Concerns Raised Over Biden's 'Autopen' Presidency

From Newsmax.com (Mar. 10):

The use of an autopen signature on many official White House documents and executive orders purportedly signed by former President Joe Biden has stoked concerns about his awareness of signing certain things and whether he actually signed them at all, according to an investigation by the Oversight Project, an arm of the Heritage Foundation.

According to the group, "every document we could find" that bore Biden's signature all "used the same autopen signature" except for his announcement about leaving the 2024 presidential race last July.

"Whoever controlled the autopen controlled the presidency," the Oversight Project said in a post to X on Thursday.

The concerns are such that Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is demanding a Department of Justice investigation as to whether "Biden's cognitive decline allowed unelected staff to push through radical policy without his knowing approval."

In a letter to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz dated March 4, Bailey wrote that "it appears staffers and officers in the Biden administration may have exploited Biden's incapacity so they could issue orders without an accountable President of sound mind approving them."

In one instance, the Oversight Project highlights Biden's pardon of six criminals on Dec. 30, 2022, "while Joe Biden was vacationing and golfing in the U.S. Virgin Islands." The pardons all say "signed in the city of Washington," according to the Oversight Project.

Another instance is an interview given by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., where he recounted Biden not remembering an executive order he purportedly signed pausing liquefied natural gas imports in January 2024.

The Daily Mail also reported it examined more than 25 Biden EOs signed between 2021 and 2025 and found the same signature on each.

"For investigators to determine whether then-President Biden actually ordered the signature of relevant legal documents, or if he even had the mental capacity to, they must first determine who controlled the autopen and what checks were in place," the Oversight Project said in another post.

Wrote Bailey, "if in fact Biden's staffers were exploiting his mental decline, those are orders are null and void." [source]

Was Briben aware that the autopen was used? Did he okay use of it?  That's the question.

Also, the Body Language Guy (Jesús Enrique Rosas) on Rumble thinks Briben's drop out letter is suspicious [video] because the signature on the letter doesn't match previous signatures. So, was the letter written before or after him actually dropping out of the race?

Other articles on the autopen controversy:

• Biden used ‘autopen signature’ on many official WH docs, raising concerns over his awareness
• Biden Autopen Use More Common Than Initially Disclosed
• Watchdog finds 'no evidence' Biden knew of crucial climate EOs, demands answers on who signed autopen
• 2025 Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Executive Orders
• Trump Mocks Biden’s Autopen Usage With Epic Photo
• Alan Dershowitz Explains Why ‘We Will Never Know’ If Autopen Pardons Are Invalid
• ‘This Is Impersonation Of The President’: Expert Lays Out The Stakes Of Biden’s Autopen Controversy
• Biden Was Never Fit For Office To Begin With
• Hey, CNN, Here's What's Really 'Extraordinary' About Biden's Prostate Cancer Diagnosis
• Democrats Don’t Get The Benefit Of The Doubt On Biden’s Health, ‘86,’ Or Anything Else
• Here Are 9 Questions About The Biden White House That Must Be Answered After Cancer Diagnosis
• Report: Biden's Last Prostate Blood Screening Done in 2014
• Medical Experts Question Biden's Cancer Timeline
• Doctors say it’s ‘inconceivable’ Biden’s cancer went undetected by his medical team — as Trump Jr. questions if diagnosis is ‘cover-up’
• 'It Could Be 12 to 18 Months': Former White House Doctor Says Biden's Cancer Prognosis Is Grim
• ‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams reveals same cancer diagnosis as Biden, predicts he has only months to live
• Dr. Petrylak to Newsmax: No Way to Tell When Biden's Prostate Cancer Developed
• Doctor: Biden’s Team Was Completely Incompetent Or Covered Up His Cancer
• Trump Speculates on Biden Cancer Diagnosis
• More Questions Remain: MSNBC is Questioning Timeline Around Biden’s Cancer Diagnosis – 5.19.25
• Ex-Biden aides suspect another cover-up after former president’s prostate cancer diagnosis
• Biden Is Still Not In Control
• Who REALLY controlled the Biden White House? [video]
• David Hogg spills the beans to undercover reporter about who really controlled the Biden White House
• Ex-Biden aide Neera Tanden tells Oversight Committee she was authorized to use autopen
• Biden Staffer Directing Autopen Didn’t Know Who Final Authorization Came From
• Multiple Pardons Granted By Autopen Without Biden Approving Recipients, Staff Admit
• Fauci Pardon Was Greenlit By Aide With No Proof Biden Approved It
• Jill Biden’s ‘Work Husband’ Pleads The Fifth In Biden White House Cover-Up Probe
• Biden Insiders Keep Proving They’re Hiding Something
• Biden's Most Vulnerable Moments Apparent in Hur Audio
• Biden Aides Questioned Final Pardons, Autopen Use, Emails Show
  

Russia! Russia! Forever: An Anatomy of a Left-wing Obsession

From Victor Davis Hanson on AM Greatness.com (Feb. 26, 2024):

Collusion about Collusion

The more candidate Trump in 2016 trolled the Clinton campaign (e.g., “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press”), the more the irate left bought into hysterical conspiracy theories.

Finally, the left became completely unhinged after the 2016 victory. An Obama-era Pentagon lawyer published an essay exploring the chance for a military coup. Retired lieutenant colonels called for a Pentagon intervention. Retired four-stars could not decide whether he was Hitler-like, Mussolini, or the architect of Auschwitz. Celebrities competed to find the most savage image of eliminating Trump—whether by combustion, incineration, decapitation, lethal shooting, or stabbing.

Since then, the press has run with lurid stories about Trump, from having syphilis sores on his hands to “proof” of him beating up Melania. But amid the unhinged hatred, nothing has quite reached the absurdity of the Russia! Russia! obsessions.

In 2016, the country went through crackpot leftist charges of Russian collusion that helped to destroy the lives of innocents like Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, Carter Page, and George Papadopoulos. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s lawyers (gushed over by pundits as the “dream team/all-stars/hunter-killer team”), despite all the pre-investigational hype and hagiography, spent 22 months and $40 million to find no evidence that the Russians swung the election to Trump.

But in that sordid process, we learned the following: that a felonious FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith was convicted of doctoring a court document to mislead a FISA court in efforts to surveille an innocent man; that the FBI director James Comey recorded and leaked via a third party to the New York Times a private, confidential, and likely classified conversation with the President and lied to the president that he was not the subject of a federal investigation; and that he preposterously claimed amnesia or ignorance on 245 occasions under oath to a congressional committee about the various skullduggery of the FBI under his watch.

Comey was outdone by special counsel Robert Mueller. He claimed under oath that he knew almost nothing about Fusion GPS or the Steele dossier, the twin catalysts that had led to his very appointment.

We learned in addition that Christopher Steele was hired by Hillary Clinton (whose campaign was fined $113,000 for federal campaign finance violations), albeit behind three stealthy paywalls (the DNC, Perkins Coie law firm, and Fusion GPS) to disguise her role.

The British ex-spy Steele’s mission was to find dirt on her presidential opponent, Trump. He did so by compiling a “dossier” of fakery and smears. Ironically, many of the most scurrilous charges might have reached Steele through Russian sources.

Yet the left and cable anchors cited as gospel the dossier chapter and verse—until they didn’t, once the weight of its ridiculousness finally crushed their assertions. Steele, remember, was at one time a paid FBI informant, and as a foreign national, was supposed to be barred by statute from being hired by a presidential campaign.

