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
The US on Friday began retaliatory strikes in the Middle East after three American service members were killed in Jordan on Sunday.
The strikes began in Iraq and Syria, US officials confirmed, according to ABC News.
The strikes come after Joe Biden gave Iran plenty of time to prepare for a ‘multi-tiered response’ after more than 160 attacks on US military bases in Iraq, Syria and Jordan.
Three U.S. Servicemembers were killed and were 34 injured with 8 requiring to be transported to another location for treatment. The troops were reportedly in a tent structure sleeping when they were attacked by a UAS, or unmanned aircraft system, late Saturday night.
The three servicemembers killed in action were all members of the 718th Engineer Company, a reservist unit out of Fort Moore, Georgia.
The Pentagon released the names of three deceased servicemembers:
Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46 of Carrollton, GA
Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, GA
Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, Savannah, GA
deceased servicemembers from left to right: Rivers, Sanders, Moffett
More on this developing story from CBS News:
The last time Joe Biden responded to a deadly attack on American soldiers, he ended up droning children in Afghanistan.
Biden killed an entire family just so he could look like he ‘fought back’ after a suicide bomber killed 13 US service members in Kabul during his botched withdrawal.
However, no disciplinary action was taken against anyone involved in the drone strike.
Recently, Alistair Begg made the case that attending a family member’s unbiblical wedding may be the compassionate thing to do. In this video, Todd respectfully offers his perspective on this issue as a Bible-believing Christian.
Jesus’ reply, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me,” is the sixth “I AM” statement in John’s gospel (cf. 6:35; 8:12; 10:7, 9, 11, 14; 11:25; the seventh comes in 15:1, 5). Jesus alone is the way to God (10:7–9; Acts 4:12) because He alone is the truth (John 1:14, 17; 18:37; Rev. 3:7; 19:11) about God and He alone possesses the life of God (John 1:4; 5:26; 11:25; 1 John 1:1; 5:20). The purpose of this gospel is to make those things known, so they are repeated throughout the book so as to lead people to faith and salvation (20:31).
The Bible teaches that God may be approached exclusively through His only-begotten Son. Jesus alone is the “door of the sheep” (10:7); all others are “thieves and robbers” (v. 8), and it is only the one who “enters through [Him who] will be saved” (v. 9). The way of salvation is a narrow path entered through a small, narrow gate, and few find it (Matt. 7:13–14; cf. Luke 13:24). “There is salvation in no one else,” Peter boldly affirmed, “for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Thus, it is “he who believes in the Son [who] has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36), and “no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11), because “there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).
The postmodern belief that there are many paths to religious truth is a satanic lie. F. F. Bruce writes,
He [Jesus] is, in fact, the only way by which men and women may come to the Father; there is no other way. If this seems offensively exclusive, let it be borne in mind that the one who makes this claim is the incarnate Word, the revealer of the Father. If God has no avenue of communication with mankind apart from his Word … mankind has no avenue of approach to God apart from that same Word, who became flesh and dwelt among us in order to supply such an avenue of approach. (The Gospel of John [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983], 298)
Jesus alone reveals God (John 1:18; cf. 3:13; 10:30–38; 12:45; 14:9; Col. 1:15, 19; 2:9; Heb. 1:3), and no one who rejects His proclamation of the truth can legitimately claim to know God (John 5:23; 8:42–45; 15:23; Matt. 11:27; 1 John 2:23; 2 John 9). It was because the early Christians taught that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation that Christianity became known as “The Way” (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22).[1]
The Only Way Home
John 14:6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
The exclusive claim of the Lord Jesus Christ to be “the way and the truth and the life” is wrapped up in three phrases. He claims to be the way to God, indeed, the only way; he claims to be the truth about God, himself the truth; and he claims to be spiritual life, not merely the way to life. We would think, as we read that phrase, that it has said all that needs to be said. Yet, as we read the Lord’s own words, we find that immediately after saying, “I am the way and the truth and the life,” he says the whole thing over again in different words, lest we misunderstand it. He says, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” If the Lord stated this a second time, lest we misunderstand it, then we should look at it a second time also.
Only through Jesus
Taken together, these phrases mean that Christianity makes an exclusive claim. People sometimes suggest that we are narrow-minded as Christians when we say that Christ is the only way to God, and we have to confess that this is precisely what we are at this point. We are as narrow as the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord said—this is the emphasis of the verse—that he is the only way to God. There is no other way. So while it would be nice for us to equivocate on this point and say, in order to win friends and influence people, that other ways have some value—though we would like to say this, we are nevertheless unable to do so. Rather, we find ourselves affirming with the Lord Jesus Christ and with all the biblical writers that there is no salvation apart from Jesus.
Many verses teach it: 1 Corinthians 3:11—“No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ”; Acts 4:12—“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men, by which we must be saved”; 1 Timothy 2:5—“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
If you are one who is rejecting all this, if you are one who perhaps is interested in Christianity but not exclusively, if you think that perhaps Jesus Christ is a way to God but not the way to God, I want to stress that, according to his teaching, he is the only way and that any attempt to find another way is folly, is bound to produce despair, and is perverse. The tragedy is that apart from the grace of God folly, despair, and perversity characterize each one of us. We are fools because we seek another way. We despair because there is no other way to be found. We are perverse because God has told us that there is only one way. Therefore, in turning from him to try to find another way we dishonor him.
The Fool Has Said
First, there is the folly of trying to find another way. Why is it folly? It is folly because, if a way to God has been provided, it is nonsense to look for another. Who would seek for a second cure for cancer if a perfect cure had been found?
Yet this is the folly of the human heart in spiritual things. Jesus told about it in a parable that concerned a rich man. This man thought the way to life was through material possessions, so he spent a lifetime accumulating worldly goods. He was a farmer. He had produce. His wealth was in the storage of his barn. When the barn became too small for what he was accumulating, he said, “I’ll tear down my old barn and build a bigger one that can hold my possessions.” The Lord’s comment on that man’s life was: “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” (Luke 12:20).
It is not the preacher who calls the unbeliever a fool. If that were the case, it would mean little indeed. The unbeliever could simply say to the preacher, “You are the fool for believing as you do.” No, God is the one who calls men fools, fools for refusing to come to him in the way he has provided.
If we explore a bit deeper to find out why this is so, we find that it is because we are determined to provide for ourselves. During World War II, my father served as a doctor in the air force in the southern part of the United States. When he was released from military service he and the family began to drive northward to the family home in western Pennsylvania. It was only a few days before Christmas. So it was no surprise that on the way we ran into an early blizzard in the mountains of Tennessee. The storm got worse and worse and eventually halted our progress. At one point, however, before we had stopped for the night and as we were going uphill in a little mountain area with a dangerous precipice at our right, a car up ahead stopped. My father realized that, if the car ahead stopped, he would have to stop and, if he stopped, he would immediately begin to slide over the precipice. So he grabbed a blanket, jumped out of the car, ran around to the back wheels and stuck the blanket under one of them to stop our descent. We were stopped. But there we were, stranded in the blizzard on the mountainside.
My father was an Irishman, and at this point two things characterized him: first, pride in his achievement and, second, determination to bring off another. He had saved us from going over the precipice. Now he was going to get us up the mountain. So he began to work, shoveling snow and placing boards and blankets under the tires. He worked for about an hour, but without much success. All the time my two sisters and I, my mother, and my aunt were in the car, getting colder and colder. We were very depressed. Suddenly a truck with wonderful traction came by. This truck moved ahead of us and stopped. It was obvious that the driver knew he could get going again. He got out, came back to my father and said, “I have a chain. Would you like me to hitch onto your car and take you up the mountain?”
Do you know what my father said? He said, “No, thanks. We’re doing fine.” And he did do fine! But it was about sixty cold and gloomy minutes later!
God says that we are exactly like this spiritually, except for the fact that it does not matter whether we spend an hour, two hours, a year, or a lifetime. We are never going to get ourselves going up the road to salvation. So Jesus says, “Look, I’ve come to provide the way to salvation. I am the way. Don’t be so foolish that you turn your back on me out of pride.”
No Exit
Second, you are not only foolish, you are also on a trip to despair. If Jesus is right when he says, “I am the way … no one comes to the Father except through me,” then no other way can be found. The Father is the source of all spiritual blessings. The way to the Father is through Jesus. If you are trying to find another way, you are never going to get those spiritual blessings. To go in any other way is to embark upon a road that has no exits and no destination.
Paul spells it out in the Book of Romans, pointing to the different ways men and women try to reach God. There are three categories. First, there is the way of natural theology. This is the way of the man who goes out into the field at night and says, “I am going to commune with God in nature.” It is the man who says, “I worship God on Sunday afternoon in my golf cart.” Paul says that this is a dead end, because you cannot find God in nature. No man has ever found God in nature. You can find things about God in nature, but these condemn you.
Romans says that nature reveals two things about God. It reveals the “Godhead” of God, that is, his existence, and it reveals his “power,” because obviously something or someone of considerable power stands behind what we observe. That is all that can be known of God in nature. So if you think you are going to find God in nature, you are destined to emptiness in your search. You cannot worship an eternal power; you cannot worship a supreme being; you cannot worship a law of nature. Moreover, says Paul, “You don’t even try!” Because when you say to yourself, “I’m going to worship God in nature,” what you are really doing is using nature as an excuse to avoid God. Actually you do not want to be with Christian people, nor do you wish to be under the preaching of the Word. You find it disturbing. What you are really trying to do is to escape from God into nature. If you worship anything at all, it is nature you worship; and the worship of nature is idolatry.
Some years ago, after I had given a message along these lines, a woman said, “I found that to be true in my work with the beach crowd in California.”
I asked, “What do you mean?”
“Well,” she said, “we used to have meetings on the beach, and I used to witness to the surfers. When I would speak to them about God, they would reply that they worshiped God in nature. At first I didn’t know what to say, but after a while I caught on. I learned to ask, ‘And what is God?’ They would reply, ‘My surfboard is my god.’ ” At least that is honest, but it is paganism and idolatry.
Second, there are people who try to find God in the way of human morality. They say, “God certainly likes good men and women; therefore, I’ll be good, and I’ll get to him that way.” Paul says that this line will lead you to despair also. Why? We see the answer when we reason as follows. If God loves good people—and it is true that he does—how good do they have to be? The answer is that they have to be absolutely good, perfect, because God can settle for nothing less. But no one is perfect. So Paul says, “When you start like that, when you start thinking that you are going to please God by getting better and better, you fail to see that even if you could achieve the maximum goodness possible to anyone in this world, you would never get to God in that way because it would not be good enough.
We have a strange situation in the church today. The church has a message to proclaim; it begins with the total depravity of man. But this is offensive to most people. So the church gets cold feet at this point—ministers do, of course—and it backs off from preaching these things. Ministers say, “We admit that the Bible does say that all are sinners; it does say that all are dead in trespasses and sins; but it does not really mean that. It is hyperbole. What it really means is that we just need a little help. People are really pretty good underneath. So if we just appeal to their natural goodness, they’ll come and be Christians. Besides, they’ll join our churches and give us money.”
Does the world congratulate the church for congratulating the world? Not at all! The world knows that this is not true. So you have people like Jean Paul Sartre and other existentialists leaping to their feet to say, “If the church is not going to tell the truth, we are going to tell the truth! We know that when you scratch beneath the veneer of mankind, when you get rid of the social conventions, when you get rid of the desire to be acceptable with other people by matching up to certain preestablished patterns of behavior, what you find beneath the surface is garbage. You find a sewer of corruption.” The existentialist does not have the answer. The despair of the existentialist is proof of what lies at the end of his road. But at least he speaks out; he is not silent.
Then, in Romans 2:17–29, Paul says that there is a third way that people try; it is the way of religion, a sort of formalism. This person says, “If I cannot be righteous, at least I can do things that God likes. I’ll be baptized. I’ll be confirmed. I’ll go to communion.” Paul says that this leads to despair also. Why? Because it is based on a false conception of God. It suggests that God will settle for externals. Does he? No! People may settle for externals, but not God; he looks on the heart. God sees that although you can go through the rite of baptism, it does not mean a thing if your heart is not cleansed. He sees that although you may come to communion, it does not mean a thing unless you have first fed on Jesus Christ by faith and have drunk at that stream that he provides.
