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
Exodus 28:1 — In a few days we’ll hear more about Nadab and Abihu, but interestingly God has called unregenerate people throughout the Bible to serve Him. Jesus called Judas (Matthew 10:4) to be His disciple.
Exodus 28:40 — What were the two purposes for the clothing? Glory and beauty. God encourages us to think on lovely things (Philippians 4:8). Answers in Genesis (AiG) has an interesting point – only a Designer can add beauty for the sake of beauty.
Matthew 25:31 — We are two thousand years closer to this date than the disciples were. At the Second Coming, at the start of the Millennium, our King will come in His glory! Jesus is still on the Mount of Olives, telling His disciples about when He returns to the Mount of Olives in glory (Acts 1:11)!
Matthew 25:40 — Is Jesus teaching a works salvation? Here’s what John MacArthur says:
“People who get confused here and somehow miss verse 34 because verse 34 makes it very clear the basis of their entrance into the Kingdom. It’s extremely clear. First of all, “Come … here comes number one point … ye blessed of My Father.” That emphasizes the source of their salvation. You are blessed of My Father. You are entering into the Kingdom because My Father has determined to bless you … And then it says, “Come you who are the blessed who belong to My Father, inherit … inherit,” which implies something very important. You inherit something because you are born into a family, right? It implies again that they belong to the family of God, to which you belong by faith. You inherit what is yours because by faith you have become a joint heir with Christ if we can sort of borrow Paul’s thought in Romans 8.”
Matthew 25:41 — ”Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Hell is real!
Psalm 31:18 — Take a second and enjoy the beautiful phrasing of the first phrase: the alliteration and the contrast as the Psalmist calls for silence from the liars.
Proverbs 8:13 — What is your relationship with evil, pride, arrogancy, the evil way, and the froward mouth?
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I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not. (Isaiah 42:16)
Think of the infinitely glorious Jehovah acting as a Guide to the blind! What boundless condescension does this imply! A blind man cannot find a way which he does not know. Even when he knows the road, it is hard for him to traverse it; but a road which he has not known is quite out of the question for his unguided feet. Now, we are by nature blind as to the way of salvation, and yet the Lord leads us into it and brings us to Himself, and then opens our eyes. As to the future, we are all of us blind and cannot see an hour before us; but the Lord Jesus will lead us even to our journey’s end. Blessed be His name!
We cannot guess in which way deliverance can possibly come to us, but the Lord knows, and He will lead us till we shall have escaped every danger. Happy are those who place their hand in that of the great Guide and leave their way and themselves entirely with Him. He will bring them all the way; and when He has brought them home to glory and has opened their eyes to see the way by which He has led them, what a song of gratitude will they sing unto their great Benefactor! Lord, lead Thy poor blind child this day, for I know not my way!
“The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” Luke17:5
When Jesus taught His disciples that they needed to forgive seven times a day if they were asked to forgive. The disciples’ response to Jesus was, “Increase our faith!”
Jesus then went on to say that,
“If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” Luke 17:6
The disciples were thinking that they needed more faith to be able to forgive more; Jesus was teaching them that it was ‘quality,’ not ‘quantity,’ that mattered. Jesus wanted them to understand that it was their reliance on Him, the master, for faith that empowered them with the ability to forgive. Even just a little bit of faith!
“Heavenly Father please increase our faith. Empower us with your Holy Spirit that we might forgive when we are asked to. In Jesus name, amen.”
“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.” Psalm 130: 5
We spend much of our time waiting for prayers to be answered. Waiting for healing. Waiting for our children to come home. Waiting for a job opportunity. Waiting for the house to sell. Why so much waiting? Time is a protection for us. We couldn’t bear to see all our lives at once.
Waiting on God is not the same as doing nothing. The truth is, waiting requires tremendous faith and focus.
How can we make a time of waiting more tolerable, even fruitful?
1. Realize God’s leading is uniquely yours. He knows us better than we know ourselves and He always has the best in mind. “Look to Me,” I hear Jesus saying, “what I am doing with your life is my love-gift to you.”
2. Remember what God has done for you in the past. Reading through an old journal always leaves me incredibly grateful. Problems that seemed insurmountable have been overcome. Dreams have come true. Prayers have been answered. As I read about God’s faithfulness in the past, there’s a growing certainty that God is working just as diligently in the present.
3. Think of your life as one day and focus on present blessings. “Each day is a little life; each morning is a new beginning,” writes Arthur Schopenhauer. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own,” Jesus said in Matthew 6:34.
4. Changewhat you can and leave the rest to God. Nothing wards off that helpless I’m-a-victim feeling as quickly as doing something productive like working in the garden, knitting a toque, having someone over for a meal…
5. Stand firmon the God of hope. Although we may be uncertain as to what God is doing, we can be certain of His character. He’s always acting in love towards us. “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).
Why must we wait? God wants to grow fruit in our lives which takes time to ripen, like patience and perseverance. He wants to show us more of Himself; He wants to grow our relationship with Him.
Father, thank you that you are present in my waiting. Help me to trust that Your timing is best.
Unconfirmed: Excerpts from Carlson’s interview with Putin Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Putin. We’re convinced Biden is not running the country. Your southern border was better run than that 2020 electio You may change presidents but you do not change those in real power. The US has now entered into a dark period. It has unaccountable leadership. Putin is anti-Globalist. Putin knows about their criminality in Ukraine. Putin knows where the bodies are buried.
Scientists say hurricanes are growing so powerful that we need to add a Category 6. Here’s what that would look like. “The open endedness of the 5th category of the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale becomes increasingly problematic for conveying wind risk … To remedy this, authors Michael Wehner and James Kossin, propose adding another category. Category 6 would refer to hurricanes with sustained wind speeds of at least 192 mph — about the speed that NASCAR drivers go. A strong hurricane with 192 mph winds — which would qualify as a Category 6 — isn’t unheard of. In fact, since 2013, five storms have reached or surpassed that, …….Soil moisture improving following 2023 drought Welcomed precipitation across most of the state in late January contributed to what has been a slow journey to recovery from the 2023 drought. Ford said levels on the Mississippi River between Cairo and Memphis, Tennessee have increased 10 to 15 feet in some areas over the last couple of weeks. While significant rainfall is encouraging, it will take a lot more to reach normal river levels due to the intensity of drought experienced across the entire Midwest down into the southern states.Has The Stage Been Set For “The Big One” To Hit California? Trillions of gallons of rain have already fallen on the state of California, and more rain continues to fall as I write this article. Billions of dollars in damage has already been done, but of even greater concern is what all of this water could mean for southern California’s fault lines. … geophysicists have discovered that the additional weight that flooding puts on fault lines can help trigger earthquakes. … scientists near LA have found a new risk for the area during a major earthquake. They claim that if a major tremor hits the area, it could plunge large parts of California into the sea almost instantly.NASA has never issued a warning for a dangerous asteroid impact In the event of an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, NASA would provide either a notification of a close encounter or a potential impact.” It currently takes between five and ten years to mount an asteroid deflection mission. The earlier we spot a potential impactor, the less energy is required to push it on to a safer trajectory.Colorado hit by increasingly dire wildfire-driven insurance exit Insurance isn’t the sexiest topic to either write or read about, but an extreme weather-driven downtrend of insurance agency availability is tightening the noose on an already suffocating national housing market. The U.S. had its highest number — 28 — of annual billion-dollar weather disasters in 2023, including the Lahaina wildfire, California flooding, and Tropical Cyclone Idalia in Florida, according to a NOAA report.Agriculture built these High Plains towns. Now, it might run them dry Wilson crisscrosses western Kansas every January to measure wells and track the rapid decline of the Ogallala Aquifer, which contains the nation’s largest underground store of fresh water. Last year, some wells had dropped 10 feet or more because of the severe 2022 drought. But this year, they stayed about the same or dropped a couple feet. Some of these wells have dropped more than 100 feet since Wilson started working for the agency in 2001, he said. “Some of our issues looking forward look gargantuan,” Wilson said. “But I do think we can peck away at it and make some headway.”
Tech layoffs continue to roil industry with 32,000 jobs cut The tech industry has started 2024 with another wave of job cuts, paring back even further after widespread layoffs last year. So far, some 32,000 tech workers have lost their jobs in 2024 according to Layoffs.fyi, a startup that has been tracking job cuts in the industry since the pandemic.Ben Gvir is ‘not part of the leadership which makes decisions,’ says Gallant Responding to a question at a press conference, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says that far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir is not a key decision maker in security issues. Gallant says that the Otzma Yehudit leader “is not part of the leadership that makes decisions.”
