the likes of the Democrat Party’s Hamas wing of Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ayanna Pressley. Further, they’re the product of the sort of Jew-hating professorship that Russell Rickford embodies there at Cornell; the kind that declares before a crowd of listeners that the barbaric October 7 mass murder of Jews by Hamas “was exhilarating.”
Jew hatred is now a worldwide contagion, and Biden is powerless to stop it. Lynch mobs are storming airports in Russia, just looking for disembarking Jews. As The Wall Street Journal reports, they’re also in Berlin and London and Sydney. And they’re here in the United States, which has long been the world’s safe haven for Jews:
Americans like to believe such things couldn’t happen in the U.S. They have. The Anti-Defamation League last week reported a 388% increase in anti-Semitic incidents from Oct. 7-23 compared with the same period a year ago. The 312 incidents the ADL recorded include a car carrying individuals with Palestinian flags allegedly swerving toward a Jewish family and several alleged assaults by pro-Palestinian protesters. The ADL tally counts 109 anti-Israel rallies that featured support for Hamas or violence against Jews in Israel.
To Biden’s credit, he’s mostly been saying the right things. Mostly — although he could seriously stifle himself with the “ceasefire” garbage and the mixed messages about Israel’s military action in Gaza. Instead, he should acknowledge that the Jewish state has a right to respond forcefully and overwhelmingly, and that anything less allows Hamas to get away with mass murder and invites them to regroup and try again someday.
But whether the calculation is moral or political or strategic or all of the above, Biden at least appears to be siding with the Jews and against the Jew hatred. “The Biden administration,” reports the New York Post, “unveiled a series of actions Monday meant to combat rising antisemitism at colleges and universities following a series of sickening demonstrations since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.”
The Post continues: “Under the plan, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are partnering with campus and local police to track hate-related rhetoric online and provide federal resources to schools — and the Education Department will host webinars on how to file reports. The departments have ‘disseminated public safety information to and hosted multiple calls with campus law enforcement, as well as state, local, tribal and territorial officials to address the threat environment and share information about available resources,’ an unidentified White House official told CNN.”
Regarding the sickening threats at Cornell we listed above, it appears that the administration’s efforts are bearing fruit. Fox News reported late yesterday that a 21-year-old named Patrick Dai, a junior at Cornell, “has been federally charged in connection with the threats following an investigation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force.”
Still, Biden’s cringeworthy mouthpiece, the “historic” Karine Jean-Pierre, could use a bit of coaching. After all, it shouldn’t be too tough to call these haters “extremists,” especially when the administration has no problem calling Trump supporters “extremists.”
This is the same woman who had no trouble recently condemning “Islamophobia” when asked about anti-Semitism.
Given all the Jew hatred on the Left, one wonders whether 2024 will be the year when American Jews finally reassess their increasingly curious and longtime allegiance to the Democrats. In a recent essay titled “How the Democrats betrayed the Jews,” Jewish author and playwright David Mamet — he of the famous 2008 Village Voice essay, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’” — ponders that allegiance:
We New York Jews have always voted for the Democrats, as their policies appealed to the immigrants and the first generation (my parents). A Fair Shake, a safety net, and unionism were manna to the newly arrived — in spite of (in both their and my lifetime) quotas and antisemitic discrimination. The immigrant Jews did well here, and voted for Franklin Roosevelt. And we are voting for him still.
To us, it seems long past time to be voting for FDR. Today’s Democrats aren’t the same as our grandaddy’s Democrats. As columnist David Harsanyi writes: “Our elite schools and protest movements where philanthropic Jews drop millions every year sign petitions defending baby killers? Intersectionality. Decolonization. They’re all intertwined with identitarianism and antisemitism.”
Indeed, the Democrats and their leftist brethren have a Jew problem. A serious Jew problem. And the sooner American Jews figure it out, the better.
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His latest executive order aims to put Washington bureaucrats in charge of regulating AI development.
Thomas Gallatin
In his latest instance of executive overreach, Joe Biden issued an order targeting artificial intelligence development. “To realize the promise of AI and avoid the risk,” Biden contended, “we need to govern this technology.” He then boasted that his order was the “most significant action any government anywhere in the world has ever taken on AI safety, security and trust.”
What is more concerning — the prospect of the free market guiding AI development, or federal government bureaucrats unilaterally writing regulations to control AI according to their own desired aims with little congressional oversight?
Indeed, Biden is once again evoking emergency powers as he stretches a law, in this case the 1950 Defense Production Act, to justify a power grab. He justified his likely unconstitutional order by arguing that AI development poses a “serious risk to national security, national economic security or national public health and safety.”
In other words, this new technology is so dangerous that Biden could not wait for Congress to act. That argument is as self-serving as it is absurd. As noted above, this is purely a power grab on Biden’s part.
Case in point, Biden’s order requires all companies building advanced AI to share their performance safety testing, or “red teaming” data, with the federal government. Biden has just made Beltway bureaucrats the new gatekeepers of America’s software innovation. Talk about throwing a giant wrench in the works.
