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
What does the Bible say about suicide? Suicide, a deeply sensitive and complex issue, has been a topic of much debate within Christian communities. While the Bible does not explicitly mention the act of suicide, various scriptures and religious interpretations provide guidance on this matter.
This piece aims to explore what the Bible says about suicide, integrating theological perspectives, related scriptures, and how Christians can approach this subject with compassion and offer help to those in need.
Important Note: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, it is crucial to seek professional help immediately. Contact a mental health professional, a suicide hotline, or a local church leader for support and guidance.
Understanding the Biblical Perspective on Suicide
The Bible, while not directly addressing suicide, provides insights through its teachings on the sanctity of life and the struggles of individuals facing despair. According to religious interpretations, the act of taking one’s own life is considered a sin, primarily because it violates the divine commandment to protect and cherish life. Life is viewed as a sacred gift from God, and thus, its premature end through suicide is seen as contradicting God’s will.
Relevant Bible Scriptures
Several passages in the Bible are often cited in discussions about suicide, offering insights into how life’s challenges should be faced:
1 Corinthians 3:16-17: This scripture underscores the sanctity of human life, stating that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and should be preserved.
Psalm 34:17-20: It highlights God’s attentiveness to the brokenhearted and promises deliverance from despair, suggesting that one should seek divine intervention in times of distress.
Deuteronomy 30:19: This verse encourages choosing life so that one may live, emphasizing the value God places on human life.
While these passages do not mention suicide explicitly, they form a basis for understanding the value of life from a biblical standpoint.
Religious Interpretations and the Complexity of Suicide
It is crucial to recognize that interpretations of what the Bible says about suicide vary among Christian denominations. Some view suicide unequivocally as a sin due to the belief that it violates the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13), including self-harm. Others, however, consider the circumstances surrounding each case of suicide, recognizing that individuals who take their own lives may be under extreme distress or mental illness.
The absence of a unanimous stance underscores the importance of compassion and understanding. It is acknowledged that only God can truly understand the individual’s heart and circumstances at the time of their death.
Compassionate Conversations About Suicide Within the Christian Community
Discussing suicide within a Christian context requires sensitivity, understanding, and love. Here are ways Christians can approach this delicate topic:
Foster a Nonjudgmental Environment: Create a safe space where individuals can share their feelings without fear of condemnation.
Offer Support and Understanding: Listen empathetically and offer support, understanding that mental illness and despair can lead to suicidal thoughts.
Encourage Seeking Professional Help: Advocate for professional counseling and medical treatment alongside spiritual support.
Pray Together: Offer to pray with and for the person, asking for God’s intervention and peace.
Assisting Those Contemplating Suicide
Christians can play a vital role in supporting someone who may be considering suicide:
Be Present: Simply being there for someone can make a significant difference. Offer your presence as a source of comfort and security.
Direct Them to Resources: Guide them towards professional help such as therapists, suicide hotlines, and support groups.
Stay Connected: Regular check-ins can provide a lifeline to those feeling isolated.
Use Scripture Wisely: While scripture can offer comfort, ensure it is used in a manner that is supportive and not judgmental.
Conclusion
The Bible offers guidance that can be interpreted in various ways regarding the issue of suicide. While it emphasizes the sanctity of life and offers hope and solace through its teachings, it also calls for a compassionate, understanding approach towards those who are struggling. As Christians, it is crucial to approach conversations about suicide with empathy, extending a hand of support while also encouraging professional help.
In navigating these challenging waters, it is always recommended to consult with spiritual leaders and seek guidance from the Holy Scriptures, keeping in mind the diverse interpretations within different Christian traditions. By fostering an environment of understanding and support, the Christian community can offer hope and help to those facing the darkest of times.
Important Note: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, it is crucial to seek professional help immediately. Contact a mental health professional, a suicide hotline, or a local church leader for support and guidance.
Christians must never forget that we are royalty, adopted by grace into the family of the King. Today, Sinclair Ferguson explains how this identity informs our calling to reflect God’s majesty and glory in the world.
Leviticus 15:25 — As we read these different maladies, some of them may draw our attention (e.g. women who have an issue of blood). It’s interesting because we read about a woman with this issue several days ago (Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25–34; in a few weeks we’ll read about her again in Luke 8:43–48). The woman was forbidden from touching Jesus (Leviticus 15:11), so she sought to touch only the hem of His garment. Interestingly, just like the lepers, this woman would also need to offer a sacrifice (Leviticus 15:29). Makes you wonder what the priests thought when people came to offer their sacrifice, and upon being asked why, they said “Jesus healed me.”
Leviticus 16:2 — Aaron, the High Priest, was limited in his access to the LORD. The Day of Atonement is the day that he could come and offer atonement for himself, his house, and all the congregation of Israel (Leviticus 16:17).
Leviticus 16:10 — The scapegoat or in Hebrew, Azazel, has entered Jewish mythology.
While there are different versions in the Book of Enoch, the Book of the Giants, and other pseudepigraphal books, the story is essentially that Azazel was the name of one of the fallen angels who sinned in Genesis chapter 6. As a curse on his sin, Azazel was forced to take the form of a goat-like demon. This myth is not supported by the Bible and is not compatible with what the Bible says about Azazel or the scapegoat.
Leviticus 16:22 — The scapegoat was fulfilled in Jesus, our vicarious atonement, who takes our sins away (John 1:29, I John 3:5). How far did Jesus take them away? Psalm 103:12!
Mark 7:21-23 — Do any of these things occur in your life?
evil thoughts
adulteries
fornications
murders
thefts
covetousness
wickedness
deceit
lasciviousness
an evil eye
blasphemy
pride
foolishness
Check your heart – which spirit is controlling you?
Psalm 40:17 — It’s humbling to say you’re poor and needy. But God dwells with the humble (Isaiah 57:15).
Proverbs 10:14 — What’s a way you can lay up knowledge today?
Share how reading through the Bible has been a blessing to you! E-mail us at 2018bible@vcyamerica.org or call and leave a message at 414-885-5370.
Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them. (Psalm 119:165)
Yes, a true love for the great Book will bring us great peace from the great God and be a great protection to us. Let us live constantly in the society of the law of the Lord, and it will breed in our hearts a restfulness such as nothing else can. The Holy Spirit acts as a Comforter through the Word and sheds abroad those benign influences which calm the tempests of the soul.
Nothing is a stumbling block to the man who has the Word of God dwelling in him richly. He takes up his daily cross, and it becomes a delight. For the fiery trial he is prepared and counts it not strange, so as to be utterly cast down by it. He is neither stumbled by prosperity—as so many are—nor crushed by adversity—as others have been—for he lives beyond the changing circumstances of external life. When his Lord puts before him some great mystery of the faith which makes others cry, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” the believer accepts it without question; for his intellectual difficulties are overcome by his reverent awe of the law of the Lord, which is to him the supreme authority to which he joyfully bows. Lord, work in us this love, this peace, this rest, this day.
By the time of Christ, the religious leaders of Israel had instituted through centuries of tradition a system of extra-biblical laws that, among other things, excused and even validated their hateful attitude toward the Gentiles. We would rightly recoil at the idea of God instructing His people to hate their enemies, but that very notion was accepted as fact in first-century Judaism.
One could argue that Israel’s relationship to the neighboring nations had been adversarial from the start, that their animosity was divinely decreed. When the Jews first entered the land of Canaan, they were commanded to exterminate the Canaanites:
When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, and when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. (Deuteronomy 7:1–2)
Centuries later, did those instructions legitimize the seething animosity Israel held for its neighboring nations in the time of Christ? Did God originally institute the hatred they harbored for the gentiles? And if so, is there a conflict between Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Mount and God’s instructions in the Old Testament? Dietrich Bonhoeffer shed some helpful light on this seeming contradiction. He wrote: “The wars of Israel were the only ‘holy wars’ in history, for they were the wars of God against the world of idols. It is not this enmity which Jesus condemns, for then he would have condemned the whole history of God’s dealing with his people. On the contrary, He affirms the Old Covenant.”[1] Dietrich Bonhoffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R.H. Fuller, 2nd rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 163.
