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
Luke 13:1 Now on that very occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 And Jesus responded and said to them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans just because they have suffered this fate? 3 No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or do you think that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse offenders than all the other people who live in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
6 And He began telling this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. 7 And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Look! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?’ 8 But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, leave it alone for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; 9 and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.’”
Repent! You Might Die Today! – Pastor Patrick Hines Sermon
▶️Pastor Patrick Hines has recently had a brand new book published, called, “Earth’s Foundational History – Part 1: Genesis Chapters 1 Through 5.” (Paperback – May 4, 2023) https://cutt.ly/16RCeZ0
These two books are also available on Amazon. All proceeds go directly to Pastor Hines:
▶️Am I Right With God?: The Gospel, Justification, Saving Faith, Repentance, Assurance, & The New Birth https://cutt.ly/S6RCbuM
▶️Redrawing the Battle Lines: 23 Sermons on Critical Issues Facing the Church https://cutt.ly/m6RCTi0
We subscribe to the Westminster Standards as our doctrinal statement. It consists of the following documents:
The Westminster Confession of Faith
The Westminster Larger Catechism
The Westminster Shorter Catechism
We also believe that Christian Worship is to be regulated and defined by God’s Word, the Bible.
Our worship services are designed to please and honor the Triune God of the Bible. We place Scripture reading and the preaching of the word of God at the center of worship along with Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These are God’s gifts to His church and ought to always be at the center of Christian worship. We are a congregation that loves to sing God’s praises, recite His Word back to Him, and actively engage in hearing and learning from God’s Word.
We embrace and promote a comprehensive Christian world and life view.
There is no area of life which is not under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is to God and His law which all people, including governments and civil rulers, will answer. The Word of God embraces and informs the way we view marriage, the family, children, education, politics, worship, law, government, war, the church, missions, evangelism, and worship. In the world today there is a battle of opposing worldviews. There are basically only two positions: God’s Word and man’s ideas. We stand positively for Biblical truth and negatively against man’s ideas which are opposed to Biblical truth.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only hope for mankind.
Because all men fall short of obeying God’s law, all men everywhere are in need of divine grace and salvation from God. This salvation is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for sinners, was buried, rose again, and is alive today seated at God the Father’s right hand.
We Worship God Together as Families.
We offer nursery during the morning worship service for newborns and infants but encourage people to keep as many of their children as they can with them for morning worship. The audio of the service is in the nursery via speakers. There is also a crying room with a video screen and audio of the sermon. We offer Sunday school classes for all ages, but worship together as families. We do not offer “children’s” church.
All who profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and are members of an evangelical church are cordially invited to participate with us in the Lord’s Supper.
Charles Haddon (C.H.) Spurgeon (June 19, 1834 January 31, 1892) was a British Reformed Baptist preacher who remains highly influential among Christians of different denominations, among whom he is still known as the “Prince of Preachers.” In his lifetime, Spurgeon preached to around 10,000,000 people, often up to 10 times a week at different places. His sermons have been translated into many languages. Spurgeon was the pastor of the New Park Street Chapel in London for 38 years. In 1857, he started a charity organization called Spurgeon’s which now works globally. He also founded Spurgeon’s College, which was named after him after his death.
Spurgeon was a prolific author of many types of works including sermons, an autobiography, a commentary, books on prayer, a devotional, a magazine, and more. Many sermons were transcribed as he spoke and were translated into many languages during his lifetime. Arguably, no other author, Christian or otherwise, has more material in print than C.H. Spurgeon.
Leviticus 24:11 — Reading this verse reminded me of a scene from the movie “Time Changer” … amazing how few Christians are bothered to see the name of the Lord blasphemed.
Leviticus 25:10 — “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Does this sound familiar? The 1752 Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, contains this phrase around the top of the bell.
Leviticus 25:23 — As we discussed earlier, the land is the Lord’s, and He governs its use.
He shall choose our inheritance for us. (Psalm 47:4)
Our enemies would allot us a very dreary portion, but we are not left in their hands. The Lord will cause us to stand in our lot, and our place is appointed by His infinite wisdom. A wiser mind than our own arranges our destiny, The ordaining of all things is with God, and we are glad to have it so; we choose that God should choose for us. If we might have our own way we would wish to let all things go in God’s way.
Being conscious of our own folly, we would not desire to rule our own destinies. We feel safer and more at ease when the Lord steers our vessel than we could possibly be if we could direct it according to our own judgment. Joyfully we leave the painful present and the unknown future with our Father, our Savior, our Comforter.
O my soul, this day lay down thy wishes at Jesus’ feet! If thou hast of late been somewhat wayward and willful, eager to be and to do after thine own mind, now dismiss thy foolish self, and place the reins in the Lord’s hands. Say, “He shall choose.” If others dispute the sovereignty of the Lord and glory in the free will of man, do thou answer them, “He shall choose for me.” It is my freest choice to let Him choose. As a free agent, I elect that He should have absolute sway.
The desires of the righteous shall be granted. (Proverbs 10:24)
Because it is a righteous desire it is safe for God to grant it. It would be neither good for the man himself, nor for society at large, that such a promise should be made to the unrighteous. Let us keep the Lord’s commands, and He will rightfully have respect to our desires.
When righteous men are left to desire unrighteous desires, they will not be granted to them. But then these are not their real desires; they are their wanderings or blunders, and it is well that they should be refused. Their gracious desires shall come before the Lord, and He will not say them nay.
Does the Lord deny us our requests for a time? Let the promise for today encourage us to ask again. Has He denied us altogether? We will thank Him still, for it always was our desire that He should deny us if He judged a denial to be best.
As to some things, we ask very boldly. Our chief desires are for holiness, usefulness, likeness to Christ, preparedness for heaven. These are the desires of grace rather than of nature—the desires of the righteous man rather than of the mere man. God will not stint us in these things but will do for us exceeding abundantly. “Delight thy self also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” This day, my soul, ask largely!
“And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Matthew 7:28-29 (NKJV)
Humans will corrupt the Word of God, it is in our nature. It was common place then by the scribes and religious leaders, as it is common place today, to take the Word of God and use it so it is advantageous to our wants; our way of life. When Jesus spoke, this was not the case. He spoke with authority as the Word of God. There was no agenda at all hidden behind His Words. Jesus spoke with a clear agenda, with the authority of God, to remove the facade of religion; to bring us into a relationship with Him.
Jesus in Chapter 7 of Matthew is clearly calling us to do more than just acknowledge His Words; He is calling us to follow Him. To follow others and the ways of the world will only lead to a way of life that is the “wide or broad way“, as opposed to the “narrow” way. There is no room in a relationship with Jesus for judging others, using prayer as a way to show authority on others, or to do to others that you would not want done to you.
This is His authority on which He speaks from. This is the Word of God from God Himself. No scribe or leader would speak this way, for it is not the way of humanity; it is the way of God.
Matthew 7:21 (HCSB)
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but ?only? the one who does the will of My Father in heaven.”
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” Proverbs 3:5&6
I thought my daredevil days were behind me until I ended up on a black diamond trail at a ski resort near Lake Tahoe.
We had discovered skiing while living in northern California in the early 1990s, and at the time found it to be quite exhilarating. I had not grown up around the sport and I was solid “bunny slope” material. My confidence soared when I graduated to green, then blue, runs and for a moment, I thought I had really improved. Then one day, while skiing with my husband, we hopped off the lift and started down a trail.
While honing the tuck, and trying to keep my elbows in, I cruised past my husband who was patiently waiting by a small sign at a fork. Trying my best to maneuver through the challenging terrain that included moguls and narrower and icy rides, I heard my husband catch up yelling, “You are on a black diamond, called JABOOM!!” Immediately, I felt defeated and thought, “How did I end up on a black diamond? How did I miss staying on the right path?”
God’s Word tells us that he will guide along the straight path, but that it is our choices that keep us on the path or force us to go a different route. Often, while thinking we are following God, we discover we have somehow left the path. Today’s verse reminds us that to keep our path straight, we must take action.
First, by choosing to trust God’s reliability and his Word and believing what he says.
Secondly, when we do not see the entire picture, we must not lean on our own limited understanding.
Lastly, we must have a submissive and humble heart that seeks to be conformed to the image of Christ, so that we can grow and be led to the path that is God’s absolute best for us! Jesus said that there is a path that leads to life, and he promises to guide us and show us all the roads we are to travel in this world.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for directing my path as I follow your commands and trust you with all of my heart. When I do not understand, please help me to rest in your promises and to continue to seek your guidance by submitting to you. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Before every decision you make this day, ask God to direct your thoughts and your paths so that you remain in his will.
Explosion at gov’t office in Alabama An explosive device was detonated Saturday morning in Montgomery outside the Alabama Attorney General’s Office building, prompting an investigation by law enforcement officials. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued a statement Monday explaining that no one was injured in Saturday’s explosion and that the incident was under investigation.
Sen. Kennedy: Biden Is “A Cancer On The American Dream” Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy slammed Joe Biden’s economic policies Monday, declaring that inflation under Biden is a “cancer on the American Dream,” and saying Biden is about as popular as chlamydia.
“I’m Done With Google”: Wholesale Loss Of Trust After “Unbelievably Irresponsible” Racist AI Goes Mask-Off The fact that Google’s Gemini AI is a complete woke mess comes as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention. Between Google’s internal culture, and the fact that large language models (LLMs) are largely a reflection of their creators, Gemini is was the predictable digital poster-child for racist, anti-white, anti-conservative, historical revisionist culture – as opposed to the neutral purveyors of information they claim to be. Mask-off, as they say.
Shabbat at CPAC: The Jewish conservatives who want to ‘Make America Great Again’ “It was phenomenal and revitalizing,” said David Shalom, of Los Angeles, after Trump’s Saturday keynote. “I’m super excited for next January when ‘America first’ is back on the national agenda.” Attendees at CPAC’s Reagan dinner heard from former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Joseph Strickland, a former Catholic bishop who was forcibly removed from office by Pope Francis.
