Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta admitted earlier this month that the Justice Department has stepped up prosecutions of pro-life activists under a 1990s law in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling over the summer that overturned the landmark case, Roe v. Wade.
In remarks delivered at the Justice Department’s 65th Anniversary on December 6, Gupta said the Supreme Court’s decision “dealt a devastating blow to women throughout the country.”
File: L-R, U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland looks on as Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Department of Justice August 2, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The decision, she said, took away the constitutional right to an abortion and increased the “urgency” of the DOJ’s work “including enforcement of the FACE Act, to ensure continued lawful access to reproductive services.”
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, or FACE Act, is a law that ensures Americans’ access to pro-life and pro-choice reproductive health services.
The law makes it a federal crime, with potentially steep fines and jail time, to use or threaten to use force to “injure, intimidate, or interfere” with a person seeking reproductive health services, or with a person lawfully trying to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. The FACE Act also prohibits intentional property damage to a facility providing reproductive health services or a place of religious worship.
The Justice Department ramped up prosecutions of pro-life activists in the months following the Supreme Court decision to reverse Roe v. Wade, under a law that was barely used in 2020 and 2021 but has now been used to indict 26 people this year. In contrast, only four FACE Act indictments took place in 2021, according to the DOJ.
Pro-life activists try to block the sign of a pro-choice activist during the 2018 March for Life January 19, 2018, in Washington, DC. A (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
While the DOJ has been prosecuting alleged FACE Act violations by pro-life activists, the Supreme Court decision has also led to dozens of violent incidents at pro-life pregnancy centers staged by pro-choice demonstrators. For example, the radical abortion rights group Jane’s Revenge has claimed credit for vandalizing or firebombing at least 18 of these pro-life clinics.
But the FBI has made no arrests related to these incidents, and so far, no FACE Act charges have been brought against anyone involved in these attacks.
The FBI has denied Republican lawmakers’ accusations that the agency’s investigations are politically motivated. Last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray said during a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee: “we have quite a number of investigations as we speak, into attacks or threats against pregnancy resource centers, faith-based organizations, and other pro-life organizations.”
He insisted that around 70% of the FBI’s abortion-related violence investigations have been threats against pro-lifers.
“We’re going after that through our joint terrorism task forces, through our criminal authorities, FACE Act, and things like that,” Wray said. “We have about 20 field offices involved in this, and so, we take it very seriously. And again, I don’t care whether you’re motivated by pro-life views or pro-choice views, you don’t get to use violence to express it.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Gupta for comment. She served in the Obama administration and was appointed associate attorney general by President Joe Biden and confirmed on April 21, 2021.
The DOJ referred questions to the FBI which did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Fox News’ Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.
Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race? Co-authored by Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop)
Abortion: What About Those Who Demand Their Rights? – R.C. Sproul
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 1 | Abortion of the Human Race (2010)
Standing Strong Under Fire: Popular Abortion Arguments and Why They Fail
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 2 | Slaughter of the Innocents (2010)
Ben Shapiro Obliterates Every Pro-Abortion Argument
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 3 | Death by Someone’s Choice (2010)
Adrian Rogers: Innocent Blood [#1004] (Audio)
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 5 | Truth and History (20…
Abortion: What Is Your Verdict? – R.C. Sproul
John MacArthur Abortion and the Campaign for Immorality (Selected Scriptures)
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Arizona Dem gov nominee Katie Hobbs appears to support abortion up to birth
Hobbs accused her Republican opponent Kari Lake of misconstruing her position on late-term abortion, saying the procedure is ‘extremely rare’
Democratic Arizona gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs, during a Sunday appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” appeared to suggest that she was in favor of no limits on abortion.
Host Major Garrett noted that her Republican opponent Kari Lake has labeled Hobbs as an “extremist” for her view on abortion. He asked Hobbs whether she supported the current 15-week ban in Arizona or would seek a higher limit as governor.
Hobbs, who currently serves as Arizona’s Secretary of State, said Lake had misconstrued her position and said late-term abortion is “extremely rare.”
FILE: Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs speaks at a roundtable event in Phoenix, Monday, Sept. 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
“If it’s being talked about, it’s because something has gone incredibly wrong in the pregnancy. A doctor’s not going to perform an abortion late in pregnancy just because somebody decided they want one. That is ridiculous,” Hobbs said before suggesting that Arizonans would have “government-mandated forced births that risk women’s lives” under a Kari Lake administration.
Asked what her administration’s week limit for abortion access would be, Hobbs evaded answering directly saying that abortion “is a very personal decision that belongs between a woman and her doctor.”
“The government and politicians don’t belong in that decision,” Hobbs said. “We need to let doctors perform the care that they are trained and take an oath to perform.”
“So, if an Arizona voter were to conclude from your previous answer that you do not favor any specific week limit on abortion, would they be correct?” Garrett asked.
Hobbs repeated her initial answer: “I support leaving the decision between a woman and her doctor and leaving politicians entirely out of it.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Hobbs’ campaign for comment.
Arizona gubernatorial candidates Katie Hobbs (D), left, and Kari Lake (R), right. (Reuters)
Arizona doctors stopped performing abortions late last month after a judge in Tucson ruled that prosecutors can enforce a law dating to 1864 that bans abortion unless it’s necessary to save a woman’s life. Arizona also has a law passed this year that bans abortion after 15 weeks, creating speculation about what’s allowed.
Democrats have seized on the ruling, which revived the issue ahead of next month’s midterm elections. Democratic lawmakers sent a letter on Tuesday asking Republican Gov. Doug Ducey to call a special session of the Legislature to repeal the 1864 abortion ban.
Lake has spoken positively of Arizona’s total ban on abortion, which she called “a great law that’s already on the books.” She has called abortion “the ultimate sin,” said abortion pills should be illegal and that she would sign a bill banning abortion as soon as fetal cardiac activity can be detected, usually around six weeks gestational age and before many women know they’re pregnant.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Bradford Betz is a breaking news reporter for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. Story tips can be sent to bradford.betz@fox.com and on Twitter: @Bradford_Betz.
Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.
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September 25, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view.
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? which can be found on You Tube. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.
Today I want to respond to your letter to me on July 9, 2021. Here it is below:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
July 9, 2021
Mr. Everette Hatcher III
Alexander, AR
Dear Mr. Hatcher,
Thank you for taking your time to share your thoughts on abortion. Hearing from passionate individuals like me inspires me every day, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to your letter
Our country faces many challenges, and the road we will travel together will be one of the most difficult in our history. Despite these tough times, I have never been more optimistic for the future of America. I believe we are better positioned than any country in the world to lead in the 21st century not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example.
As we move forward to address the complex issues of our time, I encourage you to remain an active participant in helping write the next great chapter of the American story. We need your courage and dedication at this critical time, and we must meet this moment together as the United States of America. If we do that, I believe that our best days still lie ahead.
Sincerely
Joe Biden
Mr. President, my wife was born in JEFFERSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and Adrian Rogers tells a story about another lady that was born in that same hospital: “They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF?”
Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness. But if you think God is necessary to understand the world, then why do you not ask the next question of where God came from? And if you say “God was always here,” why not say that the universe was always here? On abortion, my views are contained in the enclosed article (Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan {1990}, “The Question of Abortion,” Parade Magazine, April 22.)
I was blessed with the opportunity to correspond with Dr. Sagan, and in his December 5, 1995 letter Dr. Sagan went on to tell me that he was enclosing his article “The Question of Abortion: A Search for Answers”by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. I am going to respond to several points made in that article. Here is a portion of Sagan’s article (here is a link to the whole article):
(both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer mentioned Carl Sagan in their books and that prompted me to write Sagan and expose him to their views.
For the complete text, including illustrations, introductory quote, footnotes, and commentary on the reaction to the originally published article see Billions and Billions.
The issue had been decided years ago. The court had chosen the middle ground. You’d think the fight was over. Instead, there are mass rallies, bombings and intimidation, murders of workers at abortion clinics, arrests, intense lobbying, legislative drama, Congressional hearings, Supreme Court decisions, major political parties almost defining themselves on the issue, and clerics threatening politicians with perdition. Partisans fling accusations of hypocrisy and murder. The intent of the Constitution and the will of God are equally invoked. Doubtful arguments are trotted out as certitudes. The contending factions call on science to bolster their positions. Families are divided, husbands and wives agree not to discuss it, old friends are no longer speaking. Politicians check the latest polls to discover the dictates of their consciences. Amid all the shouting, it is hard for the adversaries to hear one another. Opinions are polarized. Minds are closed.
Is it wrong to abort a pregnancy? Always? Sometimes? Never? How do we decide? We wrote this article to understand better what the contending views are and to see if we ourselves could find a position that would satisfy us both. Is there no middle ground? We had to weigh the arguments of both sides for consistency and to pose test cases, some of which are purely hypothetical. If in some of these tests we seem to go too far, we ask the reader to be patient with us–we’re trying to stress the various positions to the breaking point to see their weaknesses and where they fail.
In contemplative moments, nearly everyone recognizes that the issue is not wholly one-sided. Many partisans of differing views, we find, feel some disquiet, some unease when confronting what’s behind the opposing arguments. (This is partly why such confrontations are avoided.) And the issue surely touches on deep questions: What are our responses to one another? Should we permit the state to intrude into the most intimate and personal aspects of our lives? Where are the boundaries of freedom? What does it mean to be human?
Of the many actual points of view, it is widely held–especially in the media, which rarely have the time or the inclination to make fine distinctions–that there are only two: “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” This is what the two principal warring camps like to call themselves, and that’s what we’ll call them here. In the simplest characterization, a pro-choicer would hold that the decision to abort a pregnancy is to be made only by the woman; the state has no right to interfere. And a pro-lifer would hold that, from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive; that this life imposes on us a moral obligation to preserve it; and that abortion is tantamount to murder. Both names–pro-choice and pro-life–were picked with an eye toward influencing those whose minds are not yet made up: Few people wish to be counted either as being against freedom of choice or as opposed to life. Indeed, freedom and life are two of our most cherished values, and here they seem to be in fundamental conflict.
Let’s consider these two absolutist positions in turn. A newborn baby is surely the same being it was just before birth. There ‘s good evidence that a late-term fetus responds to sound–including music, but especially its mother’s voice. It can suck its thumb or do a somersault. Occasionally, it generates adult brain-wave patterns. Some people claim to remember being born, or even the uterine environment. Perhaps there is thought in the womb. It’s hard to maintain that a transformation to full personhood happens abruptly at the moment of birth. Why, then, should it be murder to kill an infant the day after it was born but not the day before?
As a practical matter, this isn’t very important: Less than 1 percent of all tabulated abortions in the United States are listed in the last three months of pregnancy (and, on closer investigation, most such reports turn out to be due to miscarriage or miscalculation). But third-trimester abortions provide a test of the limits of the pro-choice point of view. Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?
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End of Sagan Excerpt
When I was in high school the book and film series named WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? came out and it featured Doctor C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer and they looked at the issues of abortion, infanticide, and youth euthanasia and they looked at comments from such scholars as Peter Singer and James D. Watson.
C. Everett Koop pictured above and Peter Singer below
Peter Singer, an endowed chair at Princeton’s Center for Human Values, said, “Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all.”
James D.Watson
In May 1973, James D. Watson, the Nobel Prize laureate who discovered the double helix of DNA, granted an interview to Prism magazine, then a publication of the American Medical Association. Time later reported the interview to the general public, quoting Watson as having said, “If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have.”
Carl Sagan
On August 30, 1995 I mailed a letter to Carl Sagan that probably prompted this discussion on abortion and it enclosed a lengthy story from Adrian Rogers about an abortion case in Pine Bluff, Arkansas that almost became an infanticide case:
An excerpt from the Sunday morning message (11-6-83) by Adrian Rogers in Memphis, TN.
I want to tell you that secular humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together. We have been taught that our bodies and our children are the products of the evolutionary process, and so therefore human life may not be all that valuable to begin with. We have come today to where it is legal and even considered to be a good thing to put little babies to death…15 million little babies put to death since 1973 because of this philosophy of Secular Humanism.
How did the court make that type of decision? You would think it would be so obvious. You can’t do that! You can’t kill little babies! Why? Because the Bible says! Friend, they don’t give a hoot what the Bible says! There used to be a time when they talked about what the Bible says because there was a time that we as a nation had a constitution that was based in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but today if we say “The Bible says” or “God says “Separation of Church and State. Don’t tell us what the Bible says or what God says. We will tell you what we think!” Therefore, they look at the situation and they decide if it is right or wrong purely on the humanistic philosophy that right and wrong are relative and the situation says what is right or what is wrong.
This little girl just 19 years old went into the doctor’s office and he examined her. He said, “We can take take of you.” He gave her an injection in her arm that was to cause her to go into labor and to get rid of that protoplasm, that feud, that little mass that was in her, but she wasn’t prepared for the sound she was about to hear. It was a little baby crying. That little baby weighed 13 ounces. His hand the size of my thumbnail. You know what the doctor did. The doctor put that little baby in a grocery sack and gave it to Maria’s two friends who were with her in that doctor office and Said, “It will stop making those noises after a while.”
(Adrian Rogers pictured above)
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
My wife was born in main hospital in Pine Bluff, Arkansas
They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF? The same life!!! Are you going to tell me that is not a baby? Are you going to tell me that if that baby had been put to death it would not have been murder? You will never convince me of that. What has happened to us in America? We have been sold a bill of goods by the Secular Humanists!
Carl Sagan was elected the HUMANIST OF THE YEAR in 1982 by the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
Carl Sagan asked, “Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?”
This message “A Christian Manifesto” was given in 1982 by the late Christian Philosopher Francis Schaeffer when he was age 70 at D. James Kennedy’s Corral Ridge Presbyterian Church. Listen to this important message where Dr. Schaeffer says it is the duty of Christians to disobey the government when it comes in conflict with God’s laws. So many have misinterpreted Romans 13 to mean unconditional obedience to the state. When the state promotes an evil agenda and anti-Christian statues we must obey God rather than men. Acts I use to watch James Kennedy preach from his TV pulpit with great delight in the 1980’s. Both of these men are gone to be with the Lord now. We need new Christian leaders to rise up in their stead. To view Part 2 See Francis Schaeffer Lecture- Christian Manifesto Pt 2 of 2 video The religious and political freedom’s we enjoy as Americans was based on the Bible and the legacy of the Reformation according to Francis Schaeffer. These freedoms will continue to diminish as we cast off the authority of Holy Scripture. In public schools there is no other view of reality but that final reality is shaped by chance. Likewise, public television gives us many things that we like culturally but so much of it is mere propaganda shaped by a humanistic world and life view.
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I was able to watch Francis Schaeffer deliver a speech on a book he wrote called “A Christian Manifesto” and I heard him in several interviews on it in 1981 and 1982. I listened with great interest since I also read that book over and over again. Below is a portion of one of Schaeffer’s talks on a crucial subject that is very important today too.
A great talk by Francis Schaeffer:A Christian Manifesto by Dr. Francis A. SchaefferThis address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title._________
Infanticide and youth enthansia ———So what we find then, is that the medical profession has largely changed — not all doctors. I’m sure there are doctors here in the audience who feel very, very differently, who feel indeed that human life is important and you wouldn’t take it, easily, wantonly. But, in general, we must say (and all you have to do is look at the TV programs), all you have to do is hear about the increased talk about allowing the Mongoloid child — the child with Down’s Syndrome — to starve to death if it’s born this way. Increasingly, we find on every side the medical profession has changed its views.
The view now is, “Is this life worth saving?”I look at you… You’re an older congregation than I am usually used to speaking to. You’d better think, because — this — means — you! It does not stop with abortion and infanticide. It stops at the question, “What about the old person? Is he worth hanging on to?” Should we, as they are doing in England in this awful organization, EXIT, teach older people to commit suicide? Should we help them get rid of them because they are an economic burden, a nuisance? I want to tell you, once you begin chipping away the medical profession…
The intrinsic value of the human life is founded upon the Judeo-Christian concept that man is unique because he is made in the image of God, and not because he is well, strong, a consumer, a sex object or any other thing. That is where whatever compassion this country has is, and certainly it is far from perfect and has never been perfect. Nor out of the Reformation has there been a Golden Age, but whatever compassion there has ever been, it is rooted in the fact that our culture knows that man is unique, is made in the image of God. Take it away, and I just say gently, the stopper is out of the bathtub for all human life.