37,000 Chinese nationals arrested at US-Mexico border in 2023 A new report claims the fastest-growing group of illegal immigrants entering the United States along the southern border is from China, with roughly 37,000 Chinese nationals reportedly apprehended at the border last year alone.
Solar maximum is coming, but we won’t know it happened until 7 months after it’s over The sun has been gradually gaining strength as it nears its highest rate of activity — solar maximum — during its approximately 11-year solar cycle. The solar cycle describes a period of solar activity driven by the sun’s magnetic field and indicated by the frequency and intensity of sunspots visible on the surface. But, scientists won’t be able to ascertain whether solar maximum has occurred until at least seven months after the fact.
Robot wingmen vs. China: What a think tank’s wargame revealed about a key USAF concept As the Air Force contemplates a range of price points, the tabletop exercise suggests cheaper is better. The U.S. Air Force still needs to figure out the “right tradeoffs” to balance cost and capability for its future family of drones, a prominent airpower think tank says after testing how a mix of unmanned and manned aircraft would fare in a fight with China.
Evil Alive And Well: Student Vows Not To Practice Medicine In Her State If Full-Term Abortion Banned When the Bible describes those who love evil, who love spilling innocent blood, we might wonder who, other than a few shockingly evil characters from history, could be said to love shedding blood. But yes, those who love death are alive and well today—and they look like this young medical student in Wisconsin.
Is Pursuing Happiness Instead Of Holiness ‘The Plague Of The Church’? one of the great injustices brought to bear on believers through the preaching of the prosperity gospel is their belief that the true Christian ideal is to be happy and prosperous. No – the true Christian ideal is to be holy. Because holiness is not an optional Christian extra – it is commanded.
IDF fighter jet eliminates October 7th terrorist IDF troops are continuing to operate in western Khan Yunis to secure new areas above and below ground. The forces have encountered armed Hamas terrorists wearing civilian clothing who were preparing attacks on IDF troops in the area. Over the past day, dozens of terrorists have been killed and approximately 80 individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist activity have been apprehended, including several terrorists that took part in the October 7th massacre.
Hamas stole aid trucks in Gaza to use for transportation The IDF has targeted aid trucks that were stolen by the Hamas terrorist organization for military use, i24NEWS reported. According to the report, which cited security sources, Hamas seized the trucks and converted them into ammunition-transport vehicles to use in the organization’s war against the Jewish State. Armed gunmen were found inside one of the vehicles. This is the first time it has been proven that aid trucks that entered Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid have been seized by Hamas and used for military purposes since the beginning of the war.
US State Department warns of Jew-hatred emerging from Asia “There’s been an increase in the People’s Republic of China’s state media and online discourse of antisemitic tropes that Jews control the United States,” an official said. A U.S. State Department official warned that China is increasingly promoting antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel.
Anti-Israel protesters target Jewish state, cancer patients in Manhattan Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called Israel a “cancerous tumor” that “will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed.” Anti-Israel protesters appeared to take that literally on Monday at a “Flood Manhattan for Gaza MLK Day” march for health-care event, during which they protested outside Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Hamas manual discovered by IDF reveals terrorists use medical supplies to make bombs Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip recently discovered a Hamas manual with detailed instructions on how to produce bombs from medical equipment. The huge number of files and documents specifically include instructions on using Hydrogen Peroxide, a regular hospital substance, as a key ingredient in producing explosives and rocket propellant material.
Heavy snowfall hits Tokyo, injuring more than 130 people and causing traffic chaos, Japan Heavy snowfall hit Japan’s capital, Tokyo (population 14 million), on Monday, February 5, 2024, injuring more than 130 people and causing traffic chaos. This is the first significant snowfall to hit Tokyo since February 2022 and the city’s first heavy snowfall warning this year.
Has The Stage Been Set For “The Big One” To Hit California? Trillions of gallons of rain have already fallen on the state of California, and more rain continues to fall as I write this article. Billions of dollars in damage has already been done, but of even greater concern is what all of this water could mean for southern California’s fault lines. As you will see below, geophysicists have discovered that the additional weight that flooding puts on fault lines can help trigger earthquakes. Of course we have been warned for many years that “the Big One” is way overdue in southern California, and when it finally happens it will be a disaster unlike anything we have ever seen before.
Israel Demands Lebanon Remove Hezbollah 20 Miles From Border, Beirut Refuses Israel’s military has issued a new assessment which estimates it has launched attacks on some 3,000 Hezbollah sites in Lebanon in Syria since war started after Oct.7. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says that while Israel is nothing seeking a bigger war in Lebanon, it is “certainly ready” and that the defense forces (IDF) are ready to “attack immediately if provoked.”
U.N. ‘secretly working with banks’ to destroy American food industry Farmers not sufficiently ‘woke’ can have accounts shut down without notice. Farmers are under attack in multiple food-producing nations now. WND reported just days ago on a video that showed empty stores in France, where a climate agenda threatened the production processes for farmers, and they more or less staged a strike.
Tucker Carlson Explains Why He Is Interviewing Putin: “Most Americans Are Not Informed… We’re Here Because We Love The US” “Here’s why we’re doing it. First, because it’s our job. We’re in journalism. Our duty is to inform people. Two years into a war that’s reshaping the entire world, most Americans are not informed. They have no real idea what’s happening in this region, here in Russia or 600 miles away in Ukraine. But they should know, they’re paying for much of it in ways they might not fully yet perceive. The war in Ukraine is a human disaster. It’s left hundreds of thousands of people dead. An entire generation of young Ukrainians. And has depopulated the largest country in Europe. But the long-term effects are even more profound.”
Astonishing Predictions from Dr Richard Day 1969 – Part 1 – “Plans Much Bigger Than Communism.” “Plans much bigger than communism’ have been set in motion” and people who were not primarily in public office, but people of prominence and known to the public through their occupations or private positions have the power to devise and implement such plans” revealed eminent professor Dr Richard Day, but this was not a recent revelation, this was said back in 1969! According to Dr Day the plan was “..to enter the twenty-first century with a running start. Everything is in place and nobody can stop us now…”
Could China Unleash a Cyber Pearl Harbor? In testimony before Congress this week, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that in any conflict over the future of Taiwan, China could unleash a “Cyber Pearl Harbor” to devastate the United States infrastructure and unleash havoc for Americans.
Evil Alive And Well: Student Vows Not To Practice Medicine In Her State If Full-Term Abortion Banned Isaiah 59:7 KJV – “Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.” When the Bible describes those who love evil, who love spilling innocent blood, we might wonder who, other than a few shockingly evil characters from history, could be said to love shedding blood. But yes, those who love death are alive and well today—and they look like this young medical student in Wisconsin.
From Democracy to Dystopia: The World Economic Forum’s Stealth Takeover In a world increasingly shaped by shadowy figures and clandestine gatherings, the World Economic Forum (WEF), spearheaded by Klaus Schwab, emerges as a formidable architect of a future where national borders blur and the voices of the unelected echo loudest in the halls of power.
Additions to technocrats’ surveillance toolkit: Microfliers, human-computer networks and AI In 2021, researchers at Northwestern University, Illinois, USA, managed to develop and construct the world’s first microfliers or flying microchips…In a move that casts George Orwell’s ‘1984’ in a distinctly passé light, these well-nigh invisible flying objects will be programmed and used by organizations such as the World Economic Forum (“WEF”) for population surveillance, to detect so-called “thought crimes” on the part of citizens.
Cryptocurrencies are playing key roles in the development of CBDCs As central bank digital currency (“CBDC”) pilots proliferate, a myriad of elite-gilded and blockchain-powered digital payment networks are vying for their technologies and payment systems to be incorporated into the developing digital currency infrastructures of tomorrow. In plain English, that means major players in the cryptocurrency world are playing key roles in the ongoing CBDC pilot projects, globally. Their end game? A digital financial grid primed for abuse.
Tedros the Terrorist tries to push WHO’s Pandemic Treaty using university students Over the weekend, the University of Warwick concluded its Warwick Economics Summit. On the second day, 3 February, the World Health Organization (“WHO”) Dictator-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, joined the Summit via Zoom to push the Pandemic Treaty…Tedros the Terrorist’s speech was an appalling attempt to manipulate young minds and use them to fight his battles, Tedros called on students to raise their voices “to counter the lies that are undermining the [pandemic] agreement on social media.”