An Insult to God
To say that one is a fool for looking in another direction than Christ sounds insulting. To say that it leads to despair sounds grim. But there is worse to come. For seeking a way other than Jesus is not only foolish and leads to despair, it is perverse. It is insulting to God. How is it insulting? It is insulting because Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” So if you go another way, it is not merely that you are doing something for yourself, and it is certainly not the case that you are doing something praiseworthy. What you are really doing is saying to the Lord Jesus Christ, “Lord Jesus Christ, you are a liar!”
Do you think that God is going to be proud of you for trying to find your own way? Do you think that God is going to admire you for that, love you for that, praise you for that? God is going to regard this for what it is, an insult to the Lord Jesus Christ his Son, because that is the equivalent of saying, “You, Lord Jesus Christ, you in whom the Father is well pleased, cannot be trusted.”
Furthermore, to seek another way is not only an insult to Christ, it is an insult to the love of God who planned the way of salvation out of his great love for the sinner. What the Lord Jesus Christ did was in fulfillment of the desires of his Father. He said, “I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do your will, O God” (Heb. 10:7). It was God’s will that Jesus Christ, his Son, should die in your place. So it is an insult to God to ignore it. Do you think that it was easy for God to send Jesus Christ to die for you? I am asking you fathers: Would it be easy for you to give up your son or your daughter, to see that son or daughter killed, in order that someone else might be saved? I ask you mothers: Would it be easy for you to have a son or daughter killed in your sight, to turn your back when you could save that son or daughter, in order to have someone else saved? Of course not! You who are brothers: Would you give up a sister? You who are sisters: Would you give up a brother? If it is not easy for you, why should you think that it would be easy for God? Yet that is what God did for you.
Do you think it was easy for the Lord Jesus Christ to stand with his disciples on the verge of his crucifixion and say, “I am the way”? He knew what it meant to be the way. It meant that he had to go to the cross; he had to die; he had to suffer; he had to have the Father turn his back on him while he was made sin for us; he had to have the wrath of God poured out upon him. That is what it meant when the Lord Jesus Christ said, “I am the way … no one comes to the Father except through me.” Yet he said it.
Come … Come
So I ask: Is it anything but sinful, obstinate perversity for someone to say, “That is all very nice, but I am going to go another way”? To go another way is to condemn yourself to hell! For there is no other way. “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).
How foolish it would be, how much despair is involved, how perverse on your part to go away, saying, “Well, that is all very interesting, of course; but I’m going to look a bit farther.” Today is the day of salvation! This may be the last opportunity you will ever have! I cannot promise that you will ever hear the gospel again. I cannot promise that the Holy Spirit will ever speak to your heart again, if he is speaking at this moment. Heed the invitation and come! The Bible says, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life” (Rev. 22:17).[2]
6 Unwittingly, the mundane question by Thomas led to one of the most far-reaching and provocative statements ever made by Jesus. For Thomas, the way to an unknown destination cannot be known. Jesus answers, “I am the way.” Jesus is not one who shows the way but the one who himself is the way. He is the way—the only way—to the Father, for “no one comes to the Father except through [him].” The particularism of Jesus’ teaching has caused many to stumble. The mind-set of secular society regards such exclusive claims as intolerant. Certainly there are other paths that lead to God. Not so! To accept Jesus Christ involves accepting all that he said, even though open support of his claims may cause a bit of embarrassment when brought up in certain circles of contemporary society.
Jesus is the only way to God because he is also “the truth.” Note that each of the three nouns (way, truth, life) is preceded by a definite article. “Truth” and “life” do not modify “way,” as though Jesus were saying, “I am the real and living way” (Moffatt). He is the truth. Ultimate truth is not a series of propositions to be grasped by the intellect but a person to be received and therefore knowable only by means of a personal relationship. Others have made true statements, but only Jesus perfectly embodies truth itself. He is the truth. And he is also “the life.” Eternal life is to know Jesus Christ (17:3; cf. 1 Jn 1:2; 5:20). Apart from him is darkness and death.
Barclay, 2:157, mentions that in this sublime statement Jesus took three of the great basic conceptions of Jewish religion and made the tremendous claim that in him all three found their full realization. The fifteenth-century Augustinian priest Thomas à Kempis (The Imitation of Christ [1441; repr., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983], 208) joined the three as follows: “Without the way, there is no going; without the truth, there is no knowing; without the life, there is no living.”[3]
6 Jesus now introduces a somewhat different topic. He has been talking about leaving the disciples, and it is with this that Thomas is concerned. But Jesus is to go to the Father (13:3; 16:5, 10, 17), and he now speaks of the way (“way” is emphasized by repetition, vv. 4, 5, 6). He not only shows people the way (i.e., by revealing it), but he is the way (i.e., he redeems us). In this connection “the truth” (see Additional Note D, pp. 259–62) will have saving significance. It will point to Jesus’ utter dependability, but also to the saving truth of the gospel. “The life” (see on 1:4) will likewise take its content from the gospel. Jesus is both life and the source of life to believers. All this is followed by the explicit statement that no one comes to the Father other than through Christ. “Way,” “truth,” and “life” all have relevance,18 the triple expression emphasizing the many-sidedness of the saving work. “Way” speaks of a connection between two persons or things, and here the link between God and sinners. “Truth” reminds us of the complete reliability of Jesus in all that he does and is. And “life” stresses the fact that mere physical existence matters little. The only life worth the name is that which Jesus brings, for he is life itself. Jesus is asserting in strong terms the uniqueness and the sufficiency of his work for sinners. We should not overlook the faith involved both in the utterance and in the acceptance of those words, spoken as they were on the eve of the crucifixion. “I am the Way,” said one who would shortly hang impotent on a cross. “I am the Truth,” when the lies of evil people were about to enjoy a spectacular triumph. “I am the Life,” when within a matter of hours his corpse would be placed in a tomb.[4]
6 Although Thomas speaks for all the disciples, Jesus replies at first “to him” alone: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (v. 6). This is the first “I am” pronouncement since “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (11:25), which it resembles in two ways: first, in that Jesus says it only once, and second, in having more than one predicate (one of which is “the Life”). The dominant predicate here is “the Way.” Jesus could have just said, “I am the Way. No one comes to the Father except through me,” and the dynamic of the exchange would have been the same. “The Truth” and “the Life” simply spell out for his disciples the benefits of the salvation to which “the Way” leads. Jesus has already told Martha explicitly that he was “the Life” (11:25), and he implicitly claimed to be “the Truth” by telling a group of “believing” Jews at the Tent festival that “the truth will set you free” (8:32), and “if the Son sets you free, you will really be free” (8:36, italics added).
The central pronouncement, “I am the Way,” is profoundly significant within the chapter as a whole, for it states in so many words what Bunyan knew, that “the way” is not what Thomas thought it was, a literal route or pathway, but a Person, Jesus himself. The destination, accordingly, is not a place (not even precisely “my Father’s house”), but also a Person, the Father himself: “No one comes to the Father except through me” (italics added). The terms of the whole discussion now begin to change, from talk of a departure, a journey, a “way,” and a destination, to talk of Jesus and the Father. There is profound mutuality in their relationship, for the claim that “No one comes to the Father except through me” stands as a kind of sequel to the principle stated much earlier that “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him” (6:44), or “unless it is given him from the Father” (6:65). That is, only the Father can bring anyone to Jesus, and only Jesus can bring anyone to the Father. Those who are quite willing to press the exclusivity of the latter principle—that is, that salvation is possible only through Jesus Christ—are sometimes less willing to acknowledge the exclusivity of the former—that is, that no one comes to Christ without being “drawn” or “given” by the Father to the Son. But both things are true, and therein lies the characteristic exclusivism, even dualism, of the Gospel of John. At the same time, the invitation is universal, for the last phrase, “through me,”54 recalls an earlier pronouncement that accented its positive side: “I am the Door. Through me, if anyone goes in he will be saved, and will go in and go out and find pasture” (10:9). Such is the dialectic of salvation throughout this Gospel.[5]
[1] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2008). John 12–21 (pp. 102–103). Moody Publishers.
[3] Mounce, R. H. (2007). John. In T. Longman III & D. E. Garland (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Luke–Acts (Revised Edition) (Vol. 10, p. 561). Zondervan.
“And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: “I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.”” – Genesis 9:12, 13
It’s obvious to anyone with eyes which see that humans corrupted one of the most obvious signs of God’s grace – the rainbow. We live in a fallen world and know that many will ‘shake their fist at God.’ God still sees the promises He made to Noah whenever the rainbow adds its colours to the sky. For all who read the Bible and take in His Words, the rainbow remains a beautiful reminder of given grace.
The sin of Adam and Eve spread like a plague. “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). God decided He would cleanse the earth by a flood which would cover the globe. In grace, God commanded Noah to build an ark. God would preserve life inside that ark. After Noah’s family and animal representatives were loaded into the ark, God sent water from above and below and the world was washed by water. Noah and his family were preserved from destruction by the grace of God. From that time until now, every time the rainbow shimmers in the sky, God is ‘reminded’ of His covenant of grace.
In chapter 17 of the Second Helvetic Confession, Henrich Bullinger correctly understood the Ark as a type of Christ. God’s grace preserved us in Christ – hallelujah!
Suggestions for prayer
Ask the Lord to remind you that the rainbow is a sign of His grace!
Rev. Harold Miller graduated from Mid-America Reformed Seminary in 2001 and has served churches in Wellsburg, Iowa and Kansas City, Missouri before arriving at Oak Lawn, Illinois in 2020. Get this devotional delivered directly to your phone each day via our RP App. It is also available in print, for purchase, at NTGDevotional.com.
Matthew 4:1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
Tempted of the Devil – Charles Spurgeon Audio Sermon
▶️Charles Spurgeon Sermon Playlist:
Charles Haddon (C.H.) Spurgeon (June 19, 1834 January 31, 1892) was a British Reformed Baptist preacher who remains highly influential among Christians of different denominations, among whom he is still known as the “Prince of Preachers.” In his lifetime, Spurgeon preached to around 10,000,000 people, often up to 10 times a week at different places. His sermons have been translated into many languages. Spurgeon was the pastor of the New Park Street Chapel in London for 38 years. In 1857, he started a charity organization called Spurgeon’s which now works globally. He also founded Spurgeon’s College, which was named after him after his death.
Spurgeon was a prolific author of many types of works including sermons, an autobiography, a commentary, books on prayer, a devotional, a magazine, and more. Many sermons were transcribed as he spoke and were translated into many languages during his lifetime. Arguably, no other author, Christian or otherwise, has more material in print than C.H. Spurgeon.
The prayer of the upright is his delight. (Proverbs 15:8)
This is as good as a promise, for it declares a present fact, which will be the same throughout all ages. God takes great pleasure in the prayers of upright men; He even calls them His delight. Our first concern is to be upright. Neither bending this way nor that, continue upright; not crooked with policy, nor prostrate by yielding to evil, be you upright in strict integrity and straightforwardness. If we begin to shuffle and shift, we shall be left to shift for ourselves. If we try crooked ways, we shall find that we cannot pray, and if we pretend to do so, we shall find our prayers shut out of heaven.
Are we acting in a straight line and thus following out the Lord’s revealed will? Then let us pray much and pray in faith. If our prayer is God’s delight, let us not stint Him in that which gives Him pleasure. He does not consider the grammar of it, nor the metaphysics of it, nor the rhetoric of it; in all these men might despise it. He, as a Father, takes pleasure in the lispings of His own babes, the stammerings of His newborn sons and daughters. Should we not delight in prayer since the Lord delights in it? Let us make errands to the throne. The Lord finds us enough reasons for prayer, and we ought to thank Him that it is so.
