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
When people speak of heaven, many will conjure up images of their favorite places (the beach, the desert, the mountains), or they describe some sort of disembodied existence where their immortal soul will finally be set free from the limitations imposed upon it by the human body. I’ve heard many people who should know better speak of heaven in terms of pearly gates (manned by St. Peter himself), with streets of gold (as merely a symbol of material wealth), and where daily existence centers around the pleasurable activities which the departed enjoyed while still on earth—usually their favorite hobby or activity. Sadly, none of these images accurately reflect the biblical teaching regarding heaven.
To remedy this sad state of affairs, whenever we speak of heaven we need to carefully distinguish between the intermediate state (which deals with the question of where the soul goes after we die) and the eternal state (which speaks to the nature of human existence after the resurrection of the body at the end of the age).
As for the intermediate state, the question “where do we go when we die?” was answered indirectly by Paul in his second Corinthian letter when he wrote “we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Paul told the church in Philippi that “my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philippians 1:23). Jesus told the repentant thief on the cross, “truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). And then, the author of Hebrews describes the church as, “the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23). Where do believers go when we die? We immediately enter into the presence of the Lord at the moment of death.
A related question is “what is it like for those who have died in Christ, and then entered into the presence of the Lord?” The only description given us is that found in Revelation 4-7. We are told by John that there is one seated on the throne (the Lord God Almighty–Revelation 4:8), surrounded by the twenty-four elders (Revelation 4:4), four living creatures (4:6 ff), and the lamb who had been slain is also present (Revelation 5:6 ff.). There are myriads of angels (Revelation 5:11 ff.), and the 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel are present, symbolic of the entirety of the people of God (Revelation 7:4 ff.). Then, finally, there is that great multitude of the redeemed (Revelation 7:9), a multitude said to be so vast they cannot be counted and who are presently crying out in unison (v. 10), “salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Of this multitude it is said,
. . . they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes (Revelation 7:15-16).
When believers die, we immediately enter into the presence of the Lord, awaiting the resurrection of our bodies at the end of the age. Those who have died in Christ currently behold these glorious mysteries described in these remarkable chapters of Revelation.
When it comes to the eternal state and the resurrection of our bodies, there are several important things to consider. As recounted in Luke 20:27-33, Jesus was asked a trick question about the resurrection by the Sadducees. If a man was married and then died, and then each of his six brothers died after marrying the man’s widow as required in the law, who would be married to the woman in the resurrection, since she had been married to all seven brothers? Our Lord’s answer to this question tells us a great deal about the eternal state after the resurrection.
The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him (Luke 20:34-40).
According to Jesus, we are raised bodily from the dead at the end of the age. But after the resurrection our lives are completely transformed beyond all ordinary relationships we know in this life. We are said to be equal to angels and described as children of the resurrection.
When someone in the Thessalonian church was confused about this matter, Paul explained what happens to those already in heaven before the throne when Jesus returns (as depicted in Revelation 4-7). The apostle writes,
but we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).
Therefore, those saints depicted before the throne in Revelation 4-7 will receive their resurrection bodies when Christ returns. Even now, they cry out, “how long O Lord?” as they await the resurrection of their bodies (Revelation 6:10).
Finally, when we consider the eternal state, we need to keep in mind that heaven is not disembodied existence in a mythical place. In 1 Corinthians 15:22-28, Paul says that death (our great enemy ) is destroyed and that all things are in full subjection to Jesus Christ. Paul also says we will be raised in imperishable bodies, fit for eternity (1 Corinthians 15:35-57). In the resurrection, we become what Adam was intended to be—glorified bodies, living forever in a new heaven and earth as described by Peter (2 Peter 3:10-13).
In Revelation 21:9-27, John is given a vision of our eternal home–a new heaven and earth where the saints of God dwell in the presence of God’s glory. Yes, the heavenly city has streets of gold and is filled with precious gems–a way to describe the New Jerusalem’s unspeakable glory by analogy to earthly beauty and wealth. But what really matters in John’s description is that Christ’s church, that bride which he has redeemed, is present with the Savior in her midst. John writes, “come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Revelation 21:9). And then John sees something quite remarkable.
I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life (Revelation 21:22-27).
The great panorama of redemptive history takes us from creation, to the fall of our race, to the redemption which is ours in Christ. But the story ends with a magnificent glimpse of that glory which lies ahead. We are redeemed, raised imperishable and immortal, and now glorified to live forever in the presence of the Lord.
Therefore, let us long for that day, and as we do, we look to Jesus “the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Two months in! Great work staying faithful in God’s Word!
Leviticus 22:20 — Why the concern about blemishes? 61 times in the Old Testament it talks about blemishes.
35 verses of sacrifices being without blemish in the Pentateuch
5 verses of priests without blemish in Leviticus 21
8 verses on the Millennial Temple sacrifices without blemish in Ezekiel
1 verse in the New Testament explaining (1 Peter 1:19) that Christ was without blemish
1 verse in the New Testament telling (Ephesians 5:27) that the church will be without blemish
Leviticus 23 — Welcome to the festivals! This is the Holiday Calendar, rather the Holy Day Calendar of the Israelite nation! Jimmy DeYoung discusses these feasts:
Each of the feasts has at least a historic and/or prophetic significance. These first three “spring feasts” are related to Israel’s past. The “Passover” is to remember the Exodus from Egypt and the journey to the Promised Land.
The second feast, the “Feast of Unleavened Bread”, is also associated with Passover. For seven days, the Children of Israel were to stop eating the “sourdough bread” to eat “unleavened bread” for the purpose of “separating” the bondage and the journey into the Promised Land. The third feast, the “Feast of First Fruits”, was to be the celebration and thanksgiving of the very first of the “barley harvest”. These thoughts cover the historic aspect of the first three Jewish feast days. These feasts also have a prophetic significance.
The “Passover” was a prophecy of the “Crucifixion” or sacrifice of Jesus. “Unleavened Bread” was to honor the “burial” of Jesus Christ. Then on the first day after the Sabbath, after Unleavened Bread begins, or Sunday, would be the celebration of “First Fruits”, and that pictures the day of the “resurrection” of Jesus.
The historic record indicates that Jesus was indeed crucified on Passover, buried on Unleavened Bread, and did, in fact, resurrect from the dead on First Fruits, thus Jesus fulfilled the first three of the Jewish Feasts, in the proper day sequences.
There are three “Fall Feasts” when Jesus will come back, enter into the Temple, and set up His Kingdom on these three Jewish feast days. In our next devotional from the book of Leviticus, we will look more in depth into these future events, which are foretold in these feasts that God has given the Jewish people.
Leviticus 23:22 — Bible Trivia: Who would be a beneficiary of this Levitical command? The young Moabitess who would fall in love with the owner of the fields she came to glean (Ruth 2:3)!
Mark 9:42 — If Jesus is advocating the death penalty for those who offend the little ones from their faith in Him, what would He say about the secular education systems today? Ray Moore of Exodus Mandate and Jeff Keaton of Renewanation.org are encouraging pastors and church leaders to commit to Christian Education.
Mark 10:11 — Notice how Jesus reproves the fastidious legal observers for their neglect of the importance of marriage. Jesus is teaching about the true meaning of adultery in connection with the Pharisees. Luke 16:14-18 reiterates this teaching.
Psalm 44:1, 4, 5, and 8 — Notice the changes in the verb tense. Testimonies of God’s past actions prompt current faith, and hope in future victory.
“We have heard” – past perfect
“What work thou didst” – past
“Thou art my King” – present
“We will push down” – future
“Praise thy name forever” – eternal
Proverbs 10:19 — Or as our modern proverb says, “Silence is golden.”
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.
Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body. (Philippians 3:21)
Often when we are racked with pain and unable to think or worship, we feel that this indeed is “the body of our humiliation,” and when we are tempted by the passions which rise from the flesh we do not think the word vile at all too vigorous a translation. Our bodies humble us; and that is about the best thing they do for us. Oh, that we were duly lowly, because our bodies ally us with animals and even link us with the dust!
But our Savior, the Lord Jesus, shall change all this. We shall be fashioned like His own body of glory. This will take place in all who believe in Jesus. By faith their souls have been transformed, and their bodies will undergo such a renewal as shall fit them for their regenerated spirits. How soon this grand transformation will happen we cannot tell; but the thought of it should help us to bear the trials of today and all the woes of the flesh. In a little while we shall be as Jesus now is. No more aching brows, no more swollen limbs, no more dim eyes, no more fainting hearts. The old man shall be no more a bundle of infirmities, nor the sick man a mass of agony. “Like unto his glorious body.” What an expression! Even our flesh shall rest in hope of such a resurrection!
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.” Proverbs 3: 5 & 6
January is a time when we look ahead and plan into a new year. Sometimes the way is exciting and clear. Other times it may be foggy and uncertain.
God’s word gives us sure footing as we stand on the threshold of a new day. Every single morning His call to us is to trust Him with our day. He will direct our paths one step at a time.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.” Proverbs 3: 5 & 6
These verses go on to encourage us not to be wise in our own eyes and to walk in ways pleasing to God. The promise of this kind of trust even aids our health as confidence in God will even reduce our stress.
Acknowledging Him in every step and every decision is a wise way to live.