White House Chief of Staff Bruce Reed made the rounds defending Biden by fearmongering over AI. “[Biden] saw fake AI images of himself, of his dog,” Reed recounted. “He saw how it can make bad poetry. And he’s seen and heard the incredible and terrifying technology of voice cloning, which can take three seconds of your voice and turn it into an entire fake conversation.” In other words, be afraid; be very afraid.
But it didn’t take AI for the Democrats to promulgate one of the biggest hoaxes in political history against a sitting president. For nearly four years, Democrats played up the Russia collusion hoax against Donald Trump. Democrats and their Leftmedia cohorts insisted, despite the lack of supporting evidence, and in the face of countervailing evidence, that Trump was a stooge of Vladimir Putin.
And don’t forget Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop, which the FBI knew was legit even as a cabal of deep state former intelligence bigwigs insisted it was Russian disinformation. That gambit was the work of Washington insiders; no AI needed.
Biden’s order is not really about protecting Americans; rather, it’s about controlling them by controlling what technological developments they will have access to. The bigger risk with AI is not its near-limitless potential but that Washington, out of fear and misunderstanding, limits its development and potential while other world players use it to shape the world economy, leaving America in the dust.
NBC News is so desperate to stir up race hate that it buries the lede.
Emmy Griffin
NBC News is hardly the only news outfit to infuse a headline with the racism narrative, but the real crime is that NBC is so intent on forwarding said narrative that it manipulates the readers and buries the facts that prove the opposite point.
If you were just to read a little bit of this NBC story, this is what you’d think were the facts of the case:
A desperate black mother and her 37-year-old son who had been missing for months have been maligned and mistreated by the police. Dexter Wade was a sweet boy who had been living with his mother and didn’t return home after a quarrel, which was unlike him. The mother, Bettersten Wade, filed a missing persons report. Bettersten never trusted the police — her brother was killed by a police officer in 2019 after being slammed to the ground — but she filed a missing persons report anyway, even against the advice of others. The true tragedy was that she eventually found out her son had been dead for seven months. He had been hit by a vehicle driven by an off-duty police officer and was buried in a pauper’s grave after lying in the morgue unclaimed. NBC wants readers to understand that the Jackson, Mississippi, Police Department had the answer the whole time but left this tormented family to wallow in uncertainty because of systemic racism.
Therein lies the racism/anti-police narrative, which was established right from the get-go. If one didn’t bother to read a little further into the story, one would miss all the pertinent details. Here are the facts that were mentioned but glossed over:2
Dexter was far from the angelic individual the story paints him to be at the beginning. He was a father of two children, but Dexter lived with his mother and his children lived with their mother. He had been arrested several times for auto theft and armed robbery. At the time of his death, he had PCP and meth in his system and he was attempting to cross an interstate highway.
It is legal in Mississippi to walk on the shoulder along the highway facing oncoming traffic. However, crossing an interstate highway (six lanes of traffic) on foot is illegal in Mississippi and is dangerous anywhere. Not only was Dexter crossing an interstate highway while high on drugs, but it was also after 8 p.m. when he attempted to do so. On March 5, 2023, when the accident occurred, the sun set at 6:01 p.m. and so by 8:00 it was well and truly dark outside.
The off-duty police officer who accidentally hit Dexter immediately reported it to the Jackson PD, passed all the sobriety tests, and this whole incident was ruled an accident. If crossing a busy interstate highway on foot at night while high isn’t enough of an indicator of an accident waiting to happen, the off-duty cop passing the sobriety tests should be the final nail in that coffin.
Then we get to the most poignant accusation of the whole story: that the Jackson PD knew the entire time that Dexter was gone but either through neglect or racism (NBC implies the latter) Bettersten was not informed of the accident until seven months later, “letting his body go unclaimed for months in the county morgue.”
There was some miscommunication in the Jackson PD, but there is a big detail missing. Dexter had no ID on him at the time he was hit. The only means of identification was from a prescription medication bottle found on him. The police investigator tracked down Dexter’s identity though his pharmacy and called Dexter’s mother on March 8. The investigator only got her voicemail but did leave a message.
For some reason, Bettersten never got that message and filed a missing persons report on March 14. The Jackson PD was unable to connect the dots between this missing person and Dexter’s death until August, when a new police investigator was assigned to Dexter’s missing persons case.
Was it a tragedy of errors, or was it “retaliation” against Bettersten because of her brother’s brush with the Jackson PD? NBC would have you believe the latter.
Corporate news media outfits like NBC are so desperate to demonstrate that the American systemic racism narrative isn’t a boogeyman that they are bending the truth and burying the actual story in the hopes that people won’t read beyond the headline or first few paragraphs. NBC is also exploiting a mother’s pain to further an evil narrative.
Trumped-up racism narratives like this one take away the meaning of what racism actually is. We are seeing the consequences of that tawdry treatment of the meaning of racism now on college campuses, where terrorist-supporting students are getting away with outright anti-Jew/anti-Israel racism.
Corporate media has earned the distrust of the nation, and stories like this one are the reason. Bad-intentioned headlines are meant to disturb the peace.
Welfare payments created a nearly permanent “underclass,” where generation after generation lives in poverty.
John Stossel
President Joe Biden says 24 million Americans “suffer from food insecurity!”