Prominent Pro-Hamas Activist in Australia Arrested on Kidnapping and Torture Charges Melbourne resident Laura Allam was charged with kidnapping, armed robbery, illegal detention, assault and battery against the 31-year-old man, who has not been named by authorities. Working with an accomplice who has also been arrested and charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment, armed robbery, threats to kill, intention to cause injury, recklessly causing injury, unlawful assault and assault with weapon, the 28-year-old Allam is understood to have targeted the man solely because his employer is Jewish.
Sen. Ron Johnson, health experts allege cover-up of COVID-19 vaccine dangers Johnson’s forum titled “Federal Health Agencies and the COVID Cartel: What Are They Hiding?”featured a roundtable discussion including 22 testimonials from scientists, medical doctors, former government officials, and journalists. Two weeks ago, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., got an email from a recently married man who learned his 36-year-old wife couldn’t have children shortly after she got her second COVID-19 shot. “This work is what I consider to be the fruit of our bioweapons industry,” Risch said during the roundtable discussion.
‘October 7, part two:’ Iran plans for terror during Ramadan, Israel charges Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday warned that Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas are trying to use Ramadan to inflame the region so as to achieve another October 7 disaster against Israel. According to Gallant, their hope is to provoke Palestinians in the West Bank, Hezbollah, and Arabs and Muslims across the region to attack and turn their rage on Israel, using the Temple Mount and tensions in the West Bank as an excuse.
PM responds to Biden: My efforts to curb pressure to end war are working Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded this evening (Tuesday) to US President Biden’s claims that the right-wing makeup of Israel’s current government is costing the Jewish State international legitimacy. “Since the beginning of the war, I have been leading a political campaign whose purpose is to curb the pressures intended to end the war before its time, and on the other hand also to gain support for Israel,” Netanyahu said. … the Harvard-Harris poll published in the United States shows that 82% of the American public supports Israel.
Antisemitism is reaching WWII levels says Norwegian rabbi Antisemitism in Norway is at its highest level since World War II, the rabbi of the country’s capital city of Oslo told Israeli television on Monday. “There is a wave of antisemitism that we have not seen before,” said Rabbi Joav Melchior, who was born in Oslo but raised in Israel and currently leads the roughly 2,000 strong Jewish community of Oslo.
US Treasury Secretary tells Israel to bring back Palestinian workers Yellen sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with “a number of steps that the US believes must be taken” which “are vital for the economic well-being of Palestinians and Israelis alike.” The letter was addressed to Netanyahu and not her counterpart Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich because it’s believed that the US government has blacklisted him,
Israeli officials puzzled by Biden’s optimism on ceasefire deal Senior Israeli officials said on Tuesday that they were unaware of any basis for US President Joe Biden’s remarks on Monday that a hostage-for-ceasefire agreement in Gaza is imminent. Ynet quoted the senior Israeli officials as saying on Tuesday morning that they do not understand “what the American president’s optimism is based on.”
PA Govt resigns; Biden State Dept. pleads “No comment” on future Palestinian State Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman, declined to comment during the department’s press briefing on Monday about the resignation of the Palestinian Authority government. “So with respect to both the resignation and a future government, ultimately the leadership of the Palestinian Authority is a question for the Palestinians themselves to decide,” Miller said. “It’s not a matter that I’m going to comment on from here.”
Special Netivah 3-day weekend conference provides ‘Place of Rest’ for Messianic believer soldiers in the IDF Netivah Youth Ministries frequently arranges nationwide conferences for believing youth of various ages, including IDF soldiers. However, at the end of January, the ministry hosted a special conference for Messianic soldiers. The soldier’s gathering lasted three days, instead of the typical two-day weekend, and had an “open house” format, so guests could join at their convenience, whether one, two or all three days, or only for an evening. The conference theme, ‘A Place of Rest,’ is based on the verse in Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Hezbollah fires 60 rockets at IDF base on Golan Heights; Israel kills senior Hezbollah commander Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah fired some 60 rockets at an Israeli military base located on the Golan Heights on Monday amid growing escalation along the border between Lebanon and Israel. There were no injuries reported from the large Hezbollah rocket barrage. Two Hezbollah terrorists, Hassan Ali Younes and Ahmad Mohammad Sindiyan, were killed in the Israeli strike. In addition, three other Hezbollah operatives were injured. In a separate strike, Israel eliminated the senior Hezbollah terrorist commander Hassan Hussein Salami in southern Lebanon.
Israel won’t allow Gazans to return to northern Strip until ‘return of all the hostages,’ says Israeli DM Gallant Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced on Monday that Israel will not permit Palestinians displaced by the war to return to northern Gaza until all the hostages are freed. The comments were made to family members of the hostages remaining in Gaza and come amid negotiations between Hamas and Israel that would result in the release of the hostages in exchange for a truce and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Brightest and fastest-growing: Astronomers identify record-breaking quasar Astronomers have characterized a bright quasar, finding it to be not only the brightest of its kind, but also the most luminous object ever observed. Quasars are the bright cores of distant galaxies and they are powered by supermassive black holes. The black hole in this record-breaking quasar is growing in mass by the equivalent of one Sun per day, making it the fastest-growing black hole to date. The matter being pulled in toward this black hole, in the form of a disc, emits so much energy that J0529-4351 is over 500 trillion times more luminous than the Sun. “All this light comes from a hot accretion disc that measures seven light-years in diameter — this must be the largest accretion disc in the Universe,
Over 2 million animals perish in Mongolia’s harshest winter since 1975 This winter, Mongolia endures its snowiest season since 1975, leading to the deaths of 2.1 million head of livestock from starvation and exhaustion, a stark rise from figures reported just days ago. The extreme weather event, known as dzud, has intensified due to a preceding summer drought, severely impacting the country’s herding communities.
Texas wildfires char thousands of acres of land in Panhandle Wildland firefighters are working to contain multiple massive wildfires burning in the Texas Panhandle region and across the Plains, fueled by unseasonable hot weather and gusting winds. Four wildfires in the Texas Panhandle have consumed nearly 300,000 acres and continue to prompt evacuations, road closures and emergency declarations.
Up to 12 feet of snow possible for California mountains with blizzard conditions A major winter storm, which is “impressive even by Sierra standards,” according to the NWS, is closing in on the West Coast. The storm, backed by an atmospheric river, is on track to become potentially the season’s biggest snowstorm, dropping up to 12 feet of snow with winds screaming over 100 mph at mountain peaks.
Kansas City could see 50-degree drop in 12 hours as cold front blasts central US If you don’t like the weather in Kansas City this week, just wait a few minutes. The next 24 hours will be a temperature roller coaster as part of a potent cold front that will cause a radical shift in the weather pattern across the central US, reinforced by an arctic blast.
Tornadoes, lime-sized hail possible in Midwest, Ohio Valley Tens of millions of people continue to be at risk of seeing severe weather from a powerful cross-country storm that’s marching east across the U.S., but on Tuesday afternoon, that threat grew for more than 11 million people in portions of the Midwest and Ohio Valley that could now see hail the size of apples and possible tornadoes.
Over 100 record highs likely this week as temperatures soar to summerlike levels A volatile week of weather is setting up for the contiguous U.S., with extreme temperatures, severe thunderstorms and a widespread fire weather risk all set to affect millions from coast to coast — with more than 100 record highs likely to be set.
Trans, HIV-positive male ‘breastfeeds’ infant with help of Canadian medical clinics An HIV positive, trans-identifying biological male has claimed he is “breastfeeding” his baby with the assistance of Canadian medical clinics. Murray Pearson, 52, began transitioning in 2022, and has been taking a number of drugs to develop “boobs” he alleges are capable of lactating.
3D printed titanium structure shows supernatural strength A 3D printed ‘metamaterial’ boasting levels of strength for weight not normally seen in nature or manufacturing could change how we make everything from medical implants to aircraft or rocket parts.
Texas high school to take 22 years to review all sexually explicit books in library According to parents, Scott Patrick acknowledged receiving complaints highlighting sexual passages in the books. The principal didn’t explain why he didn’t immediately remove the books from the school library until they had been reviewed, given parents’ concerns.
‘Victim To The Woke Ideology’: Air Force Member Sets Himself On Fire Outside Israeli Embassy …The social media of Bushnell, who was working to receive his bachelor’s degree at Southern New Hampshire University, showed his interest and following of extreme groups such as Burning River Anarchist Collective, Mutual Air Street Solidarity, and the anti-semitic and pro-Hamas group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
Hezbollah fires barrage of 60 rockets at Golan; IDF eliminates terror commander Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah on Monday fired a barrage of 60 Katyusha rockets at the Golan Heights. The terror group said in a statement the volley of rockets was in response to Israeli strikes in Lebanon’s east, the deepest confirmed attacks since the beginning of the cross-border clashes. It said it targeted an Israeli military base in the Golan “in response to the Zionist aggression near the city of Baalbek,” 100 kilometers (more than 62 miles) from the border earlier in the day.
The European Union Propose to Ban Repairs on Cars Over 15 Years Old. – The Expose The European Union is proposing a controversial piece of legislation that would effectively ban the right-to-repair for vehicles older than 15 years old. The aim according to the European Commission is “to renew the car fleet and encourage Europeans to buy new, environmentally friendly vehicles.” Thus, forcing individuals to buy newer cars, and more often while many other individuals will undoubtedly be priced out of car ownership, which will satisfy what is arguably, the real aim, the planned immobilisation of the people.