Chile Burned To The Ground: “It’s Maui All Over Again!” There has been an almost total media blackout on this story… In fact, the only place I’ve seen it covered is on Twitter/X. Thank you, Elon! Basically, a large part of Chile (a tourist city named Valparaiso) has been completely burned to the ground, and the similarities to what happened to Maui are impossible to ignore.
“Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” —Benjamin Franklin (1789)
Fellow Patriots, on this day in 1795, the Constitution’s 11th Amendment was ratified, clarifying federal judicial powers regarding the states, primarily by modifying Article III, section 2 to restrict the ability of a citizen of one state to sue another state in federal court. —Mark Alexander
Biden wants a compromise to fail so he can blame Republicans for his illegal immigration crisis.
Nate Jackson
The only reason Democrats worked on a compromise border bill is to poison it and then hang its failure — and thus the entire immigration crisis — around Republicans’ necks in an election year.
Joe Biden said as much Tuesday: “I’m calling on Congress to pass this bill and get it to my desk immediately. But if the bill fails, I want to be absolutely clear about something: The American people are going to know why it failed.”
If that wasn’t clear enough, he explained his reelection strategy:
I’ll be taking this issue to the country, and the voters are going to know that it’s not just a moment — just at the moment we were going to secure the border and fund these other programs, Trump and the MAGA Republicans said no because they’re afraid of Donald Trump — afraid of Donald Trump.
Every day between now and November, the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.
Biden then flat-out lied, saying, “If the bill were law today, it would qualify to be shut down right now.”
Our Douglas Andrews thoroughly analyzed the awful “border” bill yesterday, so we won’t rehash that here.
Suffice it to say that Republicans could have won this battle if, rather than providing legislative cover for a derelict president, they’d stuck to this simple truth: Biden has the authority to shut the border right now.
It is against the law to cross the border illegally. By law, such crossers must be deported, not “encountered” and released into the U.S. with a court date at some distant future date. Ending catch-and-release alone would staunch the flow instead of inviting already more than one million encounters since October.
Further giving away the game, Biden said that “we still need a path for — of documentation for those who are already here” and “a pathway to citizenship for young DREAMers.” He’s just a compassionate guy, you see, unlike those mean Republicans who want to deport lawbreakers poor, innocent people of color.
The Democrats’ strategy is to make Republicans look bad, but why is that also the Republicans’ strategy?
Also on Tuesday, the GOP-controlled House failed to advance impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was charged with “Willful and Systemic Refusal to Comply With the Law” and “Breach of the Public Trust.” Republicans these days are about as unified as a herd of cats, and all it took was four of them to break ranks for impeachment to fail, 214-216. Ken Buck (CO), Mike Gallagher (WI), Tom McClintock (CA), and Blake Moore (UT) all voted against it, though Moore did so for procedural reasons so the measure could be reconsidered in the future. Many conservatives were quick to declare the four “RINOs” and toss them out of the party.
However, Gallagher took to the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal to argue his case, and he’s got a point. “Ousting a cabinet secretary for ‘maladministration’ would have opened Pandora’s box,” he said. “The real problem is Biden.”
We’ve made the same argument about impeaching Mayorkas for Biden’s sins. Gallagher expands that critical observation: “The person chiefly responsible for the chaos and devastation that has unfolded at the border is Mr. Biden, not Mr. Mayorkas. If Mr. Mayorkas were removed, his replacement would also implement Mr. Biden’s disastrous border policies. If anything, impeaching Mr. Mayorkas would absolve Mr. Biden of blame for his own policies.”
In a way, Gallagher’s statement points to some cynical politics at play here. Most House Republicans can tell their constituents they voted to impeach Mayorkas for his dereliction of duty, but the sellout RINOs foiled their valiant efforts. Yet party leaders likely recognized exactly what Gallagher said and allowed the vote to fail for that reason, using just enough safe-seat defectors to accomplish the failure. News reports indicate this was a “surprising” turn of events for Republicans, but we’re not so sure.
Mayorkas is a disgrace to the Rule of Law, and it’s at least politically arguable that his enabling of a foreign invasion is treasonous. But he’s just the lackey for Joe Biden — or, more accurately, the power players controlling the dementia-addled president — and the Senate wouldn’t remove him in any case.
The frustrating fact for Republicans is that they barely control one-half of Congress, and that’s not enough to enact real policy change, regardless of the policy. Meanwhile, Democrats generally favored border security as recently as a decade ago, but today’s party has moved so far to the radical left on a host of issues that Biden is intentionally overseeing a crisis so he can blame the GOP and appear to be the compassionate and sane one.
Republicans should skip the legislative and impeachment shenanigans and take every opportunity to remind the American people that Biden could close the border today if he wanted to. That he refuses to do so is among the myriad reasons to oust him come November.
Haley loses big to “None of These Candidates,” Cruz calls for McConnell’s walking papers, Iran shrugs off Biden’s strikes, and more.
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Haley loses big to “None of These Candidates”: Yesterday was something of an embarrassment for Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, as nearly 63% of Republican primary voters in Nevada marked their ballots with “None of These Candidates” instead of voting for her — even though she was essentially running unopposed. Where was Donald Trump? He wasn’t on the ballot, opting instead to take part in the Nevada caucuses tomorrow, where the state’s 26 delegates will be awarded. Why have both a primary and a caucus just days apart? Great question. Three years ago, state Democrats passed a law to move from a caucus format to a primary format, which — not surprisingly, given the Democrats’ penchant for ballot stuffing — allows for mail-in and early voting. The GOP declined to play along, though, saying that it would only award delegates during its caucus. Haley didn’t campaign in Nevada, and she’s accused the state GOP of manipulating the system in favor of Trump. “Even Donald Trump knows that when you play penny slots, the house wins,” said a Haley spokesperson. “We didn’t bother to play a game rigged for Trump. We’re full steam ahead in South Carolina and beyond.” As for Trump, he noted: “It was a bad night for Nikki Haley. Losing by almost 30 points in Nevada to ‘None of These Candidates.’ Watch, she’ll soon claim victory!” In a related story, embattled Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, the longest-serving RNC chair in modern history, has announced that she’ll step down after the South Carolina primary later this month. Based on the GOP’s election results in recent years, we’d say, “Good riddance.”
Cruz calls for McConnell’s walking papers: It’s said that success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan, and the Senate’s long-secretive bipartisan “border” bill is no exception. Yesterday, we noted that the proposed legislation, whose language was finally made public Sunday night, was doomed to failure, and it appears that Senate Republicans are blaming their leader for the fiasco. Texas Senator Ted Cruz called for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to resign from his leadership position amid backlash to the Ukraine-Israel-Gaza funding bill disguised as a border bill. “I think it is,” said Cruz when asked whether it’s time for McConnell to go. As National Review reports: “Cruz, a longtime critic of McConnell, was one of ten GOP senators who opposed the Kentucky Republican’s reelection bid for Senate minority leader in November 2022. Cruz criticized McConnell for overstaying his welcome in the Senate and playing a key role in the negotiated terms of the border deal, with Senators Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, J.D. Vance of Ohio, Roger Marshall of Kansas, and Eric Schmitt of Missouri backing Cruz’s position.” No word on whether Oklahoma Senator James Lankford will face any serious repercussions for his role in helping to craft the abominable legislation.
They’re not sending us their best: Those who value free speech and free expression should be troubled by the arrest of a 26-year-old Palestinian “migrant” from North Africa who apparently stole the American and Israeli flags from a homeowner’s yard in suburban New York City and then pummeled the man while yelling anti-Semitic slurs at him. As Fox News reports: “‘These are not the type of people who come to America like my great-grandparents did, like your great-grandparents and grandparents and parents who came to America to kiss the ground,’ Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman told reporters Tuesday. ‘Instead, they spit on our flag, they trample on our values and they commit crimes. And they do so at taxpayer expense.’” The “alleged” perpetrator, Bechir Lehbeib, says he entered the U.S. at — surprise! — the Mexican border in Arizona over the summer and says he’s seeking asylum. Elsewhere in unwanted illegal immigrant news, four of the group of dirtbags who curb-stomped two New York City cops and then gave the dirty double-bird to the American people were arrested in Arizona on Monday, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “It’s frustrating; it never should have happened, and you don’t put a hand on a police officer anywhere in the state of New York and get away with it,” said an opportunistically tough New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who no doubt senses the public outrage over the assault and is now engaged in damage control.