Heavenly Father, Today I want to declare my trust in You and in Your divine ability to guide my pathway. When I don’t know which way to turn I know You can direct me. Forgive me when I do my own best thinking about solutions and directions without acknowledging Your love for me and Your desire to direct me. Right now I do acknowledge that You alone know what is best. You alone can see around each blind corner and You alone can show me just what steps to take. Thank you for Your steadfast love and Your sure direction in my life. I love You, Lord and I pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
“I know, O LORD, that a man’s way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps. Correct me, O LORD, but with justice; Not with Your anger, or You will bring me to nothing.” Jeremiah 10:23-24
Life is like an untraveled trail with complex twists and turns. Appealing activities can be detours that lead to the quicksand of sin. And engaging philosophies may form side paths that end up in a mire of muddled thinking. Even the best route isn’t all sun-dappled meadows and quiet riverside lanes. We may at times have to journey over hard terrain or shadowed valleys. The only way to be sure we’re walking right is to follow one who knows the way perfectly.
God is the perfect, full-service Guide. No one can go wrong by keeping to the pathways He selects. Consider that He lovingly and intentionally created you for this time and this place. The Lord watches over your steps because He desires to see your purpose fulfilled and His plan come to fruition through you (Proverbs 3:5-6). Therefore, He promises to counsel those who follow Him (Psalm 25:12). When God warns His children away from a tempting sidetrack, it is because He foresees the dangers that lurk on that road.
There’s a correlation between ignoring God’s guidance and ending up in trouble: the one who stumbles off course has trusted his own “sense of direction”—his emotions, desires, or personal version of morality. He’s been pursuing what feels good or looks right instead of seeking the Lord’s will.
God has mapped out the path before you. He is aware of every obstacle and miry pit, and He knows exactly which sidetracks will tempt you. What’s more, He has committed to walk beside you as a Guide and Comforter so that you never face the twists and turns of this life alone.
Putin Responds To NATO Chief’s Vow That “Ukraine Will Join NATO” On War’s Anniversary “As we prepare you for that day, NATO will continue to stand with Ukraine. For your security, and for ours,” Stoltenberg added. This ‘vow’ of future NATO membership comes at a moment where even Ukraine’s staunchest external supporters acknowledge its forces are in retreat. Stoltenberg acknowledged this “extremely serious” state of battlefield affairs and asserted “there are no indications” President Vladimir Putin is preparing for peace.
Biden Operative Inserted Into Fani Team According To Insider; Jim Jordan Reveals New Whistleblower The alleged ‘plant’ in questionf is Jeff DiSantis – the county’s Deputy DA, who not only worked on Willis’s 2020 campaign and was the former Executive Director of the Democrat Party of Georgia, he was the DNC’s deputy director of compliance. Sources credit DiSantis with colluding with the White House to target Trump.
How a Small Iowa Newspaper’s Website Became an AI-Generated Clickbait Factory In his spare time, Tony Eastin likes to dabble in the stock market. One day last year, he Googled a pharmaceutical company that seemed like a promising investment. One of the first search results Google served up on its news tab was listed as coming from the Clayton County Register, a newspaper in northeastern Iowa. He clicked, and read. The story was garbled and devoid of useful information. What the pair uncovered provides a snapshot of how generative AI is enabling deceptive new online business models. Networks of websites crammed with AI-generated clickbait are being built by preying on the reputations of established media outlets and brands.
EU plans to seize Russian profits in support of Ukraine The European Union is expected to move toward seizing Russian profits generated in the bloc, a key step to backing Ukraine that stops short of calls to confiscate assets outright, a Greek envoy told AFP on Monday. Britain and the United States have led calls for the takeover of billions of dollars in frozen Russian banking and other assets, meeting reluctance from European partners who fear that such a step will send other countries racing to pull money out of the West.
With super-woke pope, Catholics now whisper about other S-word A report at Just the News explains that, “For the first time in recent memory, the ‘s-word’ is being dusted off and bandied in some circles.” That word is schism. The report said, “Just after the one-time Catholic Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected Pope Francis in 2013, he made an infamous lament over dinner with the cardinals who had just voted for him. ‘May God forgive you for what you’ve done,’ he said. …an increasing number of church leaders openly agree with that sentiment,
A Consequential Year: Nearly Half Of The World’s Population Set To Vote In National Elections In 2024 Although Americans should expect an avalanche of news related to the presidential election over the next 10 months, it is important to remember that other offices besides the presidency will also be on the ballot ?” including 34 U.S. Senate seats, all 435 U.S. House seats, 11 governorships, and legislative seats in 44 states. The results of these elections will have massive consequences for years to come. The United States isn’t the only country engaging in national elections this year: at least 64 other countries will be choosing leaders as well.
Israel Heritage Foundation presents Trump with an award for the Abraham Accords Rabbi David Katz, IHF executive director: The President was very excited to see us. He is very much in favor of Israel having to win the war. The award was presented in the form a menorah and it reads, “This Menorah which represents the eternal light of the world is presented to President Donald J. Trump
Israeli scholars: Dead Sea study suggests ‘valid’ earthquake forecast Studying electromagnetic radiation in the vicinity of the Dead Sea at the time of a 6.3-magnitude aftershock, felt in Turkey and Syria on Feb. 20, suggests a “valid” way to forecast earthquakes, Israeli researchers found. The researchers found that electromagnetic radiation decreases in volume but becomes more intense leading up to an earthquake, “signifying the merging of fractures into larger units—a potential signal of an impending catastrophe,”
Smoked Salami: IDF kills Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon strike The IDF killed the Hezbollah official, Hassan Hossein Salami, commander of the Hajir sector, the military announced on Monday. Salami belonged to Hezbollah’s Nasser unit and commanded a number of terrorist attacks against IDF troops, along with civilian and military targets in Israel’s north.
Putin vows to boost Russian special forces’ ability to strike “We will continue to strengthen the Special Operations Forces, increase their mobility and striking potential, and arm them with new-generation weapons and equipment,” Putin said in a congratulatory video message issued ahead of the Feb. 27 Special Operations Forces Day in Russia.
IAF aircraft strike Hezbollah launch site in Lebanon On Monday evening, IDF fighter jets struck a launch site in the area of Kawkaba from which dozens of launches were carried out toward the Golan Heights approximately an hour prior. Over the past hours, IDF fighter jets struck Hezbollah military compounds in the area of Ayta ash Shab in southern Lebanon.
Israel: UN Secretary-General must resign Israel’s envoy to the United Nations called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to resign, citing his defense of a UN relief agency found to have extensive ties with Hamas and his failure to unequivocally condemn the attacks of October 7th.
The serial killer who might be the first president of Palestine A Greek Orthodox priest named Georgios Tsibouktzakis was murdered for the crime of driving while mistakenly being perceived as Jewish. And now his killer is being widely touted as the likely first president of “Palestine.” In recent weeks, pundits in The New York Times, The Guardian and other news outlets have promoted Marwan Barghouti as the best candidate to replace Mahmoud Abbas
Journalist on MSNBC attacks those who believe rights come from God as ‘Christian nationalists’ Politico’s Heidi Przybyla was slammed for opposing a core principle of the Declaration of Independence: that human beings are endowed with rights by their Creator. A Politico journalist declared Friday on MSNBC that what unites “Christian nationalists” is their belief that human rights “come from God,” suggesting that such a belief is dangerous for the country. Believing rights come from God is now Christian Nationalism.
Palestinian prime minister resigns, opening door to unity gov’t with Hamas Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced the resignation of his government on Monday to the PA’s President Mahmoud Abbas. Shtayyeh said that “new governmental and political arrangements” are required now, that “take into account the emerging reality in the Gaza Strip, the national unity talks, and the urgent need for an inter-Palestinian consensus.”
Indonesia’s strongest tornado on record Last week, Indonesia experienced its strongest tornado on record, injuring at least 33 people and causing extensive damage to hundreds of buildings in the West Java province, according to government officials.
Significant winter storm set to impact the West, bringing heavy snow, U.S. An impending winter storm, driven by an upper-level trough and strong cold front from the northeastern Pacific and western Canada, is forecasted to deliver significant snowfall and strong gusty winds to much of the West in the coming days. Heavy snow is expected in the Central Rockies and Cascades through Monday, extending to the Sierra and the Northern Rockies/Great Basin by Tuesday, with over a foot of snow possible in many areas.
England’s farms suffer as one of the wettest winters devastates crops England’s agricultural sector is facing a crisis as one of the wettest winters in decades leads to widespread flooding, destroying thousands of acres of crops and placing significant financial pressure on farmers. The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) conference has put flooding at the top of its agenda, with farmers across the country reporting catastrophic losses.
Geoengineering Ramps Up With Large-Scale Government Projects Across the Globe Large-scale geoengineering — deliberate interventions to alter the earth’s climate — will be taking place in the near future. What was once the province of science fiction will soon become part of the official strategies to fight climate change.
European farmers spray police with liquid manure during another violent clash in Brussels European farmers sprayed police with liquid manure and hurled eggs and flares during another wave of clashes in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday, February 26, 2024. The confrontation occurred as the European Union’s agriculture ministers convened to address the agricultural sector’s grievances, including red tape and competition from low-cost imports.
