WORLD NEWS
Russia–Ukraine War (May 18): Russia Uses New Laser Weapons in Ukraine
Russia on Wednesday said it was using a new generation of powerful laser weapons in Ukraine to burn up drones, deploying some of Moscow’s secret weapons to counter a flood of Western arms supplied to its former Soviet neighbor.
President Vladimir Putin in 2018 unveiled an array of new weapons including a new intercontinental ballistic missile, underwater nuclear drones, a supersonic weapon, and a new laser weapon.
Little is known about the specifics of the new laser weapons. Putin mentioned one called Peresvet, named after a medieval Orthodox warrior monk Alexander Peresvet who perished in mortal combat.
Yury Borisov, the deputy prime minister in charge of military development, told a conference in Moscow that Peresvet was already being widely deployed and it could blind satellites up to 1,500 km (930 miles) above Earth.
He said, though, that there were already more powerful Russian systems than Peresvet that could burn up drones and other equipment. Borisov cited a test on Tuesday which he said had burned up a drone 5 km (3 miles) away within five seconds.
“If Peresvet blinds, then the new generation of laser weapons lead to the physical destruction of the target—thermal destruction, they burn up,” Borisov told Russian state television.
Asked if such weapons were being used in Ukraine, Borisov said: “Yes. The first prototypes are already being used there.” He said the weapon was called “Zadira.”
Almost nothing is publicly known about Zadira but in 2017 Russian media said Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, helped develop it as part of a program to create weapons-based new physical principles, known by the Russian acronym ONFP.
US lawmaker threatens Turkey over NATO stance – media
Deal to purchase F-16 fighter jets could be conditional on Ankara accepting NATO enlargement, Senator Menendez reportedly said
Turkey’s request to buy 40 Lockheed Martin-made F-16 fighters and modernization kits for almost 80 warplanes it already owns could reportedly be blocked by the US unless Ankara welcomes Finland and Sweden into NATO. Such a scenario was suggested by Senator Robert Menendez, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as cited by the Washington Post on Wednesday.
“I hope the administration is noticing it as they’re considering F-16s,” the newspaper quoted the Democratic lawmaker as saying. “You should be telling [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan you’ve got to act in a different way if you want consideration for anything.”
The US senator was responding to Turkey’s obstruction of the membership requests of the two Nordic nations to NATO this week. The approval of all 30 members is required before new countries can be admitted. Ankara, however, said it won’t provide its consent because it claims Sweden and Finland harbored “terrorists.”
The objections seemingly referred to members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish militant group that waged a lengthy guerilla campaign against the Turkish government. Erdogan reportedly wants as many as 30 people to be extradited by Finland and Sweden before he would allow them to join the US-led military bloc.
Turkey made a request for American warplanes last October, but the potential deal became somewhat contentious for the US government. The NATO ally was previously kicked out of the F-35 program in retaliation for its 2017 purchase of Russian-made anti-aircraft systems, which the US claimed could be used to reveal to Moscow the secrets of the advanced US-made stealth fighter.
In April, Reuters reported that the Department of State had sent a letter to Congress arguing that the proposed deal would serve American interests but stopping short of explicitly supporting it. Last month, the Biden administration asked congressional leaders to approve the aircraft sale, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier in May, citing insiders.
The Turkish leadership indicated that it perceived its request as a form of compensation for being snubbed on the F-35s, which it found “unjust”.
Investigation Underway Following Mysterious Surge in Deaths of Newborn Babies in Scotland
Officials in Scotland are investigating a mystery surge in deaths of newborn babies, the second time the phenomenon has been reported in about six months.
The probe was started after 18 infants died in their first four weeks of life in March, which caused the mortality rate to surpass a set threshold and trigger an investigation, Public Health Scotland (PHS) confirmed to local media outlets. In September 2021, 21 babies died in their first four weeks of life, similarly triggering an investigation.
PHS appeared to rule out COVID-19 as a cause for the mysterious deaths, noting that infections in mothers or infants “[did] not appear to have played a role,” according to The Herald newspaper. In September, the agency also said that COVID-19 infections “did not appear to have played a role” in the deaths at the time.
A spokeswoman for Scotland’s Government confirmed the investigations as well in statements to The Herald.
“We are working with PHS, the Scottish National Neonatal Network, and the Maternity and Children Quality Improvement Collaborative to understand any possible contributing factors to ensure we continue to improve the care of the smallest and sickest babies in Scotland,” the spokesperson said.
There will be individual investigations into each day as part of the agency’s policies, which are intended to “improve approaches to the review of adverse events, such as these, in maternity and neonatal settings,” the statement added.
“Each of the losses reflected in the information reported is a tragedy for those involved,” the statement said “The review processes to identify and mitigate any contributing factors are being led by the responsible agencies, and are ongoing. Public Health Scotland will continue to monitor data on neonatal health outcomes to inform and support this work.”
Dr. Sarah Stock, an expert in maternal and fetal medicine at Edinburgh University who led a study regarding COVID-19 and pregnancies in her country, told the news outlet that “the numbers are really troubling,” noting that officials don’t know the cause yet.
“What we do know is that it’s not neonatal COVID … the rates of COVID-19 infection in babies are very low and deaths from COVID are thankfully very, very small, so this isn’t COVID affecting babies,” Stock commented.
But, she added, “we can’t forget that it might be other causes altogether, so it’s really important that we investigate.”
The agency did not make any references to COVID-19 vaccinations in either the March or September spate of infant deaths. Scotland has vaccinated 91.8 percent of its population over 18, according to public health data. The Epoch Times has contacted PHS for comment.
Nigerian Police Stand By as Christian Student Is Stoned to Death
A so-called blasphemy murder of a Christian student in Sokoto, Nigeria, on May 12 was attended by scores of armed, uniformed policemen who did not intervene, according to eyewitnesses who spoke to The Epoch Times.
One eyewitness, who asked for anonymity to escape government retaliation, said that at least 50 uniformed policemen, including six officers of the Department of State Security, were on the scene of the stoning of 22-year-old Deborah Emmanuel, but none acted to defend her.
Emmanuel’s father, Garba Emmanuel, was in Sokoto that day but did not see his daughter being killed by the crowd, according to Dr. Bola Adewara, a veteran journalist who interviewed the father for Elifeonline.
Another eyewitness was one of three uniformed members of the Department of State Security (DSS), which is often compared to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, who attempted to help the victim escape but were pushed back by the crowd.
“The police were nearby, but they utterly failed to rescue the girl,” the official said.
Commissioner of Police Kamaldeen Okunlola disputed the figure of 50 policemen at the scene but said there were “about 15 uniformed police there” and acknowledged that many had assault rifles, in a telephone interview with The Epoch Times. Videos of the mob scene on the campus show more than 100 young men carrying sticks and shouting.
Okunlola said the policemen did not fire their weapons.
Deborah Emmanuel, who was accused by fellow students of blasphemy in a WhatsApp message on May 11, was swarmed by 180 protestors calling for her death for the crime of blasphemy.
The account of all media follows the narrative of Sokoto police who said, according to the Washington Post, “the school authorities quickly deployed security personnel to protect Emmanuel, but they were overpowered by angry youths.”
