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The ‘Sex Change’ I Had 40 Years Ago Was A Scam, Not Medicine


BY: WALT HEYER | MARCH 23, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/23/the-sex-change-i-had-40-years-ago-was-a-scam-not-medicine/

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As I learned through my painful experience, ‘gender affirming treatment’ is medical fraud and malpractice.

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This April marks 40 years since my therapist told me a “sex change” was the only answer to my persistent mental difficulties. Unfortunately, I followed his advice, obtained cross-sex hormones, and underwent surgery. As I learned through my painful experience, “gender-affirming treatment” (GAT), also known as “gender-affirming care,” is medical fraud and malpractice.

A person’s sex cannot be changed. I know. I lived and identified as a woman for eight years. Hormones and surgery didn’t change my sex. I was a man before surgery, and I remained a man after surgery, illustrating the truth of God’s perfect design — two separate and distinct sexes, male and female, innate and unchangeable.

Every step I took to identify as a female did not make me a female but devaluated me as a man, father, and husband. Each step dehumanized my male body and identity. So-called gender-affirming treatment destroyed my life and relationships, as well as those of my family.

The same thing is happening to people today, except at younger ages. I know. I get their emails.

In the decades following my surgery, instead of the “gender” industry dying out, it has run rampant — devaluing, dehumanizing, and destroying thousands of lives. When I fell for the scam, the patients were exclusively adult men. Today, the industry targets vulnerable adolescents of both sexes influenced by the emotional and physical throes of puberty, who can’t be expected to grasp the long-term consequences, such as infertility, bone density loss, and heart problems.

Parents are told their child will die by suicide if the child is denied medicalization, but it’s a myth. The Child and Parental Rights Campaign gathered the scientific evidence: “[T]here is no long-term evidence that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or ‘transition’ surgeries prevent suicide. On the contrary, the best long-term research shows that individuals who do go through medical transition kill themselves at a rate 19 times greater than the general population.”  

A Path to Sterilization

GAT includes many destructive and devaluing procedures. With social transition, a person adopts a new name and pronouns that erase his original identity. Puberty blockers — drugs with severe, well-known side-effects that stop normal growth and maturation — are administered.

Those are followed by cross-sex hormones — powerful drugs with destructive, known medical side-effects that impose a cross-sex appearance. The final step is surgeries — invasive, destructive procedures to remove healthy breasts and wombs in girls and healthy genitalia in boys.

It’s a path to sterilization. Sperm and eggs don’t mature without going through puberty. When puberty blockers are followed by cross-sex hormones, the teen is permanently sterilized. Some refer to this as chemical castration. Furthermore, to state the obvious, surgically removing testicles or wombs ends any possibility of having biological children.

Affirming a child in the opposite sex is emotional and psychological child abuse. Experimenting on healthy children with powerful drugs and sterilizing surgery is the epitome of medical malpractice and horribly barbaric.

‘Regret Is Rare’

After living eight years identifying as a woman, I still experienced extreme emotional distress and made the decision to detransition, i.e., to go back to living and presenting as the man I am. When I told my gender therapist and sex change surgeon, they assured me I was the only one they had ever heard of who went back.

Curious how I could be the only case in which “sex change” failed to fix gender issues, I launched a website, SexChangeRegret.com, to reach out to others. It turns out my experience wasn’t rare. Over the last ten years, I have heard from hundreds, maybe thousands, of people like me who found that GAT wasn’t the answer.

Research tells a similar story. Regrettable outcomes made the headlines almost 20 years ago. In July 2004, The Guardian reported the results of a review of 100 medical studies in an article tellingly headlined “Sex Changes are Not Effective, Say Researchers.” The article summarized the findings: “There is no conclusive evidence that sex change operations improve the lives of transsexuals, with many people remaining severely distressed and even suicidal after the operation.”

A 2011 long-term follow-up study in Sweden concurs. People who underwent GAT were 19 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population.

Undeterred by the lack of evidence of benefits, enthusiastic “gender experts” in Europe and the United States expanded the dangerous practice to children and adolescents. Pediatric gender clinics sprang up, ignoring evidence that showed most children, if not affirmed as the opposite sex, reconciled their sex with biological reality by the time they reached adulthood. Instead, clinics promoted and offered only GAT.

Finally, in 2022, pediatric gender clinics in Sweden, Finland, and the UK objectively reviewed the evidence. They found the risks outweighed the potential benefits and officially ended the practice of GAT for minors, replacing it with good psychosocial care. Recently, Norway did the same.

Why the U.S. Continues as Others Stop

But in the United States, it’s a different story. The legacy medical establishment pushes radical, risky medicalization, sterilization, and removal of healthy body parts as the only effective treatment for youth — no counseling, no diagnosis and treatment of co-existing disorders, little discussion of the risks and harms, no waiting, no alternatives.

Hospitals apparently salivate over the money to be made by gender clinics, as seen in the video from Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Pediatric Transgender Clinic in Nashville, Tennessee, in which a doctor describes the surgeries as a “huge money maker” for the hospital.

Recently, a selfless whistleblower from Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital blew the cover off the lack of established protocols and frequency of harm, saying, “what is happening to them [children] is morally and medically appalling.”

Children and their parents need protection from this medical quackery, and they need it now. That’s why lawmakers in several states are pursuing legislation to protect children from harmful medicalization. Arkansas, Arizona, Alabama, Florida, and Texas enacted protections, and several other states are in process: Missouri, Utah, Montana, South Carolina, South Dakota, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.

The state of Florida commissioned a comprehensive evaluation of the benefits and harms of GAT for minors in 2022. The scientifically stringent review exposed a lack of quality evidence showing any benefit, and ample proof of harm. The analysis prompted the Florida medical boards to act and limit the widespread use of hormonal and surgical interventions for youth.

Encouraging Me to Cross-Dress Was Child Abuse

As a child, I was encouraged and affirmed by my grandmother to cross-dress in women’s clothing. She made me a purple chiffon evening dress when I was four years old. It was our secret, she said. Her repeated affirming and loving response to me in the dress proved devastating. It implanted the damaging idea that something must be wrong with me as a boy.

Think of the parallels to today. The public-school environment fosters the same perverse practice on children by teaching students (beginning in kindergarten) a disturbing curriculum that confuses children about their innate identity. Public schools have become indoctrination centers for “gender change” and de facto satellite gender clinics that practice medicine without training, a license, or, in many cases, parental permission.

“The public-school environment fosters the same perverse practice on children by teaching students (beginning in kindergarten) a disturbing curriculum that confuses children about their innate identity. Public schools have become indoctrination centers for “gender change” and de facto satellite gender clinics that practice medicine without training, a license, or, in many cases, parental permission.”

Teachers groom children as early as kindergarten or first grade to think that “there are many genders” and they can choose one. When children seem upset or perplexed about whether they are a girl or a boy, school counselors and teachers stand ready to inappropriately diagnose them as trans and encourage them to take the next step: “Choose a new name and wardrobe for use at school. We’ll keep it a secret from your parents.” Unbeknownst to parents, many school districts prohibit staff from informing parents.

Protect your children from being corrupted and “transitioned.” Take them out of the public school system.

Trans Kids and Parents

As I discovered in my own life, and in the lives of parents and the detransitioners I have had the pleasure to work with, gender distress is a symptom, not a diagnosis. There are many factors driving youth to identify as trans, such as indoctrination and enabling in public schools, local peer group influence and social contagion, and autism or mental disorders.

Other factors are social media apps such as TikTok, sexually charged transgender gaming, and anime. Lastly, there are adverse childhood experiences, such as sexual abuse, emotional abuse, divorce of parents, exposure to pornography, bullying, and other perceived trauma.

Kids don’t need a “gender” therapist or hormones or to cut off healthy body parts. They need parents to shelter them from school indoctrination and peer group and social media influences. They may need a trauma therapist who can help them unearth and address underlying adverse childhood experiences or mental disorders.

My Adverse Childhood Experiences

I can only speculate as to why I wanted to cross-dress and pretend I was a girl. Certainly, my grandma’s obvious delight in me as a girl in the purple dress, not as the scruffy boy in blue jeans, damaged my male identity. Another leading contender was my relationship with my mother.

I never felt my mom, a young 20-year-old at my birth, ever wanted me, loved me, or accepted me. The feeling was confirmed years later, after I detransitioned, when she shared an alarming story with a friend of mine.

Without any shame or remorse, she revealed how she would grab my wrists and yank me up off the floor with one arm and hit my dangling body with a frying pan with the other. I have no memory of this. I must have been very young to be suspended with one hand.

I never hated my mom. I was always trying to win her approval and get her to love me. The sad truth is, at no time in my mom’s lifetime did she ever talk about how much she loved me. Shortly before she died, she revealed to me and my wife that when I was a toddler, she almost killed me by shaking me very hard.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to guess that a four-year-old boy would prefer being loved and appreciated at grandma’s wearing the purple dress than being yanked up by one arm and hit with a frying pan by an angry mom. My grandma’s affirming me as a girl started my overwhelming desire to change into a female, a longing reinforced by subsequent physical and sexual mistreatment.

The psychological and emotional abuse perpetrated on me as a child was so devaluing and so dehumanizing, I was convinced as an adult by doctors that the only way to heal was to load up on female hormones and let surgeons slice up my body and declare I was now a female. That was 40 years ago. Today, “gender-affirming care” for children is lucrative medical abuse that devalues, destroys, and dehumanizes boys and girls.

Sweden and other countries examined the evidence and ended it. Florida reviewed the high-quality evidence and as a result, Florida medical associations stopped it. The U.K. court reviewed evidence provided by the Tavistock clinic and called it experimental and not suitable for children.

Children need love, real care, and good psychosocial counseling, not a change of identity.

Walt Heyer is an accomplished author and public speaker with a passion for mentoring individuals whose lives have been torn apart by unnecessary gender-change surgery.

Regular viewers know that I am sicken by what is happening to America’s children. I have been asking for a long time, “Why is the political Left so hyper about transgenderism, and mutilating children?” I think I might have some (certainly not all) answers.

Could it be motivated by the “Over-Population” cabal?

The Democrat Party, and the rest of the whacky Left, have always embraced Margaret Sanger and her beliefs that the world is overpopulated. She fought for euthanizing certain people groups, especially black people. She wrote how she was a student of how Hitler killed the Jews.

The Left certainly knows that children that have these cross-sex hormones, surgeries, et., al., CANNOT REPRODUCE. (They also know the alarming amount of people, especially young people, are dying from Fentanyl poisoning, yet won’t close the southern border).

History is full of their manipulative means to control Americans. Could this be one more manipulation?

I want to hear from you. Please respond.

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The Whole Transgender Industry Is Founded On Two Faulty Studies


BY: ASHLEY BATEMAN | FEBRUARY 01, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/01/the-whole-transgender-industry-is-founded-on-two-faulty-studies/

transgender protesters marching
Two studies that formed the foundation of the transgender industry in the U.S. should never have been accepted by the professional community.

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Two Dutch studies touting the great success of “gender-affirming” medical intervention on youth have been deemed bad research by experts at the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. In the report “The Myth of ‘Reliable Research’ in Pediatric Gender Medicine” published earlier this month, researchers describe how the 2011 and 2014 studies that formed the foundation of the transgender industry in the U.S. should never have been accepted by the professional community, falling “unacceptably” short of modern research standards. The studies led to a global movement of wrongly named “gender-affirming care,” resulting in hormone experimentation on youth and, in some cases, irreversible mutilation.

The Dutch studies had several major flaws, according to the report. Study authors only recorded the cases with the best outcomes, concluded without evidence that gender dysphoria disappeared solely as a result of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and failed to properly examine the risks of the interventions, with disastrous effects.

The American College of Pediatricians responded to the report in a press release on Jan. 25 calling on organizations to “reconsider current protocols for gender dysphoric children.”

“The entire pediatric transgender industry is based on these two Dutch studies,” Michelle Cretella, immediate past executive director of ACPeds and advisory board spokeswoman for Advocates Protecting Children, told me. “This open access report is critical because it exposes the fraudulent foundation of pediatric transgender medicine in the United States.”

The Dutch studies were so foundational to the U.S. movement that the first pediatric gender clinic in the United States was opened by Dr. Norman Spack, a pediatric endocrinologist who was convinced of the necessity of “gender-affirming” interventions after visiting the Dutch physicians who published them, Cretella said.

But if these studies had been published today, the authors conclude, the research would have been recognized as very low quality and would not have encouraged the use of puberty blockers, wrong-sex hormones, and surgery in confused children and young adults in general medical settings.

‘No Evidence’ of Genetic Cause

The report criticizing these studies was published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, and authors E. Abbruzzese, Stephen B. Levine, and Julia W. Mason have years of experience studying so-called gender identity. Levine has worked in the field as a psychiatrist since 1974.

In March 2022, Levine and his co-authors began to articulate concerns regarding the Dutch studies. The scientists published “Reconsidering Informed Consent for Trans-Identified Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults” to characterize the studies’ limitations. The report published in January is a follow-up to that initial report.

“We had no bias, we are just responding to and trying to articulate the limitations of the studies,” Levine told me. “We are doing harm to an unknown percentage of kids, and the data that is supportive of this work does not really address the issue. The real issue here is what happens to these children when they get into their 20s and 30s.”

Youth who have been hormonally and surgically “transitioned” have major obstacles to their happiness and productivity later in life, Levine said.

“After people have sex reassignment surgeries … they want more surgeries,” according to Levine. “It’s very clear they have continued gender dysphoria. The idea that they are being ‘cured’ by affirmative care is an artifact, it’s a myth.”

Hormone and surgical treatment, and subsequent medical intervention, leads many people to assume this must be a “medical problem” but “we don’t have any evidence that this is genetically determined,” Levine said.

“Just because we have hormone treatment doesn’t mean there is a hormonal defect in the person,” he said. “People believe, erroneously, that there is some genetic, pre-determined factor here, but we have not been able to find a genetic cause.”

Cultural, interpersonal, psychological, and developmental factors all contribute to the development of a person’s behavior, Levine said. Gender dysphoria can be a resulting psycho-social problem.

Biased, Uncontrolled Studies

Though the Dutch studies were found to have selection bias and multiple, uncontrolled variables, they were broadly applied in the U.S.

“The Dutch study researchers only took healthy kids from supportive and reasonably healthy families,” Levine said. “They carefully screened kids, so if they had major developmental problems they were not included in the studies. But in the U.S. … the vast majority of these kids have a history of psychiatric issues before they developed gender dysphoria. The Dutch rejected these kids from their research.”

The Dutch study had 196 participants initially and only put 70 in the protocol. Only 55 then completed the protocol. As well as having selection bias, the study was uncontrolled.

“Wisely, the Dutch people gave these kids and their families continued psychotherapy during this protocol,” Levine said. “Is the positive results they found due to the psychotherapy, improvement as they got older, or affirmative care? This is an uncontrolled study. They cannot make conclusions about what caused what. But the world took this as scientific evidence.”

In the U.S., youth who had rapid-onset gender dysphoria and didn’t even meet the baseline criteria for the Dutch study began receiving interventions in pediatric clinics, with doctors utilizing the studies as justification. Furthermore, when the Dutch began this project there was also much less awareness of autism, Levine said. A very large percentage of these kids that have come to American facilities are on the autism spectrum, according to Levine.

Courageous Pediatricians Have Resisted

ACPeds physicians have spoken out against sexual disfigurement and medical intervention in youth with gender dysphoria for years.

“There are a handful of us physicians within ACPeds and across the country who have the courage and expertise to speak out on this issue,” Cretella said. “When we are able to do so in an environment open to dialogue, we are met with significant appreciation and affirmation by fellow physicians and laypersons alike.”

Most colleagues, Cretella said, appreciated ACPeds’ stance, acknowledging that the studies affirming medical intervention in gender dysphoric youth were likely flawed or fake; but too many feared losing their jobs to speak out against transgender interventions.

“Trans interventions are big money,” Cretella said. “Billionaire elites promote trans ideology over truth across all public institutions and media platforms, and [in America] a severe cancel culture results in everything from severe harassment and doxing to ending one’s career.”

Fortunately, signs of sound medical ethics triumphing over junk science are breaking through, Cretella said.

In the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Finland, cultures that embraced transgender interventions for youth early on have reversed course. France has urged greater caution in these cases.

In the United States, Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., has rooted his administration in medical ethics and utilized the best science to establish pro-child treatment of gender confusion with psychotherapy, Cretella said.

Currently, about 13 other states are attempting similar legislative efforts.

Ashley Bateman is a policy writer for The Heartland Institute and blogger for Ascension Press. Her work has been featured in The Washington Times, The Daily Caller, The New York Post, The American Thinker and numerous other publications. She previously worked as an adjunct scholar for The Lexington Institute and as editor, writer and photographer for The Warner Weekly, a publication for the American military community in Bamberg, Germany. Ashley is a board member at a Catholic homeschool cooperative in Virginia. She homeschools her four incredible children along with her brilliant engineer/scientist husband.e who lives in Virginia.

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Mister Rogers Tried to Warn Us About the Dangers of Transgenderism


BY: SPENCER DALKE | FEBRUARY 01, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/01/mister-rogers-tried-to-warn-us-about-the-dangers-of-transgenderism/

Mister Rogers Neighborhood clip

“Boys are boys from the beginning. Girls are girls right from the start.” No, those aren’t the words from a tweet banned for “hate speech” — though they could be. They’re prophetic lines from none other than Mister Rogers, who put the immutable truths to a tune decades before the trans craze.

Resurfaced in a recent TikTok, the clip shows Fred Rogers, host of the classic children’s show “Mister Rogers Neighborhood,” singing his ditty “Everybody’s Fancy,” which goes:

Boys are boys from the beginning
Girls are girls right from the start
Everybody’s fancy
Everybody’s fine
Your body’s fancy and so is mine

Girls grow up to be the mommies
Boys grow up to be the daddies
Everybody’s fancy
Everybody’s fine
Your body’s fancy and so is mine

In his first appearance on “The Tonight Show” starring Johnny Carson in 1980, Rogers delved into the song’s importance. When Carson asked Rogers a series of lighthearted questions about his show and asked how Rogers communicates important themes to his audience of children, it didn’t take long for the host to pivot to the topic of sex. “Are they too young for that?” Carson asked.

That’s how they learn the difference between boys and girls, Rogers replied. “Sometimes children think that they might change, they might have to change after a while,” he continued, to which the audience laughed.

But Rogers wasn’t laughing. “You know, we laugh about that now,” he said, “but it’s because we had that concern when we were little.”

Some have argued that Rogers was simply the product of his generation or speculated that he was a homosexual to explain his gentle demeanor. In a 1969 Senate Commerce Committee hearing, however, Rogers made his case clear: “I’m very much concerned about what’s being delivered to our children in this country.”

And he was right to be. Gone are the days of Andy Griffith and “Hogan’s Heroes.” Now taxpayer-funded libraries stock their children’s shelves with books teaching kids about masturbation and affirming gender dysphoria. Drag queen story hour chapters bent on exposing children to sexual atypicality have sprouted up from coast to coast. Now even young children, like this 8-year-old boy, are encouraged to parade around in drag.

And of course, some of Disney’s most recent productions have forged ahead with an increasingly explicit LGBT agenda for children. The latest “Toy Story” installment, “Lightyear,” boasted a lesbian kiss. “Baymax!” taught kids that men can have periods.

“Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” was not a political program, but it tackled issues, both big and small, that troubled children. This included not only instilling truths about the immutability of the sexes, but reassuring kids that they wouldn’t get sucked down the bathtub drain or lose an ear during a haircut.

“Children are concerned when they get their first haircut that the barber’s going to cut more than hair,” Rogers said on “The Tonight Show.” So to assuage kids’ fears, he visited a barber to ask whether the trimmer cuts more than hair.

It isn’t that Rogers hated children who wanted to be unique—far from it. As he stated in the Senate hearing, he merely wanted to address the “inner drama of childhood.” Long before libraries began hosting drag queen story hour, Rogers tried to warn us about the dangers of gender-bending. But in true Mister Rogers’ fashion, he did so while celebrating each person for being “fancy” and unique, no transgender interventions required.

In his words, “I like you just the way you are.”

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‘Amazing Grace’ and the abolition of slavery


By Jerry Newcombe, CP Op-Ed Contributor| Thursday, January 19, 2023

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/voices/amazing-grace-and-the-abolition-of-slavery.html

Ioan Gruffudd plays William Wilberforce, the 18th-century English abolitionist. | (Photo: Samuel Goldwyn Films)

This month, January 2023, marks the 250th anniversary of the classic hymn, “Amazing Grace.”