Fiftyfold increase in illegal Chinese nationals: Our open-border nation reached another grim and infuriating milestone today, as we’ve hit one million border encounters since the 2024 fiscal year began in October. Oddly, that number includes nearly 20,000 Chinese illegals, which is almost as many as were encountered all last year. (For comparison, the number of Chinese nationals encountered was 2,176 in FY 2022 and 450 in FY 2021. This gives Chinese nationals the dubious distinction of being the fastest-growing group of illegal border-crossers.) As CBS News reports: “Some of the migrants made a grueling journey through Central America with dusty backpacks … but we noticed middle class migrants from China arriving with rolling bags. They told us they took flights all the way to Mexico. Some flew from China to Ecuador, because it doesn’t require a visa for Chinese nationals. Then, [they] took flights to Tijuana, Mexico,” where they connected with human traffickers for the remainder of the trip. All of this points to the need for real border security, which must include a funded mandate for wall construction, the reestablishment of Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy for so-called asylum seekers, and the end of Joe Biden’s illegal and disastrous “catch and release” policy.
Iran shrugs off Biden’s strikes: After telegraphing to Iran for a week that he would hit back following the Iranian-backed strike that killed three U.S. soldiers, Joe Biden greenlighted a barrage of airstrikes over the weekend that targeted Iranian militia sites in Syria and Iraq. The result was some 40 people killed, but no significant Iranian individuals. Then, on Monday, another Iranian-backed drone strike in Syria killed six members of a U.S.-allied militia. So much for deterring Iran. “If the goal is to deter Iran, you’re failing miserably,” observed South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. “If the goal is to protect American troops, you’re not achieving your goal.” He further noted that Iran is not afraid of the U.S. with Biden at the helm. And why should the mullahs be afraid? Biden has bent over backward to avoid actually holding Tehran to account in the apparent hope that he can resurrect Barack Obama’s failed Iran nuke deal.
Many hostages are dead, while Israel aid dies in House: Of the remaining 136 Israeli hostages that Hamas militants captured and brought into Gaza following their murderous October 7 attack on Israel, at least 32 are dead. Israeli military officials have informed family members of those hostages who have been confirmed dead, with the IDF noting that most of them were killed on the day of the attack. Hamas took a total of 240 hostages and has released less than half of them. Meanwhile, stateside, the House failed to pass a standalone $17.6 billion aid bill for Israel, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for the legislation’s passage. Joe Biden had already promised to veto any standalone aid to Israel while disingenuously accusing Republicans of playing politics with support for Israel. Unfortunately, House Speaker Mike Johnson has been most handicapped by fellow Republican lawmakers who seemingly can’t recognize the forest for the trees and unify behind a common agenda.
Unprecedented — parent convicted for child’s school shooting: The mother of the Oxford, Michigan, high school student who attacked his school in November 2021, killing four and injuring 11 others, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter on Tuesday. For the first time in U.S. history, a parent has been held criminally liable for their teenage child’s attack on a school. During the trial, it was shown that the assailant’s parents had been called into school on the day of the attack over concerns that their child needed mental healthcare right away. At the time, the parents stated that they would get him help but couldn’t do it then as they had to work, and the student remained at school. The father, who has been charged separately, gifted his son, who was 15 at the time of the attack, a 9mm handgun, which was the weapon that was subsequently used in the attack. In December, the school attacker was found guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Appeals court says mask-wearing is not a free speech issue: The Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ruled that a New Jersey school board’s requirement that mandated mask-wearing during meetings during the COVID pandemic did not violate the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. The ruling deals with two related lawsuits raised in New Jersey against school board officials who refused to wear masks in school board meetings during the pandemic. In its ruling, the court stated: “A question shadowing suits such as these is whether there is a First Amendment right to refuse to wear a protective mask as required by valid health and safety orders put in place during a recognized public health emergency. Like all courts to address this issue, we conclude there is not.” The court explained: “Skeptics are free to — and did — voice their opposition through multiple means, but disobeying a masking requirement is not one of them. One could not, for example, refuse to pay taxes to express the belief that ‘taxes are theft.’ Nor could one refuse to wear a motorcycle helmet as a symbolic protest against a state law requiring them.”
Headlines
Biden’s latest climate rules crack down on manufacturing, ignoring industry warnings of economic devastation (Fox News)
Hamas proposes 135-day Gaza truce with complete Israeli withdrawal — including freeing all hostages (New York Post)
Alarming footage appears to show President Biden forgetting Hamas’s name when asked about hostages held in Gaza (New York Post)
Elon Musk helps Gina Carano sue Disney for firing her after Internet smear campaign (The Federalist)
Dozens of NYC government employees arrested by feds, most single-day bribery arrests in DOJ history (Daily Wire)
New lawsuit challenges New York’s Second Amendment ban for nonresidents (Bearing Arms)
Squatters take over 1,200 homes in Atlanta, open illegal strip clubs, and terrorize neighbors (New York Post)
HHS says it has only two pages of scientific evidence backing its support for “gender-affirming care” (Daily Wire)
Humor: Study confirms 100% of men agree with Toby Keith that they should’ve been a cowboy (Babylon Bee)
Now that Taylor Swift is a victim, will new laws be implemented?
Emmy Griffin
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool, and, like all tools when put in the wrong hands, it can used as a weapon of mass destruction. In the case of deepfake pornography, the victims are many and range from the girl next door to big-name celebrities like Taylor Swift.
Swift’s image was stolen by evil-minded people who used her picture to create AI-generated “nudes.” These circulated on the Internet very quickly and were viewed by millions of users before social media platforms shut them down. Swift is not the first victim of deepfake porn. This problem has been hurting ordinary people all over the world.
In New Jersey, 30 female students had their images snatched and perverted into pornographic material by some of their male classmates. In London, a young girl took her own life after facing a similar situation.
All it takes is one picture and AI does the rest to ruin someone’s image and reputation and titillate perverts.
Swift’s experience seems to have catalyzed Congress, which now may be pushing forward legislation to deal with this menace. The Senate has put forward a bipartisan bill called the Defiance Act to criminalize the use and distribution of deepfake porn.
One of the architects of this bill, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), said: “Nobody — neither celebrities nor ordinary Americans — should ever have to find themselves featured in AI pornography. Innocent people have a right to defend their reputations and hold perpetrators accountable in court.”
Other avenues that Congress is looking at to address this issue involve rewriting Section 230, which protects Internet platforms like social media sites from being held liable for content uploaded onto them. Protecting people’s images and reputations should be legislated, and those who exploit them should be prosecuted with severe criminal consequences. (Social media outlets seem to have no trouble censoring certain political opinions; porn shouldn’t elude them.)
Ten states already have laws on the books protecting innocents from the use of their personal image in such a way. Congress is — shocker — a little late to the game.
However, this will never be enough until we address the root of the problem: the porn industry.
How about we outlaw porn?
Our culture is obsessed with obscenity and pushing the boundaries of acceptable attire. If anyone watched the Grammy’s, they would have noticed that many of the female celebrities wore clothing that exposed their nipples and otherwise left little to the imagination. What is the point? Female empowerment?
Well, it’s not.
Their poor example of not caring about curating a respectable image is part of the more significant problem: the Left’s destigmatization of porn as an industry.
Perhaps the root of the problem isn’t that people are now taking advantage of a technology that makes such images cheaply and easily; perhaps the problem is the deeper rot of allowing and accepting the role of pornography in our economy and culture.
There are obscenity laws on the books, and apparently, they are no longer enforced (much like our laws are not enforced at the southern border).
Thankfully, some states have taken a stand against these mega porn companies by requiring age verification via ID, therefore ensuring the users aren’t minors. However, porn really is at the root of a lot of societal evil. It is exploitative and addictive. Moreover, continual consumers spiral into more and more illicit material involving ever-increasing violence, minor abuse, and sexual perversion (LGBTQ+ stuff). Even people who work for these porn companies are admitting that they are starting to push transgenderism porn in order to influence their consumers in that direction.
Let’s criminalize porn as well as create and enforce legislation that protects private images.
How do we teach AI to monitor itself?
Let’s assume that laws are put in place and that platforms are more motivated to keep deepfake porn off their sites. Furthermore, let’s assume that law enforcement is able to track down the perpetrators who exploit someone else’s image and damage his or her reputation.
