A new song and music video is out this week, poised to become the theme song for the legend and greatest of all time known as President Donald J. Trump.

The controversial new song and music video declares President Trump as "the Chosen One."

The song and video were written and produced by platinum-selling country music star Natasha Owens and her songwriting partner, Grammy-nominated Ian Eskelin.

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But here's where it gets interesting:

The song was inspired and co-written by yours truly, Wayne Allyn Root.

The backstory is an "only in America" tale.

In July 2019, I was the prime-time TV host on Newsmax TV and took a live call on the air. The caller said, "Wayne, we love you, and we know you are Jewish ... and we know you are a proud Trump warrior. Would you explain why Jews are so liberal and why they vote against President Trump?"

Off the top of my head, I responded, "You know no one in the entire media fights harder for President Trump than me. He is the GOAT (greatest of all time). Look what he has done for Israel and the Jewish people. Trump is like the King of the Jews and the Chosen One."

The next morning, Trump tweeted out three times his thanks to me and included the video of my remarks in his tweets. Then Trump walked outside the White House and in front of the White House press corps looked toward the heavens and said, "I am the Chosen One."

Well, from that moment on, a media firestorm exploded across the globe attacking and demonizing President Donald J. Trump and Wayne Allyn Root.

Of course, par for the course, no one in the media ever bothered to ask me about the remarks. I would have told them they were made off the top of my head, with no script or teleprompter. They were meant to be colorful, and a little bit funny and sarcastic. They were taken completely out of context and blown up out of proportion.

But no one ever asked. The liberal media attack me in stories all the time and never asks me for my side of the story. Ever. So, stories attacking President Trump and Wayne Allyn Root appeared in newspapers, commentaries, editorials and TV news headlines around the world.

Fast forward to today.

After all Trump has been through, after all the persecution, witch hunts, impeachments, indictments and now the unjust conviction in New York, I am convinced Trump really is "the Chosen One."

He isn't a God; he is human. Although I believe "superhuman" is the best way to describe Trump. But I believe it's clear now that Trump has been chosen by God to be his warrior here on Earth.

God understands that only Trump is uniquely qualified to take on the deep state, D.C. swamp and communist/globalist cabal trying desperately to destroy this great country and enslave the American people.

There are precedents. God has chosen other great men to be his vessels and warriors to lead the battle on Earth, at the perfect time and perfect place.

Jesus Christ was demonized, condemned and found guilty at trial.

Moses was chosen by God to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt and out of bondage. Along the way, Moses was demonized, insulted, challenged and threatened again and again by his own people.

Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for decades before becoming the president of South Africa. Although I despised Mandela's ultra-left politics, Mandela "the man" rose above politics, ended the scourge of apartheid, became a legend and won over the world.

Mandela went from convict to president, just as Trump is about to do.

I believe President Trump has been chosen by God to fight for America, and for personal and religious freedom, and free speech, and opportunity and prosperity for Americans.

Trump has been proven the only man with the skills and battle-tested toughness to save America, make America great again and win the battle against the evil, powerful deep state.

And yes, I believe Trump has also been chosen to protect Israel and the Jewish people. Thank you, President Trump.

Trump really has been literally "chosen" by God because he is the only man in history who could withstand the fire, persecution, impeachments, indictments and even now the New York trial conviction, and could come out stronger.

He is not a God, but he is a God-inspired warrior who will go down in history as the GOAT (the greatest president of all time).

So, I went to Natasha Owens, who has the music industry credentials as well as MAGA credentials (she sang the platinum-selling hit "Trump Won") and the voice of an angel.

I suggested we collaborate on a song and video titled "The Chosen One." Next, Natasha brought in her brilliant Grammy-nominated songwriting partner Ian Eskelin.

The song and video came out this week, after debuting on my nightly Real America's Voice TV show, "The ROOT Reaction." They say timing is everything in life.

What perfect timing to lift the spirits of President Trump and the whole MAGA world.

Natasha and I hope this song and video become the theme song of the Trump campaign and MAGA movement from now to Nov. 5 as we elect President Donald J. Trump as the 47th president of the United States.

We wrote these words to inspire our MAGA mission to save America, American exceptionalism, capitalism, Judeo-Christian values, to secure the border, make America great again and dismantle the evil deep state once and for all.

We hope you enjoy the song and video, "The Chosen One." You can watch here.

And here is the press release explaining this unique collaboration.

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The Green Movement was the largest protest in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Some 3 million peaceful demonstrators flooded the streets of Tehran and cities across Iran, about 4 percent of Iran's population.

As the election results were rigged, and Ahmadinejad returned to office through cheating, Iranians demanded his removal. For millions of brave Iranians who protested, and many millions more who were afraid to do so but supported the movement, the fraudulent election was the straw that broke the camel's back. After suffering years of violence, harsh death penalties and the execution of juveniles under Ahmadinejad, and decades of criminal immorality, misogyny and ruthless human rights abuses under the Islamic regime, they had had enough.

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The Islamic regime responded by brutally and wantonly shooting hundreds of protesters in the streets. They tortured and killed hundreds more political prisoners and arrested thousands, dozens of whom were also executed.

A video of the fatal shooting of Neda Agha Soltan, a philosophy student who was participating in the protests, went viral domestically and internationally. This motivated wider domestic protests, and harsher government crackdowns. It generated international concern that should have led to Western governments coming to the aid of the protesters against the regime. But the West failed.

In prison, I witnessed firsthand masses of people imprisoned and tortured for protesting the election fraud. Our already overcrowded cells were packed beyond capacity with the newly arrested. There was no space even on the floor for people to sleep. Many were beaten, tortured and raped during their interrogations. Cellmates who had life sentences were forced to work inside the prison and were witness to, among other horrors, an empty pool full of the bodies of young people who were murdered during interrogation. They witnessed removal of the dead bodies from the prison to be dumped outside in secret. Fifteen years later, many Iranians still don't know what happened to their loved ones.

The murders and brutal torture were not just spontaneous acts of overzealous criminals or "morality police," but orders from Ahmadinejad and the "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Khamenei. One of my cellmates who attended the protest received a five-year sentence with no evidence presented against her. The judge simply declared that he gave her this sentence because he suspected and felt that her thoughts and attitude were against the regime. She laughed with anger when she shared this, shocked that nobody in the world would believe Iranian judges sentence people to prison based on their "suspicions and feelings," much less lack of due process and no evidence. (I shared many firsthand accounts in my books, "A Love Journey with God," and "Captive in Iran" at www.MarzisJourney.com.)

When the Islamic regime turned the peaceful protests into a bloodbath, the Iranian people begged for help from the United States. They were chanting, "Obama are you with us or with them?" "Obama" in Farsi means, "He is with us" [O (he) ba (with) ma (us)]. Despite people's pleas, Obama showed his true face and stood with the criminal Islamic regime. He not only turned his back on the Iranian people who were fighting for their freedom, and the greatest opportunity to end the murderous Islamic regime, but he later made the worst deal in history with Iran (JCPOA), emboldening the regime, setting a path for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and sending billions of dollars into the coffers of the criminal mullahs. This was used to further suppress the Iranian people, and to fund and expand terrorism across the Middle East.

The Iranian people will never forget Barack Obama's betrayal. Now, 15 years later, Obama's protégé is also guilty of betraying the Iranian people. President Biden has also provided billions of dollars to the regime, abdicated responsibility and the opportunity to bring down the regime after 2022 protests following the murder of Mahsa Amini, and the regime's brutal response, and has brought the world to the brink of an Iranian nuclear weapon.

In 15 years, we have seen failure after failure in appeasing and negotiating with the terrorist regime. Sadly, Western politicians pay lip service to Islamic human rights violations, placing their own interest above moral policies internationally and risking the security of their own citizens by allowing the regime's terrorist agents into their countries to spread their lies and propaganda.

The vast majority of Iranians reject the repressive Islamic Republic, but they have no power to change this system on their own. Iranians long to be free, but they have no hope for the future of their country, until this regime is no longer in power.

I pray that on this 15th anniversary of the biggest revolt against the Islamic regime, and its most violent and bloody murderous response, Western governments will understand that the Islamic regime is evil personified, that its nature is unchangeable and that it not only harms the lives of millions of Iranians but also others around the world, and risks their own countries and citizens as well.

Obama campaigned on "hope" and "change." He offered no hope for Iran, and unless Western policies change, we will all be much worse off.

Now, with "elections" scheduled to replace President Raisi, who mysteriously died in a helicopter accident on May 19, when the "Supreme Leader" selects Raisi's successor via a sham election, will Iranians respond again with protests? Will the regime crack down again? And will the U.S. and the West sit idly by, watching as more innocent Iranians' blood is shed? I hope so, I hope not, and I pray no.

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The battle starts with how food is cooked. We're all familiar with the government's war on gas stoves, one of the most popular methods for cooking food. Knowing full well that outright bans won't work, the Biden administration is rolling out increased "efficiency" standards for new models that are effectively impossible to achieve. The push is to electrify everything, despite the increased strain this agenda places on an already fragile grid.

Now it's being hinted that cooking food itself is bad. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a quarter of all air pollution comes from cooking food. "If you can smell it, there's a good chance it's impacting air quality," we're told. At fault are "primarily oxygenated VOCs, or volatile organic compounds." It's not farfetched to conclude that if a government agency says something is impacting air quality, then soon it will be under tighter regulation. "[B]ased on the new findings, cooking emissions could be the single largest missing source of urban VOCs in current air quality models, which could have important ramifications for air quality management," notes the article.

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Let's consider the plethora of mysterious disasters impacting food production facilities. The latest is a fire at one of the nation's largest free-range egg facilities that killed millions of chickens. But this is just one of a long, long, long list of similar disasters that are destroying, one by one, the business of feeding humans.

Now, of course, we're dealing with the whole avian flu panic, in which millions upon millions of chickens are being destroyed on the basis of questionable testing methodologies. Right now the news headlines focus on commercial facilities; what's less well-known is that backyard flocks are also being tested. We all know where this will lead. Already in the U.K., all chicken owners will soon be forced to register with the government or face up to six months in prison or a £5,000 fine. The state of Maryland also requires poultry registration. And in Wisconsin, if you own poultry or other livestock, you must register your land.

Of course, the potential for bird flu leaping to cows is putting the dairy industry in the crosshairs at a time when America's dairy cow replacement inventory is at a two-decade low.

Even home-grown food is not exempt. Most people are familiar with Pennsylvania's vicious war against Amish farmer Amos Miller for the crime of selling fresh food to eager customers. Attorney Robert Barnes sums it up succinctly: "Let me explain what the #AmosMiller case is about after a court conference. The @PAAgriculture claims ALL food is 'illegal' – as illegal as illegal drugs – unless it was made by a government-approved facility, and they can destroy it at will."

From sociopolitical commentary to romance writing! Patrice Lewis branches into the world of Amish inspirational fiction. These clean romances are wholesome enough for Grandma to read. Check out Patrice's available titles.

But don't think your backyard gardens are immune. A Guardian piece entitled "Carbon footprint of homegrown food five times greater than those grown conventionally" strives to conclude that backyard gardens are bad for the planet, and suggests farming should be left to the professionals.

Additionally, a couple years ago, "experts" at the University Medical Center Mainz in Germany suddenly issued an "urgent" warning that gardening can cause heart disease by exposing people to harmful soil pollutants. According to The Sun, "Gardeners have been warned that their habit could leave them at an increased risk of heart disease. Medics found that pollutants in the soil could have a 'detrimental effect on the cardiovascular system.' The results of the analysis pushed experts to recommend that people wear a face mask, if they are in close contact with the soil. Experts at the University Medical Center Mainz, Germany said pollution of air, water and soil is responsible for at least nine million deaths each year. They highlighted that more than 60 per cent of pollution-related deaths are due to heart issues such as strokes, heart attacks, heart rhythm disorders and chronic ischaemic heart disease."

In fact, Europe has spent the last few years embroiled in violent protests against increased government regulations that were putting farmers out of business. The Netherlands planned to "compulsory purchase" and close up to 3,000 farms to comply with EU environmental rules. Ireland is set on cutting its dairy herds by 10%, meaning about 200,000 cows will be culled for no other reason that cow farts are bad for the environment.

And who can forget the disastrous collapse of Sri Lankan agriculture after the government forcibly scaled back the use of non-organic fertilizer?

To top it off, did you know the United Nations is working with banks to destroy the American farming industry? Their method is to impose ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) criteria to score and penalize farmers. The U.N.-organized Net-Zero Banking Alliance is demanding net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture. Farmers who can't or won't comply are being de-banked by having their accounts shut down without notice or explanation.

And on and on it goes: headline after headline after headline. Agriculture, in which humans have been engaged for thousands of years, is now being deemed dangerous and wrong in the eyes of well-fed bureaucratic idiots who are determined to make food unaffordable and/or unavailable for the huge majority of the global population who aren't wealthy. Oh, and if the U.N. has its way, anyone who criticizes the anti-human agenda will be silenced.

But that's OK. The vast majority of the global population is, in the eyes of the elites, useless eaters anyway. The sooner they are removed from the picture – by whatever means possible – the better they'll like it. If this isn't the epitome of evil, I don't know what is.

Should the majority of useless eaters be phased out of existence, who will serve the elites after the planet is depopulated and returned to some mythical Eden? Who will grow the food, manufacture the goods and clean the toilets for the overlords? When I posed that hypothetical question to my husband, his answer was succinct and accurate: "These are the people who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven."

Hell on earth may be coming a lot sooner than most people realize, if the global war on food continues. The need for food is something even the elites cannot escape.

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Earlier this year, the Democrat Senate Budget Committee's chairman invited Gus Schumacher, Olympic cross-country skier, to testify as an expert witness on climate change concerning "the impact of global warming on the $1.1 trillion outdoor recreation industry."

Mr. Schumacher stated that carbon dioxide is "a huge part of our atmosphere," but then expressed he was not sure what carbon dioxide (CO₂) is. Sen. John Kennedy explained that "Democrats want to spend $50 TRILLION to become carbon neutral" and that committee testimony is meant to justify spending the money. Continuing, Kennedy explained that carbon dioxide only makes up about 0.04% of the gases of our atmosphere.

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Earth's atmosphere consists of "78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide and small amounts of other gases." So, methane must be the problem, right? Methane is in that group of "small amounts of other gases" and actually is 0.000191% of the Earth's atmosphere, so it is even less of a problem.

Why, then, would anyone think CO₂ is a problem greenhouse gas? In 1859 Irish physicist John Tyndall conducted an experiment showing that carbon dioxide and water vapor absorbed heat and radiated heat. He was attributed credit for demonstrating "the physical basis of the greenhouse effect."

Since then, ideas have been propagated by groups like National Geographic to express that "greenhouse gases allow the sun's light to shine onto Earth's surface … [and] trap the heat that reflects back from the surface …like the glass walls of a greenhouse."

Not until the 1940s was the first infrared (IR) spectrometer built. In 1957 PerkinElmer developed the first low-cost IR spectrometer. In 1969 Digilab (now Agilent technologies) pioneered the first FTIR (making this type of analysis available to laboratories). Why is this important? FTIR instrumentation shows the energies light molecules absorb.

Using FTIR instrumentation, the energy absorption of CO₂ can be measured. "Carbon dioxide traps heat only within [very] narrow bands of the infrared spectrum," states an article entitled, "Top Study: Carbon Emissions CANNOT Cause 'Global Warming'." Figure 1 shows the IR absorption spectrum for both CO₂ and water. This shows CO₂ only absorbs energy in a very narrow range, meaning that it would never act like "glass walls of a greenhouse" reflecting the sun's energy back to Earth.

Figure 2 shows the total energy of the sun's rays coming to the earth consists of 7.35% UV light, 38.82% visible light and 52.15% IR light. In order to act as a "greenhouse gas" the first thing CO₂ has to do, is absorb the sun's energy. Of the sun's total energy CO₂ absorbs only about 0.13%, meaning 99.87% of the sun's energy passes through the CO₂, hits the Earth and bounces back up without interacting with CO₂ at all. Considering only the IR portion of the sun's energy, CO₂ only absorbs 0.24% of the total IR energy from the sun. Again, that means 99.76% of the sun's energy is not affected by CO₂ in the atmosphere. So, CO₂ is not acting like a glass bubble around the Earth, increasing the Earth's temperature.

Then there's the saturation problem. This is reported in several recent peer-reviewed scientific articles (2024, 2022, 2020). The problem can be basically understood by considering attic insulation. Once insulation is above a certain height (the saturation limit), adding more insulation has no further effect on heating the house, as all the heat is already captured by the insulation already present. So, if CO₂ did act as a greenhouse gas, once the saturation limit is achieved, adding more CO₂ would have no further effect on warming the Earth.

"Current levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere are around 418 parts per million (ppm), but the scientists state that past 400 ppm, 'the CO₂ concentration can no longer cause any increase in temperature.'" Therefore, "it simply isn't possible for increases in carbon dioxide to cause temperatures to rise." Note, "levels of gas have been up to 20 times higher in the past without any sign of runaway 'global warming.'"

"In 2022, German Physics Professor Dieter Schildknecht set the saturation limit of CO₂ at just 300 ppm and concluded that beyond this, further increases cannot affect the Earth's climate."

Emeritus professor William Happer of Princeton believes the CO₂ saturation hypothesis and stated that the current "science" enforcing the "Net Zero" agenda for carbon emissions by 2050 – is a "hoax," but he preferred the word, "scam."

Dr. John Clauser, 2022 Nobel Physics laureate, stated, "I assert there is no connection whatsoever between climate change and CO₂ – it's all a crock of crap, in my opinion."

"Over 1600 scientists from around the world" have signed "a declaration stating that claims of a 'climate emergency' threatening the Earth are a hoax." This declaration is called the World Climate Declaration (WCD). It states, "Carbon dioxide is beneficial to Earth … there is no climate emergency [and] … climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific." "The coalition points out that Earth's climate has varied as long as it has existed, [and] … they stress that there is 'no statistical evidence' to support [climate alarmist] claims." Thus, "there is no climate emergency [and] … no cause for panic and alarm."

On the other hand, water vapor absorbs visible light and infrared light from the sun in broad bands. Water vapor could act as a greenhouse gas. So, do we need to get rid of all the clouds and stop production of Stanley Steamers automobiles? The only problem with thinking that water vapor is heating the Earth's atmosphere too much is the fact that water vapor only makes up about 1-3% of the atmosphere above the ocean and about 0-0.4% above the land. So, water vapor is not a problem either.

Carbon dioxide is not warming the Earth. To say it is to lie. It's cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and the sun has an 11-year cycle. Currently, we are at the peak of the cycle that will reverse between now and 2025.

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In Part 2, LoBaido addresses the fatalistic negativity of alleged "overpopulation," a lack of resources and other factors that can be successfully addressed with bold actions that don't require eliminating billions of people. LoBaido posits that humanity can marshal the intellectual, technological, financial and organizational capacity to chart a new and positive course for the future.

"First they ignore you. Then they insult you. Then they attack you. Then you win."

– Gandhi

The murder of the most vulnerable of humans – tiny precious babies in the womb – as championed by President Joseph Biden, Kamala Harris (the first vice president to campaign at an abortion clinic), the transnational elite and the World Economic Forum, can be reversed through the presentation of a positive pro-life narrative.

This narrative can – in part – be articulated by an "ambassador-at-large for the unborn" speaking for them at the United Nations, with each nation having the option of adding its own representative to this portfolio.

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It is obvious we live in a dysfunctional society. Globally, the transnational elites claim there are too many of us. They say we need to eat bugs and live in "15-minute cities." In the U.S., the cultural elites hate masculine men, naturally attractive-feminine women (especially homemakers) and innocent babies.

Our "leaders" want people to poison and cut up their babies, even after they are born, and sell off the body parts. We've had over 1.7 billion abortions on planet Earth since 1980. Not one of those babies had a voice in his or her sentencing with the death penalty in the most brutal manner possible, aka the horrific "silent scream."

Deconstructing the 'Official' Narrative

Joe Biden recently made the sign of the cross at a pro-abortion rally. With that in mind, let all normal people pivot to this Cosmopolitan narrative about women (remember this magazine is largely aimed at teenage girls) getting an abortion as a "Satanic ritual." Read and study it carefully. Satanists consider abortion to be sacred. The federal government, under "Catholic" Joe Biden, protects the Satanists, while leveraging the FBI against traditional Catholics.

Abortion is a divisive national and global issue. Watch as Ohio residents cheer their "successful" vote on killing babies, jumping up and down like the Duke vs. UNLV March Madness finale of yesteryear. We've witnessed American college girls dance and laugh as they promise to kill their babies. Watch it here. Some in Ireland celebrated legalizing abortion as if they had just won the Super Bowl. Look at them here. Argentina also voted to legalize abortion – just look as they cheer their "new normal" of killing babies in a wild celebration. Some even drank champagne to celebrate.

Argentina and Ireland were once two of the most Catholic countries in the world. Recall the Treaty of Tordesillas, when the pope divided the entire Earth between Spain and Portugal – perhaps the apex of Catholicism. Things have changed. Now "Catholics" like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi promote abortion.

There are 330 million Americans. Only three are depicted above in the White House. Let us ask why Anthony Fauci (left) is one of those three – as Joe Biden signs the new law overturning the Mexico City policy.

Comedians Setting the Tone for National Discourse

Important issues in the U.S. have, for decades, been filtered through the lens of comedians. For example, Bill Mahr recently told his audience that the world's population should be allowed to collapse. He cited climate change and a lack of resources as a part of his rationale. Listen to his talk here. This is negative and fatalistic, yet it provides a starting point for dialogue, introspection and un-biased, accurate science.

Like most of us, Mr. Mahr has no scientific education we know of, nor any real-world experience related to the issues and conclusions he promotes as facts – overpopulation, alleged lack of resources and why we "need" fewer people in the world.

Does he know two-thirds of the world's population live in a 3,300-kilometer radius of the Valerie Pieris Circle, with the center being Mong Khet, Myanmar? Or that 7.8 billion people standing in military formation could fit inside the state of Arkansas – with the rest of the world available for agriculture?

Mr. Mahr may wish to consider other nuanced factors: the role of sun spots and solar winds, massive volcanic eruptions, gamma ray bursts and other phenomena contributing to changing conditions either on Earth and/or in our solar system.

We should also focus on issues often ignored by the public, such plastic in the oceans, which is now appearing off of Antarctica. Much of our military-grade (and commercial) nuclear waste is radioactive essentially for eternity – and more is being produced every single day. These are topics we can lobby Mr. Mahr to discuss on his show. Pro-life people need to get ahead of the curve with solving such problems.

We are dealing with intractable issues upon which rest the fate of humanity. They require a balanced approach free of the fatalistic de facto death cult of American and transnational elites. As an aside, imagine if Bill Mahr could have unborn children (not possible) or invite living children who survived an abortion attempt (such people do exist) appear on his television show.

Earth's Climate Constantly Changes

We know the Earth's climate has always been changing. Consider that cartoon of cave men watching a flower emerge at the end of the Ice Age, while one of them says, "Must be our fault." In the 1970s we were told an Ice Age was coming. It never came. There was a "Little Ice Age" in Europe circa 1666 that saw the Thames River freeze over. Yet life on Earth continued. With the failure of the non-Ice Age charlatans (cheered on mostly by the media, more than by academia) of the 1970s, the "elites" pivoted to "Global Warming," and then "Climate Change." One constant has remained steadfast: "The sky is falling."

Concerning the doom and gloom and the fear-mongering, the book of Revelation tells us horrible cataclysms are coming. Scientists and other pundits echo such claims – whether they mean to or not. There could be an EMP attack, another Carrington Event, nuclear war, a global earthquake and more tsunamis.

There could also be nuclear or biological terrorism. Look at the Aum Shinrikyo Cult in Japan, their level of technical expertise and their scientific "achievements." The WEF elites eerily echo Aum Shinrikyo via their nihilistic plans to "destroy the world to save it" through abortion, eliminating 7 billion people, ending oil, climate lockdowns, vaccine passports, ignoring biological sex at birth and ending national borders.

That said, the pessimism and negativity of the Mahr perspective will define our worldview and influence our future if we do not actively oppose it – and organize and work together to build a thriving, positive, happy future. The pro-life movement can help make this grand new narrative a reality.

Let's start here: Yes there are problems on this planet. We all can plainly see the piles of human feces on the streets, the used syringes, the broken, lost people, the failed facelifts making one look like a 26-year-old lizard, Monopoly money, robot soldiers on and on ad infinitum. The biggest problem of all is that we've yet to unleash the bold leadership, vision and entrepreneurial spirit to change the course of our destiny – so as to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

We need to build parallel structures for humanity – winning hearts and minds in our own virtual White House (remember the British burned it to the ground during the War of 1812 and St. Louis was going to be named the new capital until the New Madrid earthquakes hit circa 1812), new local governments, new state governments and a new United Nations. With technology evolving at our fingertips, we can unite to chart a new destiny for mankind. We do not have to submit to self-anointed "elites" we never met and did not vote for. Elites who we know deep in their hearts despise us as "deplorables" and wish us dead.

Bold Steps – The Answers Are Off Planet Earth

We have possible answers: The sun could be used as a giant furnace to burn up trash, waste, debris and hazardous materials. How do we get all of this refuse into outer space? Mankind could build space elevators, as the MIT Technology Review now says it is possible. Read about it here.

Water from Enceledus, one of Saturn's moons, can be brought to Earth. Build a space junker and bring that water to the Sahara Desert. We have sand and precious metals remaining on Earth. If we're going to run out, then mine them from a passing asteroid or another planet. Consider China and Russia, as well as India, are ready to mine Helium-3 on the moon. They are planning a lunar base at the South Pole of the Moon. This is not science fiction. This is science fact. Read about it here, here, here and here.

Argentina, if farmed properly, could help feed the entire world on its own. We throw away enough food every single day to feed the world. Construction materials are wasted every single day. We can build at least a tiny home for every homeless person. We have universities with many empty seats. If you don't have the money for Harvard or Michigan State, anyone can watch lectures on YouTube and order relatively cheap, used textbooks on eBay.

The world's land area is basically unpopulated. Take a look. Get on a plane and fly over Australia, Russia, China, Canada and the United States and see for yourself. Don't forget to check out this spatial analysis of Earth's empty space, "Nobody Lives Here."

Just as untold millions of Americans were reached last Autumn of 2023 with an Emergency Message via their iPhones, potential strategies to address the Earth's biggest environmental and man-made problems should be proposed, shared, evaluated and voted on by registered voters in real-time (and verified by retinal, fingerprint and voice security) – instead of being the domain of the elites offering us sound bites during election cycles.

Final Thoughts

Having babies is an amazing experience. Fewer and fewer are experiencing it as abortion, sterilization, infantilized men with no desire to lead a family, baby-killing women and transsexual phenomena grow. Some woke leftists see babies as a burden, with their own selfishness at a level so high the idea of having babies is something they refer to as "right-wing." Read Politio's piece articulating this strange notion.

It has been said that, "Babies are God's proof that the world should go on." Let us choose life and embrace the Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Let us give the unborn due process, instead of cruel and unusual punishment.

Let us at least inquire if a de facto tangential reflection of R2P or "The Responsibility to Protect" should be applied to unborn children.

Let us inquire if Artificial Intelligence can be leveraged to give every expectant mother the help she might need in a crisis – money, a place to stay, doctors, counselors and more. Has such an AI project been tried?