News anchors were shocked that there is “food insecurity in the richest country in the world!” ABC hosts turned “insecurity” into “hunger.”
But in my new video, Rachel Sheffield, who researches welfare policy at the Heritage Foundation, explains, “Food insecurity is not the same thing as hunger. It just means that they had to rely on cheaper foods, store-brand alternatives … or reduce variety.”
Really? The alarm about “food insecurity” is based on that? Well, yes. Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in its fine print, admits that “for most food-insecure households, the inadequacies were in the form of reduced quality and variety of food rather than insufficient quantity.”
“They always want to create a crisis,” I say to Sheffield.
“Government programs want to keep themselves going,” she replies.
She’s talking about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; the Women, Infants and Children program; the National School Lunch Program and the other constantly growing handouts that make up America’s welfare system.
The biggest effect of these handouts is to harm the people they want to help. They harm people by making them dependent on government.
Before government’s War on Poverty began, Americans were steadily lifting themselves out of poverty. Year after year, the number of people living below the poverty line dropped.
That natural progress wasn’t good enough for us.
We (I include myself because I believed it, too) who wanted to reduce poverty declared “War on Poverty.” Welfare checks poured out. The poverty rate continued to drop for seven years. But then progress stopped.
What happened? Why did progress stop?
Because handouts taught people to be dependent.
Welfare payments did something remarkable. They created a new class of dependent people — a nearly permanent “underclass,” where generation after generation lives in poverty.
Today, government does things to perpetuate that, like claiming millions of Americans are “food insecure.” Charities raise money using the same language. But the opposite is true.
“Americans consume too many calories,” says Sheffield. “Food insecure” adults are more likely to be obese.
When that became obvious, activists promoted a new myth: Poor people are overweight because they live in “food deserts,” neighborhoods where healthy foods are much less available. Michelle Obama talked about that a lot. She claimed some poor people had to take three busses to buy healthy food.
Nonsense.
When government officials first labeled “food deserts,‘ they deviously ignored small stores, only counting stores with more than $2 million in sales. It’s true that one “food desert” Obama visited didn’t have a supermarket. But it had multiple smaller businesses selling fruits and vegetables. Government officials just didn’t count them.
Now the media claim college students are food insecure.
But most college goers gain weight at school! At school!
It’s bizarre that when obesity is the bigger problem, government hypes food insecurity. But of course, “that creates the rationale for expanding food assistance programs, expanding the welfare system,” explains Sheffield.
Expanding welfare seems to be the government’s goal. “We’ve spent more on the War on Poverty than all the military wars combined in the United States without any success,” says Sheffield.
Really? More than all our wars combined? Well, yes. We’ve spent $23 trillion on the War on Poverty. So far.
“Actually,” says Sheffield, “it’s been a success in one way. It increases dependence on the federal government.” That’s what bureaucrats consider success. The handouts are good for the people who dole out the money. They’re good for politicians who get to look like “good guys.”
But they’re bad for poor people.
Before government handouts began, private charities helped people escape poverty. They encouraged people to learn how to take care of themselves. Work gradually lifted people out of poverty. “Work also has a lot of other benefits,” Sheffield points out. “It builds a greater sense of community, gives people access to resources and friend networks that help them improve in their lives.”
Encouraging self-sufficiency is so much better than what government does.
Florida Insurance Rate Hike Crisis — Patrick Bet-David explains why the Florida insurance market has gone up 900% and how BlackRock is likely the cause behind it.
‘Why Has the Biden Admin Been So Soft on Iran?’ — At a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Sen. John Kennedy grilled witnesses about Hamas, Qatar, the funding of terror, and the Biden administration’s Iran policy.
13-Year-Old Killed in Carjacking Attempt — A black teenager with a criminal record was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer when he attempted to carjack his car.
The Woke Mob Targets Halloween — The wokeness has gotten so bad that even New Jersey’s Democrat governor is blasting it.
“People who are calling for a ceasefire now don’t understand Hamas. That is not possible. It would be such a gift to Hamas because they would spend whatever time there was a ceasefire in effect rebuilding their armaments, creating stronger positions to be able to fend off an eventual assault by the Israelis.” —Hillary Clinton
Grand Delusions
“We have seen no indication, none, that Hamas has gotten their hands on any of the humanitarian assistance that has gone in. None of it.” —National Security Council spokesman John Kirby
“I couldn’t possibly answer that question.” —John Kirby when asked, “Is it possible that somebody who wants to commit a terrorist attack, during a time of elevated threat, crossed the southern border into the United States already?”