The Museum of the Bible writes: “It was January 1, 1773. John Newton led his congregation down the road from the parish church in Olney, England, to Lord Dartmouth’s Great Hall to sing … and the hymn he wrote for this day was special. It spoke of his conversion, of his self-proclaimed wretchedness, and of the saving power of God’s grace. Since then, the words of ‘Amazing Grace’ have struck a chord with millions across cultures and generations, and its popularity has never wavered.”

The museum based in D.C. now has a section dedicated to the anniversary of this amazing hymn.

In the hymn, John Newton, a former slave-trader now converted, indeed describes himself as a “wretch,” who was amazed that God would extend His grace to one such as he.

He became a minister after his conversion, and one day, a politician came to visit him for personal guidance. That man was William Wilberforce, who had recently been converted to faith in Jesus.

Everybody should know who William Wilberforce was — one of the greatest Christian statesman of all time.

He was a longtime Member of Parliament, who worked tirelessly (with a group of like-minded associates that became known as “The Clapham Sect”) to end the slave trade of the British Empire and then to free all the slaves therein. By the time of his death in 1833, Wilberforce was successful. But it took him about half a century.

Author Dr. Os Guinness once said, “When Wilberforce died, he was described as ‘the George Washington of humanity.’”

William Wilberforce was born in 1759 and inherited considerable wealth which placed him among the landed nobility of England. He was indeed a polished gentleman, and he first ran for Parliament and won at the age of 21.

But not until his conversion a few years later did he begin to take life seriously.

After committing his life to Christ, he briefly dallied with the idea of leaving politics to serve God. But John Newton counseled Wilberforce to stay and let God use him in politics. Newton declared, “The Lord has raised you up to the good of His Church and for the good of the nation.”

I shudder to think about someone like Wilberforce seeking guidance today among some modern ministers, who might easily convince him that Christians and politics shouldn’t mix. But John Calvin Coolidge, an often-overlooked president, once said, “If good men don’t hold office, bad men will.”

Soon after meeting with Rev. Newton, God put it on Wilberforce’s heart to fight against slavery. Working to uproot it was a daunting task because the slave trade brought enormous wealth to those involved.

After much prayer, Wilberforce felt that this indeed was the very voice of God speaking to him, calling him to this important mission. He was also concerned by the godless immorality of the age. In 1787, he wrote in his diary: “Almighty God has set before me two great objectives, the abolition of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.” (“Manners” would be comparable to “morals” in modern parlance.)

In an interview I once did with the late Chuck Colson, prison reformer and Wilberforce admirer, he told me: “[Wilberforce] stood up on the floor of the Parliament influenced by his new Christian conviction, took a stand that was enormously unpopular because all of the vested interest opposed him, including the government, and for 20 years he waged that battle.”

Kevin Belmonte, author of William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity, observes, “Wilberforce had to travel with an armed bodyguard.” But Wilberforce persevered — despite whatever personal cost he must pay.

Colson said, “One day in 1807 in a February snowstorm, the votes were cast to abolish the slave trade. While members of Parliament were jumping up and down for joy, they looked over and there was Wilberforce, head bowed at his desk, praying, thanking God for what He had done.”

But Wilberforce wasn’t finished. He then set out to emancipate the slaves, who, even after this vote, were still in chains throughout the British Empire. This was a battle to last for another 25 years.

Because of health problems, he had to resign in Parliament in 1825, but the movement he began to free all of the slaves in the British Empire continued without his direct involvement — and when he was already on his death bed, in 1833, he received word that the Parliament decided to free all of the 800,000 slaves throughout the British Empire.

Wilberforce is a great example of what Jesus can do through those fully committed to Him in whatever position in which He has placed them — when God’s “amazing grace” gets ahold of a life wholly committed to Him.

Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is the executive director of the Providence Forum, an outreach of D. James Kennedy Ministries, where Jerry also serves as senior producer and an on-air host. He has written/co-written 33 books, including George Washington’s Sacred Fire (with Providence Forum founder Peter Lillback, Ph.D.) and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (with D. James Kennedy, Ph.D.). http://www.djkm.org?    @newcombejerry      www.jerrynewcombe.com

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Pastor calls for end to gun violence after second son is shot dead


By Leonardo Blair, Senior Features Reporter | August 17, 2022

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/pastor-calls-for-end-to-gun-violence-after-second-son-is-killed.html/

Pastor Christiana Ford (L) mourns her late son, Lamar Ford, 39 (R). | Screenshot/4WWL

Christiana Ford, a New Orleans pastor and founder of the Silence The Violence Foundation, is calling for an end to gun violence in her community just days after losing a second son to gun violence just outside her home and steps away from her church. Ford lost her 39-year-old son Lamar Ford in a shooting earlier this month.  Lamar Ford was fatally shot in the head on Aug. 5, 4WWL reported. Police say the shooting happened about 11:30 a.m. on the 1300 block of Elysian Fields Avenue. The location of the deadly shooting was near the House of Faith Non-Denominational Ministries, a congregation led by his mother.

Lamar Ford had served time in prison for manslaughter, according to nola.com, but was released two years ago. According to his mother, he was turning his life around and helping with outreach programs at her church. 

In addition to his mother, Lamar Ford left behind a 9-year-old son and other siblings.

“This man got out of the car and stood over him and shot him two times in the head,” Christiana Ford told 4WWL. “It’s not right; it’s not right. It’s nothing like losing a child.”

The grieving pastor, who previously lost another son to gun violence in Texas, spoke out against gun violence in New Orleans amid a sharp increase in homicides in the city. Data from the Metropolitan Crime Commission found that since New Year’s Day, 180 murders have been reported, a 42% increase compared to the same period last year.

“To see our kids getting killed daily on the streets. It’s multiplying. It’s crippling. It’s out of control. We need help here in New Orleans,” Ford said.

“Every day, all day, somebody is being killed. That tells me it’s easy to kill and it’s easy to get away with it. … It’s my child now. Whose child is it going to be next?”   

“We must come together and let these criminals know they’re not taking over the streets.”

At his trial in 2017, prosecutors said Lamar Ford shot a man named Tyrone Daniels in a vacant alleyway in a dispute over a $40 drug debt on April 22, 2013, according to nola.com. Prosecutors alleged that Lamar Ford lured Daniels into the alleyway by claiming his bike was there and then shot him. They cited circumstantial evidence against him. 

Lamar Ford’s brother Lynn Ford, who had given Daniels a haircut shortly before he was shot, reportedly told investigators that he thought Lamar Ford had murdered Daniels but recanted his testimony upon taking the stand. 

In May 2017, Lamar Ford pleaded guilty to manslaughter two days after his trial started, with Daniels’ mother accepting the deal made with prosecutors but insisting he was a murderer.

“I know you killed my son, but I’m going to take it,” Shirley Daniels said, as reported by nola.com at the time. “I can’t do it no more.”

Contact: leonardo.blair@christianpost.com Follow Leonardo Blair on Twitter: @leoblair Follow Leonardo Blair on Facebook: LeoBlairChristianPost

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Trans cheerleader kicked off team, charged after alleged assault on female teammate


By Ian M. Giatti, Christian Post Reporter | August 4, 2022

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/trans-cheerleader-kicked-off-team-after-alleged-assault.html/

Unsplash/Rajiv Perera

A 25-year-old biological male who identifies as a woman was forced to leave a Texas cheerleading camp after allegedly choking a female teammate.

The trans-identified cheerleader, Averie Chanel Medlock, was kicked out of the camp held at Ranger College last month in Eastland County, Texas. Police responded to the campus on July 21 following reports of a dispute among members of the cheer team, according to Fox News.

A since-deleted Facebook post alleged that a teammate said Medlock was a “man with a penis” and that a man should not be on the cheerleading team. 

“Well guys I’m officially retired as a cheerleader as of last night at 5:30 AM. A girl on the team was being very disrespectful and told me I am a MAN with a PENIS and that [guys] should not be on the team,” Medlock wrote. 

“I stood up for myself and she called her mom and dad because she was scared because I [stood] up for myself. Her father said ‘she still has testosterone and a penis and I will kill anyone who comes after my daughter.'”

The father later identified himself as Mike Jones, and posted a comment on Facebook addressed to Medlock, claiming that at “no time did I ever say anything about your race or your gender.”

“I ask you what you would have done when receiving a phone call at 1 o’clock in the morning from your daughter stating they had locked themselves in the room with other girls,” Jones wrote.

In response, Medlock posted a video to Facebook with a caption reading, “This is video evidence that I did not assault her” and urged Jones to “get [his] facts straight.”

Medlock, who was kicked out of the camp and cited by police for misdemeanor assault, later denied the allegations of misconduct. Medlock told The New York Post that there “was no physical contact at all” and was “just trying to talk it out as an adult.” Medlock claims to have not been questioned by the college before being removed from the cheer team. 

Eastland County District Attorney Brad Stephenson told The New York Post that there was an assault and that cops handled the incident appropriately. 

“There definitely was an assault and it could’ve ostensibly been charged as a class A misdemeanor, but I think they appropriately charged it as a class C misdemeanor,” Stephenson was quoted as saying. 

The incident comes amid growing debate over whether trans-identified athletes who are biologically male should be allowed to participate in women’s sports. The debate has gained national traction after swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological male formerly known as William, won the NCAA women’s championship in March in the women’s 500-yard freestyle. Thomas edged out the second-place finisher by nearly two seconds.

At least 18 states have passed legislation to prohibit or strictly limit transgender participation to the athlete’s birth sex, including Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia. 

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Knife-wielding robber attacks Texas store clerk. But clerk has a gun, and she fights back — shooting her attacker multiple times.


By DAVE URBANSKI | July 29, 2022

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/texas-store-clerk-shoots-robber/

A Texas store clerk fought back against a robber who attacked her with a knife last week, shooting the suspect multiple times and landing him in the hospital. Beaumont Police got a call about a robbery in progress at the Everest Food Mart in the 2800 block of Eastex Freeway around 11:30 p.m. last Friday, KBMT-TV reported. While police were on their way to the scene, the station said they were told the store clerk shot the robber multiple times. Police arrived at the store within minutes of receiving the initial call, KBMT said.

Image source: KBMT-TV videos screenshot

Officer Haley Morrow told the station’s news crew at the scene that a store clerk called and said a man entered the store with a knife and robbed her, KBMT reported, adding that the clerk suffered minor injuries. A preliminary investigation determined the robber displayed a knife and attacked the clerk prior to her shooting him, the Port Arthur News reported.

Officer Morrow emphasized to the station that crime victims have the right to defend themselves.

“Essentially, you know, we see the aggravated robberies often; in a lot of cases what we don’t see is … a victim fight back and defend themselves,” she noted to the KBMT. “But, you know, we want to make sure that people understand that they do have that right.”

Officer Haley MorrowImage source: KBMT-TV video screenshot

The suspect was identified as 62-year-old William Coleman of Beaumont, KBMT said, adding that he was taken to an area hospital for treatment for serious injuries. Coleman later was charged with aggravated robbery, the station said.

Once Coleman is released from the hospital, he will be taken to the Jefferson County Jail and held on a $250,000 bond, KBMT reported.

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Navy veteran grabs his rifle after spotting prowlers outside his home — then a furious shootout erupts: ‘I knew I had to act’


By DAVE URBANSKI | July 22, 2022

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/navy-veteran-shootout-with-prowler/

Navy veteran Whitfield Smith grabbed his rifle after spotting prowlers outside his Georgia home in the middle of the night last week — and a furious shootout erupted after he headed to his driveway to get a closer look.

Much of the scary encounter was captured on surveillance video.

WAGA-TV characterized Smith’s neighborhood near Jonesboro — about 30 minutes south of Atlanta — as “quiet.”

It was anything but in the early morning hours of July 11 after Smith saw potential trouble outside his home, the station said.

“As I keep looking at the Ring camera I noticed a young man running from the neighbor’s yard across my yard and into the street to meet up with two other gentlemen,” he told the station.

Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot

Then things got scarier for Smith, as one of the individuals headed down his driveway.

“I can see from the camera he’s hunched down wearing a gray hoodie, and he has a firearm in his hand. He tries to get into the BMW in the driveway. The door’s locked,” Smith recounted to WAGA.

Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot

“My first thought was to protect my house and protect my property,” Smith told WAGA. “I just wanted to get the intruders away.”

Whitfield Smith / Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot

“I grab my rifle, and I head outside,” he told the station.

Smith was shirtless and wearing only flip-flops and pajama pants in that moment — but the main thing on his mind was protecting his wife who was hiding inside their home, WAGA noted.

“I knew I had to act,” Smith added, according to Inside Edition.

Surveillance video shows Smith approaching his driveway — he later added to WAGA that the armed individual was using his truck as a shield — and then a shootout erupted.

Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot

Smith is then seen quickly backpedaling toward his home, kicking off his flip-flops, and heading back inside.

Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot

He soon returned to the driveway with a shirt and shoes on.

Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot

“I could hear them trying to get away,” he added, according to Inside Edition. “They’re jumping over fences.”

While Smith was uninjured, he added to the station he fears he would be dead if it weren’t for his BMW shielding him from the nearly two dozen bullets fired in his direction.

Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot

“I don’t want to die at home. I survived Afghanistan and everywhere else. To die at home? In my own yard?” an incredulous Smith — who’s also a father — reflected to WAGA.

Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot

“This was coordinated,” he told WAGA of the incident. “They were working together as a team to get this done.”

The station added that a gun which was inside Smith’s truck was stolen, and that those who know anything about what took place can contact Clayton County police anonymously.

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/video-surveillance-captures-homeowner-burglar-suspects-in-shootout-in-clayton-county

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Good guy with a gun saves the day again, this time, killing a robber who held a knife to the throat of a Missouri gas station clerk: ‘I don’t think I honestly had a choice’


By CORTNEY WEIL | July 18, 2022

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/good-guy-with-gun-st-louis/

Another “Good Samaritan” with a gun saved the day again, this time, shooting and killing a man who was holding a gas station attendant at knife point. Last Saturday, the concealed carrier pulled up to a QuikTrip service station in St. Charles, Missouri, about a half-hour outside St. Louis, and used the restroom. After he walked out of the store and returned to his car, however, some suspicious activity from another driver prompted him to remain at the gas station rather than pull away.

The customer with the gun, who has asked to remain anonymous, told reporters that he saw the driver of a black SUV enter the store and immediately grab the clerk and hold a knife to her throat.

“I saw him grab her and drag her to the front to the counter, something wasn’t right when I saw that, so me being concealed carry, I had my gun on me and I just waited,” he said.

“I walked up to the door and I saw him with a knife to her throat,” he continued. “She was emptying out the cash register and I took a step in and peeked my head in to ask if everything was okay. I couldn’t see his face but he was saying yes, but I could see her face she was saying no, she was scared.”

The man said that the suspect then charged straight at him, still wielding the knife, so the man pulled out his gun and shot the suspect four times. Once the suspect fell, he and the clerk both called police.

“I don’t think I honestly had a choice. He already had a knife at her throat, he could’ve pulled out something bigger than what I had. Then, you would’ve had two people dead instead of one,” he said.

When police arrived, emergency medical teams transported the suspect — later identified as Lance Bush, a 26-year-old homeless man from St. Louis — to the hospital, where he died. Bush is believed to have robbed at least one other gas station earlier that morning by holding a knife to the throat of the attendant and forcing her to give him money from the register. The black SUV he was driving had also been reported stolen on Friday.

“Taking somebody’s life is not an everyday thing, neither is saving someone’s life,” the man with the gun said.

When asked why he elected to confront the robber rather than call police from the safety of his vehicle, he replied, “Instinct I would say. Instinct that’s just it. I guess knowing that I’m protected, I can protect somebody else.”

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‘The Real Hero’: Good Guy with Gun Ends Mass Shooting in Indiana Mall


BY: JORDAN BOYD | JULY 18, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/18/the-real-hero-good-guy-with-gun-ends-mass-shooting-in-indiana-mall/

Greenwood, Indiana firetruck responds to shooting at mall

Less than three weeks after Indiana’s new constitutional carry law went into effect, an armed bystander shot and killed an assailant suspected of fatally shooting three people and injuring two others in an Indiana mall on Sunday evening.

Reports of a shooting in the Greenwood Park Mall began around 6 p.m. on Sunday when an unnamed gunman opened fire in the food court. After striking at least one male and four females including a 12-year-old girl, the suspected shooter was quickly shot and killed by a bystander who “observed the shooting in progress.”

As of Monday morning, police had not released the identity of the man who shot the gunman, but local news reports indicated he is 22 years old and from the nearby Bartholomew County.

“The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop the shooter almost as soon as he began,” Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison told reporters.

Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers also praised the “good Samaritan” for stopping “further bloodshed.”

“This person saved lives tonight,” Myers said in a statement. “On behalf of the City of Greenwood, I am grateful for his quick action and heroism in this situation.”

CNN tried to downplay the “good guy with a gun” by claiming that it is extremely rare for armed citizens to step in. Their article about the shooting dedicated four paragraphs to warning that, according to a New York Times data chart, “having more than one armed person at the scene who is not a member of law enforcement can create confusion and carry dire risks.”

Several local news outlets centered their coverage on the narrative that the man who took down the suspected assailant violated the mall’s no weapons policy.

“Armed ‘Good Samaritan’ stopped Indiana mall shooting, broke mall rules,” WANE 15 reported.

According to Fox 59 out of Indianapolis, the mall owner, Simon Property Group, “states in its code of conduct that no weapons are allowed at their shopping centers.” It isn’t until later in the article that Fox 59 noted, “While the property group has the ability to set policies against weapons, what the man did was not illegal.”

Meanwhile, Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts took a swipe at the good guy with a gun and the Second Amendment, and Kris Brown, president of the anti-gun Brady Campaign, smeared him as a “vigilante.”

Under pressure from a wave of primary challengers this spring who made constitutional carry a top critique of Republican incumbents, the GOP-controlled legislature and governor passed a new law earlier this year that no longer requires gun owners to obtain a permit to legally “carry, conceal or transport a handgun within the state.” The law took effect on July 1.

A Houston police sergeant is also being hailed as a hero after he tackled a man armed with a rifle, 120 rounds of ammunition, and a handgun in the Houston Galleria over the weekend.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Most Americans believe religious freedom is in decline; a third says Christians complain too much: poll


Reported By Ian M. Giatti, Christian Post Reporter | Friday, July 15, 2022

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/most-americans-believe-religious-freedom-is-in-decline-survey.html/

Religious freedom supporters hold a rally to praise the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case on June 30, 2014, in Chicago, Illinois. | Scott Olson/Getty Images

More than half of all Americans say religious tolerance for Christians is on the decline, even as more than a third also believes Christians complain too much about how they are treated in society, a newly released Lifeway Research survey suggests.

In a study of just over 1,000 Americans conducted last September, 54% said religious liberty in the United States is in decline, including around a quarter (24%) who strongly agree with that statement. Almost a third (32%) of respondents disagreed, while 14% said they weren’t sure.

An even greater percentage of Americans believe religious tolerance for Christians in America is in decline, with 59% agreeing that “Christians increasingly are confronted by intolerance in America today.” Less than a quarter (24%) disagreed, and another 18% said they were unsure if intolerance for Christians is increasing in America. African Americans (68%) and white Americans (59%) were more likely to agree than people of other ethnicities (47%).

Protestants (69%) and Catholics (59%) were most likely to agree that Christians are facing increasing intolerance. Fifty-three percent of respondents of other religions and 41% of religiously unaffiliated respondents said the same. Those who attend a worship service at least four times a month (64%) are more likely to believe religious liberty is on the decline in America than those who attend less than once a month (53%).

The religiously unaffiliated, or “nones,” were the least likely (40%) to agree religious liberty is on the decline. 

“Freedoms are not limitless,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “As some groups seek more freedom, it often encroaches on another’s freedom. It’s not surprising those who are more religiously active are the ones noticing reductions in religious freedom compared to those who don’t practice religion.” 

The survey also found an interesting corollary to the perceived decline in religious liberty: more than a third (36%) of all Americans say Christians in the U.S. “complain too much about how they are treated,” including 14% who strongly agree. Nearly half (49%) of respondents disagreed, while another 15% weren’t sure. Males (40%) were more likely to agree than women (32%) that Christians complain too much about how they are treated. Respondents over 65 were the most likely to disagree that Christians complain too much (64%). The survey found that those who hold Evangelical beliefs are more likely to disagree that Christians complain too much (61%) than those who don’t have Evangelical beliefs (45%). 