Let us build an altar to God in defense of life, to the unborn, for babies, for families, for happiness and the joy of normalcy. Let us "be fruitful and multiply" as God commands in Genesis 1:28. Yes, our cities are overcrowded, as this maximizes control and advertising power for the elites. But this should not trick or deter us. We know we have the space to live. We can marshal the necessary resources. We can cut waste.

Meanwhile, the love and joy that comes from having babies needs to be articulated. This is so residents in Ohio, on U.S. college campuses, in Ireland and in Argentina will drink champagne, dance and cry tears of joy when babies are born – not when they are killed in the most vicious and painful manner possible.

The new world described above is within our reach. Even though Melinda French Gates just donated a billion Monopoly dollars to global abortion, ultimately her anti-life, anti-God efforts will not succeed.

Appointing an ambassador-at-large for the unborn to the United Nations will be a seminal moment in history. It will chart a new course for humanity and offer a forum to present new ideas to assist mankind.

Indeed, we are the people we have been waiting for.

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The nation is in the midst of a presidential election campaign. Four years ago, Hunter Biden's laptop was seized by the FBI and kept secret, while its alleged content was framed by official Washington as a clumsy Russian attempt to intervene in the election.

The alphabet media four years ago censored the laptop story, covering instead the fictitious Russia, Russia, Russia line it was fed by politicians running the Department of Justice. Now, the famous computer is being used again to misdirect the public's attention from national scandal to a minor paperwork "mistake" by an addled, drug-confused "son" of the president. The media cannot even bring themselves to call Hunter a man.

The focus of coverage now on the "laptop from hell" is a false statement on federal firearms paperwork. Was it intentional or accidental? The real question is why are we bothering with this trivia when millions of dollars reportedly exchanged hands between the Bidens and foreign governments?

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The FBI went to Delaware and seized the laptop, precisely to keep it secret. The bureau mission was not to investigate, as its title implies; it was to cover for Joe Biden. The FBI attempted to manipulate public opinion in favor of the Democrat Party, thereby interfering in a presidential election. The current courtroom drama is testament to how successful the FBI has been.

Legitimate news sources reported on the laptop content four years ago, but most of the alphabet media willingly joined in FBI charade.

As a result, the government coverup altered the course of the nation and the outcome of an election. The laptop story was not Russian disinformation; it was American government disinformation.

It does not get any more serious than that.

Yet, the Department of Justice apparatus has been able to suppress the content that shows the threats to national security, and allowed only a weapons charge, a personal violation of the law if proved, to proceed into the light. This trial is a sideshow. The FBI is handing the public a cookie, saying "good boy" – and it is business as usual.

Inquiring minds would like to know the extent of the financial conspiracy and if it borders on, or is, treason.

Does anyone think today the U.S. might owe the Russians an apology?

There are lies, and there are damn lies. These 51 former intel officials had personal access to sources that could confirm the veracity of the Hunter Biden laptop. Some, if not all, probably still retain their top secret clearances. They used that position of responsibility to lie.

This was not Russian political interference in a U.S. election, it was U.S. federal government interference in the national election, and it resulted in an administration that has brought international embarrassment to the United States and domestic discord.

One has to wonder if the American public will be fooled again.

The wonderment flows from the fact the handling of the laptop continues to obfuscate the very serious issues raised by the content and concentrate the public's attention to a firearms charge that is petty, personal and irrelevant. We are expected to accept the premise that lying on a federal form is the most important thing to come from that laptop.

The most important information on that laptop documents that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden were in it for the money and used U.S. foreign policy to get it. Official Washington is busy shouting at us, "Look over here!"

When Joe Biden labeled the laptop content "a bunch of garbage" it would have been an appropriate time for an inquiring press to ask the logical question: "When did you view the laptop and is there an official synopsis of its content the public might see?" If it is garbage, then release the content for the public to see.

The really important matter involves money and promotional positions with lucrative financial reward, which clearly could influence the then vice president of the United States. Combine that with the video of Joe Biden bragging at a Council on Foreign Relations event how he used his position to force Ukraine to do his bidding and block a corruption probe.

Now we are at war with Russia over Ukraine, hardly cause for a celebrated courtroom drama over what amounts to a paper cut.

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Last month, something horrible happened in Bethlehem. "Christ at the Checkpoint" is a clever name for a nefarious orgy of hatred organized by people who call themselves Christians, but who advocate for the destruction of Israel and the massacre of Jewish people. It is built on a biblically baseless foundation riddled with replacement theology, propagating the lie that God no longer has a covenant with the Jewish people.

I was reminded of this recently when a Christian friend in Pakistan contacted me to ask for my help. I cannot write anything that will reveal who or where she is, but her circumstances, along with that of many Christians in Pakistan, are harrowing. I, an Orthodox Jew, have been helping them for years.

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My friend and her family have been subject to multiple instances of persecution and assault. Recently, she and another family member were hospitalized due to Muslims beating them just because they're Christian. I've seen the X-rays of broken bones that will heal, but in a society that is hopeless in its hate. The most recent attack on her family is the third in recent months, as their persecutors try to force them to convert to Islam and force their women to marry Muslim men.

My friend is incredibly strong in her faith. I wish I could share everything that I know. But she, her family and countless other Christians live in fear. I have a number of Christian friends in Pakistan who tell me the same story.

She asked for my help because they fear for their lives. They need to leave Pakistan, to flee to another country.

She told me where they can go to claim asylum and how much it will cost. On the one hand, she is my friend and I want to help in any way I can personally. Because of my work building bridges between Jews and Christians, I am also focused on helping Christians who are in dire need, especially here in the Middle East, and especially when facing similar threats from Muslims as we do in Israel. From a human perspective, it's hard to say no.

Another friend has been asking me for months if I can help him get a visa to any country where he can find work. Unfortunately, I have no connections to help him, and even other Christians with links to Pakistan who I have asked to help have been unresponsive. You can walk across the Mexican border with no problem, but actually getting a visa to flee, that's an insurmountable problem.

I know that if it were possible, there would be an infinite number of Christians who would flee Pakistan and other Arab-Islamic countries. There's a timeless Jewish teaching that "he who saves one live saves the world." The Genesis 123 Foundation is committed to saving as many lives as possible.

This also reminded me of Tucker Carlson's recent horrible interview with Palestinian Christian Pastor Munther Isaac, in which he not only allowed, but propagated the lie that Christians in Palestinian areas are suffering at the hand of Israel. Carlson and Isaac blamed the suffering of Palestinian Arab Christians on Israel without once mentioning anything about Islam, or the actual Muslim neighbors who truly threaten Christians, and under whose control Bethlehem has gone from a city that was 80% Christian to less than 10%.

I also know the truth of Christians being persecuted and threatened in the Palestinian Authority, and in Israel, by their Muslim neighbors firsthand, from Arab Christians who share with me their frustration and fear.

Carlson asked rhetorically why more people don't stand up for Christians in the Middle East to set up a way to blame Israel rather than actually identify the cause. There is an answer. Since I have worked helping Christians in Pakistan, Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian Authority for years, my response is very clear. Christians typically are not as tribal as Jews, and do not see the suffering of Christians in other parts of the world as being something for which they have an inherent responsibility, or ability to overcome. Jews consider helping one another an imperative.

In the past, when I initiated major campaigns to help Christians in the Middle East, I have been frustrated with the lack of support, wondering why at least a million Christians don't donate $10 to make a real difference. Maybe $25.

Nevertheless, I cannot stop advocating for my friends, Christians living in Arab and Muslim nations, and for Christians in general.

For my friend's family of five it will cost $37,000 to pay for their visas, airfare and initial setting up of a home in another country. That's $7,400 each to give them a new life free of fear, free of violent assaults and with the ability to live as Christians. But it's also half of an average annual Pakistani income. So, the dream of leaving is no more possible than the unbearable nightmare of their reality. Somewhere in there is a clever Mastercard commercial. But this is life and death, and saving a single life is "priceless."

I discuss this with Christian friends frequently. It's one thing to be dispassionate and do nothing. But it's another thing to spread lies that make the situation for Christians in the Middle East even worse. Now, more than ever, facing the same actual enemies in extremist Islam, Jews and Christians must stand together.

As a network of Jews and Christians working together, worldwide, I have asked and received a warm response so far for people to join the Genesis 123 Foundation to make a difference and help at least this one family since there are far more persecuted Christians in Pakistan than those promoted to brigadier general.

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On Oct. 2, 2020, USCIS issued a release providing policy guidance regarding immigrants and their "inadmissibility based on membership in a totalitarian party." It explains why as follows:

"Membership in or affiliation with the Communist Party or any other totalitarian party is inconsistent and incompatible with the Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America, which includes pledging to 'support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States.'"

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Simply put, one cannot serve two masters, and the master in the United States is our Constitution. But the Biden administration seems oblivious as to why this should pose an issue concerning Palestinian resettlement.

The inadmissibility of immigrants harboring totalitarian affiliations stems from two intentions of our Founding Fathers.

• First, there was to be no state religion. In other words, while all religions are welcome, none is to receive priority over another – i.e., all religions are equal.

• Second, underscoring the above, separation between church and state must be maintained. No U.S. government office can exercise influence promoting one religion over another. Thus, while the Catholic Church opposes abortion, the federal government cannot implement an abortion ban just to comply with Catholic Church doctrine as doing so would demonstrate favoritism for Catholicism over other religions that permit it.

Let us now examine how the above applies to Biden's Palestinian immigrant resettlement.

Palestinians in Gaza voted Hamas into office in 2006. Hamas, which was designated a terrorist group in 1997, has not allowed any elections since then. The Islamic beliefs of Hamas were known to the Palestinians who, by their vote, clearly demonstrated allegiance to its ideology – one encompassing intentions completely contrary, for those resettling in the U.S., to those of our Founding Fathers.

Hamas only recognizes one religion – Islam – along with the need that believers convert non-believers either voluntarily or by force to it or force them to subordinate their religion to Islam. One need only look to Muslim majority states to see the effort underway to purge, convert or kill non-believers.

Once Islamic supremacy is established, the vehicle for governance is a caliphate, which then dictates the behavior of the people by applying its law, known as Shariah. Any way you look at it, the head of the caliphate is a totalitarian leader.

The model for the above is already in play in Iran. The religious leader there, the Ayatollah Khamenei, ideally seeks to rule the world under an Islamic global caliphate. And, while it may be difficult to believe, even one of our NATO allies – Turkey – has been slowly retrogradingfrom a democracy to a caliphate as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks a return to the glory days of the early 20th century and the Ottoman Empire – which operated as a caliphate under a sultan. Interestingly, were the world to be reduced to these two caliphates, despite both being ruled by Shariah, each would be fighting to eliminate the other as they represent different Islamic sects.

But, as should be clear under caliph rule, there is no separation of church and state as, under Islam, the two are blended into a single religious state, ruled by a caliph – a totalitarian ruler.

The first U.S. president to truly understand Islam, recognizing the threat it presented to democracy, was Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809). In fact, he kept a copy of the Quran in his personal library. His desire to learn about the religion was piqued even before he became president as a newly independent America was confronted by the reality of the Barbary pirates' caliphate.

While the good news for America was that it had won its revolution against England in 1783, the bad news was that it no longer had protection for its maritime commerce the British navy had provided. Thus, U.S. commercial ships navigating the Mediterranean Sea were attacked and captured by the Muslim Barbary pirates of North Africa.

Initial treaties were made with the pirates to pay tribute providing American vessels with safe passage. When Jefferson was ambassador to France, he met in London in 1785 with a Barbary ambassador to negotiate one such treaty. He queried the Muslim ambassador why U.S. ships were being attacked. The Muslim ambassador explained it was written in the Quran "that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet (Muhammad) were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave."

Keeping the above in mind after becoming president, Jefferson commissioned the building of the U.S. Navy to confront what he knew would eventually come – war with the Muslim pirates – one in which America ultimately prevailed.

We cannot lose sight of the fact that, almost 240 years later, the intentions of the Muslim ambassador are really no different from those embraced by Hamas, which has been indoctrinating Palestinians accordingly. And Biden seeks to bring them to the U.S. knowing that based on these intentions as "good faith" Muslims, they cannot, in all honesty, take the oath of citizenship mandating they pledge to "support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States" as Islamic superiority to all other religions under a totalitarian rule is their sole mandate.

As if the above is not reason enough not to resettle Palestinian refugees in the U.S., we should heed the policy of all the Palestinians' Muslim neighbors who refuse to accept them.

Interestingly, concerning our citizenship oath, there is a concept in Islam that would allow Palestinian refugees resettling here with a way to end run it, known as "taqiyya." Islam enables its followers to exercise taqiyya by lying to non-believers, deceiving them for the sole purpose of furthering the religion only when believers are in a more powerful position to do so. Resettling Gaza's Palestinians in the United States puts them on the right track to achieve just such a position.

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I like to check the latest weather forecast every morning. I want to know what to expect for the day. I don't know why I do this, because I probably could predict the weather more accurately on my own. That's because bald men are always the first to know when it's raining.

Jesus warned, "When it is evening you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red'; and in the morning, 'It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.' Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times" (Matthew 16:2–3 NKJV).

And writing to the church in Thessalonica, the apostle Paul said, "But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night" (1 Thessalonians 5:1–2 NKJV).

Bible prophecy is a fascinating subject to explore. But we must never study prophecy or the events the Bible describes as happening during the end times in a merely academic way. When we read about these events, it should always move us and give us a sense of compassion, because we're reading about a real judgment that will come upon the world.

We see in the Old Testament that when God revealed to Daniel how end times events would play out, Daniel was stunned and unable to say a word. It moved him. And it should move us as well.

As we consider the nearness of Christ's return, it should cause us to want to reach out to unbelieving friends, family and loved ones. It should affect the way that we live and motivate us to live more godly lives.

John wrote, "Dear friends, we are already God's children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure" (1 John 3:2–3 NLT).

All around us are signs of the times telling us that Jesus Christ is coming back at any time. It's like a storm that is brewing. You don't know when it will happen, but you know it's coming. In the same way, we can interpret the times and the seasons. As we see what is happening in the world and the state it's in right now, we know that Christ's return is near.

Paul went on to say, "Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation" (1 Thessalonians 5:6–8 NKJV).

"Therefore let us not sleep, as others do." It seems like some people in the church are perpetually jet-lagged. They aren't watching the times and seasons. There's a passiveness, even a laziness, and a disconnect between their personal life and their spiritual life. Instead of walking in the Spirit, they're walking in their sleep.

Paul was saying, "Look, you need to awaken from your spiritual sleep, from unresponsiveness and inactivity concerning the things of God. Wake up! Pay attention!"

Sometimes we can be lulled into a spiritual slumber. We can become content, well-fed Christians as we read the Bible and go to church, constantly taking it all in. The problem is that we need an outlet for the truth we've received in our lives. God doesn't give us these truths to merely hoard. He gives us these truths to share.

"But let us watch and be sober." When I became a Christian, I met some believers who thought I needed to be more sober, because I was always joking and trying to have fun. But being sober doesn't mean that we can never smile or laugh. It simply means that we are to be clearheaded, alert and steady. It means living with our eyes open.

Some people assert that Christians are out of touch, that we are so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. What nonsense. No one does more for the world than those who are heavenly minded. As I have often said, wherever you see great relief organizations, you see Christians reaching out to people, regardless of their beliefs or lack thereof. It is the Christians who are showing compassion in every practical way.

"But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation." The apostle Paul spent a good deal of time under house arrest, chained to a Roman soldier. He could closely observe their armor, and in this text, he mentions two pieces in particular: the breastplate and the helmet.

The breastplate generally was made of leather and protected the soldier's vital organs. And notice that Paul referred to it as a breastplate of "faith and love" not a breastplate of feelings. We are to live the Christian life by faith, not by fickle emotions that come and go. We are to have faith and love for God and his people.

Next was the helmet, which obviously was of vital importance. We need to put our helmets on and protect command central, because most temptations that come to us will come in the realm of our minds. It's in our minds that we reason, contemplate and imagine. We can reach into the past through memory and into the future through imagination. That is why we need to guard our minds.

Not only that, but "the hope of salvation" Paul referred to is the hope that salvation gives us. Our eternal destiny is secure. And we are to take the salvation that God has given us and live it out, applying it in every area of our lives as we await the return of Christ.

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Time just secured an interview with President Joe Biden, when Biden has granted very few interviews to print news outlets. Time gained access to Donald Trump in April, and the first thing you notice when you compare the two interviews is the length. At the top of the transcripts, Time claims the Biden transcript is a "28 minute read," while Trump's is listed as 83 minutes. Time's "fact check" of the Trump interviews ("21 minute read") is almost as long as the Biden interview.

Another noticeable tilt is the agenda of questions. Biden's questions were overwhelmingly about foreign policy. There are three on inflation, three on immigration, and three on Biden's age. There were zero questions on Hunter Biden and the Biden scandals. There were zero questions on the Trump trial or the Trump prosecutions.

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Did Team Biden put any conditions on which questions could be asked? It's a fair question, considering how selective they've been in handing out interviews.

By contrast, by my count, Time asked Trump 11 questions about the Trump prosecutions (and "revenge" for them), five questions about Jan. 6, two about potential political violence in 2025, four on fighting the "deep state," three on his "dictator for a day" joke, and four on whether he'd seek to overturn the 22nd Amendment and seek a third term.

On top of that, Trump drew 14 questions on abortion policy and six on crime. It's obvious from the Time transcripts that they consider Trump's opinions on domestic issues to be much more controversial – and even extremist – than anything Biden advocates. The rest of the media picked up on Trump's abortion answers, and Biden didn't have to provide any abortion answers.

Even the age questions to Biden were timid softballs, and Biden's answer – suggesting he could take his interviewer Massimo Calabresi in a fight – was taken as a joke. Calabresi told CNN's Jake Tapper it was "light-hearted" and "quite funny." Biden responded to a follow-up about voter concerns with his usual spin: "Watch me." Calabresi confessed it might be a "stock answer." So why not push through it? Why not ask, "Everyone's been watching you, that's your problem"?

Time could have asked Biden why his team refuses to release audio of his interview with stolen-documents special counsel Robert Hur, with the fear Republicans will exploit the audio in advertising. But Time pretends Robert Hur is a nobody and Biden's stolen documents should already be forgotten. Hur refused to prosecute Biden, and Jack Smith just keeps prosecuting Trump. It looks a bit rigged.

By contrast, Trump's interviewer Eric Cortellessa lectured him: "I just want to say for the record, there's no evidence that President Biden directed this prosecution against you." Trump rejected that: "I always hate the way a reporter will make those statements. They know it's so wrong." Time, like other slavishly pro-Biden outlets, refuses to acknowledge that Biden's No. 3 Justice Department official Matthew Colangelo resigning to join Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's team of Trump prosecutors shreds the "no evidence" lie.

The Democrats running Time are hyperbolically raising fear that a president using the Justice Department might go after his political opponents, while somehow being blind and deaf enough to ignore that Biden is using the Justice Department to go after his political opponents. They can't believe anyone would object to their shamelessness.

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An Irish Bull is a logically absurd blunder of speech that accidentally, often delightfully, expresses an underlying truth. The term goes back to an 18th-century member of Ireland's Parliament, Sir Boyle Roche (1736–1807).

Like Joe Biden, Sir Roche was known for embarrassing verbal gaffes. Once, seeking to inspire, he proclaimed, "All along the untrodden path of the future, I can see the footprints of an unseen hand."

While his meaning was obvious and the truth expressed profound, the image of an "unseen hand" making a "footprint" reads as if penned by ill-behaved literary leprechaun.

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As Trump supporters, alarmed by the weaponization of Biden's DOJ, measure the aftershock of the guilty verdict in the rigged Bragg/Merchan show trial, I offer Sir Roche's poised reassurance. Marching toward November's presidential election I, too, "can see the footprints of an unseen hand."

Those "footprints" began appearing instantaneously after the verdict, leaving a curiously $$$ shape, some 300,000,000 of them at last count. Each $$$ footprint was created by nimble fingers furiously clicking "Donate," a stampede temporarily crashing the contribution site.

I can see other footprints along Trump's post-verdict path to the White House. One set of prints leaves an unexpected, yet crystal clear, impression from the bottoms of the soles of their once-proudly worn shoes: "Never" (on one shoe), "Trumper" (on the other).

Such footprints suggest that post-verdict Never Trumpers now realize, from the reluctant bottoms of their souls, that they must support Trump and his soon-to-be-announced, all-important VP pick.

What other choice do they have, sharing with Trump supporters the conviction that Biden must be ousted from a White House whose actions are undermining the democracy they pretend to be saving?

The verdict allows the Biden campaign to shift from their evermore transparently hypocritical "Threat to Democracy" charge to the newest Trump moniker: "Convicted Felon."

It will be a welcome shift in narrative for Democrat voters, where the question, "Who's the real threat to democracy?" has begun to gain a bit of traction. Even a few of their Democrat pundits have questioned the fairness of the trial – and on CNN, no less! – their moral integrity rising above their peers who, by triumphantly gloating over the biased verdict, willingly yoke themselves to the GLOAT (Greatest Liar Of All Time).

Will the campaign's "Convicted Felon" emphasis work? Time will tell, but initially the "footprints" suggest that the impact will be minimal.

In the aftermath of the guilty verdict, many Americans are offering a simplified version of an Irish Bull, calling "Bulls—t" on the obvious election interference of Bragg's selective prosecution.

Conservative Americans see the DOJ's lawfare for what it is, a Leftist Holy Grail quest guided by the Stalinist formula, "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime." Bragg campaigned for office declaring his intention to do precisely that.

Americans sense that our republic lost something vital last week in Manhattan, something that will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to recover. Our grave loss was captured by Biden's soundless and soulless smirk when asked if Trump was a political prisoner, his creepy grin met by America's growl at the weaponization of justice.

The phrase "weaponization of justice," inexhaustibly used during Trump's interregnum, has biblical foundations. As a student of Hebrew literature, the key passage connecting the two words "weapon" and court" is Isaiah 54:17.

Seeing "footprints of an unseen hand," Isaiah offers a message to the marginalized people of Israel that, despite appearances to the contrary, at the very moment they seem defeated, God is still in control and will bless his people.

Here is Isaiah 54:17 from the Message translation, where I've highlighted two words: WEAPON and COURT (adding a third word redolent of the Trump trial ... LIAR).

No WEAPON that can hurt you has ever been forged.
Any accuser who takes you to COURT
will be dismissed as a LIAR ...
I'll see to it that everything works out for the best.

I offer my commentary on this passage with a disclaimer. Isaiah's words convey a promise spoken to Judah. Not to Donald Trump. Not to me. Not to you.

Still, the passage cries out against sham trials, possessing meaning for any defendant in a trial with lying witnesses and biased judges.

Anywhere. Anytime. You. Me. Republican. Democrat.

And, Donald Trump. While the irresponsible verdict will almost certainly be overturned, that doesn't matter to Biden. Election interference was the driving purpose all along, and Trump's newly sported "Convicted Felon" name-tag their high reward for pursuing it so craftily.

The prophets of the Hebrew Bible had much to say about mishpat (Hebrew = Justice), a word used over 400 times to remind us that sham trials have been a repugnant reality from the beginning of humans seeking strength through living together.

The perversion of justice is a clear and present danger to any society, so much so that the crucial task for any country's justice system is to guard against such. That DOJ duty becomes especially vital for trials having the perception of a political motive, where not only is an individual life impacted, but an entire nation.

In this essential task, the Biden Justice Department has failed, miserably. So profound has been the botching of its pact with America that one can imagine future historians wrongfully imagining the term, "Trumped up charges," to have had its genesis during the 2024 election cycle.

Providence will be kind to Biden if someday his gaffes come to be viewed as fun and innocent, like Sir Roche, rather than the heated and blustery gaffes of a president who seems intent on deepening America's deep division.

I can see a grinning Joe Biden repeating this Sir Roche original Irish Bull: "Half the lies our opponents tell about us are untrue."

Biden came close, in a recent speech in Tampa, to saying exactly that. Castigating Trump, he angrily vented, "I don't know why we are surprised by Trump. How many times does he have to prove we can't be trusted?"

Run, bull, run!

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California lawmakers set up a reparations panel for "black descendants of slaves" even though California was never a slave state. California has a budget deficit of close to $50 billion, and some put the price tag of the panel's reparations recommendations at $800 billion.

A former soap opera actor recently was shot and killed in downtown Los Angeles. He interrupted thieves attempting to steal the catalytic converter from his car. In response, a Democrat Los Angeles City Council member – there are no Republicans – blamed the automaker for failing to make the catalytic converters harder to steal. Councilwoman Nithya Raman said: "In this case, I think one of the things that infuriates me, is that we have a company – whatever, Toyota – who makes the Prius, that essentially has a device on their cars which is super easy to remove. It's basically the value of a MacBook, right?"

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At a gay pride parade in West Hollywood, some "indigenous queer people" marched waving a Mexican flag with a Palestinian flag on the bumper of their truck. A gay man in Gaza told i24News: "If you are gay, you should be hiding. It's so hard. I was so scared. Scared from everything, you know? Scared of getting hit, of getting kidnapped. I was so afraid. I was afraid Hamas would find out I was gay."

California voters in 1996 banned the use of race and gender in government hiring, government contracts and admission to state colleges and universities. Yet, the University of California, Los Angeles medical school dean of admissions, Jennifer Lucero, a proponent of "diversity, equity and inclusion," ignores the law and lowers standards to admit "underrepresented" students. According to The Washington Free Beacon: "Within three years of Lucero's hiring in 2020, UCLA dropped from 6th to 18th place in U.S. News & World Report's rankings for medical research. And ... more than 50 percent of students failed standardized tests on emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics."

In 2018, California lawmakers passed and the governor, a Democrat – there are no Republicans holding any statewide office – signed a law requiring publicly traded corporations headquartered in California to have at least one woman on their boards of directors. In 2020, lawmakers passed a law requiring publicly traded corporations headquartered in California to have one member from an "underrepresented community," defined as "individuals who self-identify as Black, African-American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native, or who self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender." California courts struck down both laws as violations of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution.

In April, California's $20 hourly minimum wage went into effect for fast-food workers. UCLA economist Lee Ohanian estimates the law, so far, has cost the state 10,000 fast-food jobs. The law also incentivizes the use of automation. California last year had the lowest job growth of any state. As of April 2024, California, at 5.3%, had the highest rate of unemployment of any state.

When the governor signed the fast-food law, two major California Pizza Hut franchisees promptly let go more than 1,200 delivery workers. Rubio's Coastal Grill, a fish taco chain, just closed all 48 California locations. The company said: "The closings were brought about by the rising cost of doing business in California." Note that most franchise operators are "mom-and-pop" owners, with just one location running on thin profit margins. So, this 25% hike in the minimum wage bites hard. As for the law's sticker shock, Wendy's increased its prices 8%, Chipotle 7.5% and Starbucks 7%.

But things could have been worse. Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Barbara Lee advocates a $50 hourly minimum wage.

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So, why is Joe Biden running for reelection? Why do Democrat Party leaders allow him to run for reelection? Their inaction clearly tells America that the current vice president, Kamala Harris, cannot be allowed in the White House. She is simply too unpredictable and irascible for the bureaucracy to accept. In other words, she does not know what to do and is too stubborn to do what she's told. Her word salads are the product of an extremely low IQ, not physical deterioration.