Be blessed to know your identity as your Father’s beloved son or daughter. “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14).
Be blessed with fully realizing the life-changing truth of the Spirit living in you, so that you can know you are the beloved of your Father, and He is yours. Be blessed with His exquisite fathering and receive it as His special child. Be blessed to know His Spirit speaking to you that you are a delight to Him.
Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Your Father wants to bless you with growth that is mental, spiritual, emotional, and relational. Receive from your Father the love and acceptance you have been seeking. Your Father’s heart is passionate for your full identity as His child, based purely on relationship, not performance.
Be blessed as He calls you to fully live as the son or daughter you are. You do not have to work for it. You can’t earn that relationship. Be blessed with perfect love that casts out fear that you aren’t enough or you don’t have what it takes.
Be blessed to know without doubt that your Father is extending His favor toward you. This is the time of your Father’s favor, a time to receive His gift to you of security in His house.
Be blessed with knowing this new grace place with your heavenly Father. He wants you to receive it. Be blessed as He calls you to life, nurture, and enlargement. Be blessed with a rich gold mine of identity and legitimacy from which to live confidently and purposefully in God’s design of you and His purposes for you.
Be blessed to be released into the full rights of your true identity and legitimacy in your Father.
About 40 Arizona Guardsmen wounded, one critically, in drone attack in Jordan About 40 members of the Arizona National Guard were wounded in Sunday’s aerial drone attack in northeast Jordan, including one critically injured, the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs said Tuesday. Injuries to the Guard members ranged from cuts and bruises to traumatic brain injuries,
‘Everything is melting’: Argentines seek cool as heat wave strikes Argentines sought shade and tried to cool off in public fountains on Thursday as a heat wave hitting the country saw temperatures rise towards 40 degrees Celsius (104°F). “Everything is melting, everything is melting,” said Diego Gatti, a 34-year-old merchant in Buenos Aires, adding that at least near the coast there was some access to water and a breeze.
Amir Tsarfati: Pressure Cooker — The Multifaceted Situation Israel Faces Is Unlike Any The World Has Seen Before Israel is a pressure cooker right now. If you have seen Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lately, you’ll know the toll that this war has taken on him. He and those in his government are constantly having to consider in their decisions the needs of the families of the hostages, the needs of the military, and the ultimate goal of absolute victory against Hamas, Hezbollah, and any other enemy along our borders whose aim is to annihilate us.
Jewish Graves Found in Gaza From WWI Fighting Soldiers in the IDF’s 188th Brigade were surprised to find Jewish gravestones during fighting in the Gaza Strip. According to reports in Hebrew media, the soldiers were operating in the central Gaza town of Al-Maazi when they noticed stars of David on some of the tombstones at a cemetery in the town. The cemetery, it turned out, was one of the fallen British soldiers of World War I who fought in the land of Israel against the Ottoman Empire some 110 years ago.
AI-based platforms are vulnerable to terrorist exploitation Working with five interns from the university’s International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), Weimann investigated how terrorists or violent extremists could take advantage of such AI tools to manipulate these systems with specific commands that, in effect, “jailbreak” the model, making it possible to bypass many of its protective measures. They published their findings in the journal produced by the Combat Terrorism Center at West Point under the title “Terror: The Risks of Generative AI Exploitation.”
Lot’s Wife: Sodom & Gomorrah Located in the heart of the Judean Desert, Mount Sodom is completely composed of sulfur (as opposed to the rest of the desert which is composed of limestone). Indeed, the sulfur found here is unique (it’s 98% pure and white, unlike natural sulfur formed by geothermal activity). What happened here would have remained an unexplained mystery, if not for the Bible recording what occurred here.
Iran to be sued in US court by American victims of Oct. 7 Hamas massacre Survivors of the Oct. 7 massacre filed a lawsuit against Iran for sponsoring and masterminding the Hamas terrorist invasion of southern Israel. The lawsuit was filed in a U.S. Federal Court on Wednesday and is the first effort at holding Iran responsible for the massacre Hamas carefully planned and carried out on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah.
New heart treatment helps the body grow a replacement valve Surgery to replace faulty heart valves has been possible for more than 60 years, but the treatment has medical drawbacks, both with mechanical or biological valves. But what if the body’s natural repair mechanisms could be harnessed to build a living heart valve, right where it is needed? Recent studies led by researchers at Harefield Hospital and Imperial’s National Heart and Lung Institute suggest that this approach is entirely possible.
China issues first Orange alert for freezing rain and snow since 2010 China’s meteorological authority issued the country’s first orange alert for freezing since 2010 on February 1, 2024, signaling expanding and intensifying freezing rain and snow. The severe weather, affecting areas from Henan to Chongqing, poses significant challenges to transportation in central China amidst the Spring Festival travel rush.
Red warnings for extreme wind gusts and avalanches issued as Storm Ingunn approaches Norway A powerful Atlantic windstorm named Storm Ingunn by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute on January 31, 2024, is now moving over the Faroe Islands with wind gusts of up to 250 km/h (155 mph). While severe gales will affect northern Britain, in Norway, red warnings are in place for extreme wind gusts and avalanches.
Bahamas travel warning issued in wake of 18 murders this year Think twice about a tropical getaway to the Caribbean this winter. The U.S. embassy in the Bahamas has released a security warning and travel advisory that the island nation is currently unsafe for tourists amidst 18 murders — “primarily” motivated by gang violence — in January alone.
US facing ‘death spiral’ of swelling debt The burgeoning US debt pile is akin to a “death spiral” that only a “miracle” could extract the country from, economist and ‘Black Swan’ author Nassim Taleb said at a business event on Monday, as quoted by Bloomberg.
Anti-Human Trafficking Operation Results In Over 500 Arrests Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced the results of the operation that included the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Operation Reclaim and Rebuild led to 539 arrests and 65 total rescued victims. The rescued victims included 54 adults and 11 juveniles.
Chaos Erupts In Brussels As Rubber Bullets Fired At Farmers Protesting Outside EU Parliament Rubber bullets and water cannons were deployed against hundreds of European farmers protesting outside the EU Parliament building in Brussels on Thursday. The farmers threw eggs, set off fireworks, and started fires near the building while demanding that European leaders stop punishing them with more taxes and rising costs imposed to finance a so-called ‘green agenda.’
Fire Engulfs Massive Chicken Plant In Texas At the same time, rogue elites, part of the World Economic Forum cult – pushed sinister narratives of how the working poor class must abandon “animal protein” for “insects” because the current food supply chain was contributing to climate change. Yet these elites, flying across the world in private jets and sailing on diesel-powered megayachts, is kosher?
8 Signs That Demonstrate How Truly Bizarre Our Society Is Becoming In “The Wizard of Oz,” at one point, Dorothy tells her dog that she has “a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” She had been dropped in a strange new world that was crazier than anything she had ever imagined. Needless to say, many of us feel the exact same way. We’re not in the America that we grew up in anymore. Instead, we now live in a country that appears to be a cross between a really bad science fiction movie and a freak show.
Depopulation and the mRNA Vaccine Amazingly, The New York Times – 22 May 2021 – predicts massive population reduction over the next few decades. “Fewer babies’ cries. More abandoned homes. Toward the middle of this century, as deaths start to exceed births, changes will come that are hard to fathom.”
Bill Gates Wants to Engineer A.I. So We Can End “Polarization” and “Save Democracy” Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently interviewed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to discuss the future of AI and the potential for new global controls to maintain peace, safety and democracy around the world. The question is: Whose ideas must the global population submit to in order for there to be world peace? OpenAI and Microsoft are currently working to promote artificial intelligence as a tool for influencing governments around the world and for solving global challenges.
Will China use Supply Chains as a Weapon in a Conflict with the US? Over the last few years, the phrase “supply chain” has become one of increasing importance to everyone – from corporate leaders to government officials and to customers. Now it’s a phrase that is becoming important to even military leaders.
Prophetic Chess Pieces — Israel And Syria Go Toe To Toe; U.S. To Recognize A Palestinian State? …many times, it seems that Syria is left out of the equation in the larger conversation. Well, folks, let me tell you, Syria remains a very active front. Israel has carried out hundreds, if not more, airstrikes in Syria over the past several years, striking Iranian-backed targets in the region. The Assad regime and the Syrian army are an avowed ally of the Iranian regime. Iran is in Syria, with the red carpet treatment. And by the way, Iran is here to stay. They’re not going anywhere—unless they are forcibly pushed out.
‘Ready to carry out suicide attacks’ – Shocking footage from East Jerusalem UNRWA school In yet another piece of evidence, shocking video footage filmed in 2022 was recently reported by Israel’s Ynet News showing Palestinian students from a UNRWA school in East Jerusalem expressing their eagerness to kill Jews. “I am ready to carry out suicide attacks,” one student tells the camera, while a female student states, “We have to fight the Jews to prove that we are stronger than them.”
Deaths During the “First Wave” of the Pseudopandemic Were Caused by Latrocide Latrocide – The act of killing a patient by medical treatment; iatro- + -cide , from Greek iatros (healer) + Latin -cide (killing)…No virus was ever properly isolated, identified, and characterized as per the scientific method, and the PCR test was comprehensively shown to be a useless generator of non-specific, false positive results by a group of independent scientists, very soon after the details of the PCR were made public in 2020.
BBC’s harmful lies are exposed during UK Covid Inquiry The UK Covid Inquiry took an interesting turn last week when top government advisor Mark Woolhouse at the University of Edinburgh lambasted the BBC for misrepresenting covid risks to promote harmful lockdowns. Senior government advisor Devi Sridhar, also at the University of Edinburgh, kind of admitted that she maybe, perhaps gave poor advice – alerting several reporters who began calling her out on social media and documenting her blatant lies.
15-minute cities are being built in Russia Dobrograd, a new city in the Vladimir Region of Russia, is being built according to the concept of a slow city, where everything necessary for a person is within a 15-minute walking distance. Judging by the information on the website, construction has been underway for a year, Redko Da Metko wrote.
“Without justice being freely, fully, and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected.” —Joseph Story (1833)
Fellow Patriots, this is Groundhog Day, which commemorates the life lessons learned by Phil (played by Bill Murray) on his trip to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania in the 1993 movie bearing the same name. Okay, just kidding, but the first Groundhog Day was held in Punxsutawney on this day in 1887. And we do the same thing every year. —Mark Alexander
Joe Biden and other illegal alien-enabling Democrats are ultimately the ones making this ugly gesture to our country.
Nate Jackson
As George Orwell wrote in his short novel about the rise of the Soviet Union, Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” That theme came to mind as a young illegal immigrant who had assaulted two New York police officers was released from custody and, for good measure, flipped two middle fingers at the cameras.
On Wednesday, we covered the beatdown of two cops inflicted by a vicious mob of eight people. As we said then, this wasn’t a case of some rowdy hoodlums getting into a shoving match with cops. This was a case of illegal immigrants alternately kicking and head-stomping the officers. Outrageously, all four illegals arrested for this violent crime were released without bail. The video of the thug’s release only provides more visual evidence of their contempt for the Rule of Law.
And, frankly, why wouldn’t they view American law enforcement with disdain? The president of the United States welcomed them in and has instructed his administration to just process and release nearly 10 million “migrants” into the U.S. That is indeed worthy of the contempt shown by the double middle finger.
“Message to America,” said Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, “from one of the illegal migrants who assaulted NYPD officers, walked free with no bail & heads back to a shelter funded by taxpayers.”
Thugs wearing MAGA hats while assaulting Capitol Police on January 6 have rightly faced the full force of the law. But so have the grandparents who were at the Capitol that day to protest election fraud and who ended up touring the Capitol when police removed barricades and let them in.
But eight young men who should have been deported for illegal entry to our country can severely beat two police officers and … walk free? Orwell was right.
New York is now home to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, thanks in part to the valiant efforts of Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott to “share the joy” with his sanctuary-loving Democrat counterpart in the Empire State. Unfortunately, people whose first act in America is to break our laws of entry are also likely to break other laws. Like, you know, the one forbidding assault of a police officer.