In one of the notable political scandals in recent history, the present National Security Advisor and former Clintonite campaign operative, Jake Sullivan, used various surrogates to promote the lie that there was some sort of secret “backchannel” electronic “ping” communications between the Russian Alfa Bank and the Trump campaign and Trump Organization. The concocted myth was considered useful in advancing the “collusion” lie throughout the media, until even MSNBC and CNN quietly dropped the accusation.

Note “Russian collusion” destroyed the careers of three former FBI chiefs and a host of others. The amnesiac Mueller was discredited to the point of embarrassment in his congressional testimony. James Comey’s machinations finally entrapped him in a web of deceit and partisanship. Andrew McCabe committed career suicide by lying on at least three occasions to federal officials and allegedly co-dreaming up the ridiculous “wire” caper with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to secretly tape the President of the United States in efforts to prove him unhinged and thus to remove him via the 25^th Amendment.

FBI counsel James Baker was instrumental in trying to seed the fake dossier with the media before resigning and being hired by Twitter for a multimillion-dollar salary as deputy general counsel. Twitter, remember, was contracted in 2020 by the FBI to help suppress news accounts deemed unfavorable to the Biden project. Adam Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee’s “minority report” on collusion is now regarded as one of utter fantasy, despite being treated at its release as the final word on collusion. [read more]

Another insightful analysis of the Left and Russiagate by VDH.

More articles on Russiagate:

• The Russia Collusion Hoax Is Worse Than You Think
• Why Raining Justice On The Russia Hoaxers Is So Tricky — And So Important
• Securing Justice For Russiagate Is How We Save The Country
• Explosive declassified report: Russia DID have secret dirt on the 2016 election — but it wasn’t about Trump
• Latest Unsealed Docs Expose Obama, Hillary, And The Russia Lie
• Obama tries to extract himself from Russiagate, but documents put him at the heart of it
• Details Buried In Recently Declassified Docs Further Implicate Obama In Russia Hoax
• Senior DOJ Officials Didn’t Know Database Allowed FBI To Bury Existence Of Russiagate Documents
• CIA Review Reveals Obama Pushed Intel Community To Launch Trump-Russia Witch Hunt
• Obama White House, Deep Staters Prove To Be The Real Threats To Democracy
• DiGenova to Newsmax: Don't Think Obama Has Immunity in Russian Case
• Disgraced Russiagate FBI Agent Purges X Posts As Trump Admin Bears Down On Obama Intel Officials
• Ratcliffe releases damning Durham annex. Here's what it reveals about Obama-Clinton Russia collusion hoax.
• Durham Annex Reveals FBI Neglected Clinton Campaign's Role in Russia Hoax
• New Docs Reveal How FBI Insiders Buried Evidence Of Spygate Crimes
• FBI Never Investigated Evidence For Obama AG’s Role In Clinton Email Coverup
• REPORT: Whistleblower Alleges John Brennan’s ‘Pathological Need For Control’ Corrupted Trump-Russia Investigation
• Comey's media mole told FBI he shaped Russia narrative, needed ‘discount’ to deny leaking intel
• Records Management Compliance At The FBI Is The Key To The Case Against The Russia Hoax Conspirators
• DOJ Sets Grand Jury Probe Into Origins of Trump-Russia Collusion Narrative
• BREAKING: DOJ Requests DNI Documents Following Gabbard Criminal Referral On Russiagate Conspiracy
• Whistleblower drops bombshell: Did Bill Barr and Fani Willis team up to sabotage Trump's comeback?
• EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon Terminates Security Clearance Of Russia Collusion Hoaxer Susan Miller
• Meet the Leakers! Russiagate Was More Incestuous Than You Could Believe

How inclusivity affects the Church and repentance

From Christian Post.com (June 9, 2023):

When we hear the term “inclusion” in today’s world, it is often in combination with “diversity” and “equity.” This combination of words can be used to demand that all lifestyles, characteristics, or choices be deemed legitimate. They can also be used to combat the prejudices and partialities that often create new classes of vulnerable, marginalized outcasts in today’s world.

While diversity, equity and inclusion programs have many problems, one glaring difficulty lies in the telos, or final aim, of such programs. If, for instance, inclusion is confused with unconditional acceptance, we will likely lose the ability to call others to repentance. Jesus recognizes the diverse audiences to whom He speaks as equally in need of being included in the message of salvation. That message demands repentance and would require discipleship.

As Christians, both individually and collectively, we need to take care not to exclude any group from the message of salvation. When we withhold the message of salvation and the repentance it requires from one group or another, we tend to exhibit inevitable theological mistakes.

First, consider Jonah’s refusal to preach repentance to Nineveh. His hatred for the Ninevites drives him to disobey God. Jonah does not only see the Ninevites as an irredeemably lost cause but as unworthy of the salvation God has asked him to present to them. Jonah did not want the Ninevites to be saved (Jon 4:3–4). His mistake was not in his characterization of God as “gracious ... and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (4:2). His mistake was rooted in his unwillingness to accept that God would show such grace to the people of Nineveh. Perhaps we should ask ourselves whether we have become too much like Jonah in our dealings with those we have identified as our opposition.

Second, if we are willing to write off “tax collectors and sinners” as irredeemable, we place constraints on the God who has no constraints. This mistake is closer to that made by the Pharisees, who were blind to the possibility that God was not limited by their systems or traditions. Jesus’ ministry demonstrated that God was living and active beyond the boundaries constructed by the religious leaders of the day. We see a similar dynamic in the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7. Having been accused of speaking against the temple and Moses (Acts 6:11–14), Stephen responds by narrating the numerous times when God worked beyond the confines of the temple or the nation of Israel (7:2-53). God does not work within limits. When we exclude others from the message of salvation, we may be placing an artificial constraint on God and underestimating the power of the Gospel.

Finally, we can assume that calling others to repentance is a form of exclusion. As such, we draw individuals toward a Jesus whose expectations and values align suspiciously with our own. This method of withholding the message of salvation instills inclusion with a strong dose of individualism and human-centeredness so that one’s life is determined less by Christ and more by one’s own thoughts and feelings, as well as the thoughts and feelings of the community of which one is a part.

It may seem odd to think of inclusion as a means of exclusion, yet inclusion in a community willing to call “evil good and good evil” (Isa 5:20) is not an inclusion in the message of salvation. It is a de facto exclusion because it denies the transformative decision that the Gospel requires. When we accept Christ, we are not only saved from death but also from the fallen state that caused it.

Jesus did not offer outcasts inclusion into the Kingdom on their own terms, yet He was not afraid to include Himself with outcasts to proclaim to them the way of salvation. As we seek to be inclusive, we should keep in mind that we are not including people in the kingdom but in the message of salvation. That message leaves no one who accepts it unchanged, nor is it a message that requires one to change before receiving it. When we orient ourselves toward inclusion, we do not embrace the notion that God has no moral standards but that all are invited to consider the Gospel. Inclusion welcomes everyone to conform to the image of Jesus Christ. [source]

Amen. DIE isn’t about inclusion but about control being a derivative of Marxism. It’s its own religion.

Scarcity Is about More Than the Market

From Robert Bellafiore on The Public Discourse.com (July 10, 2023):

Behind the dry equations and supply and demand curves of modern economics lies an entire anthropology. Humans, it posits, are fundamentally acquisitive beings, seeking to satisfy infinite wants in a finite world, directing our limited resources toward the satisfaction of unlimited demands. As economist Lionel Robbins put it, “We have been turned out of Paradise. . . . Everywhere we turn, if we choose one thing we must relinquish others. Scarcity of means to satisfy given ends is an almost ubiquitous condition of human behavior.”