So one plausible reason for Biden to continue to this point is to enable the party to solve the "Harris" dilemma at the Chicago convention, and then make a switch from Biden to the new veep after the Jan. 20, 2025, swearing-in ceremony. That assumes Mr. Biden has until January.

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U.S. elections always hinge upon pocketbook issues, but this time, given the dire condition of U.S. leadership, the American public needs to consider foreign policy, too.

The reelection of Joe Biden would provide Russia with a window of opportunity to finish off Ukraine. Timing is critical, as Biden has provided Ukraine with U.S. fighter jets that can do a hell of a lot of damage to Russia. China would be unrestrained when it comes to Taiwan. Iran wants to dominate the Middle East, and Biden has already blocked weapons to Saudi Arabia and to Israel and done as much as he could possibly do to finance the Iranian expansionist dream.

If U.S. voters think Biden deserves four more years, confidence in the viability of America as a partner or ally will be squandered. After Biden called for Israel to overthrow its elected leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, leaders everywhere asked themselves, "Who trusts this guy?" Foreign leaders graciously try to help Biden find the "X" and later get off the stage.

The world will wait before it reacts to the loss of U.S. leadership, but if Mr. Biden makes it through the election, every nation with a grudge, every nation that covets its neighborhood's territory, will be unrestrained by anything Jill Biden and the Obama team of bureaucrats can do to respond.

The domestic situation America faces is even worse.

Joe Biden may believe the economy is humming, but if you talk to the staff at the supermarket, or express dismay at the price of a nut, washer and bolt at the hardware store, the response is the same. Prices are out of control and people's credit is maxed. We are in serious financial difficulty. Faced with that reality, the "rule writers" at every federal agency are frantically advancing as many restraints upon life as possible just in case voters take away their Joe Biden.

Having just traveled the road to oblivion with a most precious family member, it is unfathomable that no one close to Joe Biden cares enough to take him home where he obviously loves to be, and spends time with him on the beach so he can be happy. As he attempts to do the impossible, to function as he once did, the frustration is clearly there in his short bursts of anger. Why is his family allowing partisan, power-hungry hacks to engage in such ugly elder abuse?

That question perhaps is a little naive considering the abuse just handed out to the previous president by these same people. There are a lot of people in power today that are not kind or tolerant or even mildly pleasant.

Across the board, from Ukraine and Israel, from Venezuela to Africa, other nations couldn't care less about us. At home, America policy serves those in charge at the government agencies, not those who labor in the farms and factories.

Americans once swaggered and boasted, "We're the best!" Now they cringe at pronouns. Folks, it is time for a good ass-kicking from Washington, D.C., to Sacramento, California. Let's retire the ruling class.

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This controlling paradigm that steers America and the entire Western world assumes as fact that leftward movement is social progress and rightward movement is regression. It relegates rightists to the permanent, limited role of foot-draggers, who, at best, conserve the status quo of the moment – for a moment – before capitulating. The elites recognize the value of incrementalism, so they use conservatism like downshifting to a lower gear when the speed of "progress" creates excessive anxiety in the population. However, while the slowing of leftward "progress" can be tolerated until society "catches up" with the new norms, any rightward movement that actually rolls back leftist gains is "regressive" by definition and can never be allowed to stand.

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The only true threat to the elites is populism, properly understood. True populism is best recognized in the American founders' concept of collective self-governance, by sovereign individuals, exercising inalienable natural rights backed by law. This true populist paradigm necessarily presupposes a law-giving Creator to whom all individuals equally owe allegiance – negating any right of self-serving tyrants to impose laws at odds with the will and best interests of the governed.

Like any social phenomenon, populism spans a spectrum of many variations (including Republican and Democrat forms – e.g., the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street), but in terms of purity all are measured against the founders' model as outlined in their Declaration of Independence from the tyrannical British Empire. But tyranny never really died in America, it just moved to the shadows for a while and then reemerged with a new name and playbook rooted in the two-party system. We modern populists call our generation of controlling elites the Purple Uniparty because their cabal operates as a single controlling and unifying strata across the top of both the Red and Blue parties.

However, everywhere the progressive/conservative paradigm operates, whether it's a two party, multiparty, or fully centralized one-party system, the controlling elites use the same strategy to defeat populism: polarization. They divide us to conquer us, and it usually works.

The elites know that their self-serving social changes always breed populist resistance, but gradual change is too slow for their purposes, so they follow a pattern of pushing big waves of rapid "progressive" change followed by periods of "conservative" cool-down. And they intentionally set a goal further than they can reach, so their later "retreat" from the furthest extremes of their unreachable goal looks to the public looks like a compromise. It's the Marxist dialectic of two steps forward, one step back being purposely played out on the grandest of scales: nationally and globally.

Now populism is not naturally a left/right political phenomenon but is more properly measured by the strength of one's preference for liberty vs. top-down control, or one's inclination toward natural systems and lifestyles vs. artificial ones. Left alone, populist-minded people have much more in common than they disagree upon. But deliberate issue-driven political polarization causes people to take sides to the left or right – and through many cycles of repetition has the cumulative effect of increasingly hardening each side in positions toward the extremes.

The elites know that the Left is easier to manipulate because leftists are (generally speaking) more susceptible to subjectivity and emotionalism, while (generally speaking) those on the right are more oriented toward objectively measured standards and rationality. Interestingly, that's how God designed women and men, respectively, explaining why the most polarized generation in American history – Gen Z – is so heavily divided by sex on culture war issues. The girls are clustered on the left, the boys on the right.

Thus, the waves of social "progress" are purposefully created – top down – by driving the collective left into an emotional frenzy on "social justice" issues, which in turn aggravates the ever reactive right wing to respond with a similar extreme. In other words, leftist extremism creates it's own corollary opposition on the right: Antifa-type movements tend to produce their own Proud Boys-type opposites. (And where they don't emerge spontaneously, or aren't extreme enough, the deep state will produce and arm them.)

But here's the tricky part for the elites, and the secret to how the populist right could lead the populist left into a workable coalition capable of overthrowing them. The great weakness of the left/right polarization strategy is the reliance on "conservatism" to always neutralize the right wing by making its members focus on "conserving" the status quo instead of completely reversing and replacing it with a true-populist alternative based on the rules established by the founders.

Now that the continual cycles of left/right polarization have finally divided the human race by sex, it would represent the highest form of poetic justice for the male right-wingers to wise-up and man-up to their natural leadership roles – and to collectively woo the female left-wingers back to their natural womanly softness by appealing to their hearts: finding common ground – two by two – on the basics of what it means to be truly human and turning their backs on the elite transhumanist agitators trying to de-humanize and drive them apart. Picture (and pray for) a million Romeos and Juliets defying the artificial rules and boundaries imposed on them by the controlling authorities (but, unlike in Shakespeare's tragedy, surviving and marrying to breed a new generation of true populists).

The arbitrary rules of social change we're suffering were written by self-serving men who hate both God and humanity. But the absolute and universal Law of Sex was written in our very flesh by God who created us male and female in His own image. Under this law there is no greater power than the true love of a man for a woman and a woman for a man. It's this law of love – and sex – from which civilization springs, a law woven into our very being that makes us break down every barrier that stands in our way to reach the other, physiologically complementary half of us who makes us whole: one flesh. No human rule or transhumanist fantasy can trump that. No twisted LGBT lunacy – no matter how relentlessly forced upon us – can change His binary design written in our cells.

The human rules don't matter – and can't control us – if we choose and follow the higher law. As the founders taught us, "resistance to tyranny is obedience to God," and vice versa! To best resist today's tyrants, trust and obey God's heterosexual mandate with enthusiasm.

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The day Merrick Garland was set to appear before Congress, The Wall Street Journal ran a piece exploring the attorney general's "by-the-book, play-no-favorites approach." This rendering of Garland conflicts with reality.

Even now, Garland is refusing to hand over audio recordings of President Joe Biden's interviews with former special counsel Robert Hur over the president's hoarding of classified documents, despite a congressional subpoena.

As the Department of Justice stonewalls Congress, it is also prosecuting the Republican Party's presidential candidate for the very crimes the Hur tape supposedly "exonerates" Biden from.

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Considering the Hur transcript has already been released – and we know that Biden lied about it – there is even less justification for withholding the audio. And considering the DOJ has apparently cleaned up all the "uhs" and "ohs" and garbled words in the transcript, the tape would likely further cement the president as an "elderly man with a poor memory."

Withholding the audio is obviously politically motivated. Which is unsurprising, since Garland has been one of the most partisan AGs in memory.

While Garland was raiding Trump's home over a classified document dispute, he was letting the statute of limitations on the foreign influence-peddling by Biden's family run out.

While left-wing pro-Hamas protesters were rioting and targeting Jews, Garland was still fearmongering over the coming MAGA extremist revolution, inflating the threat with bogus statistics.

While Garland did nothing to stop the illegal picketing at the homes of Supreme Court justices and attempting to intimidate them and influence cases – not even after an assassin targeted Brett Kavanaugh – he did deploy armed teams to raid the homes of pro-life families and prosecute elderly anti-abortion protesters for praying in front of "clinics."

Even as Democrats are yammering about saving democracy, the DOJ is suing red states like Texas to overturn duly passed laws limiting abortion.

Even as the DOJ was restarting censorship efforts under the guise of stopping foreign interference, Garland was targeting X owner Elon Musk with new investigations. It's quite the happenstance, right?

Not only did Garland form a "task force" to investigate local parents who were protesting authoritarian COVID restrictions and racist curriculums, but he refused to dissolve the effort even after the National School Boards Association apologized for the letter that sparked it.

Of course, it was the Biden administration that prompted the organization to use the term "domestic terrorism" to give the DOJ justification to get involved in the first place. Even The New York Times acknowledged that "Garland did not detail any specific threats of violence or offer reasons for the increase in harassment and threats." The only reason to get involved was to chill speech and intimidate parents.

Even the case against Hunter Biden, used most often to brandish Garland's alleged Solomonic credentials, is a farce.

Let's not forget if the DOJ had its way, there would be no prosecution. To begin with, Garland ignored the law and appointed a counsel from within the government. David Weiss, whose office was filled with Biden allies, was prepared to give Hunter an astonishing immunity deal, not only on felony gun and tax charges but for a slew of unrelated serious potential offenses, including failure to register as a foreign agent, bribery and corruption.

It was only because of the whistleblower testimony of Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler that Weiss was forced to ask Hunter Biden to plead guilty to two piddling misdemeanor counts. And the immunity deal was only quashed because Judge Maryellen Noreika, who pointed out there was not a single precedent in which immunity was offered for "crimes in a different case," rejected it.

In his remarks to Congress on June 4, Garland promised that he "will not back down from defending our democracy," despite the "repeated attacks" and "conspiracy theor[ies]" regarding the DOJ. Conspiracy theories exist, no doubt, but most criticisms of Garland's work are legitimate. Treating criticism of his corrupt tenure as an attack on the "judicial process itself" has it backward. Demanding no one question the actions of state institutions is authoritarian. If the system were working properly, Garland would be impeached.

But in their efforts to save "democracy" – a concept that's been stripped of any meaning – Democrats have justified deploying the state to punish and destroy political enemies. For many progressives, the legal system isn't merely a tool for criminal justice but a way to exact political justice. Garland is one of the leaders in this fight.

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The first thing to remember about momentous events and public opinion is that it takes a while for people to process the full import of truly consequential developments. With the Trump verdict, of course partisan zealots on both sides know exactly how they feel. But other, more normal people are not entirely sure. They want to think about it and see how things work out before they settle on what they think.

That's where polls come in. The first survey out of the gate came from Morning Consult. The verdict was announced at about 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, and by early Saturday morning, Morning Consult reported that a majority of those surveyed, 54%, approved of the guilty decision, and that 15% of Republican voters wanted Trump to drop out. A day later, a CBS News poll found that 57% said the jury reached the "right verdict," but that not many people had changed their minds about the big picture of the 2024 race. Then an ABC/Ipsos poll found that 50% said the verdict was correct, 27% said it was not correct, and 23% don't know if the verdict was correct or not.

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What does that mean? Clearly, this is going to take a while to sort itself out. And the most important question is not "What do you think of the verdict?" or "Do you think Trump is guilty?" The question is, "If the election were today, would you vote for Biden or Trump?" That's the same question pollsters have been asking for more than a year.

There are two places to look – national polls and swing-state polls. Nationally, the race has been close for a year and half, since the moment Trump declared his candidacy in November 2022. Trump has been ahead of President Joe Biden in the RealClearPolitics average of polls since last September, but by very narrow margins. His biggest edge was 3.5 points in mid-December 2023. Now, Trump's lead is 0.5 points, meaning the race is essentially tied.

Trump's national lead when his Manhattan trial began was 0.3 points, meaning the seven-week, heavily covered, much-discussed trial made little difference in the national race. But you couldn't say so until the trial had been going for a few weeks. Now, it will take a few weeks to see if the verdict will have a significant effect on the national race.

Then there are the swing-state polls. They are critical to the race. Think about it this way. If Trump is able to win the states he won in 2020, which he can probably do, he then needs to win the Sun Belt states of Georgia and Arizona – Nevada would be a bonus but is not critical to this calculation. If he does that, he has to win just one of the northern tier of states, Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin, to win the presidency. That Electoral College math is what caused Democrats to freak out last November when the New York Times published a poll showing Trump leading in five of the six states.

Trump's lead has been stable for months now. In the RealClearPolitics average, he is up by 4.8 points in Georgia, 4 points in Arizona and 5.4 points in Nevada. So he's doing quite well in the Sun Belt. Up north, he is up by 2.3 points in Pennsylvania, 0.5 in Michigan and 0.1 in Wisconsin. Much, much closer.

Who wins the swing states will determine who wins the presidency. So that will be an important place to look for any change after the Trump verdict. Right now, anecdotal reports suggest not much is different. But, of course, not much has changed – the verdict just happened. Digesting it all will take some time.

For months, we have seen polls suggesting that a small number of voters who might be inclined to vote for Trump would reconsider, or decide that they will not vote for him, if he is convicted of a felony. Now he has been found guilty on 34 felony counts. As has been written here many times, the case against Trump was weak and politically motivated. But guided by a prosecutor who pledged to pursue Trump, a judge who is a donor to Biden and top Biden Justice Department official who joined the prosecution for purpose of trying Trump, a jury in deep-blue Manhattan convicted Trump on all counts. Perhaps that will be overturned on appeal long after the election. Perhaps not. But the next decision in the case will be made by voters.

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But in the late 1980s and early '90s, things began to change. Models – always thin – became emaciated and androgynous, their poses awkward and contorted. The clothes were ugly and unflattering. (My mother, a strikingly beautiful woman with elegant taste, commented at the time, "Designers used to love women, and it showed. Today's styles make it look as if they hate us.") And the focus on beauty and health morphed into a constant running celebration of sexual excess and abortion, with frequent criticism of men tossed in for good measure. ("Feminism," you know.)

By my late 20s, I'd stopped buying fashion magazines altogether and switched to home and decor publications, where I could explore beauty and creativity without being relentlessly assaulted by left-wing politics or the rallying cry that the high-water mark of womanhood is the ability to destroy our own children.

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I've nevertheless checked in on the decline of beauty in the beauty magazines over the years – typically while stuck at the salon in highlighting foils. (In fact, most fashion magazines no longer even exist in print. Mademoiselle ceased printing in 2001, Self in 2017, Seventeen in 2018, Glamour in 2019, Allure in 2022. Vogue still publishes 10 print issues annually.) I've watched as the standards got lower and lower. You find yourself thinking, "My God, they can't get worse." And then they do.

Case in point? Last week, The Cut, New York magazine's woman-focused online publication, featured an article titled, "It's Going to Be a Hairy Summer."

Guess what hair they're talking about?

The accompanying photos are the big reveal: musical artist Doja Cat wearing schoolmarmish glasses and a clingy, flesh-toned, see-through gown with a neckline so low that both areolae are partially exposed. She is naked underneath, with her pubic hair clearly visible through the sheer skirt. Actress, model and designer Julia Fox is sporting a bikini bottom decorated to look like the front of a woman's genitals – stitched shut, with the word "closed" written above it.

This is, apparently, what passes for astute social commentary in the Met Gala social set. In an interview with Glamour, Fox described her outfit and bleached eyebrows as "man repellent" and eschewed heterosexual relationships, opining that a wife and a prostitute "are both doing the same thing."

The Cut article's author, Emily Kirkpatrick, explains these daring sartorial choices: "Given the increasingly nude direction the red carpet has been headed in recent years ... stars are forced to go in all-new fashion extremes to generate the same press they've become accustomed to." Thus, the recent "exposed butt-crack trend" was quickly followed by full-frontal nudity.

Call this what it is – it isn't fashion; it's filth. It isn't art; it's tasteless trash. It requires neither imagination nor talent, and it certainly isn't progressive. Women with few economic options and fewer moral inhibitions have been flashing their parts since humanity first discovered them. Whoop-de-doo.

What's truly offensive is the way our artistic class – designers, performers, media personalities and other celebrities – make every imaginable attempt to normalize this descent into depravity. And they frequently ascribe to the general population preferences that likely don't extend to the rest of us.

For example, Kirkpatrick writes, "By the early aughts, women of all ages had become convinced that they should be completely bald down there."

Really? Most women don't think looking like a naked 10-year-old makes them sexy or desirable. Nor are most men sexually attracted to little girls. But it does make one wonder about the goings-on among America's elites in Hollywood and elsewhere: the popularity of pimps like Jeffrey Epstein, the whispered rumors of pedophilia rings, and the shocking marketing campaigns like Balenciaga's in 2022, which featured toddlers holding stuffed toys in bondage gear.

Kirkpatrick acknowledges that women who aren't rich or famous may simply be foregoing their hair removal to save money. Others, she hypothesizes, may be trying to "excise men from their lives entirely."

"Whatever the reason," she gleefully concludes, "it's clear that whether you wear it untamed, landing stripped, or full Brazilian, there's no wrong way to flaunt your pubic hair in public this summer."

There's the message.

And, dear reader, lest you continue to labor under the impression that all this explicit content is directed solely at "grownups," let me disabuse you of that misconception.

The magazine Teen Vogue – whose target audience is girls 11 to 19 – has featured wholesome content like "What to Get a Friend Post-Abortion" (Sample advice: "So your friend is about to have an abortion. ... Look, making this decision is never simple, and having to make it as a teenager is more than a little terrifying. ... She will need a ride, she will need a hug, and she will need you – not because the act itself is so terrible, but because sometimes the world can be.")

And then there were the articles normalizing prostitution and promoting anal sex. The latter piece not only tried to gloss over the gag factor ("Yes, there might be some poop") but also enraged feminists because author Gigi Engle refused to use the terms "men and women," preferring "prostate owners" and "non-prostate owners." (Query: How does one "own" a "non-prostate"?)

The decline in social standards caused by the relentless pursuit of "shock value" continues because we've tolerated it. Most of us don't wear labels like Balenciaga, so we can't boycott them. But we can put the economic thumbscrews to the celebrities who do patronize this garbage, as well as the publications that promote it and companies whose advertisements provide financial support.

It's time to stand up.

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Dear Dave,

I'm trying hard to get control of my money and get out of debt, but I had a situation come up the other day, and I really don't know what to do. I'm one of four brothers, and our parents' 50th wedding anniversary is early next month. My two oldest brothers got together and made plans for a party without consulting the rest of us. They want everyone to chip in $1,000 to help pay for things. I love my mom and dad, but the only savings I have is $1,000 in my beginner emergency fund. Will you tell me how to address this situation?

Ronald

I'm going to be blunt here, OK? Since you weren't asked about any of this ahead of time, and had no say in anything, fair would be for you and your brother who weren't consulted to pay zero. Zilch.

Planning something that expensive without consulting everyone involved well ahead of time – and expecting them to lay out $1,000 without warning – is way out of line. And don't let your older brothers lay a guilt trip on you, either. This has nothing to do with how much you love your parents, being greedy or anything like that. It has everything to do with consideration and communication, or in this case, a lack of these on their part.

If I were you, I'd let your oldest brothers know exactly what your financial situation is like right now. Explain what you're doing and why you're doing it, then let them know in a nice, but firm, tone you'll give them whatever you can scrape up, but you won't be chipping in anything close to $1,000. Oh, and I'd tell them next time they hatch up a big, expensive plan like this, to check with all their brothers way ahead of time.

Best of luck, Ronald. I'm sorry you have to deal with this.

Dave

Prolific China expert Gordon Chang put it succinctly: "We had better get American boots on the moon before the Chinese do. The Communists in Beijing tell us they will prevent us from going there if they arrive first, and whoever controls the moon will end up dominating just about everything else in the solar system, including our planet. Yes, the moon is that important."

While control of the moon is not a high-profile issue, yet, it has the power to dictate the future of planet Earth. In their new book, "Red Moon Rising: How America Will Beat China on the Final Frontier," former Trump administration official Peter Navarro and Greg Autry lay out the high stakes in this second "Space Race."

Navarro, of course, currently is incarcerated as a political prisoner of the Biden regime.

Here is the book's Introduction, entitled "The Moon is Keeping Us Up at Night":

"I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign itself to going to bed each night by the light of a Communist moon." – Lyndon Baines Johnson, Senate Floor, October 1957

"Why should the American government or billionaires be spending money in space when we have problems right here on Earth?" This is a question that advocates for NASA space exploration, space development, and space tourism are frequently forced to answer. It's a fair question, and all too often, the answers of scientists and engineers have not satisfied.

As you will learn from this book, public and private space investments have delivered numerous benefits to those of us on Earth. Spoiler alert: these include GPS, weather forecasts, global communications, medical technologies, and much more. Research going on in space today promises revolutionary developments in pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and miraculous materials. If you care about the environment, you'll discover the best environmental data and solutions (solar, fuel cells...) were developed for space.

More immediately important, a second Cold War is now upon us, this time with Communist China. It comes at a time when we face a cornucopia of domestic problems. Many, if not most of the economic, political, and social ills that plague our nation and world, are manifestations of a failure to confront the malfeasance of China's Communist Party. You are living in the dystopian future that we warned of more than a decade ago in a previous book, "Death by China: Confronting the Dragon – A Global Call to Action" (2011, Pearson). The task of confronting the Dragon is now existential. The fight can no longer be left to future generations. Like the previous one, Cold War 2.0 comes with a space race, this time with China. We will keep our eye on Space Race 2.0 throughout this text.

As you might recall, America won the first space race on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin kicked up dust on the Moon. Their two-hour stroll on the surface of another world demonstrated that the Soviet Union was no match for America's superior technology and economic power. By extension, it sent a clear message to the world that our political, civil, and educational systems, based on democracy, the rule of law, and individual freedom, delivered the goods far better than Moscow's dreary socialist model. Tom Wolfe framed this most clearly in his novel "The Right Stuff," where he wrote of America's astronauts, "The men chosen for this historic mission took on the archaic mantles of the single-combat warriors of a long-since-forgotten time. … They were risking their lives for their country, for their people."

Almost immediately after their failure to reach the Moon, the Soviet Union began its long downward spiral. Detente and eventually perestroika followed. Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (aka "Star Wars") leveraged the perception of American space superiority to drive a stake through the heart of that Evil Empire. Before any nuclear space shield could be deployed, Mikhail Gorbachev had the good sense to fold his cards and surrender Cold War 1.0. Nuclear Armageddon was postponed, and the peace dividend was paid out. Two generations of Americans have grown up without the formative experience of huddling in fear under their desk during nuclear attack drills.

With China's rise, new horrors from space may await us all. The disturbing scenarios in this book are designed to keep you up at night with us. You will also learn how the competition from China is accelerating America's efforts in space in ways that can provide our nation and all the people of the world a brighter future. We hope you will be alarmed, inspired, and motivated.

Order a copy of "Red Moon Rising: How America Will Beat China on the Final Frontier."

Brandon Fellows reacts to Anthony Fauci testimony June 3.

"What's somebody like that doing at a hearing about COVID?" Anthony Fauci asked a CNN host. As shall be seen, there is more to this question than meets the eye.

Fauci was referring to the mischievous January 6 veteran Brandon Fellows. Fellows was thrown out of the subcommittee hearing Monday for making faces behind Fauci while he talked.

I had the pleasure of meeting Fellows in D.C. during the Ashli Babbitt Freedom March on Memorial Day. We walked and talked together for a few blocks. He is a character.

As the marchers headed down Massachusetts Avenue toward the D.C. jail, with American flags and Trump flags flying, the neighbors, all white, felt free to shout the most vile epithets their limited imaginations could conjure.

Laughing, Fellows joked back that he had just been paroled to the district a week earlier and was pleased to be their new neighbor. His good nature only enraged his critics more. As I said to Fellows at the time, "This is your jury pool."

A dozen members of that pool saw to it that Fellows went to prison. His crime was to enter the Capitol through an open door and put his feet up on the desk of U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., while smoking marijuana.

He hurt no one, broke nothing. Now just 30, Fellows had been incarcerated since July 2021 and remains on probation.

As to what "somebody like that" was doing at the Fauci hearings, the government's abuse of individual freedom during the COVID reign of terror helped radicalize Fellows.

"COVID lockdowns in N.Y. told me I wasn't supposed to work," said Fellows in his pre-sentencing memo. "All the while not giving me any money, they instead threatened fines on people who worked."

Fellows was not alone in his outrage. In researching my new book, "Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6," I was surprised to find just how direct a role COVID oppression played in inspiring people to go to Washington.

Of the 10 women I profile in the book, nine were outspoken COVID dissidents. Ashli Babbitt, the woman shot and killed on January 6, had a perfectly apt name for COVID, the "controla virus."

"We are being hoodwinked. The sheep need to wake up," Ashli posted on social media. A sign on the door of her and her husband Aaron's pool supply business captured the take of most J6 protesters.

The Babbitts declared the business a "mask free autonomous zone, better known as America." Another sign read simply, "If you need to wear a mask outside, I'm not sure we can help you."

Living in San Diego, Ashli was the only woman of the 10 to fly to Washington. Rather than deal with oppressive airline regulations, the other nine drove or went by bus.

Rebecca Lavrenz, a great-grandmother from Colorado, refused to wear a mask under any circumstance. As a nurse, she knew the masks were "ridiculous," but more to the point, she did not like the idea of people "taking away her liberties."

In 2020, she sought out people like herself willing to go maskless in a grocery store even at the risk of being kicked out. Through these new affiliations, she got involved actively in politics and worked her precinct on behalf of Donald Trump. "I knew I had to do something," said Rebecca. "Politics are local."

On Dec. 8, 2020, Idaho's Yvonne St Cyr was arrested at an anti-mask rally in Boise at the Central District Health Department. She refused to cover her nose and mouth, she said, because "I have a right to breathe oxygen."

Yvonne's defiance of Idaho's lawless COVID restrictions did not sit well with the local apparatchiks. As CNN matter-of-factly reported, Yvonne "was placed under citizen's arrest by a staff member."

Rachel Powell found herself banned from local farmers' markets in western Pennsylvania where she sold her cheese and yogurt. In an article on Powell, Ronan Farrow traced her resistance to the "misinformation" and "conspiracy theories" about COVID that were being spread by Trump and others.

In a foreshadowing of what would happen after January 6, the heavily indoctrinated Americans felt empowered to monitor and report on their fellow citizens.

"Random people became citizen cops preventing you from living your life doing ordinary things," said Dr. Simone Gold, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. "I was watching Nazism unfold."

