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
Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. [2] And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Conformed or Transformed? (Romans 12:1-2) – Pastor Patrick Hines Podcast
▶️Pastor Patrick Hines has recently had a brand new book published, called, “Earth’s Foundational History – Part 1: Genesis Chapters 1 Through 5.” (Paperback – May 4, 2023) https://cutt.ly/16RCeZ0
These two books are also available on Amazon. All proceeds go directly to Pastor Hines:
▶️Am I Right With God?: The Gospel, Justification, Saving Faith, Repentance, Assurance, & The New Birth https://cutt.ly/S6RCbuM
▶️Redrawing the Battle Lines: 23 Sermons on Critical Issues Facing the Church https://cutt.ly/m6RCTi0
We subscribe to the Westminster Standards as our doctrinal statement. It consists of the following documents:
The Westminster Confession of Faith The Westminster Larger Catechism The Westminster Shorter Catechism
We also believe that Christian Worship is to be regulated and defined by God’s Word, the Bible.
Our worship services are designed to please and honor the Triune God of the Bible. We place Scripture reading and the preaching of the word of God at the center of worship along with Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These are God’s gifts to His church and ought to always be at the center of Christian worship. We are a congregation that loves to sing God’s praises, recite His Word back to Him, and actively engage in hearing and learning from God’s Word.
We embrace and promote a comprehensive Christian world and life view.
There is no area of life which is not under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is to God and His law which all people, including governments and civil rulers, will answer. The Word of God embraces and informs the way we view marriage, the family, children, education, politics, worship, law, government, war, the church, missions, evangelism, and worship. In the world today there is a battle of opposing worldviews. There are basically only two positions: God’s Word and man’s ideas. We stand positively for Biblical truth and negatively against man’s ideas which are opposed to Biblical truth.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only hope for mankind.
Because all men fall short of obeying God’s law, all men everywhere are in need of divine grace and salvation from God. This salvation is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for sinners, was buried, rose again, and is alive today seated at God the Father’s right hand.
We Worship God Together as Families.
We offer nursery during the morning worship service for newborns and infants but encourage people to keep as many of their children as they can with them for morning worship. The audio of the service is in the nursery via speakers. There is also a crying room with a video screen and audio of the sermon. We offer Sunday school classes for all ages, but worship together as families. We do not offer “children’s” church.
All who profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and are members of an evangelical church are cordially invited to participate with us in the Lord’s Supper.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.Genesis 3:15
This is the first promise to fallen man. It contains the whole gospel and the essence of the covenant of grace. It has been in great measure fulfilled. The seed of the woman, even our Lord Jesus, was bruised in His heel, and a terrible bruising it was. How terrible will be the final bruising of the serpent’s head! This was virtually done when Jesus took away sin, vanquished death, and broke the power of Satan; but it awaits a still fuller accomplishment at our Lord’s second advent and in the Day of Judgment. To us the promise stands as a prophecy that we shall be afflicted by the powers of evil in our lower nature, and thus bruised in our heel; but we shall triumph in Christ, who sets His foot on the old serpent’s head. Throughout this year we may have to learn the first part of this promise by experience, through the temptations of the devil and the unkindness of the ungodly, who are his seed. They may so bruise us that we may limp with our sore heel; but let us grasp the second part of the text, and we shall not be dismayed. By faith let us rejoice that we shall still reign in Christ Jesus, the woman’s seed.
Experiences affect how people think about themselves and what they choose to believe. Sometimes negative events create a hurtful thought pattern that can play in someone’s brain in a continuous loop. When that gets switched on, it triggers anxiety in the person’s heart. Shutting it off permanently requires faith in the Lord.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. Suppose that little Tina’s efforts to do well were often rejected by her parents. She heard, “You can do better than that” or “Your sister did much better at your age.” Tina rarely received praise for a job well done. Now an adult, she refuses to apply for a job promotion, even though her boss is encouraging her to do so. Why? Because she fears being found inadequate. Tina may not be able to name her fear, but it certainly holds her back. There are several other potential root causes of anxiety. An exhaustive list would not fit here, but a few of the more common ones are …
The belief that one can’t reach a set standard.
Guilt over past sin.
A faulty idea of God as a punisher.
Attitudes instilled during childhood.
When feeling anxious, ask yourself what produced the uneasiness. Knowing which incidents nurture fear can point you to the underlying cause. Let God help you reject the unhealthy thought pattern and replace it with assurance that those who listen to Him live free from the dread of evil (Prov. 1:33).
“We demolish arguments and every pretention that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5
“If I don’t think about everything that makes me anxious, what am I going to think about?” I asked my counselor. I had to laugh at hearing myself ask the question out loud. But for someone like me, who spent a great deal of mental energy worrying about things, I wanted to know what my life would look like if God could really change my mind.
Part of growing in Christ is thinking like Christ.
Scripture is full of references to changing the way we think in order to mature in our Christian walk. Yet after accepting Christ as my Savior, I struggled for years with anxiety, fear, and depression.
The answer for me was realizing that I had never really thought about what I thought about. I didn’t know why one small disappointment spun me downward into a pit of depression. Once I prayed and asked God to show me where my thinking was veering off the right path, I began to see how my deep-seeded beliefs about myself were fueling my anxiety.
We all grow up with a certain belief system. Christian or not, our experiences, family of origin, and disposition inform our worldview. If we believe something contrary to God’s Word, like we’re not good enough, then anything that reinforces that lie can send our thoughts into a self-defeating cycle.
Taking the time to meditate on God’s Word and reflect on our own thoughts can help us “take our thoughts captive” and turn them to be more like Christ.
Lord, help me be more aware of the path my thoughts take throughout the day. By your Spirit, will you help me take any thought captive that does not please you and turn it around? Amen.
Top U.S. Vatican Official Claims Pope May Make the Faith Up as He Goes It might seem that Francis fired Strickland for being a genuine Catholic, and speaking openly about Francis’ ongoing abuse of faithful believers, and his promotion of sexual radicals who support the LGBT agenda. Strickland dared to quote a speech by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who openly asks if the pope’s new, false teachings throw into question his right to call himself a Catholic — and hence the pope.
Iran will do ‘whatever it takes’ to help Hamas in war with Israel: Quds Force chief Iran will do “whatever it takes” to help Hamas in its war with Israel, Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani said in a message to top Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, state media reported on Thursday. “Your brothers in the resistance axis stand united with you and will not allow the enemy to reach its dirty goals in Gaza and Palestine,” Qaani said in a letter addressed to Deif, leader of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.
Mutiny on the Biden A longtime conservative activist in Washington, DC, isn’t surprised that unmistakably anti-Israel statements critical of the President’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war have surfaced from within the Biden administration. First it was an internal State Department “dissent” memo that was leaked to the press accusing Joe Biden of “spreading misinformation” in a speech he delivered on October 10. The approximately 100 State Department and USAID employees who signed the memo, says Axios, claimed Israel is committing “war crimes,” and that Biden’s continued support of the Jewish nation makes him “complicit in genocide.”