Moral Equivalence
“There’s no place for [Islamophobia] in the country. It must be condemned equally as strong.” —John Kirby
Stranger Than Fiction
“While the White House is rightfully condemning anti-Semitism, they won’t say pro-Hamas protestors are ‘extremists.’ They reserve that descriptor for Republicans.” —Katie Pavlich
For the Record
“The latest Gallup poll found that Joe Biden’s approval rating has fallen 11 points just among Democrats. Gallup blames Biden’s drop on his ‘support for Israel following the October 7th attacks by Hamas.’ That’s very revealing and very disturbing for what it says about the base of Biden’s party.” —Gary Bauer
“There’s no doubt that there are neo-Nazis and right-wing Jew-haters, who deserve to be ostracized and are, in some cases, truly dangerous. But they are marginalized. They don’t have tenured positions at prestigious universities. They aren’t capable of mustering sizable crowds on campuses and in cities across America. They aren’t organizing morally repugnant statements that engender wide-ranging debate in the political mainstream. No, that’s what the Left’s haters do.” —Rich Lowry
And Last…
“In case you were wondering which villain finally managed to kill a Disney princess, it was Disney.” —Stephen Green
Elon Musk unleashed on liberal billionaire George Soros during a fiery appearance on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, where he claimed the donor “fundamentally hates humanity,” while also explaining he purchased Twitter last year to rescue it from the “far-left.”
Musk spent nearly three hours chatting with Rogan, where they discussed his decision to purchase Twitter, now known as X, which led to a conversation about Soros and his support of progressive organizations and left-wing political candidates.
“In my opinion, he fundamentally hates humanity,” Musk said of Soros.
Musk pointed to the causes Soros puts his money toward, including local elections, which he admits is likely the best way to influence policy.
“He’s doing things that erode the fabric of civilization,” Musk said. “Getting [district attorneys] elected who refused to prosecute crime, that’s part of the problem in San Francisco and L.A. and other cities. So why would you do that?”
“The lowest value for money is a presidential race,” he added. “Then next lowest value for money is a Senate race, then a Congress. But once you get to sort of city and state district attorneys, the value [is] extremely good. Soros realized that you don’t actually need to change the laws. You just need to change how they’re enforced.”
Musk told Rogan he bought Twitter because it was being “controlled by the far-left,” which he felt was having a “corrosive” influence on society. Musk said he made the decision because he feared the far-left views of the San Francisco-based company would have a “corrosive effect on civilization.” Musk described the downtown area, which has been devastated by crime, drug addiction and homelessness, as looking like a “zombie apocalypse,” to argue the philosophies which led to this outcome were being propagated by the platform.
“I mean, this is going to sound somewhat melodramatic, but I was worried that it was having a corrosive effect on civilization,” he said. “That it was just having a bad impact and, I mean, part of it is that it’s where it was located, which is, you know, downtown San Francisco. And while I think San Francisco is a beautiful city and we should really fight hard to kind of right the ship of San Francisco, if you walk around downtown San Francisco, right near the X/Twitter headquarters, it’s a zombie apocalypse. I mean, it’s rough.”
“A philosophy that would be ordinarily quite niche and geographically constrained, so that sort of the fallout area would be limited, was effectively given an information weapon, an information technology weapon to propagate what is essentially a mind virus to the rest of Earth, and the outcome of that mind virus is very clear if you walk around the streets of downtown San Francisco. It is the end of civilization,” Musk feared.
Rogan brought up the platform’s reputation for censoring conservative views under the previous ownership, to claim that these far-left views didn’t “stand up to scrutiny.”
Musk went on to compare this “mind virus” and “death cult” to the extinction movement, which advocates for the voluntary extinction of humanity.
He referenced a New York Times profile of one such environmental activist, as a dangerous outcome of these views taken to the extreme.
“If you take environmentalism to an extreme, you still have to view humanity as a plague on the surface of the earth. Like a mold or something… but this is actually false,” Musk said.
The self-proclaimed environmentalist estimated the earth could take “ten times” the current population, “without destroying the forests.”
“They’ve gone way too far. If you start thinking that humans are bad, then the natural conclusion is that human should die out,” he argued.
Musk used this example to wonder if artificial intelligence could be used to wipe out humanity, if it got into the hands of extreme environmentalists. “They won’t even think it’s bad, like that guy,” he said, referencing the extinction activist in the Times piece.
The X CEO later revisited his complaints about discriminatory censorship on “old Twitter,” saying it was run like a state publication, such as “Pravda.”
He claimed “zero” on the far left had been banned or kicked off under his leadership for expressing their views.
However, several of Musk’s critics in the media were temporarily suspended from their accounts last December. Musk claimed the journalists had violated the company’s doxxing policy, and received a seven-day suspension.
The FOX News contributor joined ‘FOX & Friends First’ to discuss the far-left attacks on Johnson’s religion and the latest on the Hunter Biden investigation. #FOXNews
A leader of a 5,000-strong migrant caravan heading towards the U.S. border has claimed that Latin American nations are ‘ganging up’ on the Biden administration and creating artificial problems, in order to extract money from Washington DC.
Irineo Mujica, a U.S. citizen who describes himself as a human rights defender, told Real America’s Voice he was ‘shocked’ that Joe Biden was being played by Mexico‘s president and other regional leaders, and said the White House ‘has a lot to learn’.
Mujica repeatedly said Biden has ‘dropped the ball’, and said he preferred Donald Trump because his policy on the border was clear.
‘This is being used by the countries to make sure they get what they want from the United States,’ said Mujica.
‘I am completely stunned. Joe Biden has lost the ball. Where is the American intelligence?
House investigators have uncovered a $40,000 check to President Biden they say was part of a payoff to his family members from a lucrative deal with a Chinese energy firm that leveraged his position when he was vice president.