The religiously unaffiliated (53%) were more likely to agree than either Protestants (27%) or Catholics (34%) that Christians complain too much. 

“Intolerance is about cultural pushback,” McConnell said. “In the American marketplace of ideas, not all systems of thought are welcomed. The majority of all religions notice this pushback against Christians today.”

The survey was conducted online with over 1,005 respondents and has an error margin of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points, with error margins being higher among subgroups. Quotas and slight weights were used to balance gender, age, region, ethnicity, education and religion to more accurately reflect the U.S. population.

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Ammy Lowe Op-ed: Want to raise strong, confident girls?


By Amy Lowe, Op-ed contributor | Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/voices/want-to-raise-strong-confident-girls.html/

Overcoming any fear of heights, 4 girls at WinShape Camps in Crandall, GA prepare to be raised up on the big swing. | Courtesy of WinShape Camps

My pre-teen daughter climbed into our car one night at the end of this school year and burst into tears. She had been struggling with some friendships. On that drive back from Wednesday night church, she just finally broke down and let it all out. She cried the whole way home.

I didn’t say much at the time, as I’ve learned that sometimes the best thing you can do as a parent is to allow your child to just get it all out before receiving any advice or opinions. What immediately came to mind, though, was how grateful I was that I would be sending her to camp in two weeks.  And not just any camp — a Christian camp — and, candidly, the one where I serve as a director.  I objectively knew she would be surrounded by young women and girls who would call out the best in her and cheer her on.

I also marveled at how different her childhood was from my own. When I was in sixth grade, “stressed” wasn’t even part of my vocabulary. I wasn’t struggling with anxiety or depression. I wasn’t online, checking to see how many likes a photo had received. I was riding my bike and hanging out with the neighborhood kids. No doubt, things were simpler then.

But today, over half of teen girls say they have persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness, according to CDC research. In 2020 alone, the National Center for Health Statistics found that there were more than 6,600 deaths by suicide among the 10 to 24 age group. That same study also revealed that early last year, emergency department visits for suicide attempts were 51% higher for young girls.

The widespread and disheartening effects of social media on girls have been thoroughly documented: Depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, and body dysmorphia. And even when it doesn’t manifest in diagnosable disorders, our girls are saturated day in and day out with internet media that is proven to harm their emotional and mental health. In fact, a recent study found that social media largely worsens mental health during sensitive life periods, particularly for girls ages 11 to 13.

It’s scary for young girls to have to face these sad influences — and it’s scary for me as the mom to one of those young girls, too. But I do find comfort knowing that it’s possible to still build resilient, confident girls in this day and age, albeit determination, intentionality, wisdom, grace, and a strong community are required to do so. This is why I personally send my daughter to a Christian camp every summer.

I know that when I drop her off, she will be championed by the counselors and staff. She will be listened to and encouraged by people who genuinely care for her. She will learn to navigate the world around her from a biblical perspective. And most importantly, she will be taught that her identity and self-worth are not determined by how many “likes” she receives or how many “followers” she attains but by her Creator alone.

This type of environment is essential to helping our girls build the spiritual, social, and emotional tools they need to stay grounded in a world that is constantly bombarding them with the message that they are not enough — but it’s rare to find these days. This is why WinShape Camps is so explicit about intentionality and purpose being the core of the camp experience.

If we want to raise strong, healthy, confident girls, we need to provide them with opportunities to unplug. At WinShape, campers are asked to give up their phones for the duration of camp, and guess what? They gladly comply.

Throughout the week, they are intentionally integrated into small groups of supportive peers and spend time connecting in meaningful ways. They’re reminded every day how much they are valued and are taught to recognize the value of their peers. They’re also stretched in healthy ways through choosing new hobbies to learn and activities to participate in.

For instance, my little bookworm daughter chose to learn how to mountain bike last summer. She learned to rock climb and participated in musical theater. She stepped outside her comfort zone and was cheered on by fellow campers and her counselors as she did so. And she came home with more confidence because of it. I know firsthand that so many other summer campers have the same experience, and I’m so grateful that they do.

The reality is that raising children isn’t just about helping them cope with their stress, anxiety, or suffering: It’s about raising them to flourish, overcome obstacles and grow because of them. It’s about raising them to see the best in others and cultivate the best in themselves. Most importantly, it’s about raising them to know that God loves them deeply, that they are precious in His sight, and that He has a purpose and a unique plan for each of their lives — despite how they may feel at times.

No mom is ever alone in trying to raise strong, healthy girls. And no girl is ever alone in trying to grow up with self-confidence. Sometimes, we just need a summer at camp to remind us that it canhappen. 

Amy Lowe is the director of WinShape Camps for Girls and oversees WinShape Camps for Families. She has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Samford University and a Master of Arts in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. Like most other moms, her hobbies include laundry, running the robot vacuum, and unloading the dishwasher.

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The Epidemic of Fatherless Boys Is Unraveling Our Society


BY: TIM GOEGLEIN | JULY 07, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/07/the-epidemic-of-fatherless-boys-is-unraveling-our-society/

boy alone in shadows facing window

New report finds that boys who have an absent father are less likely to graduate college, more likely to idle in their 20s, and more likely to go to jail.

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Roland Warren, the former head of the National Fatherhood Initiative, when delivering the eulogy for his late father, said about the distant relationship he had with him as a child, “I was a little boy with a hole in my soul in the shape of my dad with unhealed wounds from years of feeling neglected and less than worthy.”

A recent research brief by Brad Wilcox and his colleagues at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) on how the lack of an involved father impacts boys verifies the effects of that “dad-shaped” hole on boys.

In the brief, Wilcox reports that the percentage of boys living in homes without a biological father has almost doubled since 1960 – from 17 percent to 32 percent – resulting in an estimated 12 million boys growing up without a biological dad.

Wilcox writes, “Lacking the day-to-day involvement, guidance, and positive example of their father in the home, and the financial advantages associated with having him in the household, these boys are more likely to act up, lash out, flounder in school, and fail at work as they move into adolescence and adulthood.”

Thus, it quickly becomes evident how big that dad-sized hole can be and that hole can have lifelong implications, and often determines whether a boy will be a success or failure in life.

For example, Wilcox and his colleagues report that 35 percent of boys with a present biological father obtain a college degree, compared to just 14 percent of boys who do not have a present biological father.

While obtaining a college degree is not the only way to avoid poverty, a certain level of educational attainment is required if one wants to avoid poverty. But, according to the report, many fatherless boys are even struggling to achieve the most minimal level of educational attainment – a high school degree – which allows them to enter equipped for the workforce.

These young men are directionless, or as Wilcox and his colleagues write, “The daily life of these men is often marked by hours in front of a screen, vaping, smoking marijuana, or under the influence of some other kind of substance.” They are not contributors, but instead bystanders.

Secondly, our society plays a tragic price. According to the IFS brief, young men who grew up without a biological father are nearly twice as likely to be idle compared to those who grew up with an actively involved dad. In addition, they have significant anger issues which leads to legal problems as fatherless boys are about twice as likely to have spent some time in jail before they reach the age of 30.

It is not a coincidence that the tragedies of Columbine, Sandy Hook, Buffalo, and Uvalde are all tied to angry young men.

All of this is sobering enough. But there is another related problem. Growing up fatherless often makes young men poor candidates for marriage. Many women are aware of this. They can see the “holes in their soul” of the young men in their lives.

So often we hear from women – where are the good men who have a purpose in life, who want to be successful at work and in the home? Instead, they see a lack of emotionally mature and stable men who are stuck in perpetual adolescence because they lack the role model of a biological father to guide them.

Is it any wonder then that the average age of women getting married continues to climb as they see young men in their 20s still stumbling around directionless? It is a common lament we hear from so many young women, “I want to get married, but there are no men to marry.” 

While not all dads are perfect, and there are some that are far from perfect, a father in the home still makes a major difference in the development of a boy into a man. A good father, in most cases, who invests in his son, ends up developing a successful man.

As Wilcox and his colleagues write, “If we wish to revive the fortunes of today’s young men, we must help fathers teach their sons how to prepare better for adulthood, relationships, and marriage … These steps matter, not just for renewing the fortunes of young men, but also for the sake of women for good partners to love, marry, and start families in the future.”

If we want a society of successful men who do not lash out in anger, who love and cherish their families, and are good citizens, those who are fathers must realize that it is our responsibility to pass those values on to our sons. If we are absent or distant, we do not only a disservice to these boys, but also to women, and society. If we take fatherhood seriously, we can raise a generation of boys with no “holes” in their soul and future generations will be better off for it.

Tim Goeglein is the Vice President of Government and External Relations at Focus on the Family in Washington DC.

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16-year-old hero jumps into river to save 3 teen girls as their car sinks. He also rescues cop who swam out to help girls but started to struggle.


Reported by DAVE URBANSKI | July 06, 2022

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/16-year-old-hero-jumps-into-river-to-save-3-teen-girls-as-their-car-sinks-he-also-rescues-cop-who-swam-out-to-help-girls-but-started-to-struggle-2657619562.html/

Corion Evans, 16, is getting major praise after jumping into a river in Mississippi early Sunday morning and rescuing three teenage girls as their car sank — and coming to the aid of a police officer who also jumped in to help but began to struggle.

What are the details?

Authorities said the three girls were in a car on the Interstate 10 boat launch that ended up in the Pascagoula River and began to sink, WLOX-TV reported.

“They drove straight under the water,” Evans told WLOX. “Like, only a little bit of the car was still above the water.”

With that, Evans told the station he tossed off his shoes, shirt, and phone — and jumped into the river.

“I was just like, ‘I can’t let none of these folks die. They need to get out the water.’ So, I just started getting them,” the Pascagoula High student added to WLOX. “I wasn’t even thinking about nothing else.”

Evans added to the station that he was “behind them trying to keep them above water and swim with them at the same time.”

He wasn’t the only hero of the morning. One of Evans’ friends — Karon “KJ” Bradley — jumped in as well and helped get the girls to the top of their vehicle, WLOX reported.

Evans — who’s been swimming since he was about three years old — not only helped bring the three girls to shore but also came to the aid of Moss Point Police Officer Gary Mercer who swam out to help, the station said.

“I turned around. I see the police officer,” Evans added to WLOX. “He’s drowning. He’s going underwater, drowning, saying, ‘Help!” So, I went over there. I went and I grabbed the police officer, and I’m like swimming him back until I feel myself I can walk.”

In the aftermath, he told the station the victims were “throwing up because a lot of water had got inside all of them. Twenty five yards [from shore], so it was a lot of swimming. My legs were so tired after. Anything could’ve been in that water, though. But I wasn’t thinking about it.”

Officer Mercer and the three girls were taken to a hospital and are recovering, WLOX said, adding that Mercer is expected to be back on duty later this week.

‘Saved my life right before my last breath’

Marquita Evans expressed pride in her son, saying he “wasn’t just thinking about himself. He was trying to really get all those people out the water. I’m glad nothing happened to him while he was trying to save other people’s lives,” the station said.

Moss Point Police Chief Brandon Ashley released the following statement to WLOX: “The police department and I commend Mr. Evans’s bravery and selflessness he displayed by risking his own safety to help people in danger. If Mr. Evans had not assisted, it could have possibly turned out tragically instead of all occupants rescued safely.”

One of the rescued girls, Cora Watson, went on Facebook to reveal that Evans “saved my life right before my last breath,” the station said.

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Alan Cross Op-ed: America can — and must — be more American


Commentary By Alan Cross| Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/voices/america-can-and-must-be-more-american.html/

Activists hold a banner in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 18, 2020. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s move to rescind the DACA program that offers protections to 700,000 undocumented migrants brought to the US as children. | NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images

For the majority of my life, I held fairly traditional views on illegal immigration. It was based in my trust that America’s democratic political systems are rooted in liberty, justice, and fairness. 

However, meeting Jose changed me. 

Like me, Jose is a Baptist minister and fellow believer in Jesus Christ. We both were raised in America, graduated from an American education system, and have a family and community we love. Where we are different is that as a teenager, Jose became aware that he wasn’t an American citizen but instead an undocumented immigrant, limiting his opportunities and delivering uncertainty around his future in the only country he knew as home. 

Jose exposed me to the fact that there are millions of people like him who are deemed illegal immigrants and did not choose this status when they first arrived in America at the age of 2 or even 11. In fact, many did not learn until later that they were not born in the U.S. Our society has labeled this population as “Dreamers,” and despite our American value of fairness, there is no path for them to make the right choice someone else made on their behalf. 

Imagine celebrating your high school graduation only to be blindsided with new information that you don’t have legal government documents and there is no solution to fix it. You can’t pursue the careers you were taught to aspire to while in high school. You can’t leave the country for a mission trip overseas. You can’t get caught with a broken car light while driving to the grocery store. 

In 2012, after years of Congress debating and failing to create an earned path to legal status for Dreamers, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was introduced as a presidential executive order. 

This policy created a special opportunity for Jose and roughly 600,000 other individuals to work legally, pursue college, buy a house and not fear deportation. 

But as we approach the 10-year anniversary of DACA, the limited administrative policy stopped receiving new applicants, leaving millions more in limbo, including the 100,000 Dreamers who graduated from high schools across America this past May. 

DACA also continues to face legal challenges and could be struck down by the courts at any moment this year. Jose would be faced with renewed risks of deportation and removal from his church, his family, and his community. 

Americans are faced with a moral gravity to make things right for our neighbors like Jose. But fairness and justice for this unique population can only be permanently secured by Congress. 

Voters are calling out for it and don’t want to wait until after the midterm elections. The National Immigration Forum published a poll in February that shows 8 in 10 voters support a pathway for legal status for Dreamers coupled with border security policies and smart visa reform to deliver a reliable workforce for farmers and ranchers. 

In my home state, I find hope in U.S. Senator Alex Padilla’s (D-CA) promotion of the “Citizenship for Essential Workers Act” and in Congressman David Valadeo’s (R-CA-21) political courage to vote for the 2021 American Dream and Promise Act. Both sides can come together and show us how to live up to our own ideals as a nation. This is the year to get the right decisions across the finish line for Dreamers and for our country. 

Alan Cross is the pastor of Petaluma Valley Baptist Church in Petaluma, California.

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Democrats Yell ‘Do Something!’ On Guns While Their Prosecutors and Policies Create Our Culture of Crime


REPORTED BY: KYLEE ZEMPEL | JUNE 08, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/08/democrats-yell-do-something-on-guns-but-their-prosecutors-and-policies-create-our-culture-of-crime/

crime at Robb Elementary School, Joe Biden visits after Uvalde shooting

Just as the humanitarian crisis at the border is the predictable result of the left’s open-borders policies, so our crime wave is a consequence of their anti-punitive philosophy of criminal justice.

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Since a spate of recent shootings, Democrats led by President Joe Biden have been busy exploiting the tragedies to call for more gun control, go after the “gun lobby” bogeyman, and yell that we must “do something!” about firearm-related crime. They’ve been clear that they aren’t interested in talking about effective solutions that don’t involve gun-grabbing, so they probably also don’t want to talk about who’s responsible for America’s unsettling crime wave: the left.

Meanwhile, as of late Tuesday night, the Associated Press projected that San Francisco voters had handily recalled left-wing District Attorney Chesa Boudin, whose soft-on-crime policies wreaked havoc on the California city.

While a prosecutor recall might seem disconnected from an uptick in mass shootings and subsequent gun-control chatter, the two are intertwined. Just as the humanitarian crisis at the border is the predictable result of the left’s open-borders policies, our crime wave is the inevitable result of their anti-punitive philosophy of criminal justice. And the biggest culprits are progressive prosecutors like Boudin who champion Democrats’ policies and have been installed across the country after being bankrolled by left-wing radicals like George Soros and other groups.

Prosecutors Who Don’t Prosecute

According to a new report out from the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF), Soros alone has poured a staggering $40 million into prosecutor races to help elect 75 leftists that have contributed to the crime wave, and he’s just one of many billionaires working to destroy law and order, influence elections, control the media, and otherwise destroy the country.

The left and its skeptics continue to use guns as a scapegoat and say there’s no direct correlation between left-wing prosecutorial philosophies and crime, but the evidence suggests otherwise. According to the LELDF report, more than 40 percent of the roughly 22,500 homicides in 2021 — so more than 9,000 — happened in these 75 district attorneys’ jurisdictions, which accounted for more than one-third of last year’s violent crimes and property crime.

These DAs’ decisions produce consequences even in the areas they don’t oversee, however, since there’s nothing keeping released offenders in the prosecutors’ jurisdictions. Light sentences, low cash bail, and other slaps on the wrist send criminals right back onto their streets and those of their neighbors.

“These radical activists now preside over 72 million Americans and 40% of US homicides,” said LELDF President Jason Johnson, noting that Soros has already spent another $1 million to date this year to boost his preferred prosecutors. “Soros is using that campaign money and the hundreds of millions more for supporting organizations to quietly transform the criminal justice system for the worse, promoting dangerous policies and anti-police narratives to advance his radical agenda.”

The country saw the effects of progressive prosecutors up close over the last holiday season. The Waukesha parade murderer didn’t need a firearm. To kill six people and injure 62 more, he needed only a vehicle, a soft-on-crime district attorney’s office that let him out on a pittance of bail, and leftist policies that “guaranteed” offenders would kill people. It’s evil like that, enabled by leftist policy failures, that expose America’s crime problem as being so much bigger than a few psychopaths with guns.

Democrats’ Progressive Dream

But the rise in crime is much bigger than Soros and 75 district attorneys too. More fundamentally, it’s the predictable result of a long list of so-called leftist policy goals and beliefs that are prevalent not only among the radicals of the left, but also among the mainstream Democrat Party.

For a particularly grotesque example, look at cities in blue bastion California — particularly Boudin’s San Francisco, where the sidewalks are littered with used needles, passed-out junkies, and homeless encampments, and street sightings of human feces number in the tens of thousands each year. Facing an explosion in shoplifting, retailers in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Francisco were helpless to do anything but reduce store hours. As a Wall Street Journal article noted in October 2021, “Walgreens has closed 22 stores in [San Francisco], where thefts under $950 are effectively decriminalized.”

That little $950 tidbit is courtesy of Democrats’ woke Proposition 47, which more than doubled the amount a person could steal before facing a felony. In other words, Prop 47 reclassified felonies as no-biggie misdemeanors. Crime in the Bay Area has gotten so bad that even Democrat Mayor London Breed was forced to admit that the left’s soft-on-crime approach has led to “all the bullsh-t that has destroyed” San Francisco.

Meanwhile, in 2021, Los Angeles experienced its highest number of homicides in 15 years, and looters ran rampant on that area’s train tracks, with some railroad companies reporting a “160% increase in criminal rail theft,” and “approximately $5 million in claims, losses and damages” to the train companies alone.

The Left’s Culture of Crime

The crime wave isn’t confined to California, though. It’s swept through Democrats’ strongholds across the rest of the country too. As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd wrote in January, “New York, D.C., and Chicago all saw ‘record-high‘ murders in 2021 while Philadelphia; Portland, Oregon; Louisville, Kentucky; and Albuquerque, New Mexico, ‘had their deadliest years on record.’”

And let’s not forget the scores of rioters, looters, and vandals who went unpunished after the 2020 summer of rage that resulted in billions of dollars in damages. In fact, rather than condemn them, prominent Democrats including our very own Vice President Kamala Harris helped bail out of jail those who were caught. It was Minneapolis Democrats who voted to dismantle its police department in 2020, enabling a crime wave there. And Democrat lawmakers joined the chorus of those calling to “defund the police,” only stopping when they realized that abhorrent position could hurt them politically.

This approach to law and order is to say nothing of the left’s other principles that cultivate a culture of death, such as the celebration of snuffing out human life in the womb and exploiting children as sex objects.

It’s hard to take Democrats’ tired calls for gun control seriously anyway, given their debunked talking points and faulty logic. But it’s especially disqualifying for the left when you take into account all the lawlessness and violence they enable as hallmarks of their criminal justice platforms. If voters in far-left San Francisco can see it, it’s a safe bet the rest of the country can too. America’s culture of crime belongs to Democrats, and no amount of gun control can fix it.

Kylee Zempel is an assistant editor at The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in Communication Arts/Speech and an A.S. in Criminal Justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religious liberty, and criminal justice. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.

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Shane Idleman Op-ed: America — weak and woke. We need more prophets, not puppets.


Commentary By Shane Idleman, CP Guest Contributor | Tuesday, June 07, 2022

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/voices/america-weak-and-woke-we-need-more-prophets-not-puppets.html/

Repentance from sin plus faith in Christ equals a new life. | Pixabay

In a recent documentary, I discussed the rapid decline of America and the desperate need for serious prayer and fasting. To say that we are at a crossroads is an understatement — we are in the crosshairs.