But however intuitive this view feels today—it really does seem correct when I have to decide whether my paycheck will go toward attending a concert, or seeing a movie, or buying a new economics book—it’s far from the only way to conceive of humans and their environment. Modern economists’ conception of scarcity has such a monopoly on our imagination, Fredrik Albritton Jonsson and Carl Wennerlind argue in Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis, only because we’ve forgotten the many competing approaches out there. By revealing alternative ways of thinking about scarcity, abundance, and growth over the last 500 years, Jonsson and Wennerlind—intellectual historians at the University of Chicago and Barnard College, Columbia University—hope to show how “scarcity itself can and should be liberated from its connotations in modern economics.”

carcity offers a crash course on the many musings that philosophers, artists, theologians, and economists have had on the topic. And despite their hostility to modern economics, Jonsson and Wennerlind reveal one deep similarity between it and rival accounts: in every case, the seemingly mundane topic of scarcity raises some of the most foundational questions one can ask. Jonsson and Wennerlind’s historical investigations helpfully illustrate how tawdry matters of getting and spending have always been underlaid by questions about man, nature, technology, and their relations.

Unlimited Desire vs. Limited Nature

Jonsson and Wennerlind identify two broad schools of thought that have taken shape across the centuries. The Cornucopian ideology calls for “an active mastery of nature together with a dynamic and expansive notion of desire.” It optimistically envisions people’s ability to reap the bounties of nature so that it can provide for our many, indeed insatiable, wants, and it sees the expansion of knowledge and technology as the surest way to do so. Such figures as philosophers Francis Bacon and David Hume and economists Adam Smith and Paul Samuelson celebrated people’s ability to push back the boundaries of ignorance and poverty and advance learning and commerce for, as Bacon put it, “the relief of man’s estate.” For them, science enables us to uncover nature’s secrets, while technology and trade allow us to put those secrets to good use, raising our standard of living and continually improving our lot.

In the other corner is the Finitarian ideology, which emphasizes “the limits to human power over nature and the need for constraint and moderation of human desires.” The Finitarians generally see nature as altogether more mysterious, but also more fragile, than the Cornucopians do—a subject more fitting for stewardship than for domination. Because nature’s resources can be depleted or disturbed, society must learn to curb its wants, aim for “good enough” rather than “always more,” and thereby strike a stable balance between means and ends. From the Romantic meditations of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Ruskin, through the bleak visions of David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus, and culminating in the warnings of modern environmentalists such as E. F. Schumacher, Finitarians tend to be a more dour bunch, exhorting us to keep our demands in check, and cautioning against the hope that new technologies will solve perennial problems.

Are these groupings simply another way of listing capitalism’s champions and critics? Not quite; for Jonsson and Wennerlind, scarcity forces us to think through questions far more expansive than simply whether free markets are good or bad—for example, whether man is a part of, or above, nature, and how the deployment of technology transforms both. Theologians such as Thomas More and François Fénelon and novelists such as Daniel Defoe and Joris-Karl Huysmans had weightier questions on the mind than how exactly government should or shouldn’t regulate economy. Scarcity’s exposition of such a wide array of thinkers compellingly conveys the range of thought given to matters that are today cordoned off in the economists’ province (although the summaries are sometimes given too summarily—can one really learn anything about Martin Heidegger in two pages?).

Scarcity also reveals many surprising ironies and affinities that a mere debate over capitalism would obscure, such as the tension between thinkers’ premises and their predictions. The Cornucopians might celebrate the ability to achieve our many desires, but only because they start from bleak convictions about how, in our postlapsarian state, we can never be satisfied. For them, one choice always forecloses another—just look at the glee with which economists will ruin a good meal with the reminder that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The pessimistic Finitarians, in contrast, while somberly calling attention to our, and nature’s, limitations, just as often find themselves daydreaming, as do Karl Marx and Charles Fourier, of the frabjous day when we will attain all we need, and want no more than that. [read more]

'Fairly shocking': Secret medical lab in California stored bioengineered mice laden with COVID

From USA Today.com (July 31, 2023):

A months long investigation into a rural California warehouse uncovered an illegal laboratory filled with infectious agents, medical waste and hundreds of mice bioengineered "to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus," according to Fresno County authorities.

Health and licensing said Monday that Prestige Biotech, a Chinese medical company registered in Nevada, was operating the unlicensed facility in Reedley, California, a small city about 24 miles southeast of Fresno. The company, according to Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba, had a goal of being a diagnostics lab.

"They never had a business license," Zieba told USA TODAY. "The city was completely unaware that they were in this building, operating under the cover of night."

The Fresno County Public Health Department launched its investigation into the facility in December 2022 after a code enforcement officer saw a garden hose attached to a building that was presumed to be vacant and had no active business license, Zieba said.

Further inspection in March revealed that the facility housed various chemicals, suspected biological materials, bodily fluids and hundreds of lab mice, among other lab supplies, according to court documents.

County public health officials said they also found medical devices believed to have been developed on-site, such as COVID-19 and pregnancy tests.

"Being a small, rural town of 26,000 − walking into what we believed to be a vacant building and finding lab supplies, live white mice ... was was fairly shocking," Zieba said.

After several attempts to communicate with Prestige Biotech, Fresno County officials are accusing the company of not being forthcoming with information and failing to comply with orders, such as providing a plan for hazardous and medical waste disposal.

Fresno County Public Health staff completed biological abatement work of all the materials found in the facility by July 7, according to court documents. [read more]

Not good. This is how pandemics start. The world was "lucky" with Covid. The next time it could be much worse. It's bad enough if the pandemic is naturally caused, but caused by human carelessness or by modifying viruses to make them more deadly? That's much more worse.

3 European countries want to reward Palestinians for 2 decades of terror

From AFN.net (May 23, 2024):

The chant "From the river to the sea!" is popularized by Palestinians – and more recently college students on America's campuses – to say the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea should belong to them. In essence, it means pushing the state of Israel into the sea.

Ohad Tal, a member of the Israeli Knesset, warns "from the river to the sea" will take a big step closer to reality if Ireland, Spain and Norway get their wish. Those three nations announced Wednesday they would recognize a Palestinian state as a solution to the Israel-Hamas war which has raged since Hamas terrorists left their previous state – the Gaza strip – to set out on a rampage of murder, rape and kidnapping last Oct. 7.

"It's crazy because that will pose an existential threat to the very existence of the state of Israel to have another terrorist state in our heartland," Tal said on Washington Watch Wednesday.

Tal is adamant that a two-state solution is not in Israel's future plans. "We will not allow that. We will not accept that. It's not going to happen," he told show host Tony Perkins.

Quickly blocking out Oct. 7 atrocities

Public sympathy quickly shifted from Israel and its estimated 1,200 victims last fall. Now, many in the world community accuse Israel of "genocide" because of civilian deaths as it pursues Hamas, which hides among the civilians it is charged with governing.

Just this week Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, announced that he will pursue arrest warrants Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. For good measure, Hamas leaders now will be sought for arrest too, seven months after the attacks which brought everything to this point.

Israel right now feels very much alone in the world, Tal said, largely due to the response from the U.S.