Today, we’re talking about worldviews. Today’s pluralistic society strongly promotes relativism, the idea that no objective standard of right and wrong exists, but whatever is right for you is right for you, and whatever is right for me is right for me. In other words, everybody does “what’s right in his own eyes.”
Sound familiar?
The problem with relativism is that it denies biblical truth about right and wrong. In Psalm 119:105 we’re told God’s Word is a “lamp to our feet and a light to our path,” showing us how to navigate life in a sinful world. How can we possibly avoid the pitfalls of life if we fail to acknowledge an objective standard of right and wrong?
As Lee Strobel said:
You cannot build your life with a consistent worldview that is on the shifting sands of moral relativism.
Relativism is wrong for another reason, too, but we’ll need to discuss that at another time. For more information, go to http://www.hopetools.net. Stay bold!
Carl Kerby is the founder of Reasons for Hope and co-creator of the DeBunked apologetic video series. His radio feature, Fast Facts, is heard weekly on VCY America, Saturdays at 9:25 AM Central.
In July, Robert Kennedy, Jr. took heat from the leftwing media and The New York Post after he alleged that both the U.S. and China had done research into ethnically-targeted bioweapons.
Kennedy added, “History shows that Jews, Africans, and the indigenous have the most to fear from such technologies,” he said, adding, “We must rein in all bioweapons research, whether these weapons are ethnically targeted or not. We saw what COVID did to the world when it was leaked from a laboratory.“
Kennedy made these comments after NY Post reporter Jon Levine wrote a hit piece on Kennedy after sitting next to him at “party filled with farting and beer drinking” and accused him of anti-Semitism for suggesting the COVID Pandemic hit some ethnic groups harder than others and that European Ashkenazi Jews and Asians fared better with the virus.
During the party Robert Kennedy, Jr. spoke about how scientists are now developing viruses as bioweapons. The US is sponsoring these laboratories financially. And scientists are currently working on ethnically targeted microbes. This was all true
On Tuesday, the top Spy Agency in China confirmed that “some countries” have armed themselves with deadly bioweapons targeting human genes. This was the first time a Chinese state body has mentioned such a threat publicly.
Some countries have “armed” themselves with deadly weapons targeting human genes, China’s top spy agency alleged on Monday – the first time a Chinese state body has mentioned such a threat publicly.
In a post on its official WeChat account, the Ministry of State Security said some nations had targeted the Chinese population for “ulterior motives”.
The ministry did not name those countries or offer evidence to support the claim.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
The existence of such weapons has long been dismissed by the mainstream scientific community as a conspiracy theory.
In a report in February last year, researchers from the Council on Strategic Risks said the threat of bioweapons as a deterrent was “irrelevant” because no country was safe from the effects of a pandemic.
But what the Chinese ministry is alleging countries have made is not a biological agent engineered for the entire world but rather the creation of a targeted threat, or genetic weapons.
In the United States, Britain, France, Germany and South Africa, the pattern is clear: the number of antisemitic incidents has gone up since Oct. 7 by several hundred percent compared with the same period last year.
Just when it looked like the world was becoming all woke and inclusive, it only took the events of October 7th to reveal that the original persecuted people, the Jews, were just as much hated in 2023 as they were in 1933 Nazi Germany. The level of anger directed at Israel as they defend themselves against the greatest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust by Hamas, the new Nazis, is astounding and biblical.
“Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.” Lamentations 1:7 (KJB)
Not only that, but terrorist threats against the U.S. reached “a whole other level” after the Hamas attack on Israel, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray told Congress on Tuesday, saying the big players in terrorism have all renewed calls to attack America and its interests. “The reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of attack on Americans to a whole other level,” Mr. Wray said.
And the march towards World War 3 remains very much alive.
Open hatred of Jews surges globally, inflamed by Gaza war
FROM YAHOO! NEWS: In Los Angeles, a man screaming “kill Jews” attempts to break into a family’s home. In London, girls in a playground are told they are “stinking Jews” and should stay off the slide. In China, posts likening Jews to parasites, vampires or snakes proliferate on social media, attracting thousands of “likes”. These are examples of incidents of antisemitism, which have surged globally since the attack by Hamas gunmen on southern Israel on Oct. 7 and subsequent war on the Islamist group launched by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
“This is the scariest time to be Jewish since World War Two. We have had problems before, but things have never been this bad in my lifetime,” said Anthony Adler, 62, speaking outside a synagogue where he had gone to pray in Golders Green, a London neighbourhood with a large Jewish community.
Adler, who runs three Jewish schools, temporarily closed two of them after Oct. 7 because of fears of attacks on pupils, and has beefed up security at all three.
“The biggest fear is that there will be a random attack on our community, on our families and our children,” he said.
In countries where figures are available from police or civil society groups, including the United States, Britain, France, Germany and South Africa, the pattern is clear: the number of antisemitic incidents has gone up since Oct. 7 by several hundred percent compared with the same period last year. In the case of the antisemitic incidents, most consist of verbal abuse, online slurs or threats, graffiti, and defacing of Jewish properties, businesses or sites of religious significance. Physical assaults represent a significant proportion.
