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
Deuteronomy 34:1 — The view from Mount Nebo today:
Deuteronomy 34:10 — Jacob saw God face to face (Genesis 32:30). Gideon saw the Angel of the LORD face to face (Judges 6:22). One day the LORD will plead with His people face to face (Ezekiel 20:35). So why does the Lord say He knew Moses face to face? Perhaps because we see the phrase “And the LORD spoke unto Moses” 105 times in the Bible. God spoke to others in the Old Testament as well, but as far as I can tell no one as much as Moses.
Moses only had 5 books of the Bible and limited access to God. We have 66 books and unlimited access to His throne. What are you waiting for?
Joshua 1:2 — The LORD told Joshua to Go (Joshua 1:2), take the Gift (Joshua 1:3), a Great gift (Joshua 1:4), with His Guarantee (Joshua 1:5). We have a similar guarantee (Matthew 28:20).
Joshua 1:8 — The only place the word “success” is found in the KJV Bible is in this verse. By meditating on the Torah – the only books of the Bible that Joshua had – he could be prosperous and successful. How exactly?
Be strong (Joshua 1:6)
Go straight (Joshua 1:7)
Be searching (Joshua 1:8a)
Be submitting (Joshua 1:8b)
Joshua 2:10 — Isn’t it great to hear that people are testifying not of how wonderful they are but of how amazing the LORD is? This leads people to recognize who the LORD is (Joshua 2:11).
Also notice the LORD’s earthly ownership (Joshua 2:9a), emotional ownership (Joshua 2:9b), and eternal ownership (Joshua 2:11).
Luke 13:26 — Sobering words from our Lord.
Luke 13:31 — Jesus had an interesting relationship with Herod as well as the Pharisees. Here it seems that the Pharisees are trying to protect Jesus, and in Luke 14:1, one of the chief Pharisees is hosting Jesus.
Psalm 79:8 — An echo of Psalm 51.
Proverbs 12:26 — Seduce:
to attract (someone) to a belief or into a course of action that is inadvisable or foolhardy.
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Sean McDowell is an author, apologist and Bible teacher; he has authored many books, including co-authoring books with his dad, Josh McDowell. Sean and David discuss how the world’s secularized worldview, the decline of biblical churches, and what we need to do to help change things one relationship at a time.
[Original airdate: 1/23/24] We welcome back Pastor and Bible Scholar Andy Woods of Sugarland Bible Church. Andy is a wealth of biblical insights and reasoned responses to countless passages and doctrines that Christians should be thinking through and studying faithfully. Today we discuss Israel with a wide lens, some of the questions that have arisen in the last 100 days referencing not only the latest news but the source of some confusion. Why do so few pastors bother to teach about Israel? We also take a look at the Pre-Wrath rapture position. Who started it? How does it fit into dispensationalism and a systematic study of prophecy? Check out the website linked above for archives, Dr. Woods is on Truth Social here.
The following is taken from Thomas Brooks, The Secret Key to Heaven: The Vital Importance of Private Prayer(Puritan Paperbacks). After detailing the great privilege of private prayer, and why it is of the essence of the true Christian life, he anticipates and answers several common objections to its practice:
First Objection. But many will be ready to object and say, We have much business upon our hands, and we cannot spare time for private prayer; we have so much to do in our shops, and in our warehouses, and in public with others, that we cannot spare time to wait upon the Lord in our closets.
Now to this objection I shall give these eight answers, so that this objection may never have a resurrection more in any of your hearts.
First, what are all those businesses that are upon your hands, to those businesses and weighty affairs that lay upon the hands of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Daniel, Elijah, Nehemiah, Peter, Cornelius1? And yet you find all these worthies exercising themselves in private prayers. And the king is commanded every day to read some part of God’s word, notwithstanding all his great and weighty employments (Deut. 17:18–20). Now certainly, sirs, your great businesses are little more than zeros compared with theirs. And if there were any on earth that might have pleaded an exemption from private prayer, upon the account of business, of much business, of great business, these might have done it; but they were more honest and more noble than to neglect so choice a duty, upon the account of much business. These brave hearts made all their public employments stoop to private prayer; they would never suffer their public employments to tread private prayer underfoot. But,
Secondly, I answer, No men’s outward affairs did ever more prosper than theirs did, who devoted themselves to private prayer, notwithstanding their many and great worldly employments.
Witness the prosperity and outward flourishing estates of Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Nehemiah, David, Daniel, and Cornelius. These were much with God in their closets, and God blessed their blessings to them (Gen. 22:17). How their cups overflowed! What signal favours did God heap upon them and theirs! No families have been so prospered, protected, and graced, as theirs who have maintained secret communion with God in a corner (1 Chron. 11:9). Private prayer best expedites our temporal affairs. He that prays well in his closet, shall be sure to speed well in his shop, or at his plough, or whatever else he turns his hand to (1 Tim. 4:8). It is true, Abimelech was rich as well as Abraham, and so was Laban rich as well as Jacob, and Saul was a king as well as David, and Julian was an emperor as well as Constantine; but it was only Abraham, Jacob, David, and Constantine, who had their blessings blessed unto them; all the rest had their blessings cursed unto them (Prov. 3:33; Mal. 2:2). They had many good things, but they had not ‘the good will of him that dwelt in the bush’ with what they had; and therefore all their mercies were but bitter-sweets unto them. Though all the sons of Jacob returned laden from Egypt with corn and money in their sacks, yet only Benjamin had the silver cup in the mouth of his sack. So though the men of the world have their corn and their money, etc., yet it is only God’s Benjamins that have the silver cup, the grace cup, the cup of blessing, as the apostle calls it, for their portion (1 Cor. 10:16). O sirs! as ever you would prosper and flourish in the world; as ever you would have your water turned into wine, your temporal mercies into spiritual benefits, be much with God in your closets. But,
Thirdly, I answer, it is ten to one but that the objector every day fools away, or fritters away, or idles away, or sins away, one hour in a day, and why then should he complain of a lack of time2?
There are none that toil and moil and busy themselves most in their worldly employments but do spend an hour or more in a day to little or no purpose, either in gazing about, or in dallying, or toying, or courting, or in telling of stories, or in busying themselves in other men’s matters, or in idle visits, or in smoking a pipe, etc.35 And why then should not these men redeem an hour’s time in a day for private prayer, out of that time which they usually spend so vainly and idly? Can you, notwithstanding all your great worldly employments, find an hour in the day to catch flies in, as Domitian the emperor did? and to play the fool in? and cannot you find an hour in the day to wait on God in your closets?
There were three special faults of which Cato professed himself to have seriously repented: one was travelling by water when he might have gone by land; another was trusting a secret in a woman’s bosom; but the main one was spending an hour unprofitably. This heathen will one day rise up in judgment against them who, notwithstanding their great employments, spend many hours in a week unprofitably, and yet cry out with the Duke of Alva ‘that they have so much to do on earth, that they have no time to look up to heaven’. It was a base and sordid spirit in King Sardanapalus, who spent much of his time amongst women in spinning and carding, which should have been spent in ruling and governing his kingdom. So it is a base, sordid spirit in any to spend any of their time in toying and trifling, and then to cry out that they have so much business to do in the world, that they have no time for closet prayer, they have no time to serve God, nor to save their own precious and immortal souls. But,
Fourthly, I answer, no man dares plead this objection before the Lord Jesus in the great day of account (Eccles. 11:9; Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10). And why then should any man be so childish and foolish, so ignorant and impudent to plead that before men which is not pleadable before the judgment seat of Christ? O sirs! as you love your souls, and as you would be happy for ever, never put off your own consciences nor others’ with any pleas, arguments, or objections now, that you dare not own and stand by when you shall lie upon a dying bed, and when you shall appear before the whole court of heaven. In the great day of account, when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, and God shall call men to a reckoning before angels, men, and devils, for the neglect of private prayer, all guilty persons will be found speechless: there will not be a man or woman found, that shall dare to stand up and say, ‘Lord, I would have waited upon you in my closet, but that I had so much business to do in the world that I had no time to enjoy secret communion with you in a corner.’ It is the greatest wisdom in the world, to plead nothing by way of excuse in this our day, that we dare not plead in the great day. But,
Fifthly, I answer, that it is our duty to redeem time from all our secular businesses for private prayer3. All sorts of Christians, whether bond or free, rich or poor, high or low, superiors or inferiors, are expressly charged by God to redeem time for prayer, for private prayer, as well as for other holy exercises: Col. 4:2, 3, ‘Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds.’