The Lord’s commandments to wipe out the idolatrous inhabitants of Canaan weren’t the instructions of some bloodthirsty deity. God instructed Israel to destroy those idolatrous nations for the express purpose of preserving the purity of His covenant people.
Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you. But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 7:3–6)
God commanded His people to drive out and destroy those wicked nations in order to defend Israel from their idolatrous influence. This was no mere feud—God was purging the land of corrupting influences. He was protecting His people, not establishing a permanent pattern for personal, ethnocentric animosity.
Moreover, the Old Testament law included specific provisions for how the Israelites were to engage with others—even with their enemies. “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey wandering away, you shall surely return it to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him, you shall surely release it with him” (Exodus 23:4–5). In addition, Proverbs 25:21–22 says, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.” Job summed up how God’s people were to view their enemies: “Have I rejoiced at the extinction of my enemy, or exulted when evil befell him? No, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for his life in a curse” (Job 31:29–30).
So, while the Old Testament does include holy wars and pronounces judgment on nations that are the permanent, unrepentant enemies of God, there is no room for personal rancor, vengeance, or hostility. Put simply, the scribes and rabbis could not point back in Israel’s history to legitimize or excuse their hatred for the gentiles.
Nor could they point to the imprecatory psalms and the severe curses passed down on people outside of God’s covenant. The Psalms contain some scathing rebukes and vicious condemnations for those who oppose the Lord. For example:
May their table before them become a snare; And when they are in peace, may it become a trap. May their eyes grow dim so that they cannot see, And make their loins shake continually. Pour out Your indignation on them, And may Your burning anger overtake them. May their camp be desolate; May none dwell in their tents. For they have persecuted him whom You yourself have smitten, And they tell of the pain of those whom You have wounded. Add iniquity to their iniquity, And may they not come into Your righteousness. May they be blotted out of the book of life And may they not be recorded with the righteous. (Psalm 69:22–28)
However, this is not an expression of mere personal animosity. David explained earlier in that same psalm, “Zeal for Your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me” (v. 9). It’s the same kind of godly, righteous anger he expressed in Psalm 139:21–22: “Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with the utmost hatred; they have become my enemies.” He was not venting his own anger; he was taking up the cause of God against the idolatrous nations that had risen up against His people. He regarded the wicked as enemies of God and the covenant people. The conflicts in view here for David were national, not personal.
It is at that point precisely that the scribes and rabbis never made a distinction. They never distinguished between what was divinely judicial and what was personal. They took the prerogatives that belonged to God in the unfolding of His covenant purpose and they personalized them into their own private relationships. Thus, they perverted God’s law of love for neighbors and inhibited the possibility of evangelistic outreach to the idolatrous nations. To love their neighbors would be to ardently desire that they would repent, believe, and enter into a right relationship with God. To hate them would be to desire, with equal ardor, that they would perish in hell. That was the attitude of the Jews in Christ’s time, as it had been for centuries.
The prophet Jonah is a prime example of this stance. God called Jonah to preach to Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, and Jonah fled in the opposite direction. The Assyrians were notorious for their bloodthirsty violence and particularly for the cruelty they showed to Israel. Jonah wanted nothing good for them, and he had no intention of leading them to repentance and faith. And when the people of Nineveh dramatically repented and turned to God, Jonah responded with a fit of rage and frustration:
But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, “Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate god, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.” (Jonah 4:1–3)
Jonah didn’t praise God for the miraculous repentance of the Ninevites. Instead, he begged the Lord to take his life so he wouldn’t have to witness his enemies entering into a right relationship with God. That’s how deeply the Jews hated those they considered their enemies—death itself was preferable to seeing them rescued from hell by divine grace and forgiveness.
This is the context in which Jesus commanded Israel to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44). With these words, Jesus turned the Jewish worldview of the first century on its head. But that’s not all He did. In a sense, He expounded the entire Old Testament law with this one phrase. And that’s exactly what we’ll explore next time.
“I am the door, if anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” John 10:9
Many Christians I know are frazzled.
They work hard to serve God in tangible ways, and yet time for prayer and rest is brushed aside for modern day guarantees of fulfillment. Idle time is wasted on empty entertainment or scanning phones, having jostled and interrupted conversations with others doing the same.
Jesus invited us to set that all aside for true fulfillment when He said, “I am the door.” Only in Him do we, as weary travelers, finally arrive at a secure destination where we can be nourished.
In today’s passage, God is calling us to the rest that becomes ours by crossing through Christ, the door. We are like sheep that wander. When we ignore God’s door, we come back starved, misled, dirty, or at the very least worn out.
However, when we pay close attention to today’s verse, we see that only back-and-forth, day-to-day fellowship with God will provide us with pasture or food, not only for our bodies, but also for our souls.
No matter how many wonderful things you accomplish each day, no matter how many people you influence, don’t forget to get your nourishment from God so you can continue to please Him as well as to stay balanced. The Door is open and those who enter will indeed reap a healthy reward.
Dear Lord, I pray that You would help me to set aside every encumbrance so I can focus on having time with You. I pray that You would hear the cries of my heart, would recognize my passions, and would turn me in the right direction so I can find true fulfillment for the journey. Thank You for the sweet pasture I find in Your presence. The gifts in my life are plentiful, and I attribute them all to You; they are all for Your glory. Amen.
Thought: We can be at home with Jesus every single day. All we have to do is knock on the door—Him. Don’t’ just knock once today. Knock throughout your day. Draw strength and nourishment from your Savior.
Massive Solar Flare Explodes from Sun; Radio Black-Outs Today, Geomagnetic Storm in Coming Days A massive solar flare exploded from the sun today, the largest of three X-class flares that have impacted Earth in the last 24 hours, and the most intense flare of the current solar cycle. Due to this event, there are significant high-frequency radio black-outs today and it is likely geomagnetic storm conditions will be likely around Earth in the coming days. This most recent X class flare is rated as a X 6.3. It generated an R3 radio blackout, which is considered “strong”
Missouri sending Nat’l Guard to Texas border Governor Mike Parson, a Republican, announced Tuesday that up to 200 Missouri National Guard soldiers will be activated to support Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star at the southern border between the United States and Mexico.
Teamsters Union Makes First Major GOP Donation Since 2004 Following Trump Meeting Weeks after a meeting between former President Donald Trump and Teamsters Union leaders, including President Sean O’Brien and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman, along with the union’s executive board at their Washington, DC headquarters, America’s most powerful labor union has made the first major donation to Republicans in two decades. This move has sparked huge concern that unions are losing faith in President Biden, lauded as the most pro-union president ever.
Debris from North Korean missile in Ukraine could expose procurement networks Revelations that a North Korean missile fired by Russia in Ukraine contained a large number of components linked to U.S.-based companies underline the difficulty of enforcing sanctions against Pyongyang, but could help uncover illicit procurement networks, experts say.
New York Appeals Court Announces Decision on Dems’ Non-Citizen Voting Scheme A lawsuit in New York led by the Republican National Committee saw sanity prevail when an appellate court ruled that no, non-U.S. citizens cannot vote in our elections. If the absurd policy had been allowed to stand, some 900,000 non-citizens to cast votes in municipal elections in the Big Apple.
US successfully lands on moon for first time in half-century with private robot spacecraft The U.S. witnessed Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lunar lander touch down near Malapert A in the South Pole region of the moon on Thursday evening. This marked the first American spacecraft has landed on the moon since the last crewed Apollo mission over 50 years ago. The last time an American spacecraft touched down on the moon was in 1972, during the Apollo 17 mission.