But not to fear. New York Governor Kathy Hochul is on it. “I think [deportation is] actually something that should be looked at,” she said of this story. “I mean, if someone commits a crime against a police officer in the state of New York and they’re not here legally, it’s definitely worth checking into.” You don’t say.
“These are law enforcement officers who should never under any circumstances be subjected to physical assault,” Hochul added. “It’s wrong on all accounts and I’m looking to judges and prosecutors to do the right thing.”
Paging Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Oh, that’s right. The George Soros-funded DA has his hands full prosecuting Donald Trump over how the former president recorded hush money payments to a porn star. Even this week, Bragg is pressuring Allen Weisselberg, a longtime Trump Organization executive and fourth-month resident of Rikers Island prison, to again plead guilty for some low-level tax charges.
When Bragg isn’t engaged in political hackery, he’s persecuting a Good Samaritan named Daniel Penny for defending other subway passengers from a deranged and dangerous man who, unfortunately, died under Penny’s carotid restraint last year.
Bragg probably doesn’t have time to “check into” the case of illegals running amok, even if they have prior violent records like at least one of the eight thugs in question.
As retired NYPD Lieutenant Joe Cardinale pointed out on Fox News this morning: “Governor Hochul has a part in this as well. She could remove Bragg if she wanted to … [but] when your administration releases 38 cop killers under a corrupt parole board, what do you expect?”
Maybe our representatives in Congress will figure it out with the border bargain they’re working on. Don’t count on it.
Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a key figure in the deal, has defended the vague details of the bill by saying it will finally give Joe Biden the tools needed to enforce the border. The truth is Biden already has all the tools he needs, though he is refusing to use them. And the Senate bill could end up weakening existing law regarding deportation in particular.
These eight thugs never should have been permitted to cross the border. If they did, they should have been apprehended and immediately deported. Instead, they were welcomed by elected Democrats who have every bit as much contempt for the Rule of Law as the criminal flashing his middle fingers for the world to see.
Democrats are just more refined in how they express the same gesture.
No charges for Senate sex, a good jobs report, Lloyd Austin apologizes for going UA, and more.
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
No charges for Senate sex: The former staffer to Democrat Senator Ben Cardin who resigned last year following an infamous incident wherein he filmed himself and another man engaging in sex acts in a Senate hearing room will not be charged with any crime. According to the Capitol Police, “Despite a likely violation of Congressional policy, there is currently no evidence that a crime was committed.” The police added, “The two people of interest were not cooperative, nor were the elements of any of the possible crimes met.” So, debasing the Senate is fine so long as one is a member of the Democrats’ most favored class, the LGBTQ community. Indeed, the staffer involved is claiming he resigned due to “homophobia” and is looking for any legal actions he can take. So, a grandma wandering through the Capitol deserves to have the book thrown at her, but a Senate staffer engaging in deviant sex acts in a Senate hearing room results in little other than a shrug and “move along”?
A good jobs report: January saw 353,000 jobs added, coming in significantly higher than the forecasted 180,000 jobs. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.7% and the average hourly wage rose 0.6%, which was double what economists were anticipating. Yet that hourly wage growth coincides with a drop in the average number of hours worked, which came in at 34.1 hours. The past two months of strong job growth numbers will likely mean that the Federal Reserve will not engage in any interest rate cuts soon. Fed Chair Jerome Powell observed: “If the economy evolves broadly as expected, it will likely be appropriate to begin dialing back policy restraint at some point this year. But the economy has surprised forecasters in many ways since the pandemic, and ongoing progress toward our 2% inflation objective is not assured.”
Biden blames grocery stores for Bidenflation: Since Joe Biden took office, total inflation has risen by over 17%. But Biden, like so many politicians before him, is seeking to shift the blame away from his massive spending policies that have been the primary culprit for the fact that Americans are shelling out more of their hard-earned dollars for goods like milk and eggs. “Inflation is coming down. It’s now lower in America than any other major economy in the world,” Biden claimed in a recent speech in South Carolina. Correction: The rate of inflationary growth has slowed; inflation has not come down. “But for all we’ve done to bring prices down, there are still too many corporations in America ripping people off: price gouging, junk fees, greedflation, shrinkflation.” He then claimed that Americans were “tired of being played for suckers” by grocery stores. “And that’s why we’re going to keep these guys — keep on them and get the prices down.” People are tired of being played for suckers by politicians like Biden who offer “fixes” that actually make the problems worse. Vilifying businesses for offering people the goods they need based on the reality of the value of the dollar is not the problem. Indeed, the best way to keep prices down is via competition and for the federal government to stop spending money like a drunken sailor.
SecDef Lloyd Austin apologizes for going UA: It’s a rare event indeed for this administration to admit fault, but that’s exactly what we saw yesterday when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made his first public remarks since disappearing last month due to his prostate cancer treatment. “I admit that was a mistake,” Austin said at a Pentagon press conference. “I should have told the president about my cancer diagnosis,” he continued. “I should have also told my team and the American public, and I take full responsibility. I apologize to my teammates and to the American people.” Shoulda woulda coulda. In fairness to Austin, though, he’s clearly holding a ceremonial post. Or perhaps he was simply unaware that our warriors had been under steady attack in the Middle East at the time, and that war with the Iran-back Houthi terrorists — or even Iran itself — had been brewing. Of course, when a woke bureaucrat like Austin takes “full responsibility” for his actions, it means he’s not going to be punished or held accountable beyond that fundamental admission of fault. It’s great work if you can get it, but we don’t recommend trying this at home. In the real world, if you need to miss work for several days, you’d better tell your boss.
Bill to deport DUI illegals passes House with 59 Dem votes: It’s a rare moment these days when legislation passes the hyper-partisan House with anything more than a razor-thin majority, but that’s exactly what happened yesterday when 59 House Democrats joined their Republican enemies to pass a bill that calls for the deportation of illegal immigrants who are caught driving under the influence. On second thought, though, if 59 Democrats voted in favor of the measure, that means the rest of them voted against it. And sure enough, as Fox News reports, the bill passed 274-150, with all 150 of those “Nay” votes coming from Democrats. “In the United States, someone dies in a crash with an impaired driver every 45 minutes,” said Alabama Republican Barry Moore, who introduced the bill. “I lost two of my young newlywed constituents to an illegal immigrant driving under the influence of alcohol.” This isn’t a frivolous measure. Just last month, an illegal alien from El Salvador — a man who’d already been arrested and deported multiple times — killed a mother and her son while driving drunk in Boulder, Colorado.
Inside White House fear over Biden’s age: It’s not just the majority of the American public who see Joe Biden’s advanced age as a major problem. Apparently, those working in the White House hold the same opinion. James O’Keefe, the former CEO of Project Veritas, has released new undercover videos in which several White House staffers express fears that Biden’s age is a real problem. One video features a top White House cyber official who says, “Biden is definitely slowing down.” He later says: “I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. … They’re really concerned about it.” Furthermore: “I think they need to get rid of him [and Kamala Harris]. But no one in modern history has ever said, like, ‘We’re not going to renominate the president for a second term.’” Overall, O’Keefe’s reporting appears to confirm what many have long suspected — that Democrats are stuck in a conundrum of Biden being too old and Kamala Harris being too unpopular, and yet they can’t get rid of either of them.
AI is making fake news ever faker: As if we didn’t already distrust the news, now we have one more reason to do so: generative artificial intelligence. Its arrival on the scene has ramped up the productivity of the humans who use it, but its use among journalists raises all sorts of issues about fairness and bias. “AI is most visible in journalism when things go wrong,” reports The Verge. “Some newsrooms have published AI articles riddled with errors or offensive suggestions. There’s widespread anxiety that AI will be used to replace journalists on the cheap.” Clearly, the genie is already out of the bottle. NewsGuard, whose raison d’etre seems to be guarding folks from hearing news without a baked-in leftward bias, claims to have so far identified “676 AI-generated news and information sites operating with little to no human oversight.” And it’s not just fringy news organizations. As PJ Media’s Paula Boyard writes: “Popular sites like Sports Illustrated, Buzzfeed, CNET, and Gannett have all been caught using AI in recent months. The Associated Press admits it uses AI to generate some stories, but it at least lets readers know that AI was used to assist in creating the content.” Or at least the AP does right now. We suspect it’s only a matter of time before AI-generated news becomes the rule rather than the exception.
Not all heroes wear capes: Boys will be boys, even in deep-blue Connecticut. There, at Brookfield High School, a state-mandated tampon dispenser that had been placed inside a boys’ bathroom was gloriously ripped down just 20 minutes later. We hate to see it, this sort of anti-woke vigilantism. Just hate to see it. As the New York Post reports, the dispenser was placed in the boys’ bathroom “at 9:30 a.m. last Wednesday, but by 9:52 a.m., it was torn from the wall, leaving tampons littering the floor, the school’s principal, Marc Balanda, said in an email to students and staff.” Perhaps sensing a teachable moment, the woke and humorless Balanda counseled the young miscreants and others like them. “Use your words to start a dialogue rather than using your hands to destroy something,” he said in the email while noting he was “disgusted” and “disheartened.” Sure. Use your words. And then get suspended for hate speech. Unlike the principal, we think the boys got it exactly right, exactly in keeping with science.
International lawsuits threaten Americans’ 2A rights: America’s Second Amendment is deemed as a threat to the rest of the world. At least that’s the narrative being used by the anti-gun group Global Action on Gun Violence (GAGV). The new organization recently raised a lawsuit representing Mexico against American firearms manufacturers and gun dealers over the claim that they are fueling cartel violence in Mexico. GAGV sees this as a potential new angle to exert international pressure on the U.S. to further limit Americans’ Second Amendment rights. In its lawsuit, GAGV asserts that U.S. firearms policy violates its human rights obligations. This is an underhanded tactic to target American firearm manufacturers and blame them for the criminal actions of others. It seeks to further the entirely false claim that guns and not the individuals wielding them are responsible for crimes.
Headlines
Iranian IRGC commanders go into hiding as Biden admin continues to leak details of alleged retaliatory strikes (Daily Wire)
House Judiciary Committee subpoenas Fani Willis (Daily Caller)
FBI deleted records related to anti-Catholic memo, GOP lawmakers say (Washington Times)
“Nope”: Former Walgreens loss prevention supervisor schools Ayanna Pressley over racism claim on closures (RedState)
“And another one gone”: Beloved Denny’s in Oakland abuptly closes after 54 years due to crime epidemic (RedState)
Gavin Newsom saw a Target shoplifting and asked why no one stopped it … his cashier blamed “the governor” without realizing who he was (Not the Bee)
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg bobbed and weaved and apologized during a Senate hearing Wednesday, but will any good come of it?
Brian Mark Weber
When Mark Zuckerberg publicly apologizes for the harm his Facebook platform has caused, people take notice. Naturally, however, there’s more than meets the eye.
This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis,” related in part to the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill introduced in Congress by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D‑CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R‑TN). Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois opened the hearing by playing a video in which victims of sex crimes spoke about the harm done to them.
“We got a phone call to find out that my son was in his room and was suicidal,” one victim revealed. “He was only 13 years old at the time. [He] and a friend had been exploited online and trafficked, and my son reached out to Twitter. [Twitter’s] response was, ‘Thank you for reaching out. We reviewed the content and … we did not find a violation of our policies, so no action will be taken at this time.’”
That’s just one of countless victims and their families, some of whom attended the hearing, whose lives have been destroyed by social media.
“These apps have changed the ways we live, work, and play, but as investigations have detailed, social media and messaging apps have also given predators powerful new tools to sexually exploit children,” Senator Durbin explained. “Discord has been used to groom, abduct and abuse children. Meta’s Instagram helped connect and promote a network of pedophiles. Snapchat’s disappearing messages have been co-opted by criminals who financially extort young victims. TikTok has become a ‘platform of choice’ for predators to access, engage, and groom children for abuse and the prevalence of CSAM on X has grown as the company has gutted its trust and safety workforce.”