We stand with Israel and the Jewish people as hatred against the Jews rises dramatically. It is now or never to vanquish Hamas. #NeverAgainIsNowhttps://t.co/9ooYEw7qpK
One common thread is that anger over the deaths of thousands of Palestinians as a result of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is invoked as justification for verbal or physical aggression towards Jews in general, often accompanied by the use of slurs and tropes rooted in the long history of antisemitism.
“Whatever their opinion on the conflict, even if they are extremely critical of the Israeli government’s policy, Jew is for them equal to Israel, equal to killing Palestinian children,” said political scientist Nonna Mayer, a member of France’s CNCDH, an independent human rights commission. She was describing what was in the minds of those behind antisemitic incidents.
Any Excuse To Hate The Jews
The climate of fear is worse for many Jews than in previous rises in antisemitism linked to flare-ups of violence in the Middle East, partly because of the intensity of the Gaza conflict and partly because of the trauma of Oct. 7.
“The idea that Israel was the ultimate shelter, that idea is totally shattered by what happened on Oct. 7,” said Mayer.
The most chilling antisemitic incident globally was the storming of an airport in Russia’s Dagestan region on Sunday by an enraged crowd looking for Jews to harm after a flight arrived from Tel Aviv. Rabbi Alexander Boroda, president of Russia’s Federation of Jewish Communities, said in response that anti-Israeli sentiment had morphed into open aggression towards Russian Jews. Shneor Segal, the chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Azerbaijan, said the incident showed that “antisemites will use any excuse – the current Middle East crisis being just the latest – to terrorise the dwindling numbers of us that still remain” in the Caucasus.
“And where do they think they are chasing these Jews away to? The very country whose existence is such an abomination to them!” he said, referring to Israel.
But without reaching such extremes, a string of incidents all over the world show the fears and tensions affecting Jewish communities.
In Buenos Aires, pupils at a well-known Jewish school were asked not to wear their usual uniforms to be less easily identifiable, parents said. Other schools cancelled planned camping trips and activities outside their premises.
At Cornell University in upstate New York, security was increased around the Center for Jewish Living after online threats, including a call for it to be bombed.
In Johannesburg, pro-Palestinian protesters marched to an area with a large Jewish community on Saturday, tearing off pictures of Israeli hostages in Gaza from the perimeter walls of a community centre while a Shabbat service was being held at a nearby synagogue.
“I feel rage towards the people who are trying to curtail my freedom of religion and my freedom of movement, for the most part based on their antisemitism,” said Akiva Carr, who was in the synagogue when the incident took place.
Official responses to the surge in antisemitism has varied from country to country:
In the United States and Western Europe, authorities have mostly been quick to express strong support for Jewish communities, denounce antisemitism and in some cases reinforce security at relevant locations.
In Israel, the government said after the Dagestan incident that Israeli citizens should “review the necessity to travel abroad at this time” and urged Israelis residing abroad to be vigilant and stay away from demonstrations.
In China, where the government routinely censors words or phrases it considers sensitive on social media, there was no indication that it had taken any steps to curtail a torrent of antisemitic vitriol on social media. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Chinese law prohibits the use of the internet to propagate extremism, ethnic hatred or discrimination. READ MORE
With Israel entering its ground war against Hamas in Gaza while facing an existential battle of Iran-backed groups vowing to destroy it, the Biden administration is chiding Israel to give money to the Palestinian Authority.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the Biden administration is calling for the funds to be released to support the Palestinian Authority’s governance of the West Bank, according to Axios.
“We asked them to release [the money],” Blinken said.
“The Palestinian Authority is doing everything it can to keep security and stability in the West Bank. It is vastly under-sourced. This is another aspect of the problem,” he added.
A U.S. official whose name was not released said the message was that Israel cannot afford to let the Palestinian Authority fall apart.
“We told them that such a move undermines the Palestinian Authority and the stability in the West Bank and goes against Israeli interests. We can’t just let everything collapse,” a U.S. official said.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich notified Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday that he was canceling the payments, which amount to about $150 million per month.
“I would like to inform you that I have instructed the Finance Ministry to stop the transfer of payments this month,” he wrote to according to the Times of Israel.
He said he took action due to “senior PA officials’ support for the horrific massacres of the Nazi terrorist organization Hamas.”
“The PA has once again proven the fact, about which we have been raising our voices for years, that it is a terror-supporting organization,” Smotrich wrote.
“Therefore, beyond the connection of these funds to the Gaza Strip and its residents, these funds are used for activities against the State of Israel and its citizens. It is inconceivable that in this reality, we will continue to transfer these funds as if nothing has happened,” he said.
Smotrich issued a list of Palestinian Authority comments supporting Hamas, including a statement on the authority’s official Palestine TV on Oct. 7, the day of the Hamas attack, that said, “Today Gaza laid a blow the occupation won’t forget… today we awoke united.”
Biden’s action on behalf of the Palestinian Authority comes as a new poll shows only 17 percent of Arab American voters say they will support Biden next year, according to the Arab American Institute. That’s down from 59 percent support in 2020.