Radio signals from Orion nebula reveal new data about strange celestial objects: ‘JuMBOS’ Discovered at the end of 2023 by the James Webb Space Telescope, these bodies defy star and planet formation models. Last year, using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers made the startling discovery of some free-floating, planetary-mass objects in the Orion nebula that threw their ideas of planet and star formation into doubt. And now, new research has further deepened the mystery around these so-called Jupiter-mass binary objects, or JuMBOs. JuMBOs aren’t stars, but aren’t really planets either. … Both components seem to have around 11 times the mass of Jupiter, making them the largest of their kind seen by the JWST
Powerful twin solar flares erupt from sun as cell phone outages spike across US Two outbursts from the sun occurred as widespread cellphone outages were reported throughout the United States on Thursday (Feb. 22). Two powerful solar flares erupted from the sun on the evening of Wednesday (Feb. 21) and during the early morning of Thursday (Feb. 22). An X1.8-class flare occurred at 6:07 p.m. ET (2307 GMT) on Feb. 21, and another, an X1.7 class flare, erupted at 1:32 a.m. ET (0632 GMT) on Feb. 22. The flares erupted from a region of the sun that “continues to exhibit strong magnetic complexity,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) wrote in a statement about the events.
AccuWeather sounding ‘alarm bells’ for supercharged 2024 Atlantic hurricane season The reasons are two-fold: the return of La Niña and record high ocean temperatures. Neither are good news when it comes to hurricanes and especially not when they work together. Ocean temperatures in February are already as warm as they historically have been in mid-July,
Follow the money: Left-wing donors financed Bible study urging Church to stay out of politics A journalist who covers faith and religion is describing how she stumbled into a eye-opening story: Some big names among Trump-hating evangelicals used left-wing sources to fund their Bible study intended to put the Church to sleep. Megan Basham, a Daily Wire reporter, recently had her curiosity piqued when reading a new Tim Alberta book about religion. Flipping through the pages, she discovered a Bible study entitled “The After Party – toward better Christian politics,” which is praised in the evangelical-bashing book. That forthcoming Bible study was created by New York Times columnist David French, Russell Moore of Christianity Today, and Duke Divinity professor Curtis Chang. “By ‘political idolatry’ they mean ‘political conservatism,’
Ballistic missile fired at Israel intercepted over Red Sea Israel air defenses intercepted a ballistic missile over the Red Sea on Thursday morning, setting off sirens in the coastal city of Eilat. The missile, which was reportedly launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen, was downed by Israel’s long range Arrow system.
IDF arrests 8 UNRWA employees for participating in Hamas terror Out of a total 12,000 UNRWA employees, 9,500 have Hamas ties. Over the course of the IDF’s operations in Gaza, 8 UNRWA employees have been arrested over alleged connections with Hamas, and in some cases, full participation in terrorist activities. Maariv obtained a secret report available to the IDF detailing terrorist ties of UNRWA workers, and the information is being investigated by Israeli officials.
Knesset votes 99-11 against unilateral recognition of Palestinian state Netanyahu congratulated the opposition MKs who helped give the resolution the backing of an unprecedented super-majority. The Knesset plenum on Wednesday voted 99-11 to back the government’s decision to reject any unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood, amid reports the Biden administration is considering such a move.
Senator asks Biden to clarify if US sees Jerusalem as part of ‘West Bank’ Joe Biden’s Feb. 1 executive order, imposing sanctions on “persons undermining peace, security and stability in the West Bank,” runs 1,699 words. None of those words is “Jerusalem.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) wrote to Biden on Tuesday asking the president to clarify whether, for purposes of the executive order, the White House considers Jerusalem to be part of the “West Bank,” which is a term the Biden administration, and some others, use for Judea and Samaria.
Three Arab Israelis Indicted for Plotting Shooting Attack on Temple Mount Three Arab-Israeli residents of northern Israel were arrested on suspicion of planning a shooting attack on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Two of those arrested in January and February are 20-year-old men, the third is a 16-year old minor, all from the Arab-Israeli town of Um al-Fahm. The minor and one of the adults are supporters of the Islamic State terrorist organization and planned to carry out the attack in the group’s name, the Israel Security Agency, also known as the Shin Bet, announced on Monday,
Illinois: This Bill Would Make it ‘Abuse’ for Parents to Object to Trans Hormones, Mutilation and Abortion A recently-introduced bill in the state of Illinois would change the definition of “abused child” to include minors whose parents object to their children receiving puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, transgender surgeries, and abortions. House Bill 4876, which was introduced in early February, also shields doctors from liability
Fearing prosecution, UAB pauses in vitro fertilization after Alabama embryo court ruling The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system has paused in vitro fertilization procedures following an Alabama Supreme Court decision due to fear of criminal prosecution and lawsuits, a spokeswoman said. the Alabama Supreme Court, in a decision released Friday, ruled that fertilized eggs and embryos have the same status as children. The opinion referred to embryos, which are often stored in cryogenic freezers, as “extrauterine children.“
Largest winter snowfall since 1975 and severe cold leave nearly 668,000 livestock dead in Mongolia Mongolia has experienced its heaviest snowfall since 1975 this winter, with the government reporting one fatality and the loss of nearly 668,000 livestock due to severe cold and blizzards. Disaster relief efforts were initiated on February 19, focusing on providing essential aid, including food, fuel, and livestock feed, to affected communities.
Thousands urged to evacuate as wildfire rages near Ballarat, Victoria An emergency warning has been issued for 28 communities west of Ballarat, Victoria, as residents are urged to evacuate due to an out-of-control bushfire. The fire, which ignited along Bayindeen-Rocky Road, is being fought by 1,000 firefighters with support from 24 aircraft and 100 vehicles. Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan and emergency officials emphasize the rapidly evolving situation, with no properties reported damaged yet but significant disruptions including road closures and power outages affecting over 2,100 customers.
Major network outages in U.S. following two X-class solar flares A widespread network outage was reported in the United States on Thursday morning, February 22, 2024, following two major eruptions on the Sun, an X1.8 flare at 23:07 UTC on February 21 and X1.7 at 06:32 UTC on February 22. Both erupted from Active Region 3590.
Solar flare effect on cellular network outage ‘unlikely,’ NOAA says …”While solar flares can affect communication systems, radar, and the Global Positioning System, based on the intensity of the eruption and associated phenomena, it is highly unlikely that these flares contributed to the widely reported cellular network outages,” they said.
Iran Fires Ballistic Missile From A Shipping Container At Sea Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has fired two ballistic missiles from launchers disguised as standard shipping containers that were hosted aboard one of its sea base-like vessels. This particular combination, which has not been seen to date, greatly expands the reach with which those weapons could be used to strike potential targets by surprise, especially given that shipping containers can be embarked on any vessel that has the space to accommodate them.
State-enforced gender ideology is letting ‘transgender’ pedophiles escape justice The transgender movement wields so much power that even men who rape children can sometimes avoid prison simply by claiming to be a woman. Perhaps keen-eyed readers will notice some weird inconsistencies in a story recently reported this month in the U.K. press.
Former Border Chief Reveals He Was Ordered to Flood Europe with Illegals “Your job is to take in migrants and welcome them because they come out of love. And whether you like it or not, we’re an aging continent so you have to let them in,” Ylva Johansson, the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs.
Terror in Israel: One murdered, eight wounded in highway shooting One Israeli was killed and eight more were wounded, including three severely, after gunshots were fired on Highway 1 near Ma’ale Adumim just outside of Jerusalem, Israel Police confirmed early Thursday morning.
Who Will Be Blamed For Harmful Covid-19 Vaccines? ‘It May be Time to Speak Up…’ says Dr Tess Lawrie Although doctors and other medical professionals may be expecting that their actions of the last four years in relation to the use of the dangerous Covid jab, will be defended by politicians, health and regulatory authorities etc, they may be in for a shock, says Dr Tess Lawrie. Doctors, it seems, will instead be the scapegoats “for when the anger and distress of ordinary men and women can no longer be contained” and Dr Lawrie urges the health professional who now realise the harms caused by these jabs, to speak up now.
Australian medical professionals who were cancelled haven’t given up; they’re still fighting for medical freedom During an Australian Senate hearing on the terms of reference for a Royal Commission into covid, a doctor described healthcare practitioners around Australia being suspended and silenced for questioning the “pandemic” response and covid injections. Three such health professionals, who were targeted by their regulators, have launched a declaration for anyone around the world “who understands the critical importance of free speech in formulating rational evidence-based and compassionate policy” to sign.