Oxford County Council forges ahead with 15-minute prison plans by installing “bus gates” Oxford, UK, was one of the first to announce a scheme where car owners will be fined for driving outside of their local area. The first low traffic neighbourhoods (“LTNs”) were introduced in Church Cowley, Temple Cowley and Florence Park areas in March 2021. These LTNs are collectively known as the east Oxford LTNs. Despite receiving a backlash to their unpopular plans, the council is pressing forward.
The psychopathic religion of the Globalists shapes their decisions and actions The religious beliefs of those in power shape their decision-making process, making it important to understand their motivations. Their religious motivations play a significant role in their engagement in the real war they are waging on the minds of populations. The Globalist ideology revolves around luciferian ideals, as seen in their association with the writings of Theosophical Society founder Helena Blavatsky. It’s irrelevant if we think it’s fanciful; what’s relevant is that they believe it.
Ticking Toward ‘Doomsday’: Is The Secular World Counting Down To The Tribulation? As a lifelong student of Bible prophecy and a close observer of current events, I’m surprised that the Rapture has not yet happened. So many signs point to the nearness of the Tribulation and conditions described in Revelation 6:1-8 with the release of the riders of the apocalypse. However, we still wait for the time when we will meet Jesus in the air.
“Your love of liberty — your respect for the laws — your habits of industry — and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.” —George Washington (1789)
Fellow Patriots, on this day in 1854, a group of abolitionists met in Ripon, Wisconsin, and agreed to form what would become the Republican Party. The GOP remains the party far more dedicated to Liberty, while Democrats still champion slavery in its modern manifestations. —Mark Alexander
The leftist reaction to the self-immolation of a U.S. Airman protesting Israel has been bizarre and twisted.
Nate Jackson
U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire Sunday outside Israel’s embassy in Washington, DC, to protest what he called the “genocide” of the Palestinians, yelling “Free Palestine” while he burned. Law enforcement extinguished the fire and rushed him to the hospital, but he died seven hours later. Our first thought was that self-immolation is a horrific way to die, and we feel sorrow that an obviously mentally disturbed 25-year-old man would do it. As the days passed, our next thought was, What the bleep is wrong with leftists?
You see, left-wing loons from Cornel West to Time magazine made observations about Bushnell’s death that we can hardly believe sane people would utter. We’ll start with Time because it had to be the most mind-blowing.
“Bushnell’s action is part of a long and controversial history of self-immolation as political protest,” began the news magazine’s story, written by Solcryé Burga and Simmone Shah. A few paragraphs later, the duo tells us that “the practice of self-immolation dates back centuries” before offering this doozy: “Self-immolation was also seen as a sacrificial act committed by Christian devotees who chose to be burned alive when they were being persecuted for their religion by Roman emperor Diocletian around 300 A.D.”
That historically ignorant and libelous claim is still up on Time’s website. The article’s “reliable” source is a 2012 article in The New Yorker, which related false propaganda about a fire allegedly set by Christians around 300 AD. By our publishing time, the “fact-checkers” at PolitiFact, Lead Stories, Washington Post, Snopes, FactCheck.org, and Reuters were all still too busy chasing Donald Trump to care about correcting Time’s falsehood. Of course, checking leftist lies isn’t how “fact-checking” works in any case.
Christians were burned at the stake for their faith by the pagan Romans. Tragically, in later centuries, the church burned people considered heretics, though especially post-Reformation these were often the most genuine of Christians. Regardless, they did not “choose to be burned alive.” These Christians held so steadfastly to their faith that even an excruciating death did not dissuade them.
There’s a big difference between the murder of a martyr and suicide.
Imagine, for a moment, if a media outlet — even one far short of Time’s prestige — said that blacks in the late 19th century “chose to be lynched.” The fact-checkers would have the long knives out.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of leftist insanity on this gruesome death.
“Let us never forget the extraordinary courage and commitment of brother Aaron Bushnell who died for truth and justice!” tweeted Cornel West, professor emeritus at Princeton University and independent presidential candidate. “Let us rededicate ourselves to genuine solidarity with Palestinians undergoing genocidal attacks in real time!”
Green Party candidate Jill Stein added to the disgrace. “Rest in power Aaron Bushnell,” Stein wrote. “‘I will no longer be complicit in genocide. Free Palestine!’” she quoted Bushnell as saying before adding, “May his sacrifice deepen our commitment to stop genocide now.”
Other leftists objected to Stein’s comment. Bushnell can’t “rest in power,” they said … because he’s not black.
Back to the question of genocide, the only ones committing it were the Iran-backed Hamas jihadis who slaughtered 1,200 innocent Israelis on October 7. Israel’s military has responded by killing tens of thousands of Hamas military personnel, and American leftists are beside themselves.
Various other leftists celebrated Bushnell as a hero, as did Hamas. In a statement Tuesday, Hamas said, “The heroic pilot Aaron Bushnell will remain immortal in the memory of our Palestinian people and the free people of the world, and a symbol of the spirit of global human solidarity with our people and their just cause.”
A decade ago, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said, “We love death like our enemies love life.” After October’s massacre, Hamas official Ali Baraka said, “The thing any Palestinian desires the most is to be martyred for the sake of Allah.”
Hamas fighters hide in hospitals and schools while Haniyeh and Baraka live in luxury elsewhere. Sadly, Bushnell still bought their lies.
As an aside, what’s the matter with so many American Jews, who themselves are radical leftists essentially allied with people who want to wipe them off the face of the planet?
What do we know about Bushnell other than his declared motive? Police reported a man in “mental distress” outside the embassy, and mainstream media articles often end with information about the national suicide hotline. That, too, makes some leftists angry because he died in a self-proclaimed protest of atrocities, not because of his own inner demons.
The Washington Post tells us he grew up on a “religious compound” in Massachusetts that was “called the Community of Jesus.” The Post quotes a former member saying, “A lot of us that got out are very much into social justice, trying to defend those who don’t or can’t defend themselves because that is what we went through.” Bushnell was also reportedly a self-described anarchist, which is typically a left-wing phenomenon. Indeed, the socialists and communists are celebrating their fellow traveler.
That leads us to a question: The military conducted a big operation to root out all the white supremacists supposedly infesting the ranks. All the while, Bushnell was becoming a radicalized leftist.
Aaron Bushnell was deceived and is now being lionized by liars and killers. His “protest” was no more noble than the Black Lives Matter and antifa riots that plagued American cities and cost American lives. And his grotesque suicide is certainly not as laudable as the Christians who were murdered for their steadfast faith.
Trump cruises in Michigan, judge rejects Delaware’s early voting law, Hamas rejects temporary ceasefire, and more.
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Michigan — Trump cruises, Biden gets embarrassed: It wasn’t close, nor was it expected to be. In yesterday’s Michigan presidential primary, Donald Trump notched his fifth straight massive victory over Nikki Haley. The Associated Press called the contest shortly after the polls closed, and with 98% of the vote counted, Trump led Haley 68.2% to 26.5%. As The Wall Street Journal reports, “Trump’s dominance in the first contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, and now Michigan, have given the former president an air of inevitability and knocked Haley, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, into also-ran status.” Haley is indeed an also-ran, and her stubbornness harms the Republican Party’s prospects for unifying and turning its focus toward Joe Biden. If Trump is wise, he’ll not utter Haley’s name again on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, on the Democrat side, incumbent Joe Biden won roughly 81% of the vote, more than 617,000 votes, while someone named “Uncommitted” got some 13% of the vote — which amounts to more than 100,000 votes. Much of this opposition was a protest vote against what Michigan’s large Arab-American community sees as Joe Biden’s pro-Israel stance in the Jewish state’s war against Hamas terrorists. It’s hard to know what effect this protest will amount to in November, but it should also be noted that the state’s socially conservative Muslim population was already disenchanted by the Democrats’ embrace of the Rainbow Mafia and its emphasis on mutilating gender-dysphoric children. Perhaps more important is that Biden lost 19% of Michigan Democrats, which is 144,000 votes, or within 10,000 votes of his margin of victory in the state in 2020.
Judge rejects Delaware’s early voting law: Superior Court Judge Mark H. Conner recently ruled that Delaware’s early voting law, which allowed voters to cast a ballot up to 10 days before Election Day, violated the state’s constitution. Conner observed that Delaware’s constitution was clear, enumerating only one day as Election Day: “Our Constitution provides only one such day, not any day or series of days the General Assembly sees fit.” He further ruled that the law violated Delaware’s constitution by making absentee voting indefinite and expanding it to anyone. “By granting indefinite absentee voting to those who are unable to vote in a single election,” his decision stated, “Delaware’s Permanent Absentee Voting Statute impermissibly extends beyond the limited authority granted to the General Assembly by our Constitution.” Delaware’s deputy attorney general argued the constitution’s establishment of “Election Day” should not be taken literally, therefore the state legislature was free to expand it beyond one day. Rejecting that assertion, Conner pointed out that the constitution only granted the legislature power to draft laws that make elections more secure and improve ballot secrecy. This is a win for election integrity.
The remote IRS: Thanks to Joe Biden and the Democrats, the IRS got an $80 billion raise, effectively doubling the size of the tax agency’s workforce, largely to go after wealthy tax cheats. At least that’s what Biden claimed. Yet despite being flush with more taxpayer dollars, the IRS has yet to require employees to return to the office full time, as it is currently 50% on-site and 50% remote. Thus when Republican lawmakers ask when the IRS will finally end its COVID-induced teleworking system and get all agency employees back in the office full time, the expected response should be “immediately.” The agency is supposedly working for the good of the country, isn’t it? Here’s the rub, which is why the IRS has thus far refused to end its temporary COVID remote work system: It would not be able to hire the desired amount of employees should it require them to all come into the office. Furthermore, requiring IRS employees to come into the office could limit the scope of the agency, which is exactly what Washington does not want to do.