As this tech becomes more sophisticated, it will be harder and harder to prove that the AI-generated images are fake and perhaps even that the victim’s images were used non-consensually.
Is there a way to teach AI to detect its own handiwork? Are there ways that images can be protected through an AI database? Is there a way to thwart someone’s use of a non-consensually taken image? These are questions far above this author’s pay grade. However, since AI is a tool, and a highly sophisticated one at that, could it not be used to outsmart these perverts?
How do we protect our children’s image?
We live in a world where a picture and a video can be taken on a phone with the tap of a touchscreen. We also live in the age of social media where bad actors can have easy access to someone’s image. This has been a problem since the advent of social media. Child predators have used parents’ social media to track potential victims. Now, we have perverts who can exploit our children with a picture and access to WiFi.
As parents, how do we protect our child’s image? For starters, perhaps refraining from posting our child’s pictures online would help.
Conclusion
Anyone can become a victim of this depraved new use of AI. As we navigate this new tech, laws and safeguards need to be put in place. However, as parents of children who are going to be living in the world of AI, it’s also our responsibility to protect them as much as we are able from being exploited by this industry. It is also perhaps time to address the core issue — the porn industry itself.
In a naked effort to push the alarmist claim that climate change is making common weather events worse, a couple of scientists want to change the hurricane scale.
Thomas Gallatin
Few people deny that the climate is and has been changing. Yet the exact reason, cause, and degree to which mankind may be affecting this change are very much up for debate. However, for the climate cultists, there is only one acceptable answer to the question of what is causing climate change. And that answer is human activity linked directly to the use of fossil fuels. Indeed, a failure to fully embrace this unassailable climate dogma will get one labeled a “climate denier.”
However, the trouble with any cult is that when its prophecies fail to materialize, its adherents begin to lose faith, and skeptics eagerly step forward to expose the failures and errors in those dogmatically held beliefs.
This is much of the reason why the Leftmedia, which has long held that anthropogenic climate change is “settled science,” must continuously prop up the climate narrative, or else people might not believe it and in turn might fail to vote for the media’s preferred leftist political party.
Therefore, the solution to this conundrum of keeping the faith despite repeated instances of climate alarmists’ dire warnings failing to materialize is to spin normal climatic weather events as abnormal and getting worse.
Are storms really getting worse? It has been a repeated refrain almost every time a significant weather event affects the U.S., be it hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, heat waves, or snow storms. The reporting on these seasonal and common weather events increasingly frames them as “more severe,” “more extreme,” “more costly,” “more frequent,” or “more deadly” than ever before.
The trouble is the historical scientific record fails to uphold that alarmist narrative.
The alarmists’ solution, then, is to continue to assert that climate change is making common weather events like hurricanes worse and then drive home the issue by making proposals like adding a “Category 6” to the hurricane power scale.
That’s right. An example of this not-so-subtle attempt at climate spin comes courtesy of two scientists, Michael Wehner and James Kossin. The two are promoting the idea, which is not necessarily a new idea, that a Category 6 designation should be added to the five-step Saffir-Simpson measurement scale of a hurricane’s intensity. The reason? Well, climate change, of course.
As Wehner asserts, “Climate change has demonstrably made the strongest storms stronger.” This is how it works: Simply declare it as an undeniable reality and then move on to a proposed policy solution. Wehner then argues, “Introduction of this hypothetical Category 6 would raise awareness of that.”
And there it is. Not enough people have bought into climate alarmism, so by adding a new “extreme” “Category 6” to the hurricane scale, the alarmist narrative can be further pressed home.
The trouble is that from a practical standpoint, adding a sixth level to the well-understood hurricane scale would likely add confusion or even blunt the public’s perception of the danger associated with lower-category storms. Furthermore, while the hurricane categories measure a storm’s maximum sustained wind speed, they don’t account for the other often more damaging aspects of a hurricane, like water or storm surge.
Everyone who lives in a hurricane-affected area already knows that a Category 5 storm is a monster to be avoided at all costs. Who needs to turn the volume up to 11?
In a probing look at what he calls “The Hoax of the Century,” author Jacob Seigel considers how the disinformation complex came to be.
Douglas Andrews
“If the underlying philosophy of the war against disinformation can be expressed in a single claim,” writes author Jacob Siegel in his 13,000-word treatise on the subject, “it is this: You cannot be trusted with your own mind.”
That’s the animating principle of what Siegel rightly calls “The Hoax of the Century,” namely, the Trump-Russia collusion scam. Seigel then goes on to explore the subject of disinformation from 13 angles, “with the aim that the composite of these partial views will provide a useful impression of disinformation’s true shape and ultimate design.”
It’s not an easy read, but it’s a rewarding one. As independent journalist and free-speech pit bull Matt Taibbi writes, “Siegel’s Tablet article is the enterprise effort at describing the whole anti-disinformation elephant I’ve been hoping for years someone in journalism would take on.”
Seigel is a former Army infantry and intelligence officer who edits Tablet’s afternoon digest. His article, “A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century: 13 Ways of Looking at Disinformation,” was published last March but is every bit as relevant today — perhaps more so, given that we’re in an election year — as it was last year.
As Siegel writes: “Since 2016, the federal government has spent billions of dollars on turning the counter-disinformation complex into one of the most powerful forces in the modern world: a sprawling leviathan with tentacles reaching into both the public and private sector, which the government uses to direct a ‘whole of society’ effort that aims to seize total control over the internet and achieve nothing less than the eradication of human error.”
The first step in this massive undertaking would be to connect our national security and intelligence services to Big Tech and social media — Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Google, for example — where this borderless war would ultimately be waged.
This is how one of those deep-deep-deep-state agencies — The Global Engagement Center, founded in 2016 and nestled within the Bureau of Global Public Affairs at the State Department — spelled out the so-called war against disinformation in a 2018 memo: “To counter propaganda and disinformation,” the agency stated, “will require leveraging expertise from across government, tech and marketing sectors, academia, and NGOs.”
Consider the enormity of the enterprise and ask yourself: How could no one have ratted out the entire scam?
Answer: Because no one believed it was a scam. On the contrary, as Siegel writes: “This is how the government-created ‘war against disinformation’ became the great moral crusade of its time. CIA officers at Langley came to share a cause with hip young journalists in Brooklyn, progressive nonprofits in D.C., George Soros-funded think tanks in Prague, racial equity consultants, private equity consultants, tech company staffers in Silicon Valley, Ivy League researchers, and failed British royals. Never Trump Republicans joined forces with the Democratic National Committee, which declared online disinformation ‘a whole-of-society problem that requires a whole-of-society response.’”
And what of the mainstream media — the, uh, guardians of our democracy? It was, as Siegel says, “hollowed out to the point that it could be worn like a hand puppet by the U.S. security agencies and party operatives.”
Thus, as Siegel brilliantly puts it, “Disinformation is both the name of the crime and the means of covering it up; a weapon that doubles as a disguise.”
Speaking on a podcast with Taibbi about what Siegel calls “the anti-disinformation complex,” Taibbi asked him about the catalyzing role that California Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff played in his awakening to the idea of disinformation. Seigel, who’d begun to notice that Schiff seemed to be consistently near the center of the storm regarding the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, had this to say: “Really, on a very fundamental level, in terms of my unquestioned premises, I was not capable of believing that an American national elected official could lie that brazenly, or that the intelligence agencies, which I knew to be corrupt and inefficient in a billion different ways, could be involved in a grand sort of conspiracy. It seemed too farfetched. Adam Schiff is a weird guy to be responsible for lifting the veil because he’s such a schmuck. But realizing that he just kept lying over and over, something clicked for me.”
Seigel laments that while the public reaction to his massive essay on disinformation has been “overall very positive,” it’s also been somewhat siloed. “Broadly speaking, it’s gotten a great response, but it certainly hasn’t penetrated the liberal intelligentsia yet. It hasn’t penetrated the liberal mainstream at all.”
Asked by Taibbi why the disinformation wars have been turned into a partisan issue, Siegel paused, then waded in fully:
There’s no political explanation; no strictly rational explanation. One of the most damaging and dangerous things about this kind of runaway government secrecy — and this is something that people like Daniel Patrick Moynihan were warning about 50 years ago — is that it fosters a kind of derangement in the public. When the government is generating pseudo-events and operating through a convoluted and byzantine secrecy apparatus, it leads people to become suspicious of reality and, therefore, vulnerable to top-down narrative control. They’ve been spun around and are dizzy and, therefore, more susceptible because they’re desperate for something to orient them. At an even deeper and an even more fundamental level, once you involve people in a conspiracy — once you get them to go along with it — they will go along with it. Not because they want to be conspirators but because they’re convinced that they’re on the side of good. If you convince them that Donald Trump is a Russian agent, the reason why they then attack Trump is because they think they’re doing good. … Once you involve them in that, you’ve now made them co-conspirators. To get them to abandon that is to get them to admit that they’ve been made fools of; that they themselves were involved in an enormous deception. And I think that’s very difficult for people.