But here some may object and say, We have so much business to do in the world that we have no time for prayer. The apostle answers this objection in verse 5, ‘Walk in wisdom towards them that are without, redeeming the time.’ So Eph. 5:16, ‘Redeeming the time, because the days are evil’; ἐξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν χαιρόν, or buying out, or gaining the time. The words are a metaphor taken from merchants, who prefer the least profit that may be gained before their pleasures or delights, closely following their business whilst the markets are at best. A merchant when he comes to a mart or fair, takes the first season and opportunity of buying his commodities; he takes no risk in putting it off to the evening, or to the next morning, in the hope of getting a better bargain, but he makes the most of the present time, and buys before the market is over.
Others understand the words thus: ‘Purchase at any rate, all occasions and opportunities of doing good, that by doing so you may, in some way, redeem that precious jewel of time which you have formerly lost.’ Like travellers that have loitered by the way, or stayed long at their inn, when they find night coming upon them, they mend their pace, and go as many miles in an hour as they did before in many. Though time let slip is physically irrecoverable, yet in a moral consideration, it is accounted as regained, when men double their care, diligence, and endeavours to redeem it. The best Christian is he who is the greatest monopoliser of time for private prayer; who redeems time from his worldly occasions and his lawful comforts and recreations, to be with God in his closet. David having tasted of the sweetness, goodness, and graciousness of God, cannot keep his bed, but will borrow some time from his sleep, that he might take some turns in paradise, and pour out his soul in prayer and praises when no eye was open to see him, nor no ear open to hear him, but all were asleep round about him, Psa. 63:6; Psa. 119:62, ‘At midnight will I arise to give thanks unto thee.’ Verse 147, ‘I have prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried.’ David was up and at private prayer before daybreak. David was no sluggish Christian, no slothful Christian, no lazy Christian: he used to be in his closet when others were sleeping in their beds. So verse 148, ‘Mine eyes prevent the night-watches, that I might meditate in thy word.’ So Psa. 130:6, ‘My soul waiteth for the Lord, more than they that watch for the morning; I say, more than they that watch for the morning.’ Look, as the weary sentinel in a dark, cold, wet night, waits and peeps, and peeps and waits for the appearance of the morning; so David did wait and peep, and peep and wait for the first and fittest season to pour out his soul before God in a corner. David would never suffer his worldly business to jostle out holy exercises; he would often borrow time from the world for private prayer, but he would never borrow time from private prayer to bestow it upon the world.
John Bradford, the martyr, counted that hour lost in which he did not do some good, either with his pen, tongue, or purse.
Ignatius, when he heard a clock strike, used to say, ‘Now I have one more hour to answer for.’
So the primitive Christians would redeem some time from their sleep, that they might be with God in their closets, as Clemens observes. And I have read of the emperor Theodosius that after the variety of worldly employments relating to his civil affairs in the day time were over, he was wont to consecrate the greatest part of the night to the studying of the Scriptures and private prayer; to which purpose he had a lamp so cleverly made, that it supplied itself with oil, that so he might not be interrupted in his private retirements.
That time ought to be redeemed is a lesson that has been taught by the very heathens themselves. It was the saying of Pittacus, one of the seven wise men, ‘Know time, lose not a minute.’ And so Theophrastus used to say, ‘Time is of precious cost.’ And so Seneca: ‘Time is the only thing’, says he, ‘that we can innocently be covetous of; and yet there is nothing of which many are more lavishly and profusely prodigal.’ And Chrestus, a sophist of Byzantium in the time of Hadrian the emperor, was much given to wine; yet, he always counted time so precious, that when he had misspent his time all the day, he would redeem it at night.
When Titus Vespasian, who revenged Christ’s blood on Jerusalem, returned victor to Rome, remembering one night as he sat at supper with his friends, that he had done no good that day, he uttered this memorable and praiseworthy apophthegm, Amici, diem perdidi, ‘My friends, I have lost a day.’
Chilo, one of the seven sages, being asked what was the hardest thing in the world to be done, answered, ‘To use and employ a man’s time well.’ Cato held that an account must be given, not only of our labour, but also of our leisure. And Aelian gives this testimony of the Lacedaemonians, ‘that they were hugely covetous of their time, spending it all about necessary things, and suffering no citizen either to be idle or play.’ And, another says, ‘We trifle with that which is most precious, and throw away that which is our greatest interest to redeem.’
Certainly, these heathens will rise in judgment, not only against Domitian the Roman emperor, who spent much of his time in killing flies; nor only against Archimedes, who spent his time in drawing lines on the ground when Syracuse was taken; nor against Artaxerxes, who spent his time in making handles for knives; nor only against Sulaiman the great Turk, who spent his time in making notches of horn for bows; nor only against Eropas, a Macedonian king, who spent his time in making lanterns; nor only against Hyrcanus the king of Parthia who spent his time in catching moles; but also against many professors who, instead of redeeming precious time, do trifle and fool away much of their precious time at the glass, the comb, the lute, the viol, the pipe, or vain sports, and foolish pastimes, or by idle jestings, immoderate sleeping, and superfluous feasting, etc.
O sirs! Good hours, and blessed opportunities for closet prayer are merchandise of the highest value and price; and therefore, whosoever has a mind to be rich in grace, and to be high in glory, should buy up that merchandise, they should continually redeem precious time.
O sirs! we should redeem time for private prayer out of our eating time, our drinking time, our sleeping time, our buying time, our selling time, our sinning time, our sporting time, rather than neglect our closet communion with God, etc. But,
Sixthly, I answer, Closet prayer is either a duty or it is no duty. Now that it is a duty, I have so strongly proved, I suppose, that no man nor devil can fairly or honestly deny it to be a duty. And therefore, why do men cry out of their great business? Alas! duty must be done whatever business is left undone; duty must be done, or the man who neglects it will be undone for ever. It is a vain thing to complain of business, when a required duty is to be performed; and, indeed, if the bare objecting of business, of much business, were enough to excuse men from duty, I am afraid that there are but few duties of the gospel, but men would try to evade under a pretence of business, of much business. He who pretends business to evade private prayer, will be as ready to pretend business to evade family prayer; and he that pretends business to evade family prayer, will be as ready to pretend business to evade public prayer.
Well, sirs! remember what became of those that excused themselves out of heaven, by their carnal apologies, and secular businesses: Luke 14:16–24. ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it; I pray thee, have me excused,’ says one. ‘I have bought’, says another, ‘five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them; I pray thee, have me excused.’ And, ‘I have married a wife’, says another, ‘and therefore I cannot come.’ The true reason why they would not come to the supper that the King of kings had invited them to was, not because they had bought farms and oxen, but because their farms and oxen had bought them. The things of the world and their carnal relations had taken up so much room in their hearts and affections, that they had no stomach for heaven’s delicacies; and therefore it is observable what Christ adds at the end of the parable, ‘He that hateth not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also’, much more his farm and oxen, ‘he cannot be my disciple,’ verse 26. By these words, it is evident, that it was not simply the farm nor the oxen, nor the wife, but a foolish, inordinate, carnal love and esteem of these things, above better and greater blessings, that made them refuse the gracious invitation of Christ. They refused the grace and mercy of God offered in the gospel, under a pretence of worldly business; and God peremptorily concludes, that not one of them should taste of his supper.