Hamas rejects temporary ceasefire: Joe Biden, in attempting to placate the radical leftist anti-Israel component within his own party, has been seeking to put pressure on Israel to agree to a temporary ceasefire in its war with Hamas. In exchange for a ceasefire, Biden hopes to get Hamas to release the more than 100 Israeli hostages the terrorist organization is still holding. “My national security advisor tells me that we’re close,” Biden claimed on Monday. “We’re not done yet. My hope is by next Monday, we’ll have a ceasefire.” However, Hamas leadership is having none of it if the ceasefire is not permanent. As Hamas official Ahmad Abdelhadi said, they’re “not interested in any concessions that do not lead to a complete and total cessation of the aggression against our people.” Of course, that won’t float with Israeli leadership, who have vowed to eliminate Hamas from Gaza. By Monday, we will know if Biden is successful in achieving some form of a ceasefire.
Girls on antidepressants:We’ve got a drug for that. This seems to be the approach of Big Pharma and the doctors who almost reflexively dispense their wares. Among the victims of this emphasis on medication are adolescent girls, as new research indicates that the monthly antidepressant dispensing rate for girls ages 12 to 17 has surged 129.6% since the Communist Chinese allowed a deadly coronavirus to escape from their Wuhan Institute of Virology. As Axios reports, “Antidepressant prescribing to youths rose 63.5% during the pandemic, with adolescent girls accounting for some of the sharpest increases.” As Axios adds, “A shortage of mental health workers and the shift toward telehealth and remote prescribing may have contributed to a prioritization of drug treatments over therapy.” As we’ve noted in these pages recently, the kids are not alright, and plenty of blame for this wreckage can be affixed to the Democrats and their teachers union pals.
Fentanyl’s young victims aren’t overdosing; they’re being poisoned: More than 40 years ago, First Lady Nancy Reagan was roundly derided for championing the “Just Say No” campaign, which encouraged children and young people to reject the allure of experimenting with or using drugs. Years later, we had the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, better known as DARE. And yet, as James Fishback reports in The Free Press, the situation has never been more deadly for America’s young people: “Every week in America, about 22 kids die of a drug overdose. Eighty percent of those deaths are linked to fentanyl — a cheap synthetic opioid fifty times more potent than heroin. Even with illicit drug use among middle and high school students on the decline, fatal teen overdoses have never been higher… Fentanyl is so deadly it often kills kids experimenting with drugs for the first time. Between July 2019 and December 2021, according to the CDC, 86 percent of adolescents who died of a fentanyl overdose had never previously experienced a drug overdose.” What’s the solution? Well, education, for starters. Where’s the Ad Council with the latest version of the iconic “This Is Your Brain on Drugs” campaign?
Does Elon Musk still have deep state subversives working at X? Quick: What’s been the biggest and most consequential recent story in the fight for free speech? If you answered “Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter,” pat yourself on the back. Amid all the left-leaning censors in Big Tech and on social media, the importance of having a robust and ubiquitous platform dedicated to free speech can’t be overstated. But the fight for free speech is far from over. Indeed, as columnist Larry Elder points out, it’s still raging beneath the surface at Musk’s X. In a recent post from his account to @elonmusk, Elder wrote, in part: “I believe conservatives are STILL being suppressed — and that new followers are only painstakingly added — because of the anti-conservative, anti-Trump hostility of your deep state Twitter employees. This is a shout out to other conservatives/libertarians on your platform, please tell me if you’ve ALSO experienced the same sluggish growth in new followers, a stark contrast from what happened when Musk first took over when I — and many other conservatives — had an explosion of new followers. Please comment!” The replies that Elder’s post elicited are sobering, to say the least. As he concludes, “Mr. Musk, a lot of conservatives still detect a serious deep state problem at X, a platform we need now more than ever.”
Rotten Apple EV: Apple is abandoning its long-running effort to develop a self-driving or autonomous electric car. On Tuesday, the tech giant announced that it was ending all work on the project and would instead focus more on developing its AI products. The move will likely lead to several hundred employees being let go. The motive behind Apple’s decision likely has much to do with the EV market writ large. While Biden administration officials have been pushing for greater EV adoption, they have had to back off their original goals, as Americans simply aren’t buying in. EV makers have been cutting their production output due to sluggish sales. Serving to underscore this reality, Mercedes-Benz recently backed off its previous commitment to solely produce EVs by 2030. The company pointed to the “market conditions” and the lack of EV sales targets being met as the reason for the decision.
Headlines
Trump leads in Wisconsin and overtakes Biden in all swing states (Washington Examiner)
Illegal immigrant from El Salvador charged with murder in shootout that killed two-year-old boy, injured teen mom (New York Post)
Majority of Americans want a border wall for the first time in history (Daily Mail)
The Windy City has had enough, but why do residents keep voting for more of the same?
Emmy Griffin
Chicago, this author’s home city, known for having the best pizza and the most corrupt politics, is facing the consequences of its decision to follow President Joe Biden’s illegal immigration agenda. This is not a new development — it’s been building for years at this point — but with a new mayor in Brandon Johnson, residents hoped for some changes.
Sadly, Johnson is a more radical iteration of the previous mayor, Lori Lightfoot. He doggedly toes the Democrat Party agenda, holding to the “sanctuary city” claim and bragging about all the millions that he is spending on feeding illegal migrants.
There’s a huge problem for him, though: Chicago residents are fed up. During a recent city council meeting, residents (mostly black) tried to get their mayor and governor to see common sense and take a stand against the influx of illegals who are “junking up” their city and state.
These natives spoke with passion, deriding the apathy of Mayor Johnson — a Democrat toady who puts his radical ideology ahead of the residents who elected him. One woman said at the meeting: “We come from a community of black people where we already get the low scraps, and you want to take the little scraps and resources that we have and put us at the bottom of the barrel? That’s not fair, and I won’t have it.”
This is a particularly sore point, as the city and state continue to siphon away from taxpayers millions of dollars for the care and maintenance of illegal immigrants.
Another Chicago resident decried: “All this asylum-seeking lie, all this about refugees — no, no, no. What’s happening is they’re emptying out the dregs of their jails into the United States and to our communities. They’re junking up our country. And yeah, we feel some kind of way about it because it’s our country. We’re going to get them out of our communities because they don’t deserve to be there.”
Deep-blue Chicagoans are sounding almost like grassroots conservatives on this issue.
In the backdrop of these heart-wrenching cries from residents driven to the boiling point is a city that businesses are fleeing. Chicagoans who can afford to move are doing so. Even fellow Chicago Democrats are admitting that they asked for it when they decided to double down on being a sanctuary city. Cook County Board of Commissioners candidate Zerlina Smith-Members told reporters: “It’s a Biden thing. It’s a [Governor JB] Pritzker thing. It’s a Brandon Johnson thing. They wanted sanctuary cities. It’s not [Texas Governor Greg] Abbott’s fault because he didn’t ask for it. We asked for it.”
Windy City activist Tio Hardiman warned about the growing resentment in the black community of Chicago, saying, “The reality is, if you look at Chicago now, you have high unemployment rates among African-American youth in particular, you have a lack of mental health services in Chicago, you had thousands of homeless people in Chicago already that were never, ever focused on like they are focusing on the migrants.”
In the meantime, Mayor Johnson and Governor Pritzker keep finding new excuses as to why the illegal immigration invasion isn’t their fault. Johnson dodges questions about setting a date to visit the border because he is a father who has a busy family schedule. Pritzker fumes that Illinois didn’t “ask for this manufactured crisis.” Except that in 2021, he issued an executive order that opened up the floodgates to illegal immigrants, “further establishing Illinois as the most welcoming state in the nation.”
Perhaps Illinois residents will try a new strategy and vote Republican.
Also occurring in the backdrop of this crisis is the fact that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are expected to visit the southern border tomorrow. Should make for some interesting comparisons.
The Republican states of Florida and Texas have enacted laws that protect conservative speech but likely run afoul of the Constitution.
Douglas Andrews
This case stinks. That’s it in a nutshell for conservatives.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court wrestled with two laws — one in Florida and the other in Texas — that impose restrictions on social media companies seeking to control the content on their platforms.
We know how this works: Left-leaning Big Tech companies have been steadily and reliably hostile toward conservative speech on social media, ostensibly in the name of fighting disinformation and a panoply of -isms — racism, sexism, extremism, anti-transgenderism, and the like. So Florida and Texas fought back by passing laws that restrict these social media platforms from silencing speech they find inconvenient. But after nearly four hours of oral arguments, a majority of the justices seemed skeptical that the states could do so without violating the companies’ First Amendment rights.
The two court cases at issue — Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton — are aptly described by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board:
The Florida law bans large social-media platforms from removing the accounts of political candidates, or suppressing posts by or about them. Platforms also can’t take “any action to censor, deplatform, or shadow ban a journalistic enterprise based on the content of its publication or broadcast,” and they must apply their standards “in a consistent manner” among their users.
The Texas law bars platforms from making editorial decisions based on the viewpoint of a user’s expression, which isn’t clearly defined. The law is so broad it could be read to bar platforms from suppressing pro-Nazi speech or content that glorifies eating disorders. Both laws require platforms to explain in detail why posts are removed. Companies could face stiff government penalties and lawsuits.
As Chief Justice John Roberts put it: “What the government’s doing here is saying, ‘You must do this. You must carry these people. You’ve got to explain if you don’t.’ That’s not the First Amendment.”
And he’s right. Congress shall pass no law…
Left-wing justice Elena Kagan echoed Roberts: “Why isn’t that, you know, a classic First Amendment violation for the state to come in and say, ‘We’re not going to allow you to enforce those sorts of restrictions’?”
Roberts spelled it out even more succinctly and grimly, reminding us that the First Amendment bars the government from censoring speech but not private companies. So, he said, “They can discriminate against particular groups that they don’t like.”