The 13 chapters of Seigel’s disinformation deep dive are as follows:
I. Russophobia Returns, Unexpectedly: The Origins of Contemporary “Disinformation” II. Trump’s Election: “It’s Facebook’s Fault” III. Why Do We Need All This Data About People? IV. The Internet: From Darling to Demon V. Russiagate! Russiagate! Russiagate! VI. Why the Post-9/11 “War on Terror” Never Ended VII. The Rise of “Domestic Extremists” VIII. The NGO Borg IX. COVID-19 X. Hunter’s Laptops: The Exception to the Rule XI. The New One-Party State XII. The End of Censorship XIII. After Democracy
At the very end of his tome is a note which indicates that Seigel isn’t done digging: “If you work in the ‘disinformation’ or ‘misinformation’ fields for the government or in the private sector, and are interested in discussing your experiences, you can contact me securely. … Source confidentiality is guaranteed.”
And, indeed, Seigel isn’t done. He plans to further build on his magnum opus and turn it into a book.
As Taibbi writes of Seigel’s effort: “Years ago, when I first began to have doubts about the Trump-Russia story, I struggled to come up with a word to articulate my suspicions. If the story was wrong, and Trump wasn’t a Russian spy, there wasn’t a word for what was being perpetrated. This was a system-wide effort to re-frame reality itself, which was both too intellectually ambitious to fit in a word like ‘hoax,’ but also probably not against any one law, either. New language would have to be invented just to define the wrongdoing, which not only meant whatever this was would likely go unpunished, but that it could be years before the public was ready to talk about it.”
Taibbi is right that we’re years away — if ever — from being ready to talk about it. But at least those of us who’ve read Seigel’s piece will be well prepared to do so.
It’s not optional. We MUST secure our southern border.
Jack DeVine
It was inevitable. U.S. border security is now the number one issue on voters’ minds as we move into the heart of the 2024 presidential election season.
Our porous southern border has turned into a full-bore hemorrhage. Thousands of illegal immigrants pour in daily. In just three years, there have been over seven million migrant “encounters” by border security, along with an unknown (and likely large) number who evaded detection. Most — perhaps 10 million — remain in our country. Our capacity to absorb them is strained to the limit.
Nothing makes the situation more apparent than the viral video last week of a gang of young migrants beating up two NYC police officers — followed by the news that the five thugs who had been arrested were released without bail and then skipped town. The picture worth a thousand words is the photo of one of those perps strutting down the street after his release, brandishing a smirk and a two-handed middle-finger salute to his adopted countrymen.
Over the years, the mess at our southern border has taken on a mythical reputation as an unsolvable problem. But on balance, it’s really not that complicated. I’d offer the following as all we need to know:
1.) Who wants open borders? And why?
The Left makes no secret of its long-held preference for open borders. In 2020, every Democrat vying for the party’s presidential nomination, including Joe Biden, expressed that view. These days, as public confidence in the administration’s border policy evaporates, Biden is backpedaling; he claimed just last week that he’s been warning about the border crisis for years, that he’s done all he can to fix it but is stymied by lack of Republican support.
Nice try. On Biden’s first day in office, we all watched as he enthusiastically signed executive orders dismantling all of his predecessor’s border control policies and practices.
The progressives’ comfort with high levels of illegal immigration is not altogether illogical. We are a nation of immigrants; our workforce needs are increasing; we have genuine compassion for those seeking a better future for themselves and family. Or — more cynically — we can imagine them salivating over 10 million new Democrat voters.
The rationale doesn’t matter. What is essential for voters to recognize is that Democrats want open borders and that, given the opportunity, that’s what they will have.
2.) Why do Republicans insist on closing the border?
Open borders pose a massive threat to the safety and security of our country. Open means open — anyone can come in for whatever reason he/she chooses.
We don’t know who the 10 million illegal entrants are and why they came. No doubt most are good people simply looking for a better life. But if only 1% are bad actors, that’s 100,000 potentially involved in drugs (including fentanyl), gang violence, human trafficking, and even terrorism.
3.) Why the massive surge in illegal immigration?
Call it magnetic attraction. VP Kamala Harris may still be looking for the root cause, but it’s no mystery at all. We are the envy of the world, the land of milk and honey and boundless opportunity. Our door is wide open, and every prospective migrant knows that if you can just get your foot in that door, you will be able to stay.
It follows that the only way to regain control of our border is to reduce that magnetic attraction — and the only way to do that is to shut the door. The firehose analogy is sound — more buckets won’t get the job done; we must stem the flow of migrants. More Border Patrol agents and better asylum processing would be nice, but as long as the migrant firehose is gushing, we’ll be forever trying to keep pace, and we’ll never catch up.
4.) What about the illegal immigrants already here?
From our own 9/11 horror and from watching the disaster in Israel last October, we’ve learned to be particularly wary of the enemy within. We must stem the immigrant tide at our border, but we cannot forget about the unknowns who have already melted into the landscape.
Any comprehensive fix to our border security problems must place a high priority on that component.
5.) The bipartisan border security bill.
The Senate’s proposed border security legislation is finally on the table for all to see and consider. Both sides are playing politics — Republicans are loath to give Democrats any credit for fixing the problem they created, and Democrats are happy to let Republicans nix the bill and take the blame.
But the proposed bill is a bipartisan product, and it is the first substantial border security package in years with any chance for passage. Each side — and, in fact, each senator and representative — should examine it carefully and choose whether or not to support it based purely on the merits, not the political fallout.
Our divided country is not as divided as it often seems. For the most part, Americans want the same things for our country — we just differ on how to get there.
Common ground on this issue may be elusive, but it’s there. We all recognize and value America’s unique heritage as a nation of immigrants. At the same time, in this ever-more-violent world, we must keep our homeland safe and secure.
The composite solution is clear. We must do whatever it takes to stop illegal immigration. At the same time, we must overhaul our legal immigration policy and process to provide a proper entry path for those who are willing to come to America and participate in the ongoing work of building a great nation.
Perhaps there’s a ray of hope in today’s border chaos — an election-year wake-up call reminding us that border security is not optional. We must fix it.
TikTok Is Turning People Cold and Heartless — It appears that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are being influenced to break up with their Millennial and Boomer parents as part of a TikTok trend called going “No contact.”