They Are Creating Incredibly Bizarre New Technologies For The Dystopian World Of The Future …Over the past few years, we have seen an unprecedented explosion of new technologies. Some of these technologies appear to have the potential to make life better, but others would give those in positions of power the ability to watch us, track us, monitor us and control us like never before…let’s start with palm scanning. Palm scanners are being deployed at Whole Foods stores all over the country, and once you are enrolled in the system, you can literally pay for your groceries by just using your hand…
The Level Of Crazy In Our Society Has Reached Heights Never Seen Before What happens to a society when the number of crazy people surpasses the number of normal people? Unfortunately, I think that we aren’t too far away from finding out. A survey that was conducted late last year discovered that 90 percent of Americans believe that we are experiencing a mental health crisis right now.
4 Absolutely Massive Bombshells About The War In Ukraine That Every American Needs To See No matter who the American people elect as their representatives, the permanent ruling class in Washington D.C. remains the same. Unfortunately for all of us, this permanent ruling class has become absolutely desperate to win the war in Ukraine. One member of that permanent ruling class, Victoria Nuland, is pleading with Congress to approve more funds for the war.
Nationwide Recall Issued For “Deadly Outbreak” In Dairy Products — Costco, Walmart, More A nationwide recall in the United States has been issued for dairy products due to a listeria outbreak. Listeria can be a fatal disease in the elderly, young children, and those with compromised immune systems, and symptoms can manifest the same day a contaminated product is ingested, or nearly 2 years later in some cases.
How ‘Trusted’ Christian Pastors Coerced Congregations To Take Deadly COVID Vaccines Resulting In Untold Deaths A new research paper has been published that shows how “trusted” Christian churches in the U.S. took government bribes — in the form of COVID relief grants — in exchange for pushing the deadly, experimental COVID “vaccines” on their unsuspecting congregations — which lead to the deaths and disabilities of untold thousands of “believers.”
“Measures which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign Articles, have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices.” —Alexander Hamilton (1791)
On this day in Patriot history in 1776, a yellow banner emblazoned with a rattlesnake in the center and the words “Don’t Tread on Me” was first flown aboard the flagship of a small Continental Navy fleet bound for the Bahamas. It was presented by Christopher Gadsden and has thus become known as the Gadsden Flag. More recently, the banner has become a symbol of the Tea Party and conservatives everywhere who wish to shed the shackles of tyranny. —Mark Alexander
The president blames corporate greed, but his own policies and spending ignited higher prices and smaller product quantities.
Nate Jackson
President Joe Biden is failing, flailing, and falling. He’s clearly cognitively disabled, as even the special counsel noted when refusing to charge him with crimes over mishandling classified documents. The southern border is a wide-open and deadly mess. And though the economy never went into full recession, it sure doesn’t feel like it’s growing. Bidenomics means wages haven’t kept up with 18% cumulative inflation since Biden took office.
Biden needs a reset and fast. What better time to blame-shift than leading up to his March 7 State of the Union Address?
That’s why he’s headed to the border Thursday, and it’s why he’s pushing a new message railing against corporate greed, price gouging, and shrinkflation as the cause of inflation. That isn’t exactly new ground for Democrats, but Biden’s push began with a Super Bowl commercial denouncing shrinkflation. Word is that the SOTU will contain a portion dedicated to rolling out executive orders fighting this monster in your pantry.
“As an ice cream lover, what makes me the most angry is that ice cream cartons have actually shrunk in size, but not in price,” Biden said in the ad. “I’ve had enough of what they call ‘shrinkflation.’”
Join the club. Shrinkflation is real, and it’s frustrating when you’re trying to feed a family on wages that don’t keep up with prices. Buying any grocery item and realizing that you’re getting less product for the same or even sometimes a higher price is maddening and demoralizing.
But Biden is obscuring the economic truth. “Shrinkflation is a symptom of inflation, not a cause,” notes National Review’s Rich Lowry. “And to the extent that it is fooling anyone about higher prices, it is helping Biden, whose economic record has been blighted by persistently high prices, especially for food.”
Businesses exist to create and sell products that benefit consumers and earn a profit while doing it. That’s called capitalism, and it’s done more to lift people out of poverty than any other economic system ever devised.
It’s not perfect, of course, and greed does drive some decisions. That’s true in the corporate boardroom as well as the White House and Congress, though Democrats never seem to think it’s greedy when they demand higher tax rates on corporations or the rich so they can “afford” their income redistribution schemes.
Inflation wasn’t a problem until a guy named Joe Biden took office and signed the American Rescue Plan into law. That nearly $2 trillion budget-buster sent too much money chasing too few goods, and it almost immediately triggered inflation that soared to 40-year highs of 9.1% before settling back down to its present rate of 3.1%.
At this point, that 3% figure is practically deceptive since, again, cumulative inflation is 18% since Biden “rescued” America. Groceries are cumulatively 20% more expensive, and many staples have increased a lot more than that. Americans now spend a higher portion of their income on food (11.3%) than at any time in the last 30 years, and almost double the percentage when Biden took office. One in eight retirees is returning to work just to pay for food.
In July 2021, Biden promised, “There’s nobody suggesting there’s unchecked inflation on the way — no serious economist.” Like Biden himself, that hasn’t aged well.
Businesses deal with inflation of raw materials, supplies, and wages (often because of laws setting a higher minimum wage) by raising prices, shrinking product offerings, or otherwise cutting costs and jobs. Yet Biden is shamelessly blaming the victims of his policies for creating his results.
If Biden really wanted to deal with inflation, he’d get federal spending under control and he’d get out of the way of businesses trying to cope. Instead, his pick to lead the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, led a vote to challenge Kroger’s $24.6 billion acquisition of Albertsons. The Wall Street Journal editorial board calls that “a giant gift to Amazon, Walmart and other grocery retailers” because it’s a big blow to competition that might drive down prices.
Likewise, Democrats have been clamoring against the recent merger announcement from Capital One and Discover Financial. Economic savant Elizabeth Warren claims the merger “reduces competition.” The opposite is true — it would increase competition with the Visa/MasterCard duopoly, which controls roughly 90% of credit card transactions.
The truth? Democrats are fine with “corporate greed” in certain cases that benefit particular constituents or benefactors. They’re fine with food prices increasing because they can raise the minimum wage (or blame Republicans for stopping it) and claim to care about people. They’re even fine with shrinkflation because they can use it to shift the blame for their ruinous economic policies.
That message won’t fool our educated audience, but, unfortunately, it will work for a large segment of low-information voters, which is precisely why Biden is ramping up the deception.
Fulton County Circus update, Biden makes appearance on “comedy” show, Schumer the ChiCom, and more.
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Fulton County Circus update: Testimony resumes at 2 p.m. today in the misconduct hearing of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose office is responsible for prosecuting Donald Trump but whose personal misconduct has overshadowed the ridiculous racketeering charges she’s brought against the former president. The star witness today is expected to be Nathan Wade’s former law partner, Terrence Bradley, who is expected to challenge the full-of-holes timeline and testimony of Willis and Wade as to when their romantic relationship began and thereby prove that the duo lied under oath about it. If he does so, it’ll likely be game-set-match for the romantic duo. In this case, it’s the digital fingerprints that are most damning. As The Blaze reports: “The two claimed they had begun their relationship in early 2022, right after Wade was hired — but witnesses have also claimed otherwise, saying they were together as early as 2019. According to the phone records, the two have exchanged over 2,000 voice calls and just under 12,000 text messages.” It’ll be interesting to see how vigorously the defense tries to deny this digital record and whether the mainstream media will run interference for them. In other Fulton County developments, it appears that Team Biden planted a Democrat operative, Jeff DiSantis, inside Willis’s office specifically to get Trump. “‘DiSantis did this,’ one source told Breitbart News about the Trump case. ‘He’s the one. He is the one pulling all the strings. He was the one that walled her [Willis] off. He was in every important meeting. He is the brainchild behind this. That is the connection to the White House.’”
Trump courts black voters: Democrats are freaking out about Donald Trump’s outreach to black Americans — a voting bloc that has traditionally gone 9-to-1 for Democrats over Republicans but appears increasingly disgusted by Bidenomics and especially this president’s resource-sucking, job-killing, wage-suppressing, open-borders policy. As The Hill reports, black leaders are in high dudgeon over Trump’s comments about black voters at the Black Conservative Federation annual gala in South Carolina on Friday, calling the comments “racist.” What did Trump say that was so awful? Mainly that blacks can relate to his legal woes. “I got indicted for nothing, for something that is nothing,” he told the crowd. “And a lot of people said that’s why the black people like me — because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against. It’s been pretty amazing, but possibly, maybe, there’s something there.” Possibly, maybe. We’ll see in November.