And indeed what can be more just and righteous, than that they should never so much as taste of spiritual and eternal blessings, who prefer their earthly business before heaven’s dainties, prefer a country commodious for the feeding of their cattle, before an interest in the land of promise. Private prayer is a work of absolute necessity, both to the bringing of the heart into a good frame, and to the keeping of the heart in a good frame. It is of absolute necessity, both for the discovery of sin, and for the preventing of sin, and for the purging away of sin. It is of absolute necessity, both for the discovery of grace, and for a full exercise of grace, and for an eminent increase of grace. It is of absolute necessity to arm us, both against inward and outward temptations, afflictions, and sufferings. It is of absolute necessity to fit us for all other duties and services. For a man to glorify God, to save his own soul, and to further his own everlasting happiness, is a work of the greatest necessity. Now private prayer is such a work; and therefore why should any man plead business, great business, when a work of such absolute necessity is before him? If a man’s child or wife were dangerously sick, or wounded, or near to death, he would never plead, ‘I have business, I have a great deal of business to do, and therefore I cannot stay with my child, my wife; and I have no time to go or send for the physician’, etc. Oh no! but he would rather argue thus: ‘It is absolutely necessary that I should look after the preservation of the life of my child, my wife, and this I will attend whatever becomes of my business.’ O sirs! your souls are of greater concern to you than the lives of all the wives and children in the world; and therefore these must be attended to, these must be saved, whatever business is neglected. But,
Seventhly, I answer, That God did never appoint or design any man’s ordinary, particular calling to throw private prayer out of doors4.
That it is a great sin for any professing Christian to neglect his particular calling under any religious pretence is evident enough by these Scriptures – Exod. 20:9, ‘Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work’; 1 Cor. 7:20, ‘Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called’; 2 Thess. 3:10–12, ‘For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread’; 1 Thess. 4:11, 12, ‘And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing’; Eph. 4:28, ‘But rather let him labour, working with his own hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth’; 1 Tim. 5:8, ‘But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.’ Yes, our Lord Jesus Christ was a plain, downright carpenter, and was worked hard in that particular calling till he entered upon the public ministry, as all the old writers do agree (Mark 6:3; Matt. 13:55, 56). And we read also that all the patriarchs had their particular callings. Abel was a keeper of sheep (Gen. 4:2); Noah was a husbandman (Gen. 5:29); the sons of Jacob were shepherds and keepers of cattle (Gen. 46:34), etc.; and all the apostles, before they were called to the work of the ministry, had their particular callings. By the law of Mohammed, the great Turk himself is bound to exercise some manual trade or occupation.
Solon made a law5, that the son should not be bound to relieve his father when old, unless he had set himself in his youth to some occupation. And at Athens, every man gave a yearly account to the magistrate by what trade or course of life he maintained himself, which, if he could not do, he was banished. And it is by all writers condemned as a very great vanity in Dionysius that he must be the best poet, and Caligula, that he must be the best orator; and in Nero, that he must be the best fiddler; and so became the three worst princes, by minding more other men’s business than their own particular calling.
But for a man to evade or neglect private prayer under pretence of his particular calling, is agreeable to no Scripture, but is contrary to very many Scriptures, as is evident by the many arguments formerly cited. Certainly no man’s calling is a calling away from God or godliness. It never entered into the heart of God that our particular callings should ever drive out of doors our general calling of Christianity. Look, as our general calling must not eat up our particular calling, so our particular calling must not eat up our general calling. Certainly our particular calling must give place to our general calling. Did not the woman of Samaria leave her water-pot, and run into the city, and say, ‘Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ’ (John 4:28, 29)? Did not the shepherds leave their flocks in the field, and go to Bethlehem, and declare the good tidings of great joy that they had heard of the angel, viz. ‘That there was born that day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which was Christ the Lord’ (Luke 2:8–21)? And did not Christ commend Mary for that holy neglect of her particular calling, when she sat at his feet, and heard his word (Luke 10:38ff.)? And what do all these instances show, but that our particular callings must give the right hand to the general calling of Christianity? Certainly the works of our general calling are far more great and glorious, more eminent and excellent, more high and noble, than the works of our particular callings are; and therefore it is much more tolerable for our general calling to borrow time of our particular calling than it is for our particular calling to borrow time of our general calling. Certainly those men are very ignorant or very profane, that either think themselves so closely tied up to follow their particular callings six days in the week, as that they must not intermeddle with any religious services, or that think their particular callings to be a gulf or a grave designed by God to swallow up private prayer in. God, who is the Lord of time, has reserved some part of our time to himself every day. Though the Jews were commanded to labour six days of the week, yet they were commanded also to offer up morning and evening sacrifice daily (Deut. 6:6–8; Exod. 29:38, 39; Num. 28:3).
The Jews divided the day into three parts: The first, to prayer; The second, for the reading of the law; And the third, for the works of their lawful callings.
As bad as the Jews were, yet they every day set a part of the day apart for religious exercises. Certainly they are worse than Jews that spend all their time about their particular callings, and shut closet prayer quite out of doors. Certainly that man’s soul is in a very ill case, who is so entangled with the encumbrances of the world, that he can spare no time for private prayer. If God be the Lord of your mercies, the Lord of your time, and the Lord of your soul, how can you, with any equity or honour, put off his service under a pretence of much business? That man is lost, that man is cursed, who can find time for anything, but none to meet with God in his closet. That man is doubtless upon the brink of ruin, whose worldly business eats up all thoughts of God, of Christ, of heaven, of eternity, of his soul, and of his soul concerns. But,
Eighthly, and lastly, I answer, the more worldly business lies upon your hand, the more need you have to keep close to your closet.
Much business lays a man open to many sins, and to many snares, and to many temptations. Now, the more sins, snares, and temptations a man’s business lays him open to, the more need that man has to be much in private prayer, that his soul may be kept pure from sin, and that his foot may not be taken in the devil’s trap, and that he may stand fast in the hour of temptation. Private prayer is so far from being a hindrance to a man’s business, that it is the way of ways to bring down a blessing from heaven upon a man’s business (Psa. 1:2, 3; 127:1, 2; 128:1, 2); as the first-fruits that God’s people gave to him brought down a blessing from heaven upon all the rest (Deut. 26:10, 11). Whet is no let6; prayer and provender never hinders a journey.
Private prayer can be likened to Jacob, who brought down a blessing from heaven upon all that Laban had (Gen. 30:27, 30). Private prayer gives a man a sanctified use, both of all his earthly comforts, and of all his earthly business; and this David and Daniel found by experience; and therefore it was not their great public employments that could take them off from their private duties. Time spent in heavenly employments, is no time lost from worldly business (Deut. 28:1–8).
Private prayer makes all we take in hand successful. Closet prayer has made many rich, but it never made any man poor or beggarly in this world. No man on earth knows what may be the emergencies, or the occurrences of a day: Prov. 27:1, ‘Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.’ Every day is, as it were, a heavily-pregnant day; every day is as it were with child of something, but what it will bring forth, whether a cross or a comfort, no man can tell; as when a woman is with child, no man can tell what kind of birth it will be.
No man knows what mercies a day may bring forth, no man knows what miseries a day may bring forth; no man knows what good a day may bring forth, no man knows what evil a day may bring forth; no man knows what afflictions a day may bring forth, no man knows what temptations a day may bring forth; no man knows what liberty a day may bring forth, no man knows what bonds a day may bring forth; no man knows what good success a day may bring forth, no man knows what bad success a day may bring forth; and therefore, a man had need be every day in his closet with God, that he may be prepared and fitted to entertain and improve all the occurrences, successes, and emergencies that may attend him in the course of his life. And let thus much suffice for answer to this first objection.
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Houthis Claim Attacks on Israeli, UK, and U.S. Vessels in Red Sea Houthi forces based in Yemen say the have launched rockets and drones targeting vessels from Israel and the United Kingdom, as well as a United States warship, within the last 72 hours in the Red Sea.
‘Ashkenazi Jews are the problem’: ‘Post’ reveals antisemitism of booted Reform UK candidate A Reform UK Party candidate for Orpington was removed from the candidate list after an NGO highlighted tweets by the politician that included denouncing Ashkenazi Jews, but The Jerusalem Post has since found a more extensive history of such statements and an article about anti-Jewish conspiracies on the blog he edited.