Then it came time for Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and Meta owner, to address the senators.
“With so much of our lives spent on mobile devices and social media, it’s important to look into the effects of teen mental health and well-being,” Zuckerberg proclaimed during his opening remarks. “I take this very seriously. Mental health is a complex issue, and the existing body of scientific work has not shown a causal link between using social media and young people having worse mental health outcomes.”
But he also spent a lot of time touting the benefits of social media and explaining how hard he and his staff are working to ensure platforms are safe for children. It was a smooth political statement crafted to put forth a good image.
Zuckerberg’s appearance before a congressional committee is no different than anyone else who comes to Capitol Hill. While you might get grilled by lawmakers, it’s also a chance to spin the narrative in your favor or to apologize while denying any responsibility.
Senators from both sides of the aisle gathered to question Zuckerberg and other representatives of social media companies.
National Review reports: “The chief executives of Meta, TikTok, Discord, Snap, and X (formerly known as Twitter) listened as the assembled lawmakers recounted the stories of constituents whose children had been harmed by their use of social media. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and TikTok CEO Shou Chew appeared before the committee voluntarily while Jason Citron of Discord, Evan Spiegel of Snap, and Linda Yaccarino of X appeared under force of a subpoena.”
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham “emphasized that the best way to address the harm caused by social media would be to reform Section 230 [of the Communications Decency Act of 1996],” NR added, “which provides liability protection for online platforms, to allow parents to sue the companies for harm caused to their children.”
At one point, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley confronted Zuckerberg by bringing up his previous denial of causality between social media and mental illness. Again, Zuckerberg denied there was any evidence.
Then again, Zuckerberg’s job was to portray social media in the best light possible considering the circumstances. As for the evidence, Zuckerberg is just plain wrong.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has studied this issue extensively. After Zuckerberg’s remarks, he pointed to evidence from the Centers for Disease Control showing that depression and suicide rates have soared in teens, especially young girls, since about 2012 — which just happens to be when smartphones and their social media apps became ubiquitous.
Hawley also pushed Zuckerberg to apologize to the families of children harmed or lost by social media. Surprisingly, Zuckerberg stood up, turned to face these families, some of whom held up photos of their kids, and apologized.
It was a great moment for television, and it forced one of the most powerful people in social media to express some remorse, though he did so only because Hawley pushed him.
The truth is that Zuckerberg’s Orwellian doublespeak is an insult to the victims of social media, their families, and the American people. Clearly, the senators at the hearing are on the record admitting there’s a problem, but we’ll soon see if they’re really interested in making a difference and combatting the mental health crisis among young people in this country or engaging in their own art of deception for political gain.
Notably, and predictably, according to The Washington Post: “More than 100 human rights and LGBTQ groups have condemned the [Kids Online Safety Act], saying it would endanger minors, especially LGBTQ youth. First Amendment lawyers and organizations focused on protecting free speech also have lambasted the proposal and similar state laws, saying they would place dire restrictions on free speech and expression.”
By “human rights and LGBTQ groups” they mean “groomers.”
We can’t rely on Big Tech to make a difference, thus, congressional reformation of the Section 230 protections now afforded these behemoth platforms is our best option. Currently, Section 230 has enabled these social media companies to become wealthy and powerful at the expense of our children. If their product is as safe as they claim, they have nothing to fear.
Finally, while Congress is taking on the dangers social media platforms pose to youth, our representatives also should be taking on the grave danger social media giants pose to all Americans — the systemic suppression of free speech.
How do we, as believers, navigate this particular discussion?
Emmy Griffin
Wonderful Christian teacher and preacher Alistair Begg is a reformed evangelical. He has been very clear and consistent on his position towards the morality of LGBTQ+ — that position being that homosexuality is a sin and that marriage is between a man and a woman.
However, in one of his podcasts, he was answering a question from a grandmother who was clearly in deep distress. Her grandson was marrying a “transgender” individual. She wants to love her grandson but does not want to affirm a union that is anti-biblical. Begg, weighing the nuances of the situation and hearing her heart cry, cautioned her with this practical advice: First, the grandmother, along with her husband, had to work out in fear and trembling with God what the ultimate correct action would be. Next, she needed to make her position clear that, should she attend the wedding, it was out of love for her grandson, not out of affirmation for the marriage itself or the lifestyle choice associated with it. Finally, and most controversially, he advised her to go to the wedding and even bring a gift.
“Here’s the thing,” Begg said. “Your love for them may catch them off guard, but your absence will simply reinforce the fact that they said, ‘These people are what I always thought: judgmental, critical, unprepared to countenance anything.’ And it is a fine line, isn’t it? It really is. And people need to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. But I think we’re going to take that risk. We’re going to have to take that risk a lot more if we want to build bridges into the hearts and lives of those who don’t understand Jesus and don’t understand that he is a King.”
This sparked a larger debate in the Christian community, and the responses ranged from kind but confused to demanding that Begg review and repent of giving drastically wrong advice.
As seminary professor and author Robert Gagnon eloquently points out: “From a biblical perspective, attendance at a gay or transgender wedding is no more an agree-to-disagree point of practice than is a Christian attending the marriage between a man and his mother, or a Christian going to an idol’s temple as a non-worshipper to maintain contacts. There is no faithful early Christian leader who would have advocated such attendance. Remember that in a transgender or gay union, the parties declare their intent to sin without remorse as long as they live and invite attendees to celebrate that commitment with them.”
For his part, Begg doubled down on his position in a sermon entitled “Compassion vs. Condemnation.” He used the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:1-32) to explain his position and response to the grandmother. He talked about the father in the story celebrating the son he thought was lost, the son returning (making that the example of representing the grandmother showing love to her grandson), and the sin of not giving grace by the older brother (cautioning people not to be legalistic and pharisaical like the brother).
With all due respect, this particular biblical example is not a correct one to use because the prodigal son comes home, repents, and begs for forgiveness from the father. The prodigal son didn’t expect to be welcomed as a son; he only hoped to be treated with the same dignity granted to the lowest of his father’s servants. The prodigal son’s repentance is a massive key part of the parable. It cannot apply to going to an LGBTQ+ wedding because, as Professor Gagnon so aptly put it, that wedding is the public announcement of “their intent to sin without remorse as long as they live.”
Begg is a Christian voice who can be trusted and is still sound in his biblical teaching and reasoning. The first piece of advice to the grandmother — using discernment from the Lord first and foremost in the decision-making — is paramount. As is making it clear to the grandson her position on his “marriage” and that she does not affirm his sinful choice but that does not mean she doesn’t love him.
That said, attending the wedding ceremony — because of what marriage truly means and because of what attendance also means — would still be celebrating sin. Loving that grandchild and showing him Christ’s love can be done in many other ways without causing you to stumble and fall into sin. In this transgenderism case, loving the grandson is not lying to him or encouraging a delusion.
Christian podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey reminded her audience, “We cannot out-love God.” What she means is that attending an LGBTQ+ wedding ceremony that is antithetical to God’s design is conforming to the world’s definition of love and compassion. God’s love is about truth. He doesn’t need us to compromise on His behalf.
Jesus did sit with sinners. He broke bread with tax collectors and prostitutes. He reached out to the marginalized in his society as well as the rich and affluent. However, he did not condone their sin and often told them to repent. Jesus, in speaking truth to the sinful woman at the well in John 4, causes her to believe. That truth told in kindness while not condoning sin caused a sinner to turn and believe. That is the Love of the Jesus of the Bible.
As Owen Strachen, research professor of theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary, writes: “Alistair Begg is a good and godly man, and we all falter just like him. Yet the stakes of public teaching are high, very high indeed. Not many should become teachers for just this reason (James 3:1). Leading a little one astray, for example, is a disastrous reality (Matthew 18:6). None of us preaches or teaches perfectly; only Jesus hit that mark. Nonetheless, we must all strive to hit the biblical mark, and offer confession and repentance — publicly, yes, as men in ministry — when we fail.”
In the case of LGBTQ+ weddings, what makes this particularly difficult is the fact that these are sometimes our loved ones and friends. However, marriage is the fundamental building block of the family. It has a particular meaning and a gravitas that cannot be taken idly as a Christian. Marriage is the earthly allegory to the heavenly marriage between Christ and his church. It’s holy and sacred. It should not be taken lightly or attended flippantly.
The “transgender” activists are coming for your children, and they’re playing for keeps.
Samantha Koch
When arguing against the transgender activists of today’s society, a common point made by those who tend to use screaming as their primary form of communication is that the demands of the Rainbow Mafia are harmless. Their sole agenda is supposedly simply to make others aware of their alternative identities and to be protected against discrimination or judgment because of it.
These activists insist that changing pronouns and names is a benign activity and that any school material categorized as LGBTQ+ is meant to enlighten young minds about the way that some might choose to live their lives. They assert that anyone opposed to this type of content in public school libraries does not have the right to keep these books out of reach of the kids and that anyone who does not want their child to read it can opt out — no questions asked.
Live and let live, they say.
However, we know by now that this is not an honest representation of what they truly want. Keeping adult-themed books out of the hands of children can take multiple levels of communication with teachers, counselors, and other school administrators. If you want your child to take a sick day during the “pride” parade at school, that child could face intense criticism and be singled out by her educators. Refusing to go along with the redefinition of words and language could jeopardize you and your parental rights entirely.
There are consequences, and those consequences are becoming more extreme.
If you haven’t heard of Don and Jennifer Mead, their horrifying story is one that every parent should hear. In a recent interview with CBN, the Meads described their ordeal, starting on the day they discovered that their autistic daughter’s teachers and school counselor had changed her pronouns and name to that of a male, including on official school documents.
The Meads had no idea this was happening to their child until, after a meeting with a school advisor to discuss her educational needs and to put a plan in place, a document given to them by a staff member disclosed the name and pronouns the school had been using to identify her. Needless to say, this didn’t match what her family had known her as since she was born.
Hoping for the best-case scenario in an alarming situation, the Meads thought that this was perhaps an agenda that had been isolated to just the teacher and counselor and that they could make an ally of the principal in addressing the problem. However, they soon discovered that the principal had known all along. In addition, per the school’s policy as imposed under the guise of the “inclusivity” label the Rainbow Mafia uses to justify hiding these important issues from a student’s parents, the principal’s hands were tied. Moreover, school officials were legally forbidden from alerting this concerned mother and father about their child’s mental health.
Their story has a happy ending, though, as they were able to get their daughter the help she needed, and she willingly and happily returned to her birth name and identity. The family is now taking legal action against the Michigan-based school district for putting their child in danger. They’re hoping to set the precedent for the countless other parents in this country who are facing the same battle for parental rights in the public education system.
The Meads are lucky. Many other parents have dealt with far more damage, and children from all walks of life are being devastated by policies that are supposedly meant to create a more “inclusive” and harmonious society.
A Montana couple, for example, is facing a nightmare after child protective services removed their 14-year-old daughter from their home when her suicidal ideations called for admittance to a local hospital. During her visit, the medical staff insisted that her issues were caused by discomfort with her gender, and a tug-of-war began.
When the parents contended that the new name and pronouns were actually exacerbating their daughter’s mental health issues and that they would continue to refer to her by her birth name and the pronouns that aligned with her biological sex, the hospital then stepped up the power struggle. Medical staff took advantage of the stressful situation and coerced the parents into allowing the healthcare workers to transport their daughter to a treatment facility, the supposedly necessary next step. Once she was out of reach, they transported her to a location that had not been previously discussed, and the parents have not been able to see or speak to their daughter in months. This is their daughter, not the state’s.
Elsewhere, in Oregon, a Christian mother of five made the decision to open her home to adoptive children in need of a positive family environment. Her efforts have been thwarted, however, as a state policy will not allow her to do so unless she vows to affirm whatever identity the child placed in her care is going by at that time. Her refusal to comply on the basis of free speech and freedom of religion has kept children in crowded foster care and adoptive systems and denied them the opportunity to live in the kind of loving environment that any of them would put their pronouns on the line for.