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Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband. Now I wanted to make some comments concerning our shared Christian faith. I respect you for putting your faith in Christ for your eternal life. I am pleading to you on the basis of the Bible to please review your religious views concerning abortion. It was the Bible that caused the abolition movement of the 1800’s and it also was the basis for Martin Luther King’s movement for civil rights and it also is the basis for recognizing the unborn children.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine […]
ABORTION – THE SILENT SCREAM 1 / Extended, High-Resolution Version (with permission from APF). Republished with Permission from Roy Tidwell of American Portrait Films as long as the following credits are shown: VHS/DVDs Available American Portrait Films Call 1-800-736-4567 http://www.amport.com The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Unjust laws exist. Shall we […]
I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet. (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on April 16, 2011. First you will see my letter to him which was mailed around April 9th(although […]
ABORTION – THE SILENT SCREAM 1 / Extended, High-Resolution Version (with permission from APF). Republished with Permission from Roy Tidwell of American Portrait Films as long as the following credits are shown: VHS/DVDs Available American Portrait Films Call 1-800-736-4567 http://www.amport.com The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Unjust laws exist. Shall we […]
When I think of the things that make me sad concerning this country, the first thing that pops into my mind is our treatment of unborn children. Donald Trump is probably going to run for president of the United States. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council recently had a conversation with him concerning the […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
Sometimes you can see evidences in someone’s life of how content they really are. I saw something like that on 2-8-13 when I confronted a blogger that goes by the name “AngryOldWoman” on the Arkansas Times Blog. See below. Leadership Crisis in America Published on Jul 11, 2012 Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s […]
In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented against abortion (Episode 1), infanticide (Episode 2), euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
7 Follow my advice, my son; always keep it in mind and stick to it. 2 Obey me and live! Guard my words as your most precious possession. 3 Write them down,[a] and also keep them deep within your heart. 4 Love wisdom like a sweetheart; make her a beloved member of your family. 5 Let her hold you back from affairs with other women—from listening to their flattery.
6 I was looking out the window of my house one day 7 and saw a simpleminded lad, a young man lacking common sense, 8-9 walking at twilight down the street to the house of this wayward girl, a prostitute. 10 She approached him, saucy and pert, and dressed seductively. 11-12 She was the brash, coarse type, seen often in the streets and markets, soliciting at every corner for men to be her lovers.
13 She put her arms around him and kissed him, and with a saucy look she said, “I was just coming to look for you and here you are! 14-17 Come home with me, and I’ll fix you a wonderful dinner,[b] and after that—well, my bed is spread with lovely, colored sheets of finest linen imported from Egypt, perfumed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. 18 Come on, let’s take our fill of love until morning, 19 for my husband is away on a long trip. 20 He has taken a wallet full of money with him and won’t return for several days.”
21 So she seduced him with her pretty speech, her coaxing and her wheedling, until he yielded to her. He couldn’t resist her flattery. 22 He followed her as an ox going to the butcher or as a stag that is trapped, 23 waiting to be killed with an arrow through its heart. He was as a bird flying into a snare, not knowing the fate awaiting it there.
24 Listen to me, young men, and not only listen but obey; 25 don’t let your desires get out of hand; don’t let yourself think about her. Don’t go near her; stay away from where she walks, lest she tempt you and seduce you. 26 For she has been the ruin of multitudes—a vast host of men have been her victims. 27 If you want to find the road to hell, look for her house.
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite cities!!!!
Today is Feb 7 so I want to quote from Proverbs 7. Good advice today from anyone in New Orleans like me.
This chapter 7 of Proverbs is so sad and it plays out everyday here in New Orleans when a young man is seduced.
12 As I stood at the window of my house looking out through the shutters, Watching the mindless crowd stroll by, I spotted a young man without any sense Arriving at the corner of the street where she lived, then turning up the path to her house. It was dusk, the evening coming on, the darkness thickening into night. Just then, a woman met him— she’d been lying in wait for him, dressed to seduce him. Brazen and brash she was, restless and roaming, never at home, Walking the streets, loitering in the mall, hanging out at every corner in town.
13-20 She threw her arms around him and kissed him, boldly took his arm and said, “I’ve got all the makings for a feast— today I made my offerings, my vows are all paid, So now I’ve come to find you, hoping to catch sight of your face—and here you are! I’ve spread fresh, clean sheets on my bed, colorful imported linens. My bed is aromatic with spices and exotic fragrances. Come, let’s make love all night, spend the night in ecstatic lovemaking! My husband’s not home; he’s away on business, and he won’t be back for a month.”
With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him. 22 All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast[e] 23 till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life.
—-
How many homes have been wrecked by young men’s trips to New Orleans?
I wrote to Hefner in an earlier letter these words:
Don’t you see that Solomon was right when he observed life UNDER THE SUN without God in the picture and he then concluded in Ecclesiastes 2:11:
“All was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained UNDER THE SUN.”
Notice this phrase UNDER THE SUN since it appears about 30 times in Ecclesiastes. Francis Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”
My name is Tom Beaman. When I was 38, as a confirmed skeptic of all things religious, I had a life-changing encounter with Jesus. Within a couple of years I sold my concert sound company and enrolled in Denver Seminary, preparing for a new career as a pastor and preacher. One of the biggest surprises for me was how rich and fascinating the study of the Bible can be when you strip away all the stuffiness and formality. It is astonishing that this collection of – individual writings, written by dozens of authors from differing cultural situations, over a span of hundreds of years, fits together with such precision. Recently retired, I’ve begun this blog as a way of continuing to share my love and amazement for God’s Word.
I live in Longmont, Colorado, am recently single, after the death of my wife of 47 years in 2015. We raised two kids and now have four grand-kids. My hobbies include camping, playing guitar, woodworking and baking bread.
PS – When I quote from the Bible, most of the time it will be from: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984, Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
Being Elvis was not enough. He needed more. Why? You might think singing for a living would be satisfying. Throw in vast wealth, Graceland, being known as “the King” and worshiped around the world would pretty much cover all your needs. But all that was not enough. Why not? Solomon (introduced in Part 1) never met Elvis (so far as we know…. wink, wink…) but he applied himself to figure it out. There must be a reason we humans work so hard to achieve money, fame, power, pleasure, success – you name it – and when we do, we discover those things don’t satisfy.
He didn’t just read up on the topic; Solomon held his nose and cannon-balled into the quest. But nothing he tried was enough. Wisdom didn’t satisfy:
I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. 18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief (Ecclesiastes 1:16-18)
Carnal pleasure didn’t satisfy. His life that would have been the envy of Donald Trump, HUGH HEFNER and Bill Gates:
1 I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. 2 “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” 3 I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives. 4 I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. 8 I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well—the delights of a man’s heart. 9 I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me. 10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. (Ecclesiastes 2:1-10)
And yet, none of that was enough:
11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:11)
Why is it that none of these things we strive for pay off in a lasting, satisfying way? You can read ahead in Ecclesiastes to discover what Solomon concluded. Hint: One is the “D word,” the great equalizer that awaits us all. The second thing is a matter of having the wrong perspective. There is a solution.
Millionaire publisher of Playboy magazine Hugh Hefner poses with Playmate Bunnies at one of his clubs in 1962.
Keystone Features / Getty Images
Exterior of Hefner’s Playboy Club in midtown Manhattan, circa 1966.
Bettmann / Bettmann Archive
Hefner inspects new and improved fabric for the Playboy Bunny costumes in the main room of the Playboy Mansion in Chicago, circa 1966.
Edward Kitch / Edward Kitch / AP/REX/Shutterstock
Hugh Hefner “rescues” one of the swimmers in the indoor pool of his Chicago apartment in 1961.
Bettmann / Bettmann Archive
A crowd of partygoers inspect Hefner’s stereo system at his Playboy Mansion in Chicago, circa 1966.
Pa Images / Getty Images
The “badge of the bunnies” on a Rolls-Royce picks up Hefner after arriving from the US in 1966.
Anonymous / Anonymous / AP/REX/Shutterstock
Hefner makes a telephone call aboard his private plane in 1970.
George Brich / AP
Playboy Bunnies welcome Hugh Hefner on the inaugural flight of his new DC-9 jetliner, The Big Bunny, on March 17, 1970.
Mirrorpix / Getty Images
Hefner arrives with an entourage of Bunnies at London Heathrow Airport on June 25, 1966. During this trip to Britain, he opened his 16th Playboy Club, located in Park Lane, London.
Herrmann / AP / REX / Shutterstock
During a press conference, a little “Bunny” offers sweets to Hugh Hefner and his girlfriend Barbara Benton after they arrived in West Berlin to shoot the film What Is A Nice Girl Like You Doing In This Business, in 1969.
Araldo Di Crollalanza / ARALDO DI CROLLALANZA/REX/Shutterstock
Hefner speaks to an audience during the release party for the Playboy 25th anniversary issue in 1979.
Hefner dances with playmate Sandra Theodore, alongside actress Rita Hayworth and her former choreographer Hermes Pan, during a fundraising party to save the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles in 1978.
Ron Galella / WireImage
Hefner and Playboy Bunnies celebrate as he receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1980 for his achievements in television.
Anonymous / AP / REX/ Shutterstock
Hefner poses with a group of current and former Playboy Bunnies at the Los Angeles Playboy Club in 1986.
Kip Rano / REX / Shutterstock
Luxury and high-end sports cars line the driveway of Hefner’s Playboy Mansion during a party in 1991.
Brad Elterman / Getty Images
Hefner sits with his wife Kimberley and two children during an event at the Playboy Mansion in April 1994.
Reed Saxon / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hefner poses next to a laser-generated image of his head on a computer screen following a laser scanning session on Sept. 26, 2000, at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. The resulting image was used to create an exact wax model of his head for a figure at the Hollywood Wax Museum.
Michael Bezjian / WireImage
Hefner and model Crystal Harris, later Crystal Hefner, attend a signing in Los Angeles on Dec. 10, 2009.
Jeff Kravitz / FilmMagic, Inc
Hugh Hefner shares a moment with Pamela Anderson during the launch party for Spike TV at The Playboy Mansion in 2003.
Denise Truscello / WireImage
Hefner looks at past Playboy covers during a Las Vegas party celebrating Playboy’s 50th anniversary in 2009.
Michael Kovac / FilmMagic
Hefner arrives at the 2011 Playboy Jazz Festival at the Playboy Mansion on Feb. 10, 2011, in Beverly Hills.
Hefner poses for a portrait at the Playboy Mansion in 2010. He died in September 2017 at the age of 91.
Ecclesiastes 2-3 Published on Sep 19, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 16, 2012 | Derek Neider _____________________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular […]
Is Love All You Need? Jesus v. Lennon Posted on January 19, 2011 by Jovan Payes 0 On June 25, 1967, the Beatles participated in the first worldwide TV special called “Our World”. During this special, the Beatles introduced “All You Need is Love”; one of their most famous and recognizable songs. In it, John Lennon […]
___________________ Something happened to the Beatles in their journey through the 1960’s and although they started off wanting only to hold their girlfriend’s hand it later evolved into wanting to smash all previous sexual standards. The Beatles: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? _______ Beatle Ringo Starr, and his girlfriend, later his wife, […]
__________ Marvin Minsky __ I was sorry recently to learn of the passing of one of the great scholars of our generation. I have written about Marvin Minsky several times before in this series and today I again look at a letter I wrote to him in the last couple of years. It is my […]
Why was Tony Curtis on the cover of SGT PEPPERS? I have no idea but if I had to hazard a guess I would say that probably it was because he was in the smash hit SOME LIKE IT HOT. Above from the movie SOME LIKE IT HOT __ __ Jojo was a man who […]
__ Francis Schaeffer did not shy away from appreciating the Beatles. In fact, SERGEANT PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND album was his favorite and he listened to it over and over. I am a big fan of Francis Schaeffer but there are detractors that attack him because he did not have all the degrees that they […]
On 11-15-05 Adrian Rogers passed over to glory and since it is the 10th anniversary of that day I wanted to celebrate his life in two ways. First, I wanted to pass on some of the material from Adrian Rogers’ sermons I have sent to prominent atheists over the last 20 years. Second, I wanted […]
Looking back on his life as a Beatle Paul said at a certain age you start to think “Wow, I have to get serious. I can’t just be a playboy all of my life.” It is true that the Beatles wrote a lot about girls!!!!!! The Beatles – I Want To Hold your Hand [HD] Although […]
One of the reasons the western world became relatively rich in recent centuries is that “rule of law” evolved to constrain capricious and dictatorial behavior by government officials.
But support for the “rule of law” as a concept does not mean blind approval and/or acquiescence to every bit of legislation that politicians enact.
Simply stated, I want justice. In some cases, that means I want enforcement of laws. In other cases, I want resistance to laws.
Now let’s apply this principle to the issue of gun control in America’s northern neighbor.
Here’s what’s happening in Canada, as reported by Amanda Coletta for the Washington Post.
…in 2020, …Prime Minister Justin Trudeau banned some 1,500 makes and models of “military-grade” assault-style firearms and pledged to buy them back from owners. …as Canada’s Liberal government prepares to launch the first phase of the mandatory buyback, several provinces and territories say they won’t help. The most strident opponents, including the United Conservative Party government in Alberta, are suggesting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police “refuse to participate.” Tyler Shandro, the province’s justice minister, declared the buyback was not “an objective, priority or goal” of the province or its Mounties. Alberta, he said, is “not legally obligated to provide resources for it.” …Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick have also balked at using “scarce RCMP resources” for the program. …“Alberta taxpayers pay over $750 dollars per year to fund the RCMP as our provincial police service,” Shandro, the Alberta justice minister, wrote in September to Curtis Zablocki, the head of the Alberta RCMP. “We expect that those dollars not be wasted to pay for a confiscation program that will not increase public safety.”
For what it’s worth, Mr. Shandro is understating the case against gun confiscation.
It’s not just that such proposals “will not increase public safety.” An even bigger concern is that they will reduce public safety because bad people obviously won’t be turning in their guns.
But I’m digressing. Let’s get back to the issue of civil disobedience.
The Post article only mentions one type of disobedience, which is the extent to which provincial and territorial governments will refuse to help enforce Trudeau’s bad law (the same phenomenon exists in the US).
The other type is when individuals refuse to comply, which is something we’ve seen in the United Statesand in nations such as Australia and New Zealand.
By the way, this is why gun registration is a dangerous step. If politicians and bureaucrats know who has guns, confiscation schemes are easier to enforce.
Though hopefully such efforts can be thwarted if gun owners report that their weapons have been “lost” or “stolen” – which surely would happen if American politicians ever tried gun confiscation in the United States.
On Monday the Canadian government invoked the Emergencies Act, an extraordinary‐powers statute ordinarily associated with threats of war and terrorism, with the aim of quelling protests that have disrupted the capital, Ottawa, and temporarily closed some border crossings vital to U.S.-Canada trade, notably the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit.
The Terrorism Act authorities include extraordinary powers of financial regulation, ordinarily discussed in the context of foreign sanctions and terrorism, that allow for the government to freeze property and track and block transactions. Canadian deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland announced Monday that “if your truck is being used in these protests, your corporate accounts will be frozen.…The insurance on your vehicle will be suspended.” Note that these steps will often harm third parties along with protest participants: think of businesses that maintain a fleet of owned vehicles one of which is driven by a protest‐minded employee or family member. Forced cancellation of vehicle insurance can harm the welfare of third parties injured in collisions.
The federal government has not met the threshold necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act. This law creates a high and clear standard for good reason: the Act allows government to bypass ordinary democratic processes. This standard has not been met.
The Emergencies Act can only be invoked, according to its own terms, when a situation “seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it, ” or “seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada” and when the situation “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.”
Critics note that a number of lesser, more conventional law enforcement methods had not yet been tried against the unlawful occupations in Ottawa, Windsor, and elsewhere. Some also note that the national government did not invoke the Emergencies Act during the 77‐day Oka crisis in 1990, in which a blockade and occupation by a group of Mohawks caused considerable disruption and bloodshed.
