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Daily Archives: August 18, 2024
August 18 Evening Verse of the Day
Reliability
For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silvanus and Timothy—was not yes and no, but is yes in Him. For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. (1:19–20)
Throughout the history of the church, heretics have always assaulted the nature of Christ, and the false apostles at Corinth appear to be no exception in their effort to diminish Him. Having slanderously accused Paul of being untrustworthy because of his change in travel plans, they also alleged that his teaching on the Lord Jesus was untrustworthy. Responding to their attack on his Lord, Paul emphasized Christ’s nature as the God-man by using the full, rich title the Son of God, Christ Jesus.
Paul was not the only one who preached the truths of the Son of God to the Corinthians; Silvanus and Timothy had preached the message to them. Silvanus (Silas) was a prominent leader in the Jerusalem church. The Jerusalem Council entrusted him to carry its decision to the church at Antioch (Acts 15:22). He later became Paul’s companion on the apostle’s second missionary journey, replacing Barnabas (Acts 15:39–40). Timothy was Paul’s beloved son in the faith. As the son of a Jewish Christian mother and a pagan Gentile father (Acts 16:1), he was uniquely qualified to minister alongside the apostle. Both Silvanus and Timothy had ministered with Paul at Corinth (Acts 18:5). Their preaching was not untrustworthy, it was not yes and no, but was a firm, unwavering, resounding yes to God’s truth in Jesus Christ.
Then Paul sums up the glory of Christ by reminding the Corinthians that as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes. All of God’s salvation promises—of blessing, peace, joy, goodness, fellowship, forgiveness, strength, and hope of eternal life—are yes, meaning they all come true, in Christ. They are all made possible by His person and work. After His resurrection, Jesus told His disciples, “All things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). In 1 Corinthians 1:30 Paul declared that “Christ Jesus … became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.” To the Colossians he wrote, “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.… For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 1:19; 2:9). It was the realization of “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus [as his] Lord” that made Paul willing to suffer “the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that [he might] gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8).
Then Paul drove home the point of his argument by reminding the Corinthians, Therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. Amen is a solemn affirmation of the truthfulness of a statement (cf. Rom. 1:25; 9:5; 11:36; 15:33; 16:27; Gal. 1:5; Eph. 3:21; Phil. 4:20; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16; 2 Tim. 4:18; Heb. 13:21; 1 Peter 4:11; 5:11; 2 Peter 3:18; Jude 25; Rev. 1:6; 7:12). When Paul, Silas, and Timothy preached the gospel, it was all about Christ, who by His glorious work brings to pass all salvation realities. The Corinthians probably even had joined in saying Amen to the glory of God. The congregation had affirmed that the preachers reliably spoke God’s truth about Christ when they believed the gospel message Paul and his companions preached, and it transformed their lives. How utterly absurd, Paul argued, to accept and experience the gospel message as reliable, but consider those who preached it unreliable. How ridiculous to trust Paul’s word about eternal things, but not about mundane things like travel plans.
The apostle who was exacting in communicating the true gospel of Christ was also exacting in the lesser matters of life. God did not choose an unstable, unreliable apostle to preach His truth.[1]
20 A further amplification of the statement that “God is faithful” (v. 18)—and by implication that Paul also is faithful—is now given. The divine fidelity is demonstrated in “the Son of God … preached” as the fulfillment of promises made under the old covenant. “No matter how many33 promises God has made,” in particular to Abraham, thereby establishing a pattern of prophetic promise that became the characteristic of the old covenant, “they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.”
Few OT passages sum up God’s faithfulness to his word so clearly as
God is not a man, that he should lie,
nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfill? (Num 23:19)
In Paul’s brief statement set out in v. 19 he allows us to see the panorama of God’s eschatological purposes expressed first as his word of promise and then by his “Yes” as the Son of God proclaimed by the apostles. Not only do the Corinthians need to be reminded that Paul is, like the God he serves, faithful to his promises, but sections of the Corinthian church need to return to the pathway of God’s now-revealed eschatological purpose from which in recent days they have strayed (“you bear with … someone who preaches another Jesus”).
The prepositional phrases “in him” and “through him” point to the significance of Christ to the apostle Paul. Christ is the fulfillment of all the promises of God made under the old covenant, and thus of that covenant in its entirety; no promise remains unfulfilled. “In him” God has spoken his “Yes.” His fulfillment is absolute, dimming whatever glory there had been in the old covenant (3:10). Those who are “toward” him have the Spirit (vv. 21–22); those who are “in him” have “become the righteousness of God” (5:21), and are “the new creation” (5:17). Now that God has pronounced his affirmation in Christ incarnate and exalted there can be no going back to the covenant that promised him, as the peddlers seek to do (3:7–11).
If Christ is God’s “Yes,” he is the church’s “Amen,” since “through him” the church prays to and praises God. Again we see a connection between the church’s praise of God and apostolic proclamation (see on v. 3). The words of the church’s worship echo back to God that gospel word through which the church has its existence. Speaking for God and from God the apostle proclaimed the Son of God (cf. 2:12, 19; 4:5; 5:19–20; 6:1, 7; 11:7; 12:19), God’s great “Yes”; the messianic assembly, gathered by that word, answers with its “Amen,” to the glory of God38 through Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Cor 14:16). Both from God’s side and ours everything is centered on Jesus Christ; for this reason the prepositions in and through are important. God has kept his promises in Christ and we say the “Amen” to God through Jesus Christ.
Each of the extant letters to the Corinthians contains an echo of Paul’s mission preaching in Corinth in c. a.d. 50. It is significant that in both cases the message of Jesus Christ is seen to be in fulfillment of the OT scriptures/promises. In the former letter, Paul repeats a received tradition that he handed on to the Corinthians, that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, that he was raised the third day, and that he appeared alive on a number of occasions (1 Cor 15:3–8). In the latter, the proclamation was the Son of God, Jesus Christ. That Paul can remind the readers of two versions of apostolic preaching should caution us that the message had more facets to it than some simple reconstructions suggest.
In short, Paul has argued in vv. 18–20 that as God is faithful, so, too, is Paul’s “word.” His personal “word” is subsumed within his kerygmatic “word.” God’s faithfulness is to be seen (1) in the Son of God preached in Corinth as God’s unambiguous, unretracted, and now-eternal “Yes,” and (2) in the fact of all the promises of God having been kept in the Son of God, as proclaimed by the apostles. Likewise “faithful” is the “word” of Paul, the minister of the God who speaks unambiguously (cf. 1:13) and who keeps his promises. Their very existence is predicated on it.[2]
1:20 / In verse 20a Paul explains (For, gar) why his message of Jesus Christ as Son of God was unequivocally confirmed to the Corinthians. Just as in verse 18 the faithfulness of God substantiates the veracity of Paul’s general apostolic “word” (including statements about his travel plans), so also here divine promises substantiate Paul’s more specific apostolic message of the gospel.
As Paul has mentioned repeatedly and in various ways in the previous context, the Corinthians are sons of God and thus brothers with Paul (cf. vv. 1, 2, 3). Hence, when Paul refers here to the “promises” that have already been confirmed to the Corinthians, he may have in view particularly the divine adoption of sons (cf. 2 Cor. 6:18, quoting 2 Sam. 7:14) that the Corinthians enjoy in Christ, the messianic Son of God promised beforehand through the ot prophets (Rom. 1:2–4). The only other use of the term in the letter comes at 2 Corinthians 7:1 and refers to an ot messianic adoption text (2 Sam. 7:14) as among the promises that Paul and the Corinthians already have. This does not, of course, exclude other promises from resonating with the text, especially since divine adoptive sonship includes Abrahamic heirship (cf. Gal. 3:26, 29; 4:1–7; Rom. 8:15, 17). Paul’s message of Jesus Christ as Son of God was unequivocally confirmed to the Corinthians, for the latter participate in the sonship of the Son of God, in whom the promises are affirmed by their fulfillment (“Yes”).
In verse 20b Paul draws an inference (And so, dio kai) from the fact that in Christ the Corinthians participate in the promises through Paul’s preaching. Whatever this line may mean in particular, it seems clear that Paul portrays himself as a revelatory mediator. Amen is a transliteration of a Hebrew word that serves to confirm what has been said before. The Corinthians were familiar with this use of Amen (cf. 1 Cor. 14:16). Here, the Amen is spoken by Christ (through him) in that the promises spoken beforehand are fulfilled in him. That affirmation is, in turn, communicated by Paul (by us) to others, including the Corinthians. All of this has a doxological purpose (to the glory of God).[3]
20. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. With these words Paul clarifies what he meant by saying in the preceding verse that in Jesus Christ ‘it is always Yes’. The Old Testament contains many promises of God concerning the messianic age. Not one of these will fail to find its fulfilment in Christ. There is no equivocation as far as the fulfilment of the promises of God in Jesus Christ is concerned.
That is why we utter the Amen through him, to the glory of God. The Greek underlying this sentence is difficult to translate and interpret accurately in detail, although its general thrust is clear enough. The rsv translation reflects a background of worship in the early church where ascriptions of praise to God were offered through him (Christ) and confirmed by the ‘Amen’ of the congregation. A similar form is found in many of the ascriptions of praise found in the letters of the New Testament (e.g. Rom. 1:25; 9:5; 11:36; 15:33; 16:27; Gal. 1:5; Eph. 3:21; Phil. 4:20; 1 Tim 1:17; 6:16; 2 Tim. 4:18; Heb. 13:21; 1 Pet. 4:11; 5:11; 2 Pet. 3:18; Jude 25; Rev. 1:6; 7:12), a fact which confirms the use of ‘Amen’ in this way in the early church.
However, the rsv translation does not preserve as well as it might the connection between the first and second parts of the verse which is evident in the original. There it is stressed that it is the same Christ in whom the Yes to the promises of God is found who is also the one ‘through whom is the Amen to God’. The thrust of the original appears to be that the ‘Amen’ is uttered both by Christ and by us, to the glory of God.
It may be observed that it is only as we add our ‘Amen’ to the promises of God which find their Yes in Christ that those promises become effective in our case, and we may on that account then truly glorify God for his grace to us.[4]
Ver. 20. For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.—
All the promises:—
I. The dignity of the promises. They are “the promises of God.” 1. They were each one made by Him according to the purpose of His own will. 2. They are links between His decrees and His acts; being the voice of the decree, and the herald of the act. 3. They display the qualities of Him who uttered them. They are true, immutable, powerful, eternal, &c. 4. They remain in union with God. After the lapse of ages they are still His promises as much as when He first uttered them. 5. They are guaranteed by the character of God who spoke them. 6. They will glorify Him as He works out their fulfilment.
II. The range of the promises. “All the promises.” It will be instructive to note the breadth of the promises by observing that—1. They are found both in the Old and New Testaments; from Genesis to Revelation, running through centuries of time. 2. They are of both sorts—conditional and unconditional: promises to certain works, and promises of an absolute order. 3. They are of all kinds of things—bodily and spiritual, personal and general, eternal and temporal. 4. They continue blessings to varied characters, such as—(1) The Penitent (Lev. 26:40–42; Isa. 55:7; 57:15; Jer. 3:12, 13). (2) The Believing (John 3:16, 18; 6:47; Acts 16:31; 1 Pet. 2:6). (3) The Serving (Ps. 37:3; 9:20; Prov. 3:9, 10; Acts 10:35). (4) The Praying (Isa. 45:11; Lam. 3:25; Matt. 6:6; Psa. 145:18). (5) The Obeying (Exod. 19:5; Psa. 119:1–3; Isa. 1:19). (6) The Suffering (Matt. 5:10–12; Rom. 8:17; 1 Pet. 4:12–14). 5. They bring us the richest boons: pardon, justification, sanctification, instruction, preservation, &c. What a marvellous wealth lies in “all the promises”!
III. The stability of the promises. “All the promises in Him are yea, and in Him Amen.” A Greek word “Yea,” and a Hebrew word “Amen,” are used to mark certainty, both to Gentile and Jew. 1. They are established beyond all doubt as being assuredly the mind and purpose of the eternal God. 2. They are confirmed beyond all alteration. The Lord hath said “Amen,” and so must it be for ever. 3. Their stability is in Christ Jesus beyond all hazard; for He is—(1) The witness of the promise of God. (2) The surety of the covenant. (3) The sum and substance of all the promises. (4) The fulfilment of the promises, by His actual incarnation, His atoning death, His living plea, His ascension power, &c. (5) The security and guarantee of the promises, since all power is in His hand to fulfil them.
IV. The result of the promises. “The glory of God by us.” By us, His ministers, and His believing people, the God of the promises is made glorious. We glorify—1. His condescending love in making the promise. 2. His power as we see Him keeping the promise. 3. Him by our faith, which honours His veracity, by expecting the boons which He has promised. 4. Him in our experience which proves the promise true. Conclusion: 1. Let us confidently rest in His sure word. 2. Let us plead the special promise applicable to the hour now passing. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The promises:—1. A promise is the antithesis of a threat. The Bible abounds in both. 2. When God more apparently guided the courses of man personally, promises were made to individual men. To patriarchs, prophets, and apostles; and by such they were upborne through trial. But when this became impossible the promises were made applicable to whole nations and generations. 3. Thus the Word of God is filled with assurances of blessings as no other book is. Promises cover the whole period of human life. They meet us at our birth; they cluster about our childhood; they overhang our youth; they go in companies into manhood with us; they divide themselves into bands and stand at the door of every possible experience. Therefore there are promises of God to the ignorant, poor, oppressed, discouraged, &c.; to every affection, to every sphere of duty, to all perils and temptations. There are promises for joy, sorrow, victory, defeat, adversity, prosperity, &c. Old age has its garlands as full and fragrant as youth. All men, everywhere, and always—have their promises of God. 4. They belong to mankind. There have been periods when, for special and beneficent reasons, God’s promises seemed to belong only to His own people. 5. And they are fresh with everlasting youth. The stars never wear out; the sun is not weary from the number of years. The heaven and the earth, however, shall pass away, but God’s word shall not pass away. 6. Not one promise has ever been unfulfilled. There is not a witness in God’s universe that can testify that he has leaned on a promise of God, and that God forgot to be gracious to him.
I. What are the uses to which we are invited to put God’s promises? 1. To make rude duties more attractive. It is affecting to see with what tenderness God has taken care of those that no one else cares for. How He goes down to the poor, and the ignorant, and the enslaved. How He goes down to those that can find no motive for right living in their ordinary experience, and says to them, “Be faithful, if not for the sake of your master, then for My sake.” And once let us know that we are serving One that we love, and One that loves us, and love vanquishes difficulty. 2. To fortify our faith. Duty is often surrounded by peril or hardship, and is often apparently without adequate result. It is needful, therefore, that there should be some promise which shall assure us that a perilous duty well performed will bring down upon us the Divine blessing. You are oftentimes brought into trials when it seems as though everything would be wrecked, and the world says, “Prudence”: experience says, “Draw back”; policy says, “Change a little”; and expediency says, “Compromise”; but the Word of God, which is yea and amen, says, “He that will lose his life for a right principle shall save it.” And in the end, when you come to count the wrecks along the shore, you will find those men who would save their lives by losing their principles are the men that have lost their lives. 3. To equalise the conditions of life. Men are of different calibre, and, owing to this, men follow Christ in different ways. Now, if a party of men are going to California assured that each shall be the possessor, in five years, of one million dollars, the differences between them are annihilated while they are going across. One may have twenty-five dollars in his pocket, another a hundred; one may have almost no conveniences, and another all that heart could wish; and yet, if they are assured that in five years they shall each have a million dollars, they do not care for these inequalities. And let the promises of God rest on the poor man’s lot, and he forgets the inequalities of life. For that man who is ere long to be crowned in eternity cannot find the road there so hard that he will complain of it. 4. To redeem secular life from barrenness, and make it worth our while to continue faithful to the end. And while there are promises of God that run through our whole lower life, the promises grow broader and deeper as you go up to those spheres where a man is obliged to live by faith, and above the ordinary affairs of life. So the promises of God are in proportion to our exigencies.