A far different account has been given by eyewitnesses. The DSS source told The Epoch Times that the school authorities were monitoring internet chatter by students who were planning to attack Emmanuel on the evening of May 11 but failed because she was not in her student hostel.
They say that she called her father for help from her classroom on May 12 at 9:00 a.m. local time and told him people were trying to kill her. Two classmates attempted to help her escape to a waiting taxi but were pursued by a mob. She was locked by college security employees in a gatehouse for her own protection with a fellow student near the entrance of Shehu Shagari College of Education.
“Finally, the man with the key to the gatehouse arrived and let Deborah and her friend out where four or five policemen met her,” according to a relative who stood 60 feet away from the locked gate of the college.
“However, the mob took her from the policemen and dragged her to the rear of the gatehouse where they beat her with sticks and then threw stones until she stopped moving,” the relative said.
“No policemen tried to stop the crowd,” he said.
Emmanuel’s family members stood with about 1,000 other observers outside the fence of the college and watched the events.
“Some police outside the fence fired tear gas grenades to scatter the crowd,” one witness said.
Inside the fence, he saw no fewer than 7 police trucks near the gatehouse. There were about 100 police inside the campus, but 50 went to the main block, while 50 were standing near the site of the killing, he said.
Human rights advocates in the United States denounced the atrocity and the complicity of the Nigerian police.
“The police must have clear orders to intervene to stop any violence, including mob lynching such as this,” Nina Shea, a religious liberty specialist at The Hudson Institute, said in a text to The Epoch Times.
“They either lack such orders or even are instructed to stand down when violent Muslims attack defenseless Christians. This incident also underscores that Islamist extremism is rapidly spreading across northern Nigeria, despite the US State Department’s refusal to acknowledge this danger,” Shea said.
According to multiple media reports, Emmanuel had gotten into a dispute with fellow students on a WhatsApp messaging channel created by the college to share topics related to courses. When asked how she passed last semester’s examination, she replied “Jesus O.”
She also used the phrase “nonsense prophets,” and some students interpreted this to be a slight on the prophet Mohammed. Two Muslim students demanded that she apologize, but she refused and replied, “Holy Ghost fire! Nothing will happen to me.”
Shortly after 9:00 a.m. Thursday two students brought some nonstudents to the college to threaten her. She called her father for help.
“Deborah was going to graduate in November with a degree in Home Economics. She was engaged to a young man and planned to marry, then start a catering business,” according to the relative who watched helplessly as she was beaten to death at the back of the gatehouse.
Crisis-Hit Sri Lanka Defaults On Debt As It Runs Out Of Fuel
There’s no money to buy petrol, the crisis-hit Sri Lankan government said Wednesday as it urged citizens to “not to wait in line” for fuel, and following violent protests in the streets, which started in early April in the capital of Colombo and quickly spread across the country due to soaring prices amid food and other essential resource shortages like medicine.
On Tuesday the new prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, declared in a television address that Sri Lanka was down to it’s “last day of petrol” amid the most severe crisis in over seven decades. He said the country would need an immediate bail-out of at least $75 million of foreign currency just to cover the next few days of essential imports.
He additionally signaled the central bank would be forced to print money if it hoped to pay government wages. Parliament has further been informed that the government has missed its April 18 deadline to pay $78 million in global bonds payments, as well as another $105 million owed to Chinese banks, according to Bloomberg. Wednesday marked the end of a 30-day grace period.
Following the development, Reuters wrote “Sri Lanka is expected to be placed into default by rating agencies on Wednesday after the non-payment of coupons on two of its sovereign bonds.”
It’s predicted to be just the beginning of a historic default on a total $12.6 billion of overseas bonds – the first such since the small country’s independence from Britain in 1948, amid a continued spiral of runaway inflation and foreign exchange squeeze fueled by lack of dollars.
Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera told parliament Wednesday, “There aren’t enough dollars available to open letters of credit.” He explained, “We are working to find funds but petrol will not be available at least until the weekend. The very small reserve stock of petrol is being released for essential services like ambulances,” he said.
PM Wickremesinghe followed by saying that an emergency bridge loan of $160 million has been secured from the World Bank – though it wasn’t specified if the funds would be used for fuel imports.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Dr. Peter Breggin: Biden ceding U.S. sovereignty to China
WHO preparing to vote on amendments to make its chief ‘health dictator’
The famed reformer in the field of psychiatry who is spotlighting the Biden administration’s “stealth” move to give the World Health Organization’s chief unilateral power to declare health emergencies in the United States contends the U.S. effectively is ceding its sovereignty to the Communist Party government in Beijing.
In an in-depth 70-minute video interview with WND (embedded below), Dr. Peter Breggin discusses the startling implications for the future of the American experiment in the Biden administration’s International Health Regulations amendments. The proposed regulations will be subject to votes at the upcoming annual meeting of the WHO’s governing legislative body, the World Health Assembly, May 22-28 in Geneva, Switzerland.
The current WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Breggin explained, already has demonstrated what it would look like if he were given more power, having collaborated with Beijing in covering up the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic and agreeing with the regime during the early stages that the virus wasn’t dangerous.
“The U.S. is the one power that stands in the way of globalism,” Breggin said.
Many Americans, he said, hold to a Judeo-Christian tradition that believes “God doesn’t intend for us to be run by the communist Chinese or Bill Gates or any of these Western or Eastern predators.”
A graduate of Harvard and Case Western Reserve Medical School, Breggin, 86, is known as the “conscience of psychiatry” for the many reforms he has brought to the field, including stopping the use of lobotomies and electroconvulsive therapy along with harmful drug therapies. His latest book is “COVID-19 and the Global Predators: We are the Prey,” which unpacks the web of organizations and people profiting from the pandemic.
Breggin said the response from Congress to the recent revelation of the Biden administration’s WHO amendments has been slow. But he and his team are beginning to reach out directly, noting he was on the phone earlier Tuesday with congressional staff.
“It looks like this could be a firestorm,” he said.
Breggin also is in conversations with state attorneys general.
“I’m hoping attorneys general will see the threat to their own states’ rights,” he said, “because Biden isn’t going to see a threat to anybody’s rights.
He urges concerned citizens to find out more on his website and to contact their representatives, emphasizing that phone calls tend to be the most effective means of communication.
Madison Cawthorn Concedes North Carolina Race
After a close race, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R) conceded to Rep. Chuck Edwards (R) in the GOP primary race for North Carolina’s 11th congressional district.
The concession announcement happened so suddenly that Cawthorn’s spokesman Luke Ball told reporters that Cawthorn wouldn’t concede even as Cawthorn called Edwards.
“While I was out here speaking with you all, Congressman Cawthorn called Rep. Edwards to concede the race,” Ball told members of the media at Cawthorn’s election watch party.
The announcement closed an extremely close race. For most of the night, Edwards led Cawthorn by only a few percentage points.
Despite the race’s closeness, both Cawthorn and several close friends of his said they were confident of his victory. Their certainty held steady until the last moment.