As colleagues Norbert Michel and Nicholas Anthony of Cato’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives noted in their post yesterday, Canada’s federal government has also ordered that “all crowdfunding and payment services providers must register with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).” Freeland has elaborated on what this will mean: “In invoking the Emergencies Act, we are … broadening the scope of Canada’s anti‐money laundering and terrorist financing rules so that they cover crowdfunding platforms and the payments service providers they use. These changes cover all forms of transactions––including digital assets such as cryptocurrencies… As of today, a bank or other financial service provider will be able to immediately freeze or suspend an account without a court order.”
I’ve been a critic of the Ottawa disruptions, which — like certain freeway blocking, downtown‐closing protest actions that come to mind in the U.S. — have upended the lives of unoffending third parties and blocked them from being able to get to their homes, businesses, and places of work. Having grown up in Detroit, I’m well aware of how destructive it is to the well‐being of millions to obstruct the Ambassador Bridge.
That said, Monday’s edicts underscore how dangerous it is to arm government with the kind of financial and emergency powers that can bypass due process, bring targets to their knees through economic incapacitation without trial, and shred privacy. I second Norbert Michel and Nicholas Anthony’s comments yesterday: “Many Americans may not realize it, but the same principles that make this attack on Canadians’ financial freedom possible are engrained in U.S. law. …Whether people realize it or not, this sort of event could just as easily occur in the United States. In fact, it’s a prime example of why Americans need stronger financial privacy rights.”
I would add that the news lends new appeal to a perennial libertarian cause, that of limiting the scope of emergency powers that governments gather to themselves, often with the excuse of anticipating security threats. You can read and listen to more about that issue in Cato events like this and from Cato people like Gene Healy, Patrick Eddington, and William Yeatman.
The Honorable Representative Peter Meijer of Michigan, Washington D.C.
Dear Representative Peter Meijer,
I noticed that you are a pro-life representative that has a long record of standing up for unborn babies! It was in the 1970’s when I was first introduced to the works of Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop and I wanted to commend their writings and films to you.
I am the pro-life candidate in the race for #MI03. If you believe it’s important to protect the sanctity of life, Vote Meijer on Tuesday, November 3rd!
It seems you have a grudge against President Trump while our freedoms under President Biden are being taken away. I recommend to you the article below:
Roger Kimball Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion
Mr. Kimball concludes his article with these words:
That’s one melancholy lesson of the January 6 insurrection hoax: that America is fast mutating from a republic, in which individual liberty is paramount, into an oligarchy, in which conformity is increasingly demanded and enforced.
Another lesson was perfectly expressed by Donald Trump when he reflected on the unremitting tsunami of hostility that he faced as President. “They’re after you,” he more than once told his supporters. “I’m just in the way.”
There were a few Republicans Thursday who surprised observers when they voted in support of holding former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress and referring him to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
Prior to the vote, four Republicans were considered a lock to approve the criminal referral, according to Capitol Hill sources: Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan and Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio.
Cheney and Kinzinger are on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and have for months stood alone as the only two House Republicans willing to speak out against former President Donald Trump’s continued lies about the 2020 election. They were the only two House Republicans to vote for the formation of the select committee on June 30.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formed the select committee after Republicans rejected a bipartisan commission that would have been evenly split between five Democrats and five Republicans. Only 35 Republicans voted for that measure when itpassed the House of Representatives, and it was defeated by a GOP filibuster in the Senate.
From left: Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a Democrat, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois arrive for the House Select Committee hearing investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
More
Upton has served in the House for more than three decades, since 1987, and will face a primary challenge next year because of his willingness to stand up to Trump.
Gonzalez is retiring from Congress next year, after only four years in the House. “While my desire to build a fuller family life is at the heart of my decision, it is also true that the current state of our politics, especially many of the toxic dynamics inside our own party, is a significant factor in my decision,” Gonzalez said in September when heannounced he would not seek another term.
The remaining five Republicans included three who voted for impeachment — Peter Meijer of Michigan, John Katko of New York and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington — and two House Republicans who did not vote to impeach Trump: Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
Let me recommend that you read this letter below from Senator Ron Johnson and his colleagues:
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), along with senators Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), sent a letter on Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting information on the unequal application of justice between the individuals who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, and those involved in the unrest during the spring and summer of 2020. The senators sent 18 questions to the attorney general on what steps the DOJ has taken to prosecute individuals who committed crimes during both events, and requested a response by June 21.
“Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances,” the senators wrote. “This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning.”
The full text of the letter can be found here and below.
June 7, 2021
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Garland:
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently dedicating enormous resources and manpower to investigating and prosecuting the criminals who breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. We fully support and appreciate the efforts by the DOJ and its federal, state and local law enforcement partners to hold those responsible fully accountable.
We join all Americans in the expectation that the DOJ’s response to the events of January 6 will result in rightful criminal prosecutions and accountability. As you are aware, the mission of the DOJ is, among other things, to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. Today, we write to request information about our concerns regarding potential unequal justice administered in response to other recent instances of mass unrest, destruction, and loss of life throughout the United States.
During the spring and summer of 2020, individuals used peaceful protests across the country to engage in rioting and other crimes that resulted in loss of life, injuries to law enforcement officers, and significant property damage.[1] A federal court house in Portland, Oregon, has been effectively under siege for months.[2] Property destruction stemming from the 2020 social justice protests throughout the country will reportedly result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion in paid insurance claims.[3]
In June 2020, the DOJ reportedly compiled the following information regarding last year’s unrest:
“One federal officer [was] killed, 147 federal officers [were] injured and 600 local officers [were] injured around the country during the protests, frequently from projectiles.”[4]
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), “since the start of the unrest there has been 81 Federal Firearms License burglaries of an estimated loss of 1,116 firearms; 876 reported arsons; 76 explosive incidents; and 46 ATF arrests[.]”[5]
Despite these numerous examples of violence occurring during these protests, it appears that individuals charged with committing crimes at these events may benefit from infrequent prosecutions and minimal, if any, penalties. According to a recent article, “prosecutors have approved deals in at least half a dozen federal felony cases arising from clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Oregon last summer. The arrangements — known as deferred resolution agreements — will leave the defendants with a clean criminal record if they stay out of trouble for a period of time and complete a modest amount of community service, according to defense attorneys and court records.”[6]
DOJ’s apparent unwillingness to punish these individuals who allegedly committed crimes during the spring and summer 2020 protests stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment of the individuals charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. To date, DOJ has charged 510 individuals stemming from Capitol breach.[7] DOJ maintains and updates a webpage that lists the defendants charged with crimes committed at the Capitol. This database includes information such as the defendant’s name, charge(s), case number, case documents, location of arrest, case status, and informs readers when the entry was last updated.[8] No such database exists for alleged perpetrators of crimes associated with the spring and summer 2020 protests. It is unclear whether any defendants charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol breach have received deferred resolution agreements.
Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning. In order to assist Congress in conducting its oversight work, we respectfully request answers to the following questions by June 21, 2021:
Spring and Summer 2020 Unrest:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the unrest in the spring and summer of 2020? If so, how many times and for which locations/riots?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020 were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals were incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals were released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?[9]
How many DOJ prosecutors were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol Breach:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the January 6, 2021 protests and Capitol breach? If so, how many times and how many additional arrests resulted from law enforcement utilizing geolocation information?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals are incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals have been released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?
How many DOJ prosecutors have been assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
Trump seems never to have discerned what a viper’s nest our politics has become for anyone who is not a paid-up member of The Club.
Maybe Trump understands this now. I have no insight into that question. I am pretty confident, though, that the 74 plus million people who voted for him understand it deeply. It’s another reason that The Club should be wary of celebrating its victory too expansively.
Friedrich Hayek took one of the two epigraphs for his book, The Road to Serfdom, from the philosopher David Hume. “It is seldom,” Hume wrote, “that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” Much as I admire Hume, I wonder whether he got this quite right. Sometimes, I would argue, liberty is erased almost instantaneously.
I’d be willing to wager that Joseph Hackett, confronted with Hume’s observation, would express similar doubts. I would be happy to ask Mr. Hackett myself, but he is inaccessible. If the ironically titled “Department of Justice” has its way, he will be inaccessible for a long, long time—perhaps as long as 20 years.
Joseph Hackett, you see, is a 51-year-old Trump supporter and member of an organization called the Oath Keepers, a group whose members have pledged to “defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” The FBI does not like the Oath Keepers—agents arrested its leader in January and have picked up many other members in the months since. Hackett traveled to Washington from his home in Florida to join the January 6 rally. According to court documents, he entered the Capitol at 2:45 that afternoon and left some nine minutes later, at 2:54. The next day, he went home. On May 28, he was apprehended by the FBI and indicted on a long list of charges, including conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and illegally entering a restricted building.
As far as I have been able to determine, no evidence of Hackett destroying property has come to light. According to his wife, it is not even clear that he entered the Capitol. But he certainly was in the environs. He was a member of the Oath Keepers. He was a supporter of Donald Trump. Therefore, he must be neutralized.
Joseph Hackett is only one of hundreds of citizens who have beenbranded as “domestic terrorists” trying to “overthrow the government” and who are now languishing, in appalling conditions, jailed as political prisoners of an angry state apparat.
—-
I want to recommend to you a video on YOU TUBE that runs 28 minutes and 39 seconds by Francis Schaeffer entitled because it discusses the founding of our nation and what the FOUNDERS believed:
Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.
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March 23, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view. Although we are both Christians and have the Bible as the basis for our moral views, I did want you to take a close look at the views of the pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff too. Hentoff became convinced of the pro-life view because of secular evidence that shows that the unborn child is human. I would ask you to consider his evidence and then of course reverse your views on abortion.
___________________
The pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff wrote a fine article below I wanted to share with you.
Nat Hentoff is an atheist, but he became a pro-life activist because of the scientific evidence that shows that the unborn child is a distinct and separate human being and even has a separate DNA. His perspective is a very intriguing one that I thought you would be interested in. I have shared before many cases (Bernard Nathanson, Donald Trump, Paul Greenberg, Kathy Ireland) when other high profile pro-choice leaders have changed their views and this is just another case like those. I have contacted the White House over and over concerning this issue and have even received responses. I am hopeful that people will stop and look even in a secular way (if they are not believers) at this abortion debate and see that the unborn child is deserving of our protection.That is why the writings of Nat Hentoff of the Cato Institute are so crucial.
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have. Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.
Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION
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Dr. Francis schaeffer – from Part 5 of Whatever happened to human race?) Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 5 | Truth and History
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – A Christian Manifesto – Dr. Francis Schaeffer Lecture
Francis Schaeffer – A 700 Club Special! ~ Francis Schaeffer 1982
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – 1984 SOUNDWORD LABRI CONFERENCE VIDEO – Q&A With Francis & Edith Schaeffer
http://www.NewsandOpinion.com | A longtime friend of mine is married to a doctor who also performs abortions. At the dinner table one recent evening, their 9-year-old son — having heard a word whose meaning he didn’t know — asked, “What is an abortion?” His mother, choosing her words carefully, described the procedure in simple terms.
“But,” said her son, “that means killing the baby.” The mother then explained that there are certain months during which an abortion cannot be performed, with very few exceptions. The 9-year-old shook his head. “But,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what month. It still means killing the babies.”
Hearing the story, I wished it could be repeated to the justices of the Supreme Court, in the hope that at least five of them might act on this 9-year-old’s clarity of thought and vision.
The boy’s spontaneous insistence on the primacy of life also reminded me of a powerful pro-life speaker and writer who, many years ago, helped me become a pro-lifer. He was a preacher, a black preacher. He said: “There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of a higher order than the right to life.
“That,” he continued, “was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore out of your right to be concerned.”
This passionate reverend used to warn: “Don’t let the pro-choicers convince you that a fetus isn’t a human being. That’s how the whites dehumanized us … The first step was to distort the image of us as human beings in order to justify what they wanted to do — and not even feel they’d done anything wrong.”
That preacher was Jesse Jackson. Later, he decided to run for the presidency — and it was a credible campaign that many found inspiring in its focus on what still had to be done on civil rights. But Jackson had by now become “pro-choice” — much to the appreciation of most of those in the liberal base.
The last time I saw Jackson was years later, on a train from Washington to New York. I told him of a man nominated, but not yet confirmed, to a seat on a federal circuit court of appeals. This candidate was a strong supporter of capital punishment — which both the Rev. Jackson and I oppose, since it involves the irreversible taking of a human life by the state.
I asked Jackson if he would hold a press conference in Washington, criticizing the nomination, and he said he would. The reverend was true to his word; the press conference took place; but that nominee was confirmed to the federal circuit court. However, I appreciated Jackson’s effort.
On that train, I also told Jackson that I’d been quoting — in articles, and in talks with various groups — from his compelling pro-life statements. I asked him if he’d had any second thoughts on his reversal of those views.
Usually quick to respond to any challenge that he is not consistent in his positions, Jackson paused, and seemed somewhat disquieted at my question. Then he said to me, “I’ll get back to you on that.” I still patiently await what he has to say.
As time goes on, my deepening concern with the consequences of abortion is that its validation by the Supreme Court, as a constitutional practice, helps support the convictions of those who, in other controversies — euthanasia, assisted suicide and the “futility doctrine” by certain hospital ethics committees — believe that there are lives not worth continuing.
Around the time of my conversation with Jackson on the train, I attended a conference on euthanasia at Clark College in Worcester, Mass. There, I met Derek Humphry, the founder of the Hemlock Society, and already known internationally as a key proponent of the “death with dignity” movement.
He told me that for some years in this country, he had considerable difficulty getting his views about assisted suicide and, as he sees it, compassionate euthanasia into the American press.
“But then,” Humphry told me, “a wonderful thing happened. It opened all the doors for me.”
“What was that wonderful thing?” I asked.
“Roe v. Wade,” he answered.
The devaluing of human life — as the 9-year-old at the dinner table put it more vividly — did not end with making abortion legal, and therefore, to some people, moral. The word “baby” does not appear in Roe v. Wade — let alone the word “killing.”
And so, the termination of “lives not worth living” goes on.
______________________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband. Now after presenting the secular approach of Nat Hentoff I wanted to make some comments concerning our shared Christian faith. I respect you for putting your faith in Christ for your eternal life. I am pleading to you on the basis of the Bible to please review your religious views concerning abortion. It was the Bible that caused the abolition movement of the 1800’s and it also was the basis for Martin Luther King’s movement for civil rights and it also is the basis for recognizing the unborn children.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
Sometimes you can see evidences in someone’s life of how content they really are. I saw something like that on 2-8-13 when I confronted a blogger that goes by the name “AngryOldWoman” on the Arkansas Times Blog. See below. Leadership Crisis in America Published on Jul 11, 2012 Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s […]
In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented against abortion (Episode 1), infanticide (Episode 2), euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., likely will become chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee under the incoming Republican majority. Pictured: Comer, right, confers with fellow committee member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, during a June 22 hearing on Capitol Hill. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
When Republicans secure a narrow House majority, which appears likely as vote counting continues, it will mean an aggressive oversight agenda in the new year, something the Biden administration largely has avoided from Congress in its first two years.
As of Friday morning, Republicans appeared to control 211 House seats after midterm elections Tuesday—only seven short of the 218 needed for a majority in the 435-member chamber. Democrats apparently had won 196 House seats, according to RealClearPolitics, with 28 races yet to be decided.
Meanwhile, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California announced his bid Wednesday for speaker of the House. Although a predicted “red wave” didn’t materialize as voting concluded Tuesday, Republicans will control House committees whether they have a one-seat or a 20-seat majority.
Although other topics could arise, congressional Republicans already have stated plans to look into controversies surrounding the business dealings of Hunter Biden and other members of the president’s family, the crisis on the southern border, the politicization of the Justice Department, and even talk of impeachments.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., likely will go from ranking member to incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
Here are eight investigations to expect under GOP leadership of the House in the coming year.
1. Hunter Biden and Beyond
The FBI presented enough evidence to Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss to charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes and lying on a gun purchase form, The Washington Post reported in early October.