II. What are the obstacles in the way of using the promises of God? 1. We are ignorant of them. There is many a man that lives on his farm years and years without knowing the different growths that it produces. Many a man is buried within a yard of plants that, if their healing properties had been known, would have saved his life. Many a field is capable, if properly tilled, of producing fourfold as much as it is made to produce. God’s Word is like such a field. There are promises in it that no man has ever tried to find. There are treasures of gold and silver in it that no man has taken the pains to dig for. There are medicines in it, for the want of a knowledge of which hundreds have died. 2. When men find them they do not know how to use them. Tea was first served in England as greens. The people rejected it, and thought it rather an imposition. When potatoes were first introduced into Ireland they were rejected there, because they did not know how to use them. And many and many a man rejects, or fails to profit by, the promises of God’s Word, because he does not know how to gather them, and cook them, and use them. 3. We are afraid to venture upon using them. There is many and many a man that would be afraid to trust himself upon a single plank stretched across a deep chasm, though others had walked over on it often without accident. There is many a promise of God that is strong enough to carry men across the abyss of this life, but they do not dare to try it. In an emergency the promises of God are to many men what weapons of defence are to a man who does not know how to use them when he finds that he must fight for his life. 4. We wish the result without the fulfilment of the conditions attached. Many a child that is promised a vacation on condition that he will perform a certain amount of labour, would like the vacation, but does not like the condition on which it is promised. So many of the things promised we would like to steal, instead of working for them. 5. We do not appropriate them. The promise of “grace to help in time of need” comes to men thousands of times without benefiting them for this very reason. Many carry the promises as a miser carries bank bills, the face of which calls for countless treasures, but which he does not carry to the bank for presentation. Many a man holds bills for blessings of God, but does not present them. They enter upon a philosophical inquiry as to whether there is a presumptive argument in favour of prayer, and whether God will stop the laws of nature for our benefit, or so use them as to fulfil His promises to us. But the way to employ a promise of God is to comply with its conditions, and then wait for its fulfilment. 6. Many are afraid of presumption. Well, it may be presumptuous for you to go into a stranger’s house without an invitation; but if a man has invited you to come and see him it is presumptuous for you not to take him at his word. And to be afraid to appropriate the promises of God is to charge Him falsely. 7. Many would like to take the promises of God, but they fear they may be self-deceived. You may be, but God is not; and therefore you may rest upon the promises. 8. There are others that have a fear about their own unworthiness; which is as if a man should advertise that he would eure the infirmities of men free of expense, and a blind man should say, “I would go to this physician if I were not so blind.” Therefore plead the promises because you are sinful; the nature of goodness is to relieve want, even though that want be founded on sin. 9. Much of the want of faith in the promises comes from a neglect on the part of Christians to bear witness to the fulfilment of those promises in their own experience. There are hundreds of men whose life God has made significant and memorable, and they have never uttered a word about it to those around them. (H. W. Beecher.)
The promises, how they become ours:—
I. “By us” as ministers—publishing, explaining, applying them. A promise is often like a box of ointment, very precious; but the fragrance does not fill the room till the preacher breaks it. Or it is like the water that was near Hagar, which she saw not till God opened her eyes and showed her the well.
II. “By us” as believers realising the excellency and efficacy of them in our character and conduct. It is when these promises are reduced to experience—when they are seen cleansing us from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, making us partakers of the Divine nature, leading us to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called, filling us with kindness and supporting us in trials—it is then they glorify God by us. (W. Jay.)
The promises of God:—Note—
I. That they are the promises of God. Because they are His promises they are utterly incapable of any failure. “God is not a man that He should lie,” &c. In our presumptuous readiness to liken the Almighty to ourselves, we may imagine instances in which Divine promises have failed to be accomplished. But—1. There may have been an incorrect apprehension as to the subject of the promise; and in the error cherished thereupon, something has been imagined and expected which has not been promised. The Jews misapprehended the meaning of prophecies concerning the Messiah. 2. There may have been some mistake or negligence on our part as to the condition on which the promise was suspended, and the circumstances under which it became actually due. 3. The time for its accomplishment may not be fully come. For the promises of God, though sure, are not in every instance designed for immediate fulfilment.
II. The truth and faithfulness of these promises as resulting from their connection with Christ. They are “in Him yea, and in Him Amen,” as He is the great foundation of the promises. God sees in Him, as our once suffering but now exalted Mediator, an unchangeable and everlasting reason why all His other promises should be fulfilled.
III. They are “to the glory of God by us.” 1. In the very circumstance of their original annunciation. 2. As they constitute a new and separate manifestation of His own character and attributes. 3. As in that very act of faith by which those promises are accepted and become available, God is glorified in that particular, in reference to which His glory was, in the first instance of man’s sin, insulted and invaded. 4. In the accomplishment of the promises. 5. As furnishing, to all who may be interested in it, an additional encouragement to exercise that faith, by means of which the God of the promises is glorified, and the result of which must be the reiterated accomplishment of the same promise. Conclusion: Learn—1. The true character of unbelief. It is—(1) Unreasonable. (2) Wicked. 2. The means by which alone the soul can rise to the exercise of that faith in the promises which is required as the condition of their accomplishment, and that it is only when, and in proportion as, we view them in their connection with Christ, that we can so believe them as to receive experimentally and savingly the benefit and comfort of them. (Jonathan Crowther.)
All God’s promises Yea in Christ:—God’s promises are His declarations of what He is willing to do for men, and in the very nature of the case they are at once the limit and inspiration of our prayers. We are encouraged to ask all that God promises, and we must stop there. Christ Himself, then, is the measure of prayer to man; we can ask all that is in Him; we dare not ask anything that lies outside Him. How this should expand our prayers in some directions, and contract them in others! We can ask God to give us Christ’s purity, simplicity, meekness, and gentleness, faithfulness and obedience, victory over the world. Have we ever measured these things? Have we ever put them into our prayers with any glimmering consciousness of their dimensions, any sense of the vastness of our request? Nay, we can ask Christ’s glory, His resurrection life of splendour and incorruption—the image of the heavenly, God has promised us all of these things, and far more; but has He promised all that we ask? Can we fix our eyes on His Son, as He lived our life in this world, and remembering that this, so far as this world is concerned, is the measure of promise, ask without any qualification that our course here may be free from every trouble? Had Christ no sorrow? Did He never meet with ingratitude? Was He never misunderstood? Was He never hungry, thirsty, weary? If all God’s promises are summed up in Him—if He is everything God has to give—can we go boldly to the throne of grace, and pray to be exempted from what He had to bear, or to be richly provided with indulgencies which He never knew? What if all unanswered prayers might be defined as prayers for things not included in the promises—prayers that we might get what God did not get, or be spared from what He was not spared? The spirit of this passage, however, does not urge so much the definiteness as the compass and the certainty of the promises of God. There are “so many” that Paul could never enumerate them, and all of them are sure in Christ. And when our eyes are once opened on Him, does not He Himself become, as it were, inevitably the substance of our prayers? Is not our whole heart’s desire, Oh, that I might win Him! Oh, that He might live in me, and make me what He is! Do we not feel that if God would give us His Son, all would be ours that we could take or He could give. (J. Denney, B.D.)
God’s certainties and man’s certitudes:—“Yea” and “amen” are in the A.V. nearly synonymous, and point substantially to the same thing—viz., that Christ is, as it were, the confirmation and seal of God’s promises. But the R.V. indicates two different things by the “yea” and the “amen.” The one is God’s voice, the other is man’s. When we listen to God speaking in Christ, our lips are, through Christ, opened to shout our assenting “Amen” to His great promises. Consider—
I. God’s certainties in Christ. Of course the original reference is to the great promises given in the O.T.; but the principle is good on a wider field. In Christ—1. There is the certainty about God’s heart. Everywhere else we have hopes, fears, guesses, inferences. Nothing will make us sure here but facts. We want to see love in operation if we are to be sure of it, and the only demonstration of the love of God is to witness it in actual working. And you get it where? On the Cross. “Herein is love, not that we loved God,” &c. 2. In Him we have the certainty of pardon. Every deep heart-experience has felt the necessity of having clear knowledge about this. And the only message which answers to the needs of an awakened conscience is the old-fashioned message that Jesus Christ the Righteous has died for us sinful men. All other religions have felt after a clear doctrine of forgiveness, and all have failed to find it. Here is the Divine “Yea!” And on it alone we can suspend the whole weight of our soul’s salvation. 3. We have in Christ Divine certainties in regard of life. We have in Him the absolutely perfect pattern to which we are to conform our whole doings. He stands the Law of our lives. We have certainties for life, in the matter of protection, guidance, supply of all necessity, and the like, garnered in Jesus Christ. For He not only conforms, but fulfils, the promises which God has made. Christ is protean, and becomes everything to each man that each man requires. And in some of those sunny islands of the Southern Pacific one tree supplies the people with all that they need for their simple wants, fruit for their food, leaves for their houses, staves, thread, needles, clothing, drink, everything—so Jesus Christ, this Tree of Life, is Himself the sum of all the promises, and, having Him, we have everything that we need. 4. In Christ we have the Divine certainties as to the future, over which, apart from Him, lie cloud and darkness. Here again a verbal revelation is not enough. We have enough of man’s peradventures. What we want is that somebody shall cross the gulf and come back again. And so we get in the Resurrection of Christ the one fact on which men may safely rest their convictions of immortality.
II. Man’s certainties, which answer to Christ’s certainties. The latter are in Christ, the former are through Christ. The only fitting attitude for Christians in reference to these certainties is that of unhesitating affirmation and joyful assent. 1. There should be some kind of correspondence between the assurance with which we believe these great truths, and the firmness of the evidence upon which they rest. It is a poor compliment to God to come to His affirmations, and to answer with a hesitating “Amen.” Build rock upon rock. Be certain of the certain things; for it is an insult to the certainty of the revelation when there is hesitation in the believer. The Christian verb is “we know,” not “we hope, we calculate, we infer, we think,” but “we know.” 2. I need not speak about the blessedness of such a calm assurance, about the need of it for power, for peace, for effort, for fixedness in the midst of a world and age of change. But I must point to the only path by which that certitude is attainable. “Through Him is the amen.” He is the Door. The truths which He confirms are so inextricably intertwined with Himself that you cannot get them and put away Him. Christ’s relation to Christ’s gospel is not the relation of other teachers to their words. You may accept the words of a Plato, whatever you think of Plato. But you cannot separate Christ and His teaching in that fashion, and you must have Him if you are to get it. 3. If thus we keep near Him our faith will bring us the present experience and fulfilment of the promises, and we shall be sure of them because we have them already. And whilst men are asking, “Do we know anything about God? Is there such a thing as forgiveness?” &c., we can say, “One thing I know, Jesus Christ is my Saviour, and in Him I know God, and pardon, and duty, and sanctifying, and safety, and immortality; and whatever is dark, this, at least, is sun-clear.” Get high enough up and you will be above the fog; and while the men down in it are squabbling as to whether there is anything outside the mist, you, from your sunny station, will see the far-off coasts, and haply catch some whiff of perfume from their shore, and see some glinting of a glory upon the shining turrets of “the city that hath foundations.” So live near Jesus Christ, and, holding fast by His hand, you may lift up your joyful “Amen” to every one of God’s “yeas”; and when the Voice from Heaven says “Yea!” our choral shout may go up, “Amen! Thou art the faithful and true witness.” (A. Maclaren, D.D.)[5]
20. For as many promises of God as there are, in him they are Yes. Wherefore also through him we say Amen to God for his glory.
a. “For as many promises of God as there are.” Paul reflects on the numerous promises God has given his people. He knows that ultimately all of them have been and are being fulfilled in the Son of God. Replete with God’s promises, the Old Testament points to their fulfillment in Christ. Peter mentions that the prophets were “trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” (1 Peter 1:11). The Old Testament message is that God who makes promises ultimately fulfills them through the coming of the Messiah.
b. “In him they are Yes.” The entire New Testament is a testimony that God’s promises have been and are being fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 5:17–18), to remove the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13), to grant the gift of righteousness (Matt. 6:33), to give eternal life (John 17:3), and through the Father to send the Holy Spirit (John 14:16, 26; 15:26). In Jesus Christ God’s promises have been realized, and the Corinthians will have to acknowledge the truth of this matter.
c. “Wherefore also through him we say Amen to God for his glory.” The Greek construction of this part of verse 20 is cumbersome if we provide a literal translation and follow the sequence of the verse: “Wherefore also through him the Amen to God for glory through us.” But the word Amen is uttered “through us,” and this affirmation serves to glorify God. When we understand that the phrase through us carries the meaning of the verb we say, the subsequent translation is smooth. This is how, in the first few centuries, some Christians whose native tongue was Syriac, a sister dialect of Aramaic, understood the text. Writing “yes” and “Amen” in this passage, Paul is expressing a parallelism that was current in his day. Among speakers who were conversant in both Greek and Aramaic, the “yes” and the “Amen” meant the same thing.
When Paul, his associates, and the Corinthians say “yes and amen” through Jesus Christ to God, no one legitimately can accuse Paul of vacillating. Those who attest to the veracity of God’s Word respect one another’s personal integrity. As Paul indicates, when believers say “Amen” to the promises of God in Christ, they glorify God.[6]
[1] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2003). 2 Corinthians (pp. 43–44). Moody Publishers.
[2] Barnett, P. (1997). The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (pp. 108–110). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
[3] Scott, J. M. (2011). 2 Corinthians (pp. 40–41). Baker Books.
[4] Kruse, C. G. (1987). 2 Corinthians: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 8, pp. 76–77). InterVarsity Press.
[5] Exell, J. S. (n.d.). The Biblical Illustrator: Second Corinthians (pp. 30–35). Fleming H. Revell Company.
[6] Kistemaker, S. J., & Hendriksen, W. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Vol. 19, p. 62). Baker Book House.
August 20 – Delight Yourself in the LORD! | VCY
TODAY’S BIBLE READING CHALLENGE:
Esther 8:1-10:3
1 Corinthians 12:27-13:13
Psalm 37:1-11
Proverbs 21:23-24
Esther 8:14 — Why did the couriers hurry? Because they had an important message that would save the lives of many people! There was a limited amount of time until the people would die, and they had the message that could save their lives! This wasn’t just an ordinary message – this was a message from the king!
We have a message that our King has given us. There’s a limited time left to get this message out to the ends of the earth. This message can save people’s lives – let’s hasten and spread the royal message!