Canada’s carbon tax: Stop trying to rebrand it and just get rid of the whole scam The Canadian government believes renaming their ‘Climate Action Incentive Payments’ as ‘Canada Carbon Rebates’ will satisfy the national disgust about what carbon taxes have done to daily life. The carbon tax is, after all, nothing more than a disincentive penalty fine for choosing the wrong behavior – as decided by the Liberal-NDP regime … We buy alternatives and don’t use the products we need because they are now too expensive. Thus are we fined and penalized into environmental virtue.”
Hall of Shame: A worldwide list of those who pushed for covid “lockdowns” Trust the Evidence has started a list of people and institutions who pushed the harmful and destructive idea that you could “suppress” or “eradicate” SARS-CoV-2 using social measures, for example, “lockdowns.” “Those listed below showed crass ignorance of respiratory viral epidemiology, and they are likely to approach other topics with the same facile attitude in the future,” Dr. Tom Jefferson and Professor Carl Heneghan said.
“To preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which [the Constitution] has established … are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.” —Thomas Jefferson (1823)
Fellow Patriots, on this day in 1945, the American flag was raised atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. Three of the six Marines in that famous photograph were later killed in action before the battle concluded. Too many Americans now have no concept of the price of Liberty. —Mark Alexander
These loans are not being forgiven. The balances are just being transferred to taxpayers.
Nate Jackson
Democrats are nothing if not shameless in how they go about buying votes. Worse, Joe Biden is using your money to buy other people’s votes via his student loan “forgiveness” transfer program. He added another 153,000 borrowers to that roster for about $1.2 billion this week.
The timing was exquisite. With all the concern over the fact that he’s in steep cognitive decline, Biden needed to remind voters that he’s a “sympathetic” and “well-meaning” man, not just an “elderly” one with “a poor memory.”
Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in 2021 that “the president can’t do” what Biden eventually did anyway. “The president can only postpone, delay, but not forgive,” she explained, saying anything of that sort would require “an act of Congress.”
Frankly, that, too, would be unconstitutional. The Constitution does not grant the federal government the authority to abrogate private contracts between lenders and borrowers, forcing taxpayers to pay back loans they did not take for college degrees they did not earn.
But since when did Washington politicians care much for that musty old parchment?
Indeed, in August 2022, Biden did it anyway in a transparent ploy for votes. In July 2023, the Supreme Court rebuked him in a resounding 6-3 ruling. Biden immediately proceeded to ignore the Court and implemented a workaround to keep up the transfer payments in smaller batches.
Since then, a new White House “fact sheet” says, “The Biden-Harris Administration has now approved nearly $138 billion in student debt cancellation for almost 3.9 million borrowers through more than two dozen executive actions.” Billions more dollars will be spent leading up to the election because millions more borrowers are registered in his program.
Biden has no authority to do that, and the Supreme Court told him so. He doesn’t care. In fact, he’s blatantly daring anyone to play the villain and stop him.
“Tens of millions of people in debt were literally about to be canceled, their debts,” he said Wednesday in revising the history. “But my MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials, and special interests stepped in and sued us, and the Supreme Court blocked it. They blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.”
Constitutional authority? Malarkey. Checks and balances? Please. Totally unfair to send the bill for loans to people who didn’t take them out? Whatever.
Kind Uncle Joe is here to take care of (not so) poor college graduates struggling to get by, and mean, stingy Republicans aren’t going to stop him.
Remember, this is the same guy warning that Donald Trump is a would-be dictator who threatens democracy.
Speaking of Trump, one thing Biden did learn from his predecessor is to put his name on the check. When approving COVID stimulus checks under his administration, Trump made sure his name was on the checks. Team Biden promised such political games would stop under his administration. They did until they didn’t.
“I promise you I’m never going to stop fighting for hardworking American families,” Biden said Wednesday. “So if you qualify, you’ll be hearing from me shortly.” Politico reported that “he’s sending emails to make sure they know whom to thank for it.” Indeed, in that email, he says, “I hope this relief gives you a little more breathing room.” It ends with his signature.
Again, he’s also making sure people know who to blame if this money gets taken away from them.
“A lot of people can’t even repay, and they try — they don’t miss payments,” Biden said. “They work like the devil every month to pay the bills.”
What about those of us who worked like the devil and paid off our own student loans? What about those of us whose mortgage and escrow payments have gone up hundreds of dollars a month, not because we bought a new house but because of the inflation Joe Biden caused? Where’s our relief?
We get none. We just get another bill so Biden can buy votes. And, as with rampant inflation, we know whose name is on that bill.
Unfortunately, millions of Americans benefit from Biden’s graft, and Republicans are going to have a difficult time opposing or stopping him. House Republicans passed a bill to block him last year, but it failed in the Senate. He wouldn’t sign it anyway.
Establishing standing in court will likewise be tough; without standing, who can sue? Since Biden began the smaller rounds of debt transfer payments, no major lawsuit has been filed.
No, Biden will likely get away with this, and he knows it. The result will be an entitled generation that is learning to depend on the federal government, more expensive college tuition bills going forward, increased federal debt ($34 trillion and counting), and one more huge chunk missing from the constitutional order of checks and balances.
Biden is “saving democracy,” and we’re all paying dearly for it.
President Unity at it again, Google Gemini AI has a laughable anti-white bias, Jeb Bush stands up for Trump and Musk, and more.
Douglas Andrews & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Biden: Today’s Republicans are worse than real racists: When it comes to racism and real racists, Joe Biden knows of what he stammers. Anyone who tells a largely black audience that Republicans “want to put y’all back in chains,” anyone who says “poor kids are just as bright, just as talented, as white kids,” anyone who warns black voters that they “ain’t black” unless they vote for him — that’s a guy who has more than a passing familiarity with racism. President Unity was at it again this week when he told uber-rich Democrat donors in California that Republicans in today’s Congress are worse than the Dixiecrat segregationists he used to serve with. “I’ve been a senator since ‘72. I’ve served with real racists. I’ve served with Strom Thurmond,” he said. “I’ve served with all these guys that have set terrible records on race. But guess what? These [Republicans] are worse.” For those keeping score at home, Biden eulogized both Thurmond and former KKK member Robert Byrd. House Speaker Mike Johnson had this to say in response: “The least popular President to seek re-election is now so desperate and so underwater in the polls he’s playing the race card from the bottom of the deck.”
Adios, Commander: What does it say about a president who values his vicious dog more than the Secret Service personnel who are sworn to protect him? That would be Joe Biden, of course, and his dog, Commander, a German Shepherd who can’t help but attack and bite those who protect his master. Now, finally, as the New York Post reports, Biden has apparently given the dog to relatives following reports of still more vicious attacks — including one “in which White House tours were suspended to mop up blood from the floor of the East Wing and another attack in which an agent suffered a ‘severe deep open wound’ at Biden’s Delaware vacation home.” Apparently, as CNN reports, Commander “bit US Secret Service personnel in at least 24 incidents at the White House and other locations, according to new internal USSS documents.” So the Bidens were hiding the whole truth about their out-of-control dog — a dog that the Bidens obviously failed to train. But no worries. The first family has “apologized to those who have been bitten, taken flowers to some,” CNN adds. “They feel awful.”
Google Gemini AI has a laughable anti-white bias: Ask for an image of a Founding Father, and it spits out a black guy in a Continental Army uniform. Ask for an image of a Nazi, and it serves up a black guy or an Asian woman in gray Wehrmacht gear. Ask for an image of the pope, and you’ll get the world’s first female pontiff of color. And this is all because Google is an evil, hard-left company, and, more specifically, because its Gemini Experiences Senior Director of Product Management, Jack Krawczyk, is an anti-white racist clown. Indeed, Krawczyk seems bent on disappearing white people in much the same way today’s TV commercials have done it. But now that he’s been exposed, he’s scrambling: “We’re working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately,” Krawczyk said. “Gemini’s AI image generation does generate a wide range of people. And that’s generally a good thing because people around the world use it. But it’s missing the mark here.” You’re telling us. Gemini, Google says, is thus paused until further notice.