Frank Burkett, a family friend of Cawthorn’s, had two cigars in his pocket that he said he would smoke after the candidate’s victory. Despite his words, he also said he was waiting in suspense.
“We all love him,” he said of Cawthorn.
Burkett was part of Cawthorn’s 2020 campaign too, and a member of an informal group of Cawthorn’s friends called “The Four Horsemen.” Each member of the group had a metal medallion, with Cawthorn’s campaign logo on one side, and four stylized men on the front.
“We protect Madison,” said Jim Andrews, a former Marine and member of the group.
But it seems the “Four Horsemen” couldn’t protect him from the impact of a series of negative news stories that have broken over the past several weeks.
Cawthorn has been accused of sexual misconduct, photographed wearing women’s lingerie, detained for attempting to bring a gun into an airport, and accused of insider trading.
Cawthorn said he blames the cascade of bad press on Republicans.
Oregonians Choose Nominees for New Congressional District
Oregon state Rep. Andrea Salinas likely has topped nine Democratic primary candidates who were vying to represent the state’s first new congressional district in 40 years.
Oregonians were choosing candidates for six congressional districts on May 17 for the first time in state history; based on recent population growth reflected in the 2020 Census, the state was awarded a new congressional district.
As of early May 18, Salinas led with 38 percent of the vote, compared to 19 percent for Carrick Flynn, the next-closest candidate, who conceded the race within hours of polls closing. If elected in November, she would become the state’s first Latina member of Congress.
One of the most expensive primaries in the nation, the contest for the new seat pitted the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ campaign arm against House Democrats’ flagship super PAC, which is closely aligned with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
The race attracted more than $6 million in spending by a new cryptocurrency-backed super PAC known as Protect Our Future to support Flynn. The House Majority PAC also pledged $3 million in support of Flynn, drawing the ire of other candidates.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) endorsed Salinas, who will likely will face Republican nominee Mike Erickson, who was edging out seven contenders with about 34 percent of the vote, with 57 percent counted.
Encompassing the capital city of Salem, portions of Portland suburbs, and all of Polk and Yamhill counties, the new district leans Democratic, so Salinas will be favored in the fall.
Meanwhile, Oregon’s 4th Congressional District is in play for the first time in 35 years.
When Rep. Peter DeFazio, a Democrat, announced his retirement last year, it set up a rare opening in Oregon’s congressional delegation. Alek Skarlatos, who ran unopposed in the Republican primary, is seeking to seize on the opportunity.
A former Oregon National Guardsman who rose to prominence after helping to stop a terrorist attack on a Paris-bound train in 2015, Skarlatos ran the closest race ever mounted against DeFazio in 2020, coming within 5 percent.
Skarlatos’s endorsements include the House’s top three Republicans: Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Minority Whip Steve Scalise, and party Conference Chair Elise Stefanik.
Former Oregon labor commissioner Val Hoyle, who collected 66 percent of her party’s votes, will represent the Democratic Party in the general election. Hoyle was endorsed by DeFazio, as well as U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, the Planned Parenthood PAC, Oregon’s AFL/CIO, as well as the carpenters, nurses, and teachers unions, among others.
She pledges to “tackle the climate crisis” by moving America to a 100 percent clean energy standard and halting all new fossil fuel leases on federal public lands, according to her campaign website.
Doctor: Children Hospitalized in Tennessee Amid Baby Formula Shortage
Two children were hospitalized at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Tennessee after their parents couldn’t find a special type of baby formula amid a nationwide shortage, according to a local doctor.
Dr. Mark Corkins, a pediatric gastroenterologist who treated the two children, confirmed to local media that the pair were hospitalized due to a lack of baby formula. Neither doctors nor families could find the special type of formula in local stores, he said.
“They can’t absorb these other formulas, and they end up getting dehydrated and falling behind,” he told Fox13.
Specifically, he treated a toddler and a preschooler as a direct result of the baby formula shortage. When the parents used a different type of formula, the children couldn’t tolerate the change, the doctor said, adding that they were treated with IV fluids and nutrients until that type of formula is available.
“This is literally not just Memphis, not just Tennessee or the south. This is literally all of North America being affected,” Corkins said. “We are trying to do some different ‘doctoring’ formulas that aren’t usually used for this kind of situation and try to see if we can find something that will work.”
Corkins said that he expects more parents and children to seek treatment if action isn’t taken soon to increase the supply of baby formula nationwide.
“I would like to see somehow that our folks work to prevent this. I don’t want this to ever happen again,” Corkins said.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reached an agreement with Abbott Laboratories, the producer of popular products such as Similac, to reopen its facility in Sturgis, Michigan, after the FDA investigated whether there was a bacterial contamination at the plant earlier this year that led to at least four sickened children.
“This is a major step toward re-opening our Sturgis facility so we can ease the nationwide formula shortage,” Abbott CEO Robert Ford said in a statement Monday. “We look forward to working with the FDA to quickly and safely re-open the facility.”
However, Abbott previously warned that it could take up to ten weeks for baby formula products that are produced in the Michigan plant to reach shelves.
The shortage, meanwhile, has placed pressure on the Biden administration to use the Defense Production Act to boost supply. House Democrats this week introduced a $28 billion bill to address the formula shortage, which could give the FDA funds to increase its staff to help inspect baby formula and prepare for potential shortages.
Montana Supreme Court Restores Voter ID Requirements Ahead of Primary
Montana’s top court on May 17 restored election laws that prohibit same-day voter registration and impose voter identification requirements beyond those previously in place.
The state Supreme Court’s 4–1 decision means House Bill 176, which forbids voters from registering on the same day as an election, and Senate Bill 169, which eliminates school identification as the sole source of identification for voters, will be in effect for the June 7 primaries.
A district court judge in the state blocked the laws in April, finding that the constitutional rights of plaintiffs, including Native American tribes, would be harmed if they were not.
But because 337,000 Montana residents voted while the laws were in effect in 2021, it’s prudent to leave the status quo in place, Montana’s top court ruled in an eight-page order (pdf). Justices said they were convinced staying the lower court’s preliminary injunction “would cause less voter confusion and disruption of election administration.”
Montana Supreme Court justices are either appointed or elected in nonpartisan elections. Justices Beth Baker and Dirk Sandefur, both elected; Jim Shea, appointed by Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, before being elected; and James Rice, appointed by Gov. Judy Martz, a Republican, before being elected, formed the majority. Chief Justice Mike McGrath, elected by voters, opposed the ruling.
Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, a Republican, had said in her appeal that her office had successfully implemented the laws after they took effect in April 2021, and keeping the injunction in place would mean election staff would need to be retrained to adhere to the previous election rules. She also argued that the lower court’s finding that the laws “implicate” the right to vote wasn’t correct.
“If the district court had applied the correct standard, it should have concluded that the statutes are not subject to strict scrutiny and easily pass constitutional review,” she said.
“Requiring government-issued ID imposes a minimal burden and advances the State’s important interests in preventing fraud, ensuring compliance with voting qualifications, and promoting public confidence that elections are secure, i.e., the same interests that have justified Montana’s voting ID laws for nearly two decades. Government-issued ID is ‘needed to board a plane, enter federal buildings, and cash a check.’ Requiring the same to vote does not represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting.”