1 Corinthians 12:27 — What is your role in the body of Christ?
1 Corinthians 13:1 — Look at the things that you can do and yet be meaningless:
- speak with the tongues of men and angels
- gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries
- have faith to remove mountains
- bestow all my goods to feed the poor
- give my body to be burned
1 Corinthians 13:4 — What is “charity”? Love today seems to be a feeling – “I love this song,” or “love is love,” or “as long as our love shall last”. Let’s use the KJV word “charity” so we’re not confusing the biblical definition with a temporal emotion:
- long suffering
- kind
- not envying
- not vaunting
- not puffed up
- not unseemly
- seeking not her own
- not easily provoked
- thinketh not evil
- rejoiceth not in iniquity
- rejoiceth in truth
- beareth all things
- believeth all things
- hopeth all things
- endureth all things
1 Corinthians 13:13 — Faith can move mountains, and hope is the assurance (not a “hope-so” guess) of eternal life, but charity is greater. Why? How? Because it was charity (love) that brought the hope through faith to us (John 3:16)!
Psalm 37:2 — The lawnmower’s theme verse! Yes, we have some simple commands:
- Trust in the LORD and do good (Psalm 37:3)
- Delight thyself also in the LORD (Psalm 37:4)
- Commit thy way unto the LORD (Psalm 37:5)
- Rest in the LORD (Psalm 37:7)
What will we have if we do that?
- land and food (Psalm 37:3)
- desires of our heart (Psalm 37:4)
- our way will come (Psalm 37:5)
- righteousness and judgment (Psalm 37:6)
- inherit the earth (Psalm 37:9)
- abundance of peace (Psalm 37:11)
Take time to delight yourself in the LORD – His way is best! From the Herbster Trio:
Share how reading through the Bible has been a blessing to you! E-mail us at 2018bible@vcyamerica.org or call and leave a message at 414-885-5370.
One with Christ Jesus | VCY
Because I live, ye shall live also. (John 14:19)
Jesus has made the life of believers in Him as certain as His own. As sure as the Head lives the members live also. If Jesus has not risen from the dead, then are we dead in our sins; but since He has risen, all believers are risen in Him. His death has put away our transgressions and loosed the bonds which held us under the death sentence. His resurrection proves our justification: we are absolved, and mercy saith, “The Lord hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die.”
Jesus has made the life of His people as eternal as His own. How can they die as long as He lives, seeing they are one with Him? Because He dieth no more, and death hath no more dominion over Him, so they shall no more return to the graves of their old sins but shall live unto the Lord in newness of life. O believer, when, under great temptation, thou fearest that thou shalt one day fall by the hand of the enemy, let this reassure thee. Thou shalt never lose thy spiritual life, for it is hid with Christ in God. Thou dost not doubt the immortality of thy Lord; therefore, do not think that He will let thee die, since thou art one with Him. The argument for thy life is His life, and of that thou canst have no fear; wherefore rest in thy living Lord.
18 Aug 2024 News Briefing
Ukraine Destroys Key Bridge In Kursk Region Using US-Supplied HIMARS
The Ukrainian government is still proclaiming that its forces are making progress into the southern Russian oblast of Kursk, while the Kremlin has at the same time said its troops destroyed an entire reconnaissance and sabotage group in western Kursk on Friday. Regardless of which side’s narrative of events are more accurate amid the fog of war, the biggest end of week development has involved the destruction of a key Russian bridge on Friday.
Supreme Court Rejects Biden Regime’s Request To Reinstate Radical Title IX Changes
Title IX was originally enacted in 1972 to ensure equal educational and athletic opportunities for all students regardless of their sex and to protect the rights of girls and women. The Biden regime made a number of radical changes to Title X, according to a Moms for Liberty fact sheet, now requiring:
Secret Service Agent Abandoned Her Post To Breastfeed
Oh, wait. It’s not a joke. The report is real. Women in law enforcement, apparently, are allowed to take their infants into potential gunfights. The Secret Service will, no doubt, claim that the woman acted against regulations. But at what point? When she showed up at the Trump rally in North Caroline with her baby? When she accepted the assignment?
Democrats And Globalists ‘Urgently’ Prepare To Re-Impose Covid-Style Policies On Schools
Government schools across the United States must “urgently” prepare to re-impose COVID-style policies on students and staff in response to an expected upcoming pandemic, warned a former high-ranking “public-health” bureaucrat in the Obama administration. Among the key measures: A push for mass vaccination.
Fmr Canadian Prime Minister: We Shouldn’t Have To Ask If Politicians Support Israel… We Should Expect It
Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the featured speaker at the JNF event held in London, Ontario, addressed the protesters and others who would like nothing more than the end of the Jewish State. “The people who attack Israel, the organizations, the Hamas leaders, the enemies of Israel, are enemies of Canada,” he underscored. Harper didn’t mince words, underscoring that a lack of “moral leadership” among Western governments was to blame for the anti-Israel rhetoric flourishing in our countries.
Harris campaign’s new adviser to Muslims draws criticism from pro-Israel leaders
Bargzie co-wrote a 2015 article in the UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice, at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, in which she noted “a wave of civil rights complaints” related to Israel and the Palestinians.
IDF eliminates commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force
IAF strike in Lebanon eliminates Hussein Ibrahim Kasseb, commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force; additional strikes target terror infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
Iran and Hezbollah seemingly suspend attacks on Israel as hostage deal summit gets off to ‘promising start’
The retaliatory attacks on Israel that Iran and Hezbollah have been threatening in the last few weeks appear to be on hold for the moment. This comes as a high-level summit in Qatar focused on a hostage deal made a promising start on Thursday and is scheduled to continue at least through the day.
The Beginning Of The End? Germany To Ban All New Ukraine Military Aid
Three days ago, in the aftermath of the WSJ report seeking to radically shift the narrative over the Nordstream sabotage, where instead of the CIA being blamed for the explosion of the critical gas pipeline from Russia to Europe, unnamed “intelligence” sources forged on with a hilarious script according to which a top Ukraine general … was responsible … who somehow managed to sneak to the bottom of the Baltic sea and conduct an unprecedented military operation, no matter the laughable veracity of the report – relations between Germany and Ukraine are “about to turn ugly”, and we asked why this story is coming out just now?
Comer Launches Probe into Governor Walz’s Extensive Engagement with China and CCP Entities
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is launching an investigation into Minnesota Governor Timothy Walz, Kamala Harris’s recently announced vice-presidential running mate, following reports detailing the Governor’s longstanding connections to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) entities and officials. In a letter to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray, Chairman Comer is requesting information, documents, and communications related to the CCP-connected entities and officials Governor Walz has engaged and partnered with, as well as any warnings or advice the FBI may have given to Governor Walz about U.S. political figures being targeted by or recruited for CCP influence operations.
While speaking to Turkish Parliament, PA leader Abbas says he will visit Gaza ‘even if this would cost my life’
I have decided to go to Gaza with other brothers from the Palestinian leadership,” Abbas stated while addressing the Turkish Parliament on Thursday. “I will do that, even if this would cost my life,” Abbas added, followed by applause from Turkish lawmakers.
Revealed: Hamas’ plan to blackmail Britain
IDF reveals Hamas documents detailing plan to exhume remains of British, Commonwealth, soldiers from early 20th century, blackmail British government. The plan was explained in detail in a seven-page document shared with The Telegraph by Israeli officials, and referred to British and Commonwealth troops who fought the Ottomans and were buried in Gaza in 1917.
Pelosi told GOP leaders ‘We’re out to get you, you’re dead’:
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told Republican leaders, “We’re out to get you, you’re dead,” Pelosi added, “I do not like you. I’m out to get you, I’m out to get you. Your defeat is my goal.”
“I Mean It”: Biden Endorses Violence, Tells Dems To “Beat The Hell Out Of” Republicans
“Let me tell you what our Project 2025 is: beat the h*ll out of them,” Biden told the crowd during an event in Prince George’s County, Maryland. After the far-left audience cheered for violence, Biden doubled down by saying, “I mean it!”
IDF claims it has eliminated over 17,000 terrorists in Gaza since Oct 7
The Israel military has eliminated more than 17,000 terrorists belonging to Hamas and other Gazan factions since Oct. 7, the IDF’s spokesman Daniel Hagari announced on Thursday. Israel Defense Forces has also succeeded in eliminating much of Hamas’ top leadership, including former military commander Mohammed Deif, his deputy Marwan Issa and the former political leader Ismail Haniyeh. However, Hamas’ top leader, Yahya Sinwar, is still believed to be hiding somewhere in the vast underground tunnel network beneath Gaza.
Russian Media Claims Ukraine Preparing ‘Dirty Nuke’ Attack; Kiev “Refutes These False Reports”
Russian state media outlets are sounding the alarm in the overnight hours, alleging that Ukrainian forces are preparing to strike the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in Enerhodar, Ukraine, and the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) in Russia with radioactive warheads, all in an attempt to create a false flag and blame Moscow.
Very strong M7.0 earthquake hits off the coast of Kamchatka, Russia — hazardous tsunami waves possible
A very strong earthquake registered by the USGS as M7.0 hit off the coast of Kamchatka, Russia at 19:10 UTC on August 17, 2024. The agency is reporting a depth of 50 km (31 miles). EMSC is reporting M7.0 at a depth of 51 km (32 miles).
Devastating floods in Chad’s desert province of Tibesti claim at least 54 lives
Severe flooding caused by heavy torrential rains from August 9 to 14, 2024 has devastated Chad’s northern province of Tibesti, leaving at least 54 people dead.
Major forest fire in Izmir, Turkey forces evacuations as flames threaten residential areas
A rapidly spreading forest fire in Izmir, Turkey, is forcing evacuations as flames approach residential areas. Local authorities reported that strong winds and difficult terrain are hindering firefighting efforts, with the fire still raging in multiple locations since it broke out late Thursday, August 15, 2024, in the Karşıyaka district.
Israel’s IAF strike Hezbollah terror group facilities in Lebanon
The IDF revealed on Saturday morning that Israeli air force fighter jets had struck a Hezbollah weapons warehouse and a military building belonging to the terror group in southern Lebanon overnight.
Think tank warns Americans that the federal government has catastrophically failed to prioritize food security for the nation
“The US government has not put a major priority on food security or preparedness,” Tommy Waller, president and CEO of the Centre for Security Policy, warned. “Under the Biden administration, the USDA and FEMA have transitioned from a culture of preparedness to priorities of diversity, equity and inclusion – DEI – and climate change.”
While elections keep the population distracted, America is being bought by oligarchs
The American government and economy have been compromised by corporate interests and foreign ownership. American land and businesses have been lost to foreign entities, national debt is increasing, and the media has been taken over by corporations. Oligarchs own America.
Australian professor calls for public health officials who failed the public during the Covid era to be sacked and held accountable
Professor Ian Brighthope has again criticized the Australian government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. He raises the Government’s controversial decisions and misguided actions, concerns about transparency, scientific evidence handling and public health.
Southern Californians Blindsided by Sky-High Electricity Bills After New Socialist “Time of Use” Pricing System Goes Into Effect
Southern Californians were hit with massive electricity bills this summer after a new Socialist “Time of Use” (TOU) pricing system went into effect. SoCal utility company Southern California Edison (SCE) charges its customers more for energy use during ‘peak hours’ with its “Time of Use” pricing system.
Pilot projects for a vaccination passport are commencing in five European countries next month. Officially called the European Vaccination Card, it is claimed that it aims to “foster informed decision-making on vaccination, and improve continuity of care across the EU” but is a stepping stone for mandatory vaccinations. And it is connected to large financial interests that have plans to limit personal and national sovereignty.
“Kamunism” Goes Viral as Kamala Harris Promotes Economy-Crashing Price Controls and Other Communist Tricks in America
Communism has reached America’s shores – and Democrats don’t hide it anymore. Kamala Harris traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday to announce a Communist-style price control scheme to combat the inflation crisis she created.
Source: https://www.raptureready.com/2024/08/18/18-aug-2024/
Headlines – 8/18/2024
Mediators push updated Gaza truce offer, hope for deal next week, as Doha talks break
‘Very difficult, complex deal,’ ‘wrenching,’ senior US official says of Doha meetings
Gaza ceasefire progress is an illusion, says Hamas
US ‘bridging proposal’ for Gaza deal said to exclude two of Netanyahu’s key demands
Bolton skeptical about cease-fire talks: Israel’s still ‘really far apart’
David Lammy warns of rising risk of full-scale regional war in Middle East
An Israeli airstrike kills 18 members of a family in Gaza as mediators hope for a cease-fire
Hezbollah Unveils Vast Underground Missile Complex
Hezbollah launches 55 rockets at Israel after IDF strike destroys weapons cache killing 10 people
IDF strike kills top Hezbollah commander in Lebanon: report
Power outage in Lebanon: The last operational power plant shuts down operations
Lack of fuel forces Lebanon’s last major power plant to shut down
Commentary: This is how the Iranian espionage mechanism targets Israelis
2 IDF reservists killed by bomb during logistics supply mission in central Gaza
Two senior Hamas operatives killed in IDF drone strike in West Bank city of Jenin
Hamas plotted to threaten UK in 2022 by ‘kidnapping’ bodies of WWI soldiers – report
‘Follow the money’: FM Katz questions financial links between Turkey’s Erdogan and Hamas
Residents of West Bank town say deadly settler attack was ‘most vicious’ yet
Harris campaign’s new adviser to Muslims draws criticism from pro-Israel leaders
‘Uncommitted’ delegates bring Gaza-war message to Democratic convention
The pro-Palestinian ‘uncommitted’ movement is at a standstill with top Democrats as the DNC begins
Protests planned for Democrats’ convention spark safety, speech worries
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson says the city is ready to tackle protests against the DNC
‘Cowardly and unacceptable’: Progressive NYC Dem condemns violent anti-Israel protest
Emerson College lays off 10 employees citing low enrollment tied to Gaza camp protests
‘A police state’: US universities impose rules to avoid repeat of Gaza protests
Jewish groups to sue Belgian author for writing he wants to ‘shove a sharp knife’ in Jews’ throats
Argentine police thwart Islamist terror cell planning attacks on Jewish community
Amid brutal civil war, Sudan’s VP defends refusal to participate in U.S.-led peace talks
Brawl breaks out in Turkey’s parliament over an imprisoned opposition leader
Protesters rally in Venezuela’s capital as post-election crisis persists
Ukrainian forces left a path of destruction in the Kursk operation
How Ukraine turned the war on its head with surprise attack on southern Russia
Behind Ukraine’s Russia Invasion: Secrecy, Speed and Electronic Jamming
Ukraine’s invasion has exposed Putin’s messianic vision of Russia as a mirage
Ukraine’s offensive derails secret efforts for partial cease-fire with Russia, officials say
Ukrainian City Hit With Russian Missile Strike Amid Kursk Incursion
Kremlin Is Treating Ukraine’s Incursion Like a Natural Disaster
Philippines says China was ‘dramatically’ alarmed over US missile system deployed to its north
Oil Slips More Than $1 Per Barrel Due to Dismal Economic News from China
Xi Jinping says BRICS just wants to save the global economy
Televised MSNBC Focus Group Goes Horribly Wrong, Gen-Z Voters Slam Biden-Harris Economy
Legacy media attacks Kamala Harris’ price control policies, calls them ‘Soviet,’ ‘gimmicks’
Left-wing Washington Post slams Harris’ price-gouging crackdown plan: ‘Squandered the moment’
‘Kamunism’ trends on X after Kamala Harris releases communist-style price controls
Walz administration awarded $2 million to Muslim group fundraising for al Qaeda-linked charity
Venezuela’s Maduro Asks ‘Who Rules the United States?’ After White House Walks Back Biden Comments
The ‘Kamalanomenon’: Will pop culture stardom propel Harris to the White House?