New Tropical Storm Watches Issued for Developing Potential Tropical Cyclone #22 A developing system in the Caribbean labeled as Potential Tropical Cyclone #22 by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) has prompted authorities across many islands to issue fresh tropical storm watches. The governments of Cuba, the Bahamas, and Jamaica have decided to issue watches because the NHC believes the potential cyclone will become an actual cyclone soon.
Significant storm to blast Northeast, Midwest just before Thanksgiving Following some rain and spotty snow into this weekend, a bigger problem awaits Thanksgiving travelers in the Northeast and Midwest next week as a potent storm will take shape and spin toward the Great Lakes, triggering areas of heavy rain, snow and gusty winds, AccuWeather meteorologists say.
Judge Upholds Biden Administration’s Approval of the Massive Willow Oil-Drilling Project in Alaska Alaska’s massive Willow oil project moves forward after judge rejects protests by environmentalists and native tribes. Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy welcomes the District Court Decision. “Today’s federal court decision reaffirms that the Willow project is an environmentally responsible energy project in an area Congress specifically designated for oil and gas development,” said Governor Mike Dunleavy in a press release.
The Parties Have Irreconcilably Different Visions For America The sad reality is that very few Republican and Democratic officials or candidates agree on the state of the country or what the actual problems are that we face. More importantly, they do not have shared goals for what our community or nation ought to be. For example, a decade ago in Pennsylvania, the fight over natural gas centered on whether it should be separately taxed – and, if so, at what rate. No more. Today, the divide is that most Democrats do not want any more natural gas extracted, refined, or moved across our state or beyond – a vision shared by almost no Republican.
Iranian IRGC Commander Warns Israel to Expect Further Pogroms Like Oct. 7 “Just as the al-Aqsa Storm came from a place the enemy did not calculate, they must wait for other storms that will reach them from where they do not figure out,” Gen. Hossein Salami declared in a speech on Thursday in the city of Isfahan, using the official nomenclature chosen by Hamas to describe its onslaught in southern Israel last month that claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people and the seizure of over 200 hostages.
New Jersey To End ‘Basic Skills Test’ Requirement For Government-School Teachers If Democrat New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy gives his assent, government-school teachers in the state will soon no longer have to show they even have the most basic skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic to teach children. Yes, seriously.
‘Not peaceful’: Police release new details on violent riot outside DNC headquarters Demonstrators blocked the exits to the DNC building with dumpsters, pepper sprayed officers and “attempted to pick up the bike rack,” according to a press release from the USCP. Officers tried to disperse the crowd by pushing them back, pulling them away from the entrances and “clearing them from the area.” “We have handled hundreds of peaceful protests, but last night’s group was not peaceful.
The Inside Story of How Palestinians Took Over the World The brilliant Palestinian plan to capture the pliable minds of American college students was laid out in front of me 25 years ago, during a very sinister business meeting in Israel. It was around the time of the Oslo Accords.
Bus drivers refuse to drive Jews to pro-Israel rally in Washington A great portion of the contingent of nearly 1,000 Detroiters, bound for the “March with Israel” rally in the nation’s capital, never made it to the demonstration, after bus drivers refused to drive them from the airport. The bus company with whom they had contracted transit from the airport to the rally called a wild-cat strike and refused to take them to the event.
Israel: UN agencies ‘complicit’ in Hamas war crimes “For too long international agencies and officials have been tacitly complicit with Hamas’s long-standing abuse of hospitals as human shields,” said Prime Minister’s Office Spokesman Eylon Levy at a press briefing. “We are demanding full accountability from them. What did you know? Why did you not say anything? Why do you continue to do propaganda for Hamas instead of doing your jobs?” he asked.
Herzog: ‘Very strong force’ needed in Gaza after Hamas defeated “We can’t leave a vacuum” that could enable the coastal enclave to turn “into a terror base again,” said the Israeli president. Israel will need to maintain a significant presence in Gaza to prevent the Hamas terrorist group from regaining control of the enclave, President Isaac Herzog said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Thursday.
Elon Musk correctly diagnoses reason why radical abortion laws are passing Business magnate Elon Musk correctly diagnosed the moral problems that underly women and men’s support for abortion, but he apparently fails to recognize how he contributes to a culture of death himself. He is correct in one reason why men and women vote for allowing abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, which could be the result of Ohio’s vote several weeks ago. Our culture does teach men and women that an “accidental pregnancy is the worst thing that could possibly happen.”
Anchorage, Alaska, could see its snowiest November ever The city of Anchorage, Alaska, could see its snowiest November ever – and the snowfall so far this month has already spelled misery for residents, quickly burying roads and prompting an emergency declaration.
VICTORY! Wisconsin city officials retract ‘absurd, unconstitutional’ Christmas ban …the mayor said it wouldn’t be called a Christmas tree but instead a Holiday tree. “There was a big uproar,” Staver said. Christmas is back in style, but only because people were willing to fight and defend it. “A Christmas tree is a Christmas tree — it is only used to celebrate one holiday,” Staver said. “It isn’t Thanksgiving. It isn’t Kwanza. It isn’t Hanukah. It isn’t New Year’s. It isn’t the Fourth of July. It’s a Christmas tree, so call it a Christmas tree.”
Iranians secretly translating Bible into their heart languages As the underground Church continues to grow in Muslim-majority Iran, Bible translators are putting their lives on the line to bring the Gospel into the local dialects so that their friends and neighbors can have access to the written word of God for the first time.
World Economic Forum Stripped Naked The World Economic Forum (“WEF”) reminds Dr. Vernon Coleman very much of the Scientology cult – although, as a replacement for the Bilderbergers and a promotional organisation for the European Union and the United Nations, it is infinitely more dangerous and it has influence far greater than would seem justified.
U.S. Government confirms 1433x increase in Deadly Cancer Cases due to COVID Vaccination Cancer…is the No. 2 leading cause of death in the United States. Unfortunately, it appears the disease may be on the rise thanks to the experimental Covid-19 injections. Because official U.S. Government data confirms the risk of developing cancer following Covid-19 vaccination increases by a shocking 143,233%.
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” —Patrick Henry (1788)
Fellow Patriots, on this day in 1973, Richard Nixon argued, “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.” Today, Joe Biden mishandles classified documents and makes money off his son’s influence peddling schemes. He is a crook. —Mark Alexander
Atlanta will host the game in 2025, but the league didn’t offer an apology for its disgraceful move two years ago.
Nate Jackson
There’s not yet any truth to the rumor that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp will throw out the first pitch of the 2025 All-Star Game in Atlanta, but he should.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred announced Thursday that Atlanta has been awarded the honor of hosting the game in July 2025. After his utterly disgraceful and transparently political decision to yank the game from the city in 2021, Manfred ought to be groveling in apology. Instead, he mostly whiffed.
In 2021, you may recall, MLB went along with the lies of leftists like Stacey “Election Denier” Abrams regarding Georgia’s election integrity law. Given the questions from both sides about the outcome of elections in the state, Governor Kemp and his fellow Republicans were right to shore things up.