Urging the court not to grant Jacobsen’s request, Montana Democratic Party lawyers said keeping the injunction in place would protect “against the unconstitutionally disenfranchising effects” of the laws.
They also alleged that the laws “disenfranchised numerous Montana voters in the low-turnout 2021 municipal elections” and threatened to disenfranchise more in next month’s statewide election.
Trump’s Endorsements Are Decisive Factor in Primary Races, Analysts Say
The results of Tuesday’s primary elections in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, among other races, should put to rest any lingering doubts about former president Donald Trump’s continuing sway within the Republican Party and his ability to put candidates he favors across the finish line, political analysts and strategists said.
Although opinion on the issue is not unanimous, results in this week’s races have been highly favorable to some Trump-endorsed candidates.
In North Carolina’s primary race, for the nomination to run in November for the seat of retiring Sen. Richard Burr, Trump-backed Rep. Ted Budd achieved a massive victory. By Wednesday afternoon, with more than 95 percent of precincts having reported, Budd had secured 445,343 votes, or 58.6 percent of the total cast, well more than twice the 186,760 votes, or 28.6 percent, that went to his nearest competitor, former governor Pat McCrory.
“Budd ran a fine campaign with a lot of support in addition to Trump’s endorsement. Then he started to believe he was going to win, and he started talking about policy. So that was a shift, and it seemed to me that McCrory just collapsed as a candidate,” said John Aldrich, a professor of political science at Duke University.
“It was a surprise because you would have expected McCrory to do pretty decently, though he was also a problematic candidate because he shifted around a lot” on the issues, Aldrich added.
In Aldrich’s view, the leading issues in the election were the cultural ones that tend to resonate with socially conservative Republican voters generally, such as the debate over critical race theory and which books will be assigned in schools. McCrory was not on the right side of these issues, Aldrich said. But the continuing salience of these topics as campaign issues does not pave the way for anyone in a crowded field where GOP candidates are likely to say many of the same things. Rather, Aldrich believes that the endorsement of Trump was decisive in securing the overwhelming victory for Budd.
“It’s not like Budd was the Michael Jordan of Republican politics. He had some ground to make up, and in that sense, I’m sure that Trump’s support was extremely useful,” Aldrich commented.
Aldrich acknowledged that one candidate who did have Trump’s endorsement, 26-year-old Rep. Madison Cawthorn, lost the primary race against state senator Chuck Edwards for North Carolina’s 11th congressional district. But Aldrich does not see this as in any way indicative of the limits of Trump’s influence. Rather, they point to severe, widely reported missteps and weaknesses on the part of Cawthorn, such as getting caught for the second time with a loaded gun at an airport just days before the election, and the leak of a video of Cawthorn naked and in bed.
“He got Trump’s endorsement late, and he lost. And it’s kind of a surprise because he was an incumbent. But he was outlandish, and that may simply have caught up with him. I don’t think Trump’s endorsement hurt him, although it was an endorsement including a statement that ‘This guy weirds me out,’” Aldrich said.
In Aldrich’s analysis, the defeat of Cawthorn happened in a race too atypical to draw any inferences about Trump’s influence. It does not detract from the reality that voters look to Trump to guide them when making choices among candidates whose views on issues may sometimes overlap.
“It’s clearly the case that there’s nobody else who can endorse a Republican like Trump can with the same effect. Nobody seeks out other endorsements the way they seek out Trump. He’s still a big, powerful Republican,” Aldrich said.
Former President George W. Bush made a revealing gaffe on Wednesday evening when he blamed Russian leader Vladimir Putin for a “wholly unjustified and brutal invasion” of Ukraine while praising Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Instead of saying Ukraine, though, Bush screwed up and said, “Iraq.”
Bush was speaking about the ongoing tensions between Ukraine and Russia on Wednesday at his presidential center at Southern Methodist University.
“Russian elections are rigged, political opponents are imprisoned or otherwise eliminated from participating in the electoral process. The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia,” Bush said.
“And the decision of one man who launched a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq — I mean Ukraine,” he continued. Bush, 75, paused while the crowd erupted in laughter, then blamed his age for the mistake.
“Anyway, 75,” he added.
Users across social media users erupted after Bush’s comments, roasting the former president for the mistake.
Breitbart News reached out to Karl Rove, who served as Bush’s deputy chief of staff when Bush launched his war on Iraq in 2003. “May I suggest you contact the former president’s office? They have people who respond to press inquiries,” Rove told Breitbart News.
Rove played an instrumental role in convincing then-President Bush to invade Iraq, one of the most costly wars in U.S. history that has been criticized across the board in the decades since.
Despite the more than 4,000 dead American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens who died, Rove stands by his support of the Iraq war, claiming it was “the right thing” to do.
In 2015, Rove told an Iraq War veteran:
I appreciate your service for our country. I’m sorry for what you went through but it was the right thing to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The United States government and the United States military was right to do so. We should be proud of what we were able to do in Iraq and we should be sorry that we left them alone, because when we left them, things deteriorated.
Rove has not issued any further comments on the former president’s gaffe despite efforts to get him to do so.
Bush’s office, for their part, has not immediately replied to a request for comment Breitbart News sent to his spokesman Freddy Ford.
No one has “done more to help the cartels” than President Biden with his embrace of radical open-border policies, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said on Wednesday, noting that Americans are “bracing” for the administration’s repeal of Title 42 and warning that his administration plans to bus illegal immigrants dumped in Florida to Biden’s Delaware.
Americans are “bracing” for the Biden administration to end the Trump-era Title 42 at the southern border, which allowed agents to more easily turn illegal immigrants away. Last week, a federal judge in Louisiana extended the temporary restraining order preventing the Biden administration from ending the rule.
DeSantis said “almost 2.5 million people” have illegally crossed the southern border since Biden became president, emphasizing how that impacts quality of life for the American people.
“What does that mean in terms of the quality of life for Americans? Well, we know we’ve seen record human trafficking, sex trafficking, drug trafficking such that now the number one cause of death for people 18 to 45 in the United States of America is fentanyl overdose,” he explained.
“They may be making it in China, but they are bringing it all right across the southern border because of what he’s doing now. Even as bad as those numbers are, that has all been done with this Title 42 in place,” he said, predicting an even greater wave of illegal immigrants once Title 42 is removed.
“You’re gonna see a major flood of people going across the southern border, and we’ve taken action,” he said, recalling how Florida sent assistance last year to Texas as they dealt with the migrant crisis in their own backyard.
DeSantis also criticized Biden’s embrace of Catch and Release, noting that Florida took legal action over it. The governor said he plans to sign a bill in the next few weeks that will continue to fight the Biden administration’s open-border policies.
“I’m also going to sign a bill here in the next couple of weeks that any of if there’s contractors that the federal government hires to dump illegal aliens in Florida, then those contractors forfeit the ability to do business with the state or with local communities. And we’re just not gonna do it,” he said, adding his administration will bus illegal immigrants to Delaware and elsewhere if Biden attempts to dump illegal immigrants in the Sunshine State.