Biden makes “surprise” appearance on late-night “comedy” show: It wasn’t a surprise, it wasn’t recorded late at night, and it wasn’t comedic, but other than that, the reporting was accurate. Joe Biden, desperate to reconnect with a voter demographic — young people — that’s been running away from him at an alarming rate, just happened to drop in on late-night also-ran Seth Meyers. It was scripted to the max, of course, as evidenced by Biden just happening to don the “Dark Brandon” sunglasses as soon as Meyer mentioned that semi-popular meme. For a sense of Biden’s youth vote leakage, get a load of these numbers: In 2020, voters aged 18-29 went for Biden over Trump by a 61%-36% margin. And now? Those numbers are just 52%-48% in favor of Scranton Joe. When Meyers noted that Biden is 81, Biden replied with a scripted: “Who the hell told you that? That’s classified.” And then he tried to draw a false equivalence between his own age and that of Donald Trump: “He’s about as old as I am, but he can’t remember his wife’s name,” adding, “It’s about how old your ideas are.” You know, ideas like open borders and abortion on demand and unchecked spending and affirmative action and no-cash bail and defunding the cops. Jon Favreau, the speechwriter who used to put those stirring words into Barack Obama’s mouth, said Biden “sounds more frail than he used to, even in 2019 and 2020.” Welcome to the party, pal. As Fox News funnyman Jimmy Failla quipped: “You’ve got to appreciate the historic significance of Biden and Seth Meyers. It’s not every night that the lowest-rated president goes on the lowest-rated show.” As a reminder, 86% of Americans, according to the latest NBC poll, are concerned about Biden’s age. Which, of course, causes sentient beings to wonder: What on earth is with that other 14%?
Vile victim-blaming from the AP on Laken Riley murder: Just when we think we’ve seen the worst of the mainstream media, they saunter on over and prove us wrong. In the wake of the murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley, an Augusta University nursing student who was out for a jog on the University of Georgia campus when she was set upon and bludgeoned to death by a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela, the Associated Press couched Riley’s murder in terms of females going for jogs by themselves — rather than open borders, unchecked illegal immigration, and the soft-on-crime laws of Democrat-run sanctuary cities. “Riley’s death has once again put the spotlight on the dangers female runners face,” the article read. “Previously, the 2018 death of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts while out jogging prompted an outpouring from other women who shared their tales of being harassed and followed.” And we thought the media was above despicable victim-blaming. Meanwhile, according to CNN, “There is little evidence indicating a connection between immigration and crime.” That is appallingly wrong. “If the border was secure,” said a noticeably downcast Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, “this individual never would’ve been in the country illegally and never would’ve committed another crime.” Said a friend at a memorial service for Riley on campus yesterday: “She exuded devotion with each and every thing that she did. A devoted Christian, sister, student, daughter, and friend … and we have no doubt that she would’ve been an incredible nurse.”
Schumer the ChiCom: This past weekend, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was in New York City to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year Parade. During the event, he appeared on a stage with a number of NYC leaders, including Mayor Eric Adams. At one point during the event, while the Chinese Communist Party national anthem was being played, Schumer briefly put his hand over his heart and then proceeded to wave a small Chinese communist flag in one hand and a U.S. flag in the other. The disconnect from Schumer regarding America’s biggest geopolitical threat is telling. As FBI Director Christopher Wray recently warned Congress, China poses a growing threat to American security. Wray noted that the ChiComs have already “built economic espionage and theft of personal and corporate data as a kind of a bedrock of their economic strategy,” but they “are eagerly pursuing AI advancements to try to accelerate that process.” He also observed that China “has a bigger hacking program than every other major nation combined.” It is so large, he said, that “if each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intelligence analysts focused exclusively on the China threat, China’s hackers would still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1.” Yet there was Schumer celebrating the Chinese communists.
Guilty verdict in “transgender” hate crime trial: In a historic first, a South Carolina jury delivered a guilty verdict in a federal hate crime trial of Daqua Lameek Ritter, who was accused of killing a man who identified as a “transgender” woman. Prosecutors contended that Ritter was motivated to murder his victim due to his embarrassment over the revelation that he had been engaged in a same-sex relationship with the gender-bending individual. According to the government, “[Ritter’s] crime was motivated by his anger at being mocked for having a sexual relationship with a transgender woman.” The motive for the federal government to prosecute this as a hate crime was to reinforce the leftist political narrative that the lack of broad cultural acceptance of “transgender” identity is dangerous. As federal attorney Brook Andrews stated, “This case stands as a testament to our committed effort to fight violence that is targeted against those who may identify as a member of the opposite sex, for their sexual orientation or for any other protected characteristics.”
Ecoterrorism degrees: The anti-American radicalism being fomented on American college campuses is revealed by some of the courses available to students. In at least 16 schools across the country, the book How to Blow Up a Pipeline is required reading. Published in 2021, Swedish professor Andreas Malm’s book is effectively a communist manual that promotes using ecoterrorism as a tool for overthrowing capitalism. Malm effectively admits that engaging in such terrorism will result in people being killed: “Demolish them, burn them, blow them up. Let the capitalists who keep investing in the fire know that their properties will be trashed.” Unsurprisingly, these courses that support using ecoterrorism serve to encourage the radicalization of students to favor other terrorist organizations such as Hamas. Effectively, they are justifying violence in the name of a radical ideological cause — in this case, the climate cult. The West and the U.S. in particular are villainized as the climate-destroying “oppressors” and therefore are deserving of a violent response in order to be stopped or overthrown.
Mary Poppins gets a PG rating: The long-beloved Disney classic “Mary Poppins” has recently been given a new age rating of “PG” by the British Board of Film Classifications (BBFC). The 1964 film previously had a “U” rating, which is equivalent to America’s “G” rating, meaning the film contained “no material likely to offend or harm.” Well, it’s 2024, and we’re living in the era of wokeness, so the BBFC has now found a reason for offense. You see, the term “Hottentots” was used twice in the movie, and the woke language police now consider that word to be “discriminatory language.” According to the BBFC, “Hottentot” is offensive because it was historically used by the British and Dutch to refer to a South African indigenous nomadic tribe, which today is known as the Khoekhoe. The term is now considered offensive. To apply Mary Poppins’s line to wokeness itself, the sound of it is something quite atrocious.
Headlines
Illegal immigrant suspect in Laken Riley murder accused of “disfiguring her skull” (Daily Wire)
Venezuela’s “violent death” rate has hit a two-decade low because all the criminals are migrating to a town near you (Not the Bee)
Supreme Court torn over Florida, Texas laws regulating social media companies (Reuters)
Sweden clears final obstacle to NATO admission, will become newest member (National Review)
Harvard anti-Semitism task force co-chair resigns over doubts about university commitment (National Review)
Economic freedom in U.S. falls to lowest level in 30 years (Daily Signal)
Consumers are increasingly pushing back against price increases — and winning (AP)
Mercedes-Benz abandons 2030 electric-only production target (Blaze Media)
Instagram employees knew they were facilitating child exploitation and were fine with it (Hot Air)
California requires pharmacists to undergo DEI training bashing straight, white, Christian males for license renewal (PM)
Vermont Christian school barred from competing in girls’ basketball tourneys after forfeiting game against team with 6’1″ trans player (Not the Bee)
“Satire”: Facing low approval, Biden promises to start pretending to care about the border (Babylon Bee)
Joe Biden is the weakest incumbent president in history, and the party is already looking for villains to blame in the event of a loss in November.
Michael Swartz
Have you ever noticed that when Democrats lose a national election, it’s never their fault? We began this century with faulty butterfly ballots and the Al Gore campaign demanding recounts in certain Democrat strongholds. Then, four years later, Democrats were blaming Diebold voting machines for stealing Ohio from John Kerry. But everything was on the up-and-up in 2008 and 2012 before Russia began meddling in our elections in 2016 and beyond.
With perhaps the weakest incumbent president in history this time in Joe Biden, the blame for losing in 2024 is already being seeded, and once again, Vladimir Putin will get the lion’s share. According to a breathless report from NBC News that’s long on speculation and short on actual evidence: “Russia is already spreading disinformation in advance of the 2024 election, using fake online accounts and bots to damage President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, according to former U.S. officials and cyber experts. The dissemination of attacks on Biden is part of a continuing effort by Moscow to undercut American military aid to Ukraine and U.S. support for and solidarity with NATO, experts said.”
Don’t you just love those things “experts say”?
While the evidence has been weighed and found lacking — historian Victor Davis Hanson has a great explanation of this — that doesn’t stop the media from trying to maintain the perception that Donald Trump is either a Putin stooge or is being financially blackmailed by the Russian dictator. (Never mind that an American court is doing its own bang-up job of trying to financially destroy Trump.) As The Federalist’s David Harsanyi notes: “There were congressional investigations. There were leaked tax returns. Every major media organization in the nation spent an inordinate amount of time and treasure trying to expose Trump’s alleged sedition. This is why [Nancy] Pelosi is compelled to frame Trump’s alleged treachery as future quid pro quo. It’s certainly difficult to disprove future events.”
Meanwhile, on the Biden side of the ledger, the laptop saga that was hidden from view in the run-up to the 2020 election was withheld because it “sounded like Russian disinformation.” That was the BIG Lie used to squelch reporting of the original New York Post story and much of the Right’s commentary on it. And it was done to help Biden win. Now, we have a regime dripping with corruption.
Another droplet in the case against Biden came with a new accusation from the aforementioned New York Post. While the paper does caution that the source, Jason Galanis, is a convicted felon speaking from prison, it’s another string that ties Joe Biden to Hunter’s business dealings.
“I was present when Hunter Biden called his father on a cell phone and put the call on speaker,” said Galanis, noting that among the guests were “Yelena Baturina, her husband Yuri Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow, and Devon Archer.”