In May 2020, Dr. Gold recruited some six hundred physicians to sign an open letter to Trump protesting the lockdowns. She showed up at the Capitol on January 6 as a respected physician/attorney and founder of America's Frontline Doctors, but she, too, left as a "domestic terrorist."

"One important lesson I've learned over the last few years," said the undaunted Dr. Gold in January 2024: "When they try to discredit you by labeling you a conspiracy theorist, it's probably because they're hiding a conspiracy."

At the House committee hearings this week, Dr. Fauci listened contemptuously as one Congress member after another rattled off the disastrous consequences of the COVID policies he set and the desperate efforts he has made to cover his sins.

Yet for the major media, the takeaway message was that a J6er made faces while Fauci spoke.

Jack Cashill's, new book, "Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6," is now available in print and ebook. Audio to follow.

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Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin recently sat down with Tucker Carlson to discuss the failures of Western atheistic liberalism. He argues that it all began with the Anglo-Saxon idea of individualism, which was the wrong concept of human nature, as it severs man's relations to everything else around him. It tears down the collective identity and introduces relativism and the revolt against the traditional morality that created stability and order in Western civilization.

The concept of the individual set apart from the group is a key concept in the current liberal ideology so influenced by Marxism that has dominated the West since the fall of the Soviet empire in 1991. Francis Fukuyama rightly pointed out, says Dugin, that there are no more remaining ideologies in the West except for this type of liberalism.

Mark that this is not the historic liberalism of John Locke; read more about this here and here. The traditional Western liberalism was all about freedom of choice, democracy, personal responsibility, religious tolerance, equality among its citizens to prevent the elites' abusing power, all the while individually pursuing personal goals.

Step by step, this modern Marxist form of free-sex, free-drugs liberalism without moral boundaries preached the gospel that freedom is the "liberation" of the individual from any kind of collective identity: freedom from the family, freedom from fidelity, sexual boundaries and marriage, freedom from duty and responsibility, freedom from the church, freedom from bearing children, freedom from any moral constraints on the self.

With total legitimization of nihilism, everything is now permissible. National unity is no longer an ideal as people identify solely with subgroups in society based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender – and fight endlessly amongst each other. The destruction of the nation state is the next goal toward the total decimation of traditional democracy. "There is only one step left," Dugin says, "to arrive at the ends of this process of liberation and that is the abandonment of human identity. To be free from humanity, to have the possibility to choose to be human or not human, that is the political ideological agenda of tomorrow." He speaks of the transhumanist agenda, openly declared as a goal by WEF leader, Klaus Schwab and his good friend, Israeli professor Yuval Noah Harari.

It all began with the implementation of atheism and thereby the fierce hatred against religion and traditions. Yet, the Marxist quest for removing the influence of historic ethics, which had motivated individuals to compassion and goodness toward others for thousands of years, overlooked vital points: It ended up, to many atheist scholars' surprise, such as Europe's most important philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, weakening the collective sense of compassion, humility and empathy in society. It ended up legalizing selfishness. This became especially evident from the 1960s onward, as the founding ethics of "love one another" were no longer preached to the same degree as before. It was not fashionable to speak about the Ten Commandments as vital ideals to maintain stability, order and justice. Today, egocentrism, pride, greed, lust, dishonesty and hedonism have substituted for the classic virtues and become socially acceptable standards.

In the Templeton Prize Lecture in 1983, the famous Soviet dissident, novelist and Nobel Prize laureate, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, said: "It was Dostoevsky who drew from the French Revolution and its seething hatred for the Church the lesson that 'revolution must necessarily begin with atheism.' That is absolutely true. The world had never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized, and tenaciously malevolent as that preached by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot. To achieve its diabolic ends, communism needs to control a population devoid of religious and national feeling, and this entails a destruction of faith and nationhood."

He adds: "The entire 20th century is being sucked into the vortex of atheism and self-destruction. This plunge into the abyss has aspects that are unquestionably global, dependent neither on political systems, nor on levels of economic and cultural development, nor yet on national peculiarities. And contemporary Europe, seemingly so unlike the Russia of 1913, is today on the verge of the same collapse, for all that it has been reached by a different route. Different parts of the world have followed different paths, but today they are all approaching the threshold of a common ruin."

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However, when it comes to our elected officials, mental irresponsibility cannot so easily be dismissed. We expect them to be knowledgeable about any and all issues coming before them in Congress. Sometimes an issue may not be before them but they create one by making a random post clearly demonstrating they know little about what they speak.

The latest members of Congress to recently self-create such an issue are two members of the radical Squad – Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Cori Bush, D-Mo. Exposed to the light of day was their failure to grasp the purpose of a national day of recognition that has existed for more than a century and a half.

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The Veterans Administration shares the historic background of Memorial Day which was set aside as America's "foremost annual day to mourn and honor its deceased service men and women." Originally established as "Decoration Day" in 1866, it was formalized in 1868 as Memorial Day to be commemorated by "praying, according to … (one's) individual religious faith, for permanent peace." Its importance was underscored by the declaration, "That Nation which respects and honors its dead, shall ever be respected and honored itself."

While Bush was born in America and Omar came here as a child, it is inexcusable that either would not understand the sole significance of Memorial Day. Yet, both did not, based on social media posts they made, which were quickly removed only after the congresswomen were educated on the issue by irate social-media users.

Omar originally wrote:

"On #MemorialDay, we honor the heroic men and women who served our country. We owe them more than our gratitude – they have more than earned access to quality mental health services, job opportunities, housing assistance, and the benefits they were promised."

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable on Omar's staff realized the dead are no longer able to earn access to such benefits, so her post was replaced with:

"On Memorial Day, let's say thank you to the brave men and women who selflessly sacrificed their lives in service to our country. Thank you to the families who also have sacrificed and have dedicated their time to ensuring their loved ones are remembered."

Not to be outdone in displaying a similar lack of knowledge about Memorial Day, Bush initially wrote:

"This #MemorialDay & every day, we honor our veterans in St. Louis. We must invest in universal health care, affordable housing, comprehensive mental health services, and educational & economic opportunities for our veterans as we work to build a world free of war and violence."

After Bush also received a quick education on Memorial Day's purpose, the above was replaced with:

"This #MemorialDay, we honor those who served and lost their lives for our country, and we hold in our hearts the loved ones they've left behind. We must continue to push to protect our service members while working to build a world free of war and violence."

If Omar and Bush were unable to understand something as basic as the purpose of Memorial Day, it should give us pause to wonder what they truly understand about the myriad of issues that come before them and impact on our lives. God help us! It also explains why these two congresswomen rarely comprehend doing that which is in America's best interests.

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Roughly 12 hours later, a straphanger was shot in the hand as his train pulled into the 86th street and Lexington Avenue platform.

That's life in Manhattan, where transit crime, assault and shoplifting are raging.

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"The city has changed so much," warned Ermal Gura, 35, of Staten Island, who barely escaped the knife-wielding thief. "We have to watch our backs in the stores and on the subway."

That's because Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg doesn't have New Yorkers' backs.

Thursday, minutes after securing a guilty verdict against former President Donald Trump on 34 felony counts, Bragg boasted, "I did my job."

Bragg's not doing his job. The mainstream media are gushing with adulation. But New Yorkers living in constant fear should find Bragg's stardom nauseating.

He's being hailed as a hero, but he's a menace.

Bragg should prioritize jailing violent criminals and repeat offenders, including the shoplifting gangs that are forcing stores to close.

Since the year before he took office, grand larceny crimes – theft of property worth over $1,000 – are up 33%.

Here's the zinger: Despite spending years and millions of dollars pursuing Trump, Bragg claims he lacks the resources to bring thieves to trial.

In December 2022, with the DA's investigation of Trump in full swing, cops arrested Charles Lindsay, 22, and charged him with four heists in one week at high-end Madison Avenue boutiques, where he was alleged to have stolen nearly $25,000 in goods, including luxury handbags.

Four grand larceny charges. Lindsay was known to belong to a gang targeting the area and had a long rap sheet.

Yet the DA's office let Lindsay off, dropping the charges if he consented to five counseling sessions. He didn't even have to pay the stores for the goods.

Bragg's office said prosecutors had too much on their plates to try the case.

Criminal lawyer and former Bronx Assistant District Attorney Michael Discioarro said Bragg has 300 prosecutors. "What exactly is he working on?" Discioarro said in a February 2023 interview. Definitely not getting criminals off the streets.

Two months after Lindsay got his sweetheart deal, he was nailed for packing a pistol and mugging a 14-year-old on a Brooklyn playground. The Brooklyn DA's office had the good sense to ask for $100,000 bail.

Bragg sides with the criminals. That includes fare-beaters. People who beat the fare often have rap sheets and open warrants for more serious crimes. Criminals don't conscientiously pay the fare, then they rob and assault other riders. Enforcing the fare would keep crime down.

New York state's bizarre criminal justice "reforms" are partly to blame for the crime surge, but Bragg refuses to recommend bail or incarceration even when the law permits it.

Public anger against Bragg soared when he released four migrant teens charged with beating up two cops in Times Square in February. No bail required. At that point, 20 Republican state senators sent a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul urging her to remove Bragg as DA, explaining that "his incredibly poor judgment is matched only by his unwillingness to take criminals off the street."

On April 16, in the midst of his own trial, Trump visited the scene of one of Bragg's biggest mistakes in judgment – the Sanaa Convenient Store in Harlem. Showing total disdain for the right to self-defense, Bragg had charged Jose Alba, clerk at the bodega, with second-degree murder after he stabbed a career criminal who had attacked him over a bag of chips. When the public grew outraged, the charges were dropped.

The bodega's co-owner told Trump he's still grappling with rampant crime. Trump pledged to straighten New York out, adding, "Alvin Bragg does nothing."

Nothing to keep New Yorkers safe.

"Bragg watched his place in the history books take shape," The Washington Post wrote after he won a conviction against Trump. That's the problem. New Yorkers need a DA who watches out for them, not for himself.

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Suppose Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping made an agreement: All their personnel stationed in Washington, D.C., would vote for the same candidates running in Washington's local elections.

How many votes would this hypothetical alliance deliver? Perhaps not many – but more than a few.

The New York Times reported last July that the number of Russians working at their D.C. embassy had dropped significantly.

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"In recent years, as many as 1,200 Russian personnel worked in the embassy compound," said the Times. "The State Department will not say how many remain – staffing levels here and at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow are now a sensitive topic – but in January 2022, Mr. [Anatoly] Antonov [the Russian ambassador] put the number at 184 diplomats and support staff members."

The website of the Chinese Embassy in Washington does not appear to mention how many Chinese nationals are deployed there, but it does talk about the massive size of the embassy building. "It covers an area of 10,796 square meters with a floor area of 39,900 square meters," it says.

So, how can the Chinese nationals who work there – for a communist government – get away with voting in an American election?

How can Russians, working at the direction of Putin, do the same?

The D.C. government enacted a law that allows it.

On Oct. 18, 2022, the D.C. Council voted 12 to 0 – with one member absent and not voting – to approve the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act. Despite this one-sided vote, Mayor Muriel Bowser did not support it.

"Mayor Bowser expressed opposition by withholding her signature on the Act – something she has done only a handful of times over the course of her tenure," said a report on the act published by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.

The Washington Post also opposed it – in an editorial published a day before the council vote.

"Voting is a foundational right of citizenship," said the Post. "That's why we oppose a bill, poised to pass the D.C. Council this week, that would allow an estimated 50,000 non-citizen residents to cast ballots in local elections."

The Post also pointed out that this bill would allow both illegal aliens and foreign nationals working at foreign embassies to vote in D.C. elections.

"The proposal has been expanded to give voting rights in local elections to all non-citizen adults, regardless of whether they are in the country legally, so long as they've resided in the District for 30 days," said the Post.

"There's nothing in the measure," the Post said, "to prevent employees at embassies of governments that are openly hostile to the United States from casting ballots."

The House committee report repeated these points.

"On November 21, 2022, the District government enacted the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act ... which allows non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, to vote in D.C. local elections," said the report. "The Act makes no exception for foreign diplomats or agents voting in the District. These individuals often have interests separate from, or opposed to, the interests of Americans. This D.C. Act dilutes the votes of American citizens and could have a ripple effect across other large U.S. cities."

The D.C. Board of Elections has posted online instructions for how foreign nationals can vote in D.C. elections.

"Starting in 2024, qualified non-citizen District of Columbia residents may vote in local elections," say the instructions.

"Specifically, under District of Columbia law, non-citizen residents may vote in District of Columbia elections held for the offices of Mayor, Attorney General, member(s) of the D.C. Council, member(s) of the State Board of Education, or Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner(s), or to vote on initiative, referendum, recall, or charter amendment measures that appear on District of Columbia ballots," say the instructions.

"Non-citizens cannot vote for federal offices," they warn.

In its editorial opposing the bill, The Washington Post had made a key point about this last provision. "The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly prohibit what the D.C. bill seeks to do, but a law signed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton bans non-citizens from voting in federal contests," said the Post. "The proposed law presents logistical nightmares that will require the Board of Elections to print separate ballots so that non-citizens don't vote in federal races."

Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky introduced a resolution in January 2023 to nullify this D.C. voting law. When it came up for a vote on Feb. 9, 2023, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spoke in support of it. "Last year, Washington, D.C., passed a law that would give the vote to illegal immigrants," McCarthy said on the House floor. "The law makes no exceptions for foreign diplomats or agents who have interests that are the opposite of ours. Under this bill, Russian diplomats would get a vote and Chinese diplomats could get a vote.

"The CCP is already infiltrating our culture, our farmland, and our skies," said McCarthy, "but the D.C. Council would let them infiltrate our ballot boxes."

The resolution to nullify this D.C. law passed the House 260-162 – with 42 Democrats joining 218 Republicans.

But it went nowhere in the Senate.

On May 23, the House again approved a bill to stop non-citizens from voting in D.C. elections. This time the vote was 262 to 143 – with 52 Democrats voting for it.

Yet, this week, our nation's capital had its first local primary election where Russian and Chinese agents could legally vote.

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No matter.

Trump was convicted and may now face jail time. We'll find out on July 11 – just a few days before the Republican National Convention. Obviously, this represents opportune timing for the Biden campaign. And yet Donald Trump remains firmly knotted with Biden in the race for the White House. There have been four polls taken since Trump's conviction. In all of them, Biden and Trump are either tied or within two points either way.

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But how? The question echoes throughout the media: How can a convicted felon be running even with the incumbent president? The answer is twofold: First, Joe Biden is a truly awful president; second, Biden has no ground to stand on in labeling Trump a threat to law and order.

First, Biden's terrible record. Americans have been slammed by inflation for three years. Our social fabric has continued to decay as Biden openly seeks "equity" – meaning discriminatory legal regimens designed at rectifying group disparities – in every area of the federal government. On the foreign front, Biden has hamstrung Ukraine in its defense against Russia, and openly manipulated on behalf of Iran and Hamas in Israel's war against the terror group that performed Oct. 7. It is difficult to see an area of the world that is markedly better off since Biden took the White House.

Second, Biden's hypocrisy. In the aftermath of the Trump conviction, Trump naturally condemned the justice system that targeted him. Biden then responded by doubling down on his narrative that Trump's pushback represents a threat to Our Democracy and Our Institutions: On Friday, Biden staggered out to the podium to claim that "the American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed." He added that it was "dangerous" and "irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don't like the verdict."

The problem is this: Biden as Defender of Our Democracy and Our Institutions just doesn't play. This is the same president who tried to use his Occupational Safety and Health Administration to illegally cram down vaccines on 80 million Americans; who attempted, in defiance of law, to relieve student loan debt – and then bragged about defying the Supreme Court; whose DOJ even let him off the hook for mishandling of classified material by calling him a dotard. Biden's party has spent years tut-tutting massive riots, appeasing pro-terrorist student trespassers and calling for an end to parental autonomy. There isn't an institution in the country Biden hasn't weakened. To hear Biden rail against Trump for undermining institutions, then, simply won't play. But Biden doesn't have much left in the playbook.

All of which means that Trump still – still – has the upper hand. Ironically, Trump being sent to jail might actually help him, given that most Americans will correctly see the jailing of Biden's chief political opponent as an act of vicious partisanship unworthy of the most powerful republic in world history.

In 2020, Biden ran on the platform of stability and normalcy; he has exploded both. All he's left with is slogans about Orange Hitler. And that's unlikely to be enough come November if gas prices are high, groceries cost too much and the world remains aflame.

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That's why I posted on June 3, "Every time you see a Pride flag or display this month, let it be a reminder to pray for the mercy of God to touch all those who identify as LGBTQ+ and for them to experience the same repentance and forgiveness and transformation that you have received as a follower of Jesus."

Prayer is our greatest spiritual weapon and the most powerful expression of our love. Prayer prevails. As S.D. Gordon said, "Prayer is striking the winning blow. Service is gathering up the results."

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It was praying Christians who helped bring me into God's family when I was a 16-year-old, rebellious, proud, heroin-shooting, LSD-using, Jewish, hippie rock drummer.

It was their prayers that brought the conviction of the Spirit into my life, revealing the depths of my sin (I actually thought I was a good person!). And it was their prayers that helped open my eyes to the truth of the Gospel.

God truly answers prayer!

Think back to the early Church.

Saul of Tarsus, a religious Jewish man, was violently persecuting Jewish believers in Yeshua (Jesus). Then he had a radical, life-changing encounter with the risen Savior. Christians worldwide know him as the apostle Paul, writer of almost half of the New Testament books.

What brought about his radical transformation?

The Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount provide a key: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." (Matthew 5:43-45)

This is how we respond. This is how we fight back. We overcome evil with good. We overcome hatred with love. We overcome lies with truth. We overcome the power of the flesh with the power of the Spirit.

And rather than engage in a mudslinging battle with our enemies, or, God forbid, a violent response to violence, we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. (I'm not saying that we don't get involved politically or that, if an invading army attacks us we don't fight back. I'm focusing here on spiritual principles in dealing with our ideological adversaries.)

Surely that's what these early believers did with their arch nemesis Saul, of whom Acts records that he approved of the killing of the Messianic Jew Stephen (Acts 8:1). Acts also states that, "Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison." (Acts 8:3)

Surely Saul became a chief target of their prayers, and surely, as God heard their cries, He answered dramatically. As Saul/Paul later wrote, "Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. … But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life." (1 Timothy 1:13-14, 16)

I encourage you to take the time to watch an amazing documentary produced by American Family Studios titled "In His Image." (Trust me on this. You will be really blessed when you watch.)

I had the privilege of hosting this powerful film, which not only features great, practical, theological discussion on the meaning of male and female and of God's plan for humanity. It also features powerful testimonies from ex-gays and ex-trans individuals, two of whom had trans-related surgeries in the past.

That's how committed they were to transitioning, and that's how radically God intervened in their lives.

I would especially draw your attention to the story of Laura Beth Perry (now happily married, and officially Laura Perry Smalts), since prayer played a major role in her own salvation and transformation, as you'll see when you watch "In His Image."

Let this also be an encouragement to every family member, friend and loved one of someone who identifies as somewhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. As you continue to show them Christlike love and kindness, never forget the power of prayer.

We really do serve a prayer-answering God, and while He will not infringe on our freedom of choice, He really does know how to change hearts and minds.

So, every time you see that Pride flag or a Pride meme, use it as a reminder to pray for an outpouring of God's transforming, saving mercy on all those who fly under that hijacked rainbow.

It is time for a wonderful harvest of souls! May the churches be ready to receive them with love and truth.

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If you want a glimpse of the next stage of America's transformation into a police state, look no further than how Israel – a long-time recipient of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid from the U.S. – uses its high-tech military tactics, surveillance and weaponry to advance its authoritarian agenda.

Military checkpoints. Wall-to-wall mass surveillance. Predictive policing. Aerial surveillance that tracks your movements wherever you go and whatever you do. AI-powered facial recognition and biometric programs carried out with the knowledge or consent of those targeted by it. Cyber-intelligence. Detention centers. Brutal interrogation tactics. Weaponized drones. Combat robots.

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We've already seen many of these military tactics and technologies deployed on American soil and used against the populace, especially along the border regions, a testament to the heavy influence Israel's military-industrial complex has had on U.S. policing.

Indeed, Israel has become one of the largest developers and exporters of military weapons and technologies of oppression worldwide.

Journalist Antony Loewenstein has warned that Pegasus, one of Israel's most invasive pieces of spyware, which allows any government or military intelligence or police department to spy on someone's phone and get all the information from that phone, has become a favorite tool of oppressive regimes around the world. The FBI and NYPD have also been recipients of the surveillance technology, which promises to turn any "target's smartphone into an intelligence gold mine."

Yet it's not just military weapons that Israel is exporting. They're also helping to transform local police agencies into extensions of the military.

According to The Intercept, thousands of American law enforcement officers frequently travel for training to Israel, "one of the few countries where policing and militarism are even more deeply intertwined than they are here," as part of an ongoing exchange program that largely flies under the radar of public scrutiny.

A 2018 investigative report concluded that imported military techniques by way of these exchange programs that allow police to study in Israel have changed American policing for the worse. "Upon their return, U.S. law enforcement delegates implement practices learned from Israel's use of invasive surveillance, blatant racial profiling, and repressive force against dissent," the report states. "Rather than promoting security for all, these programs facilitate an exchange of methods in state violence and control that endanger us all."

"At the very least," notes journalist Matthew Petti, "visits to Israel have helped American police justify more snooping on citizens and stricter secrecy. Critics also assert that Israeli training encourages excessive force."

Petti documents how the NYPD set up a permanent liaison office in Israel in the wake of 9/11, eventually implementing "one of the first post-9/11 counterterrorism programs that explicitly followed the Israeli model. In 2002, the NYPD tasked a secret 'Demographics Unit' with spying on Muslim-American communities. Dedicated 'mosque crawlers' infiltrated local Muslim congregations and attempted to bait worshippers with talk of violent revolution."

That was merely the start of American police forces being trained in martial law by foreign nations under the guise of national security theater. It has all been downhill from there.

As Alex Vitale, a sociology professor who has studied the rise of global policing, explains, "The focus of this training is on riot suppression, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism – all of which are essentially irrelevant or should be irrelevant to the vast majority of police departments. They shouldn't be suppressing protest, they shouldn't be engaging in counterinsurgency, and almost none of them face any real threat from terrorism."

This ongoing transformation of the American homeland into a techno-battlefield tracks unnervingly with the dystopian cinematic visions of Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" and Neill Blomkamp's "Elysium," both of which are set 30 years from now, in the year 2054.

In "Minority Report," police agencies harvest intelligence from widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, precognitive technology, and neighborhood and family snitch programs in order to capture would-be criminals before they can do any damage.

While Blomkamp's "Elysium" acts as a vehicle to raise concerns about immigration, access to health care, worker's rights, and socioeconomic stratification, what was most striking was its eerie depiction of how the government will employ technologies such as drones, tasers and biometric scanners to track, target and control the populace, especially dissidents.

With Israel in the driver's seat and "Minority Report" and "Elysium" on the horizon, it's not so far-fetched to imagine how the American police state will use these emerging technologies to lock down the populace, root out dissidents and ostensibly establish an "open-air prison" with disconcerting similarities to Israel's technological occupation of present-day Palestine.

For those who insist that such things are celluloid fantasies with no connection to the present, we offer the following as a warning of the totalitarian future at our doorsteps.

When Aldous Huxley wrote "Brave New World" in 1931, he was convinced that there was "still plenty of time" before his dystopian vision became a nightmare reality. It wasn't long, however, before he realized that his prophecies were coming true far sooner than he had imagined.

Israel's military influence on the United States, its advances in technological weaponry and its rigid demand for compliance are pushing us toward a world in chains.

Through its oppressive use of surveillance technology, Israel has erected the world's first open-air prison, and in the process, has made itself a model for the United States.

What we cannot afford to overlook, however, is the extent to which the American Police State is taking its cues from Israel.

As I make clear in my book "Battlefield America: The War on the American People" and in its fictional counterpart, "The Erik Blair Diaries," we may not be an occupied territory, but that does not make the electronic concentration camp being erected around us any less of a prison.

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We're not even sure it won't all be reversed on appeal. But "historic" is their word of choice ... when they like the result.

In 1999, when Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about sex with an intern named Monica Lewinsky, Geraldo Rivera was furious on the "Today" show: "It was a spiteful action, an action that they performed absolutely in violation of the framers' intent. It was a legislative coup d'etat."

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Impeaching Trump twice was never a "coup" to NBC News. But the worst part of that spectacle was leftist activists like Rivera trying to speak for the framers of the Constitution. He was implying it wasn't just a revolting result but revolting in the eyes of James Madison and the rest. The Left reveres nothing about the Founders, routinely denouncing them as a racist, sexist, capitalist patriarchy.

This regrettable citation of the Founding Fathers happened again with the Trump trial, and again in this case, the American revolutionaries were placed on the side of the Democrats. George Stephanopoulos began his commentary on "This Week" with the second president: "In 1774, John Adams said representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty. Two hundred and fifty years later, the heart and lungs of liberty are facing what may be the ultimate stress test." It's John Adams vs. Trump.

The front page of the June 3 New York Times was topped with an editorial – labeled "News Analysis" – from their White House correspondent Peter Baker. He picked Patrick Henry as the Trump opponent.

"The revolutionary hero Patrick Henry knew this day would come," Baker began. Henry "feared that eventually a criminal might occupy the presidency and use his powers to thwart anyone who sought to hold him accountable." In Henry's words, "Away with your president, we will have a king."

Never mind that historians pointed out Henry was inveighing against the Constitution before it was ratified. Baker channeled the Democrat line: "The notion that 34 felonies is not automatically disqualifying and a convicted criminal can be a viable candidate for commander in chief upends two and a half centuries of assumptions about American democracy."

Inside the paper, the headline over Baker's essay was "If a Felon Becomes President, Can Anyone Limit His Power?" The text box underlined the theme again: "Revival of a long-ago fear that a U.S. leader could try to be a king." All that followed was the argument ad infinitum that Trump's second term would result in "unfettered abuses of authority."

What Baker and Stephanopoulos refused to understand was that this rhetoric of a president abusing authority can also be applied to President Joe Biden. On CNN, Scott Jennings mocked Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., on how Biden ruthlessly ignored the courts and the Congress in offering $165 billion in student loan "forgiveness" to win younger voters.

"You're a member of Congress," Jennings told Auchincloss. "Does it not offend you that the president of the United States is usurping your authority?" The eventual answer was no.

The Democrats and their media enablers use "history" to establish how there is a "right side," and that is their leftist agenda. Undercutting democratic norms and coequal branches of government is admirable when the ends justify the means. The Founding Fathers are just yellowed paper puppets in their relentless power games.

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Good for him. It's encouraging that he reached out to those of us who often disagree with him.

We libertarians put individual liberty first. We think government that governs least governs best.

That's a reason we fear today's Democrats. In their eagerness to tax and regulate, while throwing newly printed money at a thousand special interests, we fear they will destroy our future.

So, Trump won applause saying, "I have been indicted by the government on 91 different things. If I wasn't a libertarian before, I sure as hell am a libertarian now!"

Trump promised to "put a libertarian in my cabinet."

He said he'd commute the jail sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the entrepreneur who created Silk Road, an underground website that lets consenting adults buy things that most government officials don't like.

Trump told the libertarians, "Our goal will be nothing less than the rebirth of fair equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law."