Republicans in Congress, noting the Chinese business interests of President Joe Biden’s son, say the problem is significantly larger.
In a written statement last week to The Daily Signal, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who will take over as chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said:
Oversight Republicans are investigating the domestic and international business dealings of President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and other Biden associates and family members to determine whether these activities compromise U.S. national security and President Biden’s ability to lead with impartiality.
Hunter and other members of the Biden family have a pattern of peddling access to the highest levels of government to enrich themselves. The American people deserve to know whether the president’s connections to his family’s business deals occurred at the expense of American interests and whether they represent a national security threat.
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letterto top Justice Department officials arguing that the foreign business dealings could be much broader and could include other members of the Biden family, including the president.
“These documents also indicate that Joe Biden was aware of Hunter Biden’s business arrangements and may have been involved in some of them,” Grassley says in his Oct. 13 letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware.
“Based on recent protected disclosures to my office,” Grassley wrote, “the FBI has within its possession significant, impactful and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden and [the president’s brother] James Biden.”
Grassley provided 30 pages of documents collected by the committee—some from whistleblowers within the FBI who allege that the bureau has been holding back.
The documents include details of a contract designed to funnel $5 million from a Chinese government-connected firm, CEFC, to Hunter Biden and James Biden to compensate them for work done while Joe Biden was vice president in the Obama administration.
2. Border Crisis
Republicans say they also plan to hold the Biden administration accountable for the crisis of rampant illegal immigration across the southern border.
“We will also continue our oversight of President Biden’s border crisis that has led to historic illegal immigration, a surge of deadly drugs pouring across the border, and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars,” Comer said in his written statement. “We will hold the Biden administration accountable for this self-inflicted crisis.”
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Mexican cartels’ income from smuggling illegal immigrants across the border into the United States soared from $500 million in 2018 to $13 billion in 2022—a 2,500% jump.
Border Patrol agents apprehended 951,568 illegal immigrants during President Donald Trump’s final 19 months in office, but caught 3.5 million in Biden’s first 19 months as president—a 377% increase.
As of early October, the Border Patrol had encountered at least 266,000 unaccompanied migrant children at the southern border since Biden took office, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
In September, 14 House Republicans wrote Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to say that “between October 2021 and July 2022, more than 130,000 Venezuelan nationals were encountered after entering the United States illegally.”
The GOP lawmakers argued that the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro “is deliberately releasing violent prisoners early, including inmates convicted of ‘murder, rape, and extortion,’ and pushing them to join caravans heading to the United States.”
In August, 12 GOP senators wrote to Ronald Davis, director of the U.S. Marshals Service to say: “So far in FY22, [Customs and Border Protection] has apprehended over 9,000 criminal aliens, including 53 for homicide or manslaughter, 283 for sex crimes, and almost 900 for assault, battery, and domestic violence.”
For the federal government, fiscal year 2022 ended Sept. 30.
3. Probing Big Tech
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., likely the incoming chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has said that House Republicans’ “Big Tech Accountability Platform” would focus on China.
Specifically, GOP lawmakers would focus on how tech companies such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Google allow data to go to China.
“Companies with deep ties to China raise significant concerns about China’s access to American information,” the memo from McMorris Rodgers to fellow GOP members says, adding:
To address this concern, we will consider new transparency obligations, such as
Requiring companies to notify American users if those companies send, maintain, or store their personal information in China.
Requiring companies to notify American users if those companies are owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a Chinese state-owned entity, or a non-state-owned entity located in China.
In August, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee sought information from White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy about possible collusion with Big Tech firms to censor criticism of the Biden administration’s environmental policies.
GOP members also raised concerns about former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s involvement with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
4. COVID-19 Origins
Comer, the likely incoming chairman, told The Daily Signal last week that the House Oversight and Reform Committee also would investigate the origins of COVID-19.
The probe would focus on three key facts, the Kentucky Republican said.
First, the panel would examine growing evidence that the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 likely originated in a research lab in Wuhan, China, and that the Communist Party of China covered it up.
Secondly, Comer said, oversight Republicans would focus on whether U.S. taxpayer dollars were funneled to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct risky experimental research on bat coronaviruses. This also is known as “gain-of-function research.”
Third, Comer said the committee would explore whether Dr. Anthony Fauci, the retiring director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was aware of this information at the start of the pandemic. And, he said, the panel would investigate whether Fauci or other federal officials acted to conceal facts and intentionally downplay the “lab leak” theory.
“We will continue this oversight to hold U.S. government officials accountable for any wrongdoing and ensure Americans’ tax dollars aren’t being used on risky research at unsecure labs,” Comer said.
In August, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., sent a letter to the National Institutes of Health, telling the agency to maintain its records on COVID-19 and specifying the NIH subagency headed by Fauci.
“Specifically, I request you preserve all records, email, electronic documents, and data created by or shared with Dr. Fauci during his tenure at NIH that relate to COVID-19 including, but not limited to, NIAID-funded coronavirus research,” the Paul letter says. It continues:
This preservation request also includes all records of official business conducted on non-official accounts. For purposes of this request, ‘preserve’ shall be construed to mean taking reasonable steps to prevent the partial or full destruction, alteration, testing, deletion, shredding, incineration, wiping, relocation, migration, theft, mutation, or negligent or reckless handling that could render the information incomplete or inaccessible.
5. Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal
Republicans say they also intend to investigate the Biden administration’s hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
In late October, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee raised concerns about the Biden administration’s being uncooperative with an official known as the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. Congress created the post, as well as the office of the same name.
Comer and Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., ranking member of the committee’s subcommittee on national security, wrote to Special Inspector General John Sopko to inquire about his access.
“On two separate occasions, you have informed the committee that the Biden administration is obstructing your work by failing to produce required information. This is unacceptable,” says the letter to Sopko, who was appointed in 2012 by President Barack Obama.
“Therefore, we request a briefing on your continuing oversight efforts and any obstacles put in place by the Biden administration. Historically, [the] State [Department] and USAID [the U.S. Agency for International Development] have honored SIGAR’s mission,” the letter continues, referring to Sopko’s office. It adds:
But since the Biden administration’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal—which is in desperate need of oversight—State and USAID have denied travel, delayed, obstructed, and even questioned SIGAR’s jurisdictional authority. The Biden administration’s obstruction directly violates the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008 and the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, which both require agencies to provide inspectors general [with] information or assistance.
The chaotic U.S. exit from Afghanistan left 13 American servicemembers dead and left behind at least $7 billion worth of U.S. military equipment for the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist group that regained control of Afghanistan.
House Republicans included addressing the “catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal” in their “Commitment to America” plan.
6. IRS Management
Grassley led a letter from Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee requesting that the Government Accountability Office investigate financial management at the Internal Revenue Service after Democrats’ so-called Inflation Reduction Act bestowed $80 billion on the tax collection agency.
“If the near-$80 billion is spent out evenly over time, for FY 2023 the IRS will be receiving a supersized 57% boost relative to FY 2022,” the committee senators wrote. “Such an outsized boost to agency funding, derived from legislation developed and passed in partisan fashion, in our view represents a high risk for waste, fraud, abuse, and improper politicized utilization of taxpayer resources.”
The Republican senators seek information on what high-risk IRS issues identified previously by the Government Accountability Office remain outstanding, and what “significant deficiencies in internal controls” continue after IRS financial statements for fiscal year 2021 and fiscal year 2020. They also ask for details of “unresolved information system security control deficiencies” identified in the GAO audit.
7. Possible Impeachments
Some House Republicans have called for the impeachment of Biden. That seems far-fetched now, especially since McCarthy, the likely incoming speaker of the House, hadn’t shown any interest while he was House minority leader.
As speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., repeatedly pushed away calls for impeaching then-President Donald Trump from multiple members of the Democratic caucus. But after gaining a House majority in 2019, Pelosi gave into pressure from the more adamant lawmakers in her caucus.
In the House minority, Republicans have introduced 14 impeachment resolutions against either Biden or his Cabinet officials.
If an impeachment happens, some observers say, it’s more likely to happen with Cabinet members—chiefly Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“I think it’s pretty much guaranteed that Mayorkas is going to be impeached by the House next year. Now, whether he’d be removed by the Senate, because it’s the same process as any other impeachment, that’s unclear,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Daily Signal earlier this year.
“He took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the laws of the United States, and that ain’t what he’s doing,” Krikorian said of Mayorkas, who Biden appointed. He added:
There’s all kinds of hotheads among Republicans who will say, ‘Well, we got to impeach Biden’ and all this. Impeachment is a political process. It’d be a political error, I think, to go after Biden and even impeach him. Then Kamala Harris is president? I mean, that’s even worse.
But Mayorkas is an appropriate target for impeachment because even though the administration has a policy and he’s following it, it’s precisely because the president is so weak and unable to exercise authority—and there are differing currents of opinion in the administration. Mayorkas could be a lot tougher than he is. He could be actually following the law in a way that he’s not doing.
8. Investigating a Politicized Justice Department
After the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Aug. 8, McCarthy issued a warning to Garland, Biden’s attorney general.
“When Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of this department, follow the facts, and leave no stone unturned,” the House Republican leader said. “Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”
After revelations that the Justice Department was targeting parents for objecting to local school board policies, some Republican lawmakers said Garland should be forced out.
“We have problems at the border, we have problems with drug cartels, we have problems with human traffickers,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told The Daily Signal last year.
“And Merrick Garland wants the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s offices to focus on parents that go to a school board meeting to ask questions about mandates on their children, curriculums affecting their children, and the safety of their children during the academic day,” Blackburn said. “I think that Merrick Garland should be removed from his position.”
Blackburn said Garland should resign, Biden should fire him, or the House should impeach him and the Senate convict and remove him.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
The left praises democracy when elected but claims the right will destroy democracy when it loses. Pictured: Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton discusses the 2016 election during her 2017 book tour. (Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers, NurPhoto/Getty Images)
Recently, Democrats have been despondent over President Joe Biden’s sinking poll numbers. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support.
As a result, the left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when it expects to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when it fears losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup.
A cynic might suggest that those on the left praise democracy when they get elected, only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or they mask their own revolutionary propensities by projecting them onto their opponents.
After all, who is trying to federalize election laws in national elections contrary to the spirit of the Constitution? Who wishes to repeal or circumvent the Electoral College? Who wishes to destroy the more than 180-year-old Senate filibuster, the over 150-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, and the more than 60-year-old 50-state union?
Who is attacking the founding constitutional idea of two senators per state?
The Constitution also clearly states that “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” Who slammed through the impeachment of former President Donald Trump without a presiding chief justice?
Never had a president been either impeached twice or tried in the Senate as a private citizen. Who did both?
The left further broke prior precedent by impeaching Trump without a special counsel’s report, formal hearings, witnesses, and cross-examinations.
Who exactly is violating federal civil rights legislation?
New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in December decided to ration new potentially lifesaving COVID-19 medicines, partially on the basis of race, in the name of “equity.”
The agency also allegedly used racial preferences to determine who would be first tested for COVID-19. Yet such racial discrimination seems in direct violation of various title clauses of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
That law makes it clear that no public agency can use race to deny “equal utilization of any public facility which is owned, operated, or managed by or on behalf of any State or subdivision thereof.” Who is behind the new racial discrimination?
In summer 2020, many local- and state-mandated quarantines and bans on public assemblies were simply ignored with impunity—if demonstrators were associated with Black Lives Matter or protesting the police.
Currently, the Biden administration is also flagrantly embracing the neo-Confederate idea of nullifying federal law.
The Biden administration has allowed nearly 2 million foreign nationals to enter the United States illegally across the southern border—in hopes they will soon be loyal constituents.
The administration has not asked illegal entrants either to be tested for or vaccinated against COVID-19. Yet all U.S. citizens in the military and employed by the federal government are threatened with dismissal if they fail to become vaccinated.
Such selective exemption of lawbreaking non-U.S. citizens, but not millions of U.S. citizens, seems in conflict with the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
After entering the United States illegally, millions of immigrants are protected by some 550 “sanctuary city” jurisdictions. These revolutionary areas all brazenly nullify immigration law by refusing to allow federal immigration authorities to deport illegal immigrant lawbreakers.
At various times in our nation’s history—1832, 1861-65, and 1961-63—America was either racked by internal violence or fought a civil war over similar state nullification of federal laws.
In the last five years, we have indeed seen many internal threats to democracy.
Hillary Clinton hired a foreign national to concoct a dossier of dirt against her presidential opponent. She disguised her own role by projecting her efforts to use Russian sources onto Trump. She used her contacts in government and media to seed the dossier to create a national hysteria about “Russian collusion.” Clinton urged Biden not to accept the 2020 result if he lost, and herself claimed Trump was not a legitimately elected president.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has violated laws governing the chain of command. Some retired officers violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by slandering their commander in chief. Others publicly were on record calling for the military to intervene to remove an elected president.
Some of the nation’s top officials in the FBI and intelligence committee have misled or lied under oath either to federal investigators or the U.S. Congress, again, mostly with impunity.
All these sustained revolutionary activities were justified as necessary to achieve the supposedly noble ends of removing Trump.
The result is Third World-like jurisprudence in America aimed at rewarding friends and punishing enemies, masked by service to social justice.
We are in a dangerous revolutionary cycle. But the threat is not so much from loud, buffoonish, one-day rioters on Jan. 6. Such clownish characters did not for 120 days loot, burn, attack courthouses and police precincts, cause over 30 deaths, injure 2,000 policemen, and destroy at least $2 billion in property—all under the banner of revolutionary justice.
Even more ominously, stone-cold sober elites are systematically waging an insidious revolution in the shadows that seeks to dismantle America’s institutions and the rule of law as we have known them.
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The Honorable Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Washington D.C.
Dear Representative Adam Kinzinger,
I noticed that you are a pro-life representative that has a long record of standing up for unborn babies! It was in the 1970’s when I was first introduced to the works of Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop and I wanted to commend their writings and films to you.
Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL-16) joined his House Republican colleagues in a press conference urging Democratic leadership to allow a vote on the Born Alive protections. The proposal would protect babies who survive abortion and provide them with the same medical care that any other premature baby would receive. Yesterday, the Democrats blocked the proposed legislation—for the 17th time—from coming before the House for a vote.
Joining the Congressman and House Republican leaders at the press conference this morning was Jill Stanek, an Illinois nurse and pro-life advocate who has witnessed the devastating realities of these pro-abortion laws. The Illinois legislature is currently debating two abortion bills, similar to the extreme pro-abortion agendas in New York and Virginia.
It seems you have a grudge against President Trump while our freedoms under President Biden are being taken away. I recommend to you the article below:
Roger Kimball Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion
Mr. Kimball concludes his article with these words:
That’s one melancholy lesson of the January 6 insurrection hoax: that America is fast mutating from a republic, in which individual liberty is paramount, into an oligarchy, in which conformity is increasingly demanded and enforced.
Another lesson was perfectly expressed by Donald Trump when he reflected on the unremitting tsunami of hostility that he faced as President. “They’re after you,” he more than once told his supporters. “I’m just in the way.”
There were a few Republicans Thursday who surprised observers when they voted in support of holding former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress and referring him to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
Prior to the vote, four Republicans were considered a lock to approve the criminal referral, according to Capitol Hill sources: Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan and Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio.
Cheney and Kinzinger are on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and have for months stood alone as the only two House Republicans willing to speak out against former President Donald Trump’s continued lies about the 2020 election. They were the only two House Republicans to vote for the formation of the select committee on June 30.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formed the select committee after Republicans rejected a bipartisan commission that would have been evenly split between five Democrats and five Republicans. Only 35 Republicans voted for that measure when itpassed the House of Representatives, and it was defeated by a GOP filibuster in the Senate.
From left: Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a Democrat, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois arrive for the House Select Committee hearing investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
More
Upton has served in the House for more than three decades, since 1987, and will face a primary challenge next year because of his willingness to stand up to Trump.
Gonzalez is retiring from Congress next year, after only four years in the House. “While my desire to build a fuller family life is at the heart of my decision, it is also true that the current state of our politics, especially many of the toxic dynamics inside our own party, is a significant factor in my decision,” Gonzalez said in September when heannounced he would not seek another term.