"The current administration in America is very concerning. I mean, Hamas is now holding about 130 hostages. They are still in their hands," he noted. "So, we're not allowed to bring them back? We're not allowed to protect ourselves? We're not allowed to make sure that Hamas is eradicated, that they will not be able to commit another brutal massacre against our people? This is what it means?

"So, this is not something you would expect to see from our allies – and if our allies do not understand that then yes, we are concerned."

Tal said the joint statement by Ireland, Spain and Norway is hypocrisy.

"It's outrageous because what is actually the meaning of 'recognizing' a Palestinian state? It means that we want to give a reward to those who came and butchered our families, raped our women, beheaded our little children. [It is saying] We want to reward them," Tal said. [read more]

I agree. Those three countries (who were also neutral during WWII) are encouraging more terrorism from Hamas. Just plain stupid.  I wonder if Switzerland recognizes Palestine as a state too since they were neutral during WWII also.

Another article on the matter:

Israel Leader Lashes Out at Spain: 'Complicit in Inciting Genocide'

Yes, a chunk of the space station crashed into a house in Florida

From Pop Sci.com (Apr. 16, 2024):

The “object from the sky” that pierced through a home in Naples, FL. last month wasn’t a meteorite after all.

On April 15, NASA said the mysterious metallic cylinder—which tore through homeowner Alejandro Otero’s ceiling and floor—was actually part of a cargo pallet that contained “aging nickel hydride batteries.” The agency jettisoned the pallet from the International Space Station back in 2021, after installing new lithium-ion batteries on the artificial satellite.

NASA expected the hardware to “fully burn up during entry through Earth’s atmosphere on March 8, 2024,” yet things turned out quite differently for the Otero family.
“It was a tremendous sound, and it almost hit my son. He was two rooms over and heard it all,” Otero told Florida broadcaster WINK News. After prying the object out from between mangled floorboards, Otero said he suspected it was a meteorite.

According to NASA, the debris was actually made of a nickel- and chromium-based superalloy called Inconel. The object originally functioned as part of a battery mount; after hitting Otero’s home, the surviving cylinder clocked in at 1.6 pounds, 4 inches tall and 1.6 inches in diameter.

In 2021, NASA anticipated the pallet would “orbit Earth between two to four years before burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere.” This week, NASA said the ISS will investigate the incident to “determine the cause of the debris survival,” adding that it’s “committed to responsibly operating in low Earth orbit, and mitigating as much risk as possible to protect people on Earth when space hardware must be released.”

While a space-junk crisis may sound like science fiction, debris left by humans in low-Earth orbit is rapidly piling up. The European Space Agency estimates there are 36,500 debris objects greater than 10 cm in Earth’s orbit. The agency reports that the total mass of all known space objects exceeds 11,500 metric tons (or more than 25 million pounds). Such junk includes everything from paint flecks and bolts to dead satellites and spent rocket boosters. Much of this stuff originates from governmental space programs, but it also comes from private companies, such as Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Around a dozen objects reenter the atmosphere on a daily basis, Moriba Jah, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a call with PopSci. “It’s not uncommon for these things to survive and make it to the surface,” explained Jah, though typically they crash into the ocean. However, as satellite launches rapidly increase, the professor cautioned that “statistically, [falling debris] will kill somebody at some point.”

According to Professor Jah, solving this problem will require more reusable and recyclable tech. Today, “we have a linear space economy where the end state of any given satellite is to become junk.” Governments need to embrace a circular approach and “mandate that satellites can’t be launched if they’re going to be single use,” Jah argued.

In a separate call, John L. Crassidis—a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo—argued to PopSci that readers shouldn’t be too worried, for now, about death by space junk. “I think I’d be a lot more concerned about getting struck by lightning than having a piece of space debris fall on me,” said Crassidis. However, the professor said the risk will grow in the coming decades. The more space junk we have, the greater the chance that “somebody’s going to be eventually hurt.”

According to estimates by the nonprofit Aerospace Corporation, the likelihood of space debris injuring a particular person is less than one in a trillion. However, a 2022 University of British Columbia study predicts there’s a 10% chance that falling space debris will result in “one or more casualties” by 2032.

To mitigate worst-case scenarios, Crassidis pointed to the need for “hard international treaties” that require space-faring nations to follow UN space debris guidelines. “No matter what anybody tells you, we do not have the technology to take out space debris right now,” argued Crassidis, who acknowledged that Europe has some “nice experiments” in the works.

In the coming decades, “if our technology can’t catch up to the point of making that reality, and if we keep doing what we’re doing, then we’re for sure they are well on our way to Kessler syndrome,” Crassidis said, referring to a worst-case scenario in which space-junk collisions become so likely that they render low-Earth orbit useless for generations. [source]

Look out below! Glad no one or no animal was hurt. Well, I guess if you had a choice having space junk crash into your house would be better than having frozen toilet waste land on your house from a plane. Which actually happened.

DOJ Files First-Ever RICO Charges Against 27 Tren de Aragua Gang Members

From Breitbart.com (Apr. 23):

On Monday, DOJ officials unsealed indictments against 27 current or former members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang. Officials report that 21 of the 27 indicted gang members are currently in federal custody.

“As alleged, Tren de Aragua is not just a street gang – it is a highly structured terrorist organization that has destroyed American families with brutal violence, engaged in human trafficking, and spread deadly drugs through our communities,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a written statement. “Today’s indictments and arrests span three states and will devastate TdA’s infrastructure as we work to completely dismantle and purge this organization from our country.”

The indictments include charges against six current TdA gang members and 21 former members who are now part of an “Anti-Tren” gang that splintered off from TdA.

Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said, ““Today, we have filed charges against 27 alleged members, former members, and associates of Tren de Aragua, for committing murders and shootings, forcing young women trafficked from Venezuela into commercial sex work, robbing and extorting small businesses, and selling ‘tusi,’ a pink powdery drug that has become their calling card.”

“Today’s Indictments make clear that this Office will work tirelessly to keep the law-abiding residents of New York City safe, and hold accountable those who bring violence to our streets.”

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch added, “For the first time ever, TdA is being named and charged as the criminal enterprise that it is. This isn’t just street crime—it’s organized racketeering, and this gang has shown zero regard for the safety of New Yorkers. As alleged in the indictment, these defendants wreaked havoc in our communities, trafficking women for sexual exploitation, flooding our streets with drugs, and committing violent crimes with illegal guns.” [read more]

Nice to know. These gang-bangers got what they deserved.

Other DOJ actions:

• DOJ sues Newark, other N.J. cities over sanctuary policies
• Texas agrees to end in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants after DOJ lawsuit filed against the state
• 2 Chinese nationals charged with smuggling 'potential agroterrorism' fungus into US: DOJ

Thomas Aquinas: Revolutionary and Saint

From The Public Discourse.com (May 31, 2023):

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) is one of the two most famous Catholic theologians and philosophers; the other is Augustine (354–430). Seven hundred years ago, on 18 July 1323, Pope John XXII presided at Aquinas’s canonization as a saint. In 1567, Pope Pius V proclaimed Aquinas to be a “Doctor of the Church,” one whose teachings occupy a special place in Catholic theology. Thomas was the first thinker after the time of the Church Fathers to be so honored. In 1879 Pope Leo XIII issued a famous encyclical, Aeterni Patris: On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy, calling on all Catholic educational institutions to give pride of place to the theology and philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Although today he is a well-established authority in both philosophy and theology, in his own time he was considered a revolutionary thinker whose views challenged the accepted intellectual establishment of the West.