Libertarians should like that. But when Trump spoke, he was mostly booed. Why?

Trump did do some pro-freedom things as president. He cut a few regulations (though not as many as he promised,) withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord and appointed Supreme Court judges who might keep government in check.

He told the convention, "We must fight for the same fundamental freedoms, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of the right to own a firearm."

Libertarians complain that Trump didn't keep his promise to "bring our soldiers back home." But at least, unlike most recent presidents, he didn't begin new wars.

So again, why did libertarians boo?

Because much of Trump's agenda is authoritarian.

Libertarians want a humble, restrained government that keeps the peace while respecting individual rights. We want a government that does less, better.

Trump, despite throwing us a few rhetorical bones, is anything but "humble." No one knows what he might do next.

Trump criticized President Joe Biden's use of executive powers, but as president, Trump ignored those limits when he wanted to build a border wall without congressional approval and when he fired an inspector general investigating his administration.

Trump demonstrates ignorance of the benefits of economic freedom. He bragged about helping politically connected businesses by imposing fat tariffs. Now he wants more, promising "stiff penalties on China and all other nations as they abuse us."

"Screw us, and we screw you," he smugly said.

But China selling us cheap stuff doesn't screw us. It helps us.

Yes, Chinese subsidies destroy some American jobs when companies can't compete with subsidized imports.

But the imports lower prices so much they create more jobs, thousands more. Trump's tariffs hurt Americans, not just the other side.

Sadly, Biden has now increased Trump's tariffs. And Trump wants to raise them still more?

America's biggest problem may be the future of our retirement funds.

The Libertarian Party platform, wisely, points out that both Medicare and Social Security are unsustainable. They propose: "transition to a private voluntary system."

That would be better. Retirees should decide for themselves how their pension money is invested. And your retirement funds would belong to you – not the government.

But tough-guy Trump, like most politicians, is a coward when it comes to admitting that Social Security and Medicare are bankrupt.

As president, he made the problem worse. He nearly doubled American spending, added almost 2 million jobs to the federal workforce.

Finally, Trump doesn't care about free speech unless it's his.

Recently, Trump said that he'd terminate visas of pro-Palestinian sympathizers, shouting, "Get them the hell out of our country."

That appeals to some Americans, but as my new video explains, free speech is a wonderful thing. As long as people don't directly incite violence, it's important to allow people to say hateful things. Censorship creates more hate. It's anti-freedom.

America needs a president who understands and cares about such things.

That's why Libertarians and libertarians (like me) mostly booed Donald Trump.

Not that Joe Biden would do better.

Most likely, he would do worse.

He didn't dare even show up at the convention.

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Trump reaches out to voters. Biden tries to terrify them.

Franklin Roosevelt said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Fear is all Mr. Biden has.

Biden stops short of referring to Trump as Hitler and his supporters – half the country – as brownshirts. One Democratic consultant went the distance, charging, "The Republican Party is basically a domestic terrorist cell at this point, and they should be treated as such." Guantanamo?

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Like those in 1932 and 1980, this will be a pivotal election. Voters will decide not just on policies and personalities but also on whether they want to be guided by hope or fear.

President Biden is like the man with wild hair in a trench coat, carrying a sign that reads, "Repent, the end of the world is coming." In the president's case, it's "Vote Democratic – or democracy will end."

Everything is framed in apocalyptic terms. At his 2022 Independence Hall address, the president's remarks were titled "The Continued Battle for the Soul of America." When the president puts on his pants in the morning, he probably sees it as part of the continued battle for the soul of America.

In Philadelphia, Mr. Biden declared: "There is no place for political violence in America. Period. None. Ever." He was alluding to Jan. 6, which Democrats maintain was the greatest upheaval since the Civil War.

He says there is no place for political violence – except for the violence and intimidation from the left. The president has never denounced threats against Supreme Court justices – including the attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh – or attacks on pro-life centers and churches that oppose abortion.

It wasn't until September 2020 that he finally disavowed the months of arson, assault and murder that followed the killing of George Floyd and then only because polls showed voters were troubled by his silence.

He won't condemn the anti-Semitism that has rocked college campuses unless it's watered down with an indictment of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice, as though Zionist mobs were taking over college buildings and keeping Arab students from attending classes.

The Independence Hall speech is endlessly repeated in one form or another. At this year's NAACP dinner in Detroit, the president said his opponent was "unhinged" and bent on "revenge." He forgot to tell them that Republicans want to "put y'all back in chains."

While Biden bellows, Trump calms and reassures.

Trump delivered pizzas to a New York City firehouse, hugged a Black supporter at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta while the staff watched and smiled, and addressed an estimated 10,000 supporters at a rally in the South Bronx.

Trump has the common touch the president lacks. He called the family of the missionary couple killed in Haiti. When the bodies came back from the Kabul airport, the president waited on the runway – repeatedly checking his watch.

Like President Ronald Reagan, Mr. Trump is one of those rare creatures, a conservative populist. He likes people, and they know it. As a Black schoolteacher said at the South Bronx rally, "he speaks to you," not at you.

Trump is always upbeat. We can solve our problems, he tells us. We can beat inflation, control the border, produce abundant energy, cut taxes and prevent World War III.

Opinion polls show who's ahead in the race between hope and fear.

Trump is making historic inroads among traditional Democratic constituencies – those under 30, minorities and independents.

In the latest New York Times poll, Trump is tied with Biden among voters under 30 in six battleground states. In 2020, Biden carried them by 24 points.

The fearmongering isn't working.

First, it was Trump who would abolish abortion everywhere. (Not true. He says state voters should decide.) Then, the ex-president was a threat to democracy. So why did he leave office peacefully after the last election despite significant evidence of voter fraud?

The latest was Hollywood gargoyle Robert Di Niro, in full "Dirty Grandpa" mode, at a New York presser, raving that Trump "wants to destroy the world." Again with the end of the world.

Biden's backers are moved by animosity, not burning passion for their guy. In the latest Rasmussen poll, a majority of Democrats said they want the president replaced at the head of their ticket.

Trump's troops are loyal. They stand in line for hours to hear him speak. The president inspires only a collective yawn.

Democrats hope that fear will win in November. Afraid not.

This column was first published at the Washington Times.

The Justice Department and the American legal system are only the most immediate examples.

Here are 25 other examples:

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1. Universities.

2. High schools.

3. Elementary schools.

4. Children's innocence.

5. Marriage and family.

6. Children who say they are the other sex.

7. Journalism.

8. Women's psychological health.

9. Black life.

10. Black-white relations.

11. Art.

12. Music.

13. Architecture.

14. The military.

15. The FBI.

16. The CDC and NIH.

17. The American Medical Association and most other medical associations.

18. Medical schools.

19. Free speech.

20. Women's sports.

21. The border.

22. Religion.

23. The economy.

24. Fighting crime.

25. America's major cities.

In the case of the Trump trial, the Left has done something never done before in American history: put on trial a former president and the opposition political party candidate for president.

The Left responds that it was morally necessary to do something heretofore associated only with corrupt dictatorships because Donald Trump had engaged in criminal activities that heretofore no presidential candidate or ex-president has ever engaged in. And "no one is above the law."

But this response is a lie. The reason for the trial was the same reason dictatorships put opponents on trial: to prevent them from assuming or regaining power.

When dictatorships do this, such as in the former Soviet Union, we call it a show trial – because the verdict has been predetermined. The "hush money trial" was such a trial. The first such trial of an American president and head of the opposition in American history.

You don't have to be a Trump supporter to recognize the trial as such.

Jonathan Turley – not a Trump supporter – a professor of law at George Washington University, has perfectly made the case for this being a show trial.

First, regarding the judge, Turley wrote:

"CNN legal analyst Elie Honig recently wrote that there should be concern over a judge being appointed (not randomly selected) who is not just a Biden donor but someone who has earmarked donations for [in the judge's own words], 'resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump's radical right-wing legacy.'"

"Adding to these concerns," Turley writes, "is the movement of the third-highest official in the Biden Justice Department to the staff of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to build the case against Trump. Before joining the case, Matthew Colangelo was also paid by the Democratic National Committee [DNC] for 'political consulting.' So Trump was convicted in a trial with a Biden donor judge, who has a daughter who is a major Democratic operative, a lead prosecutor previously paid as a DNC political consultant and a jury selected in a district that voted roughly 90% against Trump."

Second, regarding the charges and the trial itself, Turley notes:

"Even liberal legal analysts have admitted that the case against Trump was unprecedented and would not have been brought against anyone other than Trump. ...

"The trial itself was a travesty. Even after sitting in the courtroom watching the trial and the verdict, I still have no idea what Trump was convicted of in the case. ...

"This was a thrill-kill conviction, and the response of many in the media bordered on the indecent. For many outside of Manhattan, the scene was repulsive and chilling. You can hate Donald Trump but still be repelled by the use of the criminal justice system for political purposes."

Even the Trump-loathing Sen. Mitt Romney agrees. He told The Atlantic, a publication allied with the Democratic Party: "Bragg should have settled the case against Trump, as would have been the normal procedure. But he made a political decision. ... Democrats think they can put out the Trump fire with oxygen. It's political malpractice."

Andrew C. McCarthy, a former assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York (which includes Manhattan) and no Trump fan, writes:

"The country we love has become unlovely. ... Our system embodied the rule of law, the sturdy undercarriage of a free, prosperous, pluralistic society. Now, on its good days, it's a clown show. On the bad days – there are far too many of those – it's a political weapon. ...

"As the rule of law degrades into the rule of partisan lawyers, a constitutional republic inexorably decays into a banana republic. And it won't take long. Again, this isn't about Trump. ...

"To objective, experienced eyes, Alvin Bragg's prosecution of Trump shocks the conscience. ... The DA did not so much find a crime as manufacture one."

What Bragg did was to turn a misdemeanor – whose statute of limitations had expired – into a felony under a New York statute that requires an accompanying crime without ever explaining what that secondary crime was. Indeed, McCarthy observes, "the two federal entities that Congress endowed with exclusive authority to prosecute Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) violations, the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission, had thoroughly investigated Trump and determined not to take action. ... Had this been a federal prosecution, Justice Department guidelines would have barred Bragg from slicing a single, trivial, nonviolent offense into 34 counts."

As regards Judge Merchan, McCarthy writes: "Merchan ensured that actual federal law would not intrude. He denied Trump's defense the right to call former FEC commissioner Bradley Smith, who would have explained" how Trump paying Stormy Daniels not to speak publicly about her allegation that she and Mr. Trump had once engaged in a one-night stand was "Bragg's fairy tale that Trump stole the 2016 election by skirting FECA reporting requirements" and was "utter fiction, in addition to being legal nonsense."

In other words, the corrupt judge prevented the most important expert defense witness from testifying on Trump's behalf.

But the Left got what it wanted: the right to label President Trump, in the words of the lead editorial in the similarly corrupt New York Times, "Donald Trump, Felon."

We are bequeathing our children and grandchildren a completely different country than the one our parents, grandparents and Founders bequeathed to us.

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Dr. Ted Baehr's Movieguide writes: "'Bad Faith' is a propaganda documentary from the Religious Left, written and directed by a small-time movie producer who happens to be a film and television professor at a Catholic college in Los Angeles. The movie accuses Evangelical Christian conservatives and Republican Christians, from the 1980s to the present day, of waging a racist war against 'American Democracy.' The movie uses leftist, progressive pundits, professors, authors, journalists, and activists to make its claims."

I interviewed Baehr about the film for radio. He told me, "A growing tendency on the left is to spread slanderous labeling of Christians as 'Christian Nationalists.' What it does is it gets into the bloodstream of the nation, and it gets to the kids. … It's unfortunate because it makes people doubt what the history of the country was."

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A key target of "Bad Faith" is the late Paul Weyrich, the founder of the Free Congress Foundation. He was a conservative activist who, according to the film, even helped recruit Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson into political action. The film seems to make the case that Weyrich – who died in 2008 – helped set the stage for events like Charlottesville 2017 and Jan. 6, 2021.

Essentially, Weyrich, a very nice man whom I interviewed, worked tirelessly to mobilize the conservative Christian population into political action. And the problem is?

Furthermore, the film implies that those Christian conservatives today are like a modern-day extension of the Ku Klux Klan. Of course, comparing all opponents to the KKK or Adolf Hitler seems to be a common ploy for the Left. But it's still worth pointing out that the KKK was a Democrat organization, and it's Democrats who had a KKK organizer (Robert Byrd, a former Klan "Exalted Cyclops") in the Senate until 2010.

"Bad Faith" is well done in terms of its production value. For example, its graphics are outstanding. But I agree with Ted Baehr that it is a movie "to be avoided."

That doesn't mean nothing in it is true. It had a few noteworthy comments on religious freedom from Russell Moore, a Southern Baptist.

The full title of the film is "Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism's Unholy War on Democracy."

The narrator (the talented Peter Coyote) says at the very beginning – cue the spooky music: "Christian Nationalism. A political movement that believes America was founded as a 'Christian nation,' privileging Christianity over all faiths. Masquerading as religion, their ideology exploits Scripture and sacred symbols to achieve extremist objectives."

I would counter-argue: America began as a Christian nation, and because of that, people of all faiths or no faith are welcome here. One group that had the temerity to assert that America is "a Christian nation" was the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1892 Trinity decision.

To believe that our rights come from God, not the state, supposedly makes you a Christian Nationalist, say some. But the founders said in the Declaration of Independence that the Creator is the source of our rights.

George Washington said that if he had had any notion that the Constitution would be used to bar religious freedom, he never would have signed the document. He also opined that "true religion affords to government its surest support." And he noted that "religion and morality" are "indispensable supports" to our "political prosperity."

Later, the film asserts: "The leaders [like Weyrich] had a long-range plan to seize power and impose their political vision by any means necessary. They knew that the only way to create a theocratic Christian nation was to overthrow our democracy. And that's what they set out to do."

But, in his Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson writes: "Almighty God hath created the mind free. … [A]ll attempts to influence it by temporal punishments … are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion [i.e., Jesus], who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone."

In other words, Jefferson says, it is because God has created the mind free that religious freedom exists. If you remove God from the equation, the ground for freedom crumbles – as we saw in all the terrible (and bloody) atheistic states of the 20th century.

"Bad Faith" implies that Christian involvement in the public arena is a disaster for society – unless you're pro-abortion, anti-traditional family, etc. But it's precisely because our nation was built on Biblical principles that people will risk their lives to try and come to America to this very day.

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

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Only one-third, 33%, said they were satisfied. This down from 53% at the conclusion of Donald Trump's presidency.

It's a wonder that even a third of Americans are comfortable with President Joe Biden's disastrous leadership. Many scholars now liken the world today to the 1930s, the years preceding World War II.

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Latest is Biden's new proposal to resolve the conflict in Gaza.

The proposal ignores Israel's main objective, final removal of the presence and influence of the terrorist organization Hamas from leadership and control in Gaza.

Of the 120 hostages that remain from the 251 originally abducted Oct. 7, 2023, it is not even clear how many are alive. Yet, in exchange for release of an unspecified number of hostages, Israel is asked to pull its troops out of all populated areas of Gaza.

I pray that, for the sake of Israel but also for the sake of all remnants of decency in today's crazy world, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resists pressure to accept this horrible arrangement.

Why is the United States negotiating with terrorists and giving legitimacy to those who commit atrocities beyond the pale of minimally decent human behavior?

The widespread backlash against Israel's campaign in Gaza is supposedly because of the large number of civilian casualties.

But those criticizing Israel should look in the mirror to see who has led to these casualties.

If Hamas, who hides their fighters and equipment among civilians, whose priority is the death of Israelis and not saving lives of their own people, was immediately condemned and isolated by global leadership, Israel would not be left to take unilateral military action as its only option for its national security.

Let's recall that immediately following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, rather than condemning Hamas, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned Israel.

The attack "did not happen in a vacuum," said Guterres. And he then justified it, saying, "The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. ... Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing."

Guterres chose to ignore that it was the organization that he leads, the U.N., that endorsed partition in 1947 to create a Jewish state and a Palestinian state – an arrangement accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs, who chose, instead, war.

Hillary Clinton appeared on "The View" last December and reminded viewers that her husband tried to broker a peace deal in 2000, inviting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for talks in Camp David. Barak accepted the Clinton plan, and Arafat rejected it and, per Hillary Clinton, returned home and launched an intifada that would claim the lives of 1,000 Israelis, most of them civilians.

But why, when the U.N. secretary-general started with his distortions of truth, did the United States U.N. representative sit by in silence?

We saw nothing like this when Nikki Haley was the U.N. representative during the Trump presidency.

When Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the U.N. voted 128-9 criticizing the U.S. Nikki Haley stood before the U.N. General Assembly and said, "To its shame, the United Nations has long been a hostile place for the state of Israel. ... It's a wrong that undermines the credibility of this institution, and that in turn is harmful for the entire world."

The United States is one of 193 nations in the U.N. yet provides some 22% of its budget – $18 billion in 2022. The U.N. gives a vote and a say in world peace to unfree countries, countries led by dictators and despots.

How about redirecting that $18 billion into our own sagging defense budget?

It's time for a new era of principled American leadership. This is the only path to peace.

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The trial was a "show trial" designed to influence public opinion and cripple Trump's campaign, but has failed badly at that. The trial charade has not fooled the American public, and he broke the one-day fundraising record with small donors due to this absurd verdict.

The liberal media chants "34 counts," without disclosing that the counts are merely cut-and-pastes of each other concerning a minor bookkeeping detail in how an expense was labeled. The court set the sentencing date for July 11, which conflicts with activities related to the Republican National Convention, where Trump will be nominated for president.

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This was merely an invented crime that never would have been prosecuted against anyone other than Trump. There was no violation of any election law, and the biased judge wrongly excluded the expert on federal election law from testifying to that at trial.

Yet the unrestrained, unapologetic derangement that flails against Trump can be seen raging against other innocent victims now, too. This is a potent mix of animosity and jealousy that causes bizarre outbursts of cheap shots and misconduct toward its targets.

Professional sports are supposed to be an example of sportsmanship, but emotional attacks have spread to women's basketball where the victim there is Caitlin Clark. Like the unreasonable animus towards Trump, several other players in the league appear to hate her for just being who she is.

Who Clark is includes winning twice the national women's college player of the year, outdrawing the NBA championship games in television audience, and being drafted No. 1 by the WNBA. After becoming the greatest female college basketball player ever, Clark is like the goose that laid the golden eggs in Aesop's Fable, whom all of women's basketball should be applauding and respecting.

Clark, like Trump, represents hard work and success based on merit, and her remarkable diligence and devotion have already lifted women's basketball enormously. Like Trump making our country great again, Clark has the potential to make women's basketball great again (or maybe for the first time).

Yet other professional women's basketball players have been taking cheap shots at her on the court, and even cheering each other on in doing so. On Saturday one opponent knocked her to the floor from behind, with a surprise blow that left Clark unable to defend herself, and another opposing player appeared to cheer this.

The referees, refusing to rein in the derangement syndrome, declined to assess a significant foul for this despite the team's request for review. The perpetrator was merely assessed an away-from-the-ball common foul during the game, rather than a technical or flagrant foul.

This and other cheap shots against Caitlin Clark by other players have created a crisis. WNBA league officials so far have done nothing meaningful to punish the bad behavior toward Clark, except on Sunday in response to widespread public outrage the WNBA did belatedly recategorize the recent body blow as a flagrant-1 violation.

Contrast this with the NFL, which quickly comes down hard on any player who inflicts harm on another player contrary to the rules of the game. The NFL suspends and even bans players who perpetrate cheap shots, which of course can injure other players.

But not the WNBA, which seems just fine with Caitlin Clark Derangement Syndrome. Media criticism of misconduct by women athletes has been rare in the past, as though it is politically incorrect to apply the same standards to female athletes that apply to male athletes.

Clark makes only $76,535 in salary a year, plus endorsements, to take this abuse, and could be earning many times that by playing in the women's basketball league in Europe. Other American women are playing in that league now.

The liberal media run big headlines when NFL football players sometimes misbehave, even when the misconduct is entirely off-the-field as part of their private lives. Yet only a few media outlets, such as the New York Post, hold female athletes accountable for their bad behavior.

Even liberal comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who once boycotted a Trump charity golf event because of his dislike of Trump, recently announced that he misses the "dominant masculinity" that existed in the past in American culture. A masculine culture would discredit and reject the senseless emotional outbursts.

Trump has to fight derangement syndrome every day; it's encouraging how strongly the American public has opposed similar attacks against Caitlin Clark. Trump should invite her to the White House on Jan. 20.

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That would seem to be prima facie evidence that this "great transition" to renewable energy has so far been an expensive policy belly flop.

The evidence is everywhere. Americans aren't buying electric vehicles any more than they were before President Joe Biden was elected. Even with record federal subsidies, car companies are losing billions of dollars making EVs that people don't want. Wind and solar still account for less than 10% of American energy, and across the country hundreds of communities are saying "not in my backyard" to ugly, spacious solar and wind farms. And of course, electric bills and gas prices at the pump are 30% to 50% higher, even though we were promised the green revolution would save us money.

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A case in point is the scandalous mismanagement of green energy implementation. Consider the $7.5 billion federal program stuck inside the 2021 infrastructure bill – a law Biden touts as one of his great achievements. That bill promised half a million EV charging stations installed all over the country.

Instead, there have been a grand total of – drum roll, please – "seven or eight installed." To be fair, that was through last month. They might be up to nine now.

When Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was confronted recently on CBS's "Face the Nation" about what happened with all the money, he hemmed and hawed and replied: "In order to do a charger, it's more than just plunking a small device into the ground. There's utility work, and this is also, really, a new category of federal investment."

Uh huh! Sure. Installing an electric charger for a Tesla in your garage is very complicated business. It's like trying to build the Taj Mahal (which may not have cost $7.5 billion).

Here's another mystery. Why can't Pete give us an exact count on the progress when the number is small enough to use his fingers? At this pace, they may get 500 built by 2030 – not the 500,000 promised.

Thank God our celebrated transportation secretary, renowned for riding his bike to his Washington office, wasn't in charge of the Normandy landing.

Then there is the question of where the $7.5 billion of taxpayer money has actually gone. At the current production rate, the final program's price could inflate to more than $1 trillion.

If Donald Trump were president, he'd have long ago summoned Mayor Pete to the Oval Office and greeted him with those two words that made him famous: "YOU'RE FIRED."

Instead, many Democrats are quietly talking about throwing Biden off the ticket, and one of the front-runners to take his place is none other than the highly accomplished Buttigieg.

But there are some serious lessons to be learned from this monumental screw-up.

First, though Biden loves to chat up how much money the government is "investing," where are the signs that any of these borrowed trillions of dollars have improved our lives? This EV charger scandal is just another reminder that the government generally doesn't "invest" tax dollars – it mostly wastes them.

Second, competence matters. At the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, we released a study finding that more than 90% of Biden's top economic and finance team has NO experience running a business. We have an energy secretary who knows nothing about energy and a transportation secretary who knows nothing about transportation. They are lawyers, academics, politicians or government employees.

They are not bad people. They just don't know how to run anything – and it shows.

Finally, why do we need the government to build EV charging stations? One hundred years ago, the government didn't build gas stations. They just magically sprouted up all over the roads that criss-cross America, because entrepreneurs responded to the demand. Two or three brothers would scrap together some cash, buy a small plot of land on I-66, build a service station with four to eight hoses connected to a tank, put up a tall sign posting the gas price, and drivers would pull in and fill 'er up.

All this "infrastructure" without a single penny or instruction manual from Washington.

Can you imagine if Biden had been president in the 1920s and proclaimed the government would build 500,000 gas stations? They still wouldn't be built, and we'd all be waiting in long lines.

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(HOTAIR) -- Hunter Biden's trial in Delaware began on Monday morning. The first order of business was to pick a jury and that happened by day's end.

From a pool of 250 prospective jurors, 12 jurors and four alternates were chosen, including a former Secret Service employee. Several of the jurors said they have family members or close friends with histories of substance abuse. One man seated on the jury said he was “an acquaintance with the first lady” and he had met Joe Biden at several events.

Questions posed to the prospective jurors centered around guns and drug abuse. That is the focus of the trial - it is being called Hunter's gun trial. He is accused of lying on the paperwork when he purchased a gun in Delaware.

U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, a Trump appointee, is presiding over the trial. She swore in the jurors Monday afternoon. Hunter is on trial for three felony charges. He tried to purchase a firearm in 2018 while allegedly addicted to drugs. Allegedly he checked the box on the paperwork that he was not addicted to drugs. In other words, he is alleged to have falsified paperwork.

Read the full story ›

This time he's trying to win those same states back – but he also has the chance to pick up another target that's long eluded the GOP.

Virginia has gone blue in every presidential election since 2004.

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Four years ago, Trump lost the state to Joe Biden by 10 points.

Nobody considered Virginia a battleground this year.

Yet the most recent surveys show a state distinctly in play.

Late last month a Roanoke College poll found Trump and Biden tied, 42-42.

Biden was already looking anemic in a January poll by Virginia Commonwealth University, which had him ahead by just 3 points.

What's happening in Virginia is that the Democrats' coalition is cracking even as Biden's gruesome foreign-policy record helps heal divisions within the GOP.

Trump is in a position to win "NeverTrump Republicans" – or NearlyNeverTrumpers – for the first time, while Biden is losing ground with the rural and working-class whites Democrats still need to win in places like Virginia.

For Republicans and Democrats alike, Virginia exemplifies cultural and demographic battlelines that run across several hotly contested states, including Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Hillary Clinton recognized this in 2016, when she picked Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate.

Virginia seemed set to become part of the Republican "solid South" in the 1990s, as middle-class evangelicals and less affluent whites coalesced.

A growing tech sector (also a feature in North Carolina) and the always burgeoning Washington, D.C., suburbs, packed with government workers and contractors, reinforced the Democrats' side – but they weren't enough.

So in the 2000s Virginia Democrats made a point of fielding candidates like Kaine and former Reagan administration Navy Secretary James Webb, who switched parties and won a strenuously contested U.S. Senate race that decided control of the chamber in 2006.

Webb and Kaine were appealing to rural and working-class whites.

Whenever the party failed to court those unfashionable voters, it risked defeat: hence the near upset in 2014 that almost cost Democrat Mark Warner his U.S. Senate seat.

Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe was never strong with the kind of voters who responded well to Webb and Kaine, with the result that he only narrowly won a gubernatorial race in 2013 and lost a second in 2021.

Virginia's elections that year, which made Glenn Youngkin governor and swept a slate of Republicans into statewide office, were rightly seen as a humiliation for Biden.

While three years might feel like a long time in politics, Biden's weakness today was presaged by the Democrats' debacle of '21.

Trump might have made inroads in the state in 2016, but with Kaine bolstering Clinton's ticket, the Republican lost by 5 points.

And with Biden campaigning as a white Democrat of an older generation, while suburbanites repudiated Trump amid the upheavals of 2020, Virginia delivered excellent numbers for the Biden-Harris ticket last time.

But this time is different.

After four years in office, Biden seems less like a Jim Webb Democrat than a Terry McAuliffe or worse – unwilling or unable to resist the party's cultural lurch to the left.

The botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and the continuing crises in Israel and Ukraine, meanwhile, have forced suburban Republicans who would prefer a George W. Bush to Donald Trump to rethink their comfort with Biden as an alternative to a right-wing populist.