I have “money from the Legislature which will be available starting in June so that if Biden is busing illegal aliens into our state, we’re taking those buses and rerouting them to Delaware and other jurisdictions,” he said. “So stay tuned on that.”
“You know, those border communities are just getting killed down in southern Texas,” DeSantis said. “Biden should be given an honorary membership in the Mexican drug cartels because nobody has done more to help the cartels than Biden with his open-border policies.”
“It’s been a disaster. I fear with Title 42, if they do repeal it, I think things are fixing to get even worse,” he added.
>> Watch: Gov. DeSantis Awards $3.2 Million to Okaloosa County
Judge Denies Former Clinton Lawyer’s Request for Mistrial
A federal judge on May 19 denied a request for a mistrial from the former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer who is on trial for allegedly lying to the FBI.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, the Obama appointee overseeing the case, agreed to strike certain portions of testimony delivered Wednesday by Marc Elias but rejected the request for a mistrial.
Attorneys for Michael Sussmann, the lawyer who allegedly lied to the FBI, said Elias—another former Clinton campaign lawyer—strayed into improper areas, prejudicing the defendant.
When Elias was asked by the defense whether Sussmann took information on Clinton rival Donald Trump to the FBI on Sept. 19, 2016, on behalf of Clinton’s campaign, Elias said “from my standpoint, I would say no,” but also told the defense to ask Sussmann.
“Portions of Mr. Elias’s answer—namely that ‘you’d have to ask Mr. Sussmann’ and ‘on behalf of’ is kind of like a subjective intent thing’—were nonresponsive and prejudicial. Although Mr. Sussmann was prejudiced even then, the defense declined to draw attention to the comment in the presence of the jury,” defense lawyers wrote in a motion filed later Wednesday.
Under cross-examination by prosecutors with Special Counsel John Durham’s team, Elias was asked about the topic three times. Two defense objections were sustained and after the third time, Cooper directed prosecutors to move on to other questions.
But the damage was already done, according to the defense.
“Mr. Elias’s nonresponsive testimony on cross examination, as well as the repeated, improper questioning by the special counsel, directly suggested to the jury that in order to answer a key question in this case—whether Mr. Sussmann went to the FBI on September 19, 2016, on behalf of a client—Mr. Sussmann would need to testify,” defense lawyers said. “But as the special counsel and Mr. Elias are well aware, a defendant in a criminal trial has a constitutional right not to testify. And commenting, either directly or indirectly, on a defendant’s decision to testify or not testify is entirely improper.”
Lawyers for Sussmann are asking for the court to strike the portions of Elias’s testimony dealing with the matter as well as the three questions prosecutors asked. They also want permission to give a transcript to the jury during closing arguments that shows the testimony “without the improper questions and answers.”
Andrew DeFilippis, part of Durham’s team, had said that the government “was very careful” to avoid questions that would elicit an improper response, adding, “It wasn’t the government that prompted that response.”
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Tester: Food Prices ‘Are Going to Go up’
During an interview with CBS on Wednesday, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) predicted that food prices will increase over the summer, but as long as there aren’t weather issues, there shouldn’t be shortages.
Tester stated, “Look, we’ve got our challenges out there with the drought west of the Mississippi last year and with the situation with Ukraine and Russia attacking that country that supplies the world, particularly the Middle East and North Africa with a lot of food. … I think that if we can get Mother Nature to smile upon us and give us a little bit of moisture, the American farmer can do some pretty darn good things as far as production in this country. But make no mistake about it, I do think that prices are going to go up. I think that’s a two-edged sword. Prices go up, everything else goes up with it, and we’re seeing that with the inputs tripling, prices have probably quadrupled since 2018, quite frankly. So, that’s good news in the grain business, if you’re in that business. But there are other sectors in agriculture that are not doing as well. Cow-calf operators are having a hard time surviving. And so, we need to be aware of this kind of stuff and we need to make sure that we’re empowering the American farmer to do what they can do to help supply the world with food that they’ve done so well for generations. And I think they’ll step up once again, if Mother Nature provides us an opportunity to get that job done.”
Bitcoin’s months-long decline has led the cryptocurrency to recently test and so far hold an important support level at $27,200, Fairlead Strategies’ Katie Stockton highlighted in a note on Monday.
The decline in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies accelerated over the past week following the implosion of Terra, an algorithmic based stablecoin that broke the buck and fell more than 90%. The failure of that stablecoin tested the confidence of crypto investors and drove a brief dip in bitcoin to as low as $25,401.
Bitcoin has since recovered and is trading above the important psychological price point of $30,000 as of Tuesday morning.
But if the crypto fails to decisively hold $27,200 as support, defined as two weekly Friday closes below that level, then the cryptocurrency could fall another 40% from current levels to $18,300, Stockton said.
“The recent breakdown below the weekly cloud [support] reflected negative intermediate-term momentum, which increases risk beyond the near term,” Stockton said. Both the intermediate-term and long-term momentum trends for bitcoin are currently categorized as “bearish” by Stockton, while its short-term momentum trend is “neutral.”
“Short-term oversold indicators support further stabilization following the successful test of support, based in part on the DeMARK Indicators,” Stockton said.
If bitcoin can stabilize and rise amid a risk-on rally, Stockton has her eye on potential resistance around the declining 50-day moving average, which currently sits around $39,000. That would represent potential gains of 30% if bitcoin tests that resistance level, which is falling lower and lower by the day given the ongoing downtrend in the cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin has dropped 57% from its record high of about $69,000 in November, erasing $700 billion in market value, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Altogether, the total crypto market value has fallen from a peak of around $3 trillion to $1.3 trillion today.
The Inevitable Coming Recession and How To Prepare for It
Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein added to recession talk after telling CBS on Sunday that an economic downturn is “a very, very high risk factor.”
It is not only Blankfein warning about a GDP contraction. Many Wall Street analysts are increasingly becoming worried that a recession could turn into the base case for forecasts over the next 12 to 24 months.
A recent Bloomberg monthly survey of economists found that the probability of a recession over the next 12 months is 30 percent, the highest in two years. This is double the odds economists had anticipated in February.
Morgan Stanley projects (pdf) a 27 percent chance of a recession in the next 12 months, up from 5 percent in March.
“It now appears that inflation is broadening out and has the potential to stay higher for longer,” wrote Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s chief investment officer Lisa Shalett, in her weekly note. “This is a scenario that places upward pressure on longer-run inflation expectations and keeps the Fed in a policy acceleration mode.”
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari told a town hall event in Michigan on Tuesday that it is unclear if the central bank will need to trigger a recession to bring inflation down.
“My colleagues and I are going to do what we need to do to bring the economy back into balance,” he said. “What a lot of economists are scratching their heads and wondering about is: If we really have to bring demand down to get inflation in check, is that going to put the economy into recession? And we don’t know.”
This comes after former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke acknowledged that the central bank moved too late to tackle inflation, telling The New York Times that the United States could slip into a period of stagflation.