As a young man in Italy, Thomas joined the recently founded Dominican Order. Along with the Franciscans, the Dominicans were part of a widespread reform movement within the Catholic Church. In many ways these new religious orders were urban-based youth movements and, to be effective in their apostolate of reform in the Church, the Dominicans sought out the ablest young men and quickly established houses of study in the great university centers, such as Bologna, Paris, and Oxford.

Thomas traveled north to Paris (1245) to study with Albert the Great at the University of Paris. Albert was already well known for his work in philosophy, theology, and the natural sciences. Like other Dominicans of his time, Thomas walked to Paris from Italy; and then, with Albert, he walked to Cologne (1248) where the Dominicans were establishing another center of studies. He came back to Paris (in 1252) to complete his studies to become a Master of Theology. After three years in Paris, he spent the next ten years in various places in Italy, only to return to Paris in the late 1260s. There, he once again occupied a chair as Master of Theology and confronted various intellectual and institutional challenges, especially concerning the proper relationship between philosophy and theology.

………

One of his greatest insights concerns a proper understanding of God’s act of creating and its relationship to science. The natural sciences explain changes in the world; creation, on the other hand, is a metaphysical and theological account of the very existence of things, not of changes in things. Such a distinction remains useful for discussions in our own day about the philosophical and theological implications of evolutionary biology and cosmology. The subject of these disciplines is change, indeed change on a grand scale. But as Thomas would remind us, creation is not a change, since any change requires something that changes. Rather, creation is a metaphysical relationship of dependence. Creation out of nothing does not mean that God changes “nothing” into something. Any creature separated from God’s causality would be nothing at all. Creation is not primarily some distant event; it is the ongoing causing of the existence of whatever is.

In one of the more radical sentences written in the thirteenth century, Thomas claimed that “not only does faith hold that there is creation, but reason also demonstrates creation.” Here he is distinguishing between a philosophical and a theological analysis of creation. Arguments in reason for the world’s being created occur in the discipline of metaphysics: from the distinction between what it means for something to be (its essence) and its existence. This distinction ultimately leads to the affirmation that all existence necessarily has a cause. [read more]

The Surprising Origins of the ‘No Taxation Without Representation!’ Slogan

From FEE.org (June 24, 2023):

Ask most Americans where the slogan “No taxation without representation!” came from and the likely response will be “American colonists protesting against Britain in the 1760s.” But the spirit, if not the precise letter of the phrase, originated more than a century before. Moreover, we can thank the Brits themselves for it. It started with something called the “ship tax.”

Since the early Middle Ages, English custom allowed the monarch to impose a special levy in times of war upon citizens who lived in coastal settlements. They could meet the requirement by providing ships, shipbuilding materials, or money for the Crown to build ships (hence the name, “ship tax”). Kings and Queens levied the “tax” as a royal prerogative, meaning they skipped the annoyance of securing the consent of Parliament as required in the Magna Carta of 1215.

So long as the tax fell upon a small portion of the population and only in a “national emergency,” the monarchy got away with it for centuries.

King James I provoked a fuss in 1619 when he extended the ship tax to London but it was his successor, Charles I, who sparked a far bigger uproar over it just nine years later. Charles shut down Parliament and then, in 1628 and in peacetime no less, he imposed the ship tax on all counties in England. It was a tax on everybody, and nobody could do anything about it. In subsequent years, the King reaffirmed and increased it in the face of fierce and growing opposition.

Enter one John Hampden, a Buckinghamshire landowner first elected to Parliament in 1621. When he refused to pay the full balance of the ship tax the King said he owed, Hampden’s case proceeded to the twelve judges of the Court of Exchequer. The King, Hampden and his lawyers maintained, had no right to levy the tax in the absence of Parliamentary approval.

Though Hampden lost the case by a vote of 7 to 5, Charles was embarrassed that his victory was so narrow. When the English Civil War began in 1642, John Hampden was among the first the King unsuccessfully attempted to arrest. The issue on which he risked challenging the King, taxation without representation, proved to be a major cause of that war.

Hampden died in battle in 1643, six years before Charles himself was beheaded. Almost four centuries later, Hampden is remembered as a martyr for liberty and his name is honored eponymously by numerous towns and institutions. Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia is one of many examples.

James Otis of Massachusetts is usually credited as the first American to employ “no taxation without representation” in the run-up to the Declaration of Independence. He wrote in 1764 that “the very act of taxing, exercised over those who are not represented, appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential rights as freemen; and if continued, seems to be in effect an entire disfranchisement of every civil right.”

Liberty-loving patriots like John Hampden and James Otis went to war because their governments dared tax without the consent of elected parliamentarians. As bad as taxation without representation was in their day, I’ll bet at today’s rates with representation they might well raise a fuss again. [source]

Intelligence agencies 'most immediate threat', says analyst

From Free Pressers.com (Feb. 18, 2020):

In a May 2019 interview, Attorney General William Barr noted that U.S. intelligence agencies have come to identify “the national interest with their own political preferences.”

Feeling that “anyone who has a different opinion” is somehow “an enemy of the state,” Barr said, adding that the agencies now support their party in seizing power, “[convincing] themselves that what they’re doing is in the higher interest, the better good.”

The deepest part of the American deep state is its intelligence agencies, which are “the most immediate threat to representative government,” author and columnist Angelo Codevilla noted.

“They are also not very good at what they are supposed to be doing. Protecting the Republic from them requires refocusing them on their proper jobs,” Codevilla wrote in a Feb. 12 essay for The American Mind, a publication of the Claremont Institute.

………..

U.S. intelligence agencies, Codevilla wrote, “have succeeded in restricting information about their misdeeds by ‘classifying’ them under the Espionage Act of 1921. Thus covered, they misrepresent their opinions as knowledge and their preferences as logic. Thus acting as irresponsible arbiters of truth at the highest levels of American public life, they are the foremost jaws of the ruling class vise that is squeezing self-rule out of America.”

New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer once said in a messaged aimed at President Donald Trump: “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

Intelligence officials “have proved Schumer correct,” Codevilla wrote.

In its overview of the threats today’s intelligence agencies pose to self-government in America, the Claremont Institute found:

• CIA is obsolete. Cables show agents’ intelligence takes are inferior to diplomats’. Agent networks are unprotected by counterintelligence. FBI success at counterintelligence ended when the Bureau was politicized and bureaucratized in the 1970s. CIA bottlenecks and incompetently controls strategic intelligence, while the Army and Marines show demonstrable tactical superiority.
• As a result, CIA is ideologically partisan. Its strength is in leading or joining domestic campaigns to influence public opinion. FBI has followed suit.
• Senior intelligence officials were the key element in the war on Donald Trump’s candidacy and presidency. CIA used meetings that it manufactured as factual bases for lies about campaign advisors seeking Russian information to smear Hillary Clinton. Intelligence began formal investigation and surveillance without probable cause. Agents gained authorization to electronically surveil Trump and his campaign and defended their bureaucratic interests, sidelining Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and denying or delaying Trump appointments and security clearances.
• Partisanship produces failure. FISA has incentivized political abuse. “Profiling” has failed repeatedly in high-profile cases like the Atlanta Olympics bombing and the anthrax mail attacks. Perjury trapping has become commonplace.