‘No Israeli embassies are safe,’ Iran warns Concerns about a wider regional conflict in the Middle East deepened Sunday as a top Iranian military adviser warned Israel that none of its embassies were safe following last week’s strike in Damascus — blamed on Israel — that killed two elite Iranian generals and flattened an Iranian consular building.
Six months into the war, Gaza could become secondary arena “I think by now everybody understands the problem is not Gaza. The problem is Iran. Iran is behind all of this,” said Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin last week. “Iran is enjoying the fact that Israel was diverted toward a front in Gaza. Most of the world is ignoring the fact that Iran continues to advance to a nuclear weapon,” said Yadlin,
We have completed preparations for an Iranian attack, says DM Gallant in security assessment Defense Minister Yoav Gallant held an operational assessment of Israeli military forces in light of an anticipated escalation in the north due to the assassinationof the Iranian IRGC senior official Brig.-Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi last week. Israel has still not officially claimed responsibility for the attack. At the end of the assessment, Gallant said that “the defense establishment has completed its preparations for a response against any scenario that develops vis-à-vis Iran.”
IDF withdraws most forces from Khan Younis ahead of planned Rafah operation IDF will shift to targeted raids based on recent intelligence gains. According to Hebrew news reports, the IDF considers its main operations in Khan Younis to be completed and has withdrawn most brigades from the neighborhood.
‘We are far from stopping,’ says IDF chief after 6 months of war; ‘Very significant achievements’ but goals not fully reached Despite the pullout of most of the Israeli troops overnight, Halevi stressed that the war was continuing. “We are far from stopping. Senior Hamas officials are still hiding. We will reach them sooner or later. We are advancing, continuing to eliminate more terrorists and commanders and destroy more terrorist infrastructure.” “We will not leave any Hamas brigades active – in any part of the Gaza Strip,” he vowed.
Conservative MP targeted by Communist China says he feels ‘betrayed’ by Canadian gov’t Kenny Chiu said he was never shown copies of any security warnings that he was a target of CCP agents and subsequently lost his re-election bid in 2021. “I have been betrayed,” said Chiu, who served as MP for Steveston-Richmond East, British Columbia, from 2019 to 2020, during testimony at the Commission on Foreign Interference earlier this week. In the past, Chiu had suspected that there were indeed CCP operatives working to undermine his campaign.
Severe storms packing large hail, tornadoes eye South nearly every day this week The total solar eclipse may be eclipsing weather news, but severe storms with very large hail, damaging wind gusts and possible tornadoes will threaten the southern Plains, Gulf Coast and other parts of the South nearly every day this week. The most dangerous threat could be the potential for overnight tornadoes.
Over 300,000 power outages reported in Colorado from hurricane-force wind gusts The threat of wind gusts to 100 mph and low humidity has triggered National Weather Service offices from the Desert Southwest to the Rockies and Plains to issue a variety of weather alerts warning of the potential for damaging winds and fast-moving fires.
Is It Just Coincidence That a Magnitude “4.8” Earthquake Hit Our Largest Metropolitan Area Just Days Before “4/8”? Oh, is this a question that I am not supposed to be asking? Following the earthquake that shook up the Big Apple on Friday, a lot of people were suggesting that it seemed really weird that a magnitude “4.8” earthquake would hit our largest metropolitan area just days before the Great American Eclipse of 2024 passes over the United States on “4/8.”
7-Year Wait Is Over: 99% Of Americans Will Be Able To See Either Partial Or Total Solar Eclipse April 8th …The most ominous in the entire history of the United States is about to pass over our heads, and even though so many of us have been making so much noise about it for so many years, most of the population does not seem alarmed at all. In fact, for much of the population the Great American Eclipse of 2024 will be just another opportunity to party.
Approximately 70 Military Helicopters To Conduct Exercise This Weekend “Some 70 military helicopters will fly through Northeast Pennsylvania this weekend and early next week. That’s according to a public advisory Friday from the Wilkes-Barre Scranton International Airport (AVP),” Chief Nerd wrote, citing WVIA News.
“From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)
Fellow Patriots, on this day in 1913, the 17th Amendment was ratified. It changed the procedure for electing senators from one of the state legislatures to the popular vote within the states. The irony of this amendment is that it has served to weaken the 10th Amendment and states’ rights more generally. —Mark Alexander
The Gamecocks’ women’s basketball coach opened the door to allowing men to play women’s sports.
Nate Jackson
Full disclosure: The most women’s basketball I’ve ever watched took place in The Daily Wire comedy movie “Lady Ballers.” I’m not a basketball fan, period, because it’s a far inferior sport to baseball. Basketball is 10 sweaty people running around in ill-fitting pajamas on a small wood-floored court trying to repeatedly throw a big ball into a netted ring while pretending to be fouled, whatever that means. Baseball, by contrast, features a gorgeous grass and dirt field on which takes place the rise and fall of incredible tension each time one player throws a small ball in hopes of making another player holding a stick swing and miss it. The stick-wielder wants to whack that small ball out of the reach of nine opposing players armed with only an oversized leather thing on one hand so he can make it safely around bases on the diamond. It’s simply glorious.
Anyway, that means March Madness came and went without so much as a cocked eyebrow for me — until Friday night.
That’s when Dawn Staley, coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball team, declared that she’d be fine with men suiting up with the ladies. Her team had just defeated the North Carolina State Wolfpack to advance to the championship, which her team won on Sunday afternoon against the Iowa Hawkeyes and everyone’s favorite female basketball player, Caitlin Clark.
As any sports fan can appreciate, capping off a perfect 38-0 season with a championship is very impressive — SC is only the 10th Division I team to accomplish the feat — so congratulations, ladies.
Ladies.
In a press conference after the Final Four victory over NC State, Staley was asked about her opinion on the inclusion of “transgender athletes, biological males in women’s sports.”
“Damn, you got deep on me, didn’t you?” Staley responded after taking a drink and sighing, clearly not wanting to wade into the subject. Nevertheless, she plowed through the blocker and went on, “I’m of the opinion of, if you’re a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion.”
Obviously, her wording left the door open to common sense: If a man who thinks he’s a woman wants to play sports, let him play sports — just not women’s sports. Realizing that opening, the questioner followed up and got her to say, “Yes, yes,” she meant men should be able to play women’s sports. “So now the barnstormer people are going to flood my timeline and be a distraction to me on one of the biggest days of our game,” she added, “and I’m okay with that. I really am.”
Maybe Staley is more comfortable with the idea given that one of her players is Kamilla Cardoso, who clocks in at 6’7″. Yeah, six feet seven inches. The average NBA player is 6’6″, just in case you’re wondering.
Riley Gaines, a champion college swimmer and champion for women’s sports, had thoughts. “Dawn Staley knows perfectly well that men’s basketball is a totally different sport than women’s basketball,” Gaines said. “That’s obvious by the speed of the game, the size of the ball, the sheer amount of layups compared to dunks when a player gets a fast break.”
She also doubts Staley is being honest. “Personally, I don’t think she believes what she said,” Gaines said Monday morning. “If you watch the video — her silence, the hesitation, and that drink of water — I think it spoke volumes. I think she knew she had to be politically correct. … She didn’t have the courage to stand up for women. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her, and she blew it.”
Standing up for women is precisely what this moment requires because the question for Staley wasn’t hypothetical. “Back in February,” notes PJ Media’s Grayson Bakich, “Lowell Collegiate Charter School up in Massachusetts had to forfeit a game because a 6’2” bearded kid on the KIPP Academy team was playing against actual girls and injured three of Lowell’s players. Yeah, that may be high school level, but imagine what college-level or professional athletes can do to women in the same age bracket.“
There are plenty of examples in the last few years of a man dominating a female sport just because he can cram his junk into a woman’s swimsuit or bike shorts and claim to be a “woman.” That aforementioned bearded basketball player, by the way, was suspended from the rowing team for ogling a changing female in the locker room.
Clearly, it’s a fetish with most of these guys, not a legitimate state of being.
As a large bearded man myself, I can say that comedy and mockery may be our best cultural defense against the insanity of letting large bearded dudes suit up with the ladies to play sports. Dawn Staley should consider a viewing.