Predictably, however, rather than debate the merit of policy choices, Democrats ran around shrieking “Racism!” President Joe “Unity” Biden decried the law as “un-American” and an “atrocity” and laughably asserted that the legislation “makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.” He said he’d “strongly support” moving the All-Star Game in retribution.
The demagoguery from the president and others provided all the cover Manfred needed to punish Atlanta and Georgia — which, as we noted at the time, actually punished the minority business owners who lost out on $100 million in revenue from game-related economic activity.
In the end, this lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan and longtime Georgia resident gained immense satisfaction from the Braves proceeding to win the 2021 World Series — in Houston, Texas, no less, another state that had passed an election integrity law. It was simply marvelous to watch Braves fans boo Manfred as he choked through the words about it being his “honor and pleasure” to have to present the World Series trophy to the team, the city, and the state he recklessly slandered a few short months earlier.
Joe Biden, by the way, still hosted the Braves at the White House after that win — albeit with a White House race-based smear against the team’s Native American-honoring name. You just can’t win with these people.
As for Manfred, he’s now singing a different tune.
“I commend … the entire Braves organization,” Manfred said in announcing the 2025 game. “As a model of success on and off the field, the Braves deserve to host the All-Star Game.” He added, “We look forward to working with the Braves and local leaders to deliver a memorable All-Star Week that brings people together and benefits the community in many ways.”
Mmm, bringing people together. That’s what baseball is about, and we’re glad to see Manfred finally remembers that.
He also remembered that people weren’t happy with him two years ago for dividing people by politicizing a baseball game. “I made the decision in 2021 to move the event,” he said Thursday, “and I understand — believe me — that people had then, and probably still have, different views as to the merits of that decision. What’s most important is that the Atlanta Braves are a great organization.”
The Braves were a great organization in 2021, though at the time Manfred considered that secondary to making a grandstanding political point.
It’s telling that he did not remember to apologize or say anything further about his gross treatment of the city and state he now honors — an honor extended with the law in Georgia still almost entirely in place. He also did not remember to recognize that he was wrong on the merits. Georgia had record turnout in 2022 despite Democrat cries of “voter suppression.”
“Georgia’s voting laws haven’t changed,” Kemp noted, “but it’s good to see the MLB’s misguided understanding of them has.”
That Manfred intends to just sweep all that dirt off the plate as if he didn’t make a dirty play is deserving of another round of boos. We suppose, however, that we ought to be glad that Atlanta will get another crack at hosting the All-Star Game less than two years from now. Here’s hoping it’s under a different MLB commissioner and definitely a different president.
By pushing for name verification on social media, the GOP presidential candidate betrayed an ignorance of the importance of free speech.
Douglas Andrews
It’s too early to tell what if any fallout will come Nikki Haley’s way for her recent promise to deny the privacy and anonymity of those who post on social media. But if the reaction at Not the Bee is any indication, the former South Carolina governor and current Republican presidential candidate really stepped in it.
“Nikki Haley says ‘every person on social media should be verified by their name’ when she becomes president,” reads Not the Bee’s headline. “I’ll assume this is her dropping out of the race.”
That’ll prove to be an incorrect assumption, but the point is a good one: Republicans are supposed to be the party of free speech and other constitutional rights, while the Democrats are the thugs, the goons, the antifas, the censors, the speech suppressors, the safe-spacers, the doxxers.
Anyway, the problem with social media isn’t anonymity. After all, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison used the pseudonym “Publius” to publish The Federalist Papers. No, the problem with social media is ideological censorship on the one hand, and its addiction, familial breakdown, and educational failure on the other.
To be fair, here’s exactly what Haley said Tuesday on Fox News’s “Voters’ Voices”: “Every person on social media should be verified by their name. First of all, it’s a national security threat. When you do that, all of the sudden people have to stand by what they say. And it gets rid of the Russian bots, the Iranian bots, and the Chinese bots.”
Haley never spelled out the specific “national security threat” posed by anonymous posting on social media, but she didn’t need to. As threats go, we suspect it’s far enough down the list so as not to merit serious consideration. And who knew that Russian, Iranian, and Chinese bots were such a grave threat that they’d necessitate a suspension of our constitutional rights?
Think of it this way: How is Nikki Haley’s proposal to “out” private citizens any different than doing away with the secret ballot in our nation’s elections? How is it any different than New York Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul’s sleazy “hate speech” surveillance efforts? How is it any different than Big Labor’s thuggish “card-check” practice of going door to door and strong-arming folks into signing a petition to organize and collectively bargain and pull union dues out of the paychecks of its members? How is it any different than the Left’s push for so-called donor transparency, by which the names of all donors to all political causes are made publicly available? Ask Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich how that worked out.
“Here’s the problem, aside from constitutionality,” writes David Strom at Hot Air. “Anonymous accounts also empower people to express unpopular views that could get people ‘canceled’ much more freely, and allow people to stay off the radar of overzealous security state types who might, for instance, send the FBI after you for opposing abortion or being a conservative Catholic.”
Whoa, wait a sec. FBI agents wouldn’t conduct a heavily armed early morning raid on a peaceful pro-life activist and his wife and young children, would they? And they wouldn’t snoop around Catholic churches looking for “radical traditional Catholic hate groups,” would they?
Where, then, did Haley get such a cockamamie idea? It’s hard to know, but perhaps this 10-year-old tweet from someone named “Real Donald Trump” can tell us something: “It should be mandatory that all haters and losers use their real name or identification when tweeting — they will no longer be so brave!”
We’re sympathetic to the argument being put forth by both Haley and Trump about the lack of civility and accountability on social media. At times, the place is a cesspool. But the solution isn’t to “out” law-abiding citizens who might prefer to exercise their First Amendment rights without risking ostracism within their community or at the workplace.
The top news source of young Americans is literally controlled by the military of a foreign adversary.
Erick Erickson
On May 2, 2011, American soldiers raided Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and recovered an undated letter to the United States. It was a propagandistic letter calling for endless wars against American imperialism. It circulated on several news sites including The Guardian. On the day Chinese dictator Xi Jinping met with American President Joe Biden in San Francisco, the letter began circulating on TikTok, a website controlled by the Chinese military.
Thousands of American kids began circulating and sharing bin Laden’s anti-American commentary. “Continue the war if you will. Justice is the strongest army, and security is the best way of life, but it slipped out of your grasp the day you made the Jews victorious in occupying our land and killing our brothers in Palestine. The path to security is for you to lift your oppression from us,” bin Laden wrote.
“This has left me very disillusioned, and I feel the same exact way I felt when I was deconstructing Christianity,” said one TikToker encouraging others to “go read it.” “In the last 20 minutes my entire viewpoint on the entire life I lead and have lived has changed. Please read that entire letter,” said another. “It is so mind-f—ing me that terrorism has been sold as this idea to the American people… that this random group of people just woke up one day and suddenly f—ing hate you,” another said, who went on to say, “the actions of 9/11 and those acts committed against the USA and its people were all just the buildup of our government failing other nations.” On and on they went — thousands of mostly young women claiming their eyes were suddenly open to 9/11 being justified and terrorism really being a noble resistance against an oppressor.