This is an urgent call to the pulpits of America. America’s lukewarm temperature is caused by a lack of fire in the pulpit and apathy in the pew. Leonard Ravenhill once lamented, “We need more prophets in our pulpits and less puppets.” That same cry goes out today. We simply cannot remain silent.   

Is saving America the mission of the Church? 

CNN recently released an article quoting pastor Andy Stanley who said, “saving America is not the mission of the church.” 

I don’t know Pastor Stanley, nor do I know his heart, but he highlights a real dilemma in our nation — prophetic voices who lack humility. In short, many bold preachers don’t weep before they whip (cf. John 2:13-16). But balancing love with anger over the condition of our nation, families, and churches is a hard balance to find. 

People who say things such as, “Saving America is not the mission of the Church,” often use this phrase to justify their silence on important issues. Biblically speaking, it’s impossible to be non-confrontational to a culture hell-bent on rejecting God. We can’t be “unhitched” from God’s Word. 

But Shane, can you answer the question? 

Back to the question, “is saving America the mission of the Church?” Of course not, but shouldn’t we desire godly leaders and laws that align with God’s Word and not be shamed for it? Shouldn’t we want to protect our borders and our children without being chastised? Shouldn’t we be a voice to those who have no voice and stop the slaughtering of the innocent? 

The dilemma Pastor Stanley and others face is that they can’t have their cake and eat it, too. They can’t avoid controversial topics in the hopes of not offending. Watering down difficult topics is exactly why America is drowning in a cesspool of moral relativism.  

CNN quotes Stanley because, in their eyes, he supports their narrative. You won’t find secular news outlets quoting and supporting bold preachers. Why? Because bold, Christ-centered, truth elevating preaching exposes and dismantles their agenda. If secular news outlets are on your side, are you sure that you’re on the right side?

Weak and woke won’t awaken 

My goal isn’t to divide the Body of Christ, but to convict it. I don’t have a beef against Pastor Stanley (I’m sure he’s a great guy), but if a Christian leader says controversial things, can’t we lovingly challenge their words? This isn’t dividing the Body, rather it’s sharpening our iron (Proverbs 27:17). 

Many of us are becoming weary of the silent pulpit that seems more comfortable slamming bold saints than confronting blatant sinners. Weak sermons from woke pastors won’t convict the sinners who need redemption. 

A person who is considered “woke” prides themselves on being extra sensitive and aware of racial and social discrimination and injustice. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It all depends on the motive of the person using the phrase. 

If we repent of our skin color, dislike policemen, disdain America, and support sexual perversion by our silence (all under the banner of “wokeness”), we are in deep trouble. If we won’t preach the truth because some in our audience are on the other side of the political spectrum, we aren’t pastors, we are appeasers. 

Love of country over love of people 

Love of country shouldn’t take precedence over love of people, but doesn’t loving people also mean loving the country in which they live? 

What many are really saying is: If you vote for a mean-tweeting president, care about God-given freedoms, and talk about hot-button issues, you don’t love people. With all due respect, that simply is not true!

Is it even possible for Christians to embrace a political party without hurting the feelings of the other party? No, it’s not. This is the dilemma of Pastor Stanley and other leaders. Instead of asking, “How can we not offend others?” they should be asking, “Are we offending God?” 

There must appear a new type of preacher

A.W. Tozer hit the nail on the head decades ago: “If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation, it must be by other means than any now being used … there must appear a new type of preacher.”

Tozer continues, “The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.”

He concludes, “Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the One and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.” God, give us more prophets and less puppets! 

Appeasement — an exercise in futility 

Those who have been called to preach will confront compromise, condemn moral digression, and powerfully denounce sin in the hope of reconciling man to God. The world despises them because they challenge the sin the world enjoys. Trying to please a Christ-rejecting world is an exercise in futility.

Although ruffling feathers is not our goal, we will step on toes from time to time when we speak the truth. This can’t always be avoided, nor should it be. 

Weak and woke won’t turn America around, but neither will pride and arrogance. Speaking the heart of God flows from a reservoir of brokenness and time spent with Him. How are you doing in this area? 

Whether you’re on the Right or the Left, you must be on the right side of God’s Word. 

We need more men like the Old Testament prophet Micaiah, who said, “As surely as the Lord lives, I will speak whatever the Lord tells me” (1 Kings 22:14).

Shane Idleman is the founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Fellowship in Lancaster, California, just North of Los Angeles. Shane’s sermons, articles, books, and radio program can all be found at shaneidleman.com or wcfav.org. He is the author of Feasting & Fasting, If My People, Desperate for More of God, and Help! I’m Addicted. Follow him on Facebook at: facebook.com/confusedchurch. You can also follow Pastor Shane on the new free speech platform Parler https://parler.com/profile/ShaneIdleman/posts. 

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Activists claim police shot unarmed pregnant woman with her hands up. Then body cam footage is released.


Reported by CHRIS ENLOE | June 02, 2022

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/police-charge-leonna-hale-body-cam-footage-shows-firearm/

Prosecutors have filed charges against a Kansas City woman who activists claim was the victim of excessive police force. Leonna Hale, 26, was approached by police officers last Friday after she was spotted inside a car that police say matched the description of one involved in an armed carjacking. According to police, the driver of the vehicle jumped out and ran when police approached. They claim Hale also exited the vehicle, went to the rear of the car, and drew a firearm. Police told Hale to drop the firearm, but she allegedly pointed it at police. Law enforcement responded by firing three shots. Hale was wounded in the incident, but she did not die.

The incident generated significant attention online. Activists claimed police had shot an unarmed pregnant woman five times. Even worse, they claimed she had her hands up.

  • Activist Leslie Mac: “#LeonnaHale is a 26 year old unarmed pregnant Black Woman who was shot five time by Kansas City police on Friday. She had her hands up and told police she could not follow their directions to get on her stomach b/c she was pregnant. There is no reforming this. #AbolitionNow.”
  • CRT scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw: “Please send prayers and support to Leonna Hale, unarmed, shot 5 times in a traffic staff. If mass murderers of Black people can be apprehended alive, why must Black people in traffic stops constantly fear for their lives?”
  • The Kansas City Defender: “Kansas City Police Department shot an unarmed Black woman 5 times. Eyewitnesses say the woman had her hands up. The police handcuffed her while she was bleeding out on the pavement.”
  • Linda Sarsour: “Cops can apprehend white mass murderers without a scratch but will shoot unarmed Black people that pose no threat to them. Leonna Hale. Kansas City, MO.”
  • Occupy Democrats: “BREAKING: A witness reveals that Kansas City police shot Leonna Hale, a pregnant unarmed Black woman, five times as she was running away from them — she has been hospitalized with serious injuries but remains stable.”

Prosecutors are now charging Hale after they say body cam footage shows that Hale was, in fact, in possession of a firearm and that she pointed her weapon at police.

Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker explained in a statement:

Some false narratives about what happened last Friday night at 6th and Prospect Avenue, unfortunately, were relied upon by some media and other sources. Our job, as prosecutors, is to remain neutral and review all evidence. Our review of body cam videos provided the actual accounting of events that night.

Our review of the investigation revealed the defendant, although she denied having a weapon at the time of the encounter with law enforcement officers, continually displayed a weapon during her encounter with police officers and also appeared to be attempting to flee. The two officers stated that she was armed with what they believed to be a handgun. Body camera footage confirms the officers’ statements that Hale was holding a handgun. Still photos, taken from body cam footage, of this encounter also demonstrate a weapon was present and in the hands of the defendant.

Hale has been charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful use of a weapon, and a misdemeanor resisting a lawful detention. Local activists, however, do not believe police are being truthful, the Kansas City Star reported.

Hale remains in the hospital. The driver of the vehicle who fled from police has also since been apprehended. Neither the police nor the media have confirmed that Hale is pregnant, WDAF-TV reported.

Supporters of woman shot by KC police shocked of image, charges of her pointing weapon at officers www.youtube.com

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Drag queen performer defends unapproved high school show, tells angry parents to ‘broaden your horizons’


Reported by CARLOS GARCIA | June 02, 2022

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/drag-queen-performer-defends-unapproved-high-school-show-tells-angry-parents-to-broaden-your-horizons-2657449324.html/

A drag queen performer defended an unapproved high school event that angered parents, who he told to “broaden your horizons.” The drag show was performed at the Ankeny High School in Iowa as a part of the end-of-the-year meeting of the Gay Straight Alliance Club. Students were invited but their parents were not warned beforehand, and no permission slips were signed for the event.

The school issued an apology after videos of the drag show were highlighted by the popular “Libs of TikTok” account on Twitter.

Despite the outrage from parents, one performer told KCCI-TV that they needed to lighten up and he defended the performance.

“To the parents that are accepting, thank you. To the parents that are not, please broaden your horizons,” said Skyler Barning.

“I just want them to realize that while the idea of drag is very taboo, there are places and shows meant for people under the age of 21,” he claimed. “It is not always a sexual act, it can be positive and uplifting with a message behind it as well.”

A senior student who performed as “Vivian Von D” at the drag show also defended the performance in an interview with the Des Moines Register.

“It was meant to be an uplifting environment for those in the (Gay Straight Alliance) who don’t always have all the support they need to get through the struggles in their lives,” said Carson Doss.

The school apologized for the incident in a message on Facebook and said the matter was under investigation.

The Libs of TikTok account forced a town in Indiana to cancel a drag show at an LGBTQ event that was advertised as “family-friendly” by simply posting the advertisement for the show on Twitter.

Here’s the interview with Skyler Barning:

Drag event at Ankeny High School draws criticism from some parents www.youtube.com

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Samuel Sey Op-ed: Absentee fathers, not guns, are the problem


Commentary By Samuel Sey, Op-ed contributor | Thursday, June 02, 2022

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/voices/absentee-fathers-not-guns-are-the-problem.html/

Unsplash/Joice Kelly

The father of the teenager who murdered 19 children and 2 adults in Uvalde, Texas said:

“He probably would have shot me too, because he would always say I didn’t love him.”

The father is also a criminal. He has an apparently lengthy criminal record. His most deadly crime, however, isn’t on his record. His most deadly crime is that he is an absentee father.

A father who doesn’t value his child’s life is teaching his child a person’s life isn’t valuable.

  • Sixty-three percent of teenagers who commit suicide are fatherless. 
  • Seventy-two percent of adolescent murderers are fatherless. 
  • Seventy-five percent of adolescents in rehab centers for drug abuse are fatherless. 
  • Sixty percent of rapists are fatherless. 
  • Eighty-five percent of teenagers in prison are fatherless.
  • And especially, 75% of the most-cited school shooters in America are fatherless — just like the teenager who walked into Robb Elementary School to murder 21 people.

Of course, most fatherless people value life. Fatherlessness doesn’t make a person a mass murderer or a criminal. However, fatherless children are significantly more likely to commit crimes. For instance, a 2012 study on juvenile male inmates found that fatherless boys are 279% more likely to carry guns for criminal behavior.

Absentee fathers discourage their children and they provoke them to anger (Colossians 3:21, Ephesians 6:4). I know that too well. Eighty-five percent of children with behavioral problems are fatherless — that describes my childhood. 

I was involved in over 20 fights before I was 18 years old. Most of these fights happened when I was between 4-10 years old, especially when other children made fun of me for being fatherless. I didn’t know how to maintain my composure when other children blamed me for my father’s absence. After all, it was hard to refute them. My father, indeed, didn’t love me. He left my mom and our family after my mom became pregnant with me. Therefore, I lacked discipline and self-control. I didn’t know how to respond to insults without anger and violence. By the grace of God, my extraordinary mother, and especially the Gospel, changed me.

Nevertheless, I know fatherlessness is one of the most damaging things children can experience. I know the potentially deadly consequences of absentee fathers. 

I know that if the school shooter’s father valued his son’s life — his son would have been more likely to value other people’s lives too. But many of us are unwilling to consider that. After all, Black Lives Matter maintains strong support from our society despite its feminist agenda to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.”

It’s horrific to imagine what the school shooter’s big gun did to the children’s little bodies. It’s horrific to think about the gunshots silencing the children’s screams. It’s painful to think about. Blaming the school shooting on gun rights, however, isn’t helpful. We have a habit of prescribing the wrong solutions to deadly issues. Guns are not the problem. Gun control isn’t the solution.

Originally published at Slow to Write. 

Samuel Sey is a Ghanaian-Canadian who lives in Brampton, a city just outside of Toronto. He is committed to addressing racial, cultural, and political issues with biblical theology, and always attempts to be quick to listen and slow to speak.

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Teen Who Knew Shooter Drops Bomb: ‘I Don’t See This Covered and I’m Going to Put This Out There”


Posted By Samantha Chang | May 27, 2022

Read more at https://www.westernjournal.com/teen-knew-shooter-drops-bomb-dont-see-covered-going-put/

A student at Uvalde High School in Texas who says he knew Salvador Ramos rejected the prevailing media narrative that the gunman was the victim of bullying, and this was the catalyst for his May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.

Ivan Arellano, a senior at Uvalde High School, told WFAA-TV in Dallas that Ramos “was not a good person” and had been a bully himself.

“Salvador Ramos was a boy who was not bullied,” Arellano said on Wednesday. “He would try to pick on people but fail, and it would aggravate him.”

Ramos was shot to death by a Border Patrol agent after his shooting rampage at Robb Elementary School, which left 19 children and two adults dead.

Shortly before the attack, the 18-year-old gunman shot his grandmother in her home. Celia Martinez Gonzales, 66, was reported to be in stable condition at a San Antonio hospital.

Arellano, who was friends with one of the victims, wanted to set the record straight because he had not seen any media coverage spotlighting Ramos’ cruel personality.

“I don’t see this covered and I’m going to put this out there: He would hurt animals. He was not a good person,” he said.

Arellano’s statements belie the initial media coverage of Ramos as a victim who was subjected to gay slurs and bullied over his lisp.

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So do the observations of 17-year-old Crystal Foutz, who attended school with Ramos and worked with him at the fast-food restaurant Whataburger.

“He always seemed to take his anger out on the most innocent person in the room,” Foutz told KTBC-TV in Austin.

Our understanding of people and events generally morphs as the dust settles after a horrific crime like this shooting and research unearths more about the perpetrator’s background.

However, one thing is already clear: The school system and his own family failed Ramos, who should have been red-flagged over his threatening, anti-social behavior, which included self-mutilation, animal abuse and shooting people with BB guns.

American culture is cratering at a chilling pace, fueled in large part by toxic left-wing policies that marginalize nuclear families, decimate the working class and demonize hard work and meritocracy.

TO READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE, PLEASE GO TO https://www.westernjournal.com/teen-knew-shooter-drops-bomb-dont-see-covered-going-put/

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4th Grader Who Survived Uvalde Reveals What Shooter Said, Did After Entering Classroom


Reported By Jack Davis | May 26, 2022

Read more at https://www.westernjournal.com/4th-grader-survived-uvalde-reveals-shooter-said-entering-classroom/

A new report says that the Texas school shooter told fourth graders what was coming after he shot his way into their classroom Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. The report from KENS-TV was based on the account of a fourth-grade pupil it did not name. The gunman killed 19 children and two adults before he was killed in a shootout with law enforcement. The fourth grader explained that the ordeal began with a gunshot.

“He shot the next person’s door, and then, we have a door in the middle, and he opened it. And then he came in. He crouched a little bit, and he said, ‘It’s time to die,’” the boy said.

The boy was doing all he could to survive.

“When I heard the shooting through the door, I told my friend to hide under something, so he won’t find us. I was hiding hard. And I was telling my friend to not talk because he is going to hear us.”

Four boys hid with the child who spoke to KENS, partially shielded by a tablecloth. The boy recounted a harrowing moment near the end of the ordeal.

“When the cops came, the cop said, ‘Yell if you need help!’ And then one of the persons in my class said ‘help.’ The guy overheard, and he came in and shot her,” the boy said.

“The cop barged into that classroom, and the guy shot the cops. And the cops just started shooting,” he said.

Then came silence.

“I just opened the curtain. And I just put my hand out,” he said. “I got out with my friend. I knew it was the police when I saw the armor and the shield.”

The boy recalled the actions of his slain teachers, Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles.

Related: Harrowing Videos Show Parents Begging Cops to Stop TX School Shooter – Now Revealed Cops Waited 40 Minutes

“They were nice teachers,” he said. “They went in front of my classmates to help. To save them.”

Fear ran through the school as the attack began, according to another child.

“We were scared, and the teacher started telling us we can pray,” Timothy Silva, 8, told CBS.

His second-grade teacher alerted the students, he said.

“She started yelling, and I didn’t think it was a drill because they would have announced it. The teacher just went out there and started yanking on our door to go hide.”

Jack Davis

Contributor, News

Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.

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Frightening details emerge about Texas school shooter’s rough home life, strange behavior leading up to elementary massacre


Reported by PHIL SHIVER | May 25, 2022

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/frightening-details-emerge-about-texas-school-shooter-s-rough-home-life-strange-behavior-leading-up-to-elementary-massacre-2657388259.html/

As neighbors and classmates continue to share more information about Salvador Ramos in the aftermath of the horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, an all-too-familiar portrait of the killer has begun to emerge.

Ramos, 18, allegedly shot and critically wounded his grandmother in a rage moments before going on a shooting rampage at nearby Robb Elementary School. At the school, he senselessly murdered at least 19 students and two adults and injured several others before he was fatally shot by police. Ramos was reportedly wearing a tactical vest during the shooting spree and was armed with a rifle.

The mass killing immediately gripped the nation and caused widespread mourning. Many of the victims were just 10 years old.

  • Those who knew Ramos described him as a loner who endured a rough home life with a drug-abusing mother. He was reportedly the frequent target of bullying as a teenager due to his lisp and stutter and social awkwardness. But, they said, Ramos responded to his circumstances by violently lashing out at “peers and strangers” and engaging in lawless behavior, often leading to run-ins with local law enforcement.
  • Speaking with the Washington Post, a childhood friend of Ramos who used to play video games and sports with him said he would often exhibit strange behavior, even cutting up his own face for “fun” on one occasion. That same friend said Ramos would often drive around town with another friend at night, shooting random people with a BB gun and egging people’s cars.
  • Another former friend told the Post that Ramos was bullied incessantly in middle school and junior high before he eventually stopped going to school. One time, he posted a picture on social media wearing black eyeliner. The post garnered a slew of negative comments. Ramos was not on pace to graduate with his peers this year.
  • One high school classmate said that in recent months, Ramos posted videos on Instagram “where the cops were there and he’d call his mom a b***h and say she wanted to kick him out.” The classmate added that in the videos, “He’d be screaming and talking to his mom really aggressively.”
  • He worked at a local Wendy’s restaurant, where co-workers remembered him as a mostly quiet kid with “an aggressive streak,” according to the Daily Beast.
  • “He would be very rude towards the girls sometimes, and one of the cooks, threatening them by asking, ‘Do you know who I am?’ And he would also send inappropriate texts to the ladies,” said one former co-worker, adding, “At the park, there’d be videos of him trying to fight people with boxing gloves. He’d take them around with him.”

Here’s what we know about the 18-year-old shooter who officials say killed 19 students, 2 adults…www.youtube.com

In the weeks before the massacre, and right after he turned 18, Ramos appears to have purchased two semi-automatic rifles. He reportedly posted photos of the guns online along with cryptic messages. An unidentified former classmate said that days before the attack, Ramos texted him a photo of a firearm and a bag of ammo, CNN reported.

“He would message me here and there, and four days ago he sent me a picture of the AR he was using … and a backpack full of 5.56 rounds, probably like seven mags,” the classmate said, “I was like, ‘Bro, why do you have this?’ and he was like, ‘Don’t worry about it.'”

  • A since-deleted TikTok account that authorities believe belonged to Ramos featured only a short clip of a mobile game and the line, “Kids be scared IRL.”
  • Then, on Tuesday, the day of the attack, he posted another photo of the rifles on Instagram and tagged a random girl who lives in California, the New York Post reported. He then messaged the girl, urging her to repost the image. She responded confusedly.
  • Early Tuesday morning, Ramos messaged her again, saying, “I’m about to.” The girl asked “about to what” to which he answered, “I’ll tell you before 11.”
  • “I got a lil secret I wanna tell u,” he wrote in another message, accompanied by a smiley-face emoji covering its mouth. He never shared the secret, but sent one last message at 9:16 a.m., saying, “Ima air out.”