Hunter Biden’s ex-partner cooperating in bizarre murder-for-hire prosecution, court records show
Elon Musk’s rightward turn includes a fringe fascination: Civil war
Elon Musk says X will pull operations from Brazil after ‘censorship orders’
Dan Ives calls AI ‘the fourth industrial revolution’ ahead of Nvidia earnings
Auroras headed to the US again in aftermath of gargantuan ‘X-class’ solar flare
Earthquake scientists are learning warning signs of ‘The Big One.’ When should they tell the public?
7.2 magnitude earthquake strikes off Russia as tsunami warning issued by authorities
5.7 magnitude earthquake hits near Houma, Tonga
5.2 magnitude earthquake hits near Yelizovo, Russia
5.2 magnitude earthquake hits the Izu Islands, Japan region
5.2 magnitude earthquake hits the Fiji region
5.1 magnitude earthquake hits near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia
5.1 magnitude earthquake hits near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia
5.0 magnitude earthquake hits south of the Fiji Islands
5.0 magnitude earthquake hits near Lospalos, Timor Leste
Sheveluch volcano erupts in Russia after earthquake, sending ash column 5 miles high
Sheveluch volcano on Kamchatka, Russia erupts to 28,000ft
Sabancaya volcano in Peru erupts to 25,000ft
Popocateptl volcano in Mexico erupts to 22,000ft
Ruiz volcano in Colombia erupts to 22,000ft
Sangay volcano in Ecuador erupts to 19,000ft
Semeru volcano in Indonesia erupts to 15,000ft
Fuego volcano in Guatemala erupts to 14,000ft
Reventador volcano in Ecuador erupts to 14,000ft
Santa Maria volcano in Guatemala erupts to 13,000ft
Ibu volcano in Indonesia erupts to 12,000ft
Merapi volcano in Indonesia erupts to 12,000ft
Lewotobi volcano in Indonesia erupts to 10,000ft
‘Don’t become a statistic’: Hurricane Ernesto brings rip current danger to millions
2 men drown in South Carolina as Hurricane Ernesto produces rip currents along East Coast
Ernesto to swipe at Newfoundland before speeding toward UK
Devastating floods in Chad’s desert province of Tibesti claim at least 54 lives
Thousands forced to evacuate as wildfires rage in western Turkey
Western Turkey wildfires continued raging for a 3rd day, worsened by windy and dry weather
Carmakers Scramble to Calm Revolt Against EVs in South Korea After Battery Fires
Border Patrol suicides continue at staggering rate under Biden-Harris admin
Immigration Seen as Most Pressing Issue for Britons for First Time Since 2016: Poll
‘Stirring Up Hatred – UK Man Jailed After Mocking Muslims at Non-Violent Anti-Migration Protest
Homeless people will face fines, possible arrest in Long Beach crackdown, city official says
Newsom signs legislative crime package addressing organized retail theft
Kamala Harris’s Leftist Stepdaughter Pushes Controversial Drug Ketamine
Matthew Perry’s tragic death leaves Hollywood stars terrified their own drug habits could be exposed
US lawmakers demand that Mark Zuckerberg stop illegal drug ads on Facebook, Instagram
‘I Can Actually Define a Woman,’ Critics ‘Call Mothers Chest Feeders’: Luna Defends Swimsuit Photo
Supreme Court declines to enforce Biden-Harris Title IX ‘gender identity’ protections
UK Government Set to Ban Silent Prayer Outside Abortion Clinics
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Slams Proposed Abortion Amendment: Means ‘End of Pro-Life Movement’
Ron DeSantis Warns Pro-Life Movement May Collapse if Florida Passes Proposed Abortion Amendment
Teens’ Energy-Drink Habit Is Amping Anxiety, Disrupting Class and Triggering Seizures
Harris Campaign Mandating COVID Vaccine To Work For Her
FDA may greenlight updated Covid-19 vaccines as soon as next week, sources say
Aid groups in Gaza aim to avert a polio outbreak with a surge of vaccinations
UN’s Guterres: ‘The ultimate vaccine for polio in Gaza is peace’
Congo’s humanitarian crisis helped mpox spiral again into a global health emergency
Why Did Barack Obama and Eric Holder Select Kamala? | The Last Refuge
The DNC Convention starts tomorrow. I have been requested to repost “THE BIG WHY” explanation. When we understand just how much corruption was needed in the weaponization of the modern IC, we start to understand why the effort to hide it will continue.
President Barack Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; instead, what they did was take the preexisting system and retool it, so the weapons only targeted one side of the political continuum. This point is where many people understandably get confused.
In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.
What Barack Obama and Eric Holder did with that new construct was refine the internal targeting mechanisms so that only their ideological opposition became the target of the new national security system. This is very important to understand as you dig deeper into this research outline.
Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01. DHS came along in 2002, and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the ODNI was formed. When Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition.
The preexisting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Dept of Justice (DOJ) were then repurposed to become two of the four pillars of the domestic national security apparatus. However, this new construct would have a targeting mechanism based on political ideology. The DHS, ODNI, DOJ and FBI became the four pillars of this new institution. Atop these pillars is where you will find the Fourth Branch of Government.
We were not sleeping when this happened, we were wide awake. However, we were stunningly distracted by the economic collapse that was taking place in 2006 and 2007 when the engineers behind Obama started to assemble the design. By the time Obama took office in 2009, we sensed something profound was shifting, but we can only see exactly what shifted in the aftermath. The four pillars were put into place, and a new Fourth Branch of Government was quietly created.
As time passed, and the system operators became familiar with their new tools, technology allowed the tentacles of the system to reach out and touch us. That is when we first started to notice that something very disconcerting was happening. Those four pillars are the root of it, and if we take the time to understand how the Fourth Branch originated, questions about this current state of perpetual angst will start to make sense.
Grab a cup of your favorite beverage, and take a walk with me as we outline how this was put together. You might find many of the questions about our current state of political affairs beginning to make a lot more sense.
Remember, it is not my intent to outline the entire history of how we got to this place where the intelligence community now acts as the superseding fourth branch of government. Such an effort would be exhausting and likely take our discussion away from understanding the current dynamic.
History provided enough warnings from Dwight D. Eisenhower (military), to John F. Kennedy (CIA), to Richard Nixon (FBI), to all modern versions of warnings and frustrations from HPSCI Devin Nunes and ODNI Ric Grenell. None of those prior reference points are invalid, and all documented outlines of historic reference are likely true and accurate. However, a generational review is not useful, as the reference impacting us ‘right now‘ gets lost.
Instead, we pick up the expansive and weaponized intelligence system as it manifests after 9/11/01, and my goal is to highlight how the modern version of the total intelligence apparatus has now metastasized into a Fourth Branch of Government. It is this superseding branch that now touches and influences every facet of our life.
If we take the modern construct, originating at the speed of technological change, we can also see how the oversight or “check/balance” in our system of government became functionally obsolescent.
After many years of granular research about the intelligence apparatus inside our government, in the summer of 2020 I visited Washington DC to ask specific questions. My goal was to go where the influence agents within government actually operate, and to discover the people deep inside the institutions no one elected and few people pay attention to.
It was during this process when I discovered how information is purposefully put into containment silos; essentially a formal process to block the flow of information between agencies and between the original branches.
While frustrating to discover, the silo effect was important because understanding the communication between networks leads to our ability to reconcile conflict between what we perceive and what’s actually taking place.
After days of research and meetings in DC during the summer of 2020, the subsequent discussions were perhaps the most important. After many hours of specific questions and answers on specific examples, I realized why our nation is in this mess. That is when I discovered the fourth and superseding branch of government, the Intelligence Branch.
I am going to explain how the Intelligence Branch works: (1) to control every other branch of government; (2) how it functions as an entirely independent branch of government with no oversight; (3) how and why it was created to be independent from oversight; (4) what is the current mission of the IC Branch, and most importantly (5) who operates it.
The Intelligence Branch is an independent functioning branch of government, it is no longer a subsidiary set of agencies within the Executive Branch as most would think. To understand the Intelligence Branch, we need to drop the elementary school civics class lessons about three coequal branches of government and replace that outlook with the modern system that created itself.
The Intelligence Branch functions much like the State Dept, through a unique set of public-private partnerships that support it. Big Tech industry collaboration with intelligence operatives is part of that functioning; almost like an NGO. However, the process is much more important than most think. In this problematic perspective of a corrupt system of government, the process is the flaw – not the outcome.
There are people making decisions inside this little known, unregulated and out-of-control branch of government that impact every facet of our lives.
None of the people operating deep inside the Intelligence Branch were elected, and our elected representative House members genuinely do not know how the system works. I assert this position affirmatively because I have talked to House and Senate staffers, including the chiefs of staff for multiple House & Senate committee seats. They are not malicious people; however, they are genuinely clueless of things that happen outside their silo. That is part of the purpose of me explaining it, with examples, in full detail with sunlight.
We begin….
In April of 2016, the FBI launched a counterintelligence operation against presidential candidate Donald Trump. The questioning about that operation is what New York Representative Elise Stefanik cites in March of 2017, approximately 11 months later (First Two Minutes).
Things to note:
♦ Notice how FBI Director James Comey just matter-of-factly explains no one outside the DOJ was informed about the FBI operation. Why? Because that’s just the way things are done. His justification for unilateral operations was “because of the sensitivity of the matter“, totally ignoring any constitutional or regulatory framework for oversight; because, well, quite simply, there isn’t any. The intelligence apparatus inside the DOJ/FBI can, and does, operate based on their own independent determinations of authority.
♦ Notice also how FBI Director Comey shares his perspective that informing the National Security Council (NSC) is the equivalent of notifying the White House. The FBI leadership expressly believe they bear no responsibility to brief the Chief Executive. As long as they tell some unknown, unelected, bureaucratic entity inside the NSC, their unwritten responsibility to inform the top of their institutional silo is complete. If the IC wants to carve out the Oval Office, they simply plant information inside the NSC and, from their perspective, their civic responsibility to follow checks-and-balances is complete. This is an intentional construct.
♦ Notice how Comey obfuscates notification to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), by avoiding the fact James Clapper was the DNI from outset of the counterintelligence operation throughout the remainder of Obama’s term. When I get deeper into the process, we will understand how the Intelligence Branch has intentionally used the creation of the DNI position (established post 9/11/01) as a method to avoid oversight, not enhance it. Keeping an oblivious doofus like James Clapper in position held strategic value [Doofus Reminder HERE].
That video of James Comey being questioned by Elise Stefanik was the first example given to me by someone who knew the background of everything that was taking place preceding that March 20, 2017, hearing. That FBI reference point is a key to understand how the Intelligence Branch operates with unilateral authority above Congress (legislative branch), above the White House (executive branch), and even above the court system (judicial branch).
Also, watch this short video of James Clapper because it is likely many readers have forgotten, and likely even more readers have never seen it. Watch closely how then White House national security adviser John Brennan is responding in that video. This is before Brennan became CIA Director, this is when Brennan was helping Barack Obama put the pillars into place. WATCH:
[Sidebar: Every time I post this video it gets scrubbed from YouTube (example), so save it if you ever want to see it again.]
The video of James Clapper highlights how the ODNI position (created with good national security intention) ended up becoming the fulcrum for modern weaponization, and is now an office manipulated by agencies with a vested interest in retaining power. The Intelligence Branch holds power over the ODNI through their influence and partnership with the body that authorizes the power within it, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).
Factually, the modern intelligence apparatus uses checks and balances in their favor. The checks create silos of proprietary information, classified information, vaults of information that work around oversight issues. The silos are part of the problem.
Ironically, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created in the aftermath of 9/11/01 expressly to eliminate the silos of information which they felt led to a domestic terrorist attack that could have been prevented. The ODNI was created specifically upon the recommendation of the 9/11 commission.
The intent was to create a central hub of intelligence information, inside the Executive Branch, where the CIA, NSA, DoD, DoS, and DIA could deposit their unique intelligence products and a repository would be created so that domestic intelligence operations, like the DOJ and FBI could access them when needed to analyze threats to the U.S. This, they hoped, would ensure the obvious flags missed in the 9/11 attacks would not be missed again.
The DNI office created a problem for those who operate in the shadows of proprietary information. You’ll see how it was critical to install a person uniquely skilled in being an idiot, James Clapper, into that willfully blind role while intelligence operatives worked around the office to assemble the Intelligence Branch of Government.
• The last federal budget that flowed through the traditional budgetary process was signed into law in September of 2007 for fiscal year 2008 by George W. Bush. Every budget since then has been a fragmented process of continuing resolutions and individual spending bills.
Why does this matter? Because many people think defunding the Intelligence Community is a solution; it is not…. at least, not yet. Worse yet, the corrupt divisions deep inside the U.S. intelligence system can now fund themselves from multinational private sector partnerships (banks, corporations and foreign entities).
• When Democrats took over the House of Representatives in January 2007, they took office with a plan. Nancy Pelosi became Speaker, and Democrats controlled the Senate where Harry Reid was Majority Leader. Barack Obama was a junior senator from Illinois.
Pelosi and Reid intentionally did not advance a budget in 2008 (for fiscal year 2009) because their plan included installing Barack Obama (and all that came with him) with an open checkbook made even more lucrative by a worsening financial crisis and a process called baseline budgeting. Baseline budgeting means the prior fiscal year budget is accepted as the starting point for the next year budget. All previous expenditures are baked into the cake within baseline budgeting.
Massive bailouts preceded Obama’s installation due to U.S. economic collapse, and massive bailouts continued after his installation. This is the ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ aspect. TARP (Troubled Asset Recovery Program), auto bailouts (GM), and the massive stimulus spending bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, ie. those shovel ready jobs) were all part of the non budget spending. The federal reserve assisted with Quantitative Easing (QE1 and QE2) as congress passed various Porkulous spending bills further spending and replacing the formal budget process.
Note: There has never been a budget passed in the normal/traditional process since September of 2007.
• While Obama’s radical ‘transformation‘ was triggered across a broad range of government institutions, simultaneously spending on the U.S. military was cut, but spending on the intelligence apparatus expanded. We were all distracted by Obamacare, and the Republican party wanted to keep us that way. However, in the background there was a process of transformation taking place that included very specific action by Eric Holder and targeted effort toward the newest executive agency the ODNI.
The people behind Obama, those same people now behind Joe Biden, knew from years of strategic planning that ‘radical transformation’ would require control over specific elements inside the U.S. government. Eric Holder played a key role in his position as U.S. Attorney General in the DOJ.
AG Holder recruited ideologically aligned political operatives who were aware of the larger institutional objectives. One of those objectives was weaponizing the DOJ-National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) a division inside the DOJ that had no inspector general oversight. For most people the DOJ-NSD weaponization surfaced with a hindsight awakening of the DOJ-NSD targeting candidate Donald Trump many years later. However, by then the Holder crew had executed almost eight full years of background work.
• The second larger Obama/Holder objective was control over the FBI. Why was that important? Because the FBI does the domestic investigative work on anyone who needs or holds a security clearance. The removal of security clearances could be used as a filter to further build the internal ideological army they were assembling. Additionally, with new power in the ODNI created as a downstream consequence of the Patriot Act, new protocols for U.S. security clearances were easy to justify.