Texas Solicitor General Aaron Nielson, though, characterized his state’s law as a “modest effort to regulate” the power of social media platforms that is “nowhere near the heartland of the First Amendment.”
Like we said: This case stinks.
But the First Amendment is the First Amendment. And trust us: We at The Patriot Post have felt the wrath of these speech-stifling leftists, particularly the so-called “news raters.” As our Mark Alexander writes:
You have heard of the so-called “fact-checkers” and “fake news busters” who pose as “journalists” with outfits like USA Today, which has targeted The Patriot Post with fabricated fake fact-checks. Under the pretense of “objective journalism,” their mission is the systemic redlining of free speech — and in ways that are imperceptible to most Americans. They operate primarily under the umbrella of Demo/Leftmedia propagandists who, in recent years, have perfected their scheme to undermine the First Amendment — and, in effect, rig elections.
Monday’s questioning, though, wasn’t entirely one-sided. As NBC News reports, “Justices from across the ideological spectrum raised fears about the power and influence of big social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook and questioned whether the laws should be blocked entirely.” So there’s that.
As SCOTUSblog put it: “The justices pressed [Paul Clement, who represented the trade groups], to discuss the interaction between the Texas law and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which generally shields tech companies from liability for content published by others. Justice Neil Gorsuch told Clement that, in his view, there is a tension between the idea that a tech company can’t be held liable for its users’ speech and the idea that moderating that content is the tech company’s speech. Is it speech for purposes of the First Amendment, he asked, but not for purposes of Section 230?”
“Separating the wheat from the chaff here is pretty difficult,” said Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was the first of three Donald Trump appointees to the High Court.
Justice Clarence Thomas was more pointed in his critique of the Big Tech litigants: “Can you give me one example of a case in which we said that the First Amendment protects the right to censor?”
Justice Samuel Alito, too, seemed more inclined to uphold the Florida and Texas laws. Is content moderation, he asked, “actually more than a euphemism for censorship?”
These are great questions, and the justices have their work cut out for them as they try to strike a balance between free speech and constitutional protection. A landmark decision is expected by this summer.
Israel gives its official report to the UN detailing Hamas’s use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.
Thomas Gallatin
Israel has submitted its official report to the United Nations detailing Hamas’s use of sexual violence in its unprovoked surprise attack on October 7. The 35-page report titled “Silent Cry: Sexual Crimes in the October 7 War” was compiled by the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI).
The report notes that the accounts of rape and sexual violence perpetrated by members of Hamas on innocent Israeli civilians and female soldiers during the attack were neither incidental nor isolated. Rather, the “brutal sexual assaults” were “carried out systematically and deliberately towards Israeli civilians.”
In other words, Hamas intentionally used sadistic sexual violence as a weapon of war to spread terror. “Many of the rapes were carried out as a group, with the participation of violent terrorists,” the report notes. “Often, the rape was perpetrated in front of an audience — partners, family, or friends — in a manner intended to increase the pain and humiliation of all present.”
The stomach-turning report details how Hamas used sexual violence in all four arenas of its attack. Those four arenas, as the Times of Israel reports, were “the Supernova music festival near Re’im; Gaza border communities; military bases infiltrated by Hamas; and abuse of hostages inside the Strip.”
The reason ARCCI sent its report to the UN is so that UN members would have “no room for denial or disregard” of the nature of war crimes that Hamas is guilty of committing. Indeed, the UN has been shockingly sluggish in acknowledging what was known mere hours after Hamas’s murderous attack — primarily due to the fact that Hamas jihadis, in many cases, streamed their atrocities online.
It’s a sad reality that Hamas’s unjustified, brutal, and sadistic attack hasn’t received the universal condemnation it deserves. In fact, the UN has, at best, offered weak instances of objections to Hamas’s brutality, to then quickly turning a judgmental tone toward Israel for effectively responding in defense of its own citizens and sovereignty.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., Joe Biden is attempting to press Israel into accepting a temporary ceasefire — a ceasefire that Hamas leadership has rejected outright in favor of a permanent one, along with demands that Israel pull its troops out of Gaza. In other words, Hamas demands exactly what Israel will not give, and instead of pressuring Hamas, Biden is pressuring Israel.
The reason for this, as we have previously observed, has everything to do with the 2024 presidential race — specifically, the swing state of Michigan, whose metro Detroit area has the nation’s largest population of Arab Americans. This influential voting bloc is furious with Joe Biden for having sided with Israel (and therefore against the Palestinians) in the Jewish state’s war with Hamas.
In yesterday’s Michigan primary, Biden rather easily won the state, but not without more than 100,000 “uncommitted” votes of protest against his support of Israel.
However, given the atrocities committed by Hamas, as the ARCCI report delineates, it is difficult to see how Biden, in good conscience, can do anything else. The eradication of Hamas from Gaza would benefit both Israel and the Palestinians, who have suffered for nearly two decades under that murderous jihadi regime.
Her lonely and seemingly futile battle with Donald Trump may be just what the GOP needs.
Jack DeVine
For the past four weeks in South Carolina, Nikki Haley soldiered on gamely in her quixotic quest to defeat Donald Trump in her home state’s primary election. As predicted by just about everyone, she failed, losing to Trump by about 20 percentage points and picking up only three of 50 convention delegates.
She also picked up more than her share of ridicule and scorn. Trump, his campaign staff, legions of Trump faithful, and conservative media opiners berated her incessantly for raining on the Trump parade. They point out that, at this point, there is no viable path for her to secure the GOP nomination. Worse, many feel that her continued presence in the race is doing real harm.
The consensus view among Haley’s GOP critics is that she is selfishly preventing the GOP from unifying behind the resurgent former president — and that in doing so, she is aiding and abetting Joe Biden’s push for a second term.
That’s a bad look for any Republican politician. But maybe, just maybe, she is singlehandedly delivering a message that few in the GOP want to hear but that is pivotal to its prospects for electoral success in 2024.
It’s this: Trump’s oft-stated view that the Republican Party is “more united than ever before” is a mirage, and absent serious effort on his part to expand his base of support inside the party and among independent voters, he cannot win the general election.
For all the hype about his lopsided primary victories so far, they simply confirm what we already knew — Trump has a lock on his faithful core supporters. That’s a powerful base that can carry him over the top in the fight for the GOP presidential nomination, but it is not nearly large enough to put him back in the White House.
The South Carolina primary is a widely watched contest, a perennial indicator of candidate strength. Trump held a commanding lead throughout, and his win there was a foregone conclusion. The four-week lead-in to last Saturday’s ballot provided a made-to-order opportunity for him to reach beyond his base and begin to build a bigger tent. Instead, Trump being Trump, he and his surrogates devoted their full energy to relentless attacks on “Birdbrain” Nikki Haley.
He won handily, taking about 60% of the vote. But what’s baffling is Team Trump’s casual indifference about the other 40% of primary voters — the Haley supporters whom they insulted daily and whose votes they will need in a few months. Trump may be assuming that by this November, all will be forgiven, and Republicans will all fall in line and support him in toppling Joe Biden. And he’s probably correct on that score, provided, of course, that Biden remains the Democrat nominee — at this point, hardly a sure thing.
The tougher question for Trump is what it will take to broaden his base of support, both within and beyond the Republican Party.
Regarding GOP Trump support, I believe (based only on old-guy intuition) that the GOP electorate is currently split right down the middle — roughly one-half are die-hard Trump supporters, while the other half are voters loosely aligned by their uneasiness in supporting another Trump term, for a variety of reasons.
Some in that latter group (probably a very small fraction) are the so-called Never-Trumpers who will not vote for Trump under any circumstances. But the much larger fraction are conscientious voters who agree with Trump’s positions and who admire his strengths but who continue to believe that he’s the wrong choice for the GOP in 2024. That’s perhaps because of his temperament, or because he would be limited to one term (a lame duck on day one), or maybe just because they realize that a widely reviled (fairly or not) candidate will have great difficulty winning the general election.
Further, I believe that the sentiments of that group, the ones uneasy with but potentially open to a Trump candidacy, mirror very closely those of many independent voters coast to coast — i.e., the ones who ultimately carry the day in this and nearly every presidential election.
Most importantly, I believe that a substantial number of those GOP and independent voter populations can be won over by a presidential nominee who will offer the inspiration, policy positions, and leadership needed for our country to recover from its four-year tailspin under Joe Biden.
The Trump train is picking up steam, remarkably so in the face of so much bitter opposition. Trump’s policies are right for our country. He has the energy and stamina obviously lacking in our current president. If selected as the GOP standard-bearer in the 2024 election, he will be able to win the presidency if — and only if — he taps fully into the available support not already in his camp. If he succeeds, give a nod to Nikki Haley.
The Evolution of Biden’s Border Lies — First, Joe Biden claimed crossings were way down and not a crisis. Now, he’s blaming Republicans for not helping to fix a broken immigration system.
Police Video Shows Truth of ‘Trans’ Teen’s Death — The narrative that ran was that this was clearly an unprovoked act of violence against an LGBTQ+ student. However, public police cam footage tells a different story.
Charles Murray: Race and IQ, Government Welfare, and Crime — Many people hate Charles Murray. They call him “dangerous” because he wrote about racial IQ differences. Angry protestors fail to recognize that Murray is not a white supremacist.