Many of the people referenced the British newspaper The Guardian publishing the letter. The Guardian took the letter down in response to massive traffic on its site. That just further convinced people of a government conspiracy to hide Osama bin Laden’s truth.
TikTok is an app overseen by the Chinese military and Chinese communist party. It can run clever ads all it wants and hire as many Republicans and Democrats as it likes to persuade Americans that it is not nefarious, but that does not change the fact that at its root TikTok is a massive spy and disinformation platform controlled by China. It just so happened, in its algorithm, to elevate videos of people discovering bin Laden’s letter on the day China’s leader met the American president in San Francisco. The TikTokers all conclude terrorism is a justifiable act of resistance against oppressors.
TikTok collects data on people who use the site. It feeds people disinformation. Its algorithm has chosen to show people pro-Hamas and anti-Israeli videos — the truths of the Palestinians. It has been the platform of preference to target teens and propagandize in favor of transgenderism and sex reassignment surgeries. It is also the top news source for Americans aged 18-29, according to numerous surveys.
In 2016 and 2020, the American news media became convinced that the American-owned companies Facebook and Twitter were disinformation platforms being used by Russia to promote Donald Trump. As we head into 2024, the top news source of young Americans is literally controlled by the military of a foreign adversary that not only uses the platform to spy on Americans, but also uses it to feed our youth malicious disinformation designed to turn them both against their basic biology and against the nation.
TikTok really must be destroyed in its present form. Former President Donald Trump pushed to shut down TikTok unless China gave up its control. Trump’s efforts were thwarted. Multiple states have banned TikTok from government devices and attempted to block the platform’s use at government locations. President Joe Biden has declined. A man who claims he is concerned about misinformation and disinformation seems wholly uninterested in shutting down China’s easy access into the lives and minds of our kids.
Just as notable, after seven years of mass media hysteria about Facebook, Twitter and misinformation, the American press corps seems wholly uninterested in what China is doing to our nation via TikTok.
Xi the dictator gets a standing ovation and an anti-fossil fuel deal, Trump ungagged, tough times for woke Miss Universe, and more.
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
The killer college professor: It took authorities long enough, but they finally made an arrest in the violent death of 69-year-old pro-Israel demonstrator Paul Kessler at a rally in the LA suburb of Thousand Oaks. As we noted at the time, Kessler got into a “physical altercation” with a pro-Hamas thug during which he “fell backwards and struck his head on the ground,” but the lack of information about his killer was, well, curious. As it turns out, that pro-Hamas thug, Loay Alnaji, is a 50-year-old computer science professor at Ventura County Community College, and he was arrested yesterday morning and charged with felony involuntary manslaughter and battery causing serious bodily injury. But what about “hate crime” charges? As the New York Post reports, Alnaji “has posted pro-Palestine messages on his personal social media pages.” Surely he wasn’t offended by Kessler’s haircut or his striped shirt when he smashed in his head with a megaphone. Sadly, this is what our colleges and universities have come to. As The Heritage Foundation’s Mike Gonzalez writes, “The oppressor-oppressed worldview that paints democratic Israel as the ‘oppressor’ and Palestinian terrorists as the ‘oppressed,’ so prevalent on college campuses, is pure Marxism.”
Xi the dictator gets a standing ovation and an anti-fossil fuel deal: China’s strongman Xi Jinping got the recognition he wanted on his summit trip to the U.S., even if Joe Biden later referred to him as a “dictator.” Asked to clarify, Biden said, “Well, look, he is. He’s a dictator in the sense that he — he is a guy who runs … a communist country that is based on a form of government totally different than ours.” We suppose it takes one to know one. After the summit, Xi showed up at a banquet featuring dozens of America’s top business execs and received a standing ovation. Most important, Xi won a favorable anti-fossil fuel agreement that serves only to weaken the U.S. Biden agreed to increase efforts to shut down more American fossil fuel production in order to benefit so-called renewable energy. Regarding the deal, Daniel Turner, founder and head of Power The Future, observed: “The agreement speaks heavily about advancing — doubling down and tripling down on renewables, wind and solar. The majority of them are made in China.” Put another way, Beijing just won a big manufacturing contract at the expense of American taxpayers, all while the ChiComs will keep polluting away.
Trump ungagged: In the New York City civil fraud show trial of Donald Trump, a woefully biased Democrat judge named Arthur Engoron had imposed a gag order on the former president to keep him from inconveniently exercising his First Amendment rights. And once again, Engoron has been corrected. As Fox News reports, Appeals Court Judge David Friedman “has lifted the gag order imposed on former President Donald Trump in his civil fraud trial stemming from state Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against him and the Trump Organization.” Yesterday, we noted that the Trump legal team had called for a mistrial, arguing that the “tangible and overwhelming” Trump hatred of Engoron and his principal law clerk has “tainted” the case. Perhaps they have a point, no? “I am pleased to see the Appellate Court restore some much-needed respect for constitutional rights in this political circus being orchestrated and enabled by the State Attorney General’s office,” said Trump lawyer Alina Habba. Donald Trump, however, was somewhat less restrained, calling Engoron “a disgrace” and James “the Worst and Least Respected Attorney General in the United States.”
Hunter’s fake news: In the Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction Files, Tulane University will be featuring a class titled “Media Polarization and Public Policy Impacts” in which one of the listed lecturers is Hunter Biden. The lectures will reportedly focus on media topics, including the problem of “fake news.” And no, this report is not fake news. Hunter is one of 10 guest speakers, but glaringly he is the only one without any official job title listed. So, will Hunter be explaining how to get members of the federal government to spike legitimate stories, like his laptop, by labeling them “fake news” or “Russian propaganda”?
Tough times for the woke Miss Universe pageant: Here’s some good news to take into the weekend: The 2023 Miss Universe pageant, which takes place tomorrow in El Salvador, has filed for bankruptcy. How, you ask, could the financial meltdown of the iconic pageant be construed as good news? Well, because it jumped the shark when it began to include “transgender” contestants. As Fox Business reports, “Thai business tycoon and transgender activist Anne Jakrajutatip … bought the organization for $20,000,000 in 2022. Jakrajutatip, who has international fame as a transgender celebrity, described the purchase at the time as ‘a strong, strategic addition to our portfolio.’” As it turns out, though, not so much. “I think the outrage about a trans woman coming to Miss Universe and preaching, ‘Bring the power back to women,’ couldn’t be more of an oxymoron,” opined TV host, reporter, and 2022 Miss Universe pageant judge Emily Austin yesterday upon hearing the news. “Socially and morally it’s just wrong. And people are starting to catch on that.” Indeed, let’s hope people keep catching on.