Shortly after, alerts of an active shooter in Uvalde hit the news.

Both the Instagram and the TikTok accounts in question were taken offline on Tuesday.

National news reporter John Mone, of Newsy, paraphrased an alleged eyewitness account of the moments prior to the attack. He said the eyewitness, Eduardo Trinidad, claimed that Ramos “got into an argument with the grandmother and she was screaming, ‘He shot me! He shot me!’ and then he got in the car, zoomed down the street, there was some kind of crash.”

“The suspect got out, he had two weapons, and then started engaging gunfire. From that point on, apparently, according to Mr. Trinidad, the suspect walks into the school and unfortunately the rest is history,” Mone said.

Editor’s Note: This article previously stated that Ramos was wearing body armor and carrying multiple firearms when he entered the school. That reporting has since been disputed.

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Hedieh Mirahmadi Op-ed: Be very wary of the US thought police


Commentary By Hedieh Mirahmadi, Exclusive Columnist | Thursday, May 12, 2022

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/voices/be-very-wary-of-the-us-thought-police.html/

It was astonishing when I first read about the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Disinformation Governance Board.

In my 20 years of government service fighting terrorism, the most complicated element of our work was protecting the sanctity of free speech while preventing radicalization. We watched young Americans leave their families to either marry a stranger or die in a foreign war but could do nothing about it because they had not committed a crime. They believed the persuasive pleas of the recruiters and wanted to be part of something bigger than themselves.

Civil rights groups, free speech activists, and others were very wary of our efforts. They claimed we were infringing on religious freedom and free speech by monitoring the recruiters’ activity. Back then, the social media giants wanted no part in censoring online profiles unless they advocated the violent overthrow of the U.S. or encouraged acts of violence. We understood it as Americans; we are not in the business of policing ideas, however unpopular they may be.

The Supreme Court even established “an imminent threat” standard to ensure we did not regulate grossly unpopular or hateful speech. So, it was not until groups like ISIS and Al-Shabab were officially designated as foreign terrorist organizations that criminal charges could be imposed for recruitment and/or material support. 

Fast forward to today, and this new board is tasked with addressing the threat of disinformation. The repeated use of the word “threat” by DHS Secretary Mayorkas should be a cause for concern. It purposely creates connectivity between disinformation and the potential for physical harm, so there is a crime that can be investigated and eventually prosecuted.

We already have laws to address any potential harm stemming from intentionally providing false information. There are civil penalties in defamation and slander cases and criminal charges for perjury or obstruction of justice against government officials. However, the Constitution does not allow the government to punish the exaggeration of a story or having a different opinion from the cultural norm.

Look, for example, at all the controversy surrounding the Hunter Biden laptop. What was commonly touted as a wacky MAGA conspiracy was eventually demonstrated to be fact. Same with the research about the utility of masks in fighting off COVID infections and the risks associated with vaccines. Just because something may sound outlandish to some does not mean it’s false. The power of free speech is that the marketplace of ideas allows our opinions to evolve and change with new data. Isn’t that how we defeated slavery and gave women equal rights?

This recent push to criminalize “unpopular” speech started with the backlash against the parental rights movement. Passionate and angry parents at school board meetings triggered the Justice Department to issue a memo about prosecuting the “threat” to school officials. Soon after, DHS issued a National Terrorism Advisory, warning of a heightened terrorism threat caused by disinformation introduced by foreign or domestic actors. Consider the language of the bulletin very carefully:

“These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence.”

The alarming conclusion is this: Our leading national security agency says the most significant domestic terrorism threat today is from people who share unpopular ideas with others, which could make them angry enough to commit a crime. To address this apparent threat, they create a Disinformation Governance Board to advise the operational departments of DHS on who to investigate and possibly prosecute for these alleged crimes.

I am shocked and dismayed this is happening in the public service sector, where I dedicated most of my professional career. How is the U.S. government suddenly the arbiter of “truth?” And why is lack of public trust defined now as a potential terrorism threat?

As if the unconstitutionality of regulating truth in the public square was not bad enough, the choice to govern the Disinformation Board makes it obvious who is the intended target of this effort. Nina Jankowicz, a clearly left-leaning social activist, has already labeled opponents of CRT “disinformers” and considers gender-based harassment online to be a national security threat, equal to terrorism. 

U.S. law enforcement power should never be partisan. We saw how damaging that was during the Russian collusion debacle when corruption in senior leadership tarnished the stellar reputation of the FBI. DHS and FBI officials are also never meant to be the thought police. We pride ourselves on that as Americans. Thankfully, many legislators are voicing their objections to this partisan attempt to silence opposition.

Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee wrote to DHS that the “federal government has no place interfering with the rights of all Americans to speak publicly about their political views … In fact, the Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that this kind of ‘core political speech’ is the primary object of First Amendment protection.” Ranking Senator Rob Portman said, “I do not believe that the United States government should turn the tools that we have used to assist our allies counter foreign adversaries onto the American people.”

It is no secret that the U.S. has directly engaged in “disinformation” campaigns in countries worldwide to defeat communism, totalitarianism, and in many cases, terrorist recruitment. The American people should not tolerate its government now turning around to tell us what truth we can or should believe.

As Christians, even those who try to remain “apolitical” must realize we will be the greatest casualty of this effort. Our truth about who Jesus Christ is as God incarnate and that life begins with conception can easily be weaponized against us when the arbiter does not believe in God’s word. Look at the underwhelming response by law enforcement as the radical’s torch Christian nonprofits and harass conservative Supreme Court judges at their homes. Nothing is being done to stop those crimes as if their truths or legal rights do not matter.

There are dark days ahead of us, “For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18). 

Hedieh Mirahmadi was a devout Muslim for two decades working in the field of national security before she experienced the redemptive power of Jesus Christ and has a new passion for sharing the Gospel.  She dedicates herself full-time to Resurrect Ministry, an online resource that harnesses the power of the Internet to make salvation through Christ available to people of all nations, and her daily podcast LivingFearlessDevotional.com.

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The Supreme Court’s Decision on Overturning Roe Will Be an Inflection Point for The Nation


POSTED BY: JOY PULLMANN | MAY 10, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/10/overturning-roe-would-be-a-triumph-that-can-bring-america-back-to-life/

Ronald Reagan and Clarence Thomas

If the Supreme Court does not overturn Roe v. Wade, its legitimacy is finished, and so is the nation the Founders created. The opposite is also true.

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Just as slavery and its lingering effects scarred America for centuries, the national sin of Roe v. Wade has weighed our nation down with the shame and devastation of legalized mass murder. Just as slavery deeply challenged the patriotism of those scarred by that evil regime in America, so has the unconstitutional and morally abhorrent abortion regime in America.

Also, just as slavery plainly contradicted the philosophy and law of the American founders — who wrote “all men are created equal, and… endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, [and] among these are Life” — so does Roe v. Wade, which even leftist “scholars” agree is a garbage decision. Just as slavery created a constitutional crisis that existentially threatened America, so did Roe v. Wade.

The attention on the protesters using violence and intimidation to retain a clearly unconstitutional and clearly immoral court diktat has obscured that if the Supreme Court does not overturn Roe, its legitimacy is finished. At that point, after decades of fruitlessly investing in keeping as many courts as possible closer to constitutionalism, the right will fully agree with the left that the Supreme Court is an illegitimate, utterly politicized institution, as I explained on EWTN last week. That will finish off what was left of the American republic and mark its complete conversion into something entirely different.

For it is highly politicized decisions like Roe, its companion Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and others such as those sanctioning the New Deal starting with West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, that have undermined the court’s legitimacy. The court maintains legitimacy precisely in doing its job of applying the law faithfully, instead of taking politics into consideration. Just as overturning Plessy v. Ferguson restored the Supreme Court’s legitimacy, so would the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Besides keeping the Founders’ America alive for “one more season of restraint,” fixing warped Roe v. Wade jurisprudence would also enliven the country, not just literally but also figuratively. It would breathe new life into an America that all of us should be able to admit has been on life support for some time.

Those of us who have been willing to admit what abortion is — the taking of a human life — have for decades been weighed down with the knowledge our own country has been allowing this on a mass scale, and even demanding we participate in and celebrate it. Such a regime not only delegitimizes itself but drains its own lifeblood.

The potential overturn of Roe v. Wade is a massive opportunity to overturn a horrifying evil, and therefore to do great good. The opportunity to do great good is a strong and previously unavailable motivator. It would be a huge energizer for those who have resisted the usurping regime’s massive efforts to get us to stop seeing and talking about what we have seen that regime do to our nation. It would be the fall of a great spiritual Berlin Wall inside our nation.

It would allow us to finally stop talking about “norms” and start talking about whether those norms nourish or destroy life. We could stop talking about marginal tax rates and about whose duty it is, exactly, to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves. In short, we can start making the necessary bold moves to re-seed and water a culture of life. Without Roe, we can start from the beginning and move holistically, from the bottom up instead of merely tinkering around the corners of an entirely corrupt edifice.

That’s the most needed action in this moment, as the political and immoral left has become very clear about its frightening degradation into a death cult. Overturning Roe would show that major, enduring cultural victories are still possible, and that all of the nation’s institutions don’t belong to the left. Perhaps that’s why this poll showed a move to the right after people heard about the leaked majority opinion to overturn Roe.

An outpouring of creative social entrepreneurship and policy could be in the offing as states finally have the opportunity to make good on their voters’ belief that the unborn are people deserving of the best care a civilization can offer. By returning this existential policy to the people again, it could allow them to get involved in more immediate, tangible, and fruitful ways than demonstrating in the streets or on Twitter. People who want to save lives could be more able to adopt a baby now that abortion isn’t killing nearly all of the potential adoptees or help sponsor local children living with their own needy families like many churches do for children in faraway nations. It would be even less tenable to ban Christians from helping with foster care and adoption when the need for connecting children with parents increases through refusing to kill inconvenient children.

We’re so used to losing, who knows what the biggest win in generations could do to energize the American majority that remains committed to families and the rule of the real Constitution, not the murderous “living” one. But I do know that nothing is so energizing and refreshing as a baby. There’s nothing more unifying, more animating, and more lively. A baby is a life, and a baby makes a life. This is true both for us as individuals and for us as a collective.

Children are a reason to get up in the morning, to make a morning at all. Discharging our responsibilities to children is the way to make it “Morning in America” again, both in our homes and in our civic life. Caring for them is the best way forward. It is the only way. Without children, a civilization dies, both spiritually and literally. We are on the cusp of continuing to lose our babies, but there’s a chance we can get them back. And we need to, for our nation’s life is inextricable from theirs.

As every good parent learns, having a child is the way to become human again. Being human means becoming the kind of person who will sacrifice himself to benefit another. A society without enough of such persons is soon not a society at all. The Supreme Court’s decision, therefore, can either mean life or death not only for the unborn, but also for their nation. We must all hope, pray, and prepare.

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Sign up here to get early access to her next ebook, “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” Mrs. Pullmann identifies as native American and gender natural. She is also the author of “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books. In 2013-14 she won a Robert Novak journalism fellowship for in-depth reporting on Common Core national education mandates. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs.

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Joe Rogan slams daughter’s elementary school for pushing woke ‘anti-racist’ ideology onto young kids


Reported by PHIL SHIVER | April 06, 2022

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/joe-rogan-slams-daughter-s-elementary-school-for-pushing-woke-anti-racist-ideology-onto-young-kids-2657110660.html/

Joe Rogan took aim at his 9-year-old daughter’s California elementary school this week, slamming the institution for pushing woke “anti-racist” ideals on young children. The massively popular podcaster claimed the school, which he doesn’t name, issued a blanket statement to parents in May 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, telling them that their children “must be anti-racist.”

Rogan slammed the school’s email during Tuesday’s episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” arguing that the children were too young to understand the inflammatory message and charged that by telling them to be anti-racist, administrators were in essence introducing racism to them.

“When the whole George Floyd thing happened, one of the schools that my kids were going to back in California released this email, saying that it’s not enough to not be racist, you now must be anti-racist,” Rogan recalled.

“And my kid’s nine at the time,” he continued, asking, “What does that, what does that mean?”

“These kids are not even remotely racist. Like, they have all sorts of different kinds of friends,” he went on to say. “I’ve never heard them discuss it once. It’s just, ‘I like this person and she’s nice to me and we like to play together and we both like the same things.'”

“So, to tell a 9-year-old that you have to be anti-racist, well, then they go looking for racism, they’re gonna go looking to confront it,” Rogan argued.

Rogan went on to add that if schools wanted to teach kids that “racism is stupid,” then “I’m all with you.” “But if you want to tell my 9-year-old, they have to be anti-racist. What does it mean?” he said.

The podcaster, who has recently dealt with his own controversy over past racial comments, also criticized the California educators for being “naive” in the implementation of their progressive ideology.

“They weren’t that good at teaching in the first place,” he claimed. “And now here there are saying they’re going to tackle something, not just tackle something as complex as race in America, but you’re going to establish rules that you can’t just be not racist, you have to be anti-racist.”

“And you’re going to teach this to a 9-year-old?” he questioned. “So, what are you saying? Like, what exactly are you saying, what is your f*****g end goal?”

Rogan reportedly made the comments during an interview with filmmaker and director David Mamet, during which the two discussed the current state of Hollywood.

(H/T: New York Post)

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Arielle Del Turco Op-ed: In Afghanistan, women are being subjugated. In the West, they are being erased.


COMMUNTARY By Arielle Del Turco, Op-ed Contributor | Wednesday, April 06, 2022

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/voices/in-afghanistan-women-are-subjugated-in-the-west-erased.html/

“We are being treated like criminals just because we are girls. Afghanistan has turned into a jail for us.” This is how one Afghan girl describes life under the Taliban. Girls across the country had their hopes dashed last week when Taliban authorities reneged on their promise to allow girls’ secondary schools (above 6th grade) to reopen. The decision was so last minute that the students were not told until they arrived at school Wednesday morning and had to be sent home.

One girl tearfully recounted to her mother, “Mom, they didn’t let me enter my school. They’re saying girls aren’t allowed.” Instead of attending classes and progressing in their education, she and other Afghan girls will be expected to stay inside their homes and help with housework.

The pretext given by some Taliban officials is they were unable to plan for a school uniform dress code for teenage girls. This pathetic excuse is no doubt familiar to Afghans who previously lived under Taliban rule. When the Taliban controlled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, education for girls was similarly restricted. But in recent months, Taliban officials have tried to insist that they’ve changed over the last two decades. However, all pretense of modernization within the Taliban is now over; that is a deeply tragic reality for women and girls in Afghanistan who simply want to go to school and live normal lives.

While Afghan women and girls were grieving the loss of basic freedoms and opportunities because of their sex, a very different scene played out nearly 7,000 miles away in a U.S. Senate chamber. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) asked Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, to define the word “woman.” Jackson responded, “No. I can’t … I’m not a biologist.” It struck many as odd that a well-educated and successful person — whom many hail as a pioneering black woman herself — was unable or refused even to define the word “woman.”

But this ambiguity on the nature of womanhood isn’t limited to a Supreme Court confirmation hearing; it’s taking our culture by storm. In recent weeks, we’ve seen biological males who self-identify as women kicking biological females off the podium in women’s sports and taking their slots in “woman of the year” designations.

Clarity on the sexes is needed now more than ever. But the truth is not that complicated. Writing in the National Review, Madeleine Kearns explains why no one needs a degree in biology to know what a woman is: “Sex is observable at birth, detectable long after death, and demonstrable in our chromosomes, gametes, and reproductive organs. We are reminded of our sex every time we go to the bathroom or look in a mirror. The sex of the vast majority of people is identifiable at a glance.”

The West’s erasure of women puts women and girls at physical risk in shared spaces like bathrooms and locker rooms and robs them of opportunities that policies like Title IX were supposed to protect. It also has the potential to undermine global momentum on women’s rights. What does it mean for international women’s rights advocacy if the West can no longer agree on a definition for “woman?”

While the West is embroiled in debate about gender identity ideology, the heart-wrenching and horrifying situations faced by many women around the world are being overlooked. Female North Korean defectors forcibly sent back to North Korea endure rape, torture, forced labor, and forced abortions in labor camps. Young Christian and Hindu girls in Pakistan are at risk of being forcibly converted and married to their Muslim kidnappers. Uyghur women are targets of China’s genocide, undergoing brutal mandatory sterilization, forced abortions, and arbitrary detainment.

Women have come a long way in gaining equal rights and protections in much of the world. Yet, the West does a disservice to those women still fighting for basic rights when it sidelines their plight in favor of trendy, dangerous, and incoherent gender identity ideology.

Women and girls around the world aren’t being helped by the West’s newfound confusion about the sexes. We shouldn’t be afraid to say what a woman is — a biological female — and defend the human dignity of women around the world. We must convey the value and goodness of women’s unique qualities — not ignore them, undermine them and certainly not erase them.

Originally published at the Family Research Council. 

Arielle Del Turco is Assistant Director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council. 

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Transgender cyclist blocked from women’s championship race after boycott threats from biologically female contestants


Reported by DAVE URBANSKI | April 04, 2022

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/transgender-female-cyclist-blocked-from-women-s-championship-race-boycott-threats-loomed/

A transgender female cyclist was blocked from participating in the women’s British National Omnium Championship over the weekend, as Emily Bridges is still registered as a male cyclist, the Guardian reported. In addition, a number of the race’s participants were said to be ready to boycott the race if Bridges was in it, the outlet added.

Bridges, 21, set a national junior men’s record over 25 miles in 2018, the Guardian said, adding that the cyclist began hormone therapy last year to reduce testosterone levels.

However, a number of biological female cyclists discussed boycotting Saturday’s event because they believed Bridges has an unfair advantage, the outlet said, adding that Bridges was involved with the Great Britain Academy program as a male cyclist until being dropped in 2020. In addition, Bridges is still registered as a male cyclist and can’t race as a woman until the male ID expires, according to Union Cycliste Internationale regulations, the Guardian said.

Bridges was “disappointed” with UCI’s decision, the outlet said.

“We have been in close discussions with the UCI regarding Emily’s participation this weekend and have also engaged closely with Emily and her family regarding her transition and involvement in elite competitions,” British Cycling said, according to the Guardian. “We acknowledge the decision of the UCI with regards to Emily’s participation, however we fully recognize her disappointment with today’s decision.”

A comprehensive scientific review by the five British sports councils in September said there were “retained differences in strength, stamina, and physique between the average woman compared with the average transgender woman or non-binary person registered male at birth.”

Trans cyclist banned from national championships youtube

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BlackRock president warns ‘entitled generation that has never had to sacrifice’ that they will soon face shock due to major shortages: ‘Put on your seatbelts


Reported by PHIL SHIVER | March 31, 2022

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/blackrock-inflation-scarcity-entitled-generation/

The president of the world’s largest asset management company just issued a stark warning to members of America’s “entitled generation.”

BlackRock co-founder and president Robert Kapito said Tuesday that the global supply chain and soaring inflation crises will soon have dramatic effects on the U.S. economy that will result in a noticeable scarcity of goods not experienced before by many younger Americans. That scarcity, he said, will likely be a shock to the system for many who are accustomed to an abundant and comfortable lifestyle.

“For the first time, this generation is going to go into a store and not be able to get what they want,” Kapito said, adding, “We have a very entitled generation that has never had to sacrifice.”

“I would put on your seatbelts, because this is something that we haven’t seen,” he asserted, in reference to what he called “scarcity inflation.”

Kapito’s remarks, first reported by Bloomberg News, were made at the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association convention — an annual gathering of oil and gas industry leaders. The warning comes just days after Bloomberg economists advised Americans to consider budgeting an extra $5,200 this year — or $433 monthly — to prepare for the effects of historically high inflation.

Inflation under the Biden administration has skyrocketed in the past year, rising at the fastest pace in four decades. Inflation is measured by the U.S. Consumer Price Index, which increased nearly 8% over the past 12 months, according to government data released for February 2022. The dramatically inflated prices have reportedly resulted in 64% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. The last time inflation rose at such a fast rate was in 1982. That year, the U.S. economy went into a recession. Now, some experts are warning that another economic recession is “inevitable.”

The Biden administration has been peddling a litany of excuses for the economic downturn — including the coronavirus pandemic, corporate greed, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — but American voters reportedly aren’t buying it. A plurality of respondents to a recent NBC News poll (38%) blamed President Joe Biden for the increase in the cost of consumer goods, while just 28% blamed the coronavirus pandemic, 23% blamed corporations raising prices, and only 6% blamed Putin.