What we are witnessing is just how relentless these activists have become. There is no reassurance in the assurance that we will not be affected if we choose to quietly sit on the sidelines.
Sitting out is simply not an option. And if you attempt to remain in your seat, in one way or another, you will be forced to stand, to comply, to participate, and to be happy about it.
At a congressional hearing on Wednesday, FBI Director Chris Wray sounded the alarm about the Chinese Communist Party and its massive cyber threat.
Douglas Andrews
In his deeply insightful book on China, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower, Michael Pillsbury begins on a cold late-November afternoon on the National Mall in Washington, DC, where a renowned Chinese artist, Cai Guo Quaing, was the guest of honor. There, he proceeded to blow up a four-story-tall Christmas tree with 2,000 tiny explosive devices.
“I don’t know if any of the guests contemplated why they were watching a Chinese artist blow up a symbol of the Christian faith in the middle of the nation’s capital less than a month before Christmas,” Pillsbury wrote. “In that moment, I’m not sure that even I appreciated the subversion of the gesture [but] I clapped along with the rest of the audience.”
Think about the perversity of that event. Now think about this sobering fact, as relayed earlier this week by FBI Director Chris Wray: “If you took every single one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intelligence analysts and focused them exclusively on the China threat, China’s hackers would still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50 to one.”
Fifty to one.
Wray was testifying at a congressional hearing focused on the espionage and cybersecurity threat posed by China’s government. He went on to sound the alarm over the threat of Chinese espionage, saying, “China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities.”
“The risk that poses to every American requires our attention now,” Wray said.
Here, we’ve got to hand it to the director: The guy is presiding over a corrupt and deeply politicized institution, but he’s been right on China for years now.
The anti-American actions and operations of the Chinese Communist Party include the obvious — the Chinese spy balloon, for example — but also a lot of under-the-radar operations. One of them, as CBS News reports, is their “volt typhoon” hackers, whose goal is to infiltrate our electrical grid. Why? China wants to forcibly reunify with its “breakaway” republic of Taiwan — whose very existence is an embarrassment to the ChiComs and whose wild success is even more so — and its hackers have in their crosshairs our critical infrastructure. This includes our electrical grid, our oil and natural gas pipelines, our water treatment plants, and our transportation systems.
“Volt Typhoon utilizes botnets,” CBS continues, “networks of infected internet-connected devices that can be used to bring down sensitive targets. Typically, initial access is gained through unsecured home routers or modems.”
Think about what happens here in the United States, all across the country, if one or more of these infrastructural essentials is disabled. Utter chaos. Heck, let’s take a less deadly, less drastic scenario: What if the Chinese hacked into our banking system, or even just our nationwide network of ATMs? How long would folks remain calm if no one could do something as simple as pulling cash out of an ATM?
China is already experimenting with these kinds of activities. As the Fox News network reported yesterday morning, during an undetected hacking period last year from May 15 to June 16, the ChiComs broke into the emails of more than 25 organizations, including Microsoft, the State Department, and the Commerce Department. They even hacked into the email of our Chinese ambassador.
For that matter, TikTok’s pervasive influence here in the U.S. means that tens of millions of Americans already have Chinese spyware on their phones. And yet we continue to fiddle away. As our Emmy Griffin noted earlier this month, the Biden administration is treating the ChiComs like a paper tiger.
In response to Wray’s testimony, Florida Republican Congressman Mike Waltz, himself a former Green Beret, said he had no doubt that China’s hacking efforts were purposeful. “The difference here,” he said, “is that this has crossed the line from collecting on us and using cyber to get inside of our systems to putting malware in that can take out our systems. So, we have to start thinking about this differently.”
In other testimony on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Jen Easterly, who leads the nation’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said: “It is Chinese military doctrine to induce societal panic. … The Chinese government got a little bit of a taste of this in the aftermath of the ransomware attack on the Colonial pipeline,” which stretched from New Jersey to Houston and supplied energy to more than a dozen states. “Imagine,” she continued, “not one pipeline but many pipelines disrupted. … This is likely just the tip of the iceberg.”
Indeed, it’s the tip of the iceberg. And we’re full speed ahead.
Here we’re reminded of a podcast that former Trump CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did just over a year ago. When Pompeo was asked what he thought our nation’s next administration needs to do to confront the menace of China, this is what he said: “I’ll do it in one word: reciprocity. If the Chinese can buy land near our military facilities, we should be able to buy land near their military facilities. … If they can use propaganda on the telephones of our children, we should be able to put our propaganda on the phones of their children. … The theory of the case is, we’ve let them have one set of rules, and we’ve bent the knee and kowtowed to them and had an entirely different set of rules, and that can’t continue.”
Pompeo was right then, and he’s even more right now.
Biden Wants to Make It All About Trump — “The Democrats need this to be a spectacle.” The Left wants to make 2024 about Trump. How should conservatives respond?
Finally: Social Media CEOs Are Answering for Their Crimes — Mark Zuckerberg and several other CEOs of major social media platforms faced intense questioning about the policies that are (or are not) in place to protect victims, particularly minors, from online exploitation.
PopCon #29: Dr. K’s Piano vs. CCP in London — YouTuber Brendan Kavanagh’s run-in with a group of Chinese nationals waving communist flags has gone viral, leading to a discussion about China vs. UK law, police capitulation in the face of political correctness, and ChiCom influence across the Western world.
“As we’re checking out [at Target], the woman says: ‘Oh, he’s just walking out. He didn’t pay for that.’ I said, ‘Why didn’t you stop him?’ She goes, ‘Oh, the governor. … The governor lowered the threshold. There’s no accountability.’ I said, ‘That’s just not true.’ … I was like, ‘Why I am spending $380 and everyone can walk the hell right out?’” —California Governor Gavin Newsom
Race Bait
“Walgreens is planning to close yet another pharmacy in … Massachusetts. … This closure is a part of a larger trend of abandoning low-income communities. … These closures are not arbitrary and they are not innocent. They are life-threatening acts of racial and economic discrimination.” —Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)
Political Theater
“[Biden] wants to make sure that he’s there for this community [East Palestine].” —White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
Leftmedia Lob
“For any Republicans who want to continue to try to keep battering the economy, yes, life is expensive. … This is a strong economy. That’s one of the reasons you see them pivoting so hard to immigration. They just can’t keep beating on the economy.” —MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle
For the Record
“Even in his current physical and mental state, [Joe Biden] has the ability to lie with passion if you dare to question him. The reason he can do it so effectively is because he’s done it his entire political career. It is part of who he is. Biden lives on the ‘big lie.’ … And the American media, which is no longer a free press committed to actual journalism, almost universally refuses to correct his lies. In fact, they are much more likely to amplify them.” —Gary Bauer
“After spending the months since Oct. 7 repeating ad nauseam an admonition to Iran not to escalate its violence … Iran has indeed escalated its violence. It turns out that saying ‘Don’t’ to aggressive foreign powers isn’t nearly as effective as saying ‘Don’t, or you may not be breathing tomorrow.’” —Ben Shapiro
“A federal appeals court ruled in the 1996 case Padavan v. U.S. that ‘for a state to be afforded the protections of the Invasion Clause,’ it must be under attack by ‘another state or foreign country that is intending to overthrow the state’s government.’ But that 20th-century definition of invasion is outdated. Now, war is being waged with migrants, not just missiles.” —Betsy McCaughey
“Biden has made the CBP into a concierge service for migrants.” —Betsy McCaughey
“The primary reasons Christians are under attack are 1) because they refuse to bend the knee to a culture that exalts sex as the apex of all human activity, and 2) because they insist that there is a higher authority than government. Those two positions place Christians (as well as members of some other religious faiths) at odds with contemporary American culture.” —Laura Hollis
Insight
“We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a ruined people.” —Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
“…I came away with the sense that it’s probably literally both [a migration and an invasion]…”
Those are the chilling words that renowned biologist Bret Weinstein uses to describe what he found when he visited the Darien Gap in an attempt to understand just what is behind the sudden and overwhelming flood of migrants at the southern border of America.
The Darien Gap is a crucial yet perilous passage for migrants traveling from South America to North America that acts as a natural barrier (where, for 60 miles, the Pan-American highway ends and deadly jungle begins) that saw over half a million migrants traverse its challenging terrain last year alone.
“The jungle in the Darien Gap is some place that one does not go without careful preparation. It is quite dangerous… They’re sleeping on the ground, and so they get hypothermia. It’s extremely slippery.”
In this chilling interview with Tucker Carlson – about a topic that apparently no actual reporter is willing to investigate and write about – Weinstein expolains that his journey to the Darien Gap was spurred by his interest in the unexplained aspects of mass migration, and the findings of Michael Yon, a former Green Beret turned investigative journalist.
“You wonder why there’s not a permanent team of New York Times reporters there trying to tell the rest of us what exactly is happening.”
Through their journey, Weinstein and Yon uncovered a complex narrative involving not political asylum-seekers, but economic migrants and potentially orchestrated movements that appear coordinated by various NGOs and, of particular concern, the Chinese migrant camps they encountered.
The first camp that Weinstein described visiting was full of migrants who were very open to discussing their stories with travelers, and looked superficially like the migration of Central Americans that we are constantly told about.
“Many of them are South American, but that is by no means the whole story. People are coming from the Middle East. We met Afghans. We met people from the Caribbean, Haitians. There are people from Yemen, Iran. It’s shocking really.”
But, the supranational authorities were all evident:
“You see, the hallmark of the international community. You see NGO emblems all over the place, proudly American flags. They’ve paid for the water system, the toilets that are there. The United States government is facilitating this economic migration. And it’s unmistakable, as is an organization called the IOM, which is the International Organization for Migration. It’s a branch of the UN.
And if you read their charter, you will discover that this organization believes that migration is an inherently good thing, that it’s always good. And so they see it as their job to bring it about to facilitate it.
And in this case, that’s particularly tragic because their desire to induce people to migrate is causing people who are woefully unprepared for the Darien Gap to try to make that journey. And, the the humanitarian tragedy is, is immense.“
Weinstein then pivoted to contrast that experience with a second one, highlighting for Carlson how it had been “built as a transit camp” for “almost” all Chinese migrants.
“The SENAFRONT, the Panamanian border control, actually forbid us to go into the camp. So we had to stay on the outside of it. We were also forbidden to photograph it. So what photographs we have were taken covertly,” Weinstein explained.
“These, Chinese folks who are overwhelmingly male, military age… It is not a friendly migration… This felt like people who did not want to share information, because it would be a mistake to do so.”
Weinstein criticizes the lack of distinction made between political refugees and economic migrants at the US border, suggesting that the current policy framework is inadvertently supporting an unsustainable and potentially exploitative system.
This system, he notes, not only undermines the economic well-being of Americans but also contributes to a humanitarian crisis that is largely ignored by mainstream media and political discourse.
Tuckr Carlson concludes with words to live by:
“I think we have to stop punishing ourselves for considering things that one seems crazy. I’m getting that tattooed.”
Watch the interview here:
Ep. 71 Bret Weinstein traveled to the Darien Gap to understand who’s behind the invasion of our country. His conclusion: “it’s not a friendly migration.” pic.twitter.com/mY8TlrLPnm
Finally, following the interview, @KanekoaTheGreat wrote a post on X following the thread that Weintein pulled about this being potentially orchestrated…
America’s illegal immigration crisis is shattering century-old records with alarming numbers.
On President Biden’s inaugural day, he introduced policies that incentivize illegal immigration:
Paused Deportations
Suspended “Remain in Mexico”
Stopped Border Wall Construction
Since Biden’s policy changes, over 8 million people have illegally entered the country, with millions more slipping past border patrol undetected.
This surge in illegal immigration is a national security crisis, costing American taxpayers hundreds of billions per year.
Major U.S. cities, grappling with the escalating financial burden, are slashing budgets for essential services such as fire, police, and education.