Santos bows out: Scandal-plagued freshman Congressman George Santos announced that he will not seek reelection in 2024 after the House Ethics Committee released its investigation into his 2022 campaign, which found “substantial evidence” of criminal behavior. Immediately after the Republican won his New York seat, flipping it from Democrats, accusations arose that he had engaged in deceitful and unethical behaviors in the running of his campaign. The bipartisan committee unanimously voted to refer Santos to the Justice Department, stating that his conduct “warrants public condemnation, is beneath the dignity of the office, and has brought severe discredit upon the House.” He faces a 23-count indictment that includes charges of wire fraud, money laundering, and lying, charges to which he has pleaded not guilty. The remaining question is whether the House will vote to expel him before his term ends.
Pelosi hammerman found guilty: On Thursday, a federal jury found David DePape guilty of assaulting and kidnapping Paul Pelosi, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. DePape is scheduled for sentencing in early December, though he still faces a state-level trial over charges of assault, burglary, and elder abuse. Mr. Pelosi, who is still recovering from the incident, testified during the trial that he was awoken that night when “the door opened and a very large man came in with a hammer in one hand and some [zip] ties in the other hand.” DePape demanded to know “Where’s Nancy?” before beginning his assault. An emotional DePape took the stand in his own defense, claiming that he had not intended to hurt Pelosi, felt bad about it now, and would apologize to Pelosi if he saw him in person. We’re still waiting for leftists to apologize for falsely pinning the attack on the Right.
Headlines
Biden not expected to be charged in special counsel probe (Daily Wire)
Biden signs temporary spending bill that heads off a government shutdown (NPR)
CNN stealth edits headline that said Jewish homicide victim “fell and hit his head” (Washington Free Beacon)
Gavin Newsom ignores intelligence warnings, strengthens ties with CCP-linked climate group (Washington Free Beacon)
What could go wrong? $12 million NIH lab in Colorado will import and infect bats from Asia (Daily Mail)
Armed homeowner who defended family in driveway shootout says his Second Amendment rights in “jeopardy” (Fox News)
Supreme Court declines to reinstate Florida law regulating drag shows (National Review)
Anheuser-Busch’s marketing chief to finally exit after Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney fiasco (New York Post) | Bud Light paid Mulvaney six figures to destroy its brand (PJ Media)
Humor: Californians set up President Xi dummy so Newsom will keep the cities clean all the time (Babylon Bee)
Despite an abundance of hype and massive government subsidies, the news keeps getting worse for electric vehicles.
Brian Mark Weber
There’s a lot of talk these days about electric vehicles. People say EVs are good for the environment. They’re breaking our dependence on fossil fuels. They’re fast and cool. But they’re also expensive — so expensive, in fact, that EV automakers are worried about the massive amount of money they’re losing.
“Ford lost an estimated $36,000 on each of the 36,000 electric vehicles it delivered to dealers in the quarter — even more than its estimated $32,350 loss per EV in the second quarter,” according to Reuters. “During Ford’s second-quarter earnings briefing in July, Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley said the company would slow the ramp-up of money-losing EVs, shifting investment to Ford’s commercial vehicle unit and citing plans to quadruple sales of gas-electric hybrids over the next five years.”
Losing that much money on every EV is bad news for Ford, but it’s even worse for General Motors, which postponed the construction of a $4 billion electric vehicle plant in Michigan. “GM now plans to begin construction of its next-generation EVs at Orion Assembly in suburban Detroit by late 2025 instead of next year,” reports CNBC. “The factory currently produces Chevrolet Bolt EVs, which GM will cease producing at the end of this year. The delay is the latest sign of potential trouble for the ambitious multi-billion-dollar plans of traditional automakers to move to electric vehicles.”
GM remains committed to producing EVs exclusively by 2035, but that seems like a pipe dream the way the EV market is trending.
The big automakers didn’t pledge to go electric because they care about saving the planet. It’s all about government regulations and mandates. If they can make money off the latest fad, they’ll jump on board regardless of its impact on Mother Earth. Now that it’s not turning out to be profitable, well…
It’s not only the Big Three that are taking a financial hit. The sophisticated guy sipping a caramel latte and plugging his Tesla into an EV station at the local convenience store looks like he’s on the cutting edge of a technological and social revolution. But there’s a higher overall cost than the construction worker pumping gallons of 89 octane into his 2015 Ford F-150.
In a report titled “Overcharged Expectations: Masking the True Costs of Electric Vehicles,” the Texas Public Policy Foundation found that it costs the equivalent of roughly $17 per gallon to charge an electric car due to pressure on the energy grid caused by charging stations and the large federal subsidies helping to lower vehicle costs.
“The cost of electricity for EV owners is equal to $1.21 per gallon of gasoline,” the report says, “but the cost of charging equipment and charging losses, averaged out over 10 years and 120,000 miles, is $1.38 per gallon equivalent on top of that.” That’s where government steps in to hide the true cost, but the Texas Public Policy Foundation pulls back the curtain: “Adding the costs of the subsidies to the true cost of fueling an EV would equate to an EV owner paying $17.33 per gallon of gasoline. And these estimates do not include the hundreds of billions more in subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (2022) for various aspects of the EV supply chain, particularly for battery manufacturing.”
As for the batteries, the report also discovered that the decade-long downward price trend of lithium-ion battery costs “has largely ended.” That’s bad news, too. EV drivers who need to replace their car battery will get a rude awakening. “Electric car batteries degrade over time,” reports automotive writer Madison Cates, “and while gas-powered car batteries can easily be replaced for $100-$200, it’s not that simple for electric cars. A Swedish car owner experienced this the hard way this week when they received a repair bill for $21,000 for their Tesla battery. Electric car batteries are not built to last; when they go out, you can expect a hefty repair bill.”
But wait — there’s more. Buyers willing to fork over the extra money for an EV will indeed have something of a novelty, but perhaps not for long. As a study by ISeeCars found, “While the average 5-year depreciation for all vehicles is 38.8 percent, electric vehicles are more than 10 percentage points worse at 49.1 percent.”
According to iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer, “Between incentives that effectively lower an EV’s price before it’s even purchased and concerns about battery replacement costs, used electric vehicles have always suffered higher depreciation than equivalent gasoline cars,” and “this pattern will continue until electric vehicles don’t require heavy incentives to sell and consumers gain confidence in their long-term ownership costs.”
It’s no surprise, then, that EV sales are slumping. Consumers were understandably caught up in the hype, but hype isn’t enough when reality sets in.
Privileged leftist millionaires are behind many of the U.S.-based pro-Hamas protests.
Emmy Griffin
Neville Roy Singham and his wife, Jodie Evans, both are multimillionaires. Both are also activist leaders of several far-left “anti-war” organizations. The irony should be lost on no one. Singham’s organization, The People’s Forum, and Evans’s organization, Code Pink, make the claim that they are peace activists.
The People’s Forum and Coke Pink are the front groups used to bankroll pro-Palestinian (read: pro-Hamas) protests. The People’s Forum has organized at least four protests since the October 7 massacre, the first one occurring on October 8. The New York Post reports, “Public disclosure forms shows that multimillionaire Singham and his wife Evans have donated over $20.4 million to The People’s Forum from 2017 to 2022 through a series of shell organizations and donor advisory groups — accounting for nearly all of the group’s funding.”