Most CEOs are also bracing for a recession, according to a recent Conference Board Measure of CEO Confidence. The gauge dipped into negative territory, tumbling in the second quarter to 42, down from 57 in the first quarter.
While CEOs believe the Fed’s quantitative tightening will help combat inflation over the next few years, they are worried that the central bank’s efforts will induce a recession.
“CEO confidence weakened further in the second quarter, as executives contended with rising prices and supply chain challenges, which the war in Ukraine and renewed COVID restrictions in China exacerbated,” said Dana M. Peterson, Chief Economist of The Conference Board, in a statement. “Expectations for future conditions were also bleak, with 60 percent of executives anticipating the economy will worsen over the next six months—a marked rise from the 23 percent who held that view last quarter.”
ING is not predicting a recession this year, “but it could be a close-run thing in 2023,” says James Knightley, the bank’s chief international economist, in a note.
Reading the Market Tea Leaves
U.S. stocks have had a rough 2022, with the leading benchmark indexes losing steam after two years of meteoric growth.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has declined by about 12 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index has plummeted 25 percent, while the S&P 500 has tumbled roughly 16 percent.
The Treasury market and the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), a measurement of the greenback against a basket of currencies, have surged this year. Commodity prices have soared, while cryptocurrencies have cratered.
With several consecutive weeks of losses in the equities arena, Heeten Doshi, the founder of Doshi Capital Management, remarked in a note that it takes an average of 12 months to recover.
“While the stats are resoundingly positive moving forward (excluding 2008), the most shocking statistic is that on average, it takes 12 months to recover after so many weeks of losses,” he wrote.
Since the markets are forward-looking, investors might be pricing in lackluster corporate earnings “well in advance,” says McBride.
“A key may be the earnings guidance for 2023 that companies provide in the fourth quarter of the year,” he added.
“If inflation recedes and the Fed is seen as being able to respond to a recession with lower rates, bond prices will recoup some of the losses seen so far this year. But this is contingent on a number of factors that will unfold over the next 12 months or so–inflation, Fed policy, and the health of the economy.”
For U.S. households, the best strategies to employ, according to McBride, are paying down debt, boosting emergency savings, and taking advantage of the market downturn.
Breitbart Business Digest: Walmart and Target Ring the Death Knell of Greedflation
It’s hard to believe that it was only last week that the Democrats were expecting to change the narrative over inflation by deflecting blame for rising prices onto greedy corporate price gougers.
In a speech on Tuesday of last week, President Joe Biden complained that “corporate executives are on earnings calls with investors on Wall Street, cheering their record profits and explaining how they’re using this period of inflation to cover the rise in prices far beyond what they need to do to cover their costs.” On Thursday, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) proposed a bill to fight inflation by outlawing “price-gouging,” ever so broadly defined as “unconscionably excessive” price hikes.
The best evidence that the greedflationists could marshal to support their theory of a corporate conspiracy to raise profits was the expansion of profit margins last year. Gasping in horror at rising profits at a time of rising prices might be a time-honored tradition, but it is also a display of ignorance of basic economics. Inflation is typically the result of an imbalance between supply and demand. When demand surges faster than supply, prices rise. This raises the profits of the people selling the goods and services. John Maynard Keynes, who some on the left used to pretend to have read, called this phase of an inflationary era “profit inflation.”
The thing about profit inflation is that it very quickly leads to what Keynes called “income inflation.” Businesses attempt to sell more at the higher prices, expanding production and hiring workers. This pushes up the prices of materials, products, warehousing, shipping, and—most importantly—labor. The rise in demand for consumer goods that drives up corporate profits subsequently fuels demand for labor and other factors of production. This, in turn, annihilates the excess profits.
This swing could be seen this week in the quarterly reports of Walmart and Target. Both reported that sales were rising, but profits were falling. Costs on the back end were rising and were not expected to moderate. The corporate profit inflation was eaten by the cost inflation.
Elon Musk Calls ESG ‘A Scam’ After S&P Index Drops Tesla
The New GOP voter says environmental, social, and governance scoring has been weaponized
Elon Musk called the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scoring “a scam” in a series of Twitter posts on May 18, citing S&P Global’s inclusion of ExxonMobil Corporation in its ESG Index while his own electric car company, Tesla Motors, was removed.
“Exxon is rated top ten best in world for environment, social & governance (ESG) by S&P 500, while Tesla didn’t make the list! ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors,” Musk wrote.
In subsequent Twitter posts, Musk claimed that Tesla has done “more for the environment than any company ever” and asserted that S&P Global “has lost their integrity.”
The comments come in the midst of Musk’s fight to acquire Twitter and shortly before Musk again announced that he planned to switch his vote from Democrat to Republican.
New SEC Filing Reveals Details of Musk’s Twitter Negotiations
A new filing released by the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 17 revealed further details of Elon Musk’s $44 billion deal to take Twitter private, giving the public a more complete picture of the negotiations leading up to the acquisition.
The filing, submitted by Twitter Inc., describes a series of close negotiations between Musk and Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, in which Dorsey appeared to encourage Musk in his takeover of the company.
Notably, the filing details how Dorsey personally counseled Musk that the company would be better positioned under private ownership, ahead of Musk’s decision to buy the company outright. Musk subsequently offered Dorsey the opportunity to remain on the board despite his existing plans to depart, but Dorsey declined the offer.
Additionally, the document attests to a series of private meetings between Musk, current CEO Parag Agrawal, board chairman Bret Taylor, and directors Egon Durban and Martha Lane Fox, in which Musk openly weighed several options for his engagement with the company.
In addition to considering joining the Twitter board of directors as a minority shareholder and acquiring the company outright, Musk also expressed openness to starting his own competing platform—perhaps resolving some unanswered questions about the entrepreneur’s “Plan B” during the Twitter acquisition process, which he alluded to but refused to elaborate on during a TED event in Vancouver, British Columbia, in April.
But the deal Musk struck to acquire Twitter at a price of $54.20 per share has been called into question by the Tesla CEO’s recent tweets, in which he suggests he was misled by Twitter’s claims that only 5 percent of active users were “bots,” or fake accounts. On May 13, Musk wrote on Twitter that the deal was “temporarily on hold,” but appeared to contradict this remark several hours later, saying that he was still “committed to acquisition.”
Musk continued sniping at Twitter leadership on May 16, after CEO Parag Agrawal published a lengthy thread defending the company’s management of the bot problem. Musk replied to one of Agrawal’s tweets with an emoji depicting fecal matter, signifying his disapproval of the content of the thread.
The looming threat of renegotiation has sent Twitter’s stock price into decline since the announcement of the deal, as many investors are fearful that the $54.20 per share payoff may not come to fruition. However, despite Musk’s misgivings about Twitter bots—and the potential to use them as leverage for renegotiation—there are significant barriers to reneging at this stage in the process, including a reported $1 billion “reverse termination fee” on Musk for backing out of the process.