“The vice president said ‘hello’ and some pleasantries of ‘Hope you had safe travels,’ and then seemed like he wanted to bring the call to an end by saying, ‘OK then, you be good to my boy.’ Hunter responded by saying, ‘Everything is good, and we are moving ahead.’ The vice president said something about ‘being helpful,’ and Hunter ended the call by saying that he was going to call his father later.”
Well, talk about Russian interference! But this story will be ignored by the rest of the media, and if anyone brings it up, it will be called old news from a sketchy source.
It’s a given that other nations have their preferences for America’s leadership, just like we do in affairs of theirs. In his Farewell Address, George Washington cautioned us to “steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world,” but we’re too intertwined globally to turn back now — and the rest of the world won’t listen to his advice, anyway.
Thus, it’s up to us to discern and seek out foreign influence in our elections. This was something the media used to do with some impartiality, but now they focus on Donald Trump and ignore decades of foreign influence on the Democrat Party.
Hanson gives us an apt conclusion: “As this year’s election nears, expect the Russia! Russia! fantasies to heat up again to mask a failing administration and its indefensible record of a lethally open border, inflation, crime waves, foreign policy implosions, crackpot energy agendas, the weaponization of our institutions, and deteriorating race relations.”
It’s becoming a choice of what we have now and what we had before the real foreign influence of the pandemic ruined our economy. There’s no guarantee we can get back to those good times with Donald Trump, but we know our direction with Joe Biden will continue to be straight downhill. We don’t need Russian propaganda to figure that out.
Americans have tired of supporting an apparently unwinnable European war.
Thomas Gallatin
It’s been two years since Russian forces invaded Ukraine. That’s two years of bitter warfare, which early on appeared to favor a plucky Ukrainian military attempting to accomplish the seemingly impossible: a victory over the mighty Russian war machine.
But those promises inspired by significant early success have been all but forgotten, as the Russian military has slowly but surely reversed the tide and is now slogging its way forward. This prompts a question: If Time magazine and other ostensible experts are correct in asserting that Ukraine can’t win, then why should the U.S. spend billions on an apparently lost cause?
Of course, such are the sentiments that Russian strongman Vladimir Putin hopes to continue to cultivate. His message has been consistent: Russian victory is inevitable, so why continue drawing it out?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been doing his utmost to keep military aid coming in, specifically from the U.S. Yet even with the Senate having passed another $60 billion in military aid to his beleaguered nation, Republicans in the House are far from on board. Speaker Mike Johnson knows that the majority of his Republican conference is wary of another massive spending bill, given that Americans are frustrated with the bad economy and out-of-control border crisis.
A recent Rasmussen poll underscores this reality, with 82% wanting the border secure and 54% wanting the border problem fixed before anymore money is spent on Ukraine. That said, the poll found that 64% of Americans still support sending arms to Ukraine.
However, the poll notes that just 50% of Republicans feel that way, which is the reality that Speaker Johnson faces.
Ukraine has been a failure for Joe Biden — just one more to add to his litany of foreign policy disasters. He has shown little to no leadership, and his plan appears to be little other than issuing stern warnings and a few sanctions and then hoping for the best.
Like Barack Obama’s lead-from-behind approach, Biden has mostly been reacting to the aggression of our enemies. Of course, what results from this is a lack of a clear vision and goals. All that it ensures are unending quagmires, inconsistent policies, and distrust from our allies.
America used to be able to lead abroad and deal with problems at home. These two areas were not mutually exclusive. The trouble is that Biden is failing Americans at home and, therefore, failing abroad. Biden has abjectly failed to do what he claimed he came into office to do: unite the country. Instead, he has sown division at almost every turn. He has refused to reach across the aisle to work with Republicans, instead labeling them as “dangerous,” “extremists,” “MAGA Republicans,” and a threat to democracy.
In addition, Biden ridiculously blames the GOP for the border crisis that his own de facto open-border policy created. When it comes to the economy, he refuses to acknowledge that the vast majority of Americans are suffering due to high inflation. Instead, he insists that things are great.
If the economy was doing well and our southern border was secure, more Americans would be willing to help fund Ukraine. But as long as Americans effectively see Biden putting the country last, they’re not going to support spending billions on an apparently unwinnable war.
Investigative reporter Catherine Herridge was recently laid off by CBS, but the seizing of her files was “unprecedented.”
Douglas Andrews
Investigative journalism isn’t what it used to be. Corporate belt-tightening among news organizations has seen to that. But beyond budgetary constraints, successive Democrat administrations have also seen to it.
The worst of the offenders was Barack Obama. Anyone who doubts this need only ask Gary Pruitt, then-CEO of the Associated Press, from whom the Obama administration seized two months of telephone records of reporters and editors back in 2013. Those records, Pruitt noted at the time, “potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities.” In a letter to Obama’s “wingman,” Attorney General Eric Holder, Pruitt added, “We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.”
Or ask the New York Times’s normally friendly David Sanger, who in 2013 scathingly said of Team Obama, “This is most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered.”
Those interested in digging more deeply into the Obama administration’s actions against the First Amendment should read the exhaustive report published on October 10, 2013, by former Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie and the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Other, more dogged investigative journalists, such as Fox News’s James Rosen and CBS News’s Sharyl Attkisson, also had their confidence in a free press shaken by the activities of the “scandal-free” Obama administration.
And this brings us to the latest investigative journalist to get the treatment: Catherine Herridge, formerly of CBS News. The highly acclaimed Herridge, who had previously spent years at Fox News as its chief intelligence correspondent until joining CBS in 2019, had been investigating the Hunter Biden laptop scandal before being fired last week.
That a journalist of Herridge’s credentials would be summarily fired for unknown reasons is odd enough, but Herridge also had her personal files seized by CBS. That’s really odd. As the New York Post reports:
Catherine Herridge — who is in the middle of a First Amendment case being closely watched by journalists nationwide — was among 20 CBS News staffers let go as part of a larger purge of hundreds of employees at parent company Paramount Global.
Her firing had stunned co-workers, but the network’s decision to hold on to her personal materials, along with her work laptop where she may have other confidential info, has left many staffers shaken, according to insiders.
“It’s so extraordinary,” a source familiar with the situation told The Post, noting that the files — which are presumptively now the property of CBS News — most likely contain confidential material from Herridge’s stints at both Fox and CBS.
One can’t help but wonder whether Herridge’s firing has anything to do with CBS’s desire to remain in the good graces of the Biden administration. Might her firing have something to do with the recent and suspicious indictment of a longtime FBI source, Alexander Smirnov, for having allegedly lied to FBI agents about Burisma executives discussing paying Hunter Biden and Joe Biden $5 million each to influence U.S. policy in Ukraine?
Another interesting — although less salacious — theory is being suggested by the New York Post’s Charles Gasparino. As he notes, “Herridge was one of 800 people (including 20 journalists) recently let go from the struggling media conglomerate, owner of CBS, MTV, Paramount Pictures, Comedy Central,” and others. Given this, Gasparino wonders whether Herridge was let go in order to soften the Biden administration’s resistance to a possible mega-merger between CBS’s struggling parent, Paramount, and a larger company such as Comcast, Discovery, Apple, or Amazon.
Who knows. But given Joe Biden’s videotaped confession at having gotten Ukraine’s chief prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, fired for investigating Burisma while his money-for-nothing son, Hunter, was on the company’s board, and given Herridge’s consistent thorn-in-the-side work in covering the Biden administration, we wouldn’t put it past them to play a bit of quid pro quo hardball with CBS.
In any case, word came late yesterday, according to a statement from SAG-AFTRA, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, that some of Herridge’s materials were being returned to her:
SAG-AFTRA is pleased to confirm that earlier today a representative of our union monitored the return of several boxes containing Catherine Herridge’s reporting materials from her CBS News office in Washington D.C. Herridge is currently reviewing the materials.
We welcome CBS News’ reversal which came after SAG-AFTRA’s intervention and widespread media coverage that underscored shared concerns about press freedom and the First Amendment.
The resolution of this matter sends a strong message of protection for basic First Amendment principles. We further hope the public focus now turns to SAG-AFTRA’s continued efforts to support a Press Shield law that provides additional federal protections for journalists and their confidential sources.
This is all well and good, but let’s be realistic: Joe Biden’s intelligence services would’ve had plenty of time to review Herridge’s files and keep everything they wanted, everything that might’ve been inconvenient to the administration’s narrative. But far more critically, they would’ve been able to determine who Herridge’s sources were.
The two antagonists meet for an interview, and it only goes well for one of them.
Emmy Griffin
Chaya Raichik, who created and runs the popular social media account Libs of TikTok, met with her antagonist, Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz. The latter is famous for being a serial doxxer. She has used her position as a “credible journalist” to publish content about other people she doesn’t like. One of those people she bullied in such a manner is Raichik. Lorenz doesn’t like it when other people do it to her, though. In fact, she wept during an MSNBC interview discussing the matter. Lorenz is styled as a tech journalist who specializes in Internet culture.
For her part, Raichik is fairly high up on most radical leftists’ enemies list. Her entire schtick through Libs of TikTok is to repost content that the radical leftists post themselves so as to bring (negative) attention to it. Raichik is a mom who is fighting against the indoctrination of children in the gender ideology cult, as well as the sexualization of children in schools.