Carefully selecting fellow ideological travelers was facilitated by this filtration within the security clearance process. How does that issue later manifest? Just look around at how politicized every intelligence agency has become, specifically including the FBI.
• At the exact same time this new background security clearance process was ongoing, again everyone distracted by the fight over Obamacare, inside the Department of State (Secretary Hillary Clinton) a political alignment making room for the next phase was being assembled. Names like Samantha Power, Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton were familiar on television while Lisa Monaco worked as a legal liaison between the Obama White House and Clinton State Department.
Through the Dept of State (DoS) the intelligence apparatus began working on their first steps to align Big Tech with a larger domestic institutional objective. Those of you who remember the “Arab Spring”, some say “Islamist Spring”, will remember it was triggered by Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo – his first foreign trip. The State Department worked with grassroots organizers (mostly Muslim Brotherhood) in Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Qatar and Libya. Obama leaned heavily on the organizational network of Turkish President Recep Erdogan for contacts and support.
Why does this aspect matter to us? Well, you might remember how much effort the Obama administration put into recruiting Facebook and Twitter as resources for the various mideast rebellions the White House and DoS supported. This was the point of modern merge between the U.S. intelligence community and Big Tech social media.
In many ways, the coordinated political outcomes in Libya and Egypt were the beta test for the coordinated domestic political outcomes we saw in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The U.S. intelligence community working with social media platforms and political operatives.
Overlaying all of that background activity was also a new alignment of the Obama-era intelligence apparatus with ideological federal “contractors“. Where does this contractor activity manifest? In the FISA Court opinion of Rosemary Collyer who cited the “interagency memorandum of understanding”, or MOU.
Hopefully, you can see a small part of how tentacled the system to organize/weaponize the intelligence apparatus was. None of this was accidental, all of this was by design, and the United States Senate was responsible for intentionally allowing most of this to take place.
That’s the 30,000/ft level backdrop history of what was happening as the modern IC was created. Next we will go into how all these various intelligence networks began working in unison and how they currently control all of the other DC institutions under them; including how they can carve out the President from knowing their activity.
♦ When Barack Obama was installed in January 2009, the Democrats held a 60 seat majority in the U.S. Senate. As the people behind the Obama installation began executing their longer-term plan, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was a tool to create the Intelligence Branch; it was not an unintentional series of events.
When Obama was installed, Dianne Feinstein was the Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and Democrat operative Dan Jones was her lead staffer. Feinstein was completely controlled by those around her including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The CIA was in the process of turning over personnel following the Bush era, and as a result of a massive multi-year narrative of diminished credibility (Iraq WMD), a deep purge was underway. Obama/Holder were in the process of shifting intelligence alignment and the intensely political Democrat Leader Harry Reid was a key participant.
THE TRAP – Many people say that Congress is the solution to eliminating the Fourth and superseding Branch of Government, the Intelligence Branch. This is an exercise in futility because the Legislative Branch, specifically the SSCI, facilitated the creation of the Intelligence Branch. The SSCI cannot put the genie they created back in the bottle without admitting they too are corrupt; and the background story of their corruption is way too intense to be exposed now.
Every member of the SSCI is compromised in some controlling manner. Those Senators who disliked the control over them; specifically disliked because the risk of sunlight was tenuous and, well, possible; have either left completely or stepped down from the committee. None of the SSCI members past or present would ever contemplate saying openly what their tenure involved.
[Note: You might remember when Vice Chairman Mark Warner’s text messages surfaced, there was a controlled Republican SSCI member who came to his defense in February of 2018. It was not accidental that exact Senator later became the chair of the SSCI himself. That Republican Senator is Marco Rubio, now vice-chair since the Senate re-flipped back to the optics of Democrat control in 2021.]
All of President Obama’s 2009 intelligence appointments required confirmation from the Senate. The nominees had to first pass through the Democrat controlled SSCI, and then to a full Senate vote where Democrats held a 60 vote majority. Essentially, Obama got everyone he wanted in place easily. Rahm Emmanuel was Obama’s Chief of Staff, and Valerie Jarrett was Senior Advisor.
Tim Geithner was Treasury Secretary in 2010 when the joint DOJ/FBI and IRS operation to target the Tea Party took place after the midterm “shellacking” caused by the Obamacare backlash. Mitch McConnell was Minority Leader in the Senate but supported the targeting of the Tea Party as his Senate colleagues were getting primaried by an angry and effective grassroots campaign. McConnell’s friend, Senator Bob Bennett, getting beaten in Utah was the final straw.
Dirty Harry and Mitch McConnell saw the TEA Party through the same prism. The TEA Party took Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts (Scott Brown); Sharon Angle was about to take out Harry Reid in Nevada; Arlen Spector was taken down in Pennsylvania; Senator Robert Byrd died; Senator Lisa Murkowski lost her primary to Joe Miller in Alaska; McConnell’s nominee Mike Castle lost to Christine O’Donnell in Delaware; Rand Paul won in Kentucky. This is the background. The peasants were revolting…. and visibly angry Mitch McConnell desperately made a deal with the devil to protect himself.
In many ways, the TEA Party movement was/is very similar to the MAGA movement. The difference in 2010 was the absence of a head of the movement, in 2015 Donald Trump became that head figure who benefited from the TEA Party energy. Trump came into office in 2017 with the same congressional opposition as the successful TEA Party candidates in 2011.
Republicans took control of the Senate following the 2014 mid-terms. Republicans took control of the SSCI in January 2015. Senator Richard Burr became chairman of the SSCI, and Dianne Feinstein shifted to Vice-Chair. Dirty Harry Reid left the Senate, and Mitch McConnell took power again.
Republicans were in control of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2015 when the Intelligence Branch operation against candidate Donald Trump was underway. [Feinstein’s staffer, Dan Jones, left the SSCI so he could act as a liaison and political operative between private-sector efforts (Fusion GPS, Chris Steele) and the SSCI.] The SSCI was a participant in that Fusion-GPS/Chris Steele operation, and as a direct consequence Republicans were inherently tied to the problem with President Trump taking office in January of 2017. Indiana Republican Senator Dan Coats was a member of the SSCI.
Bottom line…. When it came to the intelligence system targeting Donald Trump during the 2015/2016 primary, the GOP was just as much at risk as their Democrat counterparts.
When Trump unexpectedly won the 2016 election, the SSCI was shocked more than most. They knew countermeasures would need to be deployed to protect themselves from any exposure of their intelligence conduct. Dianne Feinstein stepped down, and Senator Mark Warner was elevated to Vice Chairman.
Indiana’s own Mike Pence, now Vice President, recommended fellow Hoosier, SSCI Senator Dan Coats, to become President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). [Apply hindsight here]
• To give an idea of the Intelligence Branch power dynamic, remind yourself how House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Chairman Devin Nunes, tried to get access to the DOJ/FBI records of the FISA application used against the Trump campaign via Carter Page.
Remember, Devin Nunes only saw a portion of the FISA trail from his review of a Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) previously given to President Obama. Chairman Nunes had to review the PDB at the White House SCIF due to compartmented intelligence, another example of the silo benefit.
Remember the massive stonewalling and blocking of the DOJ/FBI toward Nunes? Remember the back and forth battle over declassification surrounding the Nunes memo?
Remember, after Nunes went directly to House Speaker Paul Ryan for help (didn’t get any), the DOJ only permitted two members from each party within the HPSCI to review the documents, and only at the DOJ offices of main justice?
Contrast that amount of House Intel Committee railroading and blocking by intelligence operatives in the DOJ, DOJ-NSD and FBI, with the simple request by Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner asking to see the Carter Page FISA application and immediately a copy being delivered to him on March 17th 2017.
Can you see which intelligence committee is aligned with the deepest part of the deep state?
Oh, how quickly we forget:
The contrast of ideological alignment between the House, Senate and Intelligence Branch is crystal clear when viewed through the prism of cooperation. You can see which legislative committee holds the power and support of the Intelligence Branch. The Senate Intel Committee facilitates the corrupt existence of the IC Branch, so the IC Branch only cooperates with the Senate Intel Committee. It really is that simple.
• The Intelligence Branch carefully selects its own members by controlling how security clearances are investigated and allowed (FBI). The Intelligence Branch also uses compartmentalization of intelligence as a way to keep each agency, and each downstream branch of government (executive, legislative and judicial), at arms length as a method to stop anyone from seeing the larger picture of their activity. I call this the “silo effect“, and it is done by design.
I have looked at stunned faces when I presented declassified silo product from one agency to the silo customers of another. You would be astonished at what they don’t know because it is not in their ‘silo’.
Through the advise and consent rules, the Intelligence Branch uses the SSCI to keep out people they consider dangerous to their ongoing operations. Any appointee to the intelligence community must first pass through the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, before they get a full Senate vote. If the SSCI rejects the candidate, they simply refuse to take up the nomination. The president is then blocked from that appointment. This is what happened with President Trump over-and-over again.
• Additionally, the Intelligence Branch protects itself, and its facilitating allies through the formal classification process. The Intelligence Branch gets to decide unilaterally what information will be released and what information will be kept secret. There is no entity outside the Intelligence Branch, and yes that includes the President of the United States, who can supersede the classification authority of the Intelligence Branch. {Go Deep} and {Go Deep} This is something 99.9% of the people on our side get totally and frustratingly wrong.
No one can declassify, or make public, anything the Intelligence Branch will not agree to. Doubt this? Ask Ric Grenell, John Ratcliffe, or even President Trump himself.
• The classification process is determined inside the Intelligence Branch, all by themselves. They get to choose what rank of classification exists on any work-product they create; and they get to decide what the classification status is of any work product that is created by anyone else. The Intelligence Branch has full control over what is considered classified information and what is not. The Intelligence Branch defines what is a “national security interest” and what is not. A great technique for hiding fingerprints of corrupt and illegal activity.
[For familiar reference see the redactions to Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages. The Intelligence Branch does all redactions.]
• Similarly, the declassification process is a request by an agency, even a traditionally superior agency like the President of the United States, to the Intelligence Branch asking for them to release the information. The Intelligence Branch again holds full unilateral control. If the head of the CIA refuses to comply with the declassification instruction of the President, what can the president do except fire him/her? {Again, GO DEEP} How does the President replace the non-compliant cabinet member? They have to go through the SSCI confirmation. See the problem?
Yes, there are ways to break up the Intelligence Branch, but they do not start with any congressional effort. As you can see above, the process is the flaw – not the solution. Most conservative pundits have their emphasis on the wrong syllable. Their cornerstone is false.
For their own self-preservation, the Intelligence Branch has been interfering in our elections for years. The way to tear this apart begins with STATE LEVEL election reform that blocks the Legislative Branch from coordinating with the Intelligence Branch.
The extreme federalism approach is critical and also explains why Joe Biden has instructed Attorney General Merrick Garland to use the full power of the DOJ to stop state level election reform efforts. The worry of successful state level election control is also why the Intelligence Branch now needs to support the federal takeover of elections.
Our elections have been usurped by the Intelligence Branch. Start with honest elections and we will see just how much Democrat AND Republican corruption is dependent on manipulated election results. Start at the state level. Start there…. everything else is downstream.
♦ People want examples, reference points for work the Intelligence Branch conducts, specifically how it protects itself.
Here is an example: Julian Assange.
Yes, the history of the U.S. national security apparatus goes back decades; however, the weaponization of that apparatus, the creation of an apex branch of government, the Intelligence Branch, originated –as we currently feel it– under President Barack Obama.
Obama took the foundational tools created by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and used the intelligence system architecture to create a weapon for use in his fundamental transformation. An alliance of ideologues within government (intel community) and the private sector (big tech and finance) was assembled, and the largest government weapon was created. Think about this every time you take your shoes off at an airport.
After the weapon was assembled and tested (Arab Spring), the Legislative Branch was enjoined under the auspices of a common enemy, Donald J. Trump, an outsider who was a risk to every entity in the institutional construct of Washington DC. Trillions were at stake, and years of affluence and influence were at risk as the unholy alliance was put together.
To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to U.S. Intelligence Branch interests, it is important to understand just how extensive the operations of the FBI/CIA were in 2016.
It is within the network of foreign and domestic intel operations where Intelligence Branch political tool, FBI Agent Peter Strzok, was working as a bridge between the CIA and FBI counterintelligence operations.
By now, people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor generally identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the FBI/CIA to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. {Go Deep}
In a similar fashion, the FBI tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page. Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor, Stefan Halper also targeted General Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos.
The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all based overseas. This seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets and the targets much easier.
HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes outlined how very specific exculpatory evidence was known to the FBI and yet withheld from the FISA application used against Carter Page that also mentions George Papadopoulos. The FBI also fabricated information in the FISA.
However, there is an aspect to the domestic U.S. operation that also bears the fingerprints of the international intelligence apparatus; only this time, due to the restrictive laws on targets inside the U.S., the CIA aspect is less prominent. This is where FBI Agent Peter Strzok working for both agencies was important.
Remember, it’s clear in the text messages Strzok had a working relationship with what he called their “sister agency”, the CIA. Additionally, former CIA Director John Brennan has admitted Strzok helped write the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which outlines the Russia narrative; and Peter Strzok wrote the July 31st, 2016, “Electronic Communication” that originated FBI operation “Crossfire Hurricane.” Strzok immediately used that EC to travel to London to debrief allied intelligence officials connected to the Australian Ambassador to the U.K, Alexander Downer.
In short, Peter Strzok acted as a bridge between the CIA and the FBI. The perfect type of FBI career agent for the Intelligence Branch and CIA Director John Brennan to utilize.
Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson hired CIA Open Source analyst Nellie Ohr toward the end of 2015; at appropriately the same time as “FBI Contractors” were identified exploiting the NSA database and extracting information on a specific set of U.S. persons, the 2015 GOP candidates for President.
It was also Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson who was domestically tasked with a Russian lobbyist named Natalia Veselnitskaya. A little reported Russian Deputy Attorney General named Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was working double agents for the CIA and Kremlin. Karapetyan was directing the foreign operations of Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Glenn Simpson was organizing her inside the U.S.
Glenn Simpson managed Veselnitskaya through the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. However, once the CIA/Fusion-GPS operation using Veselnitskaya started to unravel with public reporting… back in Russia Deputy AG Karapetyan died in a helicopter crash.
Simultaneously timed in late 2015 through mid 2016, there was a domestic FBI operation using a young Russian named Maria Butina tasked to run up against republican presidential candidates. According to Patrick Byrne, Butina’s private sector handler [NOTE: remember, the public-private sector partnership], it was FBI agent Peter Strzok who was giving Patrick Byrne the instructions on where to send Butina. {Go Deep}
All of this context outlines the extent to which the FBI/CIA was openly involved in constructing a political operation that eventually settled upon anyone in candidate Donald Trump’s orbit. The international operations of the Intelligence Branch were directed by the FBI/CIA; and the domestic operations were coordinated by Peter Strzok operating with a foot in both agencies. [Strzok gets CIA service coin]
Recap: ♦Mifsud tasked against Papadopoulos (CIA). ♦Halper tasked against Flynn (CIA), Page (CIA), and Papadopoulos (CIA). ♦Azra Turk, pretending to be a Halper asst, tasked against Papadopoulos (FBI). ♦Veselnitskaya tasked against Donald Trump Jr (CIA, Fusion-GPS). ♦Butina tasked against Donald Trump Jr (FBI). All of these activities were coordinated.