President Biden holds the power to halt this crisis that is draining America’s resources and endangering its citizens.
The solution is as simple as the actions that led to this crisis—Biden should use his pen to reverse his executive orders.
“No great nation can be in a position where they can’t control their borders. It matters how you control your borders. Not just for immigration, but it matters for drugs, terror, and a whole range of things.”
— Joe Biden
“We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.”
— Barack Obama
“All Americans, not only in the States most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use imposes burdens on our taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, and by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens.”
— Bill Clinton
Watch:
🚨WATCH: America’s illegal immigration crisis is shattering century-old records with alarming numbers.
Please share these messages with others, encouraging them to consider the centrality of doctrine in the Christian life as they study the importance of creeds and confessions of faith.
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If you weren’t able to join us for our Winter Conference, we hope to see you at one of our upcoming events.
House Speaker Mike Johnson says the Biden administration must stop the ‘madness’ going on at the southern border during an appearance on ‘Mornings with Maria.’
JERUSALEM, Israel – Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says the Israel Defense Forces reached a major military milestone: the defeat of Hamas in Khan Younis, the second largest city in the Gaza Strip, and home to many in the Hamas top leadership.
Now, Gallant says the IDF is moving on to their next targets.
He declared, “The (Hamas) Khan Younis Brigade boasted that it would stand strong against the IDF. Today it is dismantled. And I’m telling you that we are completing the mission in Khan Younis, and we will also reach Rafah (at the Egyptian border) and we will eliminate anyone who’s there, who is a terrorist, who is trying to attack us.“
Whether it’s tending to your health, investing time in a worthy cause, or saving for retirement, you likely devote time and resources to your future well-being. But how much time do you spend preparing for eternity? Dr. Robert Jeffress shares how you can start preparing now for the certainty of Christ’s return.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) surprised everyone when they announced on Friday that the economy added 353,000 jobs and the unemployment rate was at 3.7%.
Not everyone is buying this good news for Joe Biden. Zero Hedge suggested the BLS is just making it up at this point. The numbers don’t jive.
FOX News analysts were also stunned to hear the shocking economic news.
This is like the trick the government played to help out Obama before the 2012 election.
Steve Ferrara at Forbes reported on the stunning report in October 2012 before the presidential election.
Just one month before the 2012 election, the Obama campaign received a major illegal campaign contribution from the Commerce Department. The Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on October 5, 2012 that the nation’s unemployment rate suddenly dropped sharply over the prior month, from 8.1% to 7.8%. That supposedly ended the longest period in the nation’s history with unemployment over 8%, except for the Great Depression, which occurred under President Obama.
Just before the election. How convenient.
That was totally unbelievable at the time, and I and others said so then. In my Forbes column the very next week, “President Obama’s Unemployment Still Stuck at 14.7%,” I noted how inconsistent the supposed unemployment drop was with other contemporaneous economic data. The sharp unemployment drop supposedly resulted from a total of 114,000 new jobs created in September, 2012, according to the Establishment Survey of business payrolls of the Bureau of Labor Statistics that the Obama Administration had been emphasizing throughout its first term. But economist John Lott noted at Foxnews.com that the working age population had grown by 206,000 in September, 2012. With normal labor force participation during a recovery from a steep recession, that would have required 138,000 new jobs that month, just to keep pace with population growth, let alone to reduce the unemployment rate.
Moreover, the BLS also reported for September, 2012 that the number of full-time jobs declined by 216,000 in that month. The supposed 0.3% drop in unemployment that month was also inconsistent with that data. The unemployment rate had never before in American history declined by nearly a third of a point in one month, while the economy was losing over 200,000 full time jobs in the same month.
That supposed drop in unemployment in September, 2012 was also wildly inconsistent with GDP growth at the time, reported as a meager 1.3% in the second quarter of that year, in long term decline from 1.6% over the first half of that year, 2% in 2011, and 2.4% in 2010. President Obama’s pitiful economic growth record has been only half of normal long term economic growth for America, and only a third or less of the historic growth from a deep recession, such as the Reagan recovery from the 1981-1982 recession.
As has long been suspected, it appears the Marxist left has even infiltrated the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Look for more ridiculous numbers to come out in the months ahead.
In his maiden speech from the House floor on Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson highlighted a list of 64 actions taken by President Joe Biden’s administration that undermined border security.
The list includes Biden directing border wall construction to end on his first day on the job and submitting legislation calling for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Johnson also noted that Biden lifted “limitations and restrictions against immigration from certain countries associated with terrorism” that former President Donald Trump had in place.
BREAKING: Speaker Mike Johnson releases a document of 64 instances of the Biden Administration undermining border security policy and encouraging illegal immigration. pic.twitter.com/g4WLALMhpi
The president also rescinded Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy and placed a 100-day moratorium on deportations, and his administration greatly reduced the number eligible for deportation thereafter.
Additionally, the Biden administration suspended agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras meant to stem the flow of migrants.
Further, the president expanded the parole of illegal immigrants making asylum claims in the U.S. at unprecedented levels.
On Wednesday, a reporter asked Biden, “Have you done everything you can do with executive authority [to address the border crisis]?”
The president responded, “I’ve done all I can do. Just give me the power I asked for the very day I got in office. Give me the Border Patrol. Give me the people that judge [asylum claims]. Give me the people who can stop this and make it work rationally.”
A former member of a drug cartel says Biden’s border policies are aiding and abetting the drug cartels.
“The drugs, the people…the cartels are coming in, I mean, they’re just taking advantage of every situation of these border crossings.” pic.twitter.com/PQLimKdFj7
In his first speech from the House floor since becoming speaker in October, Johnson asserted that Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have “designed this catastrophe.”
“And now, rather than accept any accountability or responsibility for what they’ve clearly done, President Biden wants to somehow try to shift the blame to Congress,” he said.
The speaker argued that if Biden is serious about addressing the border crisis, “he needs to demonstrate good faith and take immediate action to secure that border, but he won’t do it.”
He also pointed to the fentanyl and human trafficking victims flooding into the country, among other issues.
“I am here this morning to beg of my colleagues to help us force the administration to take action,” Johnson said.
He noted that since Biden took office, there have been over 7 million encounters with migrants entering the U.S. illegally at the southern border and an additional 1.8 million known gotaways.
Of those apprehended, he said, over 300 are on the terror watch list.
“If so many terrorists were caught attempting to cross our borders, how many have entered undetected?” Johnson asked. “We suspect it is a much higher number.”
“Understand the situation at our border creates a clear and present danger to our national security, and it demands that it be addressed,” the speaker said.
Johnson cited a letter he received from former FBI officials communicating their concern about the surge in military-age men crossing the border “from adversarial nations and terrorist regimes.”
“These are not huddled masses of families seeking refuge and asylum. These are people coming into our country to do only God knows what,” the speaker added. “The Biden administration is allowing it.”
Johnson called for the Senate to take up the Secure the Border Act passed by the House last spring and pledged that he will not agree to any deal that simply facilitates more illegal immigration.
“House Republicans are not here to supply more buckets. We are here to stop the flow,” he said.
Today’s NEWSMAX 20-min top headlines podcast guest-hosted by Kay Smythe:
[0:32] -Donald Trump Jr. gives honest take on RFK Jr. and rips ‘laughable’ Nikki Haley. [Eric Bolling The Balance]
[6:47] -Newsmax host Carl Higbie: “Biden has our enemies laughing at us right now.” [Carl Higbie Frontline]
[13:45] -Swimmer Lia Thomas’ teammate: “Men competing in women’s sports is rude and disrespectful for everyone.” [National Report]
[17:36] -Newsmax host Rob Schmitt on the Left’s destruction of legal immigration. [Rob Schmitt Tonight]
House Speaker Mike Johnson has released a document detailing 64 instances in which the Biden regime has deliberately undermined border security and facilitated illegal immigration.
In his first floor speech since assuming office, Johnson accused White House resident Joe Biden of intentionally creating a situation that poses a “clear and present danger to our national security.”
Speaker Johnson’s speech painted a dire picture of the current situation at the border. According to Johnson, the Biden regime’s policies have contributed to a surge in illegal border crossings, overwhelming border patrol and immigration enforcement efforts.
“The numbers speak volumes,” Speaker Johnson declared. “Over 700,000 illegal entries since my term began, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. We’re not just talking about statistics; we’re talking about the safety of our citizens, the sanctity of our laws, and the sovereignty of our nation.”
The Speaker’s address also contained alarming statistics on the number of ‘gotaways’ and individuals on the terror watchlist who have been apprehended at the border, emphasizing the potential threats of illegal aliens.
“Since President Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas assumed office, there have been more than 7 million encounters with illegal aliens just at our southern border alone. 35 of our 50 states, including my home state of Louisiana, don’t have a population that large.”
“More than 300 individuals who are on our terror watchlist have been apprehended on the southern border. The frightening question is, how many have entered undetected? We know there are at least 1.8 million gotaways that have escaped.”
The Speaker also highlighted the surge in fentanyl trafficking, attributing the spike in overdose deaths in the U.S. to the influx of illegal drugs across the border.
In a scathing critique, Speaker Johnson outlined actions by the Biden administration that he believes have directly contributed to the border crisis. Among these, he mentioned the revocation of Executive Order 9844, which ended the construction of the border wall, and the termination of the Migrant Protection Protocols, commonly known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
“By incentivizing illegal entry and relaxing enforcement, President Biden has effectively rolled out the red carpet for illegal immigration, at the expense of American taxpayers and the rule of law,” Johnson said.
The Speaker’s office released a video accompanying the floor speech, which includes specific examples from the 64-document report.
Here are 64 instances of how the Biden regime has compromised border security measures and promoted policies that may inadvertently encourage illegal immigration:
Jan 20, 2021: President Biden terminated the National Emergency at the Southwest border (Proclamation 9844), thereby halting emergency construction of a border wall.
Jan 20, 2021: President Biden issued an Executive Order (EO) further entrenching the unlawful Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. With his action, President Biden directed the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, “to preserve and fortify DACA”, signaling to illegal aliens that his Administration supports amnesty and that illegal aliens need not fear coming to the U.S. or worry about immigration enforcement.
Jan 20, 2021: President Biden unveiled the U.S. Citizenship Act, which would provide amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in the U.S., demonstrating intent to reward illegal border crossers with a path to citizenship.
Jan 20, 2021: President Biden revoked Trump-era Executive Order that was designed to ensure there was meaningful enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.
Jan 20, 2021: The Administration issued an Executive action ending limitations and restrictions against immigration from certain countries associated with terrorism.
Jan 20, 2021: The Biden Administration announced a 100-day moratorium on deportations and immigration enforcement, effectively providing amnesty to criminal and other removable aliens and sending the signal the Biden Administration would not enforce the law. The Administration also announced interim immigration enforcement guidelines that signaled to illegal aliens that they do not have to worry about the possibility of deportation.
Feb 1, 2021: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) implemented Acting Secretary Pekoske’s policy requiring a new “process [that] shall provide for assessments of alternatives to removal including, but not limited to, staying or reopening cases, alternative forms of detention, custodial detention, whether to grant temporary deferred action, or other appropriate action.”
Feb 2, 2021: President Biden issued Executive Order (EO) 14010 and began processing asylum claims at the border. In the EO, the President also signaled an end to the Migrant Protection Protocols (which is known as “Remain in Mexico” or “MPP”) while making other statements signaling an open border.
Feb 6, 2021: Secretary of State Antony Blinken suspended, and began termination procedures, for the Trump Administration’s Asylum Cooperative Agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. These agreements ensured aliens seeking asylum could do so in countries closer to their home country and in countries other than the United States.
Feb 2021: The Biden Administration voluntarily stopped applying Title 42 expulsions to children across the board, setting off a major wave of unaccompanied alien children, family units, and illegal aliens generally heading to the U.S. border.
Feb 17, 2021: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) exempted unaccompanied alien children (UAC) from Title 42 expulsion requirements, thereby encouraging UACs to come to the U.S. and parents to pay cartels to smuggle their children to the U.S. border.