Twitter’s board of directors has issued a statement reiterating its commitment to the terms of the deal, stating that board members “intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement,” per the original terms.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
HEALTH
Don’t Underestimate Your Need for This Critical Nutrient
In 2018 researchers called for an immediate revision of public health recommendations on sun exposure, noting that “nonburning UV exposure is a health benefit and — in moderation — should be recommended as such”
Four years later, the public is still being misled and misinformed about the health ramifications of sun avoidance, as there are significant hazards associated with vitamin D deficiency, including a heightened risk of heart disease and several cancers, especially internal cancers but also lethal skin cancer
Sensible sun exposure is the most effective way to optimize your vitamin D level. Sun exposure also has health benefits beyond vitamin D production that help lower your risk of chronic disease and death
When you’re deficient in vitamin D, your health can deteriorate in a variety of important ways, because your cells require the active form of vitamin D to gain access to the genetic blueprints stored inside the cell
An estimated 12% of all U.S. deaths may be linked to inadequate sun exposure, and sun avoidance is as potent a risk factor for death as smoking
—> Power Mall Product of Interest: Optivida Plant Based Vitamin D
The Cognitive Costs of Virtual Communication
Communicating through screens may not yield the same results as old-fashioned, in-person communication
Pairs communicating virtually generated significantly fewer total ideas compared to in-person pairs, possibly due to a narrowed visual focus
Virtual meeting fatigue has been called a “detriment to worker well-being and productivity”
Significant predictors of virtual meeting fatigue included a sense of being physically trapped, mirror anxiety, interval between videoconferences and duration of videoconferences
For every hour that you spend communicating virtually, make sure you can offset it with meaningful in-person communication and plenty of physical activity and daily movement, preferably in an outdoor, natural setting
US Confirms Monkeypox Virus in Massachusetts After UK, Spain, Portugal Cases in Men
A single case of the rare but serious monkeypox virus has been confirmed in Massachusetts in a man. Recent cases in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Portugal have been linked to men who have sex with other men.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the U.S. case on Wednesday, after initial testing completed late Tuesday at the State Public Health Laboratory in Jamaica Plain.
The man poses no risk to the public and is in hospital in good condition, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) said in its release.
Contact tracing efforts are underway between Massachusetts DPH, the CDC, relevant local health officials, and the man’s health care providers.
The United Kingdom has confirmed nine cases of monkeypox since early May. The first of these cases had recently traveled to Nigeria. None of the other cases reported recent travel.
Five cases were also confirmed in Portugal on Wednesday in young men, with 15 cases under investigation.
Health authorities in Spain said late on Wednesday that they were also assessing 23 possible cases of monkeypox, mostly in men who have sex with men.
The Epoch Times contacted Massachusetts DPH for further relevant information regarding the U.S. case.
Monkeypox symptoms typically begin with flu-like illness and swelling of the lymph nodes. It progresses to a rash on the face and body. Most infections last two to four weeks.
The virus does not easily spread between people, according to Massachusetts DPH.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
630-foot sinkhole in China reveals massive ancient forest world
The discovery of unknown species may be hiding in this yawning chasm.
A big new sinkhole with a forest at its bottom has been discovered by a Chinese research team.
According to Xinhua News, the sinkhole is 630 feet (192 meters) deep, large enough to swallow St. Louis’ Gateway Arch whole. On Friday (May 6), a speleological and spelunking crew rappelled into the sinkhole to discover three cave entrances within it, as well as ancient trees that grew 131 feet tall and stretched their limbs toward the light that streamed in through the sinkhole entrance.
“This is excellent news,” said George Veni, the executive director of the National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI) in the United States, and an international cave expert. Veni was not involved in the cave’s exploration, but it was carried out by a sister institution of NCKRI: China Geological Survey’s Institute of Karst Geology.
“To find a sinkhole of that size with three entrances is highly unusual,” Veni said. “It’s a very significant discovery.”
The sinkhole is part of a larger karst landscape in Guizhou Province, which is home to some of the world’s oldest and largest karst features. The area is renowned for its karst caves, pits, and sinkholes.
GARDENING, FARMING & HOMESTEADING
New Food System Will Stop at Nothing to Control You
The globalist takeover is coming at us from every possible angle. Whether we’re talking about biosecurity, finance, housing, health care, energy, transportation or food, all the changes we’re now seeing have one goal, and that is to force compliance with a totalitarian slave system
The global food system, and protein sources in particular, are currently under coordinated and intentional attacks to manufacture food shortages and famine
The globalist elite intend to eliminate traditional farming and livestock and replace it with indoor-grown produce and lab-created protein alternatives that they own and control
While the presence of hundreds of food brands gives the appearance of market competition, the reality is that the food industry is monopolized by fewer than a dozen companies, and all of them, in turn, are largely owned by BlackRock and Vanguard
Eventually, your ability to buy food will be tied to your digital identity and social credit score
COVID RELATED NEWS
Rheumatologist: 40% of 3,000 Vaccinated Patients Reported Vaccine Injury, 5% Still Injured
Dr. Robert Jackson has been a physician for 35 years. In his practice, there are more than 5,000 patients, about 3,000 of whom got vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines.
What makes him unusual is that he is not afraid to speak out about what he is seeing in his patients. This is because he’s too valuable to fire.
Jackson said never in his career has he seen anything like what he’s seeing now: 40 percent of his vaccinated patients reported a vaccine injury, and 5 percent are still injured.
Nobody can argue his numbers are anecdotes because they were confirmed in the EULAR database and published in the BMJ: 37 percent had adverse events and 4.4 percent of patients had a flare-up of their disease after vaccination.
Also, he’s had 12 patients die following the jab. Normally in his patient base, he’ll see one or two deaths a year.
So if there is a question of whether all-cause mortality goes up or down after the jabs rolled out, his numbers make it crystal clear.
This is aggregated data from dozens of doctors in his practice: a .33 percent excess mortality rate among his patients after the vaccines rolled out (i.e., the vaccines likely killed 1 in 300 people in his patient base).
However, this is likely an undercount because he’s not the primary care physician.
This suggests a kill rate many times higher than the .2 percent we estimated from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.
However, these are deaths in rheumatology patients, so this may account for the higher estimate. But we are in the same ballpark as the death estimate from VAERS.
Of course, there COULD be an “unknown” thing that killed all these people. It would have to be massive and injected into all these patients to cause the symptoms observed. Wonder what else fits that description? Nobody will tell us.
Naturally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) doesn’t want you to know any of this and they would prefer it if you didn’t watch the video.
—> Watch: Rheumatologist Robert Jackson: 40% vaccine injured; 0.33% dead
SPIRITUALITY
Wanna Light a Fire Under Your Pastor?
Commentary By Coach Dave Daubenmire
This is the most critical moment in the history of the American church. We are doomed to 1000 years of darkness if the Church does not stand up. The curse of abortion is about to be expunged. Churches must arise NOW!
Here is a stern warning to pastors. Write it off if you like. The folks in the pew are greatly dissatisfied. I hear it when I speak in churches and I hear it every time I write a commentary. Churches are hemorrhaging members and sadly, the leadership wants to blame the sheep. A good coach never blames the players. The sheep are a reflection of the shepherd.
Pastors are coaches. They deal with people. Most successful coaches have a very firm set of fundamentals by which they operate. They are not running a popularity contest; they are leading a team. A good coach will tell you that the best way to get your butt beat is to compromise on what you believe.