Announcing the Trump-deranged Principles First Summit: The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) will never be confused with the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution, or the Claremont Institute. But it shouldn’t be. The former is, as its name suggests, a political action organization, whereas the others are conservative think tanks. That distinction has apparently been lost on a gaggle of long-suffering Trump-deranged Republicans who are now calling on folks to abandon CPAC and instead attend the Principles First Summit in DC from February 23-25. CPAC, they say, was once “a place for defense, economic and social conservatives to meet and debate has turned into a Trump-tastic circus devoid of intellectual heft.” If we didn’t know better, we’d say these Summiteers’ guiding First Principle is Trump hatred. And sure enough, as The Washington Times reports, the Principles First Summit will feature lachrymose former congressman and J6 Pelosi stooge Adam Kinzinger, ancient Never-Trumper Bill Kristol, and former Arkansas governor and “Republican” “presidential” “candidate” Asa Hutchinson. The only one missing, it seems, is record-settingLiz Cheney.
“Go to college,” they implored: Were higher education a real business, it would’ve been shuttered a long time ago. It’s not, though, largely because it’s being propped up by taxpayer funds and because it’s unaccountable to its customers. This is why we think colleges and universities are long past due for a reckoning, and why we don’t think the higher-ed bubble can possibly burst soon enough. The latest evidence of this comes in a Wall Street Journal article revealing that “roughly half of college graduates end up in jobs where their degrees aren’t needed, and that underemployment has lasting implications for workers’ earnings and career paths.” This wasn’t some little study, either. The findings come by way of “tracking the career paths of more than 10 million people who entered the job market over the past decade.” A whopping 52% of graduates are now working in jobs that don’t make use of their skills or credentials, many of them deeply in debt. But don’t worry. Uncle Joe will bail ‘em out.
Jeb Bush stands up for Trump and Musk … sort of: The op-ed, which was co-authored by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and someone named Joe Lonsdale, has one whiny and unnecessary sentence: “Every American has a right to be critical of Mr. Trump’s politics — one of us ran against him in 2016 — or Mr. Musk’s public persona.” Jeb is being too modest here: He didn’t just run against Donald Trump; he got chewed up, spit out, and curb-stomped by Donald Trump. But we digress. The rest of his missive is a vigorous defense of Trump and Elon Musk against the leftist lawfare they’ve been up against, as well as a warning about the potential damage these egregiously errant rulings can do to both the economy and the Rule of Law. Their op-ed closes: “The appellate courts in those states now have a chance to review these dangerous judicial rulings and try to stop further damage to the reputations of their respective judiciaries. If they don’t, blue-state politicians may have the satisfaction of ‘sticking it’ to Messrs. Trump and Musk, but the loss to those states will be significant. The damage to the legal fabric of the country will be even worse. A dispassionate justice system is at the heart of American exceptionalism, and the country will be poorer if we lose it.”
Headlines
Biden announces 500 new sanctions against Russia after Navalny’s death (National Review)
CBS seizes confidential files of fired reporter pursuing Hunter Biden laptop story in “unprecedented” move (New York Post)
Judge denies Trump’s request to delay enforcement of $355M fraud case penalties (ABC News)
AT&T says massive cell outage caused by technical error, not cyberattack (Washington Post)
Pharmacies nationwide report outages in wake of cyberattack (Fox Business)
Chicago residents speak out against migrants welcomed by city: “Junking up our country” (Fox News)
Yale to require standardized test scores for admissions (New York Times)
MS Society U-turns and issues groveling apology to fired 90-year-old volunteer whom it forced to step down after she asked “what pronouns meant” (Daily Mail)
Odysseus becomes first American lander to reach the moon in 52 years (USA Today)
Humor: Google Gemini finally draws white man after being prompted to generate Clarence Thomas (Babylon Bee)
The Left loves to wield this particular moniker as a weapon to dissuade Christians from stating their views.
Emmy Griffin
When you ask a random sample of Americans what they think “Christian Nationalism” is, you’re going to get a handful of answers. The Left loves to wield this particular moniker as a weapon to paint Christians as theocrats who want to take away all freedoms. It’s the bogeyman used to keep the faithful silent.
This is not a new attack, and it’s becoming more pervasive as leftists try anything and everything to dissuade Christians from stating their views. Nothing depicts that better than a Politico article published earlier this week. Politico warns that “Christian nationalists” are seeking to place themselves in positions of prominence around former President Donald Trump should he win reelection this November. The article’s particular targets are Russell Vought, president of The Center for Renewing America think tank; William Wolfe, who worked in Trump’s previous administration; and former national security advisor Mike Flynn.
These men were given the label of “Christian nationalist” because they are Christians who believe in securing the border; are pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, and pro-family; and believe that there are only two sexes. In other words, they believe what most Christians who adhere to the teachings of the Bible believe.
Here, it should be noted that progressive Christians — ones that include President Joe Biden and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi — only view the Bible as a series of suggestions, not the revealed Word of God. This is seen in their politics as well. As our Nate Jackson aptly put it, “Leftists only care about the Constitution when they’re defending what’s not in it.”
How does Politico semi-define what makes a “Christian nationalist”? The article vaguely states, “Christian nationalists in America believe that the country was founded as a Christian nation and that Christian values should be prioritized throughout government and public life.” This is where anyone who is even a mediocre student of U.S. history would say, “Yes, and?”
To quote House Speaker Mike Johnson: “Deep religious heritage and tradition is a big part of what it means to be an American. When the Founders set this system up, they wanted a vibrant expression of faith in the public square because they believed that a general moral consensus and virtue was necessary to maintain this grand experiment in self-governance that we created — a government of, by, and for the people. We don’t have a king in charge, we don’t have a middle man, so we’ve got to keep morality amongst us, so that we have accountability. And so they wanted faith to be a big part of that.”
What is unclear is if Politico is trying to deny the fact that the Founders set up the country in large part on the basis of Christian values. By failing to elaborate, the authors are either ignorant of U.S. history or are counting on the fact that perhaps their readers are.
Being imprecise seems to be the name of the game for this article. Throwing out words like “Christian nationalism” is purposely unclear; they don’t really define it at all. Lead pastor Michael Clary of Christ the King Church writes in The Federalist: “Leftists know that carefully defining ‘Christian nationalism’ would be counterproductive. Its ambiguity is its utility. It needs to be scary enough to make people afraid of it but vague enough so they don’t know what they actually fear.”
In other words, it’s another leftist example of rhetorical manipulation to put conservatives on the defensive.
Politico also defines natural law incorrectly: “Natural law is the belief that there are universal rules derived from God that can’t be superseded by government or judges.” As political pundit Michael Knowles points out on his podcast, this is not an accurate definition of natural law, and a cursory search on the Internet would have corrected them. Natural law, according to Britannica, is a “system of right or justice held to be common to all humans and derived from nature rather than from the rules of society, or positive law.” Knowles’s bigger point in calling out this mis-definition was to say that the Left has not only forgotten what natural rights and natural law are, but it has abandoned the very notion of any sort of universal morality in favor of moral relativism.
The overarching point of the Politico attack on conservative Christians is that Trump is going to be heavily influenced by them. As Not the Bee correctly observes: “As much as you do or do not want that to be true, remember that Donald Trump is a moderate — he doesn’t care about ending all abortion, he doesn’t care much about LGBT issues, and he’s not a big social politics guy. He’s shown no signs of repentance (actually saying he sees no need for it personally) or a declaration that he follows Jesus Christ (and dodges the question on faith whenever he is asked). He’s pretty much your normal freedom-loving American from 10 years ago.”
Yet Trump also promised yesterday to “fight even harder for Christians” in a second Trump administration.