“Let us never forget the extraordinary courage and commitment of brother Aaron Bushnell who died for truth and justice! … Let us rededicate ourselves to genuine solidarity with Palestinians undergoing genocidal attacks in real time!” —Princeton University professor emeritus Cornel West
“Rest in power Aaron Bushnell. … May his sacrifice deepen our commitment to stop genocide now.” —Green Party candidate Jill Stein
Useful Idiot
“The important thing to focus on is any one instance shouldn’t shape our overall immigration policy.” —Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) regarding Laken Riley, who was murdered allegedly by an illegal immigrant
The BIG Lie
“Not … wanting to talk about slavery or the Jim Crow or [the] civil rights movement, it is not who we are supposed to be. … And this is what Republicans are trying to do.” —White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
For the Record
“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. … 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.” —Nate Jackson
“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.” —Nate Jackson
“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.” —Thomas Gallatin
“The unions have never answered a simple question: If the union label is so beneficial to workers, how come you need to force them to join?” —Stephen Moore
“I have been waiting for Donald Trump to do what so many world leaders, both current and former have done: condemn Vladimir Putin for having murdered Alexei Navalny. … As a conservative in the Reagan-Thatcher-John Paul mold, my DNA compels me to rise up against tyrants. That’s why my anger is strongest against my fellow travelers on the right, who have hitched their wagon to a man who compares his legal troubles to the death of a hero.” —Christine Flowers
“The [RINO] insult dates from the 1990s, when it meant a Republican who was squishy on conservative issues. Now it is shorthand for any Republican the former president deems insufficiently loyal personally.” —William McGurn
“Online media was never on a secure footing, dependent as it was not just on advertising — which is true for almost all media — but on the whims of Big Tech. … Fewer newspapers means more centralized power — and more conflict over it. Conservatives who don’t want that have reason to want newspapers to survive. And newspapers that want to survive have to fight hard for local interests and values — including conservative ones.” —Daniel McCarthy
Newsmax was voted by the Conservative Political Action Conference the “most trusted” cable news outlet in America — trouncing rival Fox News by a whopping 34 points, according to a straw poll conducted at the annual conference.
CPAC announced the findings of the survey Sunday after four days of meetings in Washington, D.C.
Each year CPAC organizes the nation’s most influential conservative conference, drawing major political and celebrity figures weighing in on policy issues and political races.
The CPAC poll findings showed:
49% said Newsmax, when asked which network do you “trust the most.”
Only 15% said the same about Fox News.
29% chose “none” of the options as a trusted outlet.
Either CNN or MSNBC was the choice for 1% each.
The survey was conducted by McLaughlin & Associates from Wednesday to Saturday — with a total of 1,478 conservatives participating.
Participants appeared to be happy about Newsmax but were less sanguine about Big Tech platforms and their leaders.
Some 55% of CPAC attendees singled out Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as the Big Tech CEO “doing the most to undermine America.”
Google CEO Sundar Pichai came in second at 32% with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos at 5% and Apple’s Tim Cook at just 1%.
The survey also asked participants what was the best way to combat “woke elites.”
Almost a majority, 46%, said it would be to “give to grassroots efforts to mobilize conservatives.”
Some 25% said donating “directly to candidates for Congress” was the best approach.
Participants completed the survey using a unique six-digit PIN code to eliminate multiple or outside voting.
Chairmen James Comer and Jim Jordan on Tuesday subpoenaed the Justice Department for Special Counsel Robert Hur’s Biden interview records as damaging leaks reveal Biden lied about his interview with Hur.
Comer and Jordan are seeking Biden transcripts, notes, video and audio files of Robert Hur’s 5-hour interview over two days.
🚨 BREAKING: Chairmen Comer and Jordan are subpoenaing the DOJ for Special Counsel Hur’s Joe Biden interview records, including transcripts, notes, video, and audio files. pic.twitter.com/Zwy9uwhAEa
Special Counsel Robert Hur last week released a 345-page report on his investigation of the stolen classified documents.
Biden’s stolen classified documents were scattered all over the place in damaged cardboard boxes and unlocked drawers at the Penn Biden Center. The documents were also easily accessible in Biden’s Delaware garage and basement den.
Robert Hur found that Joe Biden “willfully retained” classified information, however, he decided not to charge him. Hur said there is evidence Biden retained classified notebooks, “knowing he was not allowed to do so.”
The Justice Department defended not bringing charges against Biden because he’s a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Joe Biden attacked Robert Hur during a recent impromptu presser and said, “There is even reference that I don’t remember when my son died. How in the hell dare he raise that?”
It was all a lie. This never happened!
Biden raised the issue with his dead son Beau and he could not correctly recall which year he passed away, according to a leak to NBC News.
Joe Biden’s son Beau died of brain cancer at Walter Reed in Bethesda, Maryland in 2015.
Special Counsel Robert Hur will testify publicly on March 12 about his investigation into Joe Biden’s stolen classified documents.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., weighs in on Sen. Chuck Schumer’s remarks on Ukraine aid as congressional Republicans grapple with securing border funding and Hunter Biden’s highly-anticipated testimony amid the ongoing Biden family probe.
Would you eat Cheerios for dinner? What about Lucky Charms? Many years ago when I was a college student, I would often eat cereal instead of a normal meal in the evening. Needless to say, that wasn’t good for my health at all. But now “cereal for dinner” has become quite trendy. Food prices have soared in recent years and millions of Americans are trying to cut costs anywhere that they can. As the economy continues to implode and more consumers find themselves “under pressure”, the CEO of Kellogg thinks that he will be able to convince even more of us that choosing cereal for dinner is a great way to save money…
Gary Pilnick, CEO of WK Kellogg Co., told CNBC, “When we think about our consumer under pressure, … cereal … has always been quite affordable and it tends to be a great destination when consumers are under pressure.”
He said his company has been focusing on messaging “to reach the consumer where they are, so we’re advertising about cereal for dinner. If you think about the cost of cereal for a family versus what they might otherwise do that’s going to be much more affordable.
“The price of a bowl of cereal with milk and with fruit is less than a dollar so you can imagine where a consumer under pressure might find that to be a good place to go.”
Pilnick said when looking at company data, “breakfast cereal is the number one choice for in home consumption” with over 25% of cereal consumption being outside of breakfast. “Cereal for dinner is something that is probably more on trend now and we would expect to continue as that consumer is under pressure.”
Hey, I have an even better idea.
Instead of eating cereal, all of us could make our dollars stretch even farther by eating pet food for dinner.
Doesn’t that sound great?
At this stage in my life, the idea of eating processed cereals for dinner is just disgusting.
But as food becomes less and less affordable, many Americans will be looking to survive from month to month any way that they can…
The interview followed news from the Wall Street Journal that showed Americans spending 10% or more of their income on food, the most they have in 30 years. Previous reporting from USA TODAY highlights that the average family is spending more than $1,000 on groceries each month.
“The cereal category has always been quite affordable,” Pilnick said. Kellogg, which owns cereals like Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, Corn Flakes and Raisin Bran, “tends to be a great destination when consumers are under pressure,” Pilnick said, adding that the price of cereal with milk and fruit “is less than a dollar.”
This is the real state of our economy.
Most Americans are living right on the edge, and hunger has been rapidly growing all over the nation…
17 million households were not able to get enough food in 2022, according to the administration. In about 6.8 million of those households, a member had to skip meals or make other changes at times because there was not enough money and resources for food.
Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come.
It appears that the economy has taken a sharp negative turn in early 2024. For example, we just learned that consumer confidence declined much more than expected this month…
The survey’s index fell in February to 106.7, down from a reading of 110.9 in January. Americans became less worried about rising food and gas prices, but more concerned about the job market, the survey showed.
“The drop in confidence was broad-based, affecting all income groups except households earning less than $15,000 and those earning more than $125,000,” Dana Peterson, chief economist at The Conference Board, said in a release. “Confidence deteriorated for consumers under the age of 35 and those 55 and over, whereas it improved slightly for those aged 35 to 54.”
Americans’ outlook for the economy in the following months, including their expectations for income and business conditions, declined this month, slipping below a threshold that “often signals recession ahead,” according to the report.
Concerns about the job market are definitely warranted, because large employers are conducting mass layoffs from coast to coast.
Earlier today, we learned that Sony will be laying off 900 employees in its PlayStation division…
Sony becomes the latest company to announce layoffs stating that it will make cuts to its PlayStation division. In the announcement, sent out on Tuesday Feb. 27, the gaming company said that it will lay off 900 employees, about 8% of its workforce, across several of the company’s locations.
Expedia, the online travel agency, is eliminating about 1,500 employees as part of an “organizational and technological transformation.”
The cuts, which amount to nearly 9% of its 17,100-strong global workforce, come amid slowing travel demand following a post-pandemic boom and a broader shakeup at the company, including a new CEO.
Everywhere we look, we see weakness.
Personally, I was greatly saddened to hear that Macy’s has decided to shut down approximately 150 stores…
Macy’s plans to close roughly 150 of its locations over the next three years in a strategy shift that leans more heavily on its luxury Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury chains.
The company announced the shift publicly Tuesday morning, saying it was entering a “bold new chapter” with a new CEO, Tony Spring. Macy’s will be down to 350 stores once all of the planned closures occur.
When will the legacy media finally admit what is happening?
The U.S. economy is rapidly moving in the wrong direction, but they don’t want to admit that because it would make Joe Biden look bad.
The last few months have been volatile – to say the least – for US durable goods orders, with preliminary January data showing an enormous 6.1% MoM plunge in the headline (worse than the already bad 5% decline expected). That is the weakest MoM print since the middle of the COVID lockdowns in April 2020, dragging year-over-year orders growth down to -0.8% – the lowest and first annual contraction since August 2020…
That is a very clear sign that a major economic shift has begun.
American banks filed to close 31 branches in a single week this month, with Wells Fargo and PNC accounting for more than half.
Each of the two banks said they would shut eight branches, across Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, California, Connecticut, North Dakota and New Jersey.
Texas was worse hit, with closures set for Houston, Laredo and Cypress.
Other banks to have announced they would shutter locations between February 11 and 17 include Bank of America, Santander, Chase, Citizens, KeyBank and Legacy.
So much bad economic news is coming in that I can’t possibly keep up with it all.
But the Biden administration insists that everything is just fine.
They would like you to believe that the future is going to be filled with sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.
But that isn’t the truth.