Raichik and Lorenz had a taped sit-down interview over the weekend. They were both sitting outside in Los Angeles. Lorenz was masked, and Raichik was wearing a T-shirt with a screenshot of Lorenz’s weepy MSNBC interview. Hilarious.
The interview went as well as one would expect, Lorenz admitted she had never read the books whose appalling content Raichik exposed (specifically Gender Queer). Lorenz defended the use of the books based on the expertise of the sex educator and has no problem with the sexualization of kids. Her justification was an anecdote she shared that two of her acquaintances had been sexually abused as children and didn’t have the language to talk about what was happening to them. Ergo, according to Lorenz, it’s okay if a child’s innocence is destroyed regardless of the instinct and preference of their parents. Bring on the gay porn.
As for the debate on transgenderism, Lorenz wanted to paint Raichik as a bigot and asked her, “What is the harm?” (in allowing people to believe they are the opposite gender). Raichik responded: Because it’s not the truth, and we must order society according to the truth. As Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillion perfectly states: “The argument is not — and has never been — that dysphoric people should be eradicated, but that our societal affirmation is not the solution to their problems. In fact, it only creates new problems for everyone else. The idea that our affirmation is the solution — and that everyone is obliged to think, speak, and live as if it is — is what must be eradicated.”
The real impetus for this interview was a tragedy that occurred in Oklahoma earlier this month. A high school-aged girl who identified as “nonbinary” died a day after getting into a fight with three other students at her school. The fight was allegedly over bullying against her and her friend. Benedict poured water over them, and they attacked her in the girl’s bathroom. The fight was short, under two minutes, and was quickly broken up by other students and the teacher on duty. The mainstream media immediately jumped on this story as a political tool to talk about the consequences of having gendered bathrooms.
Oklahoma has a perfectly reasonable law stating that people need to use the bathroom of their biological sex.
Raichik, who has an intimate connection to Oklahoma — she had been appointed to the Oklahoma Library Committee to help get LGBTQ+ pornographic books and other explicit material out of school libraries — was immediately dragged into the leftist chastising of this law. However, blaming her for the death of a teen is sick. Especially as more details are emerging from this story. The cause of Benedict’s death is still not determined, but the autopsy did rule out trauma as one potential cause. They are waiting on a toxicology report.
As for Lorenz, continuing to foster the narrative that the real problems are “toxic” ideas like not sexualizing kids and eradicating gender ideology/“gender affirmation” from schools was her entire purpose for sitting down with Raichik.
Chaya Raichik was brave, stood by her values, and walked away from that interview the victor.
Editor’s Note: Each week we receive hundreds of comments and correspondences — and we read every one of them. Click here for a few thought-provoking comments about specific articles. The views expressed therein don’t necessarily reflect those of The Patriot Post.
What’s Wrong With Censorship? — No one has a monopoly on truth. That’s why we need open, uncensored discussion and debate. Why, then, are the government and Big Tech platforms suppressing what we can read, see, and hear?
Leftmedia’s Disdain for America — Politico reporter labels Christians who recognize that our rights come from God as dangerous “Christian nationalists.”
PopCon #32: Where Have All the Villains Gone? — An unnerving trend has arisen in modern films: The lines between good and evil have been blurred, and the villain has become more relatable and often even lovable. What are the implications for this trend?
“The United States has a population of north of 327 million people. Why do we need more kids? … What’s the purpose?” —MSNBC’s Joy Reid
“Trump is actually running to end the presidency as we know it.” —MSNBC’s Jen Psaki
Demagogue
“California … established a constitutional right to access abortion, and [at] the end of the day I think that’s a determination for women and their doctors. … As it relates to getting into the debate around late-term abortion, that’s a complete canard.” —California Governor Gavin Newsom
Yellow Journalism
“Authorities on Thursday found the body of Laken Hope Riley and arrested Athens resident Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, on suspicion of murder. … Riley’s death has once again put the spotlight on the dangers female runners face. Previously, the 2018 death of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts while out jogging prompted an outpouring from other women who shared their tales of being harassed and followed.” —Associated Press (“Tibbetts was killed by an illegal immigrant, and another is suspected in the murder of Riley.” —Fox News)
“Ibarra’s status as an undocumented Venezuelan migrant is now being touted by several state and national GOP leaders to support their calls for tighter border security — though there is little evidence indicating a connection between immigration and crime.” —CNN
“Republicans obviously seizing on this horrific tragedy at the University of Georgia. This girl, this nursing student, killed by an undocumented Venezuelan migrant, and they’re seizing on this as an example of Biden’s failure to protect the American people and to secure the border.” —CNN’s Jake Tapper
Spin Doctor
“[Biden’s] stuttering is what caused a lot of his speech impediments, and we know that. It has nothing to do with his brain. He stumbles one time and everybody says, ‘He’s too old to be the president.’” —Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-SC)
Belly Laugh of the Day
“Joe Biden has gotten more done in three years than most presidents get done in eight years.” —DNC Chair Jaime Harrison
For the Record
“The place to debate whether [Alejandro] Mayorkas’ actions constitute impeachable offenses was in the House, and the House made its decision. It is now the Senate’s responsibility under the Constitution to conduct an impeachment trial, a duty the Senate has never refused to fulfill. Conducting a trial is necessary to carry out the impeachment process the Constitution established, as well as to protect the public trust and the national security of the country.” —Hans von Spakovsky and Thomas Jipping
“Potential borrowers now have every reason to take on more student debt, knowing that one day the federal government will bail them out. Colleges and universities now have every reason to increase tuition and fees, knowing that, while students may occupy the dorm rooms, higher ed’s true customer is Uncle Sam.” —Matthew Continetti
Today’s 20-min NEWSMAX top headline news brief includes:
[0:09] – It’s International Polar Bear Day.
[0:33] – It’s also National Pokemon Day — Hug a Pikachu, if you can catch one!
[0:47] – It’s Primary Day in Michigan, where President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are expected to win easily.
[2:00] -NEWSMAX’s Daniel Cohen on President Biden’s Israel/Hamas cease-fire comments. [Newsmax Breaking]
[4:13] -Former President Trump is going to the U.S. Mexico border on Thursday, prompting President Biden to make a rare visit to the border on the same day.
[4:58] -Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol Council: Biden is “going to whimper and blame everybody else in friendly territory.” [Greg Kelly Reports]
[7:28] -Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall: Joe Biden doesn’t want to fix this. [Wake Up America]
[10:54] -Judge Andrew Napolitano: Donald Trump’s NY civil fraud case is “weird and odd.” [Newsline]
[13:58] -Police in Jupiter, Florida are investigating a suspicious white substance mailed to Donald Trump Jr’s home.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., discusses the effects of President Biden’s economic policies and what’s at stake in the 2024 presidential election on ‘Hannity.’ #f…
Israel hits Hezbollah unusually deep in Lebanon, leading Hezbollah to launch dozens of rockets into northern Israel, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says Israel will increase its attacks in order to drive Hezbollah back; possible hostage release/ceasefire deal still in the works, but the outlook is uncertain, and a six-mile-long tunnel is found in Gaza; how God is moving in Gaza, with Palestinians reporting people experiencing dreams and visions of Jesus; Supreme Court hears key cases involving Texas and Florida laws dealing with social media and online speech; a look at the legal and other measures being taken to defend religious freedom as it comes under growing assault in the US; pro-lifers say a federal law known as the FACE Act is being used against them, and could lead to six people being sentenced to more than 10 years in prison; and Dr. Don Colbert talks about the four pillars of to build and maintain good health on CBN’s Healthy Living show.
FOX News contributor and New York Post columnist Miranda Devine explains political implications from the ongoing investigations into Biden family influence and business allegations. #FOXBusiness
On Tuesday’s “National Report,” House Speaker Mike Johnson is dealing with a fight over a possible government shutdown facing enormous pressure from his right flank to get spending cuts, another continuing resolution is an option. NEWSMAX’s Kilmeny Duchardt reports.
On Wednesday, Hunter Biden is set to be deposed in closed door testimony to Congress. If recent history is a guide, expect the leftist media to ignore it if there are any bombshells that hurt Team Biden.
Pretty much the only time the media talk about the Biden family scandals is if it hurts the GOP. As seen when they bragged that theFebruary 15arrest of an FBI informant for giving false information in the Hunter case, as NBC correspondent Ryan Nobles declared “dealt a blow” to all of their investigations.ABC World News Tonightanchor David Muir on theFebruary 21broadcast crowed: “Our Pierre Thomas tonight asks Republicans in the House, how do you move forward if the main informant was lying?”
But as NewsBusters has been tracking, andNew York Postcolumnist Miranda Devine pointed out, there is an“avalanche of evidence”thathasn’t been debunked.
The following are just a few of the Biden family scandal items from the last three months — leading up to the Hunter deposition — that have received no coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC’s evening or morning shows, nor their Sunday roundtable shows:
Hunter Biden’s Billionaire Pals in Russia Escape Sanctions List…AGAIN
Two Russian billionaire pals of Hunter Biden were again spared from being hit by financial sanctions asPresident Biden announced his latest round of penaltieson numerous Vladimir Putin-connected people Friday, the Post has learned.
Though some 500 Russian oligarchs, companies and third-country sanctions evaders were hit, real estate developer Yelena Baturina and Vladimir Yevtushenkov again skated free of winding up on the list.