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Why Accepting Child Transgenderism Will Pave the Way for Accepting Pedophilia


REPORTED BY: SPENCER LINDQUIST | JANUARY 24, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/24/why-accepting-child-transgenderism-will-pave-the-way-for-accepting-pedophilia/

trans flag

The last several years can be viewed as a testament to the remarkable strategic power the woke left wields. The speed at which absurd ideas have been thrust into the limelight by vested media and a wide array of well-financed academics and non-profits is both startling and impressive. Not long ago, it would’ve been unimaginable that a seven-year-old boy’s innocent preference for Polly Pockets over Power Rangers would find its tragic end in puberty blockers, chemical castration, and 15 minutes of fame on Snapchat’s explore page. Calling this abuse doesn’t encapsulate the full extent of the damage. It is a culturally bolstered, politically incentivized mass grooming campaign with a disturbing history. Even worse, this all may be eclipsed by a much darker future should it continue unabated.

The push for childhood transgenderism is predicated on a perverse and extreme individualistic sentiment, specifically that children’s rights as individuals imply an autonomous ability to make irreversible decisions regarding their health, rather than require protection from parents and a culture that fend off all that endangers the most vulnerable. The dangerous claim that children can meaningfully consent to puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, or genital mutilation is, besides itself being deeply harmful, also leading our society down a sinister path towards accepting pedophilia. Here’s how.

A Legacy Of Abuse

Unfortunately, this isn’t speculative fear-mongering. Pedophilic child abuse has deep roots in the transgender movement. John Money, a sex researcher who paved the way for acceptance of childhood transgenderism, sexually abused his young patients and defended pedophilia. Money is infamous for the series of experiments he ran on David Reimer, the first child who was born developmentally normal yet underwent a sex-change operation. After Reimer’s botched circumcision, Money saw an opportunity to test his leftwing gender theories. He convinced Reimer’s parents to raise their son as a daughter and subject him to a sex change operation. Reimer and his twin went on to be studied and abused by Money, who according to a peer-reviewed biology encyclopedia from Arizona State University forced them to “engage in behavior resembling sexual intercourse” while he watched and took pictures. Despite this, Money failed to get Reimer to adopt a feminine identity. Reimer, who didn’t know he had been born male until the age of 14, frequently behaved in a masculine manner and resisted Money’s attempts to feminize him.

According to Reason Magazine’s Books Editor Jesse Walker, Money “touted himself as a defender of sexual liberation: for the rights of gays and other sexual minorities, for legalized pornography, for breaking down social taboos.” When his abuse of the twins was exposed, he insulted his critics as “anti-feminist” bigots beholden to traditional gender roles. 

Reimer’s life eventually ended in the same tragic way that still disproportionately claims the lives of so many transgender people when he committed suicide at the age of 38. As if it wasn’t sinister enough, Reimer’s case was used to justify thousands more sex reassignment surgeries on children born with genital abnormalities. 

Transsexual Pioneer Also Supports Pedophilia

Money also used his stature as a prominent academic to defend pedophilia. The pedophilic organization North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) even references a quote from an interview with Money that explicitly endorses pedophilia in an attempt to normalize their pathology. None of these revelations have prevented academics from lauding this moral monster as a founding father of the transgender movement. Terry Goldie, the author of a biography on Money, explained that Money “didn’t search for biological evidence of transgender identity, but accepted a patient’s conviction as fact.”

Anke A. Ehrhardt, a research partner and disciple of Money, similarily noted his role in the transgender movement, calling him a “pioneer,” crediting him with the introduction of terms like “gender identity” and “sexual orientation,” and pointing out his role in our culture’s departure from a biological understanding of sex.    

Erhrardt, who was directly involved in the Reimer case, still has a foothold in academia and is now the director of the Division of Gender, Sexuality, and Heath, and The Program for the Study of LGBT Health, a project of Columbia University. The abuser is also honored with the John Money Fellowship for Scholars of Sexology at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, which specifically seeks out those “whose research interests concern the history, politics, and methodology of sexology and sexuality studies.” The institute is named after Alfred Kinsey, another leftwing sex researcher venerated by NAMBLA. Kinsey, who worked alongside transgender activists to normalize gender dsyphoria, also mainstreamed the concept of gender fluidity through experiments that featured the systematic sexual abuse of children and even babies as young as two months old, according to his own books. Kinsey heavily influenced both Money and Harry Benjamin, the latter of whom has been called the “father of transexualism.” 

Make no mistake, the transgender movement is predicated on a psuedo-academic legacy that’s replete with the most egregious crimes against children.

The Threat Of A Legacy Fulfilled

It isn’t hard to identify the same trend in the modern incarnations of transgenderism and adjacent movements. Here I highlighted numerous attempts to normalize pedophilia by various entities, the most pertinent being a New York Times article that referred to the serial rape of a 13-year-old homeless victim of transgender groomers as selling sex.

As children are lured into the world of transgenderism, they become open to a number of abuses beyond cross-sexual treatments. One study found that children with a recent onset of gender dysphoria (62.5 percent of whom had previously been diagnosed with “at least one mental health disorder or neurodevelopmental disability”, began to isolate themselves from their families and distrust those who weren’t trans, both of which lead to further isolation.

To make matters worse, transgender figures have told children that “it’s okay to walk away from unsupportive … parents” and to exchange them for a “glitter family, your queer family,” before inviting these children to call or Skype him. And what do “supportive” families look like anyways? How many “supportive” families have encouraged their children to become trans in exchange for social media’s fleeting dopamine hits? 

The grooming has been institutionalized in American schools, with campus organizations like the Gay-Straight Alliance that seek to “train youth leaders” finding financial favor from Soro’s Open Society Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Weingart Foundation, Vans, The California Endowment, and various other elite organizations. The Federalist broke news that America’s second-largest school district, which is associated with GSA, has been holding LGBT club meetings for 4-year-olds and hosted a nurse who discussed “medical transition.” The district refused to answer whether parents were required to accompany children to such meetings. 

These moneyed efforts are capitalized on by teachers who’ve used the club to groom children to become transgender under the nose of unsuspecting parents who are subsequently lambasted for not being “supportive.” 

These People Aren’t Kidding. You Shouldn’t, Either

Yes, they are coming for your children. It’s a feature, not a bug. The history of transgenderism proves this. You shouldn’t expect them to stop unless you make them through protecting your kids, coordinated activism, and community involvement. If you don’t, it likely won’t be long before it’s argued that children who can allegedly consent to sexual surgeries should also be able to consent to sexual relationships. If such a hellish future seems unimaginable, consider that any number of the outgrowths of sexual progressivism would’ve been beyond the pale only a decade ago. 

Alternatively, turn your attention to a 1977 open letter in France from 69 people that defended three pedophiles and argued for the age of consent to be lowered below 15. It also contended that 13-year-old girls, by virtue of receiving birth control pills, should have the legal right to consent to sex. One of the signers was critical theorist Michel Foucault, who would later have a sizeable impact on the field of queer theory that now dominates American society. 

Child grooming is already commonplace within the transgender movement as it has been since its inception and attempts to normalize pedophilia have already hit the mainstream.

We Can’t Accept Half Measures In The Defense Of Children

If there was ever an instance in which the right needed moral courage and a healthy dose of stubbornness, this is one of them. You can defeat this, but not alone. 

This movement is backed by an array of NGOs, elite interests, and pallets of cash. It’s pivotal that you find like-minded people in your church and community and that you employ all legal and ethical means to collectively reject the dangerous insanity that’s being foisted on your children. For all the risks this comes with, you can be certain that cowardice bears a heavier cost, both on your children and on your psyche. But here’s cause for celebration: this moment is begging to be met by those who have the courage to do so.

Spencer Lindquist is an intern at The Federalist and a senior at Pepperdine University where he studies Political Science and Rhetoric and Leadership and serves as Pepperdine’s College Republicans President. You can follow him on Twitter @SpencerLndqst and reach him at LSpencerLindquist@gmail.com.

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Trans man and Satanic minister gives birth after one-night stand with fellow gay dating app user: ‘Giving birth felt like one of the most masculine things I have done’


Reported by SARAH TAYLOR | January 06, 2022

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/trans-man-gives-birth-after-one-night-stand-with-fellow-gay-dating-app-user/

A transgender man became pregnant after a one-night stand on a gay dating app — and he says that the experience “felt like one of the most masculine things” he’s ever done. According to the Daily Mail, 28-year-old Ash Patrick Schade — a self-described minister of Satan, mental health worker, and Ph.D. student — became pregnant during his transition from a female to a male.

“I was going through a rough time from 2019 and 2020 and struggled with my mental health due to going through a divorce,” Schade, who began his transition in 2018, said. “I ended up going on Grindr hookups and accidentally fell pregnant.”

Schade — who was married to a man prior to the transition — was taking testosterone and estrogen blockers and became pregnant during a one-night stand on dating app Grindr.

“It had never occurred to me that I could get pregnant whilst on testosterone and estrogen blockers, as it’s such a rare occurrence,” Schade said according to the report.

Schade, who later met his current husband, Jordan, while pregnant with the child, gave birth to a healthy baby daughter in October 2020. Schade said that the birthing process was more unique than he could ever have known.

“‘When I went into labor, the team of medical staff had already been briefed on my situation and were amazing, until they were swapped out with different staff members later on,” Schade recalled. “It may sound counter-intuitive, but giving birth felt like one of the most masculine things I have done.”

‘I can explain to her how I am both her mom and her dad’

Schade said that he felt very supported during the whole process.

“[T]hroughout the whole thing I had the love of my husband Jordan supporting me throughout, he even cut Ronan’s cord, he’s been there every step of the way,” Schade said according to the U.K.’s Daily Star. “I had all of my friends following my journey and checking in, as well as the support of the online gay and trans community and even the Satanic Temple of which I’m a member.”

Following his delivery, he had top surgery to remove his breasts and plans to have bottom surgery once he’s done having children.

The outlet reported that Schade said he’d long struggled with feeling like he was in the “wrong body” and even attended conversion therapy as a child.

“I hid my boobs and identified as a boy at school and went by Ash and wore gothic dark clothes as a way to hide how I looked,” Schade said. “Until one day, my mother, who does not wish to be named, sent me to school in a pink two-piece for picture day and my teacher loudly declared that I was actually a girl called Ashley. … I went from popular to a nobody overnight, with my then girlfriend’s mum calling my mom to ‘Keep that gay slur of a child away from my daughter.'”

Schade said that he experienced a “really horrible childhood” and survived a suicide attempt from the “gender dysphoria and trauma” he endured.

The new parent said that he plans to tell his daughter all about his journey when she’s older.

“I want to be honest and open with Ronan the whole way and explain to her that sometimes trans men can have babies,” he said. “I can explain to her how I am both her mom and her dad.”

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Man Drives Miles With Smoker, Truckload Of Food To Help Those Who Were In Tornado’s Destructive Path


Reported by JORGE VELASCO | CONTRIBUTOR | December 13, 2021

Read more at https://dailycaller.com/2021/12/13/man-food-cook-mayfield-kentucky-tornado-severe-weather/

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Screenshot/Victor Ordoñez/Twitter/12-13-2021

A man drove a truckload of food and grill to Mayfield, Kentucky, to cook food for citizens affected by the deadly tornadoes that killed dozens of people.

Victor Ordoñez, a writer for ABC News, posted several videos Sunday of Jim Finch, who told the journalist that although he doesn’t own a restaurant, “it just needed to be done.”

“This man drove half an hour with a grill and a truckload of food and parked right in the middle of Mayfield Kentucky,” Ordoñez’s caption read. 

Finch said that he decided to take his grill to Mayfield because he knows that some Kentuckians “don’t have any electricity.”

“That means they don’t have any restaurants, no running water so I just figured I would do what I could do, show up with some food and some water,” Finch said in the video.

The man also said that those who wish to pick up his food should come with no worries. “We trying to feed the people. We got hamburgers, chicken, I got sausage, eggs. Just real simple stuff you can have and not worry about making a mess, grab and go type of food.”

Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said that at least 70 people were believed to be dead after tornadoes and severe weather ripped through the state over the weekend, WLKY reported. Beshear also said that President Joe Biden signed a federal emergency declaration for Kentucky after dozens of buildings were destroyed and other structures were damaged.

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‘Kill God’: Pennsylvania church vandalized with satanic messages


Reported By Michael Gryboski, Christian Post Reporter | Tuesday, December 07, 2021

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/kill-god-pennsylvania-church-vandalized-with-satanic-messages.html/

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A Pennsylvania church was vandalized by unknown assailants who desecrated the property with graffiti depicting satanic symbols and the words “kill God.” The Lititz Church of the Brethren in Lancaster County was vandalized sometime between Thursday evening and Friday morning, police said, according to The Morning Call. The chalk graffiti displayed the phrases “kill God” and “hail Satan,” as well as the satanic symbol of a star inside a circle. The vandalism also featured the number 666, the biblical number for the Antichrist.

Eric Landram, the lead pastor of Lititz Church of the Brethren, told The Christian Post on Monday that the “chalk which was used left no permanent damage and clean up was minimal.”

Landram explained that such vandalism has not occurred on his church’s property in the past, so they are “are treating it as a one-time prank and are not concerned by the antics.” He added that apart from “what has already been reported, we have no additional comments to make at this time.”

News of the church vandalism grabbed the attention of the editorial board for Lancaster Online, which denounced the actions as “egregiously wrong” and “especially disturbing.”

“There is something especially disturbing about vandalism directed at a place of worship or a religious symbol. It seems designed to rattle people of faith who regard their sacred spaces as sanctuaries to which they go in times of both grief and joy,” wrote the editors.

“There was no lasting damage to the church. But memories of the desecration likely will linger. Even if it turns out to be the work of clueless young people. Or the product of a disturbed mind.”

The editorial board also cited a report by Axios published in October, which concluded that houses of worship of various faiths were “experiencing high amounts of vandalism, arson and other property damage.”

“2021 is on track to exceed last year’s spike in hate crimes in the U.S., many of them linked to religious bigotry,” Axios reported.

“The number of hate crimes reported in FY 2020 was the highest since 2001, when a wave of Islamophobia followed the 9/11 attacks, according to updated FBI data.”

Follow Michael Gryboski on Twitter or Facebook

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Photo: Marine Vet Gets Award for Stopping Robbery, But His Anti-Biden Shirt Steals the Show


Reported By Randy DeSoto | October 27, 2021

Read more at https://www.westernjournal.com/photo-marine-vet-gets-award-stopping-robbery-anti-biden-shirt-steals-show/

U.S. Marine veteran James Kilcer, who thwarted an attempted robbery in an Arizona convenience store last week, received an award Tuesday from the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office while wearing a “Let’s Go Brandon” T-shirt. He was also sporting a red “Make America Great Again” hat, apparently in support of former President Donald Trump.

Sheriff Leon Wilmot presented Kilcer with the YCSO Citizen’s Valor Award, “For extraordinary heroism and exceptional courage while voluntarily coming to the aid of another citizen during an incident involving criminal activity at extreme, life threatening, personal risk in an attempt to save or protect human life,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.

“The YCSO Citizen’s Valor Award is the highest award for citizens whose actions warrant recognition.”

Surveillance video of Kilcer stopping the robbery at the Chevron convenience store early in the morning on Oct. 20 went viral. The now-U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground employee had just purchased some Gatorades and other items and was talking to the clerk when the suspects came in, Kilcer told the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.

“I heard the door start opening forcefully and my ‘Spidey senses’ or whatever kind of tingling, and I turn around and saw they were coming in real quick,” he said.

The veteran turned around and his military training kicked in as he sought to disarm the robber.

“I was ready: I saw it coming,” Kilcer said. “The minute my hands closed around it, I never lost contact with the gun. And I pulled him down.”

He held the suspect down until law enforcement arrived. The person arrested was a 14-year-old juvenile who has now been charged with one count of armed robbery and one count of aggravated assault.

“Kilcer served as a tactical air operations technician in the Marine Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan during his time in the military. He credits his actions to his Marine Corps basic training and mindset,” DVIDS reported.

“I guess I was just in the right place at the right time,’’ Kilcer said. “I was doing what needed to be done.”Advertisement – story continues below

While appearing on Fox News on Friday, the Arizonan also waded into the political when he ended the segment, saying with a smile to host Dana Perino, “And remember, [Jeffrey] Epstein didn’t kill himself.”

“OK, got it,” said Perino, who laughed and added, “Very clever.”

Randy DeSoto, Senior Staff Writer

Randy DeSoto has written more than 2,000 articles for The Western Journal since he joined the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book “We Hold These Truths” and screenwriter of the political documentary “I Want Your Money.”@RandyDeSoto

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One Month Before Baldwin Movie Shooting, Crew Armorer Made Chilling Admission


Reported By Jack Davis  October 23, 2021

Read more at https://www.westernjournal.com/one-month-baldwin-movie-shooting-crew-armorer-made-chilling-admission/

The woman responsible for the weapon used by Alec Baldwin in a tragic film set accident this week had said she was “really nervous” about her ability to work with prop guns.

Baldwin’s prop firearm discharged during the filming of the movie “Rust” in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Thursday. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, was killed. Director Joe Souza, 48, was injured and taken to a nearby hospital.

Hannah Reed, the film crew’s armorer, last month admitted that she was unsure of her ability to do her job.

“You know, I was really nervous about it at first, and I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure if I was ready. But doing it, like, it went really smoothly,” Reed said on the “Voices of the West” podcast on Sept. 11.

Reed was then working on a movie called “The Old Way.” She said it was her first time as a head armorer. Loading blanks was the “scariest” part of the job, Reed said. She said her father, fellow Hollywood armorer Thell Reed, helped show her the ropes.

According to CNN, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department has issued a search warrant for the property where “Rust” was being filmed.

Steve Wolf, a theatrical firearms safety expert, said “there is no excuse for something like this to happen.”

“The physics of how bullets enter people has been known for about 5,000 years,” he added.

Armorers should always look inside the cylinder of a weapon to ensure “there is nothing in the gun that could come out,” Wolf said.

“If you put a blank in there, you make sure there is a blank, no bullet on the end of it.”

Baldwin tweeted his condolences to Hutchins’ family and friends after the accident.


“There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours,” Baldwin wrote. “I’m fully cooperating with the police investigation to address how this tragedy occurred and I am in touch with her husband, offering my support to him and his family.‘

“My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Halyna.”

Jack Davis, Contributor

Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.

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Richard D. Land Op-ed: Hardcore porn: The mortal enemy of humanity—women and men


Commentary By Richard D. Land, Christian Post Executive Editor | Friday, October 01, 2021

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/hard-core-porn-the-mortal-enemy-of-humanitywomen-and-men.html/

Pulling the Plug on Pornographic Websites!

Seldom, if ever, have I been more dejected at having been proven right about my prediction for over three decades now about the catastrophic impact the spiritual and emotional cancer of hard-core internet pornography would have on all levels of our culture.

Imagine my surprise when I began to read my copy of TheNew York Times on September 25, 2021 (I should confess I have been reading TheNew York Times every day since age 18. Considering how far the former “paper of record” for the country has fallen from its former glory, it is more of an addiction than a search for knowledge).

There, on the top fold of the editorial page was a column by Michelle Goldberg, “Sex Positive Feminism is Falling Out of Fashion.”

Ms. Goldberg reports what I suspect was a very surprising development to her. She reports philosopher Amia Srinivasan’s experience while teaching students at the University of Oxford about “second-wave anti-porn activism.” Ms. Srinivasan assumed that her Oxford students (late millennials and early Gen Z’ers, who have been immersed in a porn-saturated culture, as were their parents, would “find the anti-porn position prudish and passé.”

On the contrary, they seemed to be channeling the spirit of Andrea Dworkin in their responses. Responding to the massive and impassioned response of her students, Ms. Srinivasan said, “The warnings of the anti-porn feminists seem to have been belatedly realized.” Somewhere Ms. Dworkin and her supporters are saying, “I told you so.”

The responses of the Oxford students are revelatory. They overwhelmingly affirmed the belief that porn bears “responsibility for the objectification of women,” the “marginalization of women,” and “sex and violence against women.” One young man in the Oxford class expressed doubt about whether “sex that was ‘loving and mutual’ was even possible.”

How indescribably sad, and yet how predictable. When one looks at descriptions of the content of online porn (I would not advise anyone to view the actual product—you don’t want those images burned into your consciousness), it is impossible not to see it as grotesquely anti-woman.

Real feminists who understand what hard-core porn really is would picket every “adult” bookstore and porn outlet in the country if they had the courage of their convictions. And women are not the only victims. The average age of first exposure to hard-core porn for American males has dropped from 17 to 11 with the advent of the internet. Now, every home in America is just one of two clicks way away from having material that was previously confined to the worst areas of the worst cities in America ooze up into their hearts and minds through the internet.