The remaining five Republicans included three who voted for impeachment — Peter Meijer of Michigan, John Katko of New York and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington — and two House Republicans who did not vote to impeach Trump: Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
Trump seems never to have discerned what a viper’s nest our politics has become for anyone who is not a paid-up member of The Club.
Maybe Trump understands this now. I have no insight into that question. I am pretty confident, though, that the 74 plus million people who voted for him understand it deeply. It’s another reason that The Club should be wary of celebrating its victory too expansively.
Friedrich Hayek took one of the two epigraphs for his book, The Road to Serfdom, from the philosopher David Hume. “It is seldom,” Hume wrote, “that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” Much as I admire Hume, I wonder whether he got this quite right. Sometimes, I would argue, liberty is erased almost instantaneously.
I’d be willing to wager that Joseph Hackett, confronted with Hume’s observation, would express similar doubts. I would be happy to ask Mr. Hackett myself, but he is inaccessible. If the ironically titled “Department of Justice” has its way, he will be inaccessible for a long, long time—perhaps as long as 20 years.
Joseph Hackett, you see, is a 51-year-old Trump supporter and member of an organization called the Oath Keepers, a group whose members have pledged to “defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” The FBI does not like the Oath Keepers—agents arrested its leader in January and have picked up many other members in the months since. Hackett traveled to Washington from his home in Florida to join the January 6 rally. According to court documents, he entered the Capitol at 2:45 that afternoon and left some nine minutes later, at 2:54. The next day, he went home. On May 28, he was apprehended by the FBI and indicted on a long list of charges, including conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and illegally entering a restricted building.
As far as I have been able to determine, no evidence of Hackett destroying property has come to light. According to his wife, it is not even clear that he entered the Capitol. But he certainly was in the environs. He was a member of the Oath Keepers. He was a supporter of Donald Trump. Therefore, he must be neutralized.
Joseph Hackett is only one of hundreds of citizens who have beenbranded as “domestic terrorists” trying to “overthrow the government” and who are now languishing, in appalling conditions, jailed as political prisoners of an angry state apparat.
Let me recommend that you read this letter below from Senator Ron Johnson and his colleagues:
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), along with senators Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), sent a letter on Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting information on the unequal application of justice between the individuals who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, and those involved in the unrest during the spring and summer of 2020. The senators sent 18 questions to the attorney general on what steps the DOJ has taken to prosecute individuals who committed crimes during both events, and requested a response by June 21.
“Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances,” the senators wrote. “This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning.”
The full text of the letter can be found here and below.
June 7, 2021
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Garland:
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently dedicating enormous resources and manpower to investigating and prosecuting the criminals who breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. We fully support and appreciate the efforts by the DOJ and its federal, state and local law enforcement partners to hold those responsible fully accountable.
We join all Americans in the expectation that the DOJ’s response to the events of January 6 will result in rightful criminal prosecutions and accountability. As you are aware, the mission of the DOJ is, among other things, to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. Today, we write to request information about our concerns regarding potential unequal justice administered in response to other recent instances of mass unrest, destruction, and loss of life throughout the United States.
During the spring and summer of 2020, individuals used peaceful protests across the country to engage in rioting and other crimes that resulted in loss of life, injuries to law enforcement officers, and significant property damage.[1] A federal court house in Portland, Oregon, has been effectively under siege for months.[2] Property destruction stemming from the 2020 social justice protests throughout the country will reportedly result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion in paid insurance claims.[3]
In June 2020, the DOJ reportedly compiled the following information regarding last year’s unrest:
“One federal officer [was] killed, 147 federal officers [were] injured and 600 local officers [were] injured around the country during the protests, frequently from projectiles.”[4]
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), “since the start of the unrest there has been 81 Federal Firearms License burglaries of an estimated loss of 1,116 firearms; 876 reported arsons; 76 explosive incidents; and 46 ATF arrests[.]”[5]
Despite these numerous examples of violence occurring during these protests, it appears that individuals charged with committing crimes at these events may benefit from infrequent prosecutions and minimal, if any, penalties. According to a recent article, “prosecutors have approved deals in at least half a dozen federal felony cases arising from clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Oregon last summer. The arrangements — known as deferred resolution agreements — will leave the defendants with a clean criminal record if they stay out of trouble for a period of time and complete a modest amount of community service, according to defense attorneys and court records.”[6]
DOJ’s apparent unwillingness to punish these individuals who allegedly committed crimes during the spring and summer 2020 protests stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment of the individuals charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. To date, DOJ has charged 510 individuals stemming from Capitol breach.[7] DOJ maintains and updates a webpage that lists the defendants charged with crimes committed at the Capitol. This database includes information such as the defendant’s name, charge(s), case number, case documents, location of arrest, case status, and informs readers when the entry was last updated.[8] No such database exists for alleged perpetrators of crimes associated with the spring and summer 2020 protests. It is unclear whether any defendants charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol breach have received deferred resolution agreements.
Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning. In order to assist Congress in conducting its oversight work, we respectfully request answers to the following questions by June 21, 2021:
Spring and Summer 2020 Unrest:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the unrest in the spring and summer of 2020? If so, how many times and for which locations/riots?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020 were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals were incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals were released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?[9]
How many DOJ prosecutors were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol Breach:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the January 6, 2021 protests and Capitol breach? If so, how many times and how many additional arrests resulted from law enforcement utilizing geolocation information?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals are incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals have been released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?
How many DOJ prosecutors have been assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
I want to recommend to you a video on YOU TUBE that runs 28 minutes and 39 seconds by Francis Schaeffer entitled because it discusses the founding of our nation and what the FOUNDERS believed:
Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.
________________
______________________
March 23, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view. Although we are both Christians and have the Bible as the basis for our moral views, I did want you to take a close look at the views of the pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff too. Hentoff became convinced of the pro-life view because of secular evidence that shows that the unborn child is human. I would ask you to consider his evidence and then of course reverse your views on abortion.
___________________
The pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff wrote a fine article below I wanted to share with you.
Nat Hentoff is an atheist, but he became a pro-life activist because of the scientific evidence that shows that the unborn child is a distinct and separate human being and even has a separate DNA. His perspective is a very intriguing one that I thought you would be interested in. I have shared before many cases (Bernard Nathanson, Donald Trump, Paul Greenberg, Kathy Ireland) when other high profile pro-choice leaders have changed their views and this is just another case like those. I have contacted the White House over and over concerning this issue and have even received responses. I am hopeful that people will stop and look even in a secular way (if they are not believers) at this abortion debate and see that the unborn child is deserving of our protection.That is why the writings of Nat Hentoff of the Cato Institute are so crucial.
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have. Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.
Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION
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Dr. Francis schaeffer – from Part 5 of Whatever happened to human race?) Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 5 | Truth and History
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – A Christian Manifesto – Dr. Francis Schaeffer Lecture
Francis Schaeffer – A 700 Club Special! ~ Francis Schaeffer 1982
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – 1984 SOUNDWORD LABRI CONFERENCE VIDEO – Q&A With Francis & Edith Schaeffer
http://www.NewsandOpinion.com | A longtime friend of mine is married to a doctor who also performs abortions. At the dinner table one recent evening, their 9-year-old son — having heard a word whose meaning he didn’t know — asked, “What is an abortion?” His mother, choosing her words carefully, described the procedure in simple terms.
“But,” said her son, “that means killing the baby.” The mother then explained that there are certain months during which an abortion cannot be performed, with very few exceptions. The 9-year-old shook his head. “But,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what month. It still means killing the babies.”
Hearing the story, I wished it could be repeated to the justices of the Supreme Court, in the hope that at least five of them might act on this 9-year-old’s clarity of thought and vision.
The boy’s spontaneous insistence on the primacy of life also reminded me of a powerful pro-life speaker and writer who, many years ago, helped me become a pro-lifer. He was a preacher, a black preacher. He said: “There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of a higher order than the right to life.
“That,” he continued, “was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore out of your right to be concerned.”
This passionate reverend used to warn: “Don’t let the pro-choicers convince you that a fetus isn’t a human being. That’s how the whites dehumanized us … The first step was to distort the image of us as human beings in order to justify what they wanted to do — and not even feel they’d done anything wrong.”
That preacher was Jesse Jackson. Later, he decided to run for the presidency — and it was a credible campaign that many found inspiring in its focus on what still had to be done on civil rights. But Jackson had by now become “pro-choice” — much to the appreciation of most of those in the liberal base.
The last time I saw Jackson was years later, on a train from Washington to New York. I told him of a man nominated, but not yet confirmed, to a seat on a federal circuit court of appeals. This candidate was a strong supporter of capital punishment — which both the Rev. Jackson and I oppose, since it involves the irreversible taking of a human life by the state.
I asked Jackson if he would hold a press conference in Washington, criticizing the nomination, and he said he would. The reverend was true to his word; the press conference took place; but that nominee was confirmed to the federal circuit court. However, I appreciated Jackson’s effort.
On that train, I also told Jackson that I’d been quoting — in articles, and in talks with various groups — from his compelling pro-life statements. I asked him if he’d had any second thoughts on his reversal of those views.
Usually quick to respond to any challenge that he is not consistent in his positions, Jackson paused, and seemed somewhat disquieted at my question. Then he said to me, “I’ll get back to you on that.” I still patiently await what he has to say.
As time goes on, my deepening concern with the consequences of abortion is that its validation by the Supreme Court, as a constitutional practice, helps support the convictions of those who, in other controversies — euthanasia, assisted suicide and the “futility doctrine” by certain hospital ethics committees — believe that there are lives not worth continuing.
Around the time of my conversation with Jackson on the train, I attended a conference on euthanasia at Clark College in Worcester, Mass. There, I met Derek Humphry, the founder of the Hemlock Society, and already known internationally as a key proponent of the “death with dignity” movement.
He told me that for some years in this country, he had considerable difficulty getting his views about assisted suicide and, as he sees it, compassionate euthanasia into the American press.
“But then,” Humphry told me, “a wonderful thing happened. It opened all the doors for me.”
“What was that wonderful thing?” I asked.
“Roe v. Wade,” he answered.
The devaluing of human life — as the 9-year-old at the dinner table put it more vividly — did not end with making abortion legal, and therefore, to some people, moral. The word “baby” does not appear in Roe v. Wade — let alone the word “killing.”
And so, the termination of “lives not worth living” goes on.
______________________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband. Now after presenting the secular approach of Nat Hentoff I wanted to make some comments concerning our shared Christian faith. I respect you for putting your faith in Christ for your eternal life. I am pleading to you on the basis of the Bible to please review your religious views concerning abortion. It was the Bible that caused the abolition movement of the 1800’s and it also was the basis for Martin Luther King’s movement for civil rights and it also is the basis for recognizing the unborn children.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
Sometimes you can see evidences in someone’s life of how content they really are. I saw something like that on 2-8-13 when I confronted a blogger that goes by the name “AngryOldWoman” on the Arkansas Times Blog. See below. Leadership Crisis in America Published on Jul 11, 2012 Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s […]
In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented against abortion (Episode 1), infanticide (Episode 2), euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is teeing up a vote on the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that would codify same-sex marriage into federal law, which will need at least 10 Republican votes.
The bill has bipartisan support and after a procedural vote scheduled Wednesday, the legislation is likely to pass later this week, or after Thanksgiving recess. The bill needs 60 votes to clear a filibuster, which is it likely to get.
“I want to be clear that passing this bill is not at all a theoretical exercise, but rather it is as real as it gets,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said from the senate floor Monday evening.
Ikeita Cantu, left, and her wife Carmen Guzman, of McLean, Virginia, hold up signs as they celebrate outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., Friday, June 26, 2015, after the court declared that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the U.S.
“When the Supreme Court overturned Roe, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that other rights—like the right to marriage equality enshrined in Obergefell—could come next,” he continued.
The top senate Democrat added that he opted to forgo bringing the bill to a vote back in September at the urging of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and said he “agreed to wait, because we were given an assurance that enough votes would materialize after the election.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Senators Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Susan Collins, R-Maine, Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., released a joint statement Monday saying that through “bipartisan collaboration, we’ve crafted commonsense language that respects religious liberty and Americans’ diverse beliefs, while upholding our view that marriage embodies the highest ideals of love, devotion, and family.”
Schumer added that, “because my top priority is to get things done in a bipartisan way whenever we can, we determined that this legislation was too important to risk failure, so we waited to give bipartisanship a chance.”
“Because my top priority is to get things done in a bipartisan way whenever we can, we determined that this legislation was too important to risk failure, so we waited to give bipartisanship a chance,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said of the Respect for Marriage Act. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“I hope – for the sake of tens of millions of Americans – that at least 10 Republicans will vote with us to protect marriage equality into law soon The rights and dignity of millions of Americans depends on it.” he added.
_________
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Bipartisan Senate group says they are ‘confident‘ they have the votes necessary to codify same-sex marriage
By Daniella Diaz and Ali Zaslav, CNN
Updated 5:36 PM EST, Mon November 14, 2022
(CNN)The bipartisan group working on legislation to codify same-sex marriage has the votes needed for the bill to pass and is urging leadership to put it on the floor for a vote as soon as possible, multiple sources told CNN.
The bipartisan group, which includes GOP Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, said in a statement Monday that they “look forward to this legislation coming to the floor.”
“Through bipartisan collaboration, we’ve crafted commonsense language to confirm that this legislation fully respects and protects Americans’ religious liberties and diverse beliefs, while leaving intact the core mission of the legislation to protect marriage equality,” the senators said in the statement. “We look forward to this legislation coming to the floor and are confident that this amendment has helped earn the broad, bipartisan support needed to pass our commonsense legislation into law.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday took procedural steps related to the same-sex marriage bill, setting up the first test vote for Wednesday.
“I’m going to set up the first procedural vote on legislation that will codify marriage equality into law. Members should expect the first vote on Wednesday,” he said.
“No American should ever be discriminated against because of who they love and passing this bill would secure much needed safeguards into federal law,” Schumer said.
In early September, Schumer vowed to bring the bill to the floor for a vote in “the coming weeks.”
“The Senate will hold a vote on the Respect for Marriage Act in the coming weeks, so that no American is discriminated against because of whom they love,” he said, adding that he hopes enough GOP senators join Democrats in support of passage.
But the bill’s supporters said in September that more time was needed to negotiate the issue with Republicans — and sought to delay any vote in the Senate until after the November midterm elections, which Schumer agreed to.
The bill will need at least 10 GOP Senate votes to overcome a filibuster and advance the legislation toward final passage.
This story has been updated with additional developments Monday.
This week, Roger Severino, Heritage’s Vice President of Domestic Policy and The Anderlik Fellow, breaks down the so called “Respect for Marriage Act.”
Michelle Cordero: From The Heritage Foundation, I’m Michelle Cordero, and this is Heritage Explains.
Cordero: This summer in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Congress introduced the Respect For Marriage Act.
Speaker 2: As abortion rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers continue to protest the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the House is voting on a bill to protect marriage equality, out of fear the conservative high court could revisit other landmark decisions.
Speaker 3: It simply says each state will recognize the other state’s marriages and not deny a person the right to marry based on race, gender, sexual orientation.
Cordero: The legislation passed the House with the support of 47 Republicans. It now moves to the Senate where it would need just 10 Republican votes to pass.
Cordero: Final passage would mean states are no longer allowed to define and recognize marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman. Instead, they would be forced to recognize any union between two individuals, regardless of sex, as marriage. So does our country need a law to protect same-sex marriage? Did the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson threaten same-sex marriage? What about the Americans who believe that marriage is between a man and a woman? What would this bill mean for them?
Cordero: Today, Roger Severino, Heritage’s vice president of domestic policy and The Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Fellow, explains after this short break.
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Cordero: Roger, thank you so much for joining us today.
Cordero: My first question is, does the country need a national law guaranteeing the right to gay marriage? Didn’t the Supreme Court already rule on this in Obergefell? And so what makes this different?
Severino: You’re right to point out that Obergefell is what’s governing today, and that’s not really going to be changing. I don’t see a scenario where the question presented there will be presented again anywhere in the near or intermediate future. So, what is left? Why is it that the liberals in Congress are pushing this to try to codify a version of same-sex marriage in federal law when all the rights and benefits that came from the Obergefell decision are required to be extended to same-sex couples? Nothing would change on the ground. So what’s left?