Former Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, a longtime denizen of McLean, Virginia, may still be a NeverTrumper, but other Republicans who distanced themselves from the party after its takeover by Trump have now remembered why they never voted Democrat before.

Biden received the benefit of the doubt in 2020 from suburbanites who wanted competence and calm.

He won't get that this year, after the record he's run up.

Trump will never be the first choice of well-to-do and college-educated Republicans who admire leaders like Youngkin or Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

But this year he will be their choice over Biden – if he can avoid needlessly antagonizing them.

Trump's feuds with the likes of Kemp and former Maryland governor (and now U.S. Senate candidate) Larry Hogan only cost him GOP votes that would otherwise be his automatically.

In 2020, that lost Georgia for Trump.

He shouldn't let it spoil his shot at Virginia this November.

If Trump accepts the gift Biden is giving him – a united GOP and splintered Democratic Party – he'll make his own '16 victory seem like it was just a warm-up.

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For one thing, it is a full out veiled assault on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). Democrat strategists are well aware that this outcome is going to end up on the docket of SCOTUS, as it well should. The dumbest, most inept lawyers on the planet, if honest, will admit this trial was a travesty of justice from start to finish; and none of these neo-Leninist anarchists care a rat's tail.

The chances of this travesty being overturned by a New York District Court are slim and none. No New York judge is going to risk the wrath of the primitives who haunt the art galleries, so-called fine restaurants and Martha's Vineyard. These Erebusic druids want this overturned by SCOTUS. It would allow them to undertake the dismantling of the high court under the guise of it being a rogue organization that refuses to obey the directives of an individual state.

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This is exactly the argument that is being floating by liberal Democrat pundits right now. There is a chorus of accusations being rehearsed for prime time that paints SCOTUS as refusing to follow the directives of individual states; even though such an argument is a desperate lie. But, truth doesn't matter when a cacophony of regurgitated fallacious complaints are panhandled on the likes of NBC and CNN; and given the old fair and balanced treatment on Fox News.

The left is desperate to destroy the Supreme Court, and believe me, they will use a reversal of President Trump's ludicrous conviction to accomplish it. Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to destroy SCOTUS by "packing the court." His efforts didn't fail as much as the country club Republicans rolled over. There has been a very quiet effort to destroy the high court since that time.

The neo-Leninist anarchists want the ability to murder children without restraint and the freedom to do it at the expense of taxpayers. They want the right to own and bear arms for the American citizenry revoked immediately and forever. They want total control over our children from cradle until they are mentally and emotionally destroyed by the so-called educational system. In brief, the left wants uninterrupted ability to change laws and create laws as necessary to create their idea of society. The problem is that SCOTUS is standing in the way. In their minds, it must be destroyed and they will use any and every means available.

Another thing I am certain of, is that RINO Republicans are only pretending to back President Trump. I predict they are going to do the same thing to him that they successfully did to the late Herman Cain. They pretended to support Cain when the first accuser came forward and when a second woman accused my late friend of sexual impropriety. Then a third woman came forward, and RINOs appeared on Fox News around the clock claiming they had to disassociate themselves from Herman Cain, because with three accusers the accusations had to be true. In reality the only truth was that there had been an orchestrated effort, allegedly led by Karl Rove, to derail Cain, who was well on his way to winning the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Believe me, there are elapidae Republicans lying in wait to attempt to destroy Donald Trump as well.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention another of the 800-pound gorillas in the middle of the room. The planned and wholly orchestrated mishandling of President Trump's trial, from the bringing of the phony charges to the ultimate staged conviction, must raise the question of how many other knowingly innocent people have been found guilty and sentenced to prison.

Keep in mind this Democrat tactic wasn't just employed in the South. Democrats have accused so-called white Southerners of falsely convicting so-called blacks since they invented Jim Crow laws. Democrats were and are responsible for murdering innocent slaves, former slaves and anyone else who opposed them, regardless of the supposed amount of melanin they exhibited.

They will spin lies and showcase talking-wackos to misrepresent jurisprudence as convincingly as they can – just as CNN knowingly lied to protect Saddam Hussein so as to maintain a news bureau in Iraq – just as Dan Rather invented lies about George W. Bush. The truth is that everyone with an ounce of common sense knows President Trump is being railroaded.

He is only guilty of being an outsider whom We the People support – and in elite circles of presidential politics, that is a crime worthy of personal destruction.

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Following the vicious attack of Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, American universities have served as the battleground for pro-Hamas, pro-Palestine anti-Israel protests that demand U.S. policymakers stop Israel's efforts to defend itself through its assault on Gaza. Yet these are more than campus protests.

Sweeping the nation is a concerted effort to convert woke leftist protesters to Islam and to teach them jihad – holy war. This effort is supported by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in statements on X applauding student protests against Israel's actions and encouraging them to study Islam and the Quran – the Islamic holy book. In an open letter to university students, Khamenei assures them they are "on the right side of history" to oppose the American government.

Muslim activists are clear about their purpose. In a 1989 speech, Islamic activist Sharifa Alkhateeb explained the importance of education to Islam: "We do not want to melt into American society and disappear. We want to go into American society with Islamic ideals and revamp their thinking. We want to revamp them. We want to turn them into Muslim individuals." During the university campus protests, traditional prayer services are being held by Muslims with non-Muslims invited.

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A key supporter of campus protests is the Muslim Brotherhood, a terorrist organization funded by Qatar that also funds the terrorist organization, Hamas. The organization has made it clear that its mission is to overthrow the U.S. Constitution and impose Shariah – the brutal Islamic law. Shariah is considered divine law and does not permit Muslims to live under any other legal system, including the U.S. Constitution, which Muslims deem man-made law. The Muslim Brotherhood charter states that Islam intends to dominate all nations of the world.

Islam infiltrates a society through courts, schools, art museums, political offices, churches and other major institutions, where they can influence policy, gradually introduce Shariah, and finally impose it on an entire nation.

In January 2019, the first two Muslim women in Congress, Minnesota's Ilhan Omar and Michigan's Rashida Tlaib, were sworn in. Instead of using the Bible, each placed her hand on the Quran, swearing to "support and defend the U.S. Constitution … So help me God." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi placed her hand on the Quran in show of support of the Islamic sacred book for taking an oath to uphold the Constitution. For American citizens, the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land and does not permit any other legal systems, including Shariah. How can a devout Muslim swear to uphold the Constitution when Islam requires that he live only under Shariah?

Either these women were ignorant of the implication of their pledges or they were purposely lying. This action of lying – taqiyah – is not only condoned, but recommended to Muslims in the Quran. Therefore, a Muslim can, and will, lie without any compunction, if it is necessary, to protect or further Islam.

For decades, American education has been a target for billions of petro-dollars for the purpose of changing public opinion toward Islam and to influence U.S. policy toward Israel. The brutality of Hamas in murdering babies, raping women and taking the elderly and disabled as hostages has been cheered on by left-wing student groups and even academics. We can expect professors, administrators and staff who join the chorus of pro-Hamas and anti-Israel protests to be financially compromised by the grants and funding provided by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. There is a high correlation between Middle East funding and anti-Semitism.

This open hostility by Muslims will increase as the number of Muslims in America increases. According to Pew Research Center, "By 2040, Muslims will replace Jews as the nation's second-largest religious group after Christians. And by 2050, the U.S. Muslim population is projected to reach 8.1 million, or 2.1% of the nation's total population – nearly twice the share of today."

In his book, "Slavery, Terrorism and Islam," white African missionary Dr. Peter Hammond writes that Islamization – takeover of a country – occurs when critical mass is reached so that Muslims can agitate for their "religious rights." Hammond notes that especially vulnerable are open, free, democratic societies.

Hammond identifies the stages of Islamization. From 2-3% Muslims begin proselytizing street gangs, jails and other ethnic priorities. At 5% they force the government to allow them to live under Shariah. At 10% lawlessness is increased with militia formations, murders, and the burning of churches and synagogues. At 40% there will be widespread massacres and open militia warfare with persecutions of non-believers and other believers and occasional genocide at 60%. At 80% we see Islamic state-run ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The prime target of Islam is Christians and Jews. Compliance to Shariah is mandatory and those who choose to ignore the law face stoning, beating, mutilation of body parts and even beheading. Leaving Islam is punishable by death.

Being Christian and not Muslim brings persecution. Already we see this persecution in America. In Minnesota, a 9-year-old white Christian girl was savagely beaten on the playground because "she wasn't Muslim."

Islam is a radical ideology flying under the banner of religion while admitting that it is an enemy of America. Because Muslims do not share the values that are the cornerstone of Western civilization, they post a grave threat to our very existence. They refuse to assimilate, demanding instead that Western nations accommodate their culture and laws and financially support them, while openly despising us.

If Americans want to survive as a free people, perhaps we should take a lesson from Japan, which has chosen to approach Islam differently, both officially and publicly, and so has avoided the problems of the West. At the diplomatic level, senior officials in Japan rarely entertain Muslim leaders and rarely visit Muslim countries. The relationship extends only to the Japanese importation of oil and gas products from some Muslim countries. Muslims are never granted citizenship and seldom are granted permanent residency. At the corporate level, the official policy is to deny entry to Muslims, even engineers, doctors and managers.

Do Americans have the spine to enforce this approach to Islam?

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We're in unchartered waters now in America, as far as the Judiciary goes. The Executive and Legislative branches of government fell to Marxism in November 2020, or perhaps more correctly, Jan. 6, 2021 – thanks to the teamwork of Pence and Pelosi.

SCOTUS could still step in if asked and nip this criminal abuse of the courts in the bud – which I think is very much in their interest to do, though the predictable political reaction by the left to declare the high court illegitimate (by the shrillest possible means) might cause a couple of the "conservatives" to hesitate – John Roberts for sure, and maybe Amy Barrett as well. But we'll just have to wait and see. Trump has said his plan is to appeal directly to the high court, which likely will rule in his favor. That will restore faith in the courts by normal people, but escalate the fear and desperation of the far left even further – if that's possible.

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As you know, I'm a strong Trump supporter, but I'm also hedging my bet based on my view of the unfolding of end-time prophecy.

From a purely worldly perspective, the Trump phenomenon looks like the ultimate historic showdown between the Marxist left and Populist right with Trump as the hero to save us from Marxist tyranny. That's about as exciting as it gets for a battle-scarred Reagan Revolution culture warrior like me after fighting a losing rearguard action for 30 long years against the exact same people attacking Trump.

But prophetically and spiritually this Biden/Trump showdown seems to be following the biblical pattern of Saul and David when the Israelite Republic of Joshua and Judges was transitioning to the Davidic Monarchy – with Dementia-Joe Biden in the role of Mentally ill King Saul, and Trump in the role of the constantly beleaguered David (whom, year upon year, Saul's entire regency was devoted to destroying). The parallels are remarkable, including Saul's illegitimacy in usurping the throne, which was David's by right, and David's self-restraint in honoring the "office" of the monarchy and declining to unseat Saul by military means or a coup.

Never forget that our American Republic lasted exactly 400 years, in parallel to the Israelite Republic, starting with the Plymouth landing and Mayflower Compact in November 1620 and ending with the Marxist coup of November 2020.

Now, no analogy is perfect, even in the parables of Christ. As a Canadian friend stated:

America's "first 150 years we were under a dictator – er, king. During that time there was no religious freedom – you practiced the religion of your town or got jailed. They hung Quakers in Boston; one was a friend's great grandmother in 1660. Thirty-two years later they hung his wife's grandmother for witchcraft in Salem. You could also end up in the stocks with your neighbors pelting you with rotten vegetables if you spoke out against the government. It took you Americans 150 years to throw off the yoke (we Canucks never quite managed it.)"

Yes, BUT the Israelite Republic had its parallels to what he correctly identified in America before the revolution: interfering foreign kings, cycles of subjugation, pagan religious practices, internal tribalism and strife, including the religious kind, and even witchcraft. What defined the "republic" at its best in both timelines was not "religious freedom" but de facto bottom-up political autonomy roughly steered/regulated by biblical law, despite continual factionalism. I urge every Christian to reread Joshua through Kings with my hypothesis in mind – it will be eye-opening.

Back to my election-season prognostications, however. Here's the downside to the Saul/David version of possible upcoming events from my millennialist perspective:

Since the David figure of the end times is actually supposed to be Christ, returning at the Second Advent to take possession of the earth and rule it from David's throne in Jerusalem, that can't be Trump, who's just a flawed human man like David was. Not only is Trump NOT the Messiah, he could, in this scenario, be a false Christ – or even turn out to be thee false Christ whose identity as such would not be revealed until three and a half years into his term. Prophecy says the Antichrist will be welcomed by the unsaved world as a savior at first – performing such signs and wonders that if it were possible even the elect would be deceived – and he isn't actually exposed as the Antichrist until the middle of his seven-year "kingdom."

I don't want that to be true about Trump, even in the slightest. I'm just performing my Christian due diligence on the biblical math as I perceive it.

That's assuming Trump even makes it to the election in one piece. I'm not the only one who honestly believes the elites are evil and desperate enough to kill him to prevent his re-election. And I think a great many people on the left secretly and passionately want someone to assassinate him.

OR they'll start World War III (with or without the accompaniment of false-flag terror attacks blamed on Russia) and then suspend the elections under martial law – like they just had Zelensky do in Ukraine – in part, perhaps, with an eye toward softening our voters toward that idea. Every day their provocations of Russia grow more blatant and consequential – again, perhaps in part to prepare the American people psychologically for the BIG ONE. Don't forget that Ukraine is less a military battlefield in the minds of the organized crime families of the Purple Uniparty than it is the ultimate OBiden crime scene they can never allow investigators to freely roam – and I'm not just talking Burisma and the bio-weapons labs.

Or, as I've written about for years, they will stroke out Biden before the DNC convention to allow their committee of elites to replace him with "Big Mike" Obama – in order to put "her" husband back in the White House. "Michelle" would be nothing but Barack's seat-warmer in the Oval Office while he runs things from the Situation Room as every anti-Trump voter would expect and prefer when they cast their ballot.

That latter option is actually the scenario I think is most likely. Barack Obama is the only man they have with the firepower to go head to head with Trump, and, frankly, he's been my top choice for Antichrist since he first took office in 2008. I guess we'll soon see which of these plays out – or something else entirely. In any case, there are "interesting times" on the near horizon.

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Have you noticed the top of your feed on Facebook is now full of left-wing posts, even though you hardly have any left-wing Facebook friends? The last couple years, where we saw nothing but relationship memes and people mourning the death of a pet, are over. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, infamous for pouring $419 million of ZuckBucks into the 2020 election in heavily Democratic areas, is now focusing the platform on getting out the Democratic message before the 2024 election.

Similarly, it has become almost impossible to find conservative information through a Google search, as if Google has suppressed it completely from sight. It is very Orwellian, scrubbing conservative viewpoints from the internet. Since almost everyone gets their information through companies on the internet now, there is no traditional free speech anymore – hardly anyone attends public town halls or listens to speakers in parks. As I wrote previously, these ostensibly private corporations are not really even private due to their interspersing with government; they are squelching the free speech of conservatives.

After the jury verdict against Donald Trump was handed down in the porn star Stormy Daniels' case, the internet blew up with searches for how to donate to Trump. However, Google buried the results down after MSM articles by Reuters, CNBC, The Hill, The New York Times, CBS News, Axios and more. The Trump campaign had to buy an ad in order to show up above those search results.

A current search of Google News for Donald Trump shows nothing but MSM results going down the entire page of about 40 results, with the exception of a lone Fox Business article. And some would argue Fox barely leans conservative these days. DuckDuckGo, which conservatives used for years as an alternative to Google, is just as bad. Brave is almost as bad, with a couple more Fox News articles and one New York Post result.

Psychologist and Democrat Robert Epstein examined how much bias Google puts into its search results and how much that impacts elections. He issued a report on the Search Engine Manipulation Effect in 2015 and testified to Congress in 2019. He said the biased results steered at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Epstein believes that Google has likely been determining the outcomes of upwards of 25% of national elections worldwide since at least 2015.

Thankfully, word is starting to get out about Luxxle, an unbiased search engine. It provides not only regular search and news search results, but a feature called Lenses allows people to choose whether to receive only right-leaning results or only left-leaning results.

LinkedIn was co-founded by Reid Hoffman, who funded the E. Jean Carroll case against Trump. Microsoft bought the platform in 2016 and has continued the left-wing slant, suspending users who post about election fraud. (I've been suspended three times myself.)

YouTube, which is owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, has become almost intolerable with its recommendations of left-leaning videos after you've finished watching anything political. It severely censored videos about election fraud and COVID-19, only recently backing off on election fraud. I have two strikes on my videos; if I get a third one I am permanently banned.

A YouTube search on Donald Trump brings up almost all MSM results, with the exception of a few Fox News articles and Trump's own sites. Fortunately, Rumble is fast becoming a viable alternative for conservative videos. Steve Bannon, one of the most popular political podcasters in the country, was banned from YouTube in 2021 but is thriving just fine without it on Rumble.

Since Elon Musk bought Twitter, renaming it to X, the bias there against conservatives has almost been completely eliminated. There are a few conservative accounts that remain banned or shadowbanned, but those folks are discovering they can quietly create new accounts to get around it. Musk released the Twitter Files to expose how the government was coercing Twitter to suppress conservative speech under the guise of "misinformation."

In 2022, then-Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs' office pressured social media companies to censor posts by her Republican opponents, claiming it was misinformation. Her targets included the Arizona Republican Party and former conservative legislator Kelly Townsend.

Newsbusters observed that the left refers to its censorship using the deceptively innocuous phrase "content moderation." Newsbusters reported that heavily funded Soros progressive groups are currently trying to suppress conservative speech about the verdict in the porn star case. Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the coalition the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement about the verdict, "In this overheated environment, it's vital for social media companies to enforce their content moderation policies and prevent lies from spreading unchallenged."

Some of the censorship is done indirectly. NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index "generate blacklists of ostensibly risky or unreliable American news outlets for the purpose of discrediting and demonetizing the disfavored press," according to a lawsuit filed by The Daily Wire, The Federalist and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against the government last December. The complaint said the government "funded, promoted and/or marketed" the two.

Almost daily, a paid troll on X trots out Newsguard's rating of the publication I write for in order to harass me.

"The days of conservatives sitting back and doing nothing while a corrupt censorship-industrial complex actively bulldozes the First Amendment are over," Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway said in a written statement.

The MSM's discussion of search engine bias focuses on things like whether AI is racist. The left-leaning Wikipedia, which claims to be a modern-day version of encyclopedias with a wide reach, doesn't even mention bias against conservatives in its section on politics within an article on "Internet Manipulation."

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 grants broad immunity to Big Tech since they ostensibly serve as neutral parties rather than content creators. But we all know this isn't true. A solution isn't going to be easy, so we need to continue hammering at the problem from all angles.

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The Scriptures are the best place to go when something makes no sense – like the unanimous jury conviction of former President Donald Trump.

A friend of mine who is wired into international intelligence added some perspective to the stunning 34-count guilty verdict against Mr. Trump in a New York courtroom on Thursday.

He said many of our allies are looking at the Democrats' show trials of opponents and the kangaroo court prosecution of the 45th president and are appalled.

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The Free World has long looked to America for its remarkable defense of the rule of law, which allows everything from property rights to freedoms of religion, speech, press and assembly, and reliably fair elections.

Some are actually fearful, my friend said. They note that one of the constants in this tumultuous world is faith in the legal system of the United States, which has shined as the standard of justice.

"When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers." (Psalm 21:15)

In many other countries, political enemies routinely are persecuted and denied fair trials.

Now it's happening here.

During the Obama/Biden presidency (2009-2017) and since Joe Biden took power on Jan. 20, 2021, the federal government has gone rogue, persecuting its perceived domestic enemies while giving aid and comfort to our actual foreign enemies such as Iran.

As Attorney General Merrick Garland's goons went after parents protesting at school board meetings, peaceful pro-lifers and traditionalist Catholics whom they labeled potential "terrorists," many people shook their heads in disbelief.

Many also could not believe their eyes when Mr. Biden issued a National Transgender Visibility Day proclamation on Easter Sunday or when he deliberately whipped up racial wounds during recent appearances before black audiences.

"The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men." (Psalm 12:8)

Even the Biden-run National Park Service got into the act, barring the Knights of Columbus from holding a Memorial Day Mass at Poplar Grove National Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia.

The Knights had been doing this for the past 60 years until the Park Service suddenly redesignated "religious services" as "demonstrations," which are prohibited at national cemeteries.

The absurd, anti-Christian dictate was reversed hours after the Knights through First Liberty Institute filed a lawsuit, joined by an amicus brief from Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, and public opposition to the policy by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Think about this one. The cemetery contains the graves of men who died defending the United States of America along with our most basic freedoms. The Democrat-run Park Service ran over religious liberty with a bureaucratic tank.

Yes, elections matter.

Given this kind of overreach, you have to wonder how far Democrats will actually go to impose a Marxist, top-down system on all of us.

"When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3)

We all know that the trials of President Trump in four different Democrat jurisdictions by Democrat prosecutors before Democrat juries are the stuff of communist and Third World countries. And it was all cheered on by an utterly compromised national media.

But Thursday's verdict was still stunning.

"Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries; For false witnesses have risen against me, And such as breathe out violence. I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living." (Psalm 27:12-13)

As many legal experts have observed, the trial conducted by uber-Democrat Judge Juan Merchan, whose daughter is raising millions off it, has been uniformly unfair, with one-sided gag orders and suppression of defense witnesses.

The appeal writes itself, but the nation cannot wait as the wheels of justice grind slowly through different court levels. Given the gravity of this assault on the legal and political process and on the rights of citizens to choose our president, this should go right to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It's hard not to get angry watching Democrats who daily show contempt for the Constitution smugly proclaim that the jury has "upheld the rule of law."

We should pray diligently and work to see that justice is done here on earth. We should do all we can to save America in November. But we should also take heart in knowing that justice will not be denied forever.

"For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the Lord,
They shall inherit the earth." (Psalm 37:9)

And there's this:

"Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!" (Psalm 27, 12-14)

This column was first published at the Washington Times.

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While Hafez didn't mention Israel by name, his message was clear. Israel is committing genocide. Israel (with America's help?) is killing "innocent women and children … for war and for money and power." Israel is not giving the Palestinians "a fair chance in life." Palestine must be free from tyrannical, murderous Israel.

To be sure, I share his sentiments that "we are all God's children" (in terms of being His creation; see Acts 17:28), that everyone deserves a fair chance at life, and that it is absolutely tragic that innocent women and children are dying in Gaza.

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And given Hafez's ethnic background, it is no surprise that he uttered those words. As the Essentially Sports website explains, "While Bassil was born in America and holds an American nationality, he comes from a mixed Arab ethnic background. His mother was Syrian Arab, while his father was also Arab, hailing from Egypt."

No wonder, then, as a caring man who "is very proud of his mixed Arab cultural heritage," he used his platform on live, national TV to speak his mind.

The tragic truth is that, if not for Hamas, innocent women and children would not be dying in Gaza. And, as outlandish as the genocide charge is, if not for Hamas, Israel would not be waging war in Gaza right now at all. Those are undeniable facts.

As for the actual number of casualties in Gaza, it is significant that on May 13, it was announced, "The U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which releases impact reports on the situation in Israel and Gaza every two to three days, revised its tallies last week to show that approximately 5,000 women and 7,800 children have been killed as of April 30."

As explained by Nick Logan for CBC News, "The overall number of Palestinians killed hasn't changed, but from the end of March until last week, OCHA reported the deaths of at least 9,500 women and 14,500 children.

"Its Friday update said that as of May 9, there were 34,904 reported fatalities in Gaza since Oct. 7, the day Hamas-led militants attacked Israel. Soon after, the Israeli military began bombarding the territory with airstrikes. It launched a ground operation in the weeks that followed."

This is not to downplay the very real and terrible suffering being endured by the people of Gaza. Not for a moment. Nor is it to make light of the fact that, even with revised figures, thousands of women and children are being killed.

But I cite these figures to remind us that no genocide is taking place. Far from it. I also cite these figures to remind us how these numbers need to be treated with caution.

Digging even deeper into these figures, we must remember that: 1) the fatalities are being reported by Hamas, as if they can be trusted to be accurate and fair; 2) the totals include people who died for any cause, which would likely amount to roughly 1,000 per month without war; 3) they do not list how many of those who died were Hamas combatants.

Since Israel claims to have killed roughly 15,000 members of Hamas, this would actually be more than the number of women and children killed, meaning that the civilian death rate could be as low as 1 to 1.

This would be an extraordinarily low civilian death rate given the difficult nature of the warfare, one in which nearly 20% of Israeli soldiers who've died in the war are being killed by friendly fire.

Yes, you read that correctly. Nearly 20%.

Even more tragically, Israeli soldiers mistakenly shot and killed three Israeli hostages who had managed to escape from their Gazan captors. Talk about an agonizing mistake.

The point is that if Israel is accidentally killing its own due to the complexities of urban warfare, especially when Hamas embeds itself among civilians, it is no surprise that innocent Palestinians are being killed too, including Christians taking shelter in a church and aid workers.

This is no genocide, and to this moment, Israel continues to work hard to minimize civilian casualties. This is the price of war, which falls squarely on the shoulders of Hamas, the murderous, barbaric provocateurs of the conflict.

What we cannot forget, then, is that the people of Gaza are suffering because of Hamas, not because of Israel.

Just think of what the situation could be today for the people of Gaza if their oppressive, radical Islamic leadership had poured the hundreds of millions of dollars of international aid they receive into schools and hospitals and job development rather than terror tunnels and weapons. And just think of how the Gazans could be thriving with leadership that truly wanted peaceful coexistence with Israel.

If you want to free Palestine, then help free it from Hamas.

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Reuters fed the divisive response by saying a warpath could be afoot: "Trump supporters call for riots and violent retribution after verdict."

Pundits and radicals on the left are rejoicing to possess "convicted felon" as a new term to describe the former president, like they discovered buried treasure.

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At the same time, the real treasure troves of the Trump's campaign raised nearly $53 million dollars in the first 24 hours after the verdict.

What about the White House response?

President Biden has repeatedly said that the unprecedented New York court case was never about politics, but his campaign crew "erupted into cheers" at Trump's verdict. And Mr. Biden himself gave the press a "disturbing smile" to express his personal pleasure.

One thing is certain: It's difficult to conceive how the present political environment won't lead to further divisions, strife and, ultimately, civil unrest, chaos or worse, especially the closer the presidential election draws near.

The greatest fallout of Washington's swamp and their political wars is the jeopardy, disparity and demoralization it creates for we the American people.

And one question remains: What do we do now?

I believe the next right step to remedy the volatile and potentially explosive political landscape of our country and world is found in the midst of a WWII 80th anniversary we commemorate this very week: D-Day. On that monumental patriotic battle hung the balance of power in World War II (1939-1945) – and the fate of the world.

On June 6, 1944, Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the green light for the largest amphibious military operation in history. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of the heavily Nazi-fortified coast of France's Normandy region has come to be more popularly known as D-Day.

By sunrise, 18,000 American and British paratroopers were on the ground.

At 6:30 a.m., American troops came ashore at Omaha and Utah beaches.

By the day's end, 156,000 British, Canadian and American forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch (Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword beaches), and had established a foothold along the coast that could begin their advance into France.

History.com noted, "More than 5,000 ships and landing craft carrying troops and supplies left England for the trip across the Channel to France, while more than 11,000 aircraft were mobilized to provide air cover and support for the invasion.