Codevilla outlined the Claremont Institute’s suggested steps that presidents and Congress might take to improve matters:

• FISA must be repealed legislatively or through Constitutional challenge in court. It unconstitutionally mingles judicial and executive power in secret. It gave Intelligence a blank check. Hardly “an indispensable tool” for national security, it is now indispensable for partisanship. Broad consensus exists for a legislative “fix,” but none is possible. The secret court’s existence, the heart of the law, allows partisan bureaucrats and allied judges to do what they want in secret.
• Functions currently performed by CIA should be sheared down. Data infrastructure and consultant networks should be eliminated. Bipartisan opposition to the Intelligence threat should use fierce resistance and lobbying from Intelligence as evidence of why cuts are in the national interest.
• CIA must be disestablished. Its functions should be returned to the Departments of State, Defense, and Treasury. FBI must be restricted to law enforcement. At home, the Agencies are partisan institutions illegitimately focused on setting national policy. Abroad, Agencies untied to specific operational concerns are inherently dangerous and low-value.
• Intelligence must return to its natural place as servant, not master, of government. Congress should amend the 1947 National Security Act. The President should broaden intelligence perspectives, including briefs from State, Defense, and Treasury, and abolish CIA’s “covert action.” State should be made responsible for political influence and the armed services for military and paramilitary affairs.

The CIA’s “founding generation concerned itself with making national policy, arguably more than with anything else, and transmitted that concern to its successors. Today’s meddling in elections and trying to overturn their results is a logical consequence,” Codevilla noted.

"In short, CIA and FBI have become instruments of partisan power," Codevilla wrote. "None of this, of course, has anything to do with the natural, proper functions of Intelligence." [read more]

Interesting. Sounds good to me, but the Deep State won’t like it and will fight it.

Lithium deposit found in US McDermitt Caldera may be world’s largest

From NY Post.com (Sept. 11, 2023):

A lithium deposit discovered in a volcanic crater along the Nevada-Oregon border may hold up to 40 million metric tons of the rare metal — possibly the largest ever in the world, which could have a massive impact on the electric vehicle industry, according to a new study.

The deposit hidden within the McDermitt Caldera is estimated to hold between 20 million and 40 million metric tons, which would be nearly double the current record of about 23 million metric tons found over the summer beneath a Bolivian salt flat, researchers reported in Science Advances.

It would also greatly boost America’s overall lithium reserves, which were previously estimated at a paltry 1 million metric tons.

Belgian geologist Anouk Borst said that if the estimate proves true, the sudden overabundance of American lithium — the metal sought after by electric vehicle makers — could have global impacts.

“It could change the dynamics of lithium globally, in terms of price, security of supply and geopolitics,” Borst told Chemistry World. “The US would have its own supply of lithium and industries would be less scared about supply shortages.”

Electric vehicle makers have bemoaned estimates that “white gold” supplies will fall short by 2025, with China, the US and several South American countries vying to locate large deposits to meet the increasing demand.

Paul A. Jacobson, GM’s chief financial officer, told investors mid-June that they “already have that risk” of not getting enough lithium, explaining that GM has bought stakes in mining operations.

“We’ve got to have partnerships with people that can get us the lithium in the form that we need,” Jacobson said.

The rush to acquire the white gold has also been exacerbated by President Biden’s clean energy agenda, which calls for EVs to make up about 50% of all cars sold by 2030.

The administration has pushed for investing $7.5 billion in EV charging stations around the nation.

Thomas Benson, a geologist at Lithium Americas Corporation who co-wrote the new study, expects that mining can begin at the McDermitt Caldera by 2026.

Researchers from the Lithium Americas Corporation, GNS Science, and Oregon State University explained that the unique conditions of the McDermitt Caldera’s explosions 16 million years ago created the ideal state for lithium-rich particles to form.

Nevada itself has been a hotbed for lithium deposits, but the sites have seen opposition, with conservationists, Indigenous Americans and even NASA pushing to block mining in the area.

The McDermitt Caldera mine is located beside the Thacker Pass mine, which has seen protests from the native Paiutes tribe and court challenges over the last three years.

Meanwhile, NASA voiced its opposition in June to mining the Railroad Valley tabletop flat because its undisturbed standing is key to calibrating the measurements of hundreds of satellites orbiting the Earth. [source]

If America is going to use rare earth minerals, I think it would be better to mine them in America rather than in countries that use child labor.

Here’s Everything You Missed From Trump’s Historic Trip To The Middle East

From The Federalist.com (May 21):

The world is catching its collective breath after President Trump’s whirlwind tour of the Middle East. The sheer number of deals and substantive actions is unprecedented.

His first stop was Saudi Arabia, and the initial few deals — including a $600 billion investment package that included $142 billion in arms sales — were not major surprises. But the first curveball was soon to follow. He lifted sanctions against Syria at the request of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The Gulf Arab States were happy to see the end of the Assad regime in Syria and with it the expulsion of their biggest enemy, Iran, and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The fact that they were deposed by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist terror group, does not seem to be an obstacle in their eyes. They want to help cement that group’s somewhat tenuous hold on the country.

President Trump met with Ahmed al-Sharaa, the HTS leader, while there and lent his authority to the new leadership. Trump also gave him a list of demands for his government to show it deserves this golden opportunity, pressing Syria to join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel.

It is far from certain that HTS will lead Syria in a positive direction, even given the low bar of succeeding 50 years of tyranny by the Assads. Sharaa may have changed his name (he’s formerly known as the jihadist Abu Mohammed al-Jolani), trimmed his beard, and put on a suit, but he spent most of his adult life as a member of al-Qaida and other jihadist groups.

This is the bold nature of President Trump’s approach. He will rely on the Gulf States to keep HTS in line and in return gain their support for his other goals for the region. Two of the biggest are continuing the success of the Abraham Accords and ensuring that Iran never gets nuclear weapons. Both of those are more effective with a united front among the most influential countries in the region.

His next stop was Qatar, where the United States has its largest military presence in the region. He spoke to troops at Al Udeid Air Base about modernizing our forces and ensuring the interventionism of the past was in the past. But any action against Iran would certainly involve the U.S. forces there, and Iran was a topic of discussion as he met with Qatari leaders. He aimed to ensure they are on board with the reinvigorated maximum pressure campaign designed to influence Iran to sign a deal ending its nuclear programs.

He emphasized the strengthening relationship between the United States and Qatar and announced a number of major economic deals that amount to $1.2 trillion in new investments. Most interesting to the media and Democrats is the possibility of Qatar gifting a plane to serve as an interim Air Force One since Boeing is far behind on its planned replacement. The left has fabricated the story that this in fact an offer of a $400 million luxury jet to President Trump personally. It’s not. In actuality, if the transfer happens, the aircraft would go to the Defense Department. The corporate media don’t seem interested in the truth when they can spread this juicy mischaracterization like wildfire.

The Qataris have become increasingly influential in the Trump team’s efforts in the region. They certainly have useful contacts and the ability to deal directly with Hamas and other terrorist groups. While that can sometimes be helpful, it is also indicative of their longstanding support for extremists. Limiting this support was another topic of discussion to ensure no support goes to enemies of peace in the region.

His final stop was the United Arab Emirates, one of America’s most helpful friends in the Middle East. The UAE is a moderate, modernized oasis of business and capital that is near and dear to President Trump’s heart. He announced additional economic deals worth $200 billion, and the White House released a long list of business leaders touting the success of the more than $2 trillion in investments.

This leg of the trip also added another major surprise with word that there may be an Iran nuclear deal on the horizon. The meetings in Oman led the administration to present a plan to the Islamic Republic of Iran. President Trump said: “Iran has sort of agreed to the terms. They’re not going to make — I call it, in a friendly way — nuclear dust.”