The truth is that the U.S. economy has started to implode, and a lot more Americans are going to be eating cereal for dinner by the end of this calendar year.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.
Many think First Amendment ‘goes too far in the rights it guarantees’
Free speech fights are becoming more and more common these days, as social media play a growing role in people’s lives and the leftist corporate owners insist more and more that only their views should be allowed to be disseminated to the public.
Even Joe Biden’s administration tried to use public money to set up what was described as essentially the same as the “Ministry of Truth” found in the dystopian novel “1984.”
The result isn’t good, according to a new poll, which reveals only 1 in 4 Americans think their right to free speech is secure, and more than two-thirds say the nation’s trajectory on free speech is going the wrong way.
The poll is from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and the Polarization Research Lab.
When asked about “whether people are able to freely express their views,” 69% of respondents said things in America are heading in the wrong direction, compared to only 31% who believe that things are heading in the “right direction,” the polling revealed.
Almost one-third of the respondents, 29%, said free speech is not at all secure.
“The average American already thinks that free speech in America is in dire straits. Most worryingly, they think it will get worse,” said FIRE chief research Adviser Sean Stevens. “These findings should be a wake-up call for the nation to recommit to a vibrant free speech culture before it’s too late.”
The poll was done Jan. 12-19 and FIRE said it is the first installment of a National Speech Index, a new quarterly survey intended to measure support for the First Amendment.
“Polarization not only divides Americans on policy, but it fractures our assessments of the stability of the bedrock features of our democracy,” said PRL Director Sean Westwood. “Nearly half of Democrats think free speech rights are headed in the right direction, compared to only 26 percent of Republicans. And more than a third of Republicans think the right to free speech is not secure, compared to only 17 percent of Democrats.”
The groups reported, “One alarmingly common belief that crosses partisan lines is that idea that the First Amendment ‘goes too far in the rights it guarantees.’ Around a third of Republicans and a third of Democrats ‘completely’ or ‘mostly’ agree with that statement. ”
The survey proposed several statements that, though offensive to some, are protected by the First Amendment.
“Roughly half of respondents (52%) said their community should not allow a public speech that espouses the belief they selected as the most offensive. A supermajority, 69%, said their local college should not allow a professor who espoused that belief to teach classes,” the report said.
Stevens said the results were not surprising, but were disappointing.
“Here at FIRE, we’ve long observed that many people who say they’re concerned about free speech waver when it comes to beliefs they personally find offensive. But the best way to protect your speech in the future is to defend the right to controversial and offensive speech today.”
(Matt Margolis – PJ Media) In an interview with Russian-American computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman, Tucker Carlson declared that the 2020 presidential election was “100% stolen” and explained why.
“You said to some degree the election was rigged,” Fridman began. “Was it stolen?”
“It was 100% stolen,” Carlson replied. “Are you joking?”
“Like, it was rigged to that large—”
“They completely change the way people vote right before the election on the basis of COVID—which had nothing to do with—”
Despite the mounting threats from Russia, North Korea, and China, Joe Biden’s Pentagon has now announced that it is cutting the U.S. Army’s forces by 5 percent, according to reports.
On Tuesday, the thoroughly woke Pentagon announced that it was going to cut the Army’s ranks by an incredible 24,000 soldiers even as it finds difficulties recruiting new members to the service, according to Fox News.
“The Army is not asking current soldiers to leave. As the Army builds backend strength over the next few years, most installations will likely see an increase in the number of soldiers actually stationed there,” the Army said in a statement.
The service added that many of the positions being cut are in the counterinsurgency forces that were built in the wake of the terror attacks that led to the actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army said these forces are in less demand, and it is time to retool the service to face new threats.
Fox News added that there “will be about 10,000 posts cut from the cavalry squadrons, Stryker brigade combat teams, infantry brigade combat teams and security force assistance brigades,” many of which are used to train foreign military forces.
The Pentagon added that the Army is “significantly over-structured” and needs to be revamped with an eye towards larger scale combat as opposed to close combat counterinsurgency operations.
Still, the Army is already down several thousand because it has been unable to get to its authorized, full strength after years of recruitment failures.
The Army is supposed to have 494,000 soldiers, but currently the number stands at only 445,000. With the cuts, the Army still has to recruit 25,000 new soldiers to reach the newly authorized 470,000 troops.
The number may be hard to reach. The Army reported missing its recruitment goals last year by a whopping 41,000. That left the service moving into a recruitment crisis as 2024 kicked off.
Is Biden to blame for lack of recruitment?Yes No
Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge via email. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
The recruitment crisis is so bad that the military has been slowly lowering standards to open the service up to a wider number of possible recruits.
The U.S. Air Force is so desperate to find new recruits that they have raised the age limit to 42 from the previous limit of 39.
Unfortunately, even raising the age limit is not the biggest help since so many of our younger Americans simply don’t qualify for their terrible education, slovenly weight issues, and substandard physical conditions.
A study from 2020, for instance, found that 77 percent of Americans ages 17 to 24 would not qualify to join any of our military branches. The report noted that 11 percent of this group would be disqualified based on their weight alone.
The weight issue has sent the military to create a brand-new program that allows potential recruits to join provisionally as they enter a weight loss training program ahead of boot camp.
The U.S. Army’s Future Soldier Preparatory Course, for one, takes overweight recruits right away if they first spend 90 days to lose enough weight to be sent to basic training. Despite all these desperate efforts to win over new recruits, three of our four branches suffered missed recruitment goals, Military.com reported. Only the Marines met their goals.
Meanwhile, China’s army consists of roughly 2.2 million soldiers and growing. President Xi Jinping’s military is the fastest growing force in the world and tops America’s military by an incredible 800,000 soldiers.
Sadly, as America’s educational system continues to fail to output students educated enough to pass the military entry tests and as Joe Biden further degrades the military with obscenely woke policies, our safety and security is suffering even as the world continues to devolve into a more dangerous place.
Pastor and author John MacArthur criticized the concept of Christian nationalism, telling his congregation the “responsibility of the church is not to advance the kingdom of this world.”
WHAT follows is the final and longest segment of Tucker Carlson’s interview with the former US State cyber security expert Mike Benz which we have been reporting on over the last few days. The full-length recorded interview Uncensored: The National Security State & the Inversion of Democracy is here if you haven’t yet seen it. You can read Part 1 of the transcript here , Part 2 here, Part 3 here and Part 4 here.
In this final part Benz describes the elites’ redefinition of democracy in terms of their defence of institutions – not Parliament or Congress, mind you, but government-funded organisations and their ‘arms’ like NGOs and the legacy – a consensus-building architecture that operates through specific foundations and contracted businesses all manned by former CIA, FBI, DHS and NSA bigwigs. The interview finishes on Elon Musk and X and whether he and his platform can withstand the flank attack from the EU.
The Transcript, Part Five
Mike Benz: [00:47:06] What I’m essentially describing is military rule. I mean what’s happened with the rise of the censorship industry is a total inversion of the idea of democracy itself. You know, democracy sort of draws its legitimacy from the idea that it is rule by consent of the people being ruled. That is, it’s not really being ruled by an overlord, because the government is actually just our will expressed by our consent with who we vote for. The whole push after the 2016 election and after Brexit and after a couple of other, you know, social media-run elections that went the wrong way from (then), what the State Department wanted, like the 2016 Philippines election, was to completely invert everything that we described as being the underpinnings of a democratic society in order to deal with the threat of free speech on the internet. And what they essentially said is we need to redefine democracy from being about the will of the voters to being about the sanctity of democratic institutions.
And who are the democratic institutions?
Oh, it’s us, you know, it’s the military, it’s Nato, it’s the IMF and the World Bank. It’s the mainstream media, who it is, the NGOs. And of course, these NGOs are largely State Department-funded or IC funded. It’s essentially all of the elite establishments under threat from the rise of domestic populism that declared (by) their own consensus to be the new definition of democracy. Because if you define democracy as being the strength of democratic institutions rather than a focus on the will of the voters, then what you’re left with is essentially democracy (that) is just the consensus-building architecture within the democratic institutions themselves. And from their perspective, that takes a lot of work. I mean the amount of work these people do. I mean, for example, we mentioned the Atlantic Council, which is one of these big co-ordinating mechanisms for the oil and gas industry in a region for the finance and the JPMorgans, the BlackRocks in a region, for the NGOs in the region, for the media in the region. All of these need to reach a consensus. And that process takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of work and a lot of negotiation.
From their perspective, that’s democracy. Democracy is getting the NGOs to agree with BlackRock, to agree with the Wall Street Journal, you know, to agree with, you know, the community and activist groups who are onboarded with respect to a particular initiative. That is the difficult vote-building process from their perspective. At the end of the day, a bunch of, you know, populist groups decide that they like a truck driver who’s popular on TikTok more than the carefully constructed consensus of the Nato military brass. Well, then, from their perspective, you know, that is now an attack on democracy. And this is what this whole branding effort was.
And of course, democracy again has that magic regime change predicate, where democracy is our magic watchword to be able to overthrow governments from the ground up in a sort of color revolution style, (a) whole of society effort to toppling a democratically elected government from the inside. For example, as we did in Ukraine. Viktor Yanukovych was democratically elected by the Ukrainian people, like him or hate him. I’m not even issuing an opinion there. But the fact is we color revolutioned him out of office, we January 6th’d him out of office. Actually, to be frank . . . you had, you know, State Department-funded right sector thugs and, you know, $5billion worth of civil society money pumped into this to overthrow a democratically elected government in the name of democracy. And they took that special set of skills home. And now it’s here, perhaps potentially to stay. And this has fundamentally changed the nature of American governance because of the threat of, you know, one small voice becoming popular on social media.