Additionally, Christopher Steele was a British intelligence officer, hired by Fusion GPS to assemble and launder fraudulent intelligence information within his dossier. And we cannot forget Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, who was recruited by Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to participate in running an operation against the Trump campaign and create the impression of Russian involvement. However, Deripaska refused to participate.
All of this foreign and domestic engagement was directly controlled by collaborating U.S. intelligence agencies from inside the Intelligence Branch. And all of this coordinated activity was intended to give a specific Russia influence/interference impression.
♦ The key point of all that background context is to see how committed the Intelligence Branch was to the constructed narrative of Russia interfering with the 2016 election. The CIA, FBI, and by extension the DOJ and DOJ-NSD, put a hell of a lot of work into it.
We also know that John Durham looked at the construct of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA); and talked to CIA analysts who participated in the construct of the January 2017 report that bolstered the false appearance of Russian interference in the 2016 election. This is important because it ties in to the next part that involves Julian Assange and Wikileaks.
On April 11th, 2019, the Julian Assange indictment was unsealed in the EDVA. From the indictment we discover it was under seal since March 6th, 2018:
On Tuesday April 15th more investigative material was released. Again, note the dates: Grand Jury, *December of 2017* This means FBI investigation prior to….
The FBI investigation took place prior to December 2017, and it was coordinated through the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) where Dana Boente was U.S. Attorney at the time. The grand jury indictment was sealed from March of 2018 until after Mueller completed his investigation, April 2019.
Why the delay?
What was the DOJ waiting for?
Here’s where it gets interesting….
The FBI submission to the Grand Jury in December of 2017 was four months after Congressman Dana Rohrabacher talked to Julian Assange in August of 2017: “Assange told a U.S. congressman … he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents … did not come from Russia.”
(August 2017, The Hill Via John Solomon) Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year’s election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is friendly to Russia and chairs an important House subcommittee on Eurasia policy, became the first American congressman to meet with Assange during a three-hour private gathering at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has been holed up for years.
Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill.
“Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year’s presidential election,” Rohrabacher said, “Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.”
Pressed for more detail on the source of the documents, Rohrabacher said he had information to share privately with President Trump. (read more)
Knowing how much effort the Intelligence Branch put into the false Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative, it would make sense for the FBI to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange, monitor all activity, and why the FBI would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017.
Within three months of the EDVA grand jury, the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March 2018.
The DOJ sat on the indictment while the Mueller/Weissmann probe was ongoing.
As soon as the Mueller/Weissmann probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort between the U.K. and U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed (link).
As a person who has researched this fiasco; including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: “17 intelligence agencies”, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) needed for Obama’s anti-Russia narrative in December ’16; and then a month later the ridiculously political Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January ’17; this timing against Assange is too coincidental.
It doesn’t take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian Assange. The Weissmann/Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes for justification, and that narrative was contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes.
♦ This is critical. The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange on-the-record statements.
The predicate for Robert Mueller’s investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment; and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from Crowdstrike, a DNC and FBI contractor.
The CIA holds a self-interest in upholding the Russian hacking claim; the FBI holds an interest in maintaining that claim; the U.S. media hold an interest in maintaining that claim. All of the foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also have a self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative.
Julian Assange is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of the DNC emails; and Assange has claimed he has evidence it was not from a hack.
This “Russian hacking” claim was ultimately important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K intelligence apparatus, it forms the corner of their justification. With that level of importance, well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Julian Assange down as soon as intelligence officials knew the Weissmann/Mueller report was going to be public.
…. and that’s exactly what they did. They threw a bag over Assange.
♦ COLLAPSED OVERSIGHT – The modern system to ‘check’ the Executive Branch was the creation of the legislative “Gang of Eight,” a legislative oversight mechanism intended to provide a bridge of oversight between the authority of the intelligence community within the Executive Branch.
The Go8 construct was designed to allow the President authority to carry out intelligence operations and provide the most sensitive notifications to a select group within Congress.
The Go8 oversight is directed to the position, not the person, and consists of: (1) The Speaker of the House; (2) The Minority Leader of the House; (3) The Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, HPSCI; (4) The Ranking Member (minority) of the HPSCI; (5) The Leader of the Senate; (6) The Minority Leader of the Senate; (7) The Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, SSCI; and finally (8) the Vice-Chair of the SSCI.
Example: When the Chief Executive (the President) initiates an intelligence operation on behalf of the United States, the President triggers a “finding memo.” In essence, the instruction to the intel agency or agencies to authorize a covert operation. When that process takes place, the Go8 are the first people notified. Depending on the sensitivity of the operation, sometimes the G08 are notified immediately after the operation is conducted. The notification can be a phone call or an in-person briefing.
Because of the sensitivity of their intelligence information, the Gang of Eight hold security clearances that permit them to receive and review all intelligence operations. The intelligence community are also responsible for briefing the Go8 with the same information they use to brief the President.
~ 2021 Gang of Eight ~
The Go8 design is intended to put intelligence oversight upon both political parties in Congress; it is designed that way by informing the minority leaders of both the House and Senate as well as the ranking minority members of the SSCI and HPSCI. Under the concept, the President cannot conduct an intelligence operation; and the intelligence community cannot carry out intelligence gathering operations without the majority and minority parties knowing about it.
The modern design of this oversight system was done to keep rogue and/or corrupt intelligence operations from happening. However, as we shared in the preview to this entire discussion, the process was usurped during the Obama era. {GO DEEP}
Former FBI Director James Comey openly admitted to Congress on March 20, 2017, that the FBI, FBI Counterintelligence Division, DOJ and DOJ-National Security Division, together with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the CIA, had been conducting independent investigations of Donald Trump for over a year without informing the Go8. Comey justified the lack of informing Go8 oversight by saying, “because of the sensitivity of the matter.”
Stupidly, Congress never pressed James Comey on that issue. The arrogance was astounding, and the acceptance by Congress was infuriating. However, that specific example highlighted just how politically corrupt the system had become. In essence, Team Obama usurped the entire design of congressional oversight…. and Congress just brushed it off.
Keep in mind, Comey did not say the White House was unaware; in fact he said exactly the opposite, he said, “The White House was informed through the National Security Council,” (the NSC). The implication, the very direct and specific implication; the unavoidable implication and James Comey admission that everyone just brushed aside, was that President Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, was totally informed of the intelligence operation(s) against Donald Trump. After all, the NSC reports to the National Security Advisor.
Does the January 20, 2017, Susan Rice memo look different now?
Again, no one saw the immediate issue. What Comey just described on that March day in 2017 was the total usurpation of the entire reason the Gang of Eight exists; to eliminate the potential for political weaponization of the Intelligence Community by the executive branch. The G08 notifications to the majority and minority are specifically designed to make sure what James Comey admitted to doing was never supposed to happen.
Team Obama carried out a political operation using the intelligence community and the checks-and-balances in the system were intentionally usurped. This is an indisputable fact.
Worse still, the entire legislative branch of Congress, which specifically includes the Republicans that now controlled the House and Senate, did nothing. They just ignored what was admitted. The usurpation was willfully ignored. The mechanism of the G08 was bypassed without a twitch of condemnation or investigation…. because the common enemy was Donald Trump.
This example highlights the collapse of the system. Obama, the executive branch, collapsed the system by usurping the process; in essence the process became the bigger issue and the lack of immediate legislative branch reaction became evidence of open acceptance. The outcomes of the usurpation played out over the next four years, Donald J. Trump was kneecapped and lost his presidency because of it. However, the bigger issue of the collapse still exists.
The downstream consequence of the Legislative Branch accepting the Executive Branch usurpation meant both intelligence committees were compromised. Additionally, the leadership of both the House and Senate were complicit. Think about this carefully. The Legislative Branch allowance of the intelligence usurpation meant the Legislative Branch was now subservient to the Intelligence Branch.
That’s where we are.
Right now.
That’s where we are.
Term-3 Obama is now back in the White House with Joe Biden.
Term-1 and Term-2 Obama usurped the ‘check and balance‘ within the system and weaponized the intelligence apparatus. During Trump’s term that weaponization was covered up by a compliant congress, and not a single member of the oversight called it out. Now, Term-3 Obama steps back in to continue the cover up and continue the weaponization.
Hopefully, you can now see the scale of the problem that surrounds us with specific citation for what has taken place. What I just explained to you above is not conspiracy theory, it is admitted fact that anyone can look upon. Yet….
Have you seen this mentioned anywhere? Have you seen this called out by anyone in Congress? Have you seen anyone in media (ally or adversary) call this out? Have you seen any member of the Judicial Branch stand up and say wait, what is taking place is not okay? Have you seen a single candidate for elected office point this out? Have you seen anyone advising a candidate point this out?
This is our current status. It is not deniable. The truth exists regardless of our comfort.
Not a single person in power will say openly what has taken place. They are scared of the Fourth Branch. The evidence of what has taken place is right there in front of our face. The words, actions and activities of those who participated in this process are not deniable.
There are only two members of the Gang of Eight who have existed in place from January 2007 (the real beginning of Obama’s term, two years before he took office when the Congress flipped). Only two members of the G08 have been consistently in place from January of 2007 to right now, today. All the others came and went, but two members of the Gang of Eight have been part of that failed and collapsed oversight throughout the past 15 years, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell.
♦ TECHNOLOGY – On a global scale – the modern intelligence gathering networks are now dependent on data collection to execute their intelligence missions. In the digital age nations have been executing various methods to gather that data. Digital surveillance has replaced other methods of interception. Those surveillance efforts have resulted in a coalescing of regional data networks based on historic multi-national relationships.
We have a recent frame of reference for the “U.S. data collection network” within the NSA. Through the allied process the Five Eyes nations all rely on the NSA surveillance database (U.K, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and U.S.) The NSA database provides the digital baseline for intelligence operations in defense of our allies. The portals into the NSA database are essentially an assembly of allies in like-minded ideological connection to the United States.
Unfortunately, there have been some revelations about the NSA database being used to monitor our allies, like in the example of Germany and surveillance on Angela Merkel’s phone. As long as “the good guys” are operating honorably, allies of the United States can feel confident about having protection from the NSA surveillance of global digital data. We warn our friends if we detect something dangerous etc.
The U.S. has nodes on communication pipelines to intercept and extract data. We have also launched hundreds, perhaps thousands, of satellites to conduct surveillance and gather up data. All of this data is fed into the NSA database where it is monitored (presumably) as a national security mechanism, and in defense of our allies.
However, what about data collection or data networks that are outside the NSA database? What do our enemies do? The NSA database is just one intelligence operation of digital surveillance amid the entire world, and we do not allow access by adversaries we are monitoring. So what do they do? What do our allies do who might not trust the United States due to past inconsistencies, ie. the Middle East?
The answers to those questions highlight other data collection networks. So a brief review of the major players is needed.
♦ CHINA – China operates their own database. They, like the NSA, scoop up data for their system. Like us, China launches satellites and deploys other electronic data collection methods to download into their database. This is why the issues of electronic devices manufactured in China becomes problematic. Part of the Chinese data collection system involves the use of spyware, hacking and extraction.
Issues with Chinese communication company Huawei take on an added dimension when you consider the goal of the Chinese government to conduct surveillance and assemble a network of data to compete with the United States via the NSA. Other Chinese methods of surveillance and data-collection are less subversive, as in the examples of TicTok and WeChat. These are Chinese social media companies that are scraping data just like the NSA scrapes data from Facebook, Twitter and other Silicon Valley tech companies. [ Remember, the Intelligence Branch is a public-private partnership. ]
♦ RUSSIA – It is very likely that Russia operates their own database. We know Russia launches satellites, just like China and the USA, for the same purposes. Russia is also very proficient at hacking into other databases and extracting information to store and utilize in their own network. The difference between the U.S., China and Russia is likely that Russia spends more time on the hacking aspect because they do not generate actual technology systems as rapidly as the U.S. and China.
The most recent database creation is an outcome of an ally having to take action because they cannot rely on the ideology of the United States remaining consistent, as the administrations ping-pong based on ideology.
♦ SAUDI ARABIA – Yes, in 2016 we discovered that Saudi Arabia was now operating their own intelligence data-gathering operation. It would make sense, given the nature of the Middle East and the constant fluctuations in political support from the United States. It is a lesson the allied Arab community and Gulf Cooperation Council learned quickly when President Obama went to Cairo in 2009 and launched the Islamist Spring (Arab Spring) upon them.
I have no doubt the creation of the Saudi intelligence network was specifically because the Obama administration started supporting radical Islamists within the Muslim Brotherhood, and threw fuel on the fires of extremism all over the Arab world.
Think about it., What would you do if you were Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Jordan, Oman or Yemen and you knew the United States could just trigger an internal uprising of al-Qaeda, ISIS and the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood to seek your destruction?
Without a doubt, those urgent lessons from 2009, 2010, 2011 triggered the formation of the Arab Intelligence Network as a network to defend itself with consistency. They assembled the network and activated it in 2017 as pictured above.
♦ Israel – Along a similar outlook to the Arab network, no doubt Israel operates an independent data collection system as a method of protecting itself from ever-changing U.S. politics amid a region that is extremely hostile to its very existence. Like the others, Israel launches proprietary satellites, and we can be sure they use covert methods to gather electronic data just like the U.S. and China.
As we have recently seen in the Pegasus story, Israel creates spyware programs that are able to track and monitor cell phone communications of targets. The spyware would not work unless Israel had access to some network where the phone meta-data was actually stored. So yeah, it makes sense for Israel to operate an independent intelligence database.
♦ Summary: As we understand the United States Intelligence Branch of government as the superseding entity that controls the internal politics of our nation, we also must consider that multiple nations have the same issue. There are major intelligence networks around the world beside the NSA “Five-Eyes” database. China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Israel all operate proprietary databases deploying the same tools and techniques for assembly.
The geopolitical conflict that has always existed has now shifted into a digital battle-space. The Intelligence Agencies from these regions are now operating as the backbone of the government that uses them, and has become dependent on them. [<- Reread that].
Once you accept the digital-era intelligence apparatus of China, Russia, Saudi-Arabia, The United States and Israel, are now the primary national security mechanisms for stabilization of government; then you accept the importance of those intelligence operations.
Once you understand how foundational those modern intelligence operations have become for the stability and continuity of those governments…… then you begin to understand just how the United States intelligence community became more important than the government that created it.
♦ Public Private Partnership – The modern Fourth Branch of Government is only possible because of a Public-Private partnership with the intelligence apparatus. You do not have to take my word for it, the partnership is so brazen they have made public admissions.
The biggest names in Big Tech announced in June their partnership with the Five Eyes intelligence network, ultimately controlled by the NSA, to: (1) monitor all activity in their platforms; (2) identify extremist content; (3) look for expressions of Domestic Violent Extremism (DVE); and then, (4) put the content details into a database where the Five Eyes intelligence agencies (U.K., U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand) can access it.
Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft are all partnering with the intelligence apparatus. It might be difficult to fathom how openly they admit this, but they do. Look at this sentence in the press release (emphasis mine):
[…] “The Group will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes adding URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.”
Think about that sentence structure very carefully. They are “adding to” the preexisting list…. admitting the group (aka Big Tech) already have access to the the intelligence-sharing database… and also admitting there is a preexisting list created by the Five Eyes consortium.