Hard-core internet pornography is analogous to an electronic river of malignant and toxic emotional slime running just under the surface waiting to be uploaded into the hearts and minds of Americans, young and old alike.

While pornography does exploit and objectify women, it also victimizes young men. Millions of these boys and young men are receiving their sex miseducation from internet porn. Having been exposed and too often addicted to this twisted view of human sexuality, they are daily having their ability to become the husbands and fathers they desire to be stunted, twisted, and destroyed. 

Hard-core internet pornography has poisoned the basic building block of human relationships, the man-woman interaction that produces marriage and families. When I hear the responses of Ms. Srinivasan’s Oxford students, my heart breaks for both the male and female students as they testify to how pornography has shaped their interaction with each other.

Those of us who came of age before the tsunami of hard-core internet porn engulfed us have a difficult time understanding the world which this has created for millennials and Gen Z’ers. I continue to be haunted by a story related to me by a women’s dean at a prominent liberal arts college. She expressed to me how painful it was to have a steady stream of young women come for counseling with the lament that they felt extremely pressured to have casual sex and that they just “wanted sex to mean something”! How unspeakably sad.

I believe that internet porn is the Madison Avenue ad campaign that promotes sexual immorality and creates the market for sexual slavery. I believe that Satan has figured out that the most powerful weapon in his arsenal in his incessant attempts to degrade and defile humanity is hard-core internet pornography.

One measure of the level of his success is that vulgar and leud terms for sexual intercourse are now routinely used to describe acts of hostility and aggression and exploitation. The devil has taken the relationship that God intended to be the most giving and loving relationship between husband and wife and has deformed it into synonyms for the exact opposite.

It is well past time for Christians of all denominational persuasions to covenant together to seek to reclaim God’s gift of gender and sex and to redeem them for the purpose for which God gifted them—to make of the two one flesh, a knowing and a being known beyond the human capacity of speed to describe.

Let us be about our Heavenly Father’s business.

Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.

Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.

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‘Celebrities are crazy,’ basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal declares: ‘I denounce my celebrity-ness’

ALEX NITZBERG | September 27, 2021

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/celebrities-are-crazy-basketball-legend-shaqille-o-neal-says-i-denounce-my-celebrity-ness-today/

Paras Griffin/Getty Images for Pepsi Stronger Together

Former NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal told the New York Post that he is denouncing his “celebrity-ness.”

“Celebrities are crazy,” he said. “How they treat people, what they do, what they say.”

But Shaq noted, “That’s never been me,” and said that he does not want to be viewed in that way.

O’Neal does not believe that his wealth and success make him better than other people. He described himself as a “regular person,” who “made it.”

“But just because I made it don’t mean I’m bigger than you,” said the 7-foot-1 NBA legend. “Just cuz I have more money than you don’t mean that I’m better than you. I’ve never been that way and I never will be that way.”

Shaq said “celebrities are goin freakin crazy,” noting, “I don’t wanna be one. I denounce my celebrity-ness today.”

His down-to-earth take could be refreshing to many Americans who have grown weary with celebrity culture in the U.S. and the haughty spirit exhibited by some stars. And while Shaq has been tremendously successful in the NBA and beyond, he has also been very generous with his wealth, doing many random acts of kindness for strangers.

This Saturday, the Shaquille O’Neal Foundation is hosting a fundraising gala in Las Vegas that will feature performers, including Kelly Clarkson, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, and others.

“For as long as I can remember, giving back has been instilled in my family. When I started my Foundation in 2019, I wanted to help kids in need by giving them resources, opportunities and most importantly, hope. This past year has been especially tough on our youth. But we can change that,” Shaq said in a letter posted on his foundation’s website.

“Join me on October 2nd for The Event, the inaugural fundraising gala for The Shaquille O’Neal Foundation. Be a part of our history as we mark this unforgettable occasion. We have an incredible evening in store, with performances you won’t see anywhere else. Your support will impact the lives of underserved children in Las Vegas, Atlanta and beyond. Together we will raise funds for a great cause, but we will also have a great time doing it,” Shaq said.

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Hey Nike. Here is a REAL Hero


In 1976, Shavarsh Karapetyan, an Armenian Olympic swimmer, had just completed a 12-mile run with his brother when they saw a trolley bus crash into a dam reservoir. The trolley bus sank 80 feet offshore at a depth of 33 feet. Shavarsh immediately dove in and swam to the bus and despite zero visibility, managed to kick in the back window, injuring himself in the process. He proceeded to save twenty people trapped in the bus, one at a time, for hours.

The combined effect of the cold water and his inquiries from breaking the glass window led to his hospitalization for 45 days after the incident, during which time he developed pneumonia, sepsis, and lung damage which ended his athletic career.

For years, his story wasn’t known, until an article about the event identified him by name in 1982. In 1985, he happened to pass by a burning building and rushed inside, again saving people trapped inside one at a time until he collapsed. He was again hospitalized with severe burns and lung damage.

He’s still kicking it at 66. Just an awesome person I learned about today and thought I’d share.

In 1976, Shavarsh Karapetyan, an Armenian Olympic swimmer, had just completed a 12-mile run with his brother when they saw a trolley bus crash into a dam reservoir. The trolley bus sank 80 feet offshore at a depth of 33 feet. Shavarsh immediately dove in and swam to the bus and despite zero visibility, managed to kick in the back window, injuring himself in the process. He proceeded to save twenty people trapped in the bus, one at a time, for hours.

The combined effect of the cold water and his inquiries from breaking the glass window led to his hospitalization for 45 days after the incident, during which time he developed pneumonia, sepsis, and lung damage which ended his athletic career.

For years, his story wasn’t known, until an article about the event identified him by name in 1982. In 1985, he happened to pass by a burning building and rushed inside, again saving people trapped inside one at a time until he collapsed. He was again hospitalized with severe burns and lung damage.

He’s still kicking it at 66. Just an awesome person I learned about today and thought I’d share.

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Christian alternative to Boy Scouts sees growth amid pandemic, 70% more new members in 2021


Reported By Michael Gryboski, Christian Post Reporter | Wednesday, June 09, 2021

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-alternative-to-boy-scouts-sees-growth-amid-pandemic.html/

Trail life USA
CONFIGIO

A youth scouting group formed in response to the controversial changes within the Boy Scouts of America has reported an increase in the number of chapters during the pandemic. Trail Life USA, launched in 2014 and headquartered in Orlando, Florida, is reporting dozens of new chapters and more than 30,000 members.

Trail Life USA CEO Mark Hancock told The Christian Post that 65 new troops have been created thus far in 2021, with over 100 in the process of being chartered.

“So far this year, we have seen a 70% increase in new members over this time last year and a 30% increase over the same period the prior year,” explained Hancock.

“Just this year, we have seen over 65 new troops started as men across the nation have stepped up to lead and make a difference in the lives of boys in their churches, their families, and their communities.”

The launching of Trail Life USA came partly in response to the Boy Scouts voting in 2013 to allow openly gay males to become scouts while maintaining the organization’s ban on openly gay scout leaders. This change prompted many churches — a significant source of support for the Boy Scouts — to sever their ties with the prominent scouting organization. Later, the Boy Scouts announced further changes, such as allowing openly gay scout leaders in 2015. BSA also expanded membership to include girls, prompting a lawsuit from the Girl Scouts of the United States of America. 

Hancock told CP that Trail Life membership initially “came largely from individuals who had participated in the Boy Scouts” and “churches have come to see Trail Life as a distinct program.”

“Trail Life USA is not just a program that meets at the Church. We are a ministry of the Church,” said Hancock. “We are not an outdoor program that incorporates a Christian experience. We are, at our core, a Christ-centered program that utilizes the outdoors to draw boys and their families into a closer relationship with their Creator.”

“It is a significant distinction, and we are seeing unprecedented growth. Churches are attracted to our model as a means to engage men, connect fathers and sons, impact families and grow the Church.”

Reports of Trail Life’s growth amid the coronavirus pandemic come as the Christian scouting group recently held its National Backyard Concert and Campout event. An estimated 20,000 people took part in the event, according to Hancock. An additional 15,000 people watched the broadcasted event during Memorial Day Weekend.

“The past year was a difficult time for kids and families across the country. As Trail Life USA, we realized that boys would need a safe outlet for their rough-and-tumble, adventurous nature,” explained Hancock.

“Many people appreciated our approach, and we saw growth last year. As things have begun to open up this year, families are flocking to the program.”

Follow Michael Gryboski on Twitter or Facebook

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Watch: Asian Woman Slugged in the Face in Seemingly Random Daylight Attack in NYC


Reported by Jack Davis | June 1, 2021

Read more at https://www.westernjournal.com/watch-asian-woman-slugged-face-seemingly-random-daylight-attack-nyc/

Violence sprung from the streets of New York City’s Chinatown on Monday, leaving an Asian woman sprawled on the ground after a black man punched her in the face for no apparent reason. Surveillance video posted by Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, whose district includes Chinatown, showed the 55-year-old woman walking past the Kong Sihk Tong café at around 6:15 p.m. A black man in an orange hoodie and denim jacket then punched her square in the face with a hard left. The woman collapsed on the pavement. The attacker then raved at the victim.

“What’d you hit me for?” the attacker said, according to the New York Daily News. “Why’d you hit me?”

Several people went to check on the victim, who remained motionless on the ground. She was later taken to a hospital, reportedly in stable condition.

Police were called and arrested the man at the scene.

The Daily News quoted a source who said the attacker was “homeless, and he has a long criminal record.” The attacker was taken to Bellevue Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Charges are pending.

“Can’t believe I actually witnessed an attack on an Asian lady right in front of me at the heart of NYC Chinatown,” Jin Zhen wrote on Instagram, according to the New York Post.

“When I saw the lady rolled over to the ground and went unconscious I quickly hung up on my food order and start recording the situation for evidence.”

Donald Ng, who works in the area, said that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio “needs to do something about this mental health issue.”

“Some customers were calling for help. They said a guy punched a woman. She was sitting there on the sidewalk like she was tired, like she was out,” Chiu Cheng, the restaurant manager, said, according to the Daily News.

“He was crazy. I know it’s serious. I feel sad about it. With all that’s happening, I feel scared. I work at the restaurant late. I’m afraid about walking to the subway at night,” Cheng said.

The issue of bail reform entered the incident after former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik noted that a consequence of bail reform has been putting people such as the attacker on the street.

The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is looking into the assault, according to WCBS-TV.

Hate crimes against Asians in New York City are up 353 percent over last year.

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43% of millennials ‘don’t know, don’t care, don’t believe’ God exists: study

By Leah MarieAnn Klett, Christian Post Reporter | Wednesday, May 19, 2021FacebookTwitterEmailPrintMenuComment473

Millennials
Crowd in Austin, Texas, in this undated photo. | Reuters/Julia Robinson

Just 26% of Gen X and 16% of millennials believe that when they die, they will go to Heaven only because they confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their savior, compared to nearly half of the generation before them, a new study has found.

The American Worldview Inventory 2021, a survey of the philosophy of life on American adults from Arizona Christian University, assessed the worldviews of four generations: millennials (born 1984-2002), Gen X (1965-1983), baby boomers (1946-1964) and builders (1927-1945).

Researchers found that among other recent generations, millennials have gone farther in cutting ties with traditional Christian views and normative biblical teaching.

For example, nearly half of all boomers believe that when they die, they will go to Heaven only because they confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their Savior, compared to only 26% of Gen X and 16% of millennials.

A staggering 90% of builders believe you treat others as you want them to treat you, while less than half of millennials agree. 

Additionally, 43% of millennials stated they either don’t know, don’t care or don’t believe God exists compared to 28% of boomers, and 44% of millennials believe Satan is a real and influential, compared to 64% of boomers. 

The study also found that overall, younger Americans are significantly more likely than the two previous generations to embrace horoscopes as a guide and Karma as a life principle, to see “getting even” with others as defensible, to accept evolution over creation, and to view owning property as fostering economic injustice. 

On spiritual matters, Americans younger than 55 are far more likely to distrust the Bible and to believe God is uninvolved in people’s lives.

Interestingly, a majority of Americans call themselves Christian, ranging from 57% of millennials to 83% of builders. 

Researchers warn that the beliefs and behaviors of younger Americans, especially millennials, “threaten to reshape the nation’s religious parameters beyond recognition.”

“In fact, this radical spiritual revolution has created a generation seeking a reimagined world without God, the Bible, or churches,” they wrote. 

Commenting on the study, George Barna, CRC director of research, said that Gen X and the millennials have “solidified dramatic changes in the nation’s central beliefs and lifestyles,” adding: “The result is a culture in which core institutions, including churches, and basic ways of life are continually being radically redefined.”

The American World Inventory corroborates an earlier study from Barna that found that two-thirds of teens and young adults (65%) agree that “many religions can lead to eternal life” compared to 58% of teens and young adults surveyed in 2018. 

Additionally, 31% of teens and young adults “strongly agree” that what is “morally right and wrong changes over time, based on society,” compared to just 25% in 2018. 

Recent survey data released by Gallup found that one in six Gen Z adults identify as LGBT — the highest percentage of any generation in history — and that number is likely to continue to increase.

Jacob Bland, the new president and CEO of Youth for Christ, told The Christian Post that despite the challenges facing today’s young people, he looks toward the future with optimism. 

“Teens today are facing crises like never before, but it’s often in the darkness that light shines the brightest,” he said. “To enter into a disciple-making relationship where you’re introducing a kid to an unconditional love that maybe they’ve never even considered, showing them the goodness and love modeled in Jesus — there’s a lot of hope in that.”

“Jesus has a way of being new and fresh for the circumstances of today, and He is certainly doing that,” Bland added.

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Pennsylvania church gives away $13K in gift cards for store employees, customer bills


Members of Macedonia Church of Pittsburgh hand out gift cards to employees and help pay the bills of customers at a local Giant Eagle, Jan. 23, 2021. | DRE|media

A congregation in Pennsylvania recently gave out gift cards worth $50 each to all the employees of a local grocery store, while also helping to pay the bills of 200 customers. Macedonia Church of Pittsburgh, a predominantly African American congregation founded in 1903, held what it called a “grocery store takeover” on Saturday at a local Giant Eagle.

In addition to the $50 gift cards given to the Giant Eagle employees, the church also paid upwards of $50 of each grocery store bill for patrons of the store.

“We wanted to recognize these frontline workers and show them that we appreciate all they do in this season,” said the church in a statement posted to Facebook on Saturday.

“We’re able to be a blessing in our communities because of faithful givers like YOU! Thanks to all staff & volunteers as well as the management at Southside Giant Eagle for making this an excellent initiative.”

Pastor Brian James Edmonds, senior pastor of Macedonia Church, told The Christian Post that his congregation decided to do this event because “our world is hurting right now.”

“We are battling multiple pandemics, people are grieving lost loved ones, and frontline workers are putting their lives on the line. We thought this would be a powerful way to give people hope and demonstrate the love of Christ during uncertain times,” said Edmonds.

The total cost for the event was around $13,000, with Edmonds telling CP that it was “rooted in our understanding that the church should also tithe into the communities that it serves.”

“This is what it means to be a good neighbor. As a part of this particular outreach, we also gave $40,000 to local nonprofits who are doing transformative work,” he continued.

“For the past couple years, we have taken an entire weekend offering and devoted it to local nonprofits. We call it ‘Give100,’ since we are giving away 100% of what comes in.”

Ultimately, Edmonds told CP that he hoped the church taught people “that they are not alone, that they are appreciated, and that the love of God just might surprise you at the grocery store.”

“Our prayer is that someone’s faith is birthed, strengthened, or restored, as we are faithful to our calling to be the church,” he added.

As the United States continues to reel from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn, many churches are ramping up their charitable efforts to help the needy. Last year, One Church, a multisite congregation based in Ohio, held a fundraiser aimed at providing gift cards to every foster teenager in the state, or approximately 5,300 individuals.

One Church Lead Pastor Greg Ford told CP in an interview last month that the idea for the gift card charity drive stemmed from a meeting with Franklin County Children Services last year.

“They shared with us that typically during the holidays, many donors want to provide toys and gifts for little kids but the teens are usually left out since they’re typically not interested in toys at that stage,” Ford said.

“They said if we could provide gift cards for local fast food restaurants or retail stores, that gives the teens a sense of independence. When they’re out with their friends, they can have a meal and enjoy themselves.”

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Biggest churches push ‘superficial Christianity,’ ‘phonies’ now being exposed: John MacArthur


Pastor John MacArthur announced during the Shepherd’s Conference held earlier this month that next year’s conference will include a summit on biblical inerrancy. Photo taken March 7, 2014. | Grace Community Church

Some of America’s biggest churches support a culture of corrupt, “superficial Christianity” and made a lot of money doing it but the internet is now making it harder for “phonies” to survive, Pastor John MacArthur recently said. Speaking at the pulpit of Grace Community Church in California for the first time after a brief absence during which some speculated he may have been ill, MacArthur suggested that the pandemic combined with the technological shift in ministry has led to a “sifting and shifting.”

“We had for decades, people trying to create a cultural Christianity that would appeal to nonbelievers, that was accepting of immorality, accepting of homosexuality, accepting of racial hatred. There was a kind of superficial, shallow Christianity that watered down the Gospel, didn’t talk about sin, tried to have a positive message. And it was very successful. And I get it because I fought that battle well for almost all the time I’ve been here,” he told his congregants in a sermon just over a week ago.

He explained that one of the things he likes to do is to call the church to repentance but it was a tough call because “superficial Christianity made a lot of money” and “elevated a lot of charlatans.”

“It was successful. The biggest churches in America are part of it. It was very hard to call people to faithfulness when you could be so corrupt and so successful in Christian religion. That was the battle. Now I think there’s a sifting and a shifting,” he said before alluding to sex scandals surrounding prominent Christian figures like late apologist Ravi Zacharias and former Hillsong Church Pastor Carl Lentz without mentioning their names.

“First of all, phonies are going to have a hard time hiding with the internet. We’re seeing one after another after another. Dead ones and alive ones. This dead apologist had a deviant sex life. This cool dude rock and roll pastor was immoral with multiple women for years and years,” MacArthur said.

“I look at all that and my thoughts were I don’t think if it weren’t for Jesus Christ that I could sell anybody on Christianity. We preach Christ, right? And you’re attracted to Him, right? But if there are people out there looking at Christianity, it has to be uninviting, maybe even repulsive. Who are these people? Filthy rich, immoral, corrupt, narcissistic. If it weren’t for Jesus Christ, Christianity would have no appeal,” he said.

MacArthur also explained that despite efforts by government authorities to shutter his church during the pandemic, he has managed to defy every restriction and remain open regardless of fines and court actions against his church.

“They tried every way to close Grace Church. And I think it is true that there is no more scrutinized church in the United States of America than Grace Community Church,” he said, calling out major media organizations like ABC, CNN and the Los Angeles Times as well as “ungodly bloggers” who tried to discredit his church.

“I’m still here,” he said.

MacArthur said the decision to remain open in defiance of government restrictions has been a blessing to his church. He said even though the church had not collected an offering in the last 10 months, congregants “have given more in the last 10 months than any 10-month period in the history of this church.”

MacArthur fought for his church’s legal right to hold indoor worship services amid the pandemic and said even though his church has faced fines each Sunday for their defiance, the congregation has only continued to flourish.

“In the middle of the lawsuit, the Lord has grown our church. So this was a very small tiny local church until COVID. One thousand new members, baptisms,” he said, calling his new members “Grace refugees.”

“Did you hear the testimonies in baptism Sunday night? There’s a new evangelical term. I love it. It’s ‘Grace refugees,’” he said as his congregation laughed.

“It’s the people who had no other church to go to so they came here as church refugees,” he said to more cheers.

“And aren’t we happy about that? Aren’t we blessed? We’ll take you whoever you are even if you’re a Presbyterian refugee. People have flown in from all across America, driven in from all across the West every Sunday to be with us. Some of you only came here because it was the only church open and you found it wasn’t just a church that was open. It was a church that was presenting the Gospel and the Word of God,” he said.

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Joshua Lawson of the Federalist Op-ed: Giving 2021 A Fighting Chance Requires We All Choose To Do What Is Hard


Commentary by Joshua Lawson JANUARY 5, 2021

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/05/giving-2021-a-fighting-chance-requires-we-all-choose-to-do-what-is-hard/

Even before the horrible year that was 2020, New Year’s Eve celebrations have long been filled with the near-certain expectation that things will definitely get better. Generally speaking, it’s a fine sentiment. Optimism is good; hope is good; and striving to improve the future from where we are today led us from the cave to the fields, across vast oceans, and into the limitless of outer space.