Tucker Carlson: May I ask you a question? So into that, that group of institutions that you say, now define democracy, the NGOs, foreign policy establishment, you included the mainstream media. Now, in 2021, the NSA broke into my private text apps and read them and then leaked them to the New York Times against me. That just happened again to me last week. And I’m wondering how common that is for the intel agencies to work with so-called mainstream media like the New York Times to hurt their opponents.
Benz: Well, that is the function of these interstitial, government funded non-governmental organizations and think tanks. Like, for example, we mentioned the Atlantic Council, which is, you know, Nato’s think tank. But other groups like the Aspen Institute, which draws the lion’s share of its funding from the State Department and other government agencies. You know, the Aspen Institute was busted doing the same thing with the Hunter Biden laptop censorship. You had this strange situation where the FBI had advance knowledge of the pending publication of the Hunter Biden laptop story, and then, magically, the Aspen Institute, which is run by essentially former CIA, former NSA, former FBI, a bunch of sort of civil society organizations, all hold a mass stakeholder censorship simulation, a three-day conference. You know, this came out and Yoel Roth was there. This was a big part of the Twitter file leaks. And it’s been mentioned in multiple congressional investigations. But somehow the Aspen Institute, which is basically an addendum of the national security state, got the exact same information that the national security state spied on journalists and political figures to obtain, and not only leaked it but then basically did a joint co-ordinated censorship simulator in September, two months before the election, in order, just like with the censorship of mail-in ballots, to be in ready position to pre-censor anyone online amplifying a news story that had not even broken yet.
Tucker: The Aspen Institute? . . . Walter Isaacson, formerly of Time magazine, ran it, the former president of CNN. I had no idea it was part of the national security state, I had no idea its funding came from the US government. This is the first time I ever heard that. But assuming what you’re saying is true, it’s a little weird that Walter Isaacson left Aspen Institute to write a biography of Elon Musk. Strange?
Benz: Yeah. I don’t know. I haven’t read that book. From what I’ve heard from people, it’s a relatively fair treatment. I, you know, just total speculation. But I suspect that Walter Isaacson has struggled with this issue and may not even firmly fall in one particular place, in the sense that, you know, Walter Isaacson did a series of interviews of Rick Stengel, actually, with the Atlantic Council, in other settings, where he interviewed Rick Stengel, specifically on the issue of the need to get rid of the First Amendment and the threat that free speech on social media poses to democracy. Now, at the time, I was very concerned. This was between 2017 and 2019 when he did these Rick Stengel interviews. I was very concerned because Isaacson expressed what seemed to me to be a highly sympathetic view about the Rick Stengel perspective on killing the First Amendment. Now, he didn’t formally endorse that position, but it left me very skittish about Isaacson.
But what I should say is, at the time I don’t think very many people, in fact I know virtually nobody in the country, had any idea how deep the rabbit hole went when it came to the construction of the censorship industry and how deep the tentacles had grown within the military, in the national security state, in order to Bouie and consolidated much of that, frankly, did not even come to public light until even last year. Frankly, some of that was galvanized by Elon Musk’s acquisition in the Twitter files and the Republican turnover in the House that allowed these multiple investigations – the lawsuits like Missouri v Biden in the discovery process there. And multiple other things like the Disinformation Governance Board, the interim head of that, Nina Jankowicz, got her start in the censorship industry from this exact same clandestine intelligence community censorship network created after the 2014 Crimea situation. Nina Jankowicz, when her name came up in 2022, is part of the Disinformation Governance Board. I almost fell out of my chair because I had been tracking Nina’s network for almost five years at that point, when her name came up as part of the UK inner cluster cell of a busted clandestine operation to censor the internet called the Integrity Initiative, which was created by the UK Foreign Office and was backed by Nato’s Political Affairs Unit in order to carry out this thing that we talked about at the beginning of this dialog, the Nato, sort of psychological inoculation and ability to kill so-called Russian propaganda or rising political groups who wanted to maintain energy relations with Russia at a time when the US was trying to kill the Nord Stream and another pipeline relation.
Carlson: Well, they did that.
Benz: Nina Jankowicz was a part of this outfit. And then who is the head of it after Nina Jankowicz went down? It was Michael Chertoff, and Michael Chertoff was running the Aspen Institute Cyber Group, and then the Aspen Institute then goes on to be the censorship simulator for the Hunter Biden laptop story. And then two years later, Chertoff is then the head of the disinformation governance board after Nina was forced to step down. Of course, Michael Chertoff was the chairman at the largest military contractor in Europe, BAE Military.
Carlson: So you’ve blown my mind so many times in this conversation that I’m going to need a nap directly after it’s done. So I’ve just got two more questions for you. One short, one a little longer. The short one is, for people who’ve made it this far – an hour in – and want to know more about this topic. And by the way, I hope you’ll come back whenever you have the time to explore different threads of the story. But for people who want to do research on their own, how can your research on this be found on the internet?
Benz: Sure. So our foundation is FoundationForFreedomOnline.com. We publish all manner of reports on every aspect of the censorship industry from what we talked about with the role of the military industrial complex in national security, state to what the universities are doing to, you know, like I sometimes refer to as digital MKUltra, there’s just the field of basically the science of censorship and how and the funding of these psychological manipulation methods in order to nudge people into different belief systems, as they did with covid, as they did with energy and every sensitive policy issues, what they essentially had an ambition for. But my FoundationForFreedomOnline.com website is one way. The other way is just on X. My handle is @Mike Benz Cyber. I’m very active there and publish a lot of long form video and written content on all this. I think it’s one of the most important issues in the world today.
Carlson: It certainly is. And so that leads directly and seamlessly to my final question, which is about X. And I’m not just saying this because I post content there, but I think objectively it’s the last big platform that’s free or sort of free or more free. You post there too. But, you know, we’re at the very beginning of an election year with a couple of different wars unfolding simultaneously in 2024. So do you expect that that platform can stay free for the duration of this year?
Benz: It’s under an extraordinary amount of pressure, and that pressure is going to continue to mount as the election approaches. Elon Musk is a very unique individual, and he has a unique buffer, perhaps when it comes to the national security state, because the national security state is actually quite reliant on Elon Musk properties, whether that’s for the, the electrical, you know, the sort of the green revolution when it comes to Tesla and, and the battery technology there when it comes, when it comes to Space X. The State Department is hugely dependent on space, because of its unbelievable sort of pioneering and saturating presence in the field of low Earth orbit satellites that are basically how our telecom system runs to things like Starlink.
There are dependencies that the national security state has on Elon Musk. I’m not sure he’d have as much room to negotiate if he had become the world’s richest man selling at a lemonade stand. And if the national security state goes too hard on him by invoking something like CFIUS to sort of nationalize some of these properties, I think the shockwave that it would send to the international investor community would be irrecoverable at a time when we’re engaged in great power competition.
So they’re trying to kill, they’re trying to sort of induce I think, a sort of corporate regime change through a series of things involving a sort of death by a thousand paper cuts. I think there are seven or eight different Justice Department or SEC or FTC investigations into Elon Musk properties that all started after his acquisition of X. But then what they’re trying to do right now is what I call the transatlantic flank attack 2.0. We talked in this dialogue about how the censorship industry really got its start when a bunch of State Department exiles who were expecting promotions took their special set of skills in coercing European countries to pass sanctions on themselves to cut off their own leg despite themselves, in order to pass sanctions on Russia. They ran back that same playbook by doing a roadshow for censorship instead of for sanctions. We are now witnessing, you know, transatlantic flank attack 2.0, if you will, which is because they have lost a lot of their federal government powers to do this same censorship operation they been doing from 2018 to 2022, in part because the House has totally turned on them, in part because of the media, in part because Missouri v. Biden, which won a slam dunk case actually banning government censorship at the trial court and appellate court levels, is now before the Supreme Court.
They’ve now moved into two strategies. One of them is state level censorship laws. California just passed a new law which the censorship industry totally drove from start to finish around. They call it platform accountability and transparency which is basically forcing Elon Musk to give over the kind of narrative mapping data that these CIA conduits and Pentagon cutouts were using to create these weapons of mass deletion, these abilities to just censor everything at scale because they had all the internal platform data. Elon Musk took that away. They’re using state laws like this new California law to crack that open.
But the major threat right now is the threat from Europe with something called the EU Digital Services Act, which was cooked up in tandem with folks like Newsguard, which (has a board) run by Michael Hayden, head of the CIA, NSA, four-star general and Rick Stengel is on that board. You know, from the State Department’s propaganda office. Tom Ridge is on that board from the Department of Homeland Security. Oh, and Anders Fogh Rasmussen is on that board. He was the general secretary of Nato under the Obama administration. So you have Nato, the CIA, the NSA, four-star general, DHS, and the State Department working with the EU to craft the censorship laws that now are the largest existential threat to X other than potential advertiser boycotts, because there is now disinformation is now banned as a matter of law in, in the EU.
And the EU is a bigger market for X than the US. There’s only (some) 300million people in the US, there’s 450million in Europe. X is now forced to comply with this brand new law that just got ratified this year, where they either need to forfeit 6 per cent of their global annual revenue to the EU to maintain operations there or put in place essentially the kind of, you know, CIA bumper cars, if you will, that I’ve been describing over the course of this, in order to have an internal mechanism to censor anything that the EU, which is just a proxy for Nato, deems to be disinformation. And you can bet with 65 elections around the globe this year, you can predict every single time what they’re going to define disinformation as. So that’s the main fight right now – dealing with the transatlantic flank attack from Europe.
Carlson: I said this five times, but that’s just one of the most remarkable stories I’ve ever heard. And I’m grateful to you for bringing it to us. Mike Benz, Executive Director of the Foundation for Freedom Online. And I hope we see you again.
(Matt Margolis – PJ Media) In an interview with Russian-American computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman, Tucker Carlson declared that the 2020 presidential election was “100% stolen” and explained why.
Truth2Freedom's Blog 