The Left has no trouble running Christians and their values into the mud. It is those very values it has been seeking to undermine for generations. This article is just the latest in a series of attacks on normal conservative Christians. A soon-to-be-released documentary put out by atheist and leftist filmmaker Rob Reiner entitled “God and Country” targets so-called “Christian nationalists.” Additionally, David French, Russell Moore, and Curtis Chang have written a Bible study that seems to encourage Christians not to rock the political boat and be quiet.
These attacks do put conservative Christians on the defensive. However, take heart: “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10)
Were it not for the first lady, this “elderly man with a poor memory” wouldn’t be running for a second term.
Douglas Andrews
“What’s done cannot be undone,” said Lady Macbeth, and she was right.
And here we are.
It might be that the beginning of the end for Joe Biden occurred just over two weeks ago. That was when he called that disastrous last-minute press conference at an hour well past snuggerbunnies for the purpose of addressing Special Counsel Robert Hur’s damning report about his mishandling of classified documents ever more noticeable cognitive decline.
Or it might not be, if Herr Doktor Jill Biden, Ed.D., has her way. As we noted back in 2021, the first lady could’ve prevented this freight train of elder abuse if only she’d convinced her husband and his handlers that he wasn’t fit for the job. Even casual observers could see the difference between the moderately capable if gaffe-prone guy who served two terms as Barack America’s veep and the increasingly incapable guy whom the desperate Democrats propped up as their best chance to beat Donald Trump in 2020.
Yes, Jill Biden could’ve prevented all this, but she desperately wanted to be first lady. And as lefty historian Douglas Brinkley noted last weekend on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” she still does.
“She is the vital part,” said Brinkley. “Dr. Jill Biden is it. You know, if you go back to 1952, Harry Truman could have run, and he didn’t. Why? Well, the Korean War and, you know, other reasons. But Bess wanted to go back to Independence, [Missouri,] you know, she didn’t like it in Washington.
“If you cut to ‘68, Lyndon Johnson was — quit in March of ’68, and people will say because of Walter Cronkite. No. The big thing was his health was bad. He had a bad heart, he was smoking, high blood pressure, tension, and Lady Bird Johnson didn’t want to stay in. And she wanted — ‘Let’s go back to Texas,’ and convinced Johnson to step down.”
So there you have it. That’s two presidential wives who did the right thing by their husbands. But, as Brinkley continues: “That’s not the case with Jill Biden. She likes power. She wants to stay. She wants some sense of revenge.”
“Revenge” wasn’t Jill Biden’s word, of course, but we get the sense that it isn’t far off. Her husband has held the fewest solo press conferences — three — of any modern president, and at the second one, way back in January 2022, she went ballistic on his aides for not having brought it to a close long before he embarrassed himself. Apparently, even the president sat there like a beleaguered staffer as she lashed out.
As the New York Post reports: “At that presser, Biden suggested a ‘minor incursion’ by Russia into Ukraine would prompt a minimal US response, leaving officials in Kyiv aghast and suggesting the president had given Vladimir Putin a ‘green light’ to invade — which he did weeks later. ‘Why didn’t anyone stop that?’ Jill Biden fumed to aides, demanding an explanation for her husband being left to wilt before the world, according to excerpts from a forthcoming book by New York Times correspondent Katie Rogers.”
But the gaffes, they keep a-comin’. During that ill-fated presser two weeks ago, Biden responded to a question about aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza by saying, “The president of Mexico, Sisi, did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in.”
What, we wonder, does Mexico have to do with Gaza? As late-night king Greg Gutfeld quipped soon thereafter, “Denial isn’t just a river in Tijuana.”
No wonder Dr. Jill is furious. That a first lady has to monitor her husband’s exposure to the media is telling enough. That a special counsel has described him as “a sympathetic [sic], well-meaning [sic], elderly man with a poor memory” is even more troubling. As The Washington Free Beacon’s Andrew Stiles brilliantly puts it, “He should be relaxing on a beach in Delaware, not constantly cheating death on the Air Force One staircase.”
And yet, Joe Biden shuffles across the White House lawn with his wife firmly gripping his hand to keep him from wandering over to the assembled press, where he might once again embarrass himself. And her. We wonder, Madame First Lady: Is it worth it? Is putting your husband through this worth the trappings of the White House?
As Lady Macbeth grimly observed, “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”
After years of fawning coverage from the mainstream media, the president is finally drawing some much-need scrutiny.
Brian Mark Weber
These days, more questions are being raised about the mental and physical health of a powerful American political candidate.
But if you think they’re questioning Joe Biden’s inability to find his way off stage, his claim to have had conversations with people who’ve been dead for years, or his trouble in completing sentences, you’re wrong. It’s Donald Trump they’re worried about.
Who could forget the buzz when Trump spoke recently about January 6 and momentarily confused former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley.
Since he campaigned for the presidency in 2015, there’s been a laundry list of articles, opinion pieces, and news reports about Trump’s health. But during Biden’s term in office, the media have neglected to report what everyone can see and hear, and it’s infuriating that so-called journalists refuse to acknowledge that Biden is in no condition to be president.
To their credit, though, most Americans can see through the spin. A recent Quinnipiac University poll reveals that nearly 70% of Americans think Biden is too old to serve again. An ABC News/Ipsos poll is even worse. In that one, 86% don’t think Biden can handle another four years.
So much for polls, but now the national media’s denial phase has come to an end as well. In early February, the Department of Justice’s own special counsel, Robert Hur, released a report of an investigation into Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. The report concluded that he was guilty as charged, but Hur refused to bring criminal charges.
No surprises here, but Hur’s decision not to prosecute the president rested on his generous assessment that Biden is a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” who wouldn’t present himself well to a jury. The Biden White House couldn’t let that characterization stand, so they reflexively responded by sending the president out in front of America for a primetime press conference. They were so confident in the commander-in-chief that they gave the media less than 25 minutes’ notice.
Whoever made that decision didn’t think it through.
It couldn’t have gone any worse for Biden, who stumbled his way through a televised conference that left everyone in the room (and those watching at home) realizing what they had already known. And that’s all it took for the floodgates to open, unleashing a torrent of reports from typically pro-Biden media outlets and reporters questioning whether Biden has the mental acuity to serve another term as president.
After three years of Americans shouting, “The emperor isn’t wearing any clothes,” we finally got one of the emperor’s own to acknowledge it.
Maybe Hur’s report and the media’s decision to jump on the bandwagon were part of an orchestrated attempt to set the stage for an ultimate replacement of Biden between now and the election. In fact, CNN is already greasing the skids for Kamala Harris to slide into the presidency.
“CNN has claimed that Kamala Harris, the first vice president ever to demonstrate unfitness for the world’s easiest job, is in calm, cool command, taking charge and reassuring Dems who are worried that they might not cheat effectively enough in November,” according to political analyst Robert Spencer.
Theories aside, it seems odd that suddenly the media is no longer willing to prop up a sitting president who needs a lot of propping up.
One of the outlets responding to the special counsel’s report was the Gray Lady herself. Usually, The New York Times is part of the Leftmedia’s Praetorian Guard, but some realities are too harsh to ignore.
As expected, the Biden administration is fuming. After all, if there’s one thing Democrats can’t stand, it’s a press that’s no longer willing to cover for them or look the other way.
Last week, White House spokesman Ian Sams wrote a letter to the White House Correspondents Association asking the media to, essentially, treat Biden with kid gloves. The WHCA appropriately rejected the request.
As the Leftmedia always loved to say about Donald Trump, it seems the walls are closing in around Joe Biden. There are renewed requests for him to take a cognitive test, but White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre recently assured the country that it’s not necessary.
For once, Jean-Pierre is right. The president doesn’t need to be tested for something we can all see with our own eyes. The media see it, too, and they’re finally reporting on it. Now, someone needs to tell Biden he’s not going to be the Democrat nominee in 2024.