But nothing magical happens when the calendar year flips over. There’s no unexplained scientific phenomenon that shifts the incalculable number of atoms in our known universe into undaunted forces for good simply because we’ve reached the conclusion of this year’s cycle through the Gregorian calendar. Instead, history tells us things can always get worse.

After the stock market crashed in 1929, the Great Depression didn’t reach its darkest days until 1933. The 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria was followed by the invasion of Poland in 1939, then the steamrolling of France and near-defeat of Britain in 1940.

Yet while there’s no iron-clad guarantee that 2021 will be great, every one of us can contribute to the effort to make a redemptive year a reality.

No government action will make 2021 better than what we just went through in 2020. As with most positive change, any meaningful, lasting shifts in the trajectory of our towns and our nation will stem from individuals choosing to do good.

World events of a grand nature will remain outside our ability to master. Pandemics, wildfires, and — unless you live in one of a handful of swing states — presidential elections involving more than 158 million votes are things almost entirely beyond our control. Yet, even in the worst of times, we can control how we interact with our fellow Americans, and a shift in the right direction in this regard is one of the simplest — albeit difficult — steps we can take.

It’s within the grasp of each of us, as individuals, to decide if what we both consume and contribute is life-affirming or malevolent, restorative or toxic. In our workplaces, online using social media, with our families, and interacting with total strangers, we are responsible for how we live amongst one another.

In our current rancorous political environment, we’ll have a chance at a better year if we realize most genuine conversations or debates aren’t best served in a tit-for-tat on Facebook or Twitter but in person over coffee, lunch, or a drink after work. This doesn’t mean surrendering our principles or allowing ourselves to be walked over. It does, however, require we prudently recognize whose minds are open to change, and those who refuse to be unconvinced of what they believe; which arguments may bear fruitful discussion, and those that will only lead to more frustration and anger this country can do without.

Regardless of one’s faith, there is wisdom in the instructions given in the Bible’s 2 Timothy:

Again I say, don’t get involved in foolish, ignorant arguments that only start fights. A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. (2 Timothy 2:23)

As the author of the epistle to Timothy later notes, being honest doesn’t mean being needlessly hurtful or tactless, and he reminds us to “Gently instruct those who oppose the truth.” There’s an Aristotelian golden mean between failing to state a necessary truth and being an overly blunt jerk about it.

Similar valuable cautions are given in Titus 3:2 not to slander, to “avoid quarreling,” and to “show true humility to everyone.” Later in the chapter, we’re also reminded it may be best to walk away from those who continue to engage in foolish controversies:

If people are causing divisions among you, give a first and second warning. After that, have nothing more to do with them. (Titus 3:10)

Admittedly, it’s hard to do, especially in a climate that often mistakenly views the last person who responded in a Facebook fight as “the winner” or politeness as a sign of “weakness.” Even so, it’s one of the few ways to lower the temperature to the point where authentic, amiable exchanges and healthy debates are possible. We’ll be a better nation in 2021 if Americans take time to ask and reflect, “Will this truly make things better?” before acting.

Furthermore, giving 2021 a fighting chance will involve constantly “checking one’s priors” at the door. Or, as Jordan Peterson has phrased it, we’d do well to “Assume that the person you are listening to might know something that you don’t.”

As more Americans limit their media consumption to voices and opinions they already agree with, ideological and philosophical blind spots pose an increasingly higher risk. Yet rarely are things as simple as either the “left” or “right” (antiquated terms to begin with) being absolutely correct or absolutely wrong.

Taking in the views of only a small territory of the political spectrum is one of the contributing factors that led us to a place, never more evident than in 2020, where one half of the country can’t even stand being in line next to the other half — six feet apart, no less. We don’t have to agree, but we have to be able to at least relate to where those we disagree with are coming from. This begins with the humility to acknowledge we may be wrong about something, or, at least, not as correct as we think we are.

“Genuine conversation is exploration, articulation, and strategizing,” Peterson writes, “When you’re involved in a genuine conversation, you’re listening.” This may also require mingling outside a safe, “bubbled,” friend group, especially if that group is comprised of similarly like-minded folks.

It means not assuming to know the totality of someone’s beliefs and values based on their stance on a single issue. It means being OK with someone thinking, even acting, in a way we personally disagree with (as long as it doesn’t directly infringe on anyone’s rights to life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness). A tolerance of true intellectual diversity will be a key factor in helping 2021 rebound after the past year.

In what could be the most important New Year’s resolution we make, by exercising humility, patience, and grace, we can each take responsibility in helping make 2021 the year we all need it to be, one individual choice at a time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Joshua Lawson is managing editor of The Federalist. He is a graduate of Queen’s University as well as Hillsdale College where he received a master’s degree in American politics and political philosophy. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaMLawson.

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Family Who Lived in Camper Thanks Secret Santa for $50K Gift: ‘It Changed Our Lives’


Reported by AMY FURR | 8

Read more at https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/12/21/family-who-lived-camper-thanks-secret-santa-50k-gift-changed-our-lives/

A family in Driggs, Idaho, is finally back on their feet thanks to a secret Santa’s generous gift that helped them through the past year. In November 2019, the anonymous donor surprised the Crow family with health insurance for one year and $50,000 to help them finish building their house, according to EastIdahoNews.com:

“Erica and Brad had been living in their camp trailer inside a shop for a few years. Brad had been working on building their home when he fell and fractured his leg bone,” the outlet said. Brad’s accident led to several more health challenges such as a staph infection, the loss of his leg, and a hip replacement.

Reporter Nate Eaton recently caught up with the Crow family as they sat inside their finished home.

“There were a lot of days that we thought that the trailer and the shop was gonna be where we were gonna stay for quite some time. Honestly, if we hadn’t gotten the Santa gift, the secret Santa gift, we probably would still be in the trailer,” Erica told him.

“It was a humongous help for us. We are incredibly grateful for it… I don’t even have words right now,” she continued.

Brad also expressed his gratitude for the gift that helped his family through the past year.

“We just really want to thank secret Santa and the people that were involved with this. It changed our lives,” he said.

The community also stepped in to assist, according to Erica, who said they believe there are other people more deserving than them.

“But it has been incredibly humbling to have people, not just in our community but from around the world that have shared their love and concern for us and wanted him to get better and our lives to be better and we are so very grateful for it,” she noted.

Following their interview, YouTube users were excited to learn that the Crow family finished their home.

“Great to see them all together. Stay strong!” one person said.

“This is the follow up I was really hoping for and asked a couple of times for. It really touched a chord with me last year,” another commented.

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West Virginia police officer launches ‘Operation Santa’s Handlebars’ to give bikes to kids in need this Christmas


Sure, technically he’s not Santa Claus, but this year one West Virginia police officer is going beyond the call of duty to serve kids in his community by giving them Christmas gifts.

South Charleston police officer Tony Messer has rallied an online community of supporters to raise money for Christmas gifts for the children of his city. Thanks to many generous donations, Messer was able to purchase bicycles for kids who might otherwise have received little for Christmas, as too many Americans face economic hardship during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We raised almost $2,000 for bikes, and we just bought 25 bikes,” Messer told WCHS-TV. “And that’s something that this community, they’re all so proud of, so that’s amazing.”

The project, called “Operation Santa’s Handlebars,” began months ago when Messer created a Facebook page to reach out to his community and humanize police officers during the summer unrest as Black Lives Matter and anti-police rioters set U.S. cities on fire. He began by streaming video games and making posts about his efforts to engage with the community he protects.

“I wanted to build some kind of community, and I never thought it would be what it is now. We do a thing that we want to humanize the badge. So, I want to be a better person. I want to be a better police officer, and I want to set goals for kids who are growing up. I started the page, Officer Messer, and it just kind of took off,” he said.

His page now has more than 10,000 followers from all over the country. Many kind supporters donated to help Messer buy bikes for kids.

“We have so many people who have a goal on here to do stuff for these kids that are not going to have a good Christmas. It’s because of these people, all 51 people behind us, watching right now. It’s because of them, it really is,” he said.

Messer also wants to use his Facebook page to honor other police officers who tragically were killed in the line of duty, like officer Cassie Johnson of Charleston, who recently died two days after being shot while responding to a parking complaint.

“We want to start a scholarship for a criminal justice program for female officers, something like that, just to keep her name in memory because of everything she sacrificed for this community,” Messer said.

A post pinned to the top of Officer Messer’s Facebook page links to a GoFundMe account set up for Johnson’s family.

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Sent to Me by A Friend


Imagine you were born in 1900.

When you’re 14

World War I begins

and ends at 18 years old

with 22 million dead.

Shortly after, a global pandemic

Flu called ‘Spanish’ “,

kills 50 million people.

You come out alive and free

You are 20 years old.

Then, at 29, you survive the global economic crisis that started with the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange, causing Inflation, Unemployment, and Hunger.

At 33, the nazis come to power.

You turn 39 when World War II starts and ends at 45 During the Holocaust (Holocaust), 6 million Jews die.

There will be over 60 million deaths in total.

When you’re 52, the Korean War begins.

At age 64, the Vietnam War begins and ends at age 75

A boy born in 1985 thinks his grandparents have no idea how difficult life is, but they have survived several wars and disasters.

A boy born in 1995 and now 25 years old thinks it’s the end of the world when his Amazon package takes over three days to arrive or when he doesn’t get more than 15 likes for her photo posted on Facebook or Instagram. ….

In 2020, many of us live comfortably, have access to different sources of home entertainment, and often have more than we need.

But people complain about everything.

However, they have electricity, phone, food, hot water, and a roof over their heads.

None of this existed before.

But mankind survived far more disastrous circumstances and never lost the joy of living.

Maybe it’s time to be less self-escaped, stop complaining, and stop crying.

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Some Good News to Report: City of Refuge serves youth in Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods


By Jackson Elliott, Contributor 

Coaches at City of Refuge pose on the field | Stephanie Marquardt

God’s miraculous provision keeps Chicago’s City of Refuge ministry in business, but the most important part of the ministry is the way it draws community groups together, founder Stephanie Marquardt said.

City of Refuge started in 2018 after Marquardt, her husband, Kurt, and Chicago West Bible Church Pastors Jon Kelly and Kent Steiner experienced a calling to minister in Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods, she told The Christian Post.

Marquardt started sports leagues to teach youth valuable life skills through sports. Before COVID-19, the program had over 1,000 students who were learning archery, baseball and basketball. Each team receives coaching from a police officer, a faith leader and a local nonprofit leader, she said.

Marquardt is also a devoted sports fan, often using metaphors from sports to talk about her work.

“What’s distinctive is that we follow what we call the three-legged stool,” she said. “It’s getting civic, sacred and secular parts of society to work together. I think that’s very biblical.”

The combined approach allows each group to use their strengths most effectively, she said. It also lets community leaders form relationships and work together.

The ministry rapidly expanded to the Chicago neighborhoods of Austin, Garfield Park, North Lawndale, Englewood and Roseland. These neighborhoods have some of the city’s highest murder rates, worst schools and highest poverty rates.

Marquardt said she funds her work entirely by prayer. She takes her inspiration from Christian leader George Müller, a 19th century Christian who ran an orphanage without asking the public for donations. Her ministry’s first big challenge was to get baseball uniforms for her program’s participants before she even knew the number of kids who would enroll in the program. She estimated the uniforms would cost $150,000. On a plane trip to Florida with her husband, Marquardt prayed and read Müller’s writings, she said. One of his statements stood out to her.

“ … in leaning upon the living God alone, we are beyond disappointment, and beyond being forsaken because of death, or want of means, or want of love, or because of the claims of other work,” the passage reads.

Soon after she got off the plane, she received a phone call from a Chicago sports charity called Good Sports, Marquardt said. She had sent them an application for funds three weeks before. At first, she thought they wanted her to buy something.

“No, we’re going to give you everything,” she remembers the group saying over the phone. “The only thing we can’t give you is size youth medium pants and bats.”

Good Sports told Marquardt they had to know how many uniforms she needed quickly, but she did not know at the time how many kids would join the program, she said. She estimated the numbers during her devotions the next day.

“I needed to get an order for kids I didn’t have,” she said. “And it was absolutely right.”

Sergeant Jermaine Harris, an officer of Chicago’s 15th Precinct, said the programs provided by City of Refuge have resulted in lower crime in Chicago’s neighborhoods. When parks are deserted, drug dealers and gang members use them. But when children and families play in a park, criminals stay away because they don’t want to commit crimes in public, he told The Christian Post.

“We choose a location or a site that’s a hot spot. We declare and really make it a safe space. The gangs understand [that] these are kids playing. When there are kids out there playing, you can relate and understand,” he said.

Playing with youth and relating to the community also encourages police officers. Police often face emotionally grueling calls about murder, abuse and humanity at its worst, Harris said. Seeing good things happen in their communities encourages them to face the worst, he added.

“In the nature of policing day to day, we would never have an opportunity to engage with a family or do something positive like this. No one calls the police to tell them good news,” Harris explained.

He also said he appreciates how City of Refuge emphasizes the resources Chicago’s most desperate neighborhoods already have and helps residents use them. When people join the program, they make friends and create networks that allow them to help themselves. In some cases, people in need have met neighbors they can borrow from through the program, he said.

“We start to put people as outcasts and it further drives the division. What we start to do as a society is act as if they’re not there. Constant avoidance is one of the reasons young people join gangs. The more they feel avoided, the more they want that camaraderie,” Harris said. “These kids have bright futures. All it takes sometimes is that person to say, ‘I see you.’”

COVID-19 and the unrest after George Floyd’s death have made it difficult to care for Chicago’s communities, Marquardt said.

In response to the virus, City of Refuge adapted by focusing on baseball so children could remain far apart and still play. Consistent hand sanitizer use also protected participants. To further meet the needs of youth, City of Refuge opened safe locations where students could meet to access computers and the internet to attend school online.

“In COVID, you feel like a wide receiver because you get the ball and you have to spin and stop and dodge and do things you don’t think your body can do. It’s changed everything,” she said.

After riots following Floyd’s death destroyed local grocery stores, City of Refuge partnered with megachurch Harvest Bible Chapel to provide food for the families involved with the nonprofit, Marquardt said. Once again, the money and help came after she prayed.

“I wish everybody had the chance to know these people. My life is so much richer from the relationships I’ve made. It isn’t City of Refuge and it isn’t me; it’s all the people working together. There’s miracle after miracle after miracle,” she said.

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Loving Your Neighbor Is More Important Than Winning An Election


Written by John Patton  DECEMBER 1, 2020

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/01/loving-your-neighbor-is-more-important-than-winning-an-election/

In the aftermath of a tight election outcome, it seems that while many matters are important to consider, one is more pressing: We are struggling to love our neighbors.

We are not any more or less fallible than human beings in past generations. Humans are humans, capable of profound works of love, compassion, and ingenuity as well as malice, destruction, and banality. Yet in our current milieu, it appears our political divisions are as rancorous as they have ever been.

The problem could be the particular messages themselves — Lower marginal tax rates! Higher marginal tax rates! The Iran deal was bad! The Iran deal was good! Build the wall! Don’t build the wall! — and sometimes it is. More often, though, the issue is that the medium has become the message.

Interacting digitally is as consequential as the messages we are sharing. Our social media and meme-based interactions generally do not promote understanding. Rather, they facilitate misunderstanding and division because they are disembodied.

We all know the poison of online comments sections and the Twitter trolls and random Facebookers who say outrageous things. I am not the first and will not be the last to lament our digital connectedness ripping the national fabric.

Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

What can repair this breach? The answer is simple: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” As recorded in the gospels, Jesus gave this commandment to love others second only to the greatest commandment: to love God.

You might ask, what does it mean to love my neighbor? Are my neighbors only the people who live geographically proximate to me? Certainly not. A lawyer in the first-century world asked the itinerant teacher Jesus of Nazareth, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied with a story many of us know as the Good Samaritan.

In the story, robbers severely beat and rob a Jewish man and leave him half dead on the side of the road. Two different members of the clergy walk by, indifferent to the man’s suffering. They choose not to see him. Eventually, a Samaritan, a rival ethnic group from the Israelites, stops to help the man. The Samaritan goes above and beyond to alleviate the man’s suffering by nursing his wounds and paying for his stay at a local inn.

People often understand the Good Samaritan story as a one-off “help a stranger in need” parable, but this view completely misses the point. If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, we must be able to see them. Usually, our neighbors won’t be literally beaten, lying by the roadside, and they usually will not be complete strangers. They will instead be all around us, daily intruding into our lives with their needs. They also will often be quite different from us, perhaps even offensively different, as the Israelite man was to the Samaritan and vice versa.

The two men who passed by the beaten man chose willful blindness, pretending to be oblivious to his needs. The Samaritan saw the beaten man as an embodied, physical presence whom he had means and opportunity to help. He chose to see the victim’s need and have compassion on him, someone toward whom the Samaritan was supposed to be indifferent.

Get Offline

Many of us have not learned or have forgotten the muscle memory of loving our neighbor. We have chosen the disembodied, emotive frenzy of cable news, Facebook, and Twitter to try to connect with the world around us. We choose to ride the vagaries of tragedy and controversy concerning events that are happening 100, 1,000, or 10,000 miles away that in most cases will have no discernible effect on our daily lives.

In doing so, we choose to look away from the people around us: the obnoxious co-worker who is desperately lonely, the single mom who could use a night off, or the materially wealthy person who, although he “has it all,” is starved for real human connection. Human beings already have a prodigious capacity for self-deceit. The added layers of self-righteousness that arise from spending countless hours in the self-referential algorithmic vortex of social media positively blind us.

If we were to focus on the needs of those around us and eschew our devices and the news cycle more and more, the world would shift under our feet in the best way. At the risk of sounding like a facile high school graduation speech, we could “change the world.”

Part of the problem in news and media consumption is that we have, to borrow a phrase from Minneapolis-based writer James Lileks, “non-contiguous information streams.” We are essentially able to consume the news that fits our worldview to such a degree that, after a while, the broad political camps in the United States only talk past one another and not to each other.

To combat this, we should spend less time on our devices because we are so focused on those around us and their needs that the emotional and psychic vacuum of the news cycle simply cannot get traction in our lives. This will do two things. First, it will make us more pleasant and happy.

Second, it will have the salutary market effect of winnowing the least skilled and worst motivated actors in news and media, forcing them out. As a result, we will be pushed toward increased consolidation in media, making it more difficult to retain an audience when alarmism or salacious pandering to partisans is the modus operandi. It is hardly a perfect solution, but is it worse than our current setup? I think not.

Be a Friend

Elections have consequences, to be sure. The result of a Biden administration or a parallel universe where Donald Trump won a second term, however, pales in comparison with the would-be effect of tens of millions of Americans choosing to reduce substantially their engagement with their mobile devices, social media, and the news cycle more generally.

Tens of millions of Americans choosing instead to focus their attention on the needs of those around them, even those we find distasteful? That is a country of which I want to be a part.

If you feel the particular burden of public engagement, start first and foremost with your local municipality or town, your local councilman or alderwoman, or your local school board. The needs of so many people are all around us if we choose to open our eyes and embrace the discomfort of engaging real people with real problems, a discomfort that can lead to deep contentment as we see and love our neighbors. Let us choose this discomfort over the dopamine hit of social media, and over the false god of memes, the news cycle, and an outrage machine that exists to stoke our fears.

When my children get on the school bus every day, my wife says to them, “Find a friend who needs a friend.” Absolutely no election result, from now until forever, changes the fact that people around you need a friend. Find a friend who needs a friend, and choose to love that neighbor.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
John lives in St. Louis, writes in his free time, and has almost four children.

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Japan: Number of October Suicides Exceeded All COVID-19 Deaths Throughout 2020


Reported by   | 

Japan has seen more of its people die in one month from suicide than from total COVID-19 deaths in 2020.

Japan’s National Police Agency reported that 2,153 people committed suicide in the month of October, while fewer than 2,000 people have died from COVID-19 all year. While it is true that Japan has historically had high rates of suicide compared to other nations, suicides had generally decreased throughout 2020.

Despite the high number of suicides in October, the Japanese have avoided implementing draconian lockdowns and restrictions for the most part, though they have been seeing record high numbers of cases in the month of November. Thus it should be interesting to see what their suicide numbers for this month look like.

Meanwhile, in Canada, a CBC reporter recorded herself stalking church attendees on Sunday:

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