There are many obstacles to an actual deal, including Iran’s continued demand that it be allowed to enrich uranium for the civilian nuclear program. Iran’s refusal to simply purchase readily available nuclear fuel enriched at the low level needed for civilian purposes highlights the game it is playing here. Enrichment is only necessary if Iran wants to retain a path to making a bomb. That is an intolerable end state. Enrichment needs to be a strong redline in any potential deal.

By breaking with tradition and visiting the Middle East, and these countries in particular, President Trump has shown he sees them as pivotal in changing the current dynamic. He has shown little interest in small steps and half-hearted efforts in his second term. We should all wish him good luck and Godspeed. [source]

Wow! The President sure has been busy making MAGA.

SCOOP: "Thank God!" President Trump's historic takeover of D.C.'s safety praised by residents

From Washington Reporter.news (Aug. 12):

President Donald Trump’s historic takeover of Washington, D.C.’s safety received an outpouring of support from new and longtime city residents, who told the Washington Reporter that Trump’s move is necessary for the continuing function of American government.

For far too many in America’s capital city, crime has become a haven for murderers, sexual assaulters, drug markets, and more — and despite the city having plenty of redeeming places and people, the risks are outweighing the rewards for many.

One female Hill staffer, who pays $3,000 a month for rent in Navy Yard, told the Reporter that she “saw someone get arrested the other day in my lobby at like 5:30pm. Someone also got shot in March and the blood puddle was left overnight and everyone saw it in the main lobby,” she said.

For the first time in years, Trump’s announcement has many in the city feeling hopeful; one GOP veteran told the Reporter that he felt safe walking around his neighborhood — where he and his wife were nearly shot in broad daylight — for the first time in three years. “I haven’t walked that way before tonight when I saw the police out in full force,” he said.

One D.C. denizen who has worked downtown for 30 years has seen the city’s crime ebb and flow — but he said that “it was very bad when I first got here but it's even worse now.”

“You couldn't pay me to go to Union Station any more,” he said. “Anyone who lives or works here knows the reality. Those that deny that reality are doing it only because of their irrational hatred of Trump.”

“The most dangerous place to be a woman in America is a Democrat-run city,” a female Hill staffer wrote to the Reporter. “Thank god!!!!!!” she added, describing D.C. as a scene out of Silence of the Lambs.

“I had a man video up my dress, another homeless man pulled off his pants and start masturbating at me on the metro, been literally chased down the block while a man yelled ‘suck my dick bitch’ at me and NO ONE HELPED ME. I live in Navy Yard so in every instance the police were completely incapable of helping. The one time they arrested someone — the man masturbating — they immediately let him go because there is no cash bail, and then he didn’t show up to court! I know D.C. is dangerous for everyone, but it is WOMEN who suffer the most. D.C. libs have sacrificed women on their alter to progressive crime policies.” [read more]

Batman comes to the rescue. Something had to be done. Of course, the citizens like the safety but the Ruling Class elites in DC don't care about their subjects, I mean, citizens. As for the Ruling Classes' safety, they have their armed bodyguards to protect them.

Mores article on federalizing the DC's police force:

• The capital of the free world cannot be lawless
• Why Trump is RIGHT to take back DC [video]
• Boom: Jeanine Pirro Just Dropped the Mic on Reporters During D.C. Crime Briefing
• Man Allegedly Hurls Sandwich at Fed Agent in D.C., Finds Out That Was Unwise
• Pirro, DOJ Ending D.C. Felony Rifle, Shotgun Cases
  
• DC Sub Chucker Loses His Lunch, His Cool, And His Sweet DOJ Job In Pitiful Street Tantrum
• D.C. Victim's Mother Praises Trump's Crime Crackdown
• New Lawsuit Challenges Trump's Federal Takeover of D.C. Police Department as Crackdown Intensifies
• Before Trump Federalized D.C. Police, White House Reporters Complained for Years About Crime in Capital
  
• President Trump Fights Crime, Democrats Fight Him
  
• Metropolis Sues Superman For Reducing Crime
  

How Should Christians Think About the ‘Conscience’? One Small Book Provides Some Big Help

From William Wolfe on Standing for Freedom.com (May 31, 2023):

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” At least that’s what the late senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, suggested in 1983. Almost 40 years later, it’s an admonition still worth bearing in mind, recognizing the distinction between subjective perceptions and objective reality. But, as with most bits of proverbial wisdom, the kicker comes in spotting the difference between the two, something always “easier said than done.”

Knowing the difference between opinion and fact is a critical skill for all of life, but the stakes are even higher when it comes to life together as Christians, because Christians come with a conscience. And the conscience, that God-given, wonderful, but tricky internal voice, can take our personal opinions and baptize them into God-given facts quicker than you can say “don’t drink, dance, or chew — or hang out with those who do.”

Thankfully, authors Andy Naselli and J.D. Crowley have a prescription for those who are prone to either under-value (or over-use) their Christian conscience.

In Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ, Naselli, a theology professor and pastor, and Crowley, a missionary and linguist, write that their “modest but potentially life-changing goal is to put conscience back on your daily radar, to show from Scripture what God intended and did not intend conscience to do, and to explain how your conscience works, how to care for it, and not to damage it” (p. 17).

They achieve this goal by 1) defining “conscience” biblically; 2) explaining how Christians can be free from a condemning conscience; 3) educating us on how to calibrate our consciences; and 4) teaching how Christians with different consciences can and should live together in peace, whether that’s in the same local church or in a cross-cultural missionary setting. In short, the authors want to help their readers align their God-given consciences to God’s given revelation as much as possible, recognizing there won’t be perfect overlap in this fallen world, and thus reminding us that “your conscience is not identical to the voice of God” — no matter how strongly you may be tempted to think that it is (p. 61).

One of the main points I found to be most helpful was their “Two Great Principles of Conscience” summary. After defining what a conscience is, the authors argue that “of all the principles related to conscience, two rise to the top: 1) God is the only Lord of the conscience, and 2) you should always obey your conscience” (p. 30).

This two-fold “greatest commandment of the conscience” is so practical because it places a premium on the conscience — “obey it!” — but it also puts the conscience in its proper place — “submit it to the Lord.”

Outside of the classically complicated arena of the “strong vs. weak conscience” issues within a local church, these two principles help guard against the twin ditches that exist on either side of a rightly-calibrated conscience: Either “ignoring” or “absolutizing” it. Listening to your conscience is critical — it helps you avoid sin! But “sanctifying” your conscience so much that it can’t be submitted to God is equally dangerous. As the authors write, “If your conscience is so sacrosanct that it’s off-limits even to God, that’s idolatry” (p. 31). [read more]

Excerpts from the book "Reflections on the Failure of Socialism" Part 1

Although he dismissed God as a hoax and the heavenly paradise as a decoy, Marx was not by nature skeptical or experimental. His habits of thought demanded a belief both in paradise and in a power that would surely lead us to it. He located his paradise on earth, calling it by such beatific names as the “Kingdom of Freedom,” the “Society of the Free and Equal,” the “Classless Society,” etc. Everything would be blissful and harmonious there to a degree surpassing even the dreams of the utopian socialists. Not only would all “causes for contest” disappear, all caste and class divisions, but all divisions between city and country, between brain and manual worker. Men would not even be divided into different professions as they are at this low stage of the climb toward paradise.