Obviously, who and what is defined as “extremist content” will be determined by the Big Tech insiders themselves. This provides a gateway, another plausible deniability aspect, to cover the Intelligence Branch from any oversight.
When the Intelligence Branch within government wants to conduct surveillance and monitor American citizens, they run up against problems due to the Constitution of the United States. They get around those legal limitations by sub-contracting the intelligence gathering, the actual data-mining, and allowing outside parties (contractors) to have access to the central database.
The government cannot conduct electronic searches (4th amendment issue) without a warrant; however, private individuals can search and report back as long as they have access. What is being admitted is exactly that preexisting partnership. The difference is that Big Tech will flag the content from within their platforms, and now a secondary database filled with the extracted information will be provided openly for the Intelligence Branch to exploit.
The volume of metadata captured by the NSA has always been a problem because of the filters needed to make the targeting useful. There is a lot of noise in collecting all data that makes the parts you really want to identify more difficult to capture. This new admission puts a new massive filtration system in the metadata that circumvents any privacy protections for individuals.
Previously, the Intelligence Branch worked around the constitutional and unlawful search issue by using resources that were not in the United States. A domestic U.S. agency, working on behalf of the U.S. government, cannot listen on your calls without a warrant. However, if the U.S. agency sub-contracts to say a Canadian group, or foreign ally, the privacy invasion is no longer legally restricted by U.S. law.
What was announced in June 2021 is an alarming admission of a prior relationship along with open intent to define their domestic political opposition as extremists.
July 26 (Reuters) – A counterterrorism organization formed by some of the biggest U.S. tech companies including Facebook (FB.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) is significantly expanding the types of extremist content shared between firms in a key database, aiming to crack down on material from white supremacists and far-right militias, the group told Reuters.
Until now, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism’s (GIFCT) database has focused on videos and images from terrorist groups on a United Nations list and so has largely consisted of content from Islamist extremist organizations such as Islamic State, al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Over the next few months, the group will add attacker manifestos – often shared by sympathizers after white supremacist violence – and other publications and links flagged by U.N. initiative Tech Against Terrorism. It will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes, adding URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.
The firms, which include Twitter (TWTR.N) and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) YouTube, share “hashes,” unique numerical representations of original pieces of content that have been removed from their services. Other platforms use these to identify the same content on their own sites in order to review or remove it. (read more)
The influence of the Intelligence Branch now reaches into our lives, our personal lives. In the decades before 9/11/01 the intelligence apparatus intersected with government, influenced government, and undoubtedly controlled many institutions with it. The legislative oversight function was weak and growing weaker, but it still existed and could have been used to keep the IC in check. However, after the events of 9/11/01, the short-sighted legislative reactions opened the door to allow the surveillance state to weaponize.
After the Patriot Act was triggered, not coincidentally only six weeks after 9/11, a slow and dangerous fuse was lit that ends with the intelligence apparatus being granted a massive amount of power. The problem with assembled power is always what happens when a Machiavellian network takes control over that power and begins the process to weaponize the tools for their own malicious benefit. That is exactly what the installation of Barack Obama was all about.
The Obama network took pre-assembled intelligence weapons we should never have allowed to be created, and turned those weapons into tools for his radical and fundamental change. The target was the essential fabric of our nation. Ultimately, this corrupt political process gave power to create the Fourth Branch of Government, the Intelligence Branch. From that perspective the fundamental change was successful.
♦ WHAT NOW? There is a way to stop and deconstruct the Intelligence Branch, but it requires some outside-the-box thinking and reliance on the Constitution as a tool to radically change one element within government. In the interim, we must remain focused on the three tiers that we need for success.
• Tier One is “tactical civics” at a local level. Engaged and active citizen participation at the community, city, town and hamlet level of society. This is what might be described as grassroots level, school board level; city council level; county commissioner level.
• Tier Two is “extreme federalism” at a state level. Engaged and active citizen participation through your State House and State Senate representative. This is state level assembly and action demands upon the State House, State Senate and State Governor.
• Tier Three the challenge of “federal offices” on a national level {Go Deep}. This is the part where we need President Donald Trump, and his power to confront the issues comes directly from us.
I am confident that ultimately “We The People” will win. How we can execute the solution is more challenging; in the interim, tactical civics and extreme federalism are doable right now, in this next 2024 election cycle.
INGRASSIA: Elon’s X Marks the Spot for President Trump: A Billion Listeners Can’t Be Wrong! | The Gateway Pundit
Donald Trump’s X Space last Monday with Elon Musk, in which the 45th President sat-down with the world’s richest man for a sprawling, nearly 3-hour long conversation reminiscent of a sort of high-tech fireside chat of an earlier age, was in every sense of the term, record-breaking. The wide-ranging discussion that touched on everything from the assassination attempt on President Trump’s life, to electric vehicles and energy policy, to the prospect of nuclear war – was noteworthy for its substance and depth.
The detail in which the speakers talked about, for example, the energy required to unleash A.I.’s technological potential, was as refreshing as it was rare, particularly in politics, where policies are far too often boiled down to nuance-free sound bites, even in presidential debates where the candidates have some extra time to flesh out their positions. Of course, a large part of this has to do with the age in which we live – mass communications and social media, especially, have diminished attention spans considerably over the decades, a trend that has entered overdrive over the last ten or so years.
Another part, of which Kamala Harris is a perfect encapsulation, has to do with the incompetence of modern politicians generally, and the inability of most to carry on an extended conversation, especially one worth listening to, without a teleprompter. Which further underscores the incredible achievement that was the Donald Trump-Elon Musk X Space. The dialogue amassed millions of live listeners, and millions more who listened to the talk afterwards. By one estimate, the Space generated over a billion hits worldwide – a staggering figure that speaks to the incredible power of X, as one of the few truly free online platforms alongside Rumble, Truth Social, and Substack, to convey unbridled thoughts, cutting directly through the propagandistic monitoring of established media.
It also speaks to the power of unifying the world’s richest man with the world’s most powerful man. Elon Musk’s formal endorsement, which was made within minutes of the assassination attempt that nearly took President Trump’s life one month ago, adds a formidable ally to the MAGA coalition. Musk’s endorsement unmistakably signals that the prospect for speaking and thinking freely lies exclusively in the Republican Party ticket of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. That Musk would undergo such a dramatic turnaround from just four years ago, where he voted for Joe Biden, demonstrates just how high the stakes are this cycle: free speech, quite literally, hangs in the balance.
The backlash to Musk’s conversation with the 45th President by the mainstream press, both domestic and international, demonstrates, not that it was needed, just how hostile all these bad-faith actors are to speech, and all that speaking freely represents – the possibility of brainstorming new ideas, new innovations, and new technology – all of which, in the collective, pose as existential threats to the tear-it-down mentality of the modern Left. Almost like clockwork, the frenzied players spun into action with headlines, routinized to the point of banality, that Musk, of course, is the latest, greatest “threat to democracy.” Why? For letting the leading presidential candidate, and the likeliest person to ascend, once more, to the Oval Office in three short months, to discuss basic policy ideas to a large audience – of overwhelmingly young people, many of whom get their news primarily, if not exclusively, through social media outfits like X.
Firestorm of unhinged, negative headlines from the Trump x Elon conversation.
Because the Left believes it is entitled to a monopoly on the youth, parasitically targeting their impressionable sensibilities to brainwash them, via institutions like the media and colleges, with woke dogmas. That Musk and Donald Trump would dare have the audacity to challenge that monopoly and offer a refreshing breather from the suffocating woke inanities, which are as stupid as they are degenerate, naturally sent the Left – and their new standard-bearer, Kamala Harris – into hysterics.
Donald Trump Is The Candidate For Young, Ambitious, Smart People – And It’s Not Even Close!
Anyone with a brain, including many ambitious young people, should just gravitate to President Trump over Kamala Harris organically. Why is that? Well, for reasons that are quite commonsensical –in this particular day and age, ironically enough, more than ever. Here’s an example: in many ways, college admissions, though degraded they have become with affirmative action and DEI, are more competitive than ever before. Ambitious young Americans fight tooth-and-nail all throughout their primary school years in a competitive rat race to get into the finest schools they can. In order to qualify, for most young people without connections or inherited riches, they must be the absolute best and brightest of an extremely competitive lot of applicants, which includes not just their fellow citizens, but is now a process opened to the entire world, including our global competitors like China and India.
Thus, students must do it all: they must get the top grades, top test scores, and be a master at extracurriculars – whether it’s becoming a D1 athlete, or musical virtuoso, or computer programming wiz, or chess or math prodigy – the skills required to become a member of Harvard’s entrance class is, in many respects, particularly for an American native, harder than ever.
So, it behooves a student – and generational cohort, broadly speaking – ingrained with that competitive spirit to vote for Kamala Harris, who stands opposed to all the messaging these young people were led to believe was (and actually is) responsible for success, over Donald Trump, the consummate exemplar of the American dream, a self-made billionaire who is the spitting image of hard work over a lifetime, made flesh.
Moreover, the idea that a young person, particularly an intelligent and ambitious one, would rather be browbeaten by an ignoramus like Kamala Harris, an individual who likely would not qualify for the San Francisco county dogcatcher position, into thinking a certain way, or being demonized for the color of his skin – and forced into racial sensitivity training, rather than entering a fulfilling career and achieving the American Dream for himself, is a lemon of a deal – one that would never, ever command lasting trust, an essential ingredient for good statesmanship, in anyone.
Because Kamala Harris patently does not qualify as a good statesman – it’s laughable to even put her and the term in the same sentence! – the only way, logically, that she will ever be able to maintain her grip on power is through brute force, the age-old ploy of any tyrant. She is the worst combination of a political leader imaginable: excessive ego combined with even more excessive incompetence. She would inevitably lead our country into despotic waters, indeed she is already well underway by trying to create the conditions, relying on her friends in the legacy media, to cheat herself into another illegitimate term.
Musk’s X Now Open To Truths The Mainstream Institutions Do Not Want You To Hear
Which brings me back to yet another reason why the Left has been sent into a conniption over the Musk-Trump Space, and reason again why it was so effective. As we enter the home-stretch of this truly insane and unprecedented election season, Big Tech is once more repeating the censorious ways of the 2020 playbook, where outlets like Meta infamously blackballed the publication of the Hunter Biden laptop story, where the old Twitter regime booted President Trump and many of his most powerful acolytes from the platform, and where Google stifled positive stories surrounding President Trump, and displaced these with misinformation and disinformation, often products of the DNC itself, which entered an illicit agreement with the social media giant to generate headlines for the search engine to clearly manipulate voter impressions in Biden’s (and now Harris’) favor.
Thus, an opened X platform – where the free-flow of conservative “wrongthoughts” are allowed to take place, relatively unencumbered, particularly relative to four years ago – truly does pose an “existential threat” to “democracy” – democracy so defined as the rule of the deep state’s handpicked duo of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. True democracy, naturally, would culminate in a President Trump administration, the man who took a bullet for democracy, and the only candidate who has fought for the interests of Americans – and the United States of America – First, over the interests of the powers that be.
Under Musk’s stewardship, X has been the vanguard for breaking news stories surrounding this topsy-turvy presidential election cycle. It has also provided an outlet by which the grassroots can go straight to the lawmakers, and press them on questions such as election integrity, which remains a bugaboo, particularly in a Democrat-run state like Pennsylvania, where the risk of illegal voters – be they unregistered aliens, out-of-state citizens, ineligible voters due to a criminal conviction or death, etc. – remains a significant factor on voter rolls. Since 20 or 30 thousand votes can be the difference in an all-important battleground state like Pennsylvania, the importance of disclosing these voter rolls becomes immediately obvious. These difficulties are compounded even more given our present state of affairs, where an estimated at least ten million illegals have penetrated the US-Mexico border over the last four years, a figure that is dramatically underestimated given the number of so-called “gotaways” that do not appear on border patrol and ICE registries. The possibility, and risk, of these illegals – even a small portion – appearing on voter rolls, and swaying the election in favor of the candidate offering them handouts, and telegraphing all but explicitly, that she must rely on these illegals to cheat her way to victory (again), is of absolute urgency.
Just think: even if just 0.01% – a hundredth of a percent – of ten million illegals (and that is a gross underestimation) were to appear on a voter roll: that would mean 100,000 illegal aliens are submitting ballots, double the figure needed to switch 3 or 4, or even 5, battleground states in Kamala’s corner. Hence, why Pennsylvania’s Governor, Josh Shapiro, who almost became Kamala’s running mate, is refusing to disclose those voter rolls, is readily evident. He has a vested interest in seeing her to victory, where he might be rewarded, in turn, with a cushy cabinet post. This has prompted RNC-affiliated lawyers to sue the state of Pennsylvania, which has resulted in a decision pending review by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Hardly any of this information would be known without Elon Musk’s purchase and reopening of X, which is a reason why the Left is so angry with all that he has done to the platform.
If that was not bad enough, the investigative reporting that Laura Loomer has done to expose the conflicts of interest implicating the political consulting firm of Judge Juan Merchan’s, who is presiding over President Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial, daughter, Loren, the President of Authentic, and the Biden/Harris administration and campaign, is so staggering – it defies every canon of legal ethics and professional responsibility in the book. The firm has raked in millions of dollars from the Biden/Harris administration and campaign, as exhaustively recounted in both a pre-motion letter issued by President Trump’s own attorneys on July 31st, as well as a separate letter from Rep. Jim Jordan (which was re-issued, for a second time, on August 17th), addressing the same matter on August 1st, as part of a House Oversight Committee.
President Trump’s attorney’s letter lays out the conflict explicitly: among other things, the firm, “Authentic’s founder — a partner and colleague of Your Honor’s daughter — leads a group called ‘White Dudes for Harris,’ which has raised millions of dollars for Harris’s current campaign against President Trump.” It is utterly mindboggling just how much the Left believes it can flout the laws in order to effectuate a desired political outcome. Here, you have a high-ranking member of the firm in which Judge Merchan’s own daughter operates working the “White Dudes for Kamala Harris” campaign, raising well over $7 million dollars in the process.
In the ancient days, of, well, maybe a year ago, that would be considered a classic case of a conflict of interest, one requiring the judge to disqualify himself from the politically-charged decision. As it stands, the judge, by proxy of his daughter, an intimate relative, has significantly more to gain – financially and politically – by sentencing President Trump, so that he cannot campaign. This in turn would give a significant boost to Kamala Harris, and her chances of securing a victory this November by judicial fiat. Not only does this stand as a classic example of a judicially disqualifying conflict of interest, but also a textbook case of election interference.
To make matters even worse, President Trump still has to deal with this flagrantly unconstitutional and unlawful gag order, the first of its kind, that makes it impossible for him to exercise his fundamental right to criticize the trial proceeding, point out the many conflicts of interests that make this case improper, and call for the judge’s recusal if not a mistrial. That a judge has imposed a gag order on a President of the United States is unheard of – that he keeps the gag order on him, post-conviction, is egregiously abusive, to a level never seen in American history. This is the stuff of banana republics, and Judge Merchan is the face of our new Kangaroo Court System of Justice.
Again, none of this would be known but for X, which to date stands as the largest platform for the free circulation of ideas in the Western world. As Big Tech companies like Google and Meta trend radically leftward, kowtowing to the marching orders of the regime like obedient little foot soldiers, Musk’s X has spearheaded the charge in the opposite direction – a lone citadel of freedom in a sea of ever-creeping tyranny.