“If I were him, I’d want him to debate me, too. He’s got nothing else to do.” —Joe Biden on Donald Trump
The BIG Lies
“All indications are this [border] bill won’t even move forward to the Senate floor. Why? A simple reason: Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically. … Frankly, [Republicans] owe it to the American people to show some spine and do what they know to be right. … So, Republicans have to decide: Who do they serve — Donald Trump or the American people?” —Joe Biden
“If the bill fails, I want to be absolutely clear about something: The American people are going to know why it failed. … Every day between now and November, the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.” —Joe Biden
“We need [border] help. Why won’t [Republicans] give me the help?” —Joe Biden
Circling the Wagons
“What they’re doing to Secretary Mayorkas is baseless, is shameful.” —White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
“Mayorkas has been doing a very competent and excellent job under trying circumstances.” —Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
“What does the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas have to do with building a healthy economy? Nothing. What does the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas have to do with addressing the inflationary pressures that have existed on the economy since the shutdown of the economy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic? Nothing. And it has nothing to do with fixing our broken immigration system.” —House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)
Pot Calling the Kettle Black
“We, at this point, really need our Republican colleagues to choose to walk away from chaos, which is what they want … and join us in a commonsense approach to meeting the needs of the American people.” —Hakeem Jeffries
“We’ve got to move past this toxic politics. … We can’t continue to let petty, partisan politics get in the way of our responsibility.” —Joe Biden
Belly Laugh of the Day
“I serve the American people. I’m here to solve problems.” —Joe Biden
Dumb & Dumber
“I think it’s critically important that the U.S. be on a fiscally sustainable path, and President Biden has put forward a series of budget proposals … and also tax proposals and investment proposals that would, I believe, guarantee that we are on a fiscally sustainable path.” —Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
“Both inward and outward investment [in China] are economically beneficial.” —Janet Yellen
Political Futures
“In 2012, [Taylor] Swift told Time, ‘I don’t talk about politics because it might influence other people. And I don’t think that I know enough yet in life to be telling people who to vote for.’ She’s older now — but is she politically wiser, or just wise to the risk of remaining neutral when her industry and audience profile demand taking a side? Left-of-center social and economic attitudes are, for Millennial and Generation Z women, the closest thing to not having any politics: They are the path of least resistance — and least reflection.” —Daniel McCarthy
“There are so many women who are legitimate role models in the world: Malala Yousafzi, who took a bullet in the head because of her advocacy for female education; Riley Gaines, who has made it a life’s mission to protect women in sports; Amal Clooney, who has used her legal skills to obtain justice for female victims of genocide; and Giorgia Meloni, the first female prime minister of Italy. These are women who have accomplished things of substance, things that will be remembered long after the last chords of ‘Shake it Off’ fade away into the ether.” —Christine Flowers
“Men who like Trump don’t necessarily want to be him — especially if they’re conservative Christians — but they think the forces against him, or that he’s against, are the same ones against them: political correctness, globalization, a credentialist elite. Those forces are against masculinity, too, as PC demands sensitivity, the economy turns labor unisex, and education favors conscientious girls and women over individualistic (for better or worse) boys and men.” —Daniel McCarthy
Re: Big Tech
“The key question is why we are subjecting our children to a vast, real-time experiment in exposure to a radically new medium that evidence suggests is harmful to their emotional and mental health. … Congress should press the brakes on the revolution that has given Mark Zuckerberg and other tech titans an outsized role in raising our kids and require that users of social media be age 18 or older. Surely, it’s not too much to ask that Zuckerberg and Co. make their fortunes exclusively off adults.” —Rich Lowry
“Let’s say the research and everyone’s intuition is wrong, and social media isn’t driving worse outcomes for kids. What’s the harm in staying off social media until they’re older? That kids will miss out on the latest absurd and perhaps dangerous TikTok trend? That they won’t get to envy people posting photos on Instagram to make themselves look more interesting and beautiful than they really are? That they will talk to their families and friends more and engage in more activities in the real world?” —Rich Lowry
Bobulinski previously produced text messages to the FBI covering his business dealings with Hunter Biden and the Chinese energy company CEFC and has publicly accused the Bidens of lying.
New hostage release/ceasefire talks underway as reports say 31 hostages are dead and 20 more may have been killed, and Israel shows new evidence of Iranian support for Hamas; Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Mitchell talks about why the link between Iran and Hamas & its leader Yahya Sinwar is so significant, the Israeli response to the latest ceasefire/hostage release proposal, and concerns that a ceasefire deal could lead to the end of the war before Israel achieves its goals against Hamas; Congressional Republicans fail in their attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas; one year later, remembering the Asbury revival, including the healings that took place, and a look at what may lie ahead; and T. Martin Bennett, author of “Wounded Tiger,” talks to CBN’s Studio 5 about the remarkable story of Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the first wave of the attack on Peart Harbor, and how he became a Christian minister.
Quenton Jordan, vice president of the Black Conservative Federation, tells Carley Shimkus about the Black community’s frustrations with Democratic policies, including the massive migrant influx straining resources in major U.S. cities. #FoxNews
During his “My Take,” Wednesday “Varney & Co.” host Stuart Varney discussed the state of the 2024 presidential race after Donald Trump “rolled over” his Republican opponents in Iowa and New Hampshire, and now has opened up his biggest lead ever against Biden.
STUART VARNEY: This is now Donald Trump’s Republican Party.
He has rolled over all the opposition, just like he did in 2016. Here’s the latest.
Trump did that. On Sunday on Fox, he called for change at the RNC.
He has real clout in Congress these days, too. He doesn’t like the Senate border deal.
His opposition has a lot to do with its likely defeat.
His lead over Biden is widening. In the NBC poll, it was 47% to 42%.
That’s the biggest lead he’s ever had in the sixteen NBC Trump versus Biden polls.
As things stand, with Trump the almost inevitable Republican candidate and Biden insisting he’s going all the way, it’s looking like a guaranteed rematch nine months from now.
Is it? I’m not so sure. I say that because the president is not equipped to conduct the campaign.
He’s not equipped to conduct the presidency. He is showing his age and it’s getting worse.
It’s painful, but this is how Biden tried to address the hostage deal:
JOE BIDEN: “There is some movement, and I don’t want to – I don’t want to – well, let me be – choose my words. There is some movement. There’s been a response from the – the – there’s been a response from the opposition, but um.”
REPORTER: Hamas?
JOE BIDEN: “Yes, I’m sorry, from Hamas. But it seems to be a little over the top. We’re not sure where it is. There’s a continuing negotiation right now.”
Tucker Carlson’s recent trip to Moscow has stirred significant discussion, with the former Fox News host stating his goal to present an unfiltered view of Russia’s stance on the conflict in Ukraine and its broader relations with the West. Carlson criticized mainstream media for what he perceives as a politically motivated failure to convey the entire scope of the situation, highlighting a promise from Elon Musk to ensure his interview with Vladimir Putin would not be censored on X (formerly known as Twitter).
The visit has sparked debate over potential risks facing Carlson upon his return to the United States. Ian Miles Cheong, a conservative blogger from Malaysia, speculated that Carlson might face legal repercussions similar to those of Julian Assange, citing calls from some politicians and media figures for Carlson’s arrest. Elon Musk, engaging with the discourse on X, controversially suggested arresting those who call for Carlson’s arrest, further fueling the contentious discussion surrounding freedom of speech, press rights, and political dissent in the context of Carlson’s actions and statements.
Not for the first time, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has warned that a direct war between Moscow forces and NATO would lead to nuclear apocalypse.
The current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council issued the warning on Telegram Wednesday, in response to recent statements and reports that some European leaders are telling their populations to ‘prepare for war’. For example, just last month UK Army chief General Patrick Sanders called on authorities to “mobilize the nation” to prepare for war with Putin, and that the population needs a “shift” in thinking to be ready.
Medvedev mocked this and other examples of NATO leaders accusing Moscow of seeking a broader war as but “dangerous drivel”. He said that this all about trying to bolster support for sending more weapons to Kiev amid what’s become war fatigue among Western publics.
According to Russian media translation of his words, Medvedev said this is part of efforts to prop up Ukraine—”a dying country that is foreign to taxpayers”—while ignoring problems at home. “Therefore, every day the leaders of these countries broadcast: We need to prepare for war with Russia and continue to help Ukraine,” he wrote.
That’s when he said that people in the West have to be told the blunt truth. Medvedev underscored that the Russian response to attack by NATO would without doubt be “asymmetrical”. He explained:
“Since our military capabilities are incomparable, we will simply have no choice. The response will be asymmetrical. To protect the territorial integrity of our country, ballistic and cruise missiles with special warheads will be used… This will be the proverbial Apocalypse. The end of everything.”
This is certainly not the first time that Medvedev, known for this bellicose and hawkish rhetoric, has warned of nuclear apocalypse. But it is the clearest he has ever spelled out that the Kremlin would not hesitate to activate its nuclear arsenal if Russian territory is directly threatened by NATO.
His comments also come at a very dangerous moment where Ukraine security services are increasingly targeting oil refineries on Russian soil with drone and missile attacks, sometimes at long ranges.
Below: UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says Britain ready for war….
If Russia turns its guns in our direction, is Great Britain ready to defend itself?
“Yes. And my task is to ensure everyone’s safety.”
Moscow has accused Western and NATO intelligence services of assisting with such attacks. Recently it has accused France of maintaining mercenaries in the northern city of Kharkiv, in order to mount attacks on nearby Belgorod Oblast. There are rising fears that this ‘indirect’ fighting or proxy war could drift into direct ‘live fire’ between Russia and NATO countries, but so far this has been narrowly avoided.
A new peer-reviewed study in a Springer Nature Group journal has painted a damning picture of the global COVID-19 vaccination campaign along with the novel mRNA products at its core — vaccines millions of Americans were compelled to take if they wanted to keep their jobs, eat in public, stay in school, remain in uniform, or visit their loved ones.