MANY have emailed me asking, “What should we do, Coach? Our pastor won’t preach the hard truth anymore. It is all the “feel-good” stuff. Weare starving for TRUTH” [See: “Enemies Within: The Church” DVD]
I am often accused of pointing out problems but rarely offering solutions. Well, you asked for it, so I will tell you what I think.
This is risky because the “Church of the Status Quo” and her apostles are sure to attack you. They will accuse you of criticizing the local church and church bashing. But you should love them enough to tell them the Truth.
Paul said it this way, “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?”
My dad was a great guy but little things used to drive him crazy. One of the things that used to bug him the most was when he would come home from the factory in the winter and the fire in the fireplace was barely burning. He would grab the poker and turn to one of us and say,
“How many times do I have to tell you that you can’t lay a big log on top of the fire or you will smother it?A big log will only burn if there is a good base of hot coals burning underneath. You can’t start a fire with a big log.”
So here is the analogy.
The pastor is the log and those sitting in the pews are the kindling, the little wood that sets the big log on fire. For too long we have tried to convince the big log that he needed to catch on fire. Every time a spark was lit in the pew he would roll over and smother the flame. “Wild fire” is the one thing the big logs hate. The big logs want “natural-gas” fires on which they can control the flame.
“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” –Samuel Adams.
Okay, Mr. Kindling-Wood, you have a decision you are going to have to make. Are you sick and tired enough to come out of your comfort zone and begin to set little brush- fires? If you are not willing to make a stand then you have no reason to complain. It is time to stop waiting on the big log to set the rest of you on fire. As my friend Pete, once said “Our leaders will never see the light until we turn up the heat.”
Here are a few things to do to change the temperature in your church. (Warning: You will be called all kinds of names by your “brothers in Christ.”) They will say that you shouldn’t bring politics into the church… it only brings discord.
But you’re not sowing discord. You are asking questions. It is a church BODY not a monarchy. Pastors deserve your respect, not blind allegiance. So, here are some ideas.
- Stop calling your elected officials and start calling your pastor. Every time you see something that your local church should be concerned about, call your pastor and ask him a very simple question: “Pastor, what is our church going to do about it?” His response will tell you a lot about him. Do it privately at first as the Scriptures teach.
- Don’t let him “wiggle off of the hook.” Follow up in a day or two and see if he has progressed in his plan to oppose evil. Let him know that you have shared your concern with others in the congregation and that they are waiting to hear his response as well.
- Tell him you have decided to go to the school board (as an example of an issue that you might have brought to him) and ask him if he will go with you.
- Continue to email and hard copy him on information germane to the topic. Be persistent. Don’t let him say later that “he didn’t know.”
- After a hard sermon, make sure that you let him know that you appreciate what he had to say. Then ask this, “Pastor, what can I do to help you fight this in our community?” (Be careful, he may start quaking but let him know you are serious.)
Note: You are creating a sense of accountability here. Demand that he walk the walk and not just talk the talk. Let him know you are expecting his leadership, as are others.
- If he rarely preaches a hard sermon ask, “Pastor, I haven’t heard a sermon on the sins of abortion, homosexuality, and pornography recently, but do you have one planned?” Let him know it is important to you and continue to bring it up. Write notes to him. He will hate it.
- Ask him who he is voting for in the next election and why. If he is voting for a pro-abort, or homo-sympathizer point it out to him. If he says he doesn’t think he should share his personal political beliefs, please ask him why. Ask him if his personal beliefs are different from those he preaches. It is important to know what he believes.
- Get your hands on videos and books and begin to educate YOURSELF on what is going on. Be like the Bereans who checked things out for themselves. Forward good stuff to him. CC the elder board.
- Start a fellowship in your home with like-minded folks. Ask the leadership to support it. You would think they would encourage the assembling together of the saints but usually, that means only where they can have you in a controlled environment. Leading a Bible Study will stretch you and make you more equipped to share your faith with others. This is a good thing. But, be warned that the pastor may try to turn it into a controlled “small group” that is more about building horizontal relationships among each other rather than a vertical relationship with God.
- Withhold your financial support if he refuses to preach against sin.He may say something like, “We preach the LOVE of Jesus.” Tell your pastor that you are going to give your money to a ministry that is preaching “the whole-counsel of God.” Follow the Biblical edict to “sow into good soil.” Many culturally active ministries could use the help.
- If he doesn’t encourage his flock to carry Bibles to church, please ask him why. It may be that he wants to use several versions (possibly up on a screen) that can cause confusion. Ask him if he would hire a carpenter who came to work without a hammer.
- Offer to start a “community watch-dog” ministry in the church to keep an eye on issues affecting Christians. Ask for his endorsement.
- Offer to start a co-op for home educators and ask if the church would support you. If your pastor doesn’t want to “offend the government school teachers” in his flock, then that is a red flag.
- Ask him if Christians should vote for local school levies and why? Begin to share information about the dangers of public schools.
- Be prepared to leave your church. The answers that you get may not satisfy you. For the sake of your soul and the souls of your family find a church that is walking in the Truth.
It is time to turn up the heat. Those big logs will never burn until the kindling starts to glow red. Jesus warned us: “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.” Accountability is a two-way street.
Stop complaining about the lukewarm preaching. Put up or shut up. Light a fire and watch it spread. The big log will either catch your fire or roll on down the road! Snap, crackle, and pop. [See: “Enemies Within: The Church” DVD]
Our window of opportunity is now. We can never win with lukewarm leadership. Lukewarm Leaders can never stand up to evil crooked politicians. America needs the pulpits to blaze. It is our only hope.
CANCEL CULTURE
White House’s Disinformation Board ‘Paused’ as Its Leader Submits Resignation
Work on the Biden administration’s controversial Disinformation Governance Board was paused about three weeks after it was announced by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) amid concerns that the board would be weaponized by the administration against dissenting voices.
Nina Jankowicz, who was tapped by the White House to be in charge of the newly created board, told news outlets on May 18 that she’s submitted her resignation. In that statement, Jankowicz also confirmed that the board’s “work [is] paused” and “its future uncertain.”
After it was learned that the board would be led by Jankowicz—who the administration claimed was an expert in online disinformation—a number of users found posts she’d made on Twitter that claimed the Hunter Biden laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign. She also made posts touting the discredited “Steele dossier,” which was used to smear former President Donald Trump. The dossier was later discredited while the laptop and messages about Biden’s overseas business deals were authenticated.
“After six years dedicated to the study of disinformation and best practices in responding to it, I joined the Department of Homeland Security to be the executive director of the Disinformation Governance Board with the intention of supporting the department’s important work addressing disinformation that affects the homeland,” Jankowicz said in a statement to news outlets.
Later, DHS issued a statement confirming that the board “will not convene and its work will be paused,” although officials will carry out “critical work across several administrations to address disinformation that threatens the security of our country” in the meantime.
A spokesperson for DHS told The Washington Post that Jankowicz was allegedly “subjected to unjustified and vile personal attacks and physical threats,” without elaborating.
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