As your Patriot Post team stands against the current cancel culture that seeks the suppression of conservative speech, I ask that you please support our efforts to keep the message of Liberty loud and clear. We are in this fight for the long haul, and it’s the investment of Patriots like you that makes it possible. Please make your gift to the 2024 Patriots’ Day Campaign today to help ensure that our defense of Liberty is funded into the summer. Thank you for your support. —Mark Alexander, Publisher
Student loan handout 2.0, Trump fundraiser hauls in $50 million, Newsom’s restaurant hypocrisy, and more.
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Student loan handout 2.0: In a move aimed at buying votes from younger Americans, Joe Biden and company are preparing to trot out another massive student loan cancellation scheme today in Madison, Wisconsin. Using the 1965 Higher Education Act, the Biden administration plans to introduce regulations that will outline new ways student loan borrowers can gain debt relief. The U.S. Supreme Court previously slapped down Biden’s first attempt at engaging in a massive debt transfer gambit, moving student loan debt from the borrowers who freely took out the loans onto the backs of taxpayers. Nevertheless, he is doubling down on his unethical move. Indeed, following the Court’s ruling, Biden vowed to “stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families.” While Biden has done little to help hardworking middle-class families, he has effectively flouted the Court by canceling roughly $146 billion in student loan debt for four million borrowers. Knowing that he couldn’t get this debt transfer legislation passed in Congress, Biden has circumvented the legislative body, and all for political gain. The Biden administration estimates that more than 30 million borrowers could see their debt lowered or eliminated, which it believes will result in more votes come November.
Trump fundraiser hauls in a record $50 million: A week ago, the Leftmedia was all a-twitter about the record-setting Biden-Obama-Clinton gala in Manhattan, which raised $26 million for the decrepit 81-year-old president’s reelection. Not to be outdone, Donald Trump’s Saturday night fundraiser in Palm Beach made quick work of that total. The Trump event was hosted by billionaire investor John Paulson, who was joined by “special guests” and former GOP presidential primary rivals Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. “Tonight, we raised an historic $50.5 million for the re-election of President Trump,” said Paulson in a statement. “This sold-out event has raised the most in a single political fundraiser in history. This overwhelming support demonstrates the enthusiasm for President Trump and his policies.” Trump, when he’s not in court battling the Democrats’ anti-democratic lawfare attacks, appears committed to closing the fundraising gap. He’ll be at fundraisers in both Orlando and Atlanta on Wednesday, then Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. As new RNC Chair Michael Whatley emphatically told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, “We are going to spend every single dollar that we raise on two key critical core missions for the RNC, which are getting out the vote and protecting the ballot.” Good for Whatley and his organization, because those are the two realms within which this election is likely to be won or lost — not with cleverly designed, consultant-driven ad campaigns. Still, Trump and the Republicans are trailing the Party of Money, the Democrat Party, as last month the GOP brought in almost $66 million compared to Biden’s $90 million.
The Jewish star rating: On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany, and he didn’t waste any time targeting Germany’s Jews, who represented less than 1% of the country’s population but who, according to the Nazis, represented nearly all of what ailed the German state. Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws defined and segregated Jews as second-class citizens, and even more oppressive laws kept them from public schools, theaters, cinemas, vacation resorts, and even certain sections of German cities. And now, it seems, the Biden administration is intent on revisiting this dark chapter in human history. It’s no secret that Joe Biden is trying desperately to appease the pro-Hamas wing of his Arab-American voting bloc, calling for Israel to cease and desist in its existential war against the same barbarians who murdered some 1,200 Jews in an unprovoked attack on October 7. As Townhall’s Matt Vespa reports, via the UK’s Financial Times: “The Biden administration is drawing up plans to require goods produced in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank to be clearly labelled as coming from there, according to US officials, another sign of White House unhappiness with the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The final go-ahead for the move, and its timing, have not been decided but it is intended to increase pressure on Israel over rising settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, and comes amid US frustration with the Jewish state’s conduct of the war in Gaza.” What might be the reason for such a labeling mandate except to exacerbate the world’s oldest hatred — the hatred of Jews?
Earthquake caused by climate change? No matter the type of natural cataclysmic event, as sure as thunder follows lightning, there will be some leftists eagerly stepping up to blame it on climate change. On Friday, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit New Jersey. It was strong enough to give New York City, some 50 miles east of the epicenter, a bit of a shake. In the spirit of never letting a crisis — or, in this case, a non-crisis — go to waste, the unusual event was used by New Jersey Senate candidate Christina Amira Khalil to blame climate change. In a now-deleted post on X, Khalil wrote: “I experienced my first earthquake in NJ. We never get earthquakes. The climate crisis is real.” Khalil’s laughable claim was quickly corrected with a community note that simply read: “NJ sits on a fault line. Has nothing to do with climate change.” But even more appropriately, Khalil’s post invited a litany of sarcastic responses such as: “The earthquakes seem to happen in the states with the most aggressive EPA restrictions. Climate intervention must be causing earthquakes.” Another post read: “I hit a pothole today. The climate crisis is real.” Maybe the best response came from Kyle Mann of The Babylon Bee, who wrote, “Gonna have a call with my Babylon Bee writers to figure out how we failed to come up with ‘the earthquake was caused by climate change’ before the libs did.”
Newsom’s restaurant hypocrisy: A high-end restaurant owned by a company California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom founded in 1992 recently posted a job opening for a busser. The restaurant, named PlumbJack Cafe, is located near Lake Tahoe and advertises $16 per hour for the part-time position. Meanwhile, just over a week ago, California’s $20 per hour minimum wage for fast-food establishments went into effect, which Newsom touted as “a big deal” when he signed it into law last September. While Newsom has no role in the day-to-day operations of the PlumbJack Group, the hypocrisy of his supporting a $20 minimum wage for certain fast-food eateries while not for high-end restaurants is glaring. Republican Assembly Member Joe Patterson weighed in by posting on X: “I wonder why [Newsom’s] food businesses don’t pay $20/hour? Live job posting at $16/hr in Olympic Valley. It’s very, very expensive to live there… but he doesn’t do as he tells others and doesn’t pay a living wage.”
Still no trial for Kavanaugh’s would-be assassin: Nearly two years ago, we wondered where the outrage was in the wake of the arrest of a 26-year-old California man just outside the suburban DC home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, his wife, and their two young daughters. As it turns out, the disturbed man had taken a cab to Kavanaugh’s home with a suitcase and backpack containing a black tactical chest rig and tactical knife, a Glock 17 with two magazines and ammunition, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crowbar, pistol light, duct tape, hiking boots with padding on the outside of the soles, and other items. As constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley said at the time: “The arrest of an armed man outside Justice Kavanaugh’s home shouldn’t surprise any of us. But it should be a sobering moment for all of us. A jurist should not have to wonder whether he can both serve and survive on our Supreme Court.” Clearly, this was meant to be an attempt on the life of a Supreme Court justice, but the would-be assailant, Nicholas Roske, ultimately called the cops on himself. Fine. But he’s yet to stand trial. How on earth is that possible? Here’s how: As The Washington Free Beacon reports, Roske is a biological male who identified in some online posts as a transgender woman, and he hasn’t even been in a courtroom since November of 2022. We wonder: Might the foot-dragging and the accused’s gender dysphoria be related?
DEI isn’t as profitable as advertised: So much for the oft-repeated trope that diversity is good for business. As it turns out, this claim might be nothing more than junk (social) science. As the Washington Examiner reports: “From 2015–23, McKinsey & Company, a multinational strategy and management consulting firm, released four separate studies showing that DEI initiatives boost corporate earnings. Unfortunately for DEI advocates, the research appears to be bunk. A new study published in Econ Journal Watch, a semiannual peer-reviewed academic journal, shows that researchers were unable to replicate the results of all four McKinsey studies.” In addition, a study published in Harvard Business Review reaches much the same conclusion — that “the rallying cries for more diversity in companies” are not supported “by robust research findings.” Thus, we have one of the world’s most powerful and influential business consulting firms appearing to have been snookered, or perhaps even cooking the books on behalf of “diversity.” Color us shocked — SHOCKED.