"Within three months, the northern part of France would be freed and the invasion force would be preparing to enter Germany, where they would meet up with Soviet forces moving in from the east."

You know how the story ends. By the following spring of 1945, the Allied forces completely defeated Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime.

The Normandy landings are regarded as the linchpin to the Allied victory: What is often now called "the beginning of the end of war in Europe."

What's interesting is that, two years earlier, in 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt explained the upper hand the enemy was gaining over the minds and hearts of average people. He could have been describing the enemy's effects challenging most today in our country: "One of the principal weapons of our enemies in the past has been their use of what is called the 'War of Nerves.' They have spread falsehood and terror; they have [undermined the majority everywhere]; they have duped the innocent; they have fomented suspicion and hate between neighbors; they have aided and abetted those people in other nations – including our own – whose words and deeds are advertised … as proof of our disunity. The greatest defense against all such propaganda, of course, is the common sense of the common people – and that defense is prevailing. The 'War of Nerves' … is now turning into a boomerang."

I believe the same is true today: The enemy of our republic might have gained the upper hand in the war of nerves, but it's now turning into a boomerang – or at least it will, if we play our election cards right.

We are at one of the most critical crossroads in American life I've ever known – a true tipping point. And just like the Allied Forces in WWII were left 80 years ago with an unavoidable do-and-die moment of D-Day, we the people are left today holding a do-or-die presidential election that could usher in the destiny or destruction of our country and even world.

So, what to do next? While crossing the swamp to the beaches of ballot box?

We do what Roosevelt did. He paused the country and world and asked them to pray, to cry out to Almighty God, particularly for the troops. We commemorate and represent those incredibly brave patriots. And we need FDR's urgent 80-year-old prayer like never before. We need its encouragement and hope today.

Will you pause even now to pray it with me?

FDR spoke on a live broadcast across the nation:

My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest – until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home – fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas – whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them – help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too – strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

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Like Pearl Harbor, May 30 is a day that will live in infamy. And Democrats have awakened the sleeping giant.

First, there is no question Democrats will regret this day. They've crossed a line that has never been crossed in the history of America. They've touched "the third rail." They've destroyed the justice system and "the rule of law." They've turned America into a combination of a banana republic, the Soviet Gulag and 1930s Nazi Germany.

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If you can't beat your opponent, indict him on false charges, rig the judge and jury, put on a "communist show trial," and convict him to destroy his life, reputation and presidential campaign.

But as usual, this weaponization of government and un-American lawfare has backfired on Democrats.

With each of the four rigged indictments, they turned Trump into a martyr. They actually made Trump "sympathetic" for the first time. Now with this rigged conviction, they've moved into new territory.

Democrats have turned Trump into "America's Nelson Mandela."

Mandela spent many years locked up in prison. But in the end, he became a beloved legend, and the president of South Africa. The people of South Africa decided enough was enough. They saw the injustice of their government, and they chose the victim of this unjust, weaponized system to lead the country and reform the system.

The parallels between Trump and Mandela are astounding.

Trump, like Mandela, is a victim of an unjust system – in Trump's case, a weaponized government and a corrupt justice system that has railroaded him. Like Mandela, the victim of this very system (Trump) is the one best equipped to become president, and then clean up the crimes and corruption of the deep state.

I believe Trump can use this conviction to win not only a landslide but a mandate from the American people. A mandate to clean up the system, put the evil wrongdoers in prison for treason, and make sure this sad chapter in our history never happens again.

Democrats in their desperation to stop Trump have made a massive miscalculation. The proof was seen and experienced not just yesterday but in the past few weeks.

Yesterday, after the verdict, Trump's campaign fundraising site WinRed.com crashed because millions of Americans went there to donate and show their support for Trump.

For the day, WinRed raised $34.8 million – nearly doubling the all-time 24-hour record.

On the same day, one donor gave $800,000 to one of Trump's campaign fundraising committees.

On the same day, former Hillary Clinton mega-donor Shaun Maguire contributed $300,000 to President Trump.

Yes, from small donors to mega donors, the guilty verdict has turned even Trump critics and fence-sitters into Trump supporters.

But if you've been paying attention, this remarkable trend started weeks ago.

The biggest names on Wall Street and Silicon Valley – always liberal, and mostly Jewish – have publicly announced they are for the first time ever throwing their money and support to Trump and the GOP.

Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman announced his support of Trump and the entire GOP Senate. I'd call that a political tsunami.

A Silicon Valley CEO who gave millions to Hillary announced he is now giving $1 million to Trump.

Most of these formerly Democrat donors cited the horrible job President Joe Biden is doing for the country and the economy. They all stated they're scared of the direction of America.

Many also cited the disgusting and disgraceful leftist protests on college campuses. The wealthy class is waking up. They finally understand all of this must end now – the demonization of Jews; the chants of "Death to America"; the open border welcoming Hamas and Hezbollah sympathizers into America; the weaponization of the justice system; and the communist direction of America under Democrats.

Democrats have awakened the sleeping giant.

I believe this rigged trial and now absurd conviction for a crime no one (including the judge or prosecutors) can identify have finally unmasked the Democrats for the frauds they are. For years now they've called Trump a "dictator." Biden even called Trump a "dictator" in his comments after the conviction yesterday.

But after this rigged trial and fake conviction, smart Americans finally see who the real dictator is. Could a dictator be convicted in a "communist show trial"?

Could anyone falsely indict, arrest and convict a dictator like Vladimir Putin in Russia? Or Xi Jinping in China? Of course not. They'd have anyone involved in even trying to indict them instantly executed (without trial).

So how is Trump a dictator? It's the people who have railroaded him that are the real dictators!

If Trump were a dictator, would he have accepted a rigged and stolen election? Would he have walked away from the presidency?

Would a dictator lose an election in the first place? Of course not. If Trump were a dictator, he's the one who would have won a rigged election.

It's the people who won the rigged election who are the real dictators!

When Trump was president, did he use the power of government to arrest political opponents, or to censor and ban critics of his policies? No.

Did he control the media and use them to put out his propaganda and call the truth "misinformation"? No.

Did Trump arrest protesters and put them in prison, without bail, and into solitary confinement for years on end, without trial? Of course not.

The people calling Trump a "dictator" just framed him and convicted him for a crime no one can identify.

Those are all actions committed by President Biden. So, who's the real dictator? Biden should look in the mirror.

The dictators are the ones who spend all day demonizing Trump, arresting their political opponents, banning critics, censoring opinions on social media, force vaccinating Americans against their will, committing election interference with rigged trials, and opening the border to change the makeup of the electorate so they can stay in power forever.

The truth is out of the bag. The sleeping giant has awakened. We now know who the real dictator is.

And Democrats have just turned Trump into America's Nelson Mandela.

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On Nov, 5, millions upon millions of disgusted Americans, having seen enough, will declare their verdict on New York's thoroughly rigged trial, proudly casting their ballot for the now convicted felon, Donald J. Trump.

Returning Trump to the White House will be America's joyous "Dayenu!" vote, a Hebrew word meaning "Enough!"

"Dayenu!" is an upbeat Passover Seder song, its lyrics recounting the miracles upon miracles by which God delivered Israel from Pharaoh's tight grip.

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"Dayenu!" begins with the escape from Egyptian bondage and ends in Jerusalem at the Temple, its 15 stanzas escorting Seder participants through the sea and the wilderness to Mt. Sinai and, finally, into Ha-Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel.

The jubilant refrain, "Dayenu!" sung at each of the 15 stages, declares that if God had discontinued his wonders at that moment, "It would have been enough."

Listening to Thursday's "Guilty!" verdict and then hearing, moments later, that the Trump campaign's donation platform had crashed due to the surge, it occurred to me that many Americans were declaring "Dayenu!" with their checkbook, saying, "Enough!"

I passed my "Dayenu!" point at a much earlier stage of Biden's weaponization of the Justice Department. While I was disgusted by the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, 2022, over a document dispute, it was the following year, the famous Fulton County Jail mugshot on Aug. 24, 2023, that did it for me.

Though supporting Trump in 2016 and 2020, I had decided to back Ron DeSantis in the Republican primary, not because I had bought into the MSM's hoaxes, but because I considered the obstacles too formidable a mountain to climb, even for Trump.

The mugshot was my "Dayenu!" point, when the United States was transformed into a banana republic. In a "Dayenu!" spirit of Enough-ness I decided to back Trump, win or lose, the next day writing my first check to support his campaign.

Polls show many Americans reaching the "Dayenu!" point. Whether due to border issues and the massive influx of illegals, or inflation wrecking family budgets, or foreign policy disasters, or especially the corruption of justice, Americans are waking up and shouting, "Enough!"

Last week's Politico article pointing to Democratic Party elites freaking out at Biden's slender chances of re-election may be read as an acknowledgment that Americans have reached their own "Enough!" point. Most frightening to Politico is the number of new Trump supporters coming from traditional Democratic Party voting blocs. They, too, it seems, have seen enough.

Enough fake news!

Enough hoaxes!

Enough corrupt prosecutors and judges!

This week, with Bragg's kangaroo court reaching a guilty verdict after being presided over by the obscenely biased Judge Merchan, many voters newly arriving at their own "Dayenu!" point, having seen enough.

No song writer am I, but here are a few lines of my 15-stanza "Dayenu!" song of support for President Trump, recounting the Deep State evils leading fair-minded Americans of integrity to declare "Enough!"

First stanza: Had Hillary financed the spurious Steele dossier, but Schiff had not lied about proof of Russian collusion – Dayenu! (It would have been enough!)

Second stanza: Had Schiff lied about proof of Russian collusion, but the media had not enthusiastically joined the hoax instead of aggressively investigating his spurious claim – Dayenu! ("It would have been enough!)

The list goes on, each stanza adding a new outrage, each eliciting the "Dayenu!" refrain, "Enough!"

Here are my final five stanzas, the American spirit of "Enough-ness!" reaching a crescendo, disgrace upon disgrace staining America forever:

Stanza 11: Had 51 intelligence officers lied before the 2020 debate about Hunter's laptop, but Joe Biden had not parroted the lie to hide his influence peddling and corruption – Dayenu! (It would have been enough!)

Stanza 12: Had Joe Biden parroted the lie to hide his influence peddling and corruption, but the government had not lied about January 6 being an insurrection and sought to cover up the killing of unarmed Ashli Babbitt – Dayenu! (It would have been enough!)

Stanza 13: Had the government lied about January 6 being an insurrection and sought to cover up the killing of unarmed Ashli Babbitt, but the FBI had not raided Mar-a-Lago over a document dispute, dishonestly arranging a prop photo of the documents – Dayenu! (It would have been enough!)

Stanza 14: Had the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago over a document dispute, dishonestly arranging a prop photo of the documents, but corrupt Judge Engoron not fined Trump $354 million for the victimless supposed crime of over-estimating his assets – Dayenu! (It would have been enough!)

Stanza 15: Had corrupt Judge Engoron fined Trump $354 million for the victimless supposed crime of over-estimating his assets, but a biased New York jury had not returned a verdict of guilty in the hush money trial presided over by corrupt Judge Merchan – Dayenu! (It would have been enough!)

More stanzas could have been added, of course. The "Just-drink-bleach" hoax. The "Bloodbath-if-not-elected" hoax. The "Dictator-from-Day-One" hoax.

These and countless more distortions serve to remind that, without the active participation of a shameless legacy media, such lies could never have gained traction.

The good news? Americans have seen enough of Biden's dismantling of democracy through political show trials aimed at tightening their Pharaoh-like grip on their political opponent, the very one whom they fraudulently declare will destroy democracy if elected.

Americans are reaching the "Dayenu!" point.

Enough is enough!

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This week I had a dream. I'm not normally a vivid dreamer, nor am I "into" dream interpretations. However, this dream lingered and gave me a great deal of unease. I won't call it a nightmare since I wasn't terrified; just … uneasy.

In the dream, we (my husband and two adult daughters and I) were expecting a visitor. But this was no ordinary visitor. This was an official government inspector.

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In the dream, our home was located in rural North Idaho (this part is true), but in the odd manner dreams have, we lived in a sort of furnished Quonset hut instead of our real house. Although the Quonset hut was outfitted with our regular furnishings (mostly consisting of thrifted or homemade items), it had the normal trappings of a Quonset hut: Corrugated steel sides, concrete floors, windows only at either end, etc.

Because we anticipated the arrival of this inspector, we had all scrubbed our Home-Sweet-Quonset-Hut to within an inch of its life. Everything was swept, dusted, mopped and shined. However, since we were living in a metal building, there were still rust stains on the steel sides and stains on the concrete floor. There's only so much you can do, y' know?

A car pulled up into the driveway and the inspector got out. She was a middle-aged woman in no-nonsense attire, and – although she smiled and was friendly – she had a no-nonsense government face, if you know what I mean.

Why was our home being inspected? I have no idea. All I knew is it was something we were required to undergo by some sort of government edict. We resented a stranger coming into our home, of course, but we didn't dare protest. Instead, we welcomed her politely.

She was thorough. She tut-tutted over the rust on the steel walls and the stains on the floor, but otherwise didn't seem to have much issue with our shabby-but-comfortable home. Then, almost casually, she mentioned the drone would be through the next day.

"Drone?" I asked. "What do you mean, drone?"

"Oh, we send the drone to film everything," she replied with a tight smile. "It will look into every drawer, every closet, every corner. You can't hide anything."

In the peculiar ways dreams work, I somehow knew this drone invasion would not be performed by the standard drones anyone can buy in a hobby store. Instead, it would be a walnut-sized machine that would have the capacity to do just what the inspector said: Peer into every crevice of our abode, stripping away any illusions of privacy.

I started to froth at the mouth at this news, but my husband – with a look of warning – nudged me to be silent. My husband is far more politically savvy than I am, and some instinct told me he was right: To protest this drone invasion would be very bad news indeed, something for which we could get into serious trouble.

So I swallowed my anger and put on a pleasant expression as I played the role of innocent citizen. Apparently satisfied, the inspector left. We watched her drive away in her government vehicle.

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But we were left in a tizzy. A drone inspection! What should we do? It's not that we had anything illegal to hide – except what things the government could spontaneously decide were illegal. The thought of a government agency knowing precisely what was in every drawer, every closet, every nook and cranny of our home, was horrifying.

And that's when I woke up. The unease of the dream lingered as I lay awake around 2:30 a.m. I tossed and turned for an hour, thinking about it. The dream held shades of the sinister overreach of governments like North Korea, in which an entire nation is effectively enslaved.

What does this dream mean? I have no idea. As I mentioned, I'm not "into" dream interpretation and never held any interest in the subject. But this one, I can't but feel, had some sort of significance.

Certainly domestic surveillance is nothing new. "Smart" everything, from vacuum cleaners to phones to toilets to mattress pads, supply far too much information to outside agencies (one of the reasons we refuse to ever acquire any of these "conveniences").

Just recently, to supposedly stop people from exchanging non-consensual artificial intelligence images of a sexual nature, the Biden administration declared it wants to probe everyone's smartphones as part of a sweeping surveillance effort.

And the World Economic Forum is pushing drone technology for a myriad of "useful" purposes. "Drone technology holds immense potential to solve global challenges in healthcare, food security, climate, work safety, biodiversity and more," we're told.

But official inspections of everyone's homes? Could anything like that ever come to pass?

To top things off, during the writing of this column, Trump was pronounced guilty on all 34 counts of records violations in one of the most ridiculous kangaroo courts of the century. Are walnut-sized drones and official government home probes really outside the realm of possibility?

Once upon a time in America, surveillance of citizens would have been unthinkable. Now, it's the norm. Nearly every alphabet agency is being weaponized against citizens.

Some of you reading this may be thinking that I've slipped a gear; that I've become paranoid; that I'm a conspiracy nut. But ask yourself this: As little as 20 years ago, would you have believed a major presidential candidate and past president would be accused and impeached over now-proven lies by multiple federal agencies? That a known pedophile with a private island stocked with underage girls would commit suicide in prison during a brief outage of the cameras outside his cell? That his accomplice would be found guilty of pimping those girls to a known list of the wealthy and powerful, none of whom are charged?

You can't be paranoid if they are really out to get you. God help America.

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It's been a nice run, writing columns for WorldNetDaily. I still remember when Joseph Farah and I were each trying to start our own commercial news websites: He chose advertising supported, and I chose subscription-based.

His approach is the one that won out, even though both are still in existence today. The media world of today is quite different for all of the independent news sites now on the web. Sharing our truth with the rest of the world still seems to be an important human desire. Whoever would have imagined ordinary people sharing how they view the world with others could affect the reality landscape to the extent that it has?

Governments are also heavily involved in controlling the news that reaches their citizens, and the citizens of other nations as well. And we had better include wannabe governments, too. Disinformation can destroy governments and replace them with another. We are in the midst of a massive disinformation war right now. I'm glad there are people on our side who specialize in that; at the same time I'm glad that I'm not one of them. Sometimes God saves us from things we don't even know until much later in life were a real danger to us.

It's not that I'm abandoning the battlefield; just that I have slowly found out that Truth can actually be conveyed more effectively through the world of fiction, rather than reality. I'm not talking about he said/she said style books; rather worlds that writers create along with the people who inhabit them. Sometimes it is more effective to show people than to tell them. Fiction is powerful because once we see something happen, even in a book, it becomes more real to us than a news narrative explaining what happened and why we should believe it. Maybe that's why modern education has gravitated away from the traditionally great books. Modern education has been indoctrination for a long time.

Always remember, the Narrative is not the Truth. Even your enemies don't believe the Narrative – they just want you to believe it. It will take both natural knowledge and spiritual knowledge to pick out the gems of truth in today's world. Adam and Eve lost everything because they believed the devil's lies over the God's Truth. Perhaps we do well if we can simply not repeat their mistake in today's world.

God bless, and Godspeed.

Home of the (real) Armageddon Story – craigemcmillan.com.

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Donald Trump could have been found guilty of something as long as four jurors out of 12 found him guilty of something. That would equal unanimity in Judge Merchan's courtroom. And if four other jurors agreed that he was guilty of something else, that would count as guilty and with four more guilty findings, that would make a total of 12 guilty findings. Then, that would signal the bailiff to wheel out the guillotine and head basket.

Considering the new standard set by New York and our unifying America president's omniscience, applying his justice to the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, we will see that Bidenjustnuts would find Snow White guilty of 34 crimes.

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It wasn't the evil Queen stepmother who was guilty of something, it was Snow White and her co-conspirator Seven Dwarfs who were working to bring the kingdom down.

What follows is the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as witnessed though the lens of Bidenjustnuts.

The story begins as we are introduced to a young child named Snow White who we are told is absolutely a beauty. Ah yes, she was outwardly a beauty, but Bidenjustnuts would say deep into the matrix of her tiny heart was a snagglepuss of an evil witch who had designs on taking over the kingdom of her father, the King. That was because of her white privilege – get it? – Snow WHITE. It was a plot known as "Make The Kingdom Great Again."

Every day the Queen would go to her mirror and ask who was the fairest of them all. The mirror's answer was always that it was not the Queen; it was Snow White. This made the Queen happy because she loved her stepchild and wished for her to be the loveliest Queen of any kingdom on earth someday.

But little did she know that Snow White had designs on the Queen's throne now, not some day in the distant future.

In order to deceive the Queen about the plot against her, Snow White ran away into the forest. Her disappearance would lead all to believe of her demise. Snow White had the dwarfs kill a boar and remove its heart. It was sent to the castle in a refrigerated capsule with a note," This belonged to Snow White."

The Seven Dwarfs were not the cute little munchkins that many thought, with names like Sleepy, Sneezy and Grumpy. They were a cabal with intentions of commanding the kingdom with Dopey running the State Department, Sneezy as transportation secretary and Smuggy running the Border Patrol. You get the idea.

Snow White sent the Queen a beautiful comb one day to adorn the Queen's coiffure. The Queen's support staff tested it and found it to be poisoned and avoided a tragedy planned for the Queen's demise.

Then a fruit basket containing a poisoned apple was delivered to the castle. Little did they know that the Queen disliked apples but instead wolfed down the pomegranate seeds. Obviously, that plot failed.

All of this crime the Bidenjustnuts officials can trace to Snow White and her evil dwarf consortium. They discerned crimes of treason, sedition, insurrection, general naughtiness, racism, sexism and a lot of other bad behavior. They were also to be charged with attempted murder of the Queen and saying nasty comments about Robert De Niro.

So goes the nation of America under the system of Bidenjustnuts, at least until November.

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For some members of the political community, claims of racism have utility as either a sword or a shield. Interestingly, the overwhelming majority of every racial group – 73% of whites, 66% of Hispanics and others plus 61% of blacks – believe the issue of racism is raised by politicians simply to promote their election opportunities.

Take, for example, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who in 2018 challenged her supporters to harass members of President Donald Trump's administration, on the issue of family separations at the border, wherever these Republican leaders were found, whether "in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd." In 2021, on a different issue, Waters told protesters to "get more confrontational." However, in 2024, in an outrageous act of hypocrisy, when she personally was confronted at a restaurant by a protester, who by no means was antagonistic, the black congresswoman used the label of racism as a shield, ridiculously claiming it was the motivation behind the confrontation.

Today, in Boston, we see a woman council member of color who is Muslim, aggressively resorting to using racism as a sword to slay critics. Interestingly, these are not critics who target her race or religion but rather who question her actions aimed at "dismantling the white background" in America by "creating a revolution."

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The woman in question is Tania Anderson. She is credited as being the "first formally undocumented African-born immigrant and first Muslim" to hold office in the city of Boston. A municipal hall employee – preferring to remain anonymous for fear of what Anderson might do – has gone public about the councilwoman's outrageous threats and antics. The dismayed employee, whom we will call "X," says that Anderson has an aggressive, anti-Semitic and verbally abusive personality, making it difficult for others in the city's administration to deal with her.

All fear Anderson's rants and rages. She is, X believes, "a troubled person" who opts to push her agenda by accusing others of bigotry. Anderson gave a strong indication of what she believed to be wrong with America in a December 2021 interview after winning her council seat. She claimed she sought to "start a revolution" for "equity."

In June 2022, she proposed a resolution – unanimously adopted – that apologized for the city's historical role in the Atlantic slave trade. Unsurprisingly, not wishing to taint her own status as a legacy victim, there was no mention of the fact that those slaves were the product of tribal warfare in Africa in which the black victors sold the black vanquished to white traders and slavery. In other words, but for the participation of the tribal victors, the institution would probably not have evolved very far beyond slavery's prior existence on the African continent. But for Anderson, accountability only goes back so far.

Boston City Council Member Tania Anderson

Anderson has been a trigger for creating an uncomfortable working environment for the council members. She is known for her outbursts, which she calls "smoke," to intimidate those members, stating, "I am not afraid of any of you" in a March 2024 meeting. In one smoke outburst, she called the council "depraved," "stupidly racist" and "racially divided." She then shouted, "I'm not going to call you cowards, because your desperation is worthy of mercy. … I am the voice of every black woman and man in my community."

X reports the smoke works as members cave to her demands, since "nobody wants to disagree with Tania, as she is unpredictable." X adds, "The last thing anyone wants to do is be labeled a racist." In the March meeting above, Anderson slammed her fist on the table, throwing all decorum out the window by exclaiming, "What do I need to do to be respected as a black woman in this f—ing council?" One should probably answer her question by advising she behave more like a respectable council member rather than a grimalkin.

After the Oct. 7, 2023, raid by Hamas into Israel and its massacre of 1,200 civilians, Anderson attempted to get another resolution passed calling for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire – in other words, she sought to deny Israel the right to defend itself. What especially caused a problem was her description in the resolution of Hamas' act of terrorism as a "military operation" – obviously words she chose in order to tone down the fact a massacre had occurred. When this resolution failed to pass, a sobbing Anderson lambasted her colleagues, saying, "Get up and condemn all civilians and kids slaughtered, not only those who support your political bulls—." Ironically, that was exactly what Anderson was doing with her failed resolution demonstrating little concern or emotion for the lives of the Israeli civilians and children claimed by Hamas. She should be counseled to practice what she preaches.

X shares that Anderson has spent the last months since the Gaza war started working on anti-Israel resolutions, paying little attention to her responsibilities as a council member. Interestingly, her anti-Israel hatred did not distract her from voting for a pay raise that overrode the mayor's veto. Now earning $115,000 annually, a phased-in raise will increase it to $125,000. Meanwhile, disregarding ethical compliance regulations, she has put both her sister and brother on the staff payroll.

Complaints about Anderson claim she is unfit for office – the evidence of which she seems to provide fairly regularly. She neither embraces the America that welcomed her nor seeks to promote legislative interests in the name of the common good. Should action be taken to remove her from office, there is no doubt she will drop the sword of racism she aggressively has been using to pick up racism's shield.

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The problem for the anti-Semites isn't that the evidence against "the Jews" is all false, but that 1) God knows all of it, 2) told us so through His prophets, 3) warned us not to take matters into our own hands – except to keep sharing the Gospel with them because many individuals will receive it, and 4) has always had a plan to save them collectively at the Second Advent of Christ. Included among these anti-Semites are Christian anti-Zionists who claim that today's Jews are not actually Jews but "Askenazis" – a foolish and moot argument since at worst the blood of some Jews is mixed: But God never limited his Covenant to just "pure-blooded" Hebrew descendants of Jacob, nor to the perfectly morally righteous of them (of which there were never any but Christ). That very line of argument is itself anti-Semitic and unbiblical.

If you're looking for actual hard evidence against the Jews, however, look no further than the Prophet Moses who codified the core of what we call "Judaism" roughly 500 years before the Kingdom of Judah existed. In the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32) he complains, "His people have acted corruptly toward Him; the spot on them is not that of His children, but of a perverse and crooked generation. … They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations."

It was true then and it is true today in the restored State of Israel where the ultimate satanic religion of "Secular Humanism," grotesque LGBT perversions and child murder through "abortion" are (following the U.S. example) more legitimized and practiced than in most pagan nations, and far more so than in the Muslim countries attacking them (who each will receive their own prophesied punishment for doing so).

And yet God said, "Have I not stored up these things, sealed up within My vaults? Vengeance is Mine; I will repay." "So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding. … I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them." [Emphasis mine.] Jews have always reaped the natural spiritual consequences of their defiance of God – which reality did not change in the Gentile Age.

But that's HIS business and not ours. OUR Christian duty, as He made clear through Paul in Romans 11, is to manifest His blessings so clearly in our own lives that we fulfill our part of the Moses prophecy, which is to become worthy of their envy. Paul states, "I ask then, did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Certainly not! However, because of their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel jealous. But if their trespass means riches for the world, and their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!" [Emphasis mine.] Ours is a duty to attract, not coerce: to contrast by personal and collective example, not condemn in the sense of passing or executing sentence.

Romans 11 is the New Testament confirmation of all the Old Testament prophecies of the salvation of the Jews, including that of Moses, whose prophecy ends with the promise of restoration: "[T]he LORD will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants. … He will cleanse His land and His people." For He says: "See now that I am He; there is no God besides Me. I bring death and I give life; I wound and I heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My hand."

Christendom would not exist without the foundation of the Abrahamic Covenant. That's what Paul means when us says, "If the root is holy, so are the branches. Now if some branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others to share in the nourishment of the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, remember this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, 'Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.' That is correct: They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will certainly not spare you either." [Emphases mine.]