The White House did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment and has not offered explanation in the past as the pair dodged earlier rounds of sanctions.
The omissions have attracted the attention of House Republicans leading an impeachment inquiry into the president’s links to his relatives’ foreign business dealings.
Baturina, the widow of late Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov,built her $1.3 billion fortunethrough real estate and investments and dined with Hunter Biden and then-Vice President Joe Biden at least once at DC’s Café Milano.
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage:0 seconds.
Jim Biden Used His Brother’s Name to Promote Americore Hospital Chain, That Was Accused of Medicare Fraud and Has Now Collapsed
In 2017, a hospital operator set out to build a rural health care empire with the help of a Philadelphia-area consultant.
The consultant, Jim Biden, had no experience running hospitals. But he did understand the federal government and had ties to labor unions. Perhaps more important, he was the younger brother of Joe Biden.
The final years of the Obama administration had cemented the former vice president’s towering stature in the world of health care, where he had made the fight against cancer a top federal priority and, then, a centerpiece of his legacy-building efforts.
For then 67-year-old Jim Biden, the third of four Biden siblings, his ties to his older brother made up much of his pitch as he pursued deals that could help Americore make money from drug rehab, lab testing and even cancer treatment.
“This would be a perfect platform to expose my Brothers team to [your] protocol,” Jim Biden wrote to the CEO of a Tampa-area company that controlled licensing rights to an experimental cancer treatment the hospital operator wanted to offer. “Could provide a great opportunity for some real exposure.”
The email, obtained by POLITICO from a person close to the company, documents one of the many ways in which Jim Biden invoked his brother’s name and clout in the course of his work with Americore, which has since gone bankrupt, wreaking havoc in rural communities in the process.
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage:0 seconds.
Hunter’s Ex-Business Partner: Joe Biden “The Enabler” of the “Family’s Business,” Was Sold as “The Brand”
Former Biden family associate Tony Bobulinski steadfastly accused Joe Biden of being involved in his son and brother’s foreign dealings in China in impeachment inquiry testimony that was released publicly Friday — hours after the Justice Departmentcharged an FBI informantfor allegedly falsely accusing the Bidens of taking bribes from Ukraine.
“Joe Biden was more than a participant in and a beneficiary of his family’s business; he was an enabler, despite being buffered by a complex scheme to maintain plausible deniability,” Bobulinski claimed about the president’s role in a business venture with Chinese state-linked CEFC China Energy.
Bobulinski said in hisclosed-door House testimony Tuesdaythat Joe Biden wasthe “brand”hawked by his relatives and that he’s lied repeatedly about not interacting with their partners. The former Navy officer also unveiled a text message indicating that relations with CEFC began in 2015 when Joe Biden was still vice president — before it culminated in millions of dollars in transfers shortly after he left office as VP in 2017.
The testimony included a screenshot of an apparent Dec. 24, 2015, text message to Bobulinski from another associate, James Gilliar, which corroborated prior testimony from Biden family partner Rob Walker that the CEFC venture began during the final stretch of the Obama-Biden administration.
“There will be a deal between one of the most prominent families from US and them constructed by me, I think this will then be a great addition to their portfolios as it will give them a profile base in NYC then LA, etc,” the alleged message from Gilliar read.
“For me, it’s a no-brainer but culturally they are different but smart so let’s see… Any entry ticket is small for them. Easier and better demographic than Arabs who are a little anti-US after Trump.”
Bobulinski also repeated his prior claim to have briefly discussed CEFC twice with Joe Biden in May 2017, the same month that Gilliarpenciled in a 10% cut for the “big guy”— who Bobulinski says was clearly Joe Biden.
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage:0 seconds.
Records of Biden Family Credit Cards Allegedly Paid for By China Company, Subpoenaed By Comer
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer issued subpoenas Thursday for records on “several” credit cards that theChinese state-linked company CEFC China Energyallegedly provided members of President Biden’s family for personal expenses — including a card loaded with $100,000 for a “global spending spree.”
“We’re subpoenaing several credit card companies,” Comer (R-Ky.) said in a morning interview on Fox Business.
“Through the interviews and depositions we’ve conducted thus far, we’ve learned that there were several credit cards that were used by members of the Biden family — we believe for personal expenses — and we believe that these credit cards were being paid by CEFC or through CEFC-funded affiliates.”
An Oversight Committee staff member told The Post that the subpoenas cast a wide net for records as part of theimpeachment inquiry into alleged corruptionduring Joe Biden’s vice presidency. CEFC, a now-defunct reputed cog in Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign, was one of the largest and most mysterious sources of overseas income for the first family.
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First brother James Biden and first son Hunter Biden reportedly netted more than $7 million in 2017 and 2018 from CEFC for what critics call influence peddling. The first tranche of more than $1 million flowed shortly after Joe Biden met Ye and was a “thank you” for services during his vice presidency, Walker said.
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CEFC allegedly provided James Biden and his wife, Sara Biden, with a credit card to go on a $100,000 “global spending spree,”according to a September 2020 reportby Republican-led Senate committees. The Oversight Committee rep said the panel recently received corroborating information from witnesses. “The American people deserve transparency, and these subpoenas will be more evidence of the Biden family’s influence peddling around the globe,” the committee aide said.
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage:0 seconds.
E-Mail Allegedly Shows Bidens Were Doing Business with Beijing-Linked Firm While Joe Was VP
A newly surfaced document allegedly helps prove Hunter Biden was working with Chinese state-linked CEFC China Energy while his dad was vice president — as suspected by Republicans leading the impeachment inquiry into reputed corruption by the president.
President Biden has repeatedly claimed his family never got money from China —despite his own alleged direct involvementin relations with two different Chinese government-backed firms, including CEFC.
“We anticipate working together on a number of opportunities in the US and abroad,” says the potentially damning March 22, 2016, letter addressed to CEFC Executive Director Jianjun Zang on Hunter’s letterhead about 10 months before his dad Joe left office as vice president.
“I believe we have presented a collection of projects that parallel the interests of you and your team and we look forward to discussing them in detail,” says the draft letter to Zang, which was distributed among Hunter and his partners Rob Walker and James Gilliar as an e-mail attachment.
“As we await your next visit to the United States, please continue to coordinate all matters with my confidant and trusted advisor, James Gilliar,” the letter says.
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage:0 seconds.
Joe Biden Met With the Chairman of Chinese Firm That Hunter Worked With
President Biden met with the chairman of the Chinese energy firm Hunter Biden sought to create a joint venture with at the Four Seasons in Washington D.C. in 2017, a former business partner of the first son told congressional investigators.
Rob Walker, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, testified at the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees earlier this month as part of the House impeachment inquiry againstPresident Biden.
Walker, during his closed-door transcribed interview, told congressional investigators that Joe Biden attended a meeting where he, Hunter Biden, their other business partners and CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming were having lunch.
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Ye Jianming, at the time, was the chairman of Chinese energy company CEFC. Walker said the purpose of the meeting was to discuss “ways we could work together.” “I don’t think we had structured a deal on how to work together at this point,” Walker said, noting the meeting lasted “probably an hour and a half,” but said Biden “was not” there for the entirety of the meeting. “The former vice president was not there the entire time. He was there maybe 10 minutes,” Walker said. “He spoke nice, you know, normal pleasantries. I think he probably did most of the talking and then left.” Walker testified that Biden addressed the entire group — which consisted of approximately 10 CEFC-linked individuals— during his visit.
Walker testified that the visit, and Biden’s appearance, “likely” took place before his Robinson Walker LLC received $3 million from State Energy HK Limited—a CEFC-linked entity.
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The House Oversight Committee told Fox News Digital that it can “now confirm Joe Biden met with nearly every foreign national who funneled money to his son, including Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina, Romanian oligarch Kenes Rakishev, Burisma’s corporate secretary Vadym Pozharsky, Jonathan Li of BHR, and CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming.”
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage:0 seconds.
GOP Rep Demands IRS Look Into Joe Biden’s Loan Repayments From Jim Biden
Republican Rep. Dan Meuser has demanded the IRS investigate $240,000 in loan repayments President Biden received from his brother, saying the committee probing the financial transactions for foreign business ties has been stonewalled by the White House.
“The potential lack of formal written agreements or promissory notes raises questions about the legality and transparency of these loans,” Meuser (Pa.) wrote ina Jan. 17 letterto IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel.
“Of particular interest is whether President Biden collected interest on these loan repayments, and if so, whether this interest was duly reported in his tax filings,” he added.
“If the payments were neither a loan repayment nor a gift, they were in fact ordinary income received by Joe Biden, Jill Biden, or entities connected to them.”
Meuser, who served as Pennsylvania’s revenue secretary from 2011 to 2015, demanded a “thorough review” and “detailed responses” from the IRS about the payments, saying it was “not only a matter of tax compliance but also one of upholding the public’s confidence in the integrity of our governmental institutions.”
He told The Post that the IRS investigation should be able to “determine the legitimacy of the supposed loan Joe Biden made to his family members that they now claim to be paying back.”
“If the IRS cannot verify the existence of the loans, then Joe Biden, the receiver of the payments, is intentionally misrepresenting what the payments were for and is in violation of state and federal tax laws,” he said.