Severino: Well, to put salt on a wound and to target people of faith who disagree, there’s still a sizeable number of people in this country who believed the same thing that Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton did just not so long ago, good number of years. But they believe that marriage is a union of one man and one woman. And those views deserve to be treated with respect. They come from honorable premises and they reflect the truth about marriage, which there has to be space for people to continue to express those beliefs, especially those of faith. And what this bill is designed to do is to tar such people as being unfit to be in polite society and out of the public square.
Cordero: Why is Congress taking this up now? Just to back up a little bit, what prompted this?
Severino: The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs dealt with abortion. And the abortion precedents are based on a foundation of sand, using substantive due process, which is a legal concept that’s not really found in the Constitution. Which liberal activist judges over the decades have used in all sorts of areas, including same-sex marriage, to invent new rights that are not actually in the Constitution.
Severino: So when Dobbs said abortion is one of these invented rights, we’re returning to the actual text of the Constitution, the majority went out of its way to say it was just limited to the question of abortion and human life. It’s a very unique circumstance. Justice Thomas, who’s an amazing jurist, wrote separately to say that we should reevaluate every case that was built on the invention of substantive due process, which included the same-sex marriage decision. Substantive due process is not the only source of rights under the Constitution, but it’s the one that’s been abused the most by the left. And it should be revisited.
Severino: That does not mean that there’s any vehicle that would come back and say, people who are currently in same-sex marriages, their benefits are at risk. That’s nonsense. So taking a very theoretical statement from one Justice on the court, the left has run with it to try to call some sort of alarmism about marriage and push this wedge issue for political purposes. Again, the practical effect if this becomes law, will have nothing to do with the benefits of same-sex couples. It’ll have everything to do with excluding people of faith from their tax-exempt statuses for houses of worship, from adoption agencies that believe that the best most conducive place for a child in placement would be with a married mother and father, and for those who contract or receive grants from the government who want to live according to the beliefs with respect to marriage. Those are the groups who are going to be targeted. And this law would actually create this bludgeon, which is a private right of action, which means individuals could sue on their own in federal court to hound these groups. And that’s really the object of this stunt.
Cordero: So to be clear, there’s no risk currently present that legally married same-sex couples could lose any of their benefits or legal status?
Severino: Absolutely. There’s no risk that they would lose any benefit. The federal government adopted and adapted to the Obergefell decision. All the state’s governments did. That’s now the status quo. That would not change by this law. And I see no case coming forward that would change that either. So this is really targeted at exclusion for political purposes.
Cordero: Yes. If the bill passes, it’s just an assurance to the left.
Severino: No, it’s not. Assurance is not needed. That’s the thing. What it is a weapon for the left that will be used to go after people of faith. And this how it works. When you have an established national policy endorsed by Congress through the representatives, that carries a tremendous amount of weight for all sorts of other areas, especially when we’re talking about civil rights laws.
Severino: We had a case from the ’80s with respect to tax-exempt status for a violator of a civil rights law. They were deemed not to be a charity, and they lost their tax exempt status. And the Supreme Court said, because there’s an established national policy against that type of discrimination that you lose your tax-exempt status and there’s no recourse. That same tool will be deployed against people who believe that marriage is a union of one man and one woman, which is very different than other types of beliefs that are protected by statutory anti-discrimination laws.
Severino: This is a view, again, that’s based on love of what is the best most conducive way for human flourishing in raising children and supporting the institution that has been proven most effective at that. And that is having the mother and father together in an enduring lifelong commitment so that they’re there for any children that their union conceives.
Cordero: All right. So, where does the legislation stand now? Are there Republicans who actually want to vote for this?
Severino: There were some Republicans that voted for it in the House. And it passed the House, which caught a lot of folks in the marriage movement a bit flatfooted. We have been fighting most recently over the definition of what is a man and what is a woman, with the transgender ideology in sports, in medicine, intimate facilities, et cetera. But the left was very crafty. They latched onto the pretext of what happened in the Dobbs decision to say that somehow same-sex marriage benefits are at risk when they are not, and pushed a vote on this bill to codify same-sex marriage in about 27 hours from Introduction to vote, which gave few … It was a sneak attack move and caught a lot of people by surprise. People did not think through the ramifications, and some people voted for who I think now regret it in the House.
Severino: In the Senate, there’s been some more time to actually present the arguments that nothing’s done on the ground, none of these benefits are at risk. What this is targeting people of faith and putting a big target on their backs. And now we’ve seen the tide shift. What they thought was going to be a quick walk through the Senate has been stymied. People have been asking hard questions. And if the Democrats in Congress thought that there was a way to get a majority vote for this bill, they would’ve very likely done it before the elections because this is really a political ploy, is what it is. They don’t have that, and that is very comforting for the marriage movement. It doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods yet. There’s still the possibility of some action during the lame duck because the sponsors, Baldwin and Collins, have said they’re going to push for it after the election.
Severino: That’s a sign of weakness. If they could have moved it, they would’ve moved it before the election. There’s a risk that in lame duck, when people are heading out the door, they will violate some of their campaign promises. Many folks were elected on a platform supporting marriage, and they may be tempted on the way out to try to get in the good graces of the cocktail circuit and violate their promises. They should not do that. People should keep to the right policies.
Severino: The right policy here is that the last word from Congress, it should be left undisturbed. And Obergefell handles already the issues of benefits for same-sex couples which are not at risk. So Congress should not go out of its way to slap people of faith, and especially not when Congress is going out the door in a lame duck session.
Cordero: Roger, thank you so much for sitting down with me to break down this important issue. We’d love to have you back on, but hopefully Congress drops this and we don’t have to.
Severino: Hopefully they will.
Cordero: Thank you for listening. And as always, if you loved this episode or found it helpful, we would love you forever if you shared it with a friend or on social media. It’s the best way to grow our audience. Tim is up next week. We’ll see you then.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, pictured marching during the 2022 New York City Pride March on June 26 in New York City, is looking for 10 Republicans to endorse a national same-sex marriage bill. (Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
When the Supreme Court delivered its blow to marriage in 2015, burning down three dozen state laws and tearing up 50 million ballots, the GOP’s reaction was straightforward. Outrage. With a handful of exceptions, the response that echoed across the two coasts was a collective “How dare they?”
As far as Republicans were concerned, what the five justices did on that June day was a betrayal of the people, our system of government, and the pillar that’s upheld society since the beginning of time. “It’s an injustice,” they railed.
Now, seven years later, they finally have a chance to prove it. The question is: will they?
Keep in mind that when the Supreme Court redefined marriage for America in 2015, we became only the 23rd country out of 195 to do so, and only one of seven to have it imposed on us by a court. Still today, there are only 33 countries that have gone down this path of redefining marriage.
But as time has gone on, Republicans seem to have gotten increasingly comfortable letting the court decide an issue they argued was rightly theirs. That shock was driven home Tuesday when 47 House members walked away from the party’s principles and platform to cast a vote for same-sex marriage. The list included a surprising number of our movement’s friends, men and women we never mistook as anything but conservative.
Now, Senate Majority Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., smelling blood in the water, is eager to drive an even deeper wedge—insisting he’ll move forward with his own vote if he can find 10 Republicans foolish enough to endorse it.
Twenty-four hours later, at least four Republicans have taken the bait, walking into a political trap that could very well eat into the margins the GOP needs in November. To no one’s surprise, liberal Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) are on board, as well as outgoing Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio). But the real bombshells started dropping Wednesday, when more conservatives seemed to be testing the waters on a radical issue that seven years ago they vehemently opposed. Names like Roy Blunt (Mo.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), and Thom Tillis (N.C.) started popping up in news stories as possible “yes”es.
Just as astounding, only nine Republicans have jumped to marriage’s defense: Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., John Cornyn, R-Texas, Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., James Lankford, R-Okla., who spoke to Punchbowl News, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Roger Wicker, R-Miss.
A whopping 37, many of them pro-family stalwarts, are either “undecided” or unresponsive, CNN reports. It’s an eerie silence from dozens of Republicans, who—just seven years ago—left zero doubt about where they stood.
Then-Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.:“Today’s Supreme Court decision is a disappointment. I have always supported traditional marriage. Despite this decision, no one can overrule the truth about what marriage actually is—a sacred institution between a man and a woman. I have always believed marriage is between one man and one woman and I will continue to work to ensure our religious beliefs are protected and people of faith are not punished for their beliefs.”
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.: “I’m disappointed in this decision. My view is that family issues in Missouri like marriage, divorce, and adoption should be decided by the people of Missouri.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.: “West Virginia’s greatest strength is our people. Regardless of our differences, we care for our neighbors, friends, and communities in need. Acknowledging that we have differing views, the Supreme Court has made its decision. While I would have preferred that the Supreme Court leave this decision to the states, it is my hope that all West Virginians will move forward and continue to care for and respect one another.”
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont.: “The Court is overriding the will of the people of Montana and numerous other states that have defined marriage as between one man and one woman. I believe marriage is between one man and one woman.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa: “I am disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision and its failure to recognize the freedom of our states to make their own decisions about their respective marriage laws. While it is my personal belief that marriage is between one man and one woman, I maintain that this is an issue best handled at the state level.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa: “Traditional marriage has been a pillar of our society for thousands of years—one that has remained constant across cultures, even with the rise and fall of nations. I believe marriage is between one man and one woman. Marriage is a sacred institution. Its definition should not be subject to the whims of the Supreme Court where five justices appointed to interpret the Constitution instead imposed social and political values inconsistent with the text of the Constitution and the framers’ intent. Today’s decision robs the right of citizens to define marriage through the democratic process.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah: “Today, five justices took a vital question about the future of American society out of the public square, imposing the views of five unelected judges on a country that is still in the midst of making up its mind about marriage. That is unfortunate, but it is not the end of the discussion, as Americans of good faith who believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman will continue to live as witnesses to that truth.”
Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.: “I disagree with the court’s ruling. Regardless of one’s personal view on this issue, the American people, through the democratic process, should be able to determine the meaning of this bedrock institution in our society.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.: “I believe in old-fashioned, traditional marriage. But I don’t really think the government needs to be too involved with this.”
Former Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney, R-Utah: “I believe that marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman, and that’s because I believe the ideal setting for raising a child is where there’s a mother and a father in the home. Other people have differing views and I respect that, whether that’s in my party or in the Democratic Party. But these are very personal matters. My hope is that when we discuss things of this nature, we show respect for people who have differing views.”
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.: “Today’s ruling is a blow to state’s rights. I believe states have a constitutional role in setting their own policy on marriage. Marriage is between a man and a woman, and traditional families play an important role in the fabric of our society.”
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb.: “Today’s ruling is a disappointment to Nebraskans who understand that marriage brings a wife and husband together so their children can have a mom and dad. The Supreme Court once again overstepped its constitutional role by acting as a super-legislature and imposing its own definition of marriage on the American people rather than allowing voters to decide in the states. As a society, we need to celebrate marriage as the best way to provide stability and opportunity for kids. As President Obama has said, there are good people on both sides of the issue. I hope we all can agree that our neighbors deserve the freedom to live out their religious convictions.”
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.: “I continue to believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. The Supreme Court’s overreach into decisions that should be made by states and the people living and voting in them is disappointing. Moving forward, we must ensure families and religious institutions across America are not punished for exercising their right to their own personal beliefs regarding the traditional definition of marriage.”
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.: “The court has issued its opinion, but on this particular issue, I do not agree with its conclusion. I support traditional marriage.”
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.: “Today, the Supreme Court has ruled that all states must recognize same-sex marriage. Understandably, many people will celebrate this decision. While I disagree with it, I acknowledge the Supreme Court’s ruling as the law of the land.”
What’s changed? Certainly not the significance of marriage—or the Constitution. Not the party’s platform or the role of states’ rights. If anything’s changed, it’s the ferocious war being waged against our children’s innocence, religious freedom, parents, and human biology.
What’s changed is that we have a Republican Party willing to go to the mat for sports but seemingly unwilling to stand up for an institution whose redefinition has ignited a firestorm of persecution in America—the same redefinition that’s at the bitter root so many evils we’re fighting today in school classrooms, public libraries, our daughters’ locker rooms.
Seven years from now, will we be saying that those issues don’t matter? That the world has “moved on?” That we know someone who’s transgender, and the only way we can love them is to hand society over to their delusions?
If Republicans want to stick their finger in the cultural winds to decide where they stand on timeless truths, then they are throwing away everything the American people have come to respect about today’s party—their courage, their common sense, their conviction.
Maybe these senators think that linking arms with the left makes them seem more compassionate or contemporary. But real leaders don’t vote out of fear or political calculus. They don’t take their cues from the courts or public opinion.
They do what’s right, no matter what it costs them. That’s what voters respect. And that’s what voters, who have stood by this party’s values, deserve.
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Richard Dawkins tweeted on 7/20/2022: The other excellent article by Jerry Coyne today. Some anthropologists want to stop identifying the sex of ancient skulls because we don’t know how they self-identified!
This article about conflicts in anthropology involving gender and ethnicity comes from the website of Jonathan Turley, whose name I’d heard before but whose work and politics I didn’t know. His Wikipedia bio doesn’t give much clue into his politics (to be truthful, I didn’t look hard for it, since it seemed irrelevant to the story), I wondered simply because he cites a right-wing website below.
But Turley is no weirdo: here’s one bit from his Wikipedia bio:
Turley holds the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at The George Washington University Law School, where he teaches torts, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. He is the youngest person to receive an academic chair in the school’s history. He runs the Project for Older Prisoners (POP), the Environmental Law Clinic, and the Environmental Legislation Project.
I am assuming, then, that what he describes and quotes is accurate, and will give my views accordingly. Here’s the article at hand, which relates to the last article we had about ethnicity (which, of course, reflects ancestry). Click screenshot to read:
The conservative site College Fix quotes various academics in challenging the identification of gender and notes the campaign of the Trans Doe Task Force to “explore ways in which current standards in forensic human identification do a disservice to people who do not clearly fit the gender binary.”
Let’s take sex and ancestry separately. Turley’s prose is indented.
On gender and sex:
University of Kansas Associate Professor Jennifer Raff argued in a paper, “Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas,” that there are “no neat divisions between physically or genetically ‘male’ or ‘female’ individuals.” Her best selling book has been featured on various news outlets like MSNBC.
. . . However, Raff is not alone. Graduate students like Emma Palladino have objected that “the archaeologists who find your bones one day will assign you the same gender as you had at birth, so regardless of whether you transition, you can’t escape your assigned sex.”
Well, given that sex is pretty close to a complete binary in humans, and is reflected and diagnosable in our bones bones—hence “Lucy“, A. afarensis, was female and “Turkana Boy“, H. ergaster was male—you determine biological sex from skeletons, not gender.
Is that a problem? I don’t see how. Even if our hominin relatives or ancestors did have concepts of gender beyond male and female, there are genuine scientific questions to be answered by studying biological sex from ancient remains. What was the ratio of males to females in various places, and if it differed much from 50:50, why? If someone’s remains are associated with items, like Ötzi the hunter (actually a mummy), one can conclude something about ancient cultures and the possibility of differential sex roles. Is it important for scientists to debate whether Ötzi identified himself as a “they/them” given that we’ll never know the answer? Or are we forbidden to inspect the genitals? (He was a biological male).
Now it is of sociological value to determine whether our ancestors identified as “men and women” and saw only two genders, but if we can’t do that, it’s ludicrous to say that we shouldn’t identify remains on the basis of biological sex—a lot easier to do! I won’t give a list of scientific questions that can be addressed by knowing the sex of a fossil hominin, but there are lots, and yet some anthropologists want to stop all such research because hominins may not have had gender roles that matched their biological sex.