“Socialism will abolish both architecture and barrow-pushing as professions,” Engels assured the believers, “and the man who has given half an hour to architecture will also push the cart a little until his work as an architect is again in demand. It would be a pretty sort of socialism which perpetuated the business of barrow-pushing.”

…………

But Marx hated deity, and regarded high moral aspirations as an obstacle. The power on which he rested his faith in the coming paradise was the harsh, fierce, bloody evolution of a “material,” and yet mysteriously “upward-going,” world. And he convinced himself that, in order to get in step with such a world, we must set aside moral principles and go in for fratricidal war. Although buried under a mountain of economic rationalizations pretending to be science, that mystical and antimoral faith is the one wholly original contribution of Karl Marx to man’s heritage of ideas.

Source: Reflections on the Failure of Socialism (1955) by Max Eastman.

The Sting

From Bill O’Reilly.com (Sept. 10, 2023):

Picture this: You serve four years as president of the United States. During your term, inflation stays under two percent. Real wages and consumer spending power rises about 9 percent for American workers; unemployment is less than 4 percent after the pandemic.

Fairly good showing, correct?

In addition, migrant crossings at the southern border drop about 80 percent by the time you leave office. No wars erupt. The jihadist group ISIS is decimated by American power. Putin and Xi are relatively contained.

That seems to be a fairly good resume, but there is scant national reporting of it. Instead, salacious charges of corruption involving Russia dominated headlines for two years before and during your term. A Special Counsel is appointed to investigate. His report says there is no corruption. The national media does not celebrate.

You can despise Donald Trump all you want, but the facts are in stone. He ran this nation far better than Joe Biden. Comparing the two is similar to stacking FDR's achievements against Herbert Hoover's.

But millions of Americans do not agree with my analysis and continue to "hate" Trump. They have only one valid reason for that emotion: the colossal Trump-driven fiasco after the 2020 election.

None of that, including January 6, should have happened, and it has obliterated Donald Trump's Oval Office record as a successful manager.

Some history. The "get Trump" movement began in early 2016 when it became obvious he might secure the Republican nomination. It accelerated as Hillary Clinton's campaign failed to persuade many independent voters. Almost in lockstep, the liberal media pounded Trump on a daily basis while extolling the virtues of Hillary.

In print, the blitzkrieg was led by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, and USA Today. On television, CNN and NBC News actually competed to see who could damage Trump the most. It was a tie, but, ironically, CNN's over-the-top partisanship destroyed its credibility as a news-gathering operation. To this day, it has not recovered.

But no lessons have been learned. The aforementioned news agencies are openly currently supporting President Biden by hiding his deficiencies and alleged corruption. The leftist media is also cheerleading the legal cases against Trump without a shred of balance or skepticism.

If Hunter Biden were named Donald Trump Jr., do you think the "grifting" coverage might be a bit different?

Rhetorical question.

So that's the "sting." Honest, balanced reporting and news analysis are on the endangered species list. The scorpions who control most media companies are more driven than ever to impose progressive policies and get pliable people like Biden and Kamala elected.

The result is a lot of power and money is being used to prop up incompetence and corruption.

And that sting hurts every one of us. [source]

A sting, indeed. Then again the Leftists tend to be conmen.

Trump Signs $1.2 Trillion Economic Deal With Qatar

From Newsmax.com (May 14):

Agreements signed by President Donald Trump and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on Wednesday will "generate an economic exchange worth at least $1.2 trillion," the White House wrote in a fact sheet summarizing some of the deals' details.

"The landmark deals celebrated today will drive innovation and prosperity for generations, bolster American manufacturing and technological leadership, and put America on the path to a new Golden Age," the White House wrote in a statement.

"Since President Trump took office, his commitment to American manufacturing and innovation has attracted trillions of dollars in investments and global commercial deals. Allies like Qatar are partnering in the United States' success."

The agreements include a $96 billion deal with Qatar Airways to buy up to 210 Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 777X airplanes with GE Aerospace engines, the fact sheet said.

"This is Boeing's largest-ever widebody order and largest-ever 787 order," the White House wrote. "This historic agreement will support 154,000 U.S. jobs annually, totaling over 1 million jobs in the United States during the course of production and delivery of this deal."

The deals also include a statement of intent that could lead to $38 billion in investments at Qatar's Al Udeid Air Base and other air defense and maritime security capabilities, according to the White House.

"Today's signings mark President Trump's intent to accelerate Qatar's defense investment in the U.S.-Qatar security  partnership — enhancing regional deterrence and benefitting the U.S. industrial base," the White House wrote.

"These new agreements and instruments aim to drive the growth of the U.S.-Qatar bilateral commercial relationship, create thousands of well-paying jobs, and open new trade and investment opportunities for both countries over the coming decade and beyond." [source]

Sounds good.

More good deals:

• Trump strikes ‘biggest deal ever made’ with EU: Europeans will buy $750B in US energy, invest $600B after meeting with prez
• John Deere pledges $20 billion investment in US over next decade
• Trump’s Trade Triumph

Trump to sign prescription drug executive order that he says could lower costs up to 80%

From Just the News.com (May 11):

President Trump announced on Sunday that he will be signing an executive order on Monday that will lower prescription drug prices in the U.S. by up to 80%.

Trump said pharmaceutical companies often attribute higher drug costs in the U.S. to research and development costs when compared to other countries.

"Campaign Contributions can do wonders, but not with me, and not with the Republican Party. We are going to do the right thing, something that the Democrats have fought for many years. Therefore, I am pleased to announce that Tomorrow morning, in the White House, at 9:00 A.M., I will be signing one of the most consequential Executive Orders in our Country’s history," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, almost immediately, by 30% to 80%. They will rise throughout the World in order to equalize and, for the first time in many years, bring FAIRNESS TO AMERICA!" he added.

Trump said he will be instituting a "most favored nation’s policy whereby the United States will pay the same price" as the nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the world.

"Our Country will finally be treated fairly, and our citizens Healthcare Costs will be reduced by numbers never even thought of before. Additionally, on top of everything else, the United States will save TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS," he wrote. [source]

Sounds good. Hope the EO helps getting drug prices down.

Trump bans funding for controversial gain-of-function research

From The Blaze.com (May 5):

President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning gain-of-function research on pandemic pathogens that many believe was the true source of the coronavirus pandemic.

The research typically involves modification of existing viruses in order to make them more infectious and studying the outcomes in order to prevent and treat possible pandemics.

After the global pandemic, many theorized that the source of the virus was a laboratory leak involving gain-of-function research, possibly at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The theory was initially ridiculed as a racist conspiracy theory by many, but has since been corroborated by more evidence.

The administration said the order would "drastically reduce" lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research "like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology."

Trump's order ends federal funding for the research in countries like China, Iran, and others without sufficient oversight. It also orders U.S. agencies to identify such research that might imperil public safety and end federal funding for any programs.

"For decades, policies overseeing gain-of-function research on pathogens, toxins, and potential pathogens have lacked adequate enforcement, transparency, and top-down oversight," read a fact sheet from the administration. "Researchers have not acknowledged the legitimate potential for societal harms that this kind of research poses."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was among the most prominent critics of the lab-leak theory and defended the use of gain-of-function research.

"President Trump has long theorized that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and has consistently pushed for transparency in investigating its origins," said the statement from the administration.

The Obama, Biden, and first Trump administrations all previously implemented policies pausing or limiting gain-of-function research. [source]

Good!  Making dangerous viruses more contagious and more powerful is not only stupid but insane. ☹️ I hope and pray to God that the next president doesn't reverse this executive order.