From swing state to deep red: Thanks to the leadership of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida, which had long been viewed as a swing state ever since the 2000 presidential election and the infamous hanging chads, has now moved solidly into red territory. In November 2021, for the first time in the Sunshine State’s history, the number of registered Republicans surpassed the number of registered Democrats. Three years later, that trend has continued, as registered GOP voters now outnumber Democrats by almost 900,000. To put things in perspective, DeSantis observed, “You’re talking about a million-plus voter registration shift” since 2018. What accounts for this massive and rapid political shift? DeSantis points to two things. First, “People are more likely to switch from Democrat to Republican in Florida, nonparty to Republican, than vice versa.” Second, “I do think that migration has skewed amongst people who come to Florida, not because they want to change the policies to reflect in Illinois or California or New York, but because they appreciate how Florida has done it differently from where they’re coming from.” Now in Florida, Republicans hold the biggest voter advantage of either party in the state in nearly four decades. In looking to the coming presidential election, DeSantis bluntly stated: “Florida is off the board. It is a Republican state.” He added: “We used to be a one-point state every election hung on: ‘How would Florida go?’ That is not true anymore, and I think that’s a good thing for the party.”
Headlines
Trump promises abortion rights will be decided by states if reelected, sidestepping national ban (NY Post)
NYC homeowners told they will be arrested if they turn off electricity, water as squatters take over (Townhall)
Dearborn’s “Al-Quds Day” rally features anti-Israel, “death to America” chants (RedState)
FBI examines allegations of complimentary airline upgrades for Mayor Eric Adams (Daily Caller)
Southwest Boeing engine cover rips apart during takeoff (Washington Examiner)
The book White Rural Rage gets the research wrong (Hot Air)
Vatican says gender theory, surrogacy violate human dignity in ethics document (Fox News)
Israeli military withdraws most troops from southern Gaza (National Review)
Policy: A conservative defense budget for Fiscal Year 2025 (Heritage Foundation)
Humor: Dorks of nation helpfully identify themselves by wearing solar eclipse glasses (Babylon Bee)
Mainstream media pundits are tone-deaf when it comes to understanding why the majority of Americans see the economy as bad.
Thomas Gallatin
“What’s Wrong With the Economy? It’s You, Not the Data.” That’s the obtuse title of an article in The Wall Street Journal by its chief economics commentator, Greg Ip. That provocative statement pushes the notion, which has been repeated by much of the mainstream media of late, that the economy is actually in really good shape.
So why are Americans still down on it?
Ip notes that a recent WSJ survey in swing states found that 74% of respondents said inflation moved in the wrong direction last year. “This assessment,” he responds, “which holds across all seven states, is startling, sobering — and simply not true. I’m not stating an opinion. This isn’t something on which reasonable people can disagree. If hard economic data count for anything, we can say unambiguously that inflation has moved in the right direction in the past year.”
He adds that over the last 12 months, the rate of inflationary growth has slowed to 3.2%, down from 6% the year prior. This, he observes, is good. Inflation is coming down, and yet what seems to befuddle him is that most Americans think it has gone up.
He struggles to explain this, pointing to positive economic markers over the past year, such as the stock market booming, a near-50-year-low unemployment rate, and steady GDP growth.
Then, almost as a throwaway observation, he states: “As the saying goes, you can’t eat gross domestic product, or GDP. But what you eat is part of GDP and while people have said for several years that they are cutting back on groceries and eating out, the data show that Americans as a whole are spending more on groceries and restaurant meals, after adjusting for inflation, than in 2019.”
A lot more. Yet he wonders why Americans feel bad about the economy.
Here’s where the disconnect really is. Thanks to another Journal article — published on the same day as the aforementioned story — we have the answer to Ip’s conundrum. That article is titled, “How Far $100 Goes at the Grocery Store After Five Years of Food Inflation,” with the subhead, “From beef to mayo, consumers continue to spend more to buy less.”
The second article observes, “Prices for hundreds of grocery items have increased more than 50% since 2019 as food companies raised their prices.” And why have food companies raised their prices? The short answer is inflation, as the article notes, “Executives have said that higher prices were needed to offset their own rising costs for ingredients, transportation and labor.” So, either all the food executives across the country are involved in a grand conspiracy to raise prices and then falsely blame it on inflation, or it’s actually the result of inflation.
The dollar’s value is down nearly 20% from 2019. Given that reality, the cost of all goods has risen because, especially for food, the actual value of it has not changed. People have to eat.
To put it as succinctly as possible for those in the media still scratching their heads, when people have less money in their bank accounts than they did four years ago because everything they buy costs significantly more than it used to, they see this as bad. This is especially the case for those Americans who are working paycheck to paycheck.
Furthermore, after Americans experienced years of a relatively steady rate of inflation hovering roughly around 2%, the sudden spike to 40-year highs in 2021 and continuing into 2022 hit them hard. Since the cost of goods will not be going back to pre-pandemic prices, the public’s opinion won’t turn until they start seeing their wages match the rate of inflation.
When bank accounts begin to grow again, and when folks can again afford all those things they used to purchase, then they’ll start to agree with journalists who seem to think their job is to make Joe Biden look better. The American people are not out of touch with reality. These journalists are.
The former president has vowed to dismantle it, while the current president is taking steps to preserve it.
Douglas Andrews
The deep state has been getting a makeover of late. Don’t be fooled.
A recent New York Times video piece might be called Exhibit A. It begins with a sinister voice: “Donald Trump is obsessed with the deep state, and many Republicans are widening his paranoia.” Then it spends the next five minutes taking “a trip across America” to poke fun at Trump, telling us that the deep state is really just NASA scientists saving us from asteroid annihilation, EPA administrators getting the lead out of our drinking water, and Department of Labor directors keeping our kids from working in slaughterhouses.
It’s a clever piece but a deceptive one. Because for every conscientious public servant like Scott Bellamy, Radhika Fox, and Nancy Alcantara, there are a dozen Kevin Clinesmiths, Eric Ciaramellas, Alexander Vindmans, and Miles Taylors, all bent on undermining efforts at reform and thereby preserving what they have. As former Congressman Jason Chaffetz wrote in his 2018 book, The Deep State: How an Army of Bureaucrats Protected Barack Obama and Is Working to Destroy the Trump Agenda, “The Deep State is a vast, self-perpetuating bureaucracy whose aim is singular: to exist again tomorrow and the day after, to replicate itself, to be indestructible and nearly impossible to disrupt.”
Think about it: Had Hillary Clinton or — work with us — Jeb Bush been elected president in 2016 instead of Donald Trump, we’d never have heard of the names Kevin Clinesmith, Eric Ciaramella, Alexander Vindman, and Miles Taylor.
And we’d have been treated to the same old status quo: a government that long ago lost its way.
Given this, it’s understandable that Trump wants to destroy the deep state, wants to get rid of the anti-reform saboteurs that will otherwise infect his administration and threaten to bring it down just like they attempted. “I will shatter the Deep State, and restore government that is controlled by the People,” he’s said, adding, “Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state.”
This laudable goal, though, is much easier said than done. Trump’s second-term agenda does include a detailed plan for dismantling the deep state: reissuing a 2020 executive order restoring the president’s authority to fire rogue bureaucrats; overhauling federal departments and agencies; firing all of the corrupt actors in our intelligence apparatus; establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to declassify and publish all documents on deep state spying, censorship, and abuses of power; cracking down on government leakers who collude with the media to create false narratives; making all inspectors general independent from the departments they oversee; and more.
The task seems monumental. But with Trump’s agenda, coupled with The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, it’s at least encouraging that conservatives have been giving it plenty of thought. As we noted back in December, we wish him well.
Still, the Left is taking Trump seriously. So much so that it’s taken to writing apocalyptic op-eds on behalf of the deep state. As Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at Georgetown, writes of Trump’s plans: “This is not an empty threat. He has a real and plausible plan to utterly transform American government. It will undermine the quality of that government and it will threaten [wait for it!] our democracy.”