But there is much power in truth and numbers. President Trump is the political expression of what Elon Musk is doing culturally; the two men united, arguably the one-two punch of the world’s most powerful, is definitive proof that the good is on the side of this joint venture, and the country’s fate necessarily hinges on the destinies of these two brave warriors, on who the rest of us depend to speak our thoughts unencumbered, and to perpetuate the ideas in the hopes of divining a long-lasting political solution that will not have to ride on the backs of one or two men, and instead restore those time-tested principles that once made America both Great and Free.
The post INGRASSIA: Elon’s X Marks the Spot for President Trump: A Billion Listeners Can’t Be Wrong! appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Figures… Kamala’s ‘Campaign of Joy’ Was Also a Nazi Campaign | The Gateway Pundit
Kamala Harris and the obedient media are attempting to push a platform of “joy.”
Video via Breitbart.
Guess who else had a propaganda campaign of joy? Adolf Hitler.
Ryan Fournier reported via Midnight Rider.
It’s true.
This photo was taken during the Strandbad Wannsee event outside Berlin in April 1937.
Persepctives.org reported on the Nazis’ famous “strength through joy” programs in the 1930s:
After the Nazi rise to power in 1933, the new regime immediately began efforts to bring German society completely under Nazi control in a process known as Gleichschaltung (German for “coordination” or “synchronization”).
All political parties and trade unions were outlawed except for the Nazi Party and the Nazi German Labor Front (Deutsches Arbeitsfront). The German Labor Front started the “Strength through Joy” program (“Kraft durch Freude”) in November 1933 to improve “Aryan” workers’ quality of life and build popular support for the Nazi regime.
Nazi leaders hoped that the athletic and cultural programs of “Strength through Joy” would improve the health and productivity of the German workforce while easing class tensions within the so-called “national community” (“Volksgemeinschaft”).
Providing organized alternatives to unstructured leisure time, the first “Strength through Joy” programs focused on filling workers’ evening and weekend time with classes, concerts, theatrical performances, art exhibitions, and sporting events.2 The program also began providing cheap vacation packages to German workers in 1934, but ambitious plans to expand German mass tourism further were abandoned in 1939 with the beginning of World War II.
The featured photograph shows a “Strength through Joy” event held on the outskirts of Berlin on April 24, 1937. A large group of adults and children are gathered on the popular public beach at Strandbad Wannsee to perform exercises led by a “Strength through Joy” representative holding a bullhorn.
The public beach facilities shown in this photograph were first constructed during the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) as part of a growing movement toward outdoor recreational activities that would greatly influence Nazi-era public health policies.
The post Figures… Kamala’s ‘Campaign of Joy’ Was Also a Nazi Campaign appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
JD Vance slams media for giving Harris a ‘three-week love fest’
Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance joins ‘Fox News Sunday’ to discuss key issues for voters ahead of the November election. #foxnews
Source: JD Vance slams media for giving Harris a ‘three-week love fest’
Anti-Israel protests outside Chicago DNC threaten to tarnish Kamala Harris coronation
“The Democratic Party is the target,” said Hatem Abudayyeh, Hatem Abudayyeh, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network.
Source: Anti-Israel protests outside Chicago DNC threaten to tarnish Kamala Harris coronation
Trump Campaign Posts About Kamala Harris “Serious Drinking Problem” Rumors | The Gateway Pundit
The Trump campaign went public Saturday night with an allegation of rumors about Kamala Harris having a serious drinking problem.
James Blair, political director for the Trump 2024 presidential campaign and the RNC posted on X Twitter, “A lot of rumors out there about Kamala having a serious drinking problem…apparently coming into focus as campaign heats up. ⏳Stay Tuned…”
Blair was retweeted by Trump campaign advisor Alex Bruesewitz, indicating campaign approval:
A video clip of Harris on Thursday introducing Joe Biden made some wonder if she has a drinking problem:
Amuse: “The DNC is struggling to keep Kamala Harris sober, addiction is real and she’s got a long road ahead.”
In August 2020 when Harris was picked by Joe Biden to be his vice presidential running mate, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Harris’ fondness for booze with the headline, “Kamala Harris, the only major candidate who drinks booze, has great taste in wine”
Also in August 2020, Washingtonian magazine reported on Harris being a regular at D.C. wine bars in an article headlined, “Kamala Harris Knows Her Wine” (excerpt):
When Kamala Harris got the VP nom yesterday, Cork Wine Bar decided to nominate itself as the “Official #WineBar of #KamalaHarrisForVP.” (Oakland or San Francisco challengers welcome.) The 14th Street bar and market tweeted a photo of owners Khalid Pitts and Diane Gross—who famously filed an unfair competition lawsuit against the Trump hotel—alongside the California congresswoman at a holiday party she hosted there for staff last year.
Harris has been to Cork several times with other political counterparts and hosted a fundraiser there as a presidential candidate. As the senator of a top winemaking state and a member of the Congressional Wine Caucus, perhaps it’s no surprise Harris is pretty savvy about wine.
“You know if you go to a foreign country and you know like six phrases or something? She’s well beyond that,” says Pitts. “She can talk about different varietals. She can talk about differences between California oak and French oak… She knows what she likes and doesn’t like, and knows why she doesn’t like it.”
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And exactly what it is she likes to drink? Pitts only offers this: “She does like her California wines, but she does have a great appreciation for Old World wines as well, because we don’t do domestic wines at Cork.”
This rumor about Harris’ drinking from an anonymous account on X Twitter with 169,000 followers went viral after being posted after midnight Saturday and has nearly three million views, “Apparently Kamala’s aids are having trouble keeping her sober which is why she’s only doing the scheduled rallies. Every time she gets off the plane she’s apparently drunk so that’s why they are hiding her from the press.”
The same poster claimed Harris was intoxicated when she gave her word salad remarks about American hostages being released on August 1, “Apparently Kamala was told not to speak during this event because she was too intoxicated, but she did anyways.”
This video clip of Harris at an appearance in the Philippines on November 21, 2022 caused another poster to question her sobriety:
An anonymous observer of an undated viral clip of Harris stated, “Kamala has the fun alcoholic day drinker at the pool type vibe. I’m all for it, it’s fun, you just typically don’t want those people also calling in air strikes.”
Earlier this year, Harris hosted a booze-fueled house party at the vice president’s residence for Black college students.
Note: The allegations made by the Trump campaign and others at this point are speculation and rumor. However being that they were made on the record by the Trump campaign, other anonymous allegations have been included in this report to provide examples of what is being observed about Harris’ performance at official events.
The post Trump Campaign Posts About Kamala Harris “Serious Drinking Problem” Rumors appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Rogan And Quaid Ask: Who’s Really Running The Country?
• Zero Hedge
“They’re emboldened by the fact they’re essentially running the country without a president for the last three years,” said Rogan, adding “Because he [Biden] is not there. And since he’s decided that he’s not going to run again, he’s gone. He’s vanished.”
To which Quaid replied: “It makes [you wonder]. Who’s running it now?“
Watch Via The Burning Platform,
God’s Design for Gender and Sexuality | Truths That Transform
In recent years, our culture has completely redefined the basic nature of human beings, causing widespread confusion about something as simple as the difference between a man and a woman. On this week’s Truths That Transform, we’ll look at how this cultural revolution is impacting women’s sports. And Dr. Rob Pacienza examines gender and sexuality through the lens of God’s infallible Word. #Gender
Source: God’s Design for Gender and Sexuality | Truths That Transform
Round Table: Antisemitism in the Church — Amir Tsarfati, Barry Stagner, And Jan Markell
Tune in for this Prophecy Roundtable wherein Amir and his guests, Mike Golay, Jan Markell, and Barry Stagner discuss the growing issue of antisemitism in the church!
Source: Round Table: Antisemitism in the Church — Amir Tsarfati, Barry Stagner, And Jan Markell
Elon Musk Shares Devastating Video ‘The Unraveling of Kamala Harris’ on His X Page – Kamala Was So Bad She Folded Before First Primary Contest (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit
Elon Musk shared a devastating video on Kamala Harris, posted by Kanekoa the Great on his X page on Saturday.
“Strange days.”
The video reminds us that Kamala Harris was so shallow and unlikeable during her initial run for US president in the Democratic Party primary that she dropped out before the Iowa caucus.
The video captures CNN hosts discussing an article from The New York Times on a key aide to Kamala Harris turning in a resignation letter.
CNN’s Nia-Malika Henderson: “How Kamala Harris’s campaign Unraveled.” They obtained the resignation letter of the Harris campaign State Operations Director, who is now joining the Bloomberg campaign. She wrote, It is unacceptable that with less than 90 days until Iowa, we still do not have a real plan to win. Our campaign for the People is made up of diverse talent, which is being squandered by indecision and a lack of leaders who lead. Molly, that is rough stuff. You You wrote a fantastic cover story on Kamala Harris about a month ago or so. I’m sure, based on what your reporting has been, a lot of this isn’t really a surprise to you.
TIME Magazine’s Molly Bail: No. What’s a surprise is that she has failed to turn it around despite literally months and months and months of hearing this kind of frustration. And you hear it’s reporters, it’s people inside the campaign, it’s people outside the campaign. It’s pretty much every voter that you meet on the campaign trail who goes to see her. And the common theme is people want to like her, and then she doesn’t close the deal. She’s not able to articulate a consistent and compelling message that makes those voters who show up for her, who are interested in what she’s selling, that makes them decide, yes, this is the candidate I can commit to. And the TIME story and a Post story today have really laid out this frustration, especially within her team, that she hasn’t been able to make those decisions.
Nia-Malika Henderson: And, she’s been all over the place in terms of messaging. Here’s a clip that shows some of her inconsistent messaging.
Kamala Harris ad – in her voice: Truth, justice, decency, equality, freedom. Our mother would sit up trying to figure out how to make it all work. That’s something most Americans know all too well. And that’s what my 3 AM agenda is all about.
(Disconcerting Male Voice) from ad: He’s tearing us apart. She’ll bring us together. This is Trump. And in every possible way, this is the anti-Trump.
Nia-Malika Henderson: And now to Lou, her one of the messages is she’s the one who can bring back the Obama coalition in the way that Obama had it in 2007.
Toluse Olorunnipa: Yeah, they’ve tried out a number of different messages over the past several months and just tried to see what has stuck. And it’s been difficult to follow her campaign because there have been so many different messages. And one of the biggest debates that she’s having internally is whether she wants to be this progressive, left-wing, California liberal, or whether or not she wants to be more of a moderate. And both of those lanes are currently clogged up. And the fact that she’s vacillating between the two of those makes it difficult for any voter to stick to her when there are so many other options.
Nia-Malika Henderson: Julie, this was a policy-heavy campaign, I think, in a way that some folks who got in didn’t necessarily predict and maybe weren’t ready for. And she has had issues with some of her policies.
Julie Hirschfeld Davis: Right. And some of this goes back to the candidate herself. They have tried out a lot of different messages and a lot of different strategies. But as Molly said, it is her lack of ability to stick to one policy prescription, one set of policy issues that she really wants to be her trademark that has put her where she is today.
Nia-Malika Henderson: For her, it seems like it’s die, Iowa, so we’ll see. Just a couple of weeks.
Video via Kanekoa the Great.
The post Elon Musk Shares Devastating Video ‘The Unraveling of Kamala Harris’ on His X Page – Kamala Was So Bad She Folded Before First Primary Contest (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Normal Won’t Return… Jesus Will — Jan Markell, Michele Bachmann, and Ken Mikle
Jan Markell features two guests: Michele Bachmann and Ken Mikle. We play a portion of Michele’s message from our recent conference. Then Ken Mikle, experienced in law enforcement, speaks into the inconsistencies in the Trump assassination attempt.
Source: Normal Won’t Return… Jesus Will — Jan Markell, Michele Bachmann, and Ken Mikle
Kamala Harris Unveils New Economic Platform ‘We Must Seize The Means Of Production And Execute The Bourgeoisie’ | Babylon Bee
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled her new campaign platform: a one-page document that simply says “We must seize the means of production and execute the Bourgeoisie.”
“The proletariat must rise!” Harris shouted in front of a backdrop of a large hammer and sickle flag with armed militants flanking her side. “In order to preserve the rights of the working class the government must seize the means of production and murder all capitalist pigs!”
Harris announced her new platform after pitching a few new economic policies this week that included price caps for food, centralizing economic power, condemning capitalism, and calling for the arrest of all bourgeoise scum.
“We must abolish private ownership for the collective good!” Harris shouted. “To each according to his need, from each according to his ability! Long live the Proletariat! Equal outcomes for equal work!”
At publishing time, Kamala had also announced plans to convert the Mall of America into a labor camp.
Watch how a D.E.I. consultant magically turns a video game into… well, something else entirely.
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FULL SPEECH: President Trump to Hold a Rally in Wilkes-Barre, PA – 8/17/24
This is the most terrifying thing I have ever heard a presidential candidate say
Truly frightening beyond words.
This is the most terrifying thing I have ever heard a presidential candidate say
Political Conundrums and Sure Things :: By Bill Wilson
There is a historic political conundrum occurring in America. Against the backdrop of one of the most socialist takeovers of the executive branch in history, resulting in tremendous failures in both domestic and foreign policy, the Democratic Party has chosen to dig in on presenting the most socialistic presidential ticket ever seen in America.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz would have been considered communists in the 1950s. Now, they are repackaged as progressives. Their positions on key issues are proven failures and border on nonsense. A major political party in any country does not allow this type of presidential ticket going forward unless it is banking on a specific outcome. Beware of the deception ahead.
Harris-Walz, by any normal political standard, is a losing ticket. In any given year, this ticket would be considered a laughing stock. But this is no “given year.” There will be about 40% of voters who will vote for Harris-Walz just because they are Democrats. There also will be a single-digit percentage that will vote for the ticket because they represent a considerably growing segment of mentally ill people.
The Democrats have also chosen their side in the Israel vs Palestinian terrorist issue with Walz, hoping to get more Muslim votes than losing Jewish votes. When you get right down to the nuts and bolts of this ticket, it could very well win just based on the socialist—mentally ill—Islamic coalition it cobbles together. Couple this with a very progressive news media and propaganda effort that continuously feeds negativity, hate, and disruption instigated by the radical left and blamed on Christians and conservatives.
Indeed, the ongoing provision of illegal immigrants getting driver’s licenses and registering to vote will also have an impact. Whether they are eligible to vote is immaterial. They can vote and get away with it if there is no accountability.
We have seen this before, right?
There are still states that allow ballot-stuffing through mail-ins without any voter identification. We can’t forget that the Democrats fight in court any purging of dead people from the voter rolls. There is a reason for that, and it’s not about discrimination.
A question worth asking is why would the Democratic Party put up this ticket?
Are they just willing to accept the loss and hope for the best on the down-ballot candidates? Or are they so confident that they can continue their Marxist revolution and win this?
Yes, Donald Trump should tramp all over this ticket, but in politics, everything happens for a reason.
As 2 Timothy 3:13 warns, “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
We must remain vigilant in both prayer and action, praying unceasingly that the Lord spare our nation from the consequences of bad leadership. And we must not be lax in getting out to vote. There is no sure thing in politics these days.
Posted in The Daily Jot
The post Political Conundrums and Sure Things :: By Bill Wilson appeared first on Rapture Ready.
Source: Political Conundrums and Sure Things :: By Bill Wilson
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