At first glance, it may be tempting to mentally write off these ultra leftists as demonstrating more of the same tactics we’ve seen used by BLM and antifa. Namely, bankroll and train activists for their specific causes and keep the grift going. However, when one digs deeper into who Singham and Evans are and who they support, a different picture emerges. They have pretty deep ties to the Chinese. So deep, in fact, that Singham is actually based in Beijing.
Back in August, The New York Times published a piece excoriating the couple and calling them Chinese propaganda disseminators. According to the Times:
Mr. Singham says he does not work at the direction of the Chinese government. But the line between him and the propaganda apparatus is so blurry that he shares office space — and his groups share staff members — with a company whose goal is to educate foreigners about “the miracles that China has created on the world stage.”
While Singham staunchly denies that he takes orders from or works for any political parties or government organizations, he is openly a Marxist who sings the praises of Hugo Chávez and Maoism, so it’s hardly surprising that he should voice Chinese propaganda. He believes it, and it has gotten him in trouble with India. According to the Times of India, “In what could further strain its already tense ties with India, China has been stonewalling summonses issued by the Enforcement Directorate to Shanghai base Neville Roy Singham to join investigation for allegedly funneling funds to media portal NewsClick.”
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has been calling for the DOJ and Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Singham to see if he has indeed violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by using his finances and influence to help spread CCP propaganda on behalf of the Chinese.
Even House Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) returned funds that were donated by this couple because of their suspicious ties to the Chinese.
Aside from the heavy suspicion that these two far-left activists are little better than Chinese tools, there is the fact that the protests they are together funding through The People’s Forum are fighting for continued war — because that’s what will happen if Israel isn’t permitted to destroy Hamas utterly. They are ensuring that the people of Palestine will continue to live under the oppressive regime of terrorists who steal their money and live lives of luxury in Qatar.
Aren’t communists supposed to be against oppressors? Perhaps because of the racial aspect that has further poisoned an already derelict ideology, Hamas oppressors rank lower because their skin is browner?
More likely, it’s because the Chinese support Hamas and any controversy that further divides the American people.
This couple is one to keep an eye on, and if Team Biden isn’t asleep at the wheel, it will nip this in the bud. We’re not holding our breath, however.
Airbnb Has Gone Downhill — In recent years, Airbnb has raised its prices to the point where it is no longer competitive with hotels. In most cases, the cleaning fees alone exceed the actual cost per night. What went wrong?
HBO Caught Using Fake Accounts — The CEO of HBO has issued an apology for using fake accounts to label critics as racist and misogynist.
A Tale of Two Protests — Two very different groups of protesters marched on Capitol Hill this week: Israel supporters who sang and prayed for the victims of Hamas terrorists, and Hamas supporters who chanted anti-Semitic invective and assaulted a police officer.
The Tragedy of OnlyFans — More and more women are getting fired from their jobs after starting OnlyFans pages. OnlyFans has made a life of prostitution accessible for people who would never consider it otherwise.
“Inflation is falling. Groceries and gas are cheaper. Wages are rising. Democrats’ economic policies are working. Rather than try to cut Social Security to pay for tax breaks to the ultrawealthy, Republicans should join us in our efforts that actually help working families.” —Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)
“Leaders of government and industry, you can count on the United States. We’re delivering on our promises and we’re doubling down on our progress.” —President Joe Biden
“Median household wealth has grown by 37% in real terms since before the pandemic.” —Joe Biden
“Our model for growing is delivering real results for all Americans.” —Joe Biden
A Blind Squirrel Finds a Nut
“He’s a dictator in the sense that he… runs … a communist country that is based on a form of government totally different than ours.” —Joe Biden regarding Chinese President Xi Jinping
Dezinformatsiya
“As BBC News covered initial reports that Israeli forces had entered Gaza’s main hospital, we said that ‘medical teams and Arab speakers’ were being targeted. This was incorrect and misquoted a Reuters report. We should have said IDF forces included medical teams and Arabic speakers for this operation. We apologise for this error.” —BBC
For the Record
“When playgrounds, schools and mosques become armories and launching pads for indiscriminate rocket fire into Israel, the Jewish state is left with no choice but to take the fight to Hamas, knowing full well that innocents will perish.” —Armstrong Williams
Is the Fix In?
“I want to talk about Governor Newsom. Want to thank him. He’s been one hell of a governor, man. Matter of fact, he could be anything he wants. He could have the job I’m looking for.” —Joe Biden
Hot Air
“Will we act with the speed and urgency necessary to dramatically curb carbon emissions and avert the climate catastrophe that threatens us all?” —Joe Biden
“It’s the only existential threat to humanity. We either get this right or there’s not gonna be a whole lot of people around to talk about it.” —Joe Biden
“I’m working with our Congress to dramatically increase international climate financing.” —Joe Biden
Coming Full Circle
“MLB just announced Atlanta will host the 2025 all star game. Good for Atlanta and the Braves, but how dumb does MLB look? They completely bought the Jim Crow 2.0 [crap] from Joe Biden & Stacey Abrams & now are essentially admitting they were 100% wrong. What idiots.” —Clay Travis
“I guess Jim Crow magically disappeared.” —Greg Price
“Georgia’s voting laws haven’t changed, but it’s good to see the MLB’s misguided understanding of them has.” —Georgia Governor Brian Kemp
“They should let Brian Kemp throw out the first pitch since their move failed to defeat him.” —Erick Erickson
Upright
“When the Founders set this system up, they wanted a vibrant expression of faith in the public square because they believed that a general moral consensus and virtue was necessary to maintain this grand experiment in self-governance that we created — a government of, by, and for the people. We don’t have a king in charge, we don’t have a middle man, so we’ve got to keep morality amongst us, so that we have accountability. And so they wanted faith to be a big part of that. The separation of church and state is a misnomer. People misunderstand it.” —House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)
“The very thing the left insists shouldn’t be tolerated in the public square — faith — is the answer we need most!” —Gary Bauer
And Last…
“Leftists only care about the Constitution when they’re defending what’s not in it.” —Nate Jackson
“If you kids think Bin Laden made some good points, wait’ll I tell you about a vegetarian former art student with an ironic mustache whose impassioned manifesto about the Zionist oppression of his people sparked a worldwide movement.” —David Burge
Israel is finding a growing amount of evidence of Hamas’s terror operations around the Shifa hospital in Gaza. While many Israelis believe October 7th is the worst event in Jewish history since the Holocaust. they also feel the tragedy is bringing out the best in their people. The 2024 elections are one year away. Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar, an outspoken critic of Israel and U.S. support for the Jewish state is facing a challenge. a story of hope. A Georgia Pastor who was in Israel when the war broke out… Is thanking God for what he calls his miraculous rescue.
Understanding Our Times: Olive Tree representatives Pastor Josh Schwartz and Ken Mikle give a current events and prophecy update. Access the short video at the link below or above . . . . The post appeared first on Olive Tree Ministries .