Feb 25, 2021: The Biden Administration sped up releases of UACs.
Mar 2, 2021: According to news reports, the Biden Administration lost track of 20,000 unaccompanied alien children and President Biden was briefed on the need to expand detention to hold an additional 20,000 children who had illegally crossed the border.
Mar 5, 2021: Faced with overwhelming numbers of UACs in federal custody, the CDC ignored its normal facilities guidance regarding COVID-19 and notifies “facilities caring for migrant children that they can open back up to pre-Covid-19 levels, acknowledging ‘extraordinary circumstances.’”
Mar 10, 2021: Biden Administration announced reinstatement of the Central American Minors (CAM) program, an Obama-era parole program that allowed citizens and aliens—including illegal aliens—to bypass the family-based immigration laws adopted by Congress and sponsor family members El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to come to the United States.
Mar 16, 2021: DHS Secretary Mayorkas delivered remarks effectively explaining the border is open for illegal immigration by stating DHS’s focus would be on “processing” illegal aliens—in other words catch-and-release and the creation of new “lawful pathways.”
Mar 20, 2021: DHS began issuing illegal alien border crossers a Notice to Report (NTR) to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as opposed to the standard Notice to Appear (NTA) in U.S. immigration court. The NTR policy allows illegal aliens to simply be released into the U.S. and relies on them to self-report to ICE at a later date.
Mar 30, 2021: Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) took drastic actions to expand detention space to house unaccompanied alien children in so-called “Influx Care Facilities”, often using unlicensed facilities that lacked child welfare experience. In March, April, and May of 2021, ORR expanded capacity to house another 23,849, including 10,000 at Fort Bliss. DHS was also holding children for a longer period than allowed by law (between 30 and 40 days) and, because the flow of UACs across the border outpaced Health and Human Services’ (HHS) ability to vet adults who can care for the children.
Mar 31, 2021: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) issued guidance rolling back requirements for background checks on adults in the household of a UAC sponsor.
Apr 30, 2021: The Biden Administration canceled further wall construction which was being led by the Department of Defense (DOD).
June 15, 2021: The Biden Administration announced expansion of the Central American Minors (CAM) program to broaden the list of illegal aliens who can sponsor family members through the program, including illegal aliens who claim asylum.
June 16, 2021: Attorney General Merrick Garland rescinded the Trump-era decision In Matter of L-E-A-, thereby expanding asylum eligibility to allow nuclear or immediate familial relationships to be treated as a “particular social group.”
June 16, 2021: Attorney General Merrick Garland rescinded the Trump-era decision in Matter of A-B I and A-B II, thereby expanding asylum eligibility to include gender and domestic relationships as certain social groups, reverting to policy under in Matter of A-R-C-G.
July 2021: The United States Border Patrol (USBP or BP) released at least 50,000 aliens without giving them a “Notice to Appear” (a court date), instead advising them to self-report to ICE on their own. Unsurprisingly, 87% of aliens fail to report.
Aug 5, 2021: The USBP authorized the use of parole plus alternatives to detention (ATD) in the Del Rio Border Sector.
Aug 17, 2021: DHS announced an expansion of alternatives to detention (effectively reinstating and expanding catch and release) and announced the expansion of taxpayer-funded services to illegal aliens in removal proceedings.
Aug 31, 2021: The Biden administration released over 100,000 aliens into the United States between March 21, 2021 and August 31, 2021, without giving these aliens a “Notice to Appear”, instead advising them to self-report to ICE on their own. Of those, nearly 50% of them did not check-in with ICE within the 60-day deadline.
Sep 24, 2021: The Administration falsely accused Border Patrol agents on horseback in Del Rio, Texas of whipping aliens at the border. President Biden condemned the agents, saying the aliens had been “strapped” and vowed “consequences.” Vice President Harris piled on the false allegations, comparing them to oppression and slavery. In fact, DHS Secretary Mayorkas knew the claim was false and even though the agents were exonerated in July 2022, the Administration proposed punishment for the agents.
Sep 30, 2021: DHS Secretary Mayorkas issued a memorandum that states “the fact an individual is a removeable [alien] should [not be the sole] basis of an enforcement action”, effectively using prosecutorial discretion to give deportable aliens a pass to stay in the United States, thereby granting a form of amnesty to many illegal aliens.
Fiscal Year 2021: Throughout Fiscal Year 2021, the Biden Administration distributed more than $300 million in federal law enforcement grants to Sanctuary Cities under SCAAP, Byrne, and COPS programs (amounting to 43% of total awards going to sanctuary cities), financially rewarding cities whose policies encourage illegal immigration.
Oct 8, 2021: DHS canceled another group of border wall contracts led by DHS related to the Laredo and Rio Grande Valley Border Sectors.
Oct 12, 2021: DHS effectively suspended large-scale worksite enforcement, a key tool to deter the hiring and employment of illegal aliens.
Oct 27, 2021: DHS Secretary Mayorkas issued a memorandum prohibiting enforcement of immigration laws in certain areas including schools, healthcare facilities, recreational areas, social service and emergency facilities, ceremonial locations (such as funerals and civil ceremonies) as well as at demonstrations and rallies.
Oct 29, 2021: DHS Secretary Mayorkas terminated the Migrant Protection Protocols (known as “MPP” or “Remain in Mexico”).
Nov 2021: The Biden Administration formally created a program that included alternatives to detention (ATD) plus parole, resulting in “catch and release” for hundreds of thousands of aliens into the U.S. interior after they were encountered at the border (338,000 aliens were released in Fiscal Year 2022 alone) under this program.
Dec 17, 2021: Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) repurposed three detention centers previously used for family detention, thus encouraging greater illegal immigration of family units.
Jan 2022: Between July 2021 and January 2022, the United States admitted more than 79,000 Afghan evacuees as part of Operation Allies Welcome after the Biden State Department and Department of Defense botched the nation’s withdraw from Afghanistan. The DHS OIG determined that DHS failed to fully vet the evacuees. Failure to vet refugees, signaled that the Administration might also apply lax vetting to asylum seekers, further encouraging asylum abuse.
Apr 1, 2022: The Biden Administration announced intent to end Title 42. Federal District Court Judge from Louisiana temporarily blocks the action.
Apr 3, 2022: ICE Principal Legal Advisor issued memorandum promoting termination of cases in immigration court and directing ICE Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) trial attorneys to comb through their cases to determine whether aliens would be considered a “priority” for removal under the Biden “enforcement priorities.”
Sep 9, 2022: The Biden Administration reversed Trump-era public charge rule, allowing aliens who are likely to become a burden to taxpayers to receive immigration benefits – such as a visa, admission, or adjustment of status.
Oct 31, 2022: DHS finalized a rule to “fortify DACA”, which declares DACA recipients as “lawfully present” and grants them employment documents despite ongoing litigation.
Dec 13, 2022: The Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the State of Arizona in order to force Arizona to remove shipping containers placed to close gaps in the border wall.
Jan 2023: CBP changed CBP One app to allow border crossers to schedule online appointments, expanding the number of aliens allowed into the United States.
Jan 6, 2023: The Biden Administration began abusing statutory parole authority under INA 212(d)(5) by creating a categorical parole program for nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Parole was intended by Congress to be used sparingly and only on a “case by case” basis, yet DHS continues to create and administer categorical parole programs to allow hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens to classes of aliens.
Feb 25, 2023: The New York Times reported data showing the Biden Department of HHS has lost track of 85,000 alien children over the prior two years. NYT exposes details of minor children working in factories in the United States.
Mar 2023: ICE continued to ignore the need for deportations, allowing criminal aliens to stay in the U.S. ICE’s non-detained docket grew to an estimated 5.3 million aliens, including 407,983 criminal aliens. Meanwhile, ICE arrests in Fiscal Year 2022 fell by 69% compared to Fiscal Year 2018 and arrests of convicted criminals fell 65% (to 36,322 in Fiscal Year 2022 from 105,140 in Fiscal Year 2018).
Mar 25, 2023: Despite record numbers of illegal aliens arriving at the southern border, the Biden Administration proposed cutting detention beds by 25 percent as part of its Fiscal Year 2024 budget request.
Mar 28, 2023: DHS Inspector General (IG), citing lax oversight, issued a report that identified misuse and fraud of federal emergency funds, resulting in up to $110 million in funds appropriated in the American Rescue Plan and other legislation being awarded to pay for services to illegal aliens and not Americans suffering due to COVID.
Apr 13, 2023: The Biden Administration announced DACA recipients would be eligible for Obamacare benefits and Medicaid, giving taxpayer-funded healthcare to illegal aliens.
Apr 27, 2023: The State Department and DHS announced plans to end Title 42, expand CBP One app, and create additional unlawful categorical parole programs for aliens from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Colombia. The program violates the law and allows aliens to enter before they receive a green card and without a visa.
Apr 30, 2023: The Biden Administration circulated guidance that waters down the vetting process for Chinese illegal aliens, requiring that interviews used to question a Chinese illegal alien consist of five basic questions. The media reported that Chinese illegal aliens “quickly adapted” to the new CBP guidelines and were “coached” to give “stories that are identical.”
May 5, 2023: CBP expanded appointment capability of the CBP One App. Through Nov. 2023, nearly 360,000 appointments had been scheduled on the app (43,000 in November alone). The CBP One app continues to be vulnerable to exploitation by the cartels.
May 11, 2023: The Biden Administration terminated use of Title 42 policy expulsion authority.
May 31, 2023: The Biden Administration ended the DNA testing program used to verify that adults who crossed the border with a child and claimed to be related to that child, are in fact related. Ending the program promotes not only illegal immigration, but also child exploitation and trafficking.
July 7, 2023: The Biden Administration expanded unlawful parole programs to include individuals from Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
July 24, 2023: The Biden Department of Justice sued the State of Texas to remove newly placed floating barriers in the Rio Grande River.
Aug 10, 2023: The Biden Administration Office of Management and Budget requested nearly $14 billion in emergency funding that perpetuates the Biden Administration’s open borders policies. For example, $600 million was requested for FEMA’s Shelter and Services program, which provided airfare and hotels to illegal aliens. This is on top of the $363.8 spent by the program in Fiscal Year 2023.
Aug 29, 2023: ICE scrambled after releasing into the U.S. more than a dozen Uzbek nationals with ties to an ISIS smuggler.
Aug 2023: DHS rebranded “Alternatives to Detention” as “Release and Reporting Management,” effectively using ICE to provide social services to aliens instead of allowing ICE to function as a law enforcement agency.
Sep 8, 2023: The Biden Administration promulgated a proposed rule to reverse Trump-era policy and allow Immigration Judges to administratively close or dismiss removal proceedings without any action (something not allowed by statute), resulting in no decision denying asylum.
Oct 4, 2023: The Biden Administration issued new rules on UACs that fails to prevent the release of illegal alien children to strangers, fails to facilitate age determinations, and fails to collect immigration information on sponsors. All of this will encourage trafficking of children, including by the cartels.
Dec 21, 2023: Biden Administration announced the creation of a new “juvenile” docket within immigration courts which is so expansive, it gives specialized treatment to 18, 19, and 20 year-old illegal aliens who should be deported through the expedited removal process.
Dec 28, 2023: Following a trip to Mexico by Secretary of State Blinken and DHS Secretary Mayorkas, the Mexican government reported that their discussions focused on “regularizing” status – i.e., amnesty – for “Hispanic migrants who have been undocumented… and DACA beneficiaries.”
Jan 3, 2024: The Biden Administration sued the State of Texas for enforcing a recently enacted Texas state law that allow Texas judges and magistrates to order illegal aliens to return to the foreign nation from which they entered.
Watch his floor speech below:
🚨NEW – House Speaker Mike Johnson delivers first floor speech on border catastrophe, accusing President Biden of intentionally creating a "clear and present danger to our national security."
"Since I was elected Speaker less than 100 days ago, more than 700,000 illegals have… pic.twitter.com/ZLpuz9pPGz
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