Joe Biden and his handlers know what’s at stake, and they, too, have joined the fray. On Thursday, Team Biden finalized rules that are meant to protect the jobs of untold thousands of federal bureaucrats just in case Trump wins the election on November 5. As The Washington Times reports: “Mr. Biden said his rules would insulate employees from such political pressure by making it tougher to reclassify their jobs and then fire them. ‘Day in and day out, career civil servants provide the expertise and continuity necessary for our democracy to function,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘This rule is a step toward combatting corruption and partisan interference to ensure civil servants are able to focus on the most important task at hand: delivering for the American people.’”
New York Times columnist Frank Bruni was perhaps a visionary of the coming battle, extolling the virtues of the deep state back in December 2020, back before Anthony Fauci was exposed for the lying, money-grubbing, narcissistic, ChiCom apologist that he is. As Bruni wrote: “President Trump was right about the ‘deep state’ — sort of. There exist, in government, people and forces rigged to foil disruption.”
Bruni was right about the deep state — sort of. There exist, in government, people and forces rigged to foil reform, not disruption.
Six months. That’s how long it took for President Biden to call for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terrorists who killed some 1,200 people, raped women, tortured and murdered children, and took more than 200 captives, including American citizens, into the maze of tunnels, spider holes, and underground bunkers known as the Gaza Metro on October 7.
According to the White House, Biden on Thursday called for an “immediate ceasefire” and told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “strikes on humanitarian workers” and “the overall humanitarian situation” are “unacceptable.” Biden went on to say that “U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action” and on steps to “address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.”
This is a demand that Israel appease Hamas at the negotiating table. This is a threat to condition military assistance to Israel based on absolutely no evidence and grounded in a ridiculous and unachievable standard of conduct. The move is cynical, opportunistic, and counterproductive. Biden has lost the plot.
For six months after the worst blow to the Jewish state since its founding in 1948, and the worst day for world Jewry since the Holocaust, Biden stood with Israel and defended Israel’s right to self-defense. America supplied Israel with the weaponry required to free the hostages and destroy Hamas as a coherent military force. America took Israel’s side in multilateral institutions such as the International Court of Justice.
The situation has changed. For weeks, Biden has let anyone within earshot know that he is frustrated and angry with Israel’s strategy and tactics. He approved of Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D., N.Y.) call for new elections in Israel and the replacement of Netanyahu’s government. His advisers have been trying to prevent Israel’s planned offensive in the city of Rafah, where Hamas’s remaining battalions use the hostages and 1.5 million Palestinians as human shields. Last month, Biden’s U.N. ambassador chose not to veto a resolution calling for an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza — a diplomatic warning that America may not always be there for Israel.
The accidental IDF killing of seven employees of World Central Kitchen, celebrity chef José Andrés’s charitable organization, has pushed Biden further away from America’s ally. Israeli officials, from President Isaac Herzog to Prime Minister Netanyahu, have apologized for and promised to investigate the mistaken attack. The response has been outrage, disgust, and insinuation. Biden has joined in the chorus. He’s fallen for the myth that Israel wants Palestinians to starve.
Chef Andrés told Reuters that his associates were targeted “systematically, car by car.” He has no evidence for this. He wrote in the New York Times that what happened was “a direct attack on clearly marked vehicles whose movements were known by the Israel Defense Forces.” A “direct attack”? Where is his proof?
“You cannot win this war,” Andrés wrote, “by starving an entire population.” The accusation is grotesque. And stupid. If “starving an entire population” were Israel’s policy, what was World Central Kitchen doing in Gaza in the first place?
Chef Andrés’s rush to judgment has an underlying goal. “The U.S. must do more to tell Prime Minister Netanyahu this war needs to end now,” he told Reuters. “The people of Israel need to remember, at this darkest hour, what strength truly looks like,” he wrote in the Times. Who does Andrés think he is, calling for a unilateral ceasefire, lecturing Israelis on the nature of strength? He’s not the Pope. He’s a gourmand who serves traif.
For six months, huge swaths of the press have painted Israel in the worst possible light. Netanyahu could say the sky is blue and a thousand fact-checkers would scrub his claim for signs of misinformation. Pro-Hamas falsehoods, meanwhile, are recycled without second thought. The casualty numbers from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, the bogus tale of the Israeli rocket “fired” at al-Shifa hospital, the blood libel that Israelis separated Palestinian babies from their mothers, the lie that the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East was free of Hamas infiltration — these stories were peddled in bad faith before Israel had a chance to rebut them.
Which is why a sense of moral clarity in this conflict is so important. Hamas is evil. Hamas could end the war it started by surrendering its cadres and releasing its prisoners. Hamas refuses. Hamas would rather sacrifice the civilian population of Gaza on the altar of its genocidal ambition and suicidal desires. Hamas brutalizes children, abuses captives, steals food, fires its rockets indiscriminately, wears no uniforms, and hides behind schools, hospitals, and mosques. Hamas does not just commit war crimes. It is a war crime.
A global movement sympathetic to Hamas is fighting an information war with the objective of isolating Israel diplomatically and undermining its right to exist. We have learned that the United States, our universities, and our social media platforms are fronts in this campaign. And we have learned that anti-Semitism has returned with shocking power to demonize, harass, intimidate, and assault Jews throughout the diaspora. What Jewish immigrants to America in the beginning of the 20th century called the “Golden Land” is no exception.
The political heroes of this moment are the men and women who have retained the ability to make clear distinctions between Israel and Hamas, between freedom, equality, and the rule of law and violence, terror, and fear. Few have put the matter as plainly as Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who recently has been making more sense than most of his colleagues. “Hamas is confident we’re going to capitulate — but it’s never going to be me,” he posted Wednesday on X. “Hamas only deserves elimination.”
Alluding to the World Central Kitchen deaths, Fetterman continued, “This war is the sum total of daily, raw tragedies. The vast majority of the harshest criticism & all responsibility for this war belongs to Hamas. Stand with Israel.”
Fetterman’s message deserves a million retweets. And his story contains a lesson. Last December, Fetterman dropped his identification as a “Progressive” because he understood that the label has become entangled with the poisonous vines of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. And he, unlike Biden, refuses to play the anti-Israel lobby’s game. He, unlike Biden, has drawn the correct lessons from the war in Gaza. John Fetterman knows that good friends come from unlikely places. That the truth is the most effective weapon in the war of ideas. And that the fate of our society, our nation, and our civilization depends on Israeli victory.
A shortage of money, misspent cash, and a lack of personnel hamper our readiness.
Brent Ramsey
The United States Navy has problems maintaining the fleet. Admittedly, it is a challenging task to maintain and repair hundreds of extremely complicated ships, both conventional and nuclear. However, the record in recent years is discouraging.
Beginning in 2016, the Navy decided to invest funds in major overhauls and upgrades to seven selected Ticonderoga-class cruisers. In 2021, VADM James Kilby, then Deputy CNO for warfighting requirements and capabilities, reported to the House of Representatives that $2.8 billion had been spent on the cruisers. Unfortunately, four of the ships, after millions were spent on them, were in such bad shape that they were retired. Three cruisers continue to have work done, but their date of return to the fleet, if ever, is uncertain. Billions have been spent so far over eight years, and there has been no return on this investment.
In October 2021, while operating in the South China Sea, the USS Connecticut (SSN 22) collided at speed with a seamount, causing extensive damage. Fortunately, no lives were lost, but the submarine suffered major damage. The current estimate is that the USS Connecticut will not return to service until early 2026. The cost estimate for the repair is currently $80 million. Due to the lack of repair facilities in the Western Pacific, the sub needed to be returned to the contiguous United States. It is now in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. The USS Connecticut was built in six years. Is a four-plus-year repair timeframe reasonable or unusual? Is this due to the unusual amount of damage, the lack of repair capability, or the shortage of workers or key components? The Navy has provided no explanation about the lengthy repair timeline.