This next bit is a direct rebuke to Christian anti-Semites: "Take notice, therefore, of the kindness and severity of God: severity to those who fell, but kindness to you, if you continue in His kindness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut from a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into one that is cultivated, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!" [Emphasis mine.] This is a call to kindhearted lifestyle evangelism – not hatred couched in self-justifying litanies of (sometimes accurate) accusations.

Again, the problem isn't always the truthfulness of the accusations but the fact the God insists on addressing these matters Himself. Anti-Semites, especially the Christian anti-Zionists, are like the snot-nosed little brother sneering at and taunting his sibling while Dad is trying to have a productive "teachable moment" with His older son.

Romans 11 definitively debunks "supersessionism," which claims Christians fully replaced the Jews in all the aspects of the Abrahamic Covenant. Paul speaks directly to the anti-Zionists when he says, "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not be conceited: A hardening in part has come to Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will remove godlessness from Jacob. And this is My covenant with them when I take away their sins."

Paul's cite is actually a summary of multiple parallel Jewish salvation prophecies, the most relevant to this article being Isaiah 59:20: "The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression," AND Zechariah 12, especially verse 10: "Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son." Paul specifically clarified in Romans 11:25 that these prophetic events occur at the close of the Gentile Age, proving they are still-future events that I believe perfectly comport with the second coming.

Importantly, in Romans 11 Paul takes fully into account all that he has said in his prior epistles (including Galatians 3) regarding the Jews, and subsumes it to God's greater plan, acknowledging that "Regarding the gospel, they are enemies on your account" … [But nevertheless] regarding election, they are loved on account of the patriarchs. For God's gifts and His call are irrevocable:" Thus Romans 11 proves there is NO replacement of Jews by Gentiles, only the addition of Gentiles to the promises of the Covenant – both groups judged ever and solely by their loyalty to God and His Word.

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A friend of mine once invited me on a walk to go see an "amazing" lake. When we hit the 30-minute mark, I said, "I'm getting pretty tired. Maybe we should head back."

But my friend, who likes to walk, said, "No, it's just a little further."

When we had been walking for an hour and 20 minutes, we passed someone going in the opposite direction. I said, "Excuse me, is there a lake up there?"

The hiker said, "Oh yeah. It's way up there!"

I said to my friend, "I'm going back."

But he encouraged me to keep going. "Greg, come on," he said. "You're going to love this lake!"

We finally made it to the lake, which really was more of a pond. And then we began the journey back. We ended up walking a total of 6 miles. That might not be a lot for some people. But for me, it was a long walk.

Sometimes in our spiritual lives, we need someone who pushes us forward, because we can get discouraged. We think, "I can't go another step. I'm done."

It's good to have a Christian friend who comes alongside us and says, "You can go further. You can do more. Let me help you. Let me encourage you." That's because if we're not moving forward in our relationship with Christ, we are naturally going backward. There is no standing still in the Christian life.

I have been asked about notable people who once claimed to be Christians and then declared they weren't Christians anymore. News like that concerns us, because we think, "Am I next? Am I going to abandon my faith?"

That is entirely up to us.

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One of the signs of the last days is that some will fall away from the faith. The Bible says, "For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths" (2 Timothy 4:3–4 NLT).

One indication that you're going in the wrong direction is if you challenge Scripture. Sometimes we'll come across passages that don't make sense to us. That is the time to talk to a pastor or someone who has been reading the Bible for a while to give us clarification.

But there is a difference between that and challenging Scripture. If you come to a passage and say you don't like it because you don't want to do what the Bible says, that is a different matter altogether. We don't adapt the Bible to our lifestyle; we adapt our lifestyle to the Bible and understand that it is God's inspired Word.

True believers may stumble, but they ultimately will return to God. And if they do not return to God, then they never really were true believers to begin with.

The Christian life is one of constant growth. The apostle Peter wrote, "Make every effort to respond to God's promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone" (2 Peter 1:5–7 NLT).

He goes on to say, "The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:8 NLT).

Peter was saying that we won't reach some plateau where we know it all. And who better to tell us about this than Simon Peter, whose faux pas are legendary.

One day Jesus said to him, "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:31–32 NLT).

Jesus lives to make intercession for us (see Hebrews 7:25). Jesus is praying for you.

The Bible says, "Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18 NLT). This simply means that we should go through life aware of our weakness, vulnerability, and propensity to do the wrong thing.

Self-confidence leads to another step down, which is prayerlessness. Not praying about something actually can be a sin. While a sin of commission is doing what you should not do, a sin of omission is not doing what you should do. The Bible says, "Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it" (James 4:17 NLT).

All too often we worry instead of pray. Yet the Bible reminds us, "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6–7 NLT).

True believers are never happy when they're out of fellowship with God. If you're out of fellowship with God and have sinned against him, then you'll be unhappy. And if you can't be happy in your sin, then that is a good sign.

Christians who try to compromise their beliefs will end up in a miserable no-man's-land where they have too much of the Lord to be happy in the world and too much of the world to be happy in the Lord. If you hang around with the wrong people in the wrong places, the next thing you know, you will be doing the wrong thing. Don't be that person.

There has to come a point in our lives as Christians when we say, "I'm responsible for my own actions. I make my choices, and then my choices make me. I have Christ living inside me, and he will give me the power to live the life he has called me to live."

A wise, growing Christian will realize there is always so much to learn. There is so much that needs to still change in our lives as we're transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.

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By L. Brent Bozell III

In the summer of 2020, America was in flames as Antifa and Black Lives Matter set fire to city after city – Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, New York, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and so many more. Police stations were torched, and dozens of officers were injured as all manner of projectiles, from rocks to Molotov cocktails, were hurled at them. Dozens of people died. The damage was estimated at over $1.2 billion, the highest in history.

In January of 2021, the Biden administration came to town. With 35,000 FBI agents and support personnel at his disposal, and armed with an annual $10.8 billion budget, Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland had everything he needed to bring the criminals to bear.

But there was no outrage from the Justice Department. Instead, with a lonely exception here and there, there was silence. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of crimes across the country never have been, nor ever will be, prosecuted. New York City is paying rioters $13 million in reparations for arresting them. Many other cities across the U.S. are negotiating similar settlements.

Perhaps it's because Biden's Justice Department had other priorities. It has been obsessed with putting in prison anyone and everyone who participated in the "insurrection" of Jan. 6.

My son does not belong to any political group. His only organized involvement during the 2020 elections was with a local church group that met daily to pray the rosary for America. But like tens of millions of other Americans, my son believed the 2020 presidential election had been stolen, so on Jan. 6, he traveled to Washington, D.C., and joined with over 100,000 other patriots to show their support for the man they believed had won and deserved to be certified.

But then things went wrong, and he was part of it. He entered the Capitol after breaking two windows. Ultimately, he was arrested and charged. He accepted responsibility for these felony offenses as well as other ancillary misconduct. But when he would not plead guilty to the felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding – as unconstitutional a charge as there ever was, and one which is about to be tossed out by the Supreme Court – the Biden Justice Department unloaded.

Without the obstruction charge, the Jan. 6 "insurrection" narrative would be vaporized. The vast majority of protesters would be no guiltier than the hundreds of pro-Hamas protesters who stormed the Capitol last October; or Code Pink protesters who regularly disrupt congressional hearings; or even Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who tripped a fire alarm (and lied about it) to prevent a House vote. All who committed those infractions were charged with misdemeanors and paid meaningless fines.

Were justice equally distributed, my son would be similarly guilty, with an additional punishment for breaking two windows. One could project probation and financial restitution. But this is Joe Biden's Justice Department, and we knew that would not be enough.

Two and a half years after he was charged, and on the eve of his trial, the hammer dropped. Suddenly the Justice Department found he'd assaulted – "barreled into," they said – a policeman. The footage provided as evidence was so grainy and from such a distance that the judge himself acknowledged it was impossible to determine conclusively if my son had even touched the officer. Later the judge would state emphatically that he wanted it understood that my son never attacked this or any other officer that day. But this is when the layman learns that "assault" does not necessarily mean attack. It also means "impede" or "interfere," and since my son went forward toward an officer when pushed from behind by the now unruly mob – guilty.

But my son did interact with the police that day.

The prosecution had access to and had watched other video footage that day. One clip showed my son bringing water to an officer suffering from tear gas. A second video showed my son successfully commanding a menacing rioter to sheath his baseball bat after he'd ignored similar demands from an endangered cop. There exists also footage showing my son helping yet another policeman to his feet after being knocked over.

This meant nothing to the "Justice" Department. It wanted a felony conviction, and when it got it, this out-of-control federal agency went for more – far more. As the sentencing date approached, it pinned yet another charge: terrorism enhancement. The Biden administration now wanted the court to equate my son, whose most serious crime ever was a traffic offense, to Osama bin Laden. They argued the applicable sentencing range was 22-27 years in prison.

The presiding judge would have none of it and declined to accept the enhancement. He sentenced my son to 45 months instead. But during the sentencing, this judge declared he'd found something everyone had missed. Hidden in a footnote buried in their report, the prosecutors had provided the replacement cost for one broken window – $847. That amount made the offense a misdemeanor, not a felony. The prosecution knew this all along. The Justice Department deliberately had invented a felony charge.

Why did they go to such extremes against my son, to include inventing crimes and wanting him declared a terrorist?

This was not a pursuit of justice by a prosecution governed by principle. In Biden's America, justice has no home for those who challenge it. This was a political prosecution using the full force of the federal government because my son, Leo Brent Bozell IV, carries his father's name, and his father has influence and is supporting President Donald Trump in 2024. Ends justify means, and they will stop at nothing.

A criminal investigation into this corrupt Justice Department is long overdue. Those who have corrupted it know that in a new Trump administration, their days are numbered.

The first is Trump's willingness to speak to audiences outside his core constituencies.

Most Republicans and Democrats prefer their speaking engagements to be in front of an audience they are certain will be made up of supporters. Democrat candidates have received criticism for taking certain voting blocs for granted; the conventional wisdom after the 2016 presidential election was that Hillary Clinton paid insufficient attention to Rust Belt states like Wisconsin and Michigan that she lost to Trump. For their part, Republicans take flak for not even trying to get the support of groups that everyone assumes will vote "D," including blacks, Hispanics and immigrants.

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While Trump clearly loves an adoring crowd, he isn't afraid to step out of his comfort zone, and he's been doing it since his 2016 presidential campaign.

The second difference is the content of Trump's speeches. When he does address groups that have been traditional Democrat strongholds, his messaging stands in stark contrast to Democrats' constant harping on their voters' powerlessness and despair.

President Joe Biden's commencement address at Morehouse College on May 19 is a perfect example. Instead of inspiring and uplifting graduates of the historically black college with reminders of their possibility, power, autonomy and agency, Biden purported to read the minds of the students in the audience and claimed to see disillusionment and alienation:

"You started college just as George Floyd was murdered, and there was a reckoning on race. It's natural to wonder if the 'democracy' you hear about actually works for you. What is democracy if black men are being killed in the street? What is democracy if a trail of broken promises still leave black communities behind? What is democracy if you have to be 10 times better than anyone else to get a fair shot? And most of all, what does it mean, as we've heard before, to be a black man who loves his country even if it doesn't love him back in equal measure? ... They don't see you in the future of America. But they're wrong."

Biden's definition of democracy is depressing.

By contrast, Trump's remarks at his Bronx rally were filled with hope. He appealed to the historic toughness of New Yorkers, their loyalty to and love for their city, their resilience and their ability to rebound and rebuild. Trump reminded them of their history, their potential and the infinite possibilities when Americans work together.

In addition to appreciating Trump's positivity, some in the audience further noted that Trump didn't show up and pander to the crowd by promising goodies from the federal government or affecting some parody-worthy accent as a sign of false solidarity. (On the campaign trail in 2012, then-Vice President Biden told an audience of black Americans that Republicans were "gonna put y'all back in chains." Hillary Clinton's cringe-worthy affectation of a southern black accent in her 2007 speech in Selma, Alabama, was even worse: "Ah don't feel no ways tahrred.")

Instead, Trump was Trump, with his usual, distinctive speaking style, cadence and rhetorical flourishes.

Many of the Bronx rally-goers not only commented favorably on Trump's message but expressed their disgust with the policies of the Biden administration (which is to say: the policies of the Democrat Party) that are destroying the country: the tolerance of crime and violence; the political persecutions; the influx of millions of illegal immigrants plenty of the Bronx residents immigrated to this country legally) and the handouts of billions of taxpayer dollars hard-earned by American citizens to pay for them; the crushing of our energy sector and resulting skyrocketing prices of gas and groceries; the inflation and erosion of purchasing power.

Bronx rally attendees and plenty of broadcast, print and social media commentators noted that no Republican presidential candidates had visited the Bronx since Reagan – the last Republican presidential candidate to win the state of New York.

A portent of things to come? Maybe.

It isn't just the contrast with Biden's speeches and the message of his comrades in Congress and elsewhere. It's the fact that so many of those at the Bronx rally arrived merely curious and left converted.

It's the fact that the Bronx rally came on the heels of Trump's rally in deep-blue New Jersey on May 12 that broke records, with over 100,000 people in attendance.

It's Trump's crossover appeal to minorities, immigrants and working-class Americans. The Bronx is as ethnically diverse as it gets: 57% Hispanic, 28% black, 4% Asian and about 8% white. It has long been considered a safe bastion of Democrat voters. But the incredibly diverse crowd of people who came to see Trump speak in the Bronx's Crotona Park were proud to be told they are Americans first and foremost.

Traditional politicians have long utilized the old technique of "divide and conquer"; to the extent they can keep Americans fighting with each other, the power is theirs for the taking. Instead of dividing people by referencing their differences, Trump reminds people of the power they have; how their differences can make the group stronger, if they are working together on a common goal.

In other words, it's Trump who is the unifier.

Can Trump flip the Bronx? Can he flip New Jersey? Can he get record-breaking support from the country's black and Hispanic population?

Are we looking at the possibility of a Reaganesque landslide?

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According to Oliver Stone's four-hour interview with Yanukovych, a deal to which Yanukovych had agreed was tossed aside, the filmmaker explained, "when well-armed, neo-Nazi radicals forced [the president] to flee the country with repeated assassination attempts." The next day a new pro-Western government was established and immediately recognized by the U.S.

Prior to this, Russian intelligence intercepted a telephone call between Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, detailing their selection of Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the new prime minister once Yanukovych was ousted. This telephone call was leaked to the international media.

The slain activists are known as "the Heavenly Hundred." Stone stated it "seemed clear that the so-called 'shooters' who killed … policemen, [and] … protesting civilians, were outside third-party agitators." According to the documentary, "Many witnesses, including Yanukovych and police officials, believe these foreign elements were introduced by pro-Western factions – with CIA fingerprints on it."

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Stone compared this overthrow to the 2002 and 2014 Venezuela protests. He stated the plan is to "create enough chaos, as the CIA did in Iran '53, Chile '73, and countless other coups, and the legitimate government can be toppled. It's America's soft power technique called 'Regime Change 101.'"

If the CIA was not involved with flipping Ukraine's government, why were the assistant secretary of state, Nuland, and U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Pyatt, selecting the next government for Ukraine before the regime change occurred?

Biden and the CIA's bad chess move in toppling the Ukrainian government forced Putin to respond because Russia had an agreement with the former Ukrainian government to use Crimea as a warm-water port. With the toppling of Ukraine's government, obviously Putin felt Russia's national security was threatened, since Russia's only warm-water ports are Tartus in Syria and Sevastopol in Crimea. Thus, Russian military annexed Crimea without a shot being fired.

Watching Biden today, he reveals his hand and shows his techniques. For example, why was the CIA director involved in deterring peace talks between Russia and Ukraine? Why was the CIA director sent to broker a major Gaza deal in December 2023, January 2024, March 2024 and April 2024? Doesn't this seem like a job for a diplomat or an ambassador? But involving the CIA in foreign policy is Biden's game. According to the Washington Post, on President Obama's "final visit" to the CIA before leaving office, he stated, "We live in dangerous times. I am going to need you more than ever." Why did Obama say he would need them more than ever? He was leaving the White House – wasn't he?

Do we have power-hungry politicians who weld the CIA to their own bidding, including spying on Americans, which by law the CIA is prohibited from doing on U.S. soil?

'Regime change' in American states?

If CIA operatives are used to destabilize and flip governments in foreign countries, could these same techniques also be used to flip U.S. states from Republican to Democrat? What kind of things would destabilize a state? How about affecting the major sources of revenue, causing job loss and then flooding the state with illegal immigrants to change the its demographics?

Candidate Biden promised to destroy the oil industry. His first day as president he began fulfilling his promise, costing tens of thousands of jobs. The Department of Energy reported in 2021 alone that the fuels technology sector experienced losses totaling 29,271 jobs; onshore and offshore petroleum companies shed 31,593 jobs, and coal lost 7,125 jobs.

Are these job losses due to Biden's protection of the climate? No! No rational person believes the false climate "science." Only idiots who would try to destroy national treasures and glue themselves to priceless art would believe this. Democrats are taking advantage of the peak of an 11-year cycle of the sun, which is causing solar flares and electromagnetic waves to hit the earth.

Why would Biden attack the oil industry if it's not because of climate change? Have you noticed where the bulk of oil is produced? The largest U.S. oil production in 2018 occurred in what is called "PADD 3," the Gulf Coast states. These states include New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. These five states produce 71% of the total U.S. oil production, producing 2.82 billion barrels of crude oil in 2018 alone.

Looking at the presidential elections for 2020, 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004, and 2000, you find that the Gulf Coast states (except for New Mexico) have always been Republican.

So, if Biden cuts the oil industry, which causes job losses, and people leave to find employment, plus Biden opens the border to illegal immigrants … well, what do you know, regime change 101 – except this time it is applied to states.

President Trump is flipping states from Democrat to Republican by promising good policies to help the American people, by putting America first.

Having only lousy policies that put financial burdens on Americans, Biden must employ whatever strategies needed to hang on to his power. So, he is trying to flip states using regime change 101. Furthermore, Biden is paying for votes by paying student loans, and attempting to sure up his northeast states' support through reducing their gas prices by draining the strategic oil reserve. Biden even uses the CIA to stop investigations on son Hunter.

Joe Biden will do anything to maintain power. Even Oliver Stone regrets voting for Biden in 2020.

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Start with taxpayer-funded National Public Radio, which never managed to produce a single feature story on the foiled Kavanaugh assassination but has provided multiple stories in the Alito flag frenzy. They use fake-neutral headlines like "Flag displays at Justice Alito's homes concern judicial watchdogs." Make that "Democrat law professors."

NPR Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg, who tried to strangle the Clarence Thomas nomination in the crib, couldn't muster any concern for Kavanaugh's safety, but found the time for Alito-flag coverage. The idea that this slavish pal of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was going to furrow her brow about the bias of judges was a laughable matter.

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Everyone with political eyes can see that the media are toeing the Democrat line that a Supreme Court with a conservative majority must be discredited. Forget all their bleatings that Trump was undermining confidence in government. "Objective" reporters always undermine confidence in government when conservatives have a toehold.

The latest decision they hated was an Alito opinion in a 6-3 ruling that the South Carolina Legislature could move a sizable number of black voters out of the competitive 1st Congressional District into the black-majority 6th District. The majority ruled that this was a political gerrymander, which is legal, and not a racial gerrymander, which is illegal.

But they ruled against the NAACP, so there was hell to pay. On "All In with Chris Hayes" on May 23, the host lamented the decision and brought in MSNBC's regular extremist Elie Mystal to concoct a theory on Alito's majority opinion.

"The throughline between the Alito flag story, the Clarence Thomas coup story, and their wives, and what we saw today from the Supreme Court in this gerrymandering decision," Hayes said, "is that they don't want black people's votes to count equally."

As for Thomas, forget that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has a white husband. You're only a sellout if you're conservative. "I mean, he ain't married to Ginni Thomas for nothing, all right ... like that's what the man thinks." He claimed Thomas does not think the 14th Amendment "can be used to protect the voting rights of black people."

On the Left, black voting rights translate into the ability to elect Democrats. That's not the right to vote at all. It's the right to be represented by a Democrat. If you don't agree with that principle, you're in favor of "diluting" black votes.

In Mystal's conspiracy brain, "when people like Alito and Thomas support the insurrection, what are they saying? They're saying that Trump won – lost the election but won the white vote ... won the white vote by a lot." He claimed they think white votes are "the only votes that matter."

This character assassination of Alito and Thomas as racist insurrectionists is considered weighty legal analysis on MSNBC. On the Left, anything that disturbs their domination of government is an "insurrection," which is why they endlessly associate every conservative with the Jan. 6 riot as much as they can. They are the ones who can't stand dissent and an actual democracy where conservatives disturb their dreams of complete dominance.

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If America's schools are to impart principles of freedom and democracy to future generations, they must start by respecting the constitutional rights of their students.

Take the case of Lucas Hudson.

With all the negative press being written about today's young people, it's refreshing to meet a young person who not only knows his rights but is prepared to stand up for them.

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Lucas is a smart kid, a valedictorian of his graduating class at the Collegiate Academy at Armwood High School in Hillsborough County, Florida.

So, when school officials gave Lucas an ultimatum: either remove most of his speech's religious references from his graduation speech – in which he thanked the people who helped shape his character, reflected on how quickly time goes by, and urged people to use whatever time they have to love others and serve the God who loves us – or he would not be speaking at all, Lucas refused to forfeit his rights.

That's when Lucas' father turned to The Rutherford Institute for help.

In coming to Lucas' defense, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute warned school officials that their attempts to browbeat Lucas into watering down his graduation speech could expose the school to a First Amendment lawsuit.

Thankfully for Lucas, the school backed down, and he was able to deliver his speech as written.

It doesn't always work out so well, unfortunately.

Over the course of The Rutherford Institute's 42-year history, we have defended countless young people who found themselves censored, silenced and denied their basic First Amendment rights, especially when they chose to exercise their rights to free speech and religious freedom.

In case after case, we encounter an appalling level of ignorance on the part of public school officials who mistakenly believe that the law requires anything religious be banned from public schools.

Here's where government officials get it wrong: While the government may not establish or compel a particular religion, it also may not silence and suppress religious speech merely because others might take offense.

People are free to ignore, disagree with, or counter the religious speech of others, but the government cannot censor private religious speech.

Unfortunately, you can only defend your rights when you know them, and the American people – and those who represent them – are utterly ignorant about their freedoms, history and how the government is supposed to operate.

As Morris Berman points out in his book "Dark Ages America," "70 percent of American adults cannot name their senators or congressmen; more than half don't know the actual number of senators, and nearly a quarter cannot name a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment. Sixty-three percent cannot name the three branches of government. Other studies reveal that uninformed or undecided voters often vote for the candidate whose name and packaging (e.g., logo) are the most powerful; color is apparently a major factor in their decision."

More than government corruption and ineptitude, police brutality, terrorism, gun violence, drugs, illegal immigration or any other so-called "danger" that threatens our nation, civic illiteracy may be what finally pushes us over the edge.

As Thomas Jefferson warned, no nation can be both ignorant and free.

Unfortunately, the American people have existed in a technology-laden, entertainment-fueled, perpetual state of cluelessness for so long that civic illiteracy has become the new normal for the citizenry.

Yet those who founded this country knew quite well that every citizen must remain vigilant or freedom would be lost. As Thomas Paine recognized, "It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government."

You have no rights unless you exercise them.

Still, you can't exercise your rights unless you know what those rights are.

Education precedes action.

There is a movement underway to require that all public-school students pass the civics portion of the U.S. naturalization test – 100 basic facts about U.S. history and civics – before receiving their high-school diploma, and that's a start.

Lucas Hudson would have passed such a test with flying colors.

On graduation day, Lucas stepped up to the podium and delivered his uncensored valedictorian speech as written, without any interference by school censors.

As Lucas' father relayed to The Rutherford Institute:

"In the end, Lucas got to give his entire speech the way he wanted to give it, and everybody was paying attention. Nobody got hurt. Nothing bad happened. It was just a young man using the First Amendment rights to speak his mind regarding his personal beliefs. [Lucas] never thought a few sentences in a speech would create such a controversy in his world, but this speech turned into a defining moment for him. He will never be the same after this experience, but this permanent change is a good thing. When it mattered, Lucas stood up for himself, and when those he stood up against tried to push him down, [The Rutherford Institute] came to his aide and backed him up to make it a fair fight. I am comforted to know you are defending the rights of the people. These fights matter. Every time you defend the rights of one person, you defend the rights of every person. You helped my son fight for his rights against the school, and, in doing so, Hillsborough County Public Schools will think twice before infringing on the rights of future students. Your defense of Lucas became an inspiration for the students in his school and sparked a healthy and meaningful debate among the teachers, students, and parents about the value of the First Amendment and the need for limits on government control over our personal beliefs. You are fighting for good and doing important work. Don't ever stop. Thank you, Rutherford Institute, for being there for my son when he needed you most."

America needs more freedom fighters like Lucas Hudson and The Rutherford Institute.

It's up to us.

We have the power to make and break the government.

We the American people – the citizenry – are the arbiters and ultimate guardians of America's welfare, defense, liberty, laws and prosperity.

We must act – and act responsibly.

As I make clear in my book "Battlefield America: The War on the American People" and in its fictional counterpart, "The Erik Blair Diaries," it's our job to keep freedom alive using every nonviolent means available to us.

Know your rights. Exercise your rights. Defend your rights. If not, you will lose them.

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Dear Dave,

We sold our rental property recently. When we bought it, we thought it would be a good source of passive income. But owning it wasn't passive at all. It got to the point where the work and hassle became too much. We have $240,000 from the sale, and we're debt-free except for our home. We owe $140,000 on our house, and could pay it off instantly, but part of me wants to invest the proceeds from the sale of the rental property. Is it better to become completely debt-free at this point, or should we invest it so we can have even more money for retirement?

Anthony

Dear Anthony,

You mean you had to actively manage your rental property? Listen, anyone who tells you real estate is passive income is full of crap. It's a natural extension of the garbage people spout about how it's OK to go into debt to buy real estate, because the renter is making your payments. No, it's your payment. And when the renter doesn't pay, or it sits empty, guess what? You have to pay it.

If you want passive income, buy an S&P 500 index fund. Set it and forget it. You won't have to fix a leaky roof, replace worn out appliances or try to collect from deadbeat tenants. Real estate is a great way to invest, if you do it the right way. I love it. It's anything but passive, though.

Let me ask you this about your situation. If you had a paid-for house, would you borrow $140,000 against it to invest? Of course not. It's pretty much the same thing, and that would be dumb. Pay off your home, brother. Just pay it off. You'll be debt-free, and you'll still have six figures to invest.

I love that you're thinking about the future, Anthony. And I know the compound interest you're visualizing down the road is really tempting. Your compound interest calculator will tell you some amazing things, but what it's leaving out is risk. It also can't tell you about the carefree way you'll walk, and how it'll feel like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders when you don't have a house payment. You'll be able to live life on your terms, and all the decisions you make will come from a completely different point of view – one that isn't burdened by the weight of bankers hovering around, waiting for you to give them what's theirs.

The borrower is always a slave to the lender. Think about it. Only one implication of slavery is mathematical. All the rest are spiritual, physical, relational, emotional and mental. Being debt-free changes your life from the inside out. Not only does it make your life better, but it allows you to give with incredibly generosity, and be an agent for positive change in the lives of others.

Pay off the house!

Dave

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