“This is the most dramatic shift over the shortest period of time that I’ve ever seen,” said James Zogby, the founder and president of the Arab American Institute, according to Time.
The poll of 500 Arab-Americans was taken between Oct. 23 and Oct. 27 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points, according to the Institute.
The poll showed that 66 percent of those surveyed have a negative view of Biden’s response to the slaughter of Israeli civilians at the hands of Hamas.
The poll also showed that 68 percent of those polled believe the U.S. should not send weapons to Israel, while the percentage believe the U.S. should use its clout to force a ceasefire in Gaza.
Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian warned on Wednesday of “harsh consequences” if attacks continue on the Gaza Strip, the latest in a series of warnings from the country, which backs Hamas in Gaza and militias elsewhere in the region.
As Iran’s oil proceeds have topped more than $80 billion since the Biden administration took office, a Republican senator is pushing legislation that would fast track federal funding for operations to seize Iranian tankers and use the profits to care for American victims of terrorism.
An Islamist militant group backed by Iran that the Biden administration removed from its list of terror organizations in 2021 claimed responsibility for a series of attacks against Israel on Tuesday.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels, also known as Ansar Allah, said in a statement that they are behind a series of missile and drone operations that have targeted Israel.
The group’s statement is nothing if not more evidence that the White House is in over its head both at home and abroad.
ABC News reported missiles and drones have been intercepted by both the U.S. military and the Israeli Defense Forces in recent weeks — since the Oct. 7 terror attacks Hamas carried out against Israel.
Tuesday, Israeli pilots intercepted and shot down missiles as they approached its port at Eilat on the Red Sea.
The Houthi movement said in a statement that it was behind three attacks against Israel, but its spokesman did not name any specific attacks or targets.
“Our armed forces launched a large batch of ballistic missiles and a large number of drones at various targets of the Israeli enemy,” Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree with the group said in a statement on television, ABC News reported.
Saree concluded, “The Yemeni Armed Forces confirm that this operation is the third operation in support of our oppressed brothers in Palestine and confirm that we will continue to carry out more qualitative strikes with missiles and drones until the Israeli aggression stops.”
If that statement sounds like a terror threat from a well-armed, well-financed group of terrorists, it is not — at least not according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
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Just weeks after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Blinken issued a statement that revoked the Houthi movement’s terror group designation.
“Effective February 16, I am revoking the designations of Ansarallah, sometimes referred to as the Houthis, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under the Immigration and Nationality Act and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist,” Blinken said.
Blinken said that by branding the prominent, Yemeni group known for its brutality as a terrorist organization it risked depriving Yemen’s civilian population of basic necessities.
He concluded, “We reaffirm our strong belief that there is no military solution to this conflict.”
The Houthis had only been designated as terrorists a month prior by the Trump administration.
Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “If Ansarallah did not behave like a terrorist organization, we would not designate it” as one.
Pompeo also said the point of the decision to call such terrorists what they are was intended to deter “further malign activity by the Iranian regime.”
Obviously, there could not be more contrast between the Trump and Biden administrations on border security, the economy, personal liberty and, of course, foreign policy.
Under the Trump administration, the world was at peace, Americans had more money, and the country was safer.
In Biden’s third year, there are conflicts on multiple continents that feel as though they could spread at any moment into a third world war.
Perhaps nothing sums up the incompetent Biden administration than Tuesday’s statement from Ansar Allah.
A group that Blinken announced would no longer be branded as terrorists copped to launching jihadist attacks against innocent Jews.
The same people who would probably face extreme difficulty defining the word “woman” are directing policies that have global ramifications. The inept far-left secretary of state and an inept far-left president have not commented publicly on the thwarted attacks against Israel.
But if there was any doubt left that the people leading us do not know what they’re doing, or who they’re dealing with, we now know it for sure.
A senior Hamas official said last week that the terror group will repeat terrorist attack on Israel like the one it conducted on Oct. 7 “again and again.”
One of the Reformation’s fiercest battlegrounds was the relationship between justification and sanctification.
These two important doctrines are distinct from one another in that God does notmakethe sinner righteous by justifying him, Hedeclaresthat person righteous (Romans 3:28;Galatians 2:16). JustificationimputesChrist’s righteousness to the sinner’s account (Romans 4:11); sanctificationimpartsrighteousness to the sinner, personally and practically (Romans 6:1–7;8:11–14). Justification takes place outside sinners and changes their standing (Romans 5:1–2); sanctification is internal and changes the believer’s state (Romans 6:19). Justification is an event; sanctification is a process.
The two must be distinguished but can never be separated. God does not justify whom He does not sanctify, and He does not sanctify whom He does not justify. Both are essential elements of salvation.
So why differentiate them at all? If justification and sanctification are so closely related that you can’t have one without the other, why bother to separate themcon ceptually?
Justification in Reformation Teaching
Everyone who affirms justification by faith alone should also refuse to disengage justification and sanctification—this is the teaching of the Reformers.