According to the study, published on Jan. 24 in the PubMed-listed open access journal Cureus, standards were dropped, corners were cut, and red flags were missed in the testing, authorization, and ultimate deployment of the COVID-19 vaccines. The result: a product with an “unacceptable harm-to-reward ratio.”
Impurities
Extra to hinting at possible ulterior motives driving the decision to rush out the vaccines in a fraction of the time conventionally figured appropriate, epidemiologist M. Nathaniel Mead and his co-authors — including Texas cardiologist Peter McCullough — wrote that the vaccines “evaluated in the trials were not the same products eventually distributed worldwide.”
Whereas the mRNA products from “clinical batches” in the registration trials were ostensibly free of process-related impurities, the doses made with “a method much more suitable for mass production known as Process 2 … showed significantly reduced mRNA integrity,” claimed the researchers.
“All of the COVID-19 mRNA products released to the public were produced via Process 2 and have been shown to have varying degrees of DNA contamination,” said the study. “The failure of regulatory authorities to heretofore disclose process-related impurities (e.g., SV40) has further increased concerns regarding safety and quality control oversight of mRNA vaccine manufacturing processes.”
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo noted the detection of “Simian Virus 40 (SV40) promoter/enhancer DNA” in the vaccines in a Dec. 6 letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Peter Marks, director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in reply, “No SV40 proteins are encoded for or are present in the vaccines,” and emphasized that the shots were safe and effective.
The European Medicines Agency, which regulates vaccines in the EU, indicated that “non-functional” fragments of SV40’s DNA sequence are used in the manufacture of the COVID-19 vaccine, reported the Associated Press.
Pfizer indicated the SV40 sequence is commonly used in developing vaccines.
Regardless of whether elements of SV40 were specifically of any consequence, Mead and his coauthors underscored that the mRNA vaccines were not as advertised.
Harms and unintended consequences
“Re-analysis of the Pfizer trial data identified statistically significant increases in serious adverse events (SAEs) in the vaccine group,” wrote Mead and the other researchers. “Numerous SAEs were identified following the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), including death, cancer, cardiac events, and various autoimmune, hematological, reproductive, and neurological disorders.”
According to the study’s authors, many of these serious SAEs “have often been wrongly ascribed to COVID-19 rather than to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccinations.”
“Misattributions of SAEs to COVID-19 often may be due to the amplification of adverse effects when mRNA injections are followed by SARS-CoV-2 subvariant infection,” said the study. “Injuries from the mRNA products overlap with both [post-acute COVID-19 syndrome] and severe acute COVID-19 illness, often obscuring the vaccines’ etiologic contributions.”
The study suggested not only that the vaccines are likely responsible for a host of devastating side effects that have been conveniently blamed on the virus but also that boosters have actually had a paradoxical impact.
“Multiple booster injections appear to cause immune dysfunction, thereby paradoxically contributing to heightened susceptibility to COVID-19 infections with successive doses,” wrote the researchers.
The researchers suggested further that the vaccines are perpetuating the emergence of new variants.
“Mass mRNA inoculations result in the natural selection of highly infectious immune-evading SARS coronavirus variants that successfully bypass vaccine-induced immunity, leading to a dramatic rise in the prevalence of these variants,” said the study.
On the basis of their review, the researchers concluded that for most adults under the age of 50, “the perceived benefits of the mRNA boosters are profoundly outweighed by their potential disabling and life-threatening harms. Potential harms to older adults appear to be excessive as well.”
In addition to calling for COVID-19 vaccines to be removed from the childhood immunization schedule along with the suspension of boosters, the researchers urged “governments to endorse and enforce a global moratorium on these modified mRNA products until all relevant questions pertaining to causality, residual DNA, and aberrant protein production are answered.”
Regarding possible conflicts of interests, the authors indicated that no financial support was afforded them by any organization for the study.
Stephanie Seneff, one of the authors, nevertheless declared a grant from Quanta Computer Inc., a Taiwan-based computer manufacturer. Entrepreneur Steve Kirsch, another author, noted that he is the founder of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation but “receives no income from this entity.” McCullough, who supervised the study, highlighted his employment and stock options from the Wellness Company.
McCullough was involved in another troubling study that was recently published.
His peer-reviewed study published last month in the pharmacotherapy journal Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety stressed that “COVID-19 vaccination is strongly associated with a serious adverse safety signal of myocarditis, particularly in children and young adults resulting in hospitalization and death.”
“COVID-19 vaccines induce an uncontrolled expression of potentially lethal SARS-CoV-2 spike protein within human cells, have a close temporal relationship of events, and are internally and externally consistent with emerging sources of clinical and peer-reviewed data supporting the conclusion that COVID-19 vaccines are deterministic for myocarditis, including fatal cases,” claimed the study.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday total victory in Gaza was within reach, rejecting the latest offer from Hamas for a ceasefire to ensure the return of hostages still held in the besieged enclave.
U.S. — In a groundbreaking move, the Libertarian Party has announced their official nominee for the upcoming presidential election will be Nevada primary winner “None of these”.
Officials gathered at the annual Libertarian Party convention, where they unveiled a bold new strategy to shake up the political landscape by nominating no one. “After careful consideration and countless debates, we have unanimously decided to have nobody lead our party,” declared party chairman Jeff Guiles. “Nobody has an incredible track record of never interfering with the liberties we hold dear. When faced with all the other options for President, the clear option is ‘None of these’!”
According to sources, there has been a massive surge in registered Libertarians after the announcement. “We believe no one will be a breath of fresh air in Washington,” said one enthusiastic supporter. “No one will tax your income, infringe on your rights, or regulate your backyard barbecue. Vote N.O.T. 2024!”
At publishing time, updated polling found no one with a commanding lead over everyone.
By now the whole internet has heard Ben Shapiro rapping, but did you know that there are actually two more verses they cut out of the track?
WASHINGTON – As Donald Trump predicts his re-election, he’s also clearly making his intentions known, especially on immigration. “Within moments of my inauguration, we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he recently exclaimed on the campaign trail.
His supporters are banking on it. “We need four more years of Donald Trump to secure our border,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) told Fox News.
However, there are plenty of critics who believe a second Trump term presents numerous challenges.
The Gateway Pundit reported that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson traveled to Moscow to interview Vladimir Putin.
Rabidly pro-Ukraine shills and globalists are furious that Carlson is once again pushing back against the required narratives and letting people make up their own minds.
Now, anti-free speech globalists at the European Union are said to be considering a travel ban for Carlson over the interview, which will air on Thursday night.
Carlson explained his motive for interviewing Putin in a video statement on Tuesday, saying, “Most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine or what his goals are now.”
“We are not here because we love Vladimir Putin….We are not encouraging you to agree with what Putin may say in this interview, but we are urging you to watch it. You should know as much as you can.”
But letting people have access to information to decide for themselves is simply not allowed in a world run by globalists and their lapdogs in the mainstream media.
Infowars founder Alex Jones wrote on X, “The same EU globalist scum are trying to bully @elonmusk in to censorship with criminal prosecution threats. Now they are moving in on Tucker! We must stand together for free speech.”
The same EU globalist scum are trying to bully @elonmusk in to censorship with criminal prosecution threats. Now they are moving in on Tucker! We must stand together for free speech. https://t.co/HgAhTokl2o
According to Newsweek, former Belgian Prime Minister and current member of the European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt said Carlson should be banned from entering EU nations because he’s “a mouthpiece” of Putin and U.S. presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.
Verhofstadt added, “Putin is a war criminal and the EU sanctions all who assist him in that effort, it seems logical that the External Action Service examine his case as well.”
Tucker Carlson is surely on the path to being labelled a propagandist for the Russian regime.
Luis Garicano, a former MEP, told Newsweek he agreed with Verhofstadt’s stance. “He is no longer a newsman, but a propagandist for the most heinous regime on European soil and the one which is most dangerous to our peace and security,” Garicano said of Carlson.
The content of Carlson’s interview with Putin is not yet clear but, given the pundit’s long-time defense of aspects of Russian policy, critics expect it to be sympathetic to Moscow.
“First of all, it should be remembered that Putin is not just a president of an aggressor country, but he is wanted by the International Criminal Court and accused of genocide and war crimes,” MEP Urmas Paet, who previously served as Estonia’s foreign minister, told Newsweek.
The last time Carlson attempted to interview Putin, the NSA started spying on him and leaking information to the press.
In 2021, Carlson told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that he was contacted by a journalist who informed him that the NSA leaked his emails to the media in an effort to get his popular Fox News show canceled.
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