On ancestry and ethnicity:
Likewise for ancestry. It’s sometimes possible to guess one’s ethnicity from skeletal morphology, but it’s much more accurate to do DNA sequencing. (Sequencing of fossil DNA can tell us both biological sex and which group of either ancient or modern humans you most resemble genetically.) Yet some anthropologists want to stop that research, too. Turley:
Professors Elizabeth DiGangi of Binghamton University and Jonathan Bethard of the University of South Florida have also challenged the use of racial classifications in a study, objecting that “[a]ncestry estimation contributes to white supremacy.” The authors write that “we use critical race theory to interrogate the approaches utilized to estimate ancestry to include a critique of the continued use of morphoscopic traits, and we assert that the practice of ancestry estimation contributes to white supremacy.”
The professors refer to the practice as “dangerous” and wrote in a letter to the editor that such practices must be changed in light of recent racial justice concerns.
“Between the devastating COVID-19 pandemic and the homicides of numerous Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement officials, we have all been reminded about the fragility of life, and the failures of our society to live up to the ideals enshrined in the foundational documents which established the United States of America over two centuries ago. Tackling these failures seems overwhelming at times; however, changes can be enacted with candid and reflexive discussions about the status quo. In writing this letter, we direct our comments to the forensic anthropology community in the United States in hopes of sparking a discussion about the long-standing practice of ancestry estimation and changes that are frankly long overdue.”
Once again, research is supposed to be squelched for ideological reasons. Yet estimating ancestry of remains can answer lots of interesting questions. One, for example involves DNA sequencing of Neanderthals and modern humans. I would consider these to be different, long-diverged ethnic groups of a single species, not different species, for they could interbreed where they lived in the same area and also produce fertile hybrids.
That’s just a guess, but without sequencing their DNA, we wouldn’t know not only that they hybridized, but also that many of us still carry some ancient DNA from Neanderthals. Where did the Denisovans belong? (We don’t know whether they were a different species of hominin from modern humans or simply an “ethnic group.”) What about H. erectus? Did they die out without issue, or are they related to any modern populations? Do any of their genes still hang around in H. sapiens? (I don’t think we’ll answer these questions.)
It is the sequencing of DNA of people from different geographic areas (“races” if you will, but call them whatever you want) that has helped us unravel the story of human migration, how many times we left Africa and when, and when different groups established themselves in places like Australia and Polynesia, or crossed the Bering Strait into North America. DNA and estimation of ancestry has immensely enriched the story of human evolution and migration. That’s all from “ancestry estimation”, and you don’t even need a concept of “race” to answer these questions—only a concept of “ancestry” and “relatedness”. Nor does this research contribute to white supremacy, though of course some racists may coopt it.
In the interests of woke ideology, in other words, some anthropologists want to shut down two promising lines of research. I call that misguided and, indeed, crazy. If you despise white supremacy like most of us do, you don’t get rid of it it by banning anthropological genetics. If you want sympathy for people whose gender doesn’t match their biological sex, you don’t get it by stopping researchers from determining the biological sex of ancient human remains.
As the Wicked Witch of the West said, “Oh, what a world! What a world!”
Made for Comedy Ricky Gervais has 50 year old plumber choose to identify as a 8 year old girl (Plus HUMANIST award taken away from Richard Dawkins)
After Life 2 – Man identifies as an 8 year old girl
4:20 am 4/10/21
In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as.
Discuss.
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4/12/21 12:46pm
I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic “Discuss” question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue .
American Humanist Association criticises academic for comments about identity using ‘the guise of scientific discourse’, and withdraws its 1996 honourAlison FloodTue 20 Apr 2021 08.56 EDT
The American Humanist Association has withdrawn its humanist of the year award from Richard Dawkins, 25 years after he received the honour, criticising the academic and author for “demean[ing] marginalised groups” using “the guise of scientific discourse”.
The AHA honoured Dawkins, whose books include The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion, in 1996 for his “significant contributions” in communicating scientific concepts to the public. On Monday, it announced that it was withdrawing the award, referring to a tweet sent by Dawkins earlier this month, in which he compared trans people to Rachel Dolezal, the civil rights activist who posed as a black woman for years.
“In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black,” wrote Dawkins on Twitter. “Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.”
Dawkins later responded to criticism, writing: “I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic ‘Discuss’ question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue.”
Among his critics was Alison Gill, vice president for legal and policy at American Atheists and a trans woman. She said Dawkins’ comments reinforce dangerous and harmful narratives. She said: “Given the repercussions for the millions of trans people in this country, in this one life we have to live, as an atheist and as a trans woman, I hope that Professor Dawkins treats this issue with greater understanding and respect in the future.”
In 2015, Dawkins also wrote: “Is trans woman a woman? Purely semantic. If you define by chromosomes, no. If by self-identification, yes. I call her “she” out of courtesy.”
In a statement from its board, the AHA said that Dawkins had “over the past several years accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalised groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values”.
The evolutionary biologist’s latest comment, the board said, “implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient”, while his “subsequent attempts at clarification are inadequate and convey neither sensitivity nor sincerity”.
“Consequently, the AHA Board has concluded that Richard Dawkins is no longer deserving of being honored by the AHA, and has voted to withdraw, effective immediately, the 1996 Humanist of the Year award,” said the organisation.
The Guardian has reached out to Dawkins for comment.
Last year, the author JK Rowling returned an award given to her by the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights organisation, after its president, Kennedy’s daughter Kerry Kennedy, criticised her views on transgender issues. “I am deeply saddened that RFKHR has felt compelled to adopt this stance, but no award or honour, no matter my admiration for the person for whom it was named, means so much to me that I would forfeit the right to follow the dictates of my own conscience,” said Rowling in a statement at the time.
Tribute to Horace Barlow
Steven Dakin @StevenDakin
Elegant & important psychophysics from @TheKwonLab. Retinal ganglion cell dysfunction (not death) limits contrast sensitivity in glaucoma. Sidenote: credit to late/great Horace Barlow for the equivalent noise paradigm.
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November 2, 2019
November 2, 2019
Dr. Horace Barlow, Cambridge CB3 9AX, England
Dear Dr. Barlow,
I have enjoyed reading the book OUTGROWING GOD by your friend Richard Dawkins, and he certainly has much respect for you great grandfather Charles Darwin. However, he has not studied the Bible as extensively as Darwin did because many of Dawkins’ criticisms of the Bible don’t seem to be valid. For instance, on page 53 he states:
Genesis says Abraham owned camels, but archaeological evidence shows that the camel was not domesticated until many centuries after Abraham
Some Biblical texts, such as Genesis 12 and 24, claim that Abraham owned camels. Yet archaeological researchshows that camels were not domesticated in the land of Canaan until the 10th century B.C.E.—about a thousand years after the time of Abraham. This seems to suggest that camels in these Biblical stories are anachronistic.
Abraham’s Camels. Did camels exist in Biblical times? Camels appear with Abraham in some Biblical texts—and depictions thereof, such as The Caravan of Abram by James Tissot, based on Genesis 12. When were camels first domesticated? Although camel domestication had not taken place by the time of Abraham in the land of Canaan, it had in Mesopotamia. Photo: PD-1923.Mark W. Chavalas explores the history of camel domestication in his Biblical Views column “Did Abraham Ride a Camel?”published in the November/December 2018 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Although he agrees that camel domestication likely did not take place in Canaan until the 10th century B.C.E., he notes that Abraham’s place of origin was not Canaan—but Mesopotamia. Thus, to ascertain whether Abraham’s camels are anachronistic, we need to ask: When were camels first domesticated in Mesopotamia?
Chavalas explains that the events in the Biblical accounts of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs (Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Israel and Rachel) have been traditionally dated to c. 2000–1600 B.C.E. (during the Middle Bronze Age). Camels appear in Mesopotamian sources in the third millennium B.C.E.—before this period. However, the mere presence of camels in sources does not necessarily mean that camels were domesticated.
The question remains: When were camels domesticated in Mesopotamia?
In his examination of camel domestication history, Chavalas looks at a variety of textual, artistic, and archaeological sources from Mesopotamia dating to the third and second millennia. We will examine five of these sources here:
1. One of the first pieces of evidence for camel domestication comes from the site of Eshnunna in modern Iraq: A plaque from the mid-third millennium shows a camel being ridden by a human.
2. Another source is a 21st-century B.C.E. text from Puzrish-Dagan in modern Iraq that may record camel deliveries.
3. Third, an 18th-century B.C.E. text (quoting from an earlier third millennium text) from Nippur in modern Iraq says, “the milk of the camel is sweet.” Chavalas explains why he thinks this likely refers to a domesticated camel:
Having walked in many surveys through camel herds in Syria along the Middle Euphrates River, I believe that this text is describing a domesticated camel; who would want to milk a “wild camel”? At the very least, the Bactrian camel was being used for dairy needs at this time.
4. Next, an 18th-century B.C.E. cylinder seal depicts a two-humped camel with riders. Although this seal’s exact place of origin is unknown, it reputedly comes from Syria, and it resembles other seals from Alalakh (a site in modern Turkey near Turkey’s southern border with Syria).
5. Finally, a 17th-century text from Alalakh includes camels in a list of domesticated animals that required food.
Although domesticated camels may not have been widespread in Mesopotamia in the second millennium, these pieces of evidence show that by the second millennium, there were at least some domesticated camels. Thus, camel domestication had taken place in Mesopotamia by the time of Abraham. Accordingly, Chavalas argues that the camels in the stories of Abraham in Genesis are not anachronistic.
Learn more about the history of camel domestication in Mark W. Chavalas’s Biblical Views column “Did Abraham Ride a Camel?” published in the November/December 2018 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.——————
Subscribers: Read the full Biblical Views column “Did Abraham Ride a Camel?” by Mark W. Chavalas in the November/December 2018 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
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Francis Schaeffer noted concerning Charles Darwin’s loss of faith:
This is very sad. He lies on his bunk and the Beagle tosses and turns and he makes daydreams, and his dreams and hopes are that someone would find in Pompeii or some place like this, an old manuscript by a distinguished Roman that would put his stamp of authority on it, which would be able to show that Christ existed. This is undoubtedly what he is talking about. Darwin gave up this hope with great difficulty.
Dr. Barlow you have an advantage of 150 years over your great grandfather and the archaeologist’s spade has continued to dig. Take a look at this piece of evidence from the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop:
TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?)
In the previous chapter we saw that the Bible gives us the explanation for the existence of the universe and its form and for the mannishness of man. Or, to reverse this, we came to see that the universe and its form and the mannishness of man are a testimony to the truth of the Bible. In this chapter we will consider a third testimony: the Bible’s openness to verification by historical study.
Christianity involves history. To say only that is already to have said something remarkable, because it separates the Judeo-Christian world-view from almost all other religious thought. It is rooted in history.
The Bible tells us how God communicated with man in history. For example, God revealed Himself to Abraham at a point in time and at a particular geographical place. He did likewise with Moses, David, Isaiah, Daniel and so on. The implications of this are extremely important to us. Because the truth God communicated in the Bible is so tied up with the flow of human events, it is possible by historical study to confirm some of the historical details.
It is remarkable that this possibility exists. Compare the information we have from other continents of that period. We know comparatively little about what happened in Africa or South America or China or Russia or even Europe. We see beautiful remains of temples and burial places, cult figures, utensils, and so forth, but there is not much actual “history” that can be reconstructed, at least not much when compared to that which is possible in the Middle East.
When we look at the material which has been discovered from the Nile to the Euphrates that derives from the 2500-year span before Christ, we are in a completely different situation from that in regard to South America or Asia. The kings of Egypt and Assyria built thousands of monuments commemorating their victories and recounting their different exploits. Whole libraries have been discovered from places like Nuzu and Mari and most recently at Elba, which give hundreds of thousands of texts relating to the historical details of their time. It is within this geographical area that the Bible is set. So it is possible to find material which bears upon what the Bible tells us.
The Bible purports to give us information on history. Is the history accurate? The more we understand about the Middle East between 2500 B.C. and A.D. 100, the more confident we can be that the information in the Bible is reliable, even when it speaks about the simple things of time and place.
TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, under footnote #94)
So the story goes on. We have stopped at only a few incidents in the sweep back to the year 1000 B.C. What we hope has emerged from this is a sense of the historical reliability of the Bible’s text. When the Bible refers to historical incidents, it is speaking about the same sort of “history” that historians examine elsewhere in other cultures and periods. This borne out by the fact that some of the incidents, some of the individuals, and some of the places have been confirmed by archaeological discoveries in the past hundred years has swept away the possibility of a naive skepticism about the Bible’s history. And what is particularly striking is that the tide has built up concerning the time before the year 1000 B.C. Our knowledge about the years 2500 B.C. to 1000 B.C. has vastly increased through discoveries sometimes of whole libraries and even of hitherto unknown people and languages.
There was a time, for example, when the Hittite people, referred to in the early parts of the Bible, were treated as fictitious by critical scholars. Then came the discoveries after 1906 at Boghaz Koi (Boghaz-koy) which not only gave us the certainty of their existence but stacks of details from their own archives!
The author as publicist. Darwin, above, wrote to influential scientists worldwide, begging their attention to his new book. This is from his letter to Asa Gray. The photograph of Darwin is by his son, William Erasmus Darwin, and was sent to Asa Gray in 1861. It, and Darwin’s letter, are in the Gray Herbarium. ARCHIVES AT THE GRAY HERBARIUM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Of the several thousand letters that charles darwin wrote during his lifetime, few were more important than one he sent on September 5, 1857, to Harvard botanist Asa Gray. Darwin wrote in his semi-legible scrawl: “I will enclose the briefest abstract of my notions on the means by which nature makes her species….I ask you not to mention my doctrine.” Asa Gray thus became the first person in North America to learn about Darwin’s ideas on natural selection.
Darwin revealed his theory to the general public two years later in his revolutionary book, On the Origin of Species. Its publication prompted fierce debate in this country. On one side arose Gray, Darwin’s friend and supporter, a taciturn man best known as a cataloguer and collector of plants. In opposition stood Gray’s Harvard colleague Louis Agassiz, a charming, brilliant lecturer and the most popular scientist in the land. Harvard thus became the most important battleground in the initial American engagement with natural selection.
~~~
Asa Gray was Fisher professor of natural history at Harvard from 1842 till 1873. Although he was originally trained as a medical doctor, his passion was plants. His reputation as a taxonomist helped him establish one of America’s premier collections of dried plants, which contained material from collectors who had traveled in the United States and around the world. By the early 1860s, his personal herbarium totaled almost 200,000 specimens.
Gray and Darwin’s epistolary relationship began in 1855, when Darwin wrote Gray. As usual with Darwin, he was humble, and he wanted information. The Englishman asked the American about alpine plants in the United States and their relationship to plants in Europe and Asia. During the next few years, Gray used his vast collection to provide much-needed information on two topics essential to Darwin’s theory–the distribution of plants, and variation in wild, non-domesticated species.
Gray in 1865. His copy of Origin, with marginalia, is in the Gray Herbarium. ARCHIVES AT THE GRAY HERBARIUM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Despite Gray’s world renown as a botanist, his colleague Louis Agassiz, professor of zoology and geology, commanded most of the scientific attention in Cambridge. Respected by scientists and liked by the general public, Agassiz was also friends with the Boston literati, among them Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Of Swiss origin, Agassiz had made his mark in science in 1840 with his best-known book, Études sur les glaciers. In it he proposed the then-unorthodox theory that great glaciers had once covered and carved northern Europe.
Agassiz first came to this country in 1846, to present a series of lectures in Boston. As many as 5,000 people a night attended his talks on subjects as diverse as fossil fishes, the Ice Age, and embryology. In 1847, Harvard wooed him away from Europe. The most important North American scientific periodical of the day, the American Journal of Science, reported, “Every scientific man in America will be rejoiced to hear so unexpected a piece of news.” In the following years, Agassiz continued to make science accessible to the public through lectures, books, and articles.
~~~
On November 11, 1859, Darwin began the arduous task of gaining support for the imminent publication of Origin of Species. (Not that sales mattered to him financially; he was independently wealthy. Nevertheless, he would receive two-thirds of the net profit!) Like any modern author, he asked his publisher, John Murray of London, to send presentation copies to potential reviewers.
He also wrote personal notes to 11 of the most important scientists of the day. The majority of these letters acknowledged that the recipient would not support Darwin’s theory of natural selection. In one letter he wrote: “How savage you will be, if you read it, and how you will long to crucify me alive!!” But Darwin also tried to push the veracity of his theory by writing later in the same letter, “I am fully convinced that you will become year after year, less fixed in your belief in the immutability of species.”