In fact, that’s exactly the point. Media figures are only now “starting to get nervous,” says Senator Ted Cruz. “They’re starting to realize, ‘Crap, if it’s Biden against Trump, we think Trump’s gonna win.’ And so they’re hitting the panic button. And I think we’re going to see more of these stories as the media turns on him. I do think you’re seeing both Democrats and the media getting very, very worried about Joe Biden’s ability to win in November.”
The left is waging lawfare with the implicit message to political opponents: either keep quiet or suffer the consequences.
Victor Davis Hanson
One state prosecutor and one civilian plaintiff have already won huge fines and damages from former President Donald Trump that may, with legal costs, exceed $500 million.
Trump awaits further civil and criminal liability in three other federal, state, and local indictments.
There are eerie commonalities in all these five court cases involving plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, federal special counsel Jack Smith, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
One, they are either unapologetically left-wing or associated with liberal causes. They filed their legal writs in big-city, left-wing America — Atlanta, New York, Washington — where liberal judges and jury pools predominate in a manner not characteristic of the country at large.
Two, they are overtly political. Bragg, James, and Willis have either campaigned for office or raised campaign funds by promising to get or even destroy Trump.
Carroll’s suit was funded by left-wing billionaire Reid Hoffman.
Smith sued to rush his court schedule in hopes of putting Trump on trial before the November election.
Three, there would not be any of these cases had Trump not run for the presidency or not been a conservative.
Carroll’s suit bypassed statute of limitation restrictions by prompting the intervention of a left-wing New York legislator. He passed a special bill, allowing a one-year window to waive the statute of limitations for sexual assault claims from decades past.
Until Trump, no New York prosecutor like James had ever filed a civil suit against a business for allegedly overvaluing real estate assets to obtain loans that bank auditors approved and were paid back in full, on time, and with sizable interest profits to the lending institutions.
Bragg bootstrapped a Trump private non-disclosure agreement into a federal campaign violation in a desperate effort to find something on Trump.
Smith is also charging Trump with insurrectionary activity. But Trump had never been so charged with insurrection, much less convicted of it.
Willis strained to find a way to criminalize Trump’s complaints about his loss of Georgia in the 2020 national election. She finally came up with a racketeering charge, usually more applicable to mafiosi and drug cartels.
Four, in all these cases, the charges could have been equally applicable to fellow left-wing public figures and officials.
President Joe Biden, like Trump, was accused of sexual assault decades earlier by former staffer Tara Reade. Yet Reade was torn apart by the media and the left for inconsistencies in her memory. By contrast, the wildly inconsistent and amnesiac Carroll won $83 million from Trump.
Smith created the precedent of charging Trump for unlawfully removing classified files to his private residence.
But the government simultaneously did not charge Biden for similar offenses. Yet Biden had removed files not for two years but for more than 30. He stored them not in one location but several.
His rickety garage was a mess, not a secure family compound like Trump’s estate. Moreover, Biden did so while a senator and vice president, without any presidential authority to declassify almost any presidential document he wished.
Biden never came forward to report the crime for over 30 years — until Trump was charged. Indeed, he was caught on tape six years ago, admitting to his ghostwriter that he possessed classified files but never reported it.
Bragg might have noticed that both Hillary Clinton (fined $113,000) and Barack Obama (fined $350,000) broke campaign financing laws. Neither was subject to federal criminal charges by local prosecutors.
An array of left-wing celebrities, politicians, 2004 House Members, former Senator Barbara Boxer, D-CA, and failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams have all recently challenged elections. They sought either to delay or redo ballot counting or, on the federal level, to sidetrack electors to ignore popular votes in their respective states.
These lawfare cases are part of other efforts that were highly partisan and without merit. Recall the Trump “Russian collusion” hoax and the “Russian disinformation” laptop farce.
In another first, some blue states are suing to take Trump’s name off the ballot for “insurrection,” a crime for which he has never been charged.
Total up the deaths, damage, and length of the summer 2020 Antifa/BLM riots. Then compare the tally to the one-day January 6 riot.
The former proved far more lethal, long-lasting, and destructive. Yet very few of the 14,000 arrested rioters in 2020 were ever prosecuted, much less convicted.
By contrast, the Biden administration sought to jail hundreds for crimes allegedly committed on January 6, such as “illegal parading.”
We are entering a dangerous era in America.
Ideology and party affiliations increasingly determine guilt and punishment. Opponents are first targeted, and then laws are twisted and redefined to convict them.
The left is waging lawfare with the implicit message to political opponents: either keep quiet or suffer the consequences.
“I’ve served with real racists. I’ve served with Strom Thurmond. I’ve served with all these guys that have set terrible records on race. But guess what? These guys [today’s Republicans] are worse. These guys do not believe in basic democratic principles.” —Joe Biden (“Joe Biden repeatedly praised Strom Thurmond, called him his ‘closest friend,’ urged him to run for president, and eulogized him at his funeral.” —Sean Davis | “He also spoke at the funeral for Robert Byrd who was a former KKK member.” —Katie Pavlich)
Dumb & Dumber
“Every election, it seems, the Republicans fall in favor with the Russians.” —Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY)
“Trump allies prepare to infuse ‘Christian nationalism’ in second administration.” —Politico
Shameless
“Tens of millions of people in debt were literally about to be canceled — their debts. But my MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials, and special interests stepped in and sued us. And the Supreme Court blocked it. They blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.” —Joe Biden on going on to transfer more than $130 billion in student loans from borrowers to taxpayers
“President @JoeBiden and I canceled nearly $138 billion in student loan debt for almost 3.9 million Americans. Republicans in Congress refuse to work with us to cancel more debt — but we will not be deterred.” —Kamala Harris (“You didn’t cancel any debt. You transferred funding for mostly useless university degrees from the degree holders who accrued it to the general public who didn’t so you could virtue signal about your benevolent theft.” —Jordan B. Peterson)
The BIG Lie
“Going forward, every two months for the next four years, another 75,000 people will become eligible for [student debt] forgiveness. … This is not giving anybody’s money away.” —Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-SC)
The Lowdown
“If President Biden were to spend even half as much energy trying to secure our southern border as he is spending finding ways to transfer the debts of American college graduates to the taxpayer, the flow of illegal immigrants would by this point have slowed to a trickle.” —National Review
For the Record
“I don’t know the cause of the AT&T outage. But I do know it will be 100 times worse when #China launches a cyber attack on America on the eve of a #Taiwan invasion. And it won’t be just cell service they hit, it will be your power, your water and your bank.” —Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)
“If Vladimir Putin has his enemies murdered, it’s because he knows he can get away with it. The rule of law is supposed to protect us from abuses of power. If we allow it to be eroded, what’s to keep those in power here from reaching the same conclusion?” —Laura Hollis
“Vladimir Lenin once supposedly said, ‘Probe with bayonets. If you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.’ Putin is probing. And he’s finding nothing but mush.” —Ben Shapiro
“From the FBI to IRS, the Biden administration has spent the last three years criminalizing Americans with biblical views, only to turn around and complain about threats to democracy. What bigger threat is there than a government weaponized against its own people?” —Tony Perkins
[0:34] -“Welcome to the moon” – Space Lunar Odysseus successfully lands on lunar surface.
[4:00] -FL Rep. Byron Donalds gives the opening address at CPAC.
[6:49] -S. Dakota Gov Kristi Noem: Biden’s border disaster is being done on purpose to change America forever. [The Record with Greta Van Susteren]
[11:26] -Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville: Mayorkas should be in jail, not in an impeachment trial. [Wake Up America]
[16:15] -Trump Attorney Christina Bobb discusses ‘literally insane’ remark by Letitia James. [Eric Bolling The Balance]
‘Ultimately, the radical left is coming after all of us, because they know that our allegiance is not to them — our allegiance is to our country and to our Creator.’
Our neighbors to the North continue to be the Ghosts of Legislative Future if we don’t get our act together. During the first session of the 44th parliament, Bloc Québécois party leader Yves-François Blanchet, introduced a private members bill that would remove religious exceptions to the law that criminalizes hate speech.
If someone is charged with hate speech in Canada, they can defend themselves in court by arguing they were, in good faith, making an argument based on their religious beliefs.