Calvin, for example, wrote,
Christ . . . justifies no man without also sanctifying him. These blessings are conjoined by a perpetual and inseparable tie. Those whom he enlightens by his wisdom he redeems; whom he redeems he justifies; whom he justifies he sanctifies. But as the question relates only to justification and sanctification, to them let us confine ourselves. Though we distinguish between them they are both inseparably comprehended in Christ. Would ye then obtain justification in Christ? You must previously possess Christ. But you cannot possess him without being made a partaker of his sanctification: for Christ cannot be divided. Since the Lord, therefore, does not grant us the enjoyment of these blessings without bestowing himself, he bestows both at once, but never one without the other. Thus it appears how true it is that we are justified not without, and yet not by works, since in the participation of Christ, by which we are justified, is contained not less sanctification than justification.[1]
Elsewhere, discussingJames 2:21–22(“Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected”), Calvin added,
It appears certain that he is speaking of the manifestation, not of the imputation of righteousness, as if he had said, “Those who are justified by true faith prove their justification by obedience and good works, not by a bare and imaginary semblance of faith.” In one word, he is not discussing the mode of justification, but requiring that the justification of believers shall be operative. And as Paul contends that men are justified without the aid of works, so James will not allow any to be regarded as justified who are destitute of good works. Due attention to the scope will thus disentangle every doubt; for the error of our opponents lies chiefly in this, that they think James is defining the mode of justification, whereas his only object is to destroy the depraved security of those who vainly pretended faith as an excuse for their contempt of good works. Therefore, let them twist the words of James as they may, they will never extract out of them more than the two propositions: That an empty phantom of faith does not justify, and that the believer, not contented with such an imagination, manifests his justification by good works.[2]
Martin Luther championed justification by faith as passionately as any Reformer. Did he believe sanctification was optional? Not at all. When some of Luther’s associates began to teachantinomianism(the idea that behavior is unrelated to faith, or that Christians are not bound by any moral law), he opposed them. He called their teaching “the crassest error,” designed to “grind me under foot and throw the gospel into confusion.” Such teaching, according to Luther, “kick[s] the bottom out of the barrel” of God’s saving work.[3]
Although many more examples are available, I’ll mention just one other. The Formula of Concord, the definitive Lutheran statement of faith, written in 1576, dealt extensively with the relationship between justification and the believer’s obedience. The Formula of Concord, like every other significant Protestant confession, refused to divorce justification from sanctification, though it underscored the distinction between the two.
According to this confession, “the renewing of man . . . is rightly distinguished from the justification of faith.” The Formula stated explicitly that “antecedent contrition [repentance] and subsequent new obedience do not appertain to the article of justification before God.”[4]
But it immediately added, “Yet we are not to imagine any such justifying faith as can exist and abide with a purpose of evil. . . . But after that man is justified by faith, then that true and living faith works by love [Galatians 5:6], andgood works always follow justifying faith, and are most certainly found together with it.”[5]
The Formula of Concord repudiated the teaching thatjustifymeans “[to] become in very deed righteous before God.” But it also condemned the notion “that faith is such a confidence in the obedience of Christ as can abide and have a being even in that man who is void of true repentance, and in whom it is not followed by charity [love], but who contrary to conscience perseveres in sins.”[6]
The well-known Reformation epigram is “Faith alone justifies, but not the faith that is alone.” On these matters the principal Reformers all agreed. Only the antinomians taught that true faith might fail to produce good works.
Justification in Roman Catholic Doctrine
The nature and effects of justification were also the central issue between Rome and the Reformers in the sixteenth century. Roman Catholicism blends its doctrines of sanctification and justification. Catholic theology views justification as an infusion of grace thatmakesthe sinner righteous. In Catholic theology, then, thegroundof justification is somethingmade good withinthe sinner—not the imputed righteousness of Christ.
The Council of Trent, Rome’s response to the Reformation, pronounced anathema on anyone who says “that the [sinner] is justified by faith alone—if this means that nothing else is required by way of cooperation in the acquisition of the grace of justification.” The Catholic council ruled that “justification . . . is not remission of sins merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man, through the voluntary reception of the grace, and of the gifts, whereby man of unjust becomes just.” Thus Catholic theology confuses the concepts of justification and sanctification and blends the righteousness of the believer with the righteousness of Christ.
This difference between Rome and the Reformers is no mere theological hair-splitting. Corrupting the doctrine of justification inexorably results in several other grievous theological errors. If sanctification is included in justification, then justification is a process, not an event. That makes justification progressive, not complete. One’s standing before God is then based on subjective experience, not secured by an objective declaration. Justification can therefore be experienced—and then lost. Assurance of salvation in this life becomes practically impossible because security can’t be guaranteed. The ground of justification ultimately is in the sinner’s own ability to continue upholding virtue moment by moment, not in Christ’s perfect righteousness and His finished atoning work.
Those issues were fiercely debated in the Reformation, and the lines were clearly drawn. Reformed theology to this day upholds the biblical doctrine of justification by faith against the Roman view of justification by works or merit.
But the key question is this: Is the Reformation doctrine of justification taught in Scripture?
We will answer that question next time by turning to the book of Romans.
“Carpe diem!” is a phrase used to urge someone to make the most of the present time with little thought for the future. Find out how knowing God changes how believers live now and consider what lies ahead. Join us on Truth For Life with Alistair Begg.
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