Two of Darwin’s November 11 letters crossed the Atlantic to Harvard. One went to Asa Gray and the other to Louis Agassiz. The letters are now preserved in the Gray Herbarium Library and the Houghton Library.
Agassiz’s letter is short, only three sentences. Darwin knew that Agassiz would not agree with his theory. He wrote: “As the conclusions at which I have arrived on several points differ so widely from yours,…I hope that you will at least give me credit, however erroneous you may think my conclusion, for having earnestly endeavored to arrive at the truth.” Agassiz did not reply to Darwin, who did not send him another letter until 1868.
In contrast, the letter to Gray (at top right) covers almost two full pages. Again Darwin is humble, and seeks out Gray’s approval, but he is also proud of the book. “If ever you do read it, & can screw out the time to send me…however short a note…I should be extremely grateful,” he writes. In a postscript Darwin adds “…I cannot possibly believe that a false theory would explain so many classes of facts.”
Agassiz, about 1861, and a page from his copy, at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. ERNST MAYR LIBRARY OF THE MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Agassiz and Gray received their copies of Origin in late December. Gray peppered the margins of the small green book with “Yes,” “Well put,” and numerous exclamation points. He clearly approved of Darwin’s overall tone and reasoning. On the other hand, Agassiz’s marginalia range from “This is truly monstrous” to “The mistake of Darwin…” to “A sentence likely to mislead!”– notes that he elaborated on later in his more formal criticism of Darwin and his theory.
Professionally, the two men generally kept their comments about each other’s reaction to Darwin’s theory on a high level. Personally, they remained distant, indulging in a few caustic remarks to friends. On January 5, 1860, for example, Gray wrote a detailed letter about the American response to Origin of Species to the English botanist Joseph Hooker. In describing his own feelings, Gray wrote: “It is crammed full of most interesting matter–thoroughly digested–well expressed–close, cogent; and taken as a system it makes out a better case than I had supposed possible.” Several paragraphs later he described a much different response from Agassiz: “…when I saw him last, [he] had read but part of it. He says it is poor–very poor!! (entre nous). The fact [is] he growls over it much like a well cudgeled dog [and] is very much annoyed by it.”
~~~
Agassiz launched his public attack on Darwin at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston’s most important learned society. He told the group gathered on January 10, 1860, that modern species and fossil species had no genetic relationship. This tenet was central to the theory of special creationism, which held that God had created each and every species in its current location. Species did not change through time, but they did become extinct. Great catastrophes, like floods or the glaciers described by Agassiz in Études, had periodically destroyed life on earth. The fossil record indicated at least 48 successive periods of change, according to Agassiz.
He clarified his position a month later and condemned one of Darwin’s pivotal themes–variation within species. America’s foremost zoologist denied the “existence of varieties, properly so called, in the animal kingdom.” Instead, Agassiz viewed variation within species as merely a stage of growth or a cycle of development. God had created the species; therefore they were immutable. In addition to this line of attack, Agassiz categorically rejected Darwin’s use of domesticated animals as an example of change over time.
By mid summer Agassiz had clearly defined his position: he stood resolutely on the side of special creationism and against Darwin. Agassiz realized that some would question his statements, but knew that “after mature examination of the facts they would be generally received.” In July 1860, he concluded his review of Origin of Species in the American Journal of Science by writing, “I shall therefore consider the transmutation theory a scientific mistake, untrue in facts, unscientific in its methods, and mischievous in its tendency.”
Gray began his public defense of Darwin, also in the American Journal of Science, with a positive review of Origin in the March 1860 issue. He wrote that Darwin’s ideas on variation within plants and animals were “general, and even universal.” He supported the English naturalist’s use of domesticated animals as examples, and believed that Darwin’s various associations of facts “[seem] fair and natural.”
Although Gray vigorously defended Darwin and natural selection in this review, in a three-part series in the Atlantic Monthly, and throughout the springtime debates at Boston’s learned societies, he, like Agassiz, maintained a link between a supreme power and natural selection. Gray did not support Agassiz’s brand of special creationism, but did believe “that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines” by the hands of a creator. Natural selection occurred, but God played some not clearly defined role in the process.
Darwin never supported these statements on the role of a higher power. He wrote Gray: “I grieve to say that I am in an utterly hopeless muddle. I cannot think that the world, as we see it, is the result of chance; & yet I cannot look at each separate thing as a result of Design.”
Darwin did, however, realize the importance of Gray’s thesis in the developing battle between religion and science. (The bishop of Oxford popularized this debate in June 1860 by asking Darwin’s main supporter in England, Thomas Huxley, “Was it through his grandfather or his grandmother
that he claimed his descent from a monkey?”) With Darwin’s assistance, Gray’s Atlantic pieces, which contained his most cogent explanations for natural selection and Design, reached England as a small pamphlet bearing the Darwin-suggested motto, “Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology.”
Despite Gray’s strong religious feelings, he was at heart a scientist. Unlike Agassiz, he could separate his faith and his science. Gray ultimately concluded that “The work [Origin] is a scientific one…and by its science it must stand or fall.”
~~~
For Gray, 1860 was the most important year of the Darwinian debate. He would continue occasionally to write and speak out on the subject, but never as vigorously as during the first eight months of the decade. The controversy had taken him away from his beloved plants. He returned to his work of identifying and cataloguing, and to the next edition of his and John Torrey’s Manual of Botany. In 1864 he donated his library and plant specimens to Harvard; they became the nucleus of the Gray Herbarium. He continued to correspond with Darwin, whose work began to address many botanical problems, including carnivorous plants. They remained friends until Darwin died in 1882.
As a committed anti-evolutionist, Agassiz continued to oppose Darwin for the rest of his career. He presented three lecture courses and published 21 articles and three books between 1861 and 1866 extolling special creationism. None of these, however, were in professional or scientific journals. Despite his growing popularity with the general public, Agassiz’s influence in the scientific debate over evolution faded. When he died, in 1873, he was one of the last, and certainly the most important, of the scientists who subscribed to special creationism.
Ironically, Agassiz is one of the main reasons that Harvard remains a center for evolutionary studies. The worldwide scope of the animal and fossil collections at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, which Agassiz established and directed, combined with the specimens housed in the Gray Herbarium, facilitate ongoing research into questions of natural selection and speciation. In spite of their differences, both Gray and Agassiz shared a profound respect for the scientific method. Their rigorous examination of plants and animals laid the groundwork for the eventual acceptance of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Freelance writer David B. Williams likes to explore the historical as well as the natural parts of natural history. His “Lessons in Stone,” a geological tour of Harvard buildings, appeared in the November-December 1997 issue.
I found Dr. Barlow to be a true gentleman and he was very kind to take the time to answer the questions that I submitted to him. In the upcoming months I will take time once a week to pay tribute to his life and reveal our correspondence. In the first week I noted:
Today I am posting my first letter to him in February of 2015 which discussed Charles Darwin lamenting his loss of aesthetic tastes which he blamed on Darwin’s own dedication to the study of evolution. In a later return letter, Dr. Barlow agreed that Darwin did in fact lose his aesthetic tastes at the end of his life.
In the third week, I look at the life of Brandon Burlsworth in the November 28, 2016 letter and the movie GREATER and the problem of evil which Charles Darwin definitely had a problem with once his daughter died.
On the 4th letter to Dr. Barlow looks at Darwin’s admission that he at times thinks that creation appears to look like the expression of a mind. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words in 1968 sermon at this link.
My Fifth Letter concerning Charles Darwin’s views on MORAL MOTIONS Which was mailed on March 1, 2017. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning moral motions in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
6th letter on May 1, 2017 in which Charles Darwin’s hopes are that someone would find in Pompeii an old manuscript by a distinguished Roman that would show that Christ existed! Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning the possible manuscript finds in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link
7th letter on Darwin discussing DETERMINISM dated 7-1-17 . Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning determinism in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
8th letter responds to Dr. Barlow’s letter to me concerning Francis Schaeffer discussing Darwin’s own words concerning chance in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
9th letter in response to 11-22-17 letter I received from Professor Horace Barlow was mailed on 1-2-18 and included Charles Darwin’s comments on William Paley. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning William Paley in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
10th letter in response to 11-22-17 letter I received from Professor Horace Barlow was mailed on 2-2-18 and includes Darwin’s comments asking for archaeological evidence for the Bible! Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning His desire to see archaeological evidence supporting the Bible’s accuracy in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
11th letterI mailed on 3-2-18 in response to 11-22-17 letter from Barlow that asserted: It is also sometimes asked whether chance, even together with selection, can define a “MORAL CODE,” which the religiously inclined say is defined by their God. I think the answer is “Yes, it certainly can…” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning A MORAL CODE in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
12th letter on March 26, 2018 breaks down song DUST IN THE WIND “All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”
In 13th letter I respond to Barlow’s November 22, 2017 letter and assertion “He {Darwin} clearly did not lose his sense of the VALUE of TRUTH, and of the importance of FOREVER SEARCHING it out.”
In 14th letter to Dr. Barlow on 10-2-18, I assert: “Let me demonstrate how the Bible’s view of the origin of life fits better with the evidence we have from archaeology than that of gradual evolution.”
In 15th letter in November 2, 2018 to Dr. Barlow I quote his relative Randal Keynes Who in the Richard Dawkins special “The Genius of Darwin” makes this point concerning Darwin, “he was, at different times, enormously confident in it,
and at other times, he was utterly uncertain.”
In 16th Letter on 12-2-18 to Dr. Barlow I respond to his letter that stated, If I am pressed to say whether I think belief in God helps people to make wise and beneficial decisions I am bound to say (and I fear this will cause you pain) “No, it is often very disastrous, leading to violence, death and vile behaviour…Muslim terrorists…violence within the Christian church itself”
17th letter sent on January 2, 2019 shows the great advantage we have over Charles Darwin when examining the archaeological record concerning the accuracy of the Bible
In the 18th letter I respond to the comment by Charles Darwin: “My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive….The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words on his loss of aesthetic tastes in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In 19th letter on 2-2-19 I discuss Steven Weinberg’s words, But if language is to be of any use to us, we ought to try to preserve the meanings of words, and “God” historically has not meant the laws of nature. It has meant an interested personality.
In the 20th letter on 3-2-19 I respond to Charles Darwin’s comment, “At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep [#1] inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons...Formerly I was led by feelings such as those…to the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that [#2] whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. [#3] But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning his former belief in God in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In the 21st letter on May 15, 2019 to Dr Barlow I discuss the writings of Francis Schaeffer who passed away the 35 years earlier on May 15, 1985. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words at length in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In the 22nd letter I respond to Charles Darwin’s words, “I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe…will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words about hell in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In 23rd postcard sent on 7-2-19 I asked Dr Barlow if he was a humanist. Sir Julian Huxley, founder of the American Humanist Association noted, “I use the word ‘humanist’ to mean someone who believes that man is just as much a natural phenomenon as an animal or plant; that his body, mind and soul were not supernaturally created but are products of evolution, and that he is not under the control or guidance of any supernatural being.”
In my 24th letter on 8-2-19 I quote Jerry Bergman who noted Jean Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. A founding father of the modern American scientific establishment, Agassiz was also a lifelong opponent of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Agassiz “ruled in professorial majesty at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.”
In my 25th letter on 9-2-19 I respond to Charles Darwin’s assertion, “This argument would be a valid one if all men of ALL RACES had the SAME INWARD CONVICTION of the existence of one God; but we know that this is very far from being the case.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning MORAL MOTIONS in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In my 26th letteron 10-2-19 I quoted Bertrand Russell’s daughter’s statement, “I believe myself that his whole life was a search for God…. Indeed, he had first taken up philosophy in hope of finding proof of the evidence of the existence of God … Somewhere at the back of my father’s mind, at the bottom of his heart, in the depths of his soul there was an empty space that had once been filled by God, and he never found anything else to put in it”
In my 27th letter on 11-2-19 I disproved Richard Dawkins’ assertion, “Genesis says Abraham owned camels, but archaeological evidence shows that the camel was not domesticated until many centuries after Abraham.” Furthermore, I gave more evidence indicating the Bible is historically accurate.
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
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There are 3 videos in this series and they have statements by 150 academics and scientists and I hope to respond to all of them. Wikipedia notes Horace Basil BarlowFRS was a British visual neuroscientist.
In 1953 Barlow discovered that the frog brain has neurons which fire in response to specific visual stimuli. This was a precursor to the work of Hubel and Wiesel on visual receptive fields in the visual cortex. He has made a long study of visual inhibition, the process whereby a neuron firing in response to one group of retinal cells can inhibit the firing of another neuron; this allows perception of relative contrast.
In 1961 Barlow wrote a seminal article where he asked what the computational aims of the visual system are. He concluded that one of the main aims of visual processing is the reduction of redundancy. While the brightnesses of neighbouring points in images are usually very similar, the retina reduces this redundancy. His work thus was central to the field of statistics of natural scenes that relates the statistics of images of real world scenes to the properties of the nervous system.
Barlow and his co-workers also did substantial work in the field of factorial codes. The goal was to encode images with statistically redundant components or pixels such that the code components are statistically independent. Such codes are hard to find but highly useful for purposes of image classification etc.
His comments can be found on the 3rd video and the 128th clip in this series. Below the videos you will find his words.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
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Interview of Horace Barlow – part 1
Published on Jun 18, 2014
Interviewed and filmed by Alan Macfarlane on 5 March 2012
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Interview of Horace Barlow – part 2
Horace Barlow’s quote taken from interview with Alan Macfarlane:
HAS RELIGION EVER BEEN IMPORTANT TO YOU? IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU? No, it is not important to me. Saying you don’t believe in God is a very foolish thing to say as it doesn’t explain why so many people talk about it, there has got to be more to it than that; also I think one has to respect what some godly people say and some of the things they do; I wish one could make more sense of it but I don’t think the godly people have done a very good job; I was never baptized or confirmed so have never been a practitioner, and I don’t miss it; DO YOU THINK THAT SCIENCE HAS DIS-PROVEN RELIGION AS DAWKINS ARGUES? I think it [science] provides some hope of acting rationally to handle the social and political problems we have to deal with on a personal level and one a worldwide level. Religion is a way of perpetuating a way of thought that might have otherwise been lost, and I imagine that is fine.
Dr. Barlow’s only three solid claims in this response to Alan Macfarlane is that science is #1 the best help today with our social problems,(which is in the original clip), #2 Saying you don’t believe in God (position of atheism) is foolish, and #3 we need an explanation for why so many people talk about [God.]
My response to #1 is to look at how the secular humanists have messed up so many things in the past and I include Barlow’s personal family friend Margaret Mead in that. My responses to #2 and #3 were both covered in my earlier response to Roald Hoffmann.
(Roald Hoffmann is a Nobel Prize winner who I have had the honor of corresponding with in the past. Pictured below)
(This July 1933 photo shows [left to right] anthropologist Gregory Bateson with Margaret Mead)
Horace Barlow’s words from interview conducted by Alan Macfarlane:
I don’t ever remember going to Bateson’s house in Granchester as a child; William Bateson’s wife was a friend of my mother’s; when Gregory Bateson was out in Bali he met Margaret Mead; Beatrice Bateson, his mother, felt she was too old to go out and inspect her so she sent my mother instead; she flew off in an Imperial Airlines plane and we saw her off from Hendon; that must have been 1937-8; my mother got on very well with Margaret Mead – she was not altogether convinced by her, but very impressed by her breadth of knowledge and energy; she came and stayed with us many times; I was even more sceptical than my mother and thought she was a very impressive person; Gregory was born 1904 and my mother, in 1886, so there was quite a big age difference between them; I never got on close intellectual terms with Gregory even though we were to some extent interested in the same sort of thing, both in cybernetics and psychology, and his ideas were always interesting; however, my model of a scientist was taken from my mother and not from Gregory; my mother was interested in genetics and the paper for which she was famous was on the reproductive system in plants like cowslips; my mother reasoned like a scientist whereas Gregory was a guru – he liked to think things out for himself; he obviously