Evangelist Ray Comfort and his Christian organization Living Waters have been under fire in the media this week after Politico published a piece dubbing the group a “far-right organization” — all while calling out newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) ties to Comfort and his work.
Comfort responded in an interview with CBN Digital, stating he was unsurprised by Politico’s handling of the story and that people are free to watch the videos for the full context and real story. He said persecution and such treatment of Johnson and Living Waters is “par for the course for any Christian.”
Listen to them on the latest episode of “Quick Start”
The headline of the Politico article in question read, “Mike Johnson is a board member of a Christian publishing house that called ‘monkeypox’ a penalty for being gay.” The text itself went on to highlight Johnson’s role as a board member with Living Waters, and evidently attempted to make the connection seem troubling.
Comfort’s biblical views on homosexuality and abortion — among other issues — came under fire in the article, with these perspectives and some of his ministry videos and articles being summarized and presented through a secular media lens, one which can often leave out key context and meaning.
“In a Living Waters article published in March, Comfort also bemoaned the fact that Christians could no longer call homosexuality ‘morally wrong,’” one line read, going on to quote the evangelist, who said, “There was a time in America when we could say these things without any real repercussions.”
Of course, millions of Americans hold to this view. While it’s true support for gay and lesbian relationships hit a high of 71% in 2022, that proportion fell in 2023 to 64%. Regardless, Comfort’s perspective — a traditionally biblical one — is in step with most Bible-believing churches.
And another section of the article claimed Living Waters has “also published videos in which people try to stop women from getting abortions, with the presenter badgering one woman entering a clinic by telling her: ‘You think you’re getting rid of a problem. You’re gonna cause yourself a problem for the rest of your life. You’ll never forget this day.’”
Here, too, it must be noted that what some will see as “badgering” others will frame as offering a loving warning. This, too, is an issue where millions agree wholeheartedly with Comfort and Living Waters. Yet, based on a cursory reading of the Politico piece, there’s little indication that might be the case.
As for Comfort’s reaction to the article, he told CBN Digital he wasn’t surprised “in the slightest” by the outlet’s perspective on him and Living Waters, nor was he flummoxed over the news site’s framing of his viewpoints on a plethora of the issues.
“It’s expected that certain media outlets will slant and misrepresent certain facts to suit their own purposes,” Comfort said. “This was the case with this article. But the real facts are available for everyone to plainly see in the videos they referenced.”
Comfort has, himself, also released a response video you can watch here:
Another area the Politico piece focused on was one of Comfort’s videos about monkeypox, which the evangelist believes was wrongly framed. The lede of the article read, in part, “House Speaker Mike Johnson sits on the board of a Christian publishing house that suggested getting ‘monkeypox’ was ‘an inevitable and appropriate penalty’ for being gay.”
But Comfort said the “monkeypox issue was posed as a question rather than a statement,” and said people are free to watch the footage for themselves.
“Conflict gets news articles read, and this created conflict,” he said. “However, the video to which they linked is a most loving interaction I had with two homosexuals who both listened respectfully, and were clearly thankful for our conversation.”
You can watch the video:
The lede went on to claim Comfort suggested “former President Barack Obama was rumored to be the antichrist, because of his ‘leanings toward Islam.’” Again, the evangelist clarified there’s much more to the story than the Politico scaffolding lets on.
“The list for antichrist candidates down through the ages has included every man and his dog,” he told CBN Digital. “That was just part of the list I’d heard over the last 50 years. Barack Obama and Donald Trump have been rumored to be candidates — political bias certainly comes into play as to whether they are potential candidates. Obama made it because of an item I saw on CNN.”
A look at the article penned by Comfort and linked by Politico clearly shows he was documenting historical speculation surrounding the Antichrist. A portion of Comfort’s piece reads:
Here, now, are the compelling historical figures who were said to be the antichrist.
In the early days of Christianity, some believed that the Roman Emperor Nero was the Antichrist due to his horrifying persecution of Christians. He fits the bill.
And so did Adolf Hitler. Think of the atrocities of World War II and the Holocaust, and it’s easy to see that he embodied the Antichrist.
More modern candidates have been Henry Kissinger. He was often rumored to be the Antichrist, particularly during the Cold War era. So was Barack Obama, with his leanings toward Islam. And then, there’s Vladimir Putin. Plus, there are those who are convinced it’s Donald Trump. And then there is King Charles. Many Christians are certain he is the Antichrist, pointing to, among a host of things, him being able to speak some Arabic.
As for the broader issue observed in media of late: attempts to tie Johnson to controversy. Comfort said these sorts of reactions are simply “par for the course for any Christian.”
“The Bible says, ‘All who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution’ (2 Timothy 3:12),” he said. “Mike is a very high-profile, godly man, so it’s to be expected from a sin-loving world.”
As for Living Waters being described as a “far-right organization,” Comfort said he and Politico might have very different definitions of what this entails.
“If far-right means that we don’t want babies killed in the womb — that we only want that which is right in the sight of God, then so be it — we are far right,” he said.
***As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up for Faithwire’s daily newsletter and download the CBN News app, developed by our parent company, to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***
This video DISMANTLES Darwinian evolution. In this presentation, Dr. Jennifer Rivera teaches us about the history of the Galápagos Islands, what natural selection is, and whether natural selection contradicts biblical creation.
If you’d like to explore the Galápagos Islands with us, click here: https://AnswersInGenesis.org/outreach/event/galapagos-islands-2024/
========
Answers in Genesis is an apologetics (Christianity-defending) ministry dedicated to enabling Christians to defend their faith and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ effectively.
On our YouTube channel, you’ll find answers to your most pressing questions about key issues like creation, evolution, science, the age of the earth, and social issues. We desire to train believers to develop a worldview based on the Bible and expose the bankruptcy of evolutionary ideas and their implications.
You’ll hear from top teachers such as Ken Ham, Bryan Osborne, Dr. Georgia Purdom, Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson, Tim Chaffey, Bodie Hodge, Dr. Gabriela Haynes, Dr. Terry Mortenson, and more.
He has since that time worked as a private investment adviser, at which difficult profession he has been highly successful, and he has written a number of books, among which the monumental Great Deformation (Public Affairs Press, 2013), is the most notable. The Great Money Bubble contains many vital lessons about money and macroeconomics, and in what follows I’ll discuss a few of these. But I’m not able to assess one part of the book.
Stockman identifies a common failing in Keynesian economics and in the monetarism of Milton Friedman and his disciple Ben Bernanke, the most popular alternative to Keynesian economics among mainstream economists. According to both of these doctrines, it is necessary to raise aggregate demand to boost employment during a depression, with government spending, according to Keynes, and with monetary expansion, according to Friedman. Stockman denies the need for the government to manage, holding that the free market can take care of itself. He says:
As a congressman from Michigan in the late 1970s. . . . I didn’t think it was the role of politicians to second-guess economic data . . . that resulted from the interactions of millions of workers, employers, entrepreneurs, savers, investors, and speculators on the free market. Decades later, I still don’t. Indeed, the idea that market-driven GDP should find its own natural level without a heavy-handed assist from the government was then and remains today the opposite of the reigning orthodoxy. Rather than vibrant, free, productive capitalism, that orthodoxy sees the U.S. economy as a self-contained, hermetically sealed system that is always badly malfunctioning and forever falling short of its potential, thereby requiring constant external stimulus from Washington via its fiscal and central banking branches. . . . That wasn’t remotely true even a half century ago when the U.S. economy was more inward looking, but it’s utterly preposterous today. That’s because the domestic U.S. economy is self-evidently wide open to the overpowering influences of global trade, capital flows, and the relative labor and production costs everywhere on the planet, all at once.