At present, in Canadian Criminal Code, the “religious exemption” in Section 319 states: “No person shall be convicted of a [hate crime] offense… if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.”
Bill C-367, which is supported by 2/3 of Canadians, would eliminate that defense.
The bill got through the first reading in the House of Commons but then stalled in the parliamentary process, prompting the party to retable the bill, now known as C-373, to jump start the discussion. The bill is currently outside the Order of Precedence, meaning it has yet to be selected for debate, but would surely pass if Justin Trudeau and his government get their hands on it.
One of the bill’s sponsors, Sylvie Bérubé, insisted the bill must be passed, noting “It is quite sad that some people use their position of influence, religious or civil, even impunity conferred to them, to incite violence and hatred…(this bill) is about preserving peace of mind amongst Quebecois and Canadians and all communities that hateful words that incite violence should never be protected by the Criminal Code,”
In analyzing the current economic landscape, Peter shared a perspective thatchallenges the optimistic narratives surrounding key indicators.
His skepticism extends to reported job growth, which he attributes to individuals taking multiple jobs amid rising prices and stagnant paychecks. Peter also critiqued the inflation report,countering the notion of decreasing inflation by asserting that it is bottoming out and poised to intensify.
He emphasized the stark contrast between official reports and the real experiences of everyday Americans,particularly underscoring the record-high levels of household debt and the government’s role in exacerbating economic challenges. Furthermore, Peter highlighted the potential repercussions of rising interest rates, predicting that instead of alleviating inflation, they would contribute to its escalation.
The interview concluded with a cautionary note on government spending,as Peter advised against additional borrowing when the nation is already grappling with substantial debt.
See below for the interview transcript:
Dan Ball: So, Peter, they put out the CPI numbers, they go, “Oh it’s all great.” I remember the job report last month. They underestimated on purpose and said 122, we got 300 and some thousand. So, they keep saying, “Jobs are up. Inflation’s going down. Everything’s great!” That’s not the true story, is it Peter?
Peter: No, I mean first of all the only reason that jobs are going up is because people are forced to take 2 or 3 jobs, because prices keep going up and their paychecks are not. And of course, we’ve been replacing full-time jobs with part-time jobs, so the numbers would favor extra jobs, but today’s inflation report was a disaster. It really confirms what I’ve been warning for months now. That inflation is bottoming. That we’re not at the peak but we’re at the trough and we never got to 2%. In fact, if you look at the core for the month of January, which the Fed prefers, it was up 4/10ths of one percent on the month. If you annualize that, that’s 5% a year. I mean that’s really where we are, and of course, you’d probably have to double that to get the actual rate, because the government’s rate so understates what’s going on.
Dan: Exactly
Peter: So, the inflation problem is far from solved. In fact, it’s here permanently and it’s going to get a lot worse as the months go by.
Dan: Peter, you’re the numbers guy, so I want you to dispel all these myths that the regime keeps pushing forward about, “These are the best numbers we’ve seen in 50 years.” Okay. But how bad was the economy when Joe took over because of all the COVID lockdowns around the country? Again, you can’t say, “Well the Trump regime handed us a horrible thing…” No no no. States around this country like California, run by Gavin Newsome, Democrats, did tyrannical lockdowns for over two and a half years. They crushed small businesses, medium, and even large businesses. People lost their jobs; they lost their way of everything. And so, of course, if you’re at the bottom, and you start to come up in 3 years of an administration it’s going to look like major amazing growth. But it’s still not even close to back to normal pre-2019 and beyond, behind that before COVID hit. So, explain those numbers and how they’re misconstruing them and tweaking them in their favor, because I’m tired of hearing this crap, “50 years Joe’s got the best economy.” No. He doesn’t.
Peter: Well, you know, figures lie and liars figure. And they’re always going to try to spin these numbers and try to you know put lipstick on a pig. But if you look at Biden’s popularity, which is the lowest of any president in history, and you look at why he’s so unpopular, it’s the economy. When they poll the potential voters as to where Biden scores the lowest, it’s on the economy.And so, if the economy’s as great as they’re saying, why isn’t Biden getting any credit? Why are the people who are living in the economy so pessimistic about the economy that they’re blaming Biden for how bad things are?So, I think that is far more accurate than how the government is spinning it. But even the government data, you know they show us one report with these official jobs numbers, but you have the household survey which comes out the same day and it’s the mirror image of the rosy report they keep touting. All the big companies are announcing layoffs. I don’t know any of them that are hiring.So, we’re not getting good jobs.Meanwhile, if the economy was so great why are people drowning in debt?Why is credit card debt at an all-time record high, despite record-high credit card interest rates?
Dan: Thank you!
Peter:The only reason consumers are using their credit is because they’re broke. You know. And if it was a good economy, they wouldn’t have to depend on credit.They would have the income to buy the things they need. They wouldn’t have to be borrowing money and going this deeply into debt.
Dan: Yeah. Peter, we just put up a graphic that showed an article I think from the website of Zero Hedge which shows how much debt we Americans are in. And you have been hammering this for a year on this program. $1.56 trillion for just credit cards and overall household debt tops $17.5 trillion. That’s the highest number in American history for citizen’s debt. That is astronomical.
Peter: Yeah, and that’s just what they owe on their own. Remember all the citizens are on the hook for their share of the national debt.
Dan: Oh right.
Peter: Because the government is borrowing in our names. And that’s $34.2 trillion. So, if you break it down per household, that’s an even bigger number than the household debt that people have taken on by themselves. And again,if the economy was strong, we wouldn’t be running up a trillion dollars of red ink a quarter on the national debt.Because the strong economy lowers deficits because you get more production, you get higher tax revenues, the government doesn’t have to spend as much on support programs. But what we’re seeing is a fiscal situation that looks like we’re in recession.
Dan: Yeah, and the DOW probably wouldn’t drop almost 700 points. I know it ended only about 450 or 500 down today, but the DOW Jones obviously investors didn’t like this latest CPI and all the job report numbers that just came out in the last week or so, because why would it tank? We have huge gains since January and it took a hit today, right?
Peter: Yeah, investors still don’t understand how bad it is. Investors think that what this report means is that the Fed just has to fight a little harder to win the inflation war. So maybe the rate cuts get delayed a few months. That’s not what it means. It means that the Fed has already lost the inflation fight because the Fed can’t hike rates more, which is what it needs to do. I mean the fact that we have record debt, government and individual debt, proves that the interest rates were too little too late. Because the way rising interest rates are supposed to reduce inflation is by reducing borrowing and spending. But none of that is happening. Everybody is borrowing and spending more despite the rate hikes, and so it’s not enough.And actually, the rate hikes are prices. Interest rates are prices. And they work through the economy just like rents, raw materials, or wages. And so, these rising prices, and higher interest rates, are actually going to cause the CPI to go up.
Dan: Final question and it probably doesn’t help as you just talked about our national debt of $34 trillion on top of the household debt of $17.5 trillion. It doesn’t help when your Senate passes another $95 billion foreign aid bill so then investors and the American people see our government spending more money we don’t have. A few seconds left you get the final say on that one.
Peter: Yeah, well you know, we’re borrowing money from the rest of the world to recycle it back to other parts of the world. Look, we can’t give aid to other nations when we’re already broke. Yes, sure if we had big surpluses and we wanted to share some of the wealth. But we can’t go deeper into debt. At a minimum, if they want to appropriate some funds, they need to cut someplace else. They can’t just act like we can spend whatever we want because all this is going to do is add to the inflationary pressures that are already building in the economy.
Dan: Peter, we always like that you keep it real and bring the facts in numbers, unlike this alleged administration that we have to listen to lie to us every single day. Peter Schiff, chief economist, global strategist, founder of SchiffGold. As always, thank you sir. Appreciate you.
Donors to President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign have expressed worries about his use of cheat sheets in private events, according to a Friday report.
David and Gary Kah discuss globalism, recent history, world powers, the New World Order, dwindling Christian representation in government, and where America is vulnerable.
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