According to then-Naval Surface Forces Commander VADM Roy Kitchener, who retired in August 2023, the Navy’s goal is 75 mission-capable, combat-credible ships available. Unfortunately, the Navy is falling short of that goal, as the number of ready ships is in the low 50s and has been for some time. Shortages of manpower and troublesome maintenance backlogs are the causes. A January 2023 report by GAO finds:
From FYs 2011-2021, the 10 Navy ship classes we reviewed faced persistent and worsening challenges, including a decrease in the number of hours a ship is available for operations or training.
These challenges included:
An increase in the number of working ship parts removed and used elsewhere due to parts shortages. An increase in casualty reports — i.e., reports of events that impair a ship’s ability to do its job. An increase in maintenance delays.
We have made dozens of recommendations to address these issues, but the Navy has yet to fully implement them all.
The GAO also reported that maintenance costs rose by $1.2 billion from 2011 to 2020.
The Congressional Budget Office studied Navy maintenance requirements and issued its report in 2021. The CBO concluded that fewer skilled workers in Navy maintenance yards is part of the problem. CBO says:
What Causes Delays in Maintenance? Two factors have been the primary causes of delays in the Navy’s shipyards: The amount of maintenance that shipyards must perform in each overhaul has increased, and the Navy has not hired enough new workers to keep pace with the workload. Those factors have increased the number of days nuclear ships spend in the shipyard and the number of days of labor that are required to complete their overhauls. Overhauls have exceeded the number of days of labor scheduled for overhauls by 13 percent to 26 percent, depending on the ship’s class. Maintenance delays have been most acute for attack submarines because those ships are a lower priority at the shipyards than ballistic missile submarines and aircraft carriers. Over the past 12 years, overhauls of attack submarines have typically taken 20 percent to 40 percent longer than planned, both in terms of the number of days of labor required to complete the work and the length of time ships spend in the shipyard.
Despite the increased number of shipyard workers and the anticipated improvements in productivity, CBO projects that the demand for maintenance over the next few decades will exceed the supply of labor in most years. That is because the Navy’s submarines require more days of labor for overhauls than the Navy has planned. As a result, the shipyards will not be able to complete future overhauls on schedule.
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported on attack submarine (SSN) availability on February 16, 2024, that the Navy has a goal of no more than 20% in maintenance or idle. The actual figure for the current year is 37%. According to the CRS, the number of SSNs either in depot maintenance or idle (i.e., awaiting depot maintenance) has increased from 10 boats (about 20% of the SSN force) in FY2012 to 18 boats (about 37% of the SSN force) as of May 2023. The data shows:
From FY2015 to FY2023, it shows a decline of 12 SSNs, or 28% fewer available subs.
Conclusion: The Navy is putting fewer ships to sea due to shortages in capacity and manpower to repair its existing ships. When the size of the fleet increases based on planned shipbuilding, we will be increasingly challenged to have ships “ready for sea.” In Part 2, reforms that could be made that would improve this dire situation will be presented.
Harris Reveals Her Sports Knowledge — Sports fan Kamala Harris claims the NCAA women’s basketball tournament was “not allowed to have brackets until 2022.”
A Right to Homelessness? — Is there a constitutional right to sleep on the street? The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to a lower-court decision that has restricted city and state enforcement for years.
Exposing Censorship Against Americans — Michael Shellenberger discusses the covert and coordinated censorship campaign by the government against Americans and the Western world more broadly.
“If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion.” —South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley
“Do you know that the [NCAA] women’s teams were not allowed to have brackets until 2022? Think about that! And … talk about progress.” —Kamala Harris (“Kamala’s hubby filled out a women’s NCAA tournament bracket in 2021 when it was supposedly illegal. Also, does it seem weird that Kamala pretends to be a hero of women’s sports on one hand, then supports men playing in women’s sports on the other?” —Not the Bee)
Gaslighting and BIG Lies
“From record-breaking job growth to expanding health care coverage, [Joe Biden] has spent each and every day working on behalf of the American people. I can’t say the same about the guy running against him.” —Barack Obama
“We are pleased that gas prices have come down by $1.40 relative to that peak that was caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” —National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard
“What’s Wrong With the Economy? It’s You, Not the Data.” —The Wall Street Journal
Useful Idiots
“Aid workers … have died because of [Israel’s] indiscriminate bombing. [Netanyahu] knows he can’t leave power; he gets sent to jail. So he will intensify this war. He will hurt Israel’s standing in the world.” —MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough
“Israel has killed more than 200 aid workers in 6 months. Netanyahu: Stop murdering innocent people.” —Senator Bernie Sanders (VT)
Credit Where It’s Due
“Hamas is confident we’re going to capitulate — but it’s never going to be me. Hamas only deserves elimination. This war is the sum total of daily, raw tragedies. The vast majority of the harshest criticism & all responsibility for this war belongs to Hamas. Stand with Israel.” —Senator John Fetterman (D-PA)
For the Record
“For six months, huge swaths of the press have painted Israel in the worst possible light. Netanyahu could say the sky is blue and a thousand fact-checkers would scrub his claim for signs of misinformation. Pro-Hamas falsehoods, meanwhile, are recycled without second thought. … A global movement sympathetic to Hamas is fighting an information war with the objective of isolating Israel diplomatically and undermining its right to exist.” —Matthew Continetti
“A sense of moral clarity in this conflict is so important. Hamas is evil. Hamas could end the war it started by surrendering its cadres and releasing its prisoners. Hamas refuses. Hamas would rather sacrifice the civilian population of Gaza on the altar of its genocidal ambition and suicidal desires. Hamas brutalizes children, abuses captives, steals food, fires its rockets indiscriminately, wears no uniforms, and hides behind schools, hospitals, and mosques. Hamas does not just commit war crimes. It is a war crime.” —Matthew Continetti
“Hamas works to ensure that civilians die because it draws sympathy from ignorant quarters that are already predisposed to opposing Israel. Predictably, Team Biden panders to those ignorant quarters.” —Nate Jackson
“Fickle Americans sympathize with those who are attacked. But their continuing support seems contingent on whether the victim can remain sympathetic — and win decisively to end the war rapidly.” —Victor Davis Hanson
Political Futures
“In a more decent world, we’d be debating which presidential candidate was better at upholding the constitutional order, rather than which one was worse. That is not our fate. And yet, the unique thing about the 2024 presidential contest is that voters are given a chance to compare existing presidential records.” —David Harsanyi
And Last…
“Instead of acting as a check against the usurpations of government, the media has become an enabler of those usurpations.” —Douglas Andrews
The US is facing grave risks in the wake of rising global geopolitical tensions and the nation’s domestic political polarization, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase chief executive, has warned.
In an annual shareholder letter on Monday the CEO of the largest US bank cited large amounts of government spending and efforts by the Federal Reserve to shrink its balance sheet, as well as the Ukraine conflict and the Israel-Hamas war, as creating an environment that “may very well be creating risks that could eclipse anything since World War II.”
“America’s global leadership role is being challenged outside by other nations and inside by our polarized electorate,” Dimon wrote.
“We need to find ways to put aside our differences and work in partnership with other Western nations in the name of democracy. During this time of great crises, uniting to protect our essential freedoms, including free enterprise, is paramount,” the chief executive urged.
The 68-year-old banker added that there is “a growing need for increased spending as we continue transitioning to a greener economy, restructuring global supply chains, boosting military expenditure and battling rising healthcare costs.”
Dimon said he was not as optimistic as the broader market that the US economy will achieve a ‘soft landing,’ in which it sees modest growth and declining inflation rates. Chances of a soft landing are “a lot less” than the 70% to 80% expected by some investors, he said.
“These significant and somewhat unprecedented forces cause us to remain cautious,” the JPMorgan boss concluded.
Meanwhile, Dimon said, China has been establishing itself as a “potential superpower” and strategically focusing on its economic security, while the West “slept.”
“Over the last 20 years, China has been executing a more comprehensive economic strategy than we have,” he said.
He also weighed in on the future of AI, saying he is “completely convinced” that the consequences of the technology will be “extraordinary” and transformational. JPMorgan is already exploring the use of AI in software development and employee production plans, particularly in the fraud and risk departments, he said.
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