“This falsifying of records would only be done to conceal payments made indirectly to Joe Biden from foreign entities, including a $40,000 payment from a Chinese Communist Party-linked company. If an average citizen had skirted tax law in this manner, they would be in jail.”
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage:0 seconds.
Art Dealer Admits Hunter Knew Names of Art Buyers, Despite White House Claims to Contrary
Hunter Biden’s Manhattan art dealer said Tuesday that he never worked with the White House on an ethics pact to ensure buyers would remain anonymous — and added that thetop purchaserswere known to the first son, contrary to prior claims from President Biden’s aides.
Georges Bergès also revealed that in addition to the lack of supposed anti-corruption safeguards he actually met and spoke on the phone with the president while repping his son, the House Oversight Committee said in a readout of a closed-door deposition.
The art dealer testified that Hunter, 53, knew who bought about 70% of his art — includingElizabeth Hirsh Naftali, who obtained works by the first son before and after scoring a prestigious presidential appointment.
Bergès disclosed that he personally interacted with Joe Biden on multiple occasions, including at a closed-to-press White House wedding for Hunter’s daughter Naomi in 2022.
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Hirsh Naftali, whoscored repeated visitsto the White House during the timeframe in question, inked a $42,000 sale in February 2021, before her appointment that July by Joe Biden to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, and then another for $52,000 in December 2022.
Bergès also confirmed that the first son was aware that Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris, who met Hunter at a political fundraiser in December 2019 beforebankrolling his tax payments and living expenses, was his top patron, buying $875,000 worth of art in a January 2023 deal.
“The Biden White House appears to have deceived the American people about facilitating an ethics agreement governing the sale of Hunter Biden’s art,” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement. “Hunter Biden’s gallerist never had any communication with the White House about such an agreement to make sure there was any sort of ethics compliance at all, and he provided information to the committee revealing how Hunter Biden’s amateur art career is an ethics nightmare.”
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage:0 seconds.
Joe Biden Used An Alias In Emails Sent to Hunter’s Business Partners, Totaling 327 Times Over Nine Years
As vice president,Joe Bidenused email aliases and private email addresses to communicate with son Hunter Biden and Hunter’s business associates hundreds of times, new records released by the House Ways & Means Committee revealed.
The committee obtained metadata from IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler that reveals Joe Biden usedalias email accounts327 times during a nine-year period — 2010 to 2019 — to correspond with his son, Hunter, and one of Hunter’s key business associates, Eric Schwerin, among others.
The majority of the email traffic took place while Biden was vice president.
The committee says 54 of the emails were “exclusively” between Joe Biden and Schwerin, who the committee describes as “the architect of the Biden family’s shell companies.”
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage:0 seconds.
Hunter’s Firm Sent Joe Biden a Recurring $1,380 Payment Starting in 2018
President Biden received a recurring payment of $1,380 from his son Hunter’s law firm beginning in late 2018 shortly after abank money laundering officer warnedthat the same account was receiving millions of dollars in Chinese government-linked funds without “any services rendered.”
A bank order shows that Owasco PC set up a “monthly” transfer to then-former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., with a voided check for the future president included in the documentation, which wasreleased Mondayby the House Oversight Committee.
A source told The Post that at least three payments were made — on Sept. 17, Oct. 15 and Nov. 15, 2018 — totaling $4,140 to the elder Biden from Owasco PC, according to the firm’s bank records.
“President Biden and his family must be held accountable for this blatant corruption,” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a video release.
“This wasn’t a payment from Hunter Biden’s personal account but an account for his corporation that received payments from China and other shady corners of the world,” Comer said.
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage:0 seconds.
Stonewalling: Joe Biden Has Turned Over Only 14 of 82,000 Requested E-Mail Pages
House Oversight Committee ChairmanJames Comer accused the White House Fridaymorning of obstructing an impeachment inquiry into President Biden — as the White House countered with a memo claiming it actually has shown remarkable cooperation.
A source familiar with Comer’s remarks during a closed-door meeting of Republican lawmakers told The Post that he emphasized the administration’s failure to produce emails sent or received by Biden using email accounts registered under pseudonyms during his eight-year vice presidency.
Comer (R-Ky.), who on Friday afternoon sent a letter to first son Hunter Biden’s legal team requesting confirmation that he will appear for his scheduled deposition later this month, told colleagues that his panel has received just 14 out of about 82,000 pages of Biden’s vice presidential emails known to exist.
John Haller comments on more pro-life Christians arrested and tried, future of AI, world government, Prince Charles and environmental globalists, and big tech’s massive growth.
She was trying to make the case for Congress to pass another $61 billion dollars for the neocons’ proxy war project in Ukraine and she was throwing out the old slogans that the neocons use when they want funding for their latest war.
Asked by CNN whether she believes that Congress will eventually pass the bill, Nuland responded that she has confidence that, “we will do what we have always done, which is defend democracy and freedom around the world…”
What Nuland is attempting here is what the neocons always do. They try to wrap their terrible policies up in the American flag and sell it to the American people as something reflective of “our” values. If you oppose another neocon war, well then you are unpatriotic according to their trickery.
The relentless increase in global debt is an enormous problem for the economy. Public deficits are neither reserves for the private sector nor a tool for growth. Bloated public debt is a burden on the economy, making productivity stall, raising taxes, and crowding out financing for the private sector. With each passing year, the global debt figure climbs higher, the burdens grow heavier, and the risks loom larger. The world’s financial markets ignored the record-breaking increase in global debt levels to a staggering $313 trillion in 2023, which marked yet another worrying milestone.
In the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections, the United States deficit will fluctuate over the next four years, averaging an insane 5.8 percent of GDP without even considering a recession. By 2033, they still expect a 6.9 percent GDP budget hole. Unsurprisingly, the economy, even using optimistic scenarios, stalls and will show a level of real GDP growth of 1.8% between 2028 and 2033, 33% less than the 2026–2027 period, which is already 25% lower than the historical average.
Some analysts say that this whole mess can be solved by raising taxes, but reality shows that there is no revenue measure that will fill an annual financial hole of $2 trillion with additional yearly receipts. This, of course, comes with an optimistic scenario of no recession or economic impact from a higher tax burden. Deficits are always a spending problem.
Citizens are led to believe that lower growth, declining real wages, and persistent inflation are external factors that have nothing to do with governments, but this is incorrect. Deficit spending is printing money, and it erodes the purchasing power of the currency while destroying the opportunities for the private sector to invest. The entire burden of higher taxes and inflation falls on the middle class and small businesses.
Markets never react to rising risks until reality kicks in.Risk builds slowly but happens fast. This is why governments feel so comfortable adding more public debt. Politicians think that bullish markets and low bond yields are a validation of their policies, and even when interest expenses rise to alarming levels, they just pass the bburden onto the next administration. The result? Eroding potential growth, weaker productivity, and the destruction of the middle class through higher taxes and persistent inflation.
Debt crises happen; and governments never pay attention to the risks because they do not pay for the consequences.Furthermore, by the time a debt crisis happens, most governments will blame “markets” and short sellers.
The latest data from the Institute of International Finance (IIF) shows thatthe dangerous trend of rising debt has accelerated.A $15 trillion surge in debt over the course of a single year underscored the alarming pace at which the debt burden was escalating. To put this figure into perspective, it is worth noting that just a decade prior, the global debt tally stood at a comparatively modest $210 trillion—a stark reminder of the exponential growth trajectory that debt has embarked upon.
Developing economies are leading the path of this debt onslaught, with debt-to-GDP ratios reaching unprecedented heights. Emerging markets are following the developed nation trend, adding structural challenges and vulnerabilities as debt accumulation leads to the destruction of the local currency and diminishing confidence in the domestic monetary systems.
The implications of this debt binge are significant, including weaker economic growth and a danger to financial stability.At its core, the surge in global debt represents a fundamental imbalance—an imbalance between present consumption and future obligations, between short-term expenditure and long-term sustainability. Debt is newly created mousedused finance unproductive expenditures. Cheap government debt promises higher growth and better opportunities for citizens but only delivers weaker growth, higher instability, and an increasingly worthless currency. If you wonder why your wages are paying for fewer goods and services and why the middle class finds it increasingly difficult to thrive, blame it on money printing and public debt. It is eroding the purchasing power of your savings and wages under the false promise of growth and security that never arrives.
As debt levels swell, so do the risks of debt distress, default, and contagion. Debt is currency printing; the confidence in the purchasing power of the newly issued money slumps as debt balloons. Furthermore, a sudden loss of market confidence or a liquidity crunch in one corner of the globe can swiftly snowball into a full-blown financial crisis with far-reaching systemic implications.To think this will not happen in the United States is myopic and reckless.The interconnected nature of the modern global economy means that no nation exists in isolation, and the repercussions of a debt crisis in one area can reverberate across the entire financial ecosystem.
Beyond the immediate risks of financial instability, the long-term consequences of excessive debt accumulation are equally troubling. High debt levels function as a drag on economic growth, siphoning off resources from productive investment and stifling innovation and entrepreneurship. Moreover, the burden of servicing debt imposes a heavy toll on future generations, diverting funds away from infrastructure spending and saddling future taxpayers with a legacy of debt.
The end of the United States dollar will not come from external threats but from the irresponsible actions of its own government. Cheap debt is always exceedingly expensive.
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