(Mary Dowling) We came to the point where we think that we’re going to prevent bad weather by eliminating fossil fuels. It’s just about the most nonsensical, illogical thing that I can imagine, and the whole world is caught up in this nonsense. ~ Climatologist, Judith Curry
In the interview below with John Stossel, climatologist Judith Curry explores the origins and problems with Climate Change as it exists today.
She notes that the IPCC’s role in climate change goes back to the 1980s, and the UN environmental program had this big environmental, anti-capitalism agenda. They hated the oil companies and seized on the climate change issue as one to move their policies along.
“The 1992 climate Treaty of the UN to prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change, 196 countries, including the US scientists, this was in 1992 before there was any evidence that humans were impacting the climate and they went ahead with this treaty so you can see that the policy cart was way out in front of the scientific horse from the very beginning. View article →
Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., joined ‘FOX & Friends First’ to discuss Biden’s China policy and bombshell findings from an illegal Chinese biolab in California. #FOXNews
This week’s economic news was unexpectedly good: inflation is down from 9.1 percent last summer to 3.2 percent now. In response, the Dow closed Wednesday at its highest level since mid-August. Observers think the Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates further, freeing up capital for new investment. Unemployment is still low. According to Forbes, financial strategists largely expect the stock market to continue rising next year as well.
Why, then, are so many Americans so unhappy with America?
In a recent CNN poll, 72 percent said things in the US are going badly. In a Gallup survey, only 19 percent said they are satisfied with the way things are going in our nation. In an ABC News/Ipsos poll, only 23 percent said the country is heading in the right direction.
Economic uncertainty is one factor: the pandemic taught us that things can change seemingly overnight. Prices remain high, and many parts of the country are still struggling in this postindustrial economy.
However, as Jude Russo writes in the American Conservative, “the dysphoria may lie deeper.”
Russo points to the fact that affiliation with civil society—churches, charities, clubs—is at an all-time low, as are marriage rates. A plurality of Americans are not associated with any organized religion. Confidence in public institutions has declined precipitously as well—Americans trust small business and the military but little else. Crime rates remain far higher than they were in the pre-Covid era.
Then Russo sardonically draws a lesson I was surprised to read in a secular news outlet: “It’s almost as if human flourishing requires more than material prosperity.”
He adds, “In the absence of something like true religion, it’s unclear what there is besides accumulation.” And he concludes, “Until we figure it out, economic progress—if even tenable in a sustained way with declining social capital—is beside the point.”
Russo’s observations are obviously true to Scripture. Paul observed, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:10). We might dismiss his monetary warning since he was not likely to have been a man of great wealth (read 2 Corinthians 11:23–33 the next time you feel sorry for yourself). However, King Solomon was a different story: his income has been calculated as exceeding $1.1 billion a year, and yet he observed, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income” (Ecclesiastes 5:10).
Russo’s conclusions are also true to life: no matter how much wealth we accumulate, we can always lose it today or gain more tomorrow. We can never have enough to have enough.
Why, then, don’t more people agree that “human flourishing requires more than material prosperity”? Why don’t they see that our problem is spiritual rather than material? Why don’t they respond to our “God-shaped emptiness” by turning to God?
Wisdom from a second-century source
My thoughts today were spurred by a homily I read from an unknown second-century pastor. Commenting on the Lord’s lament, “All day long my name is constantly blasphemed” (Isaiah 52:5 NIV), he said:
Why is the Lord’s name blasphemed? Because we say one thing and do another. When they hear the words of God on our lips, unbelievers are amazed at their beauty and power, but when they see that these words have no effect in our lives, their admiration turns to scorn, and they dismiss such words as myths and fairy tales.
They listen, for example, when we tell them that God has said: “It is no credit to you if you love those who love you, but only if you love your enemies and those who hate you.” They are full of admiration at such extraordinary virtue, but when they observe that we not only fail to love people who hate us, but even those who love us, they laugh us to scorn, and the Name is blasphemed.
My guess is that this pastor from nineteen centuries ago would answer my question today in the same way: “We say one thing and do another.” When God’s people make the news for doing ungodly things, skeptics are justified in their skepticism.
This is not true of other messages and messengers. If a physician has a gambling problem, his medical practice can continue. If the CEO of a construction company has an affair, his company can keep building skyscrapers.
But Christians claim that our message leads people to become a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We claim that God produces “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” in those who live by his Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). As a result, when we “say one thing and do another,” people won’t care what we say.
In addition, sinners don’t like being told they’re sinners, so if they can reject the messenger, they think they can ignore the message. And Satan knows he cannot defeat the truth, so he seeks to undermine the truth-bearers, which puts Christians in his tempting crosshairs every day.
“Oft what we would we cannot do”
All this to say, the more secularized our culture becomes, the more Spirit-filled we must become. We must be the change we wish to see, but we cannot do this apart from the transforming Spirit of God. The English poet Francis Turner Palgrave’s prayer should therefore be ours:
Whilst Thy will we would pursue Oft what we would we cannot do. The sun may stand in zenith skies But on the soul thick midnight lies.
O Lord of lights, ’tis Thou alone Canst make our darkened hearts Thine own.
Would you surrender your day to God’s Spirit now (Ephesians 5:18)? Would you ask him to manifest the “fruit” of his Spirit so powerfully that others see Christ in you?
In short, would you ask your Lord to make your “darkened heart” his own today?
The report published on Nov. 10 by The BMJ found the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has received an unprecedented number of reports attributed to COVID-19 vaccines, and there aren’t enough staff to meet the requirements for reviewing and following up with serious reports, including deaths. Additionally, the investigation revealed that VAERS is neither transparent, user-friendly, nor responsive, and suggests the government essentially maintains two VAERS systems—only one of which the public can access.
Co-managed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and CDC, VAERS collects reports of symptoms, diagnoses, hospital admissions, and deaths after vaccination to capture post-marketing safety signals and determine if there are any unusual or unexpected reporting patterns for adverse events.
According to the CDC, healthcare providers are “strongly encouraged” to report any adverse event following vaccination to VAERS, even if they’re unclear whether the vaccine caused the adverse event. In contrast, vaccine manufacturers are required by law to report all adverse events that “come to their attention.”
(Mary Dowling) We came to the point where we think that we’re going to prevent bad weather by eliminating fossil fuels. It’s just about the most nonsensical, illogical thing that I can imagine, and the whole world is caught up in this nonsense. ~ Climatologist, Judith Curry
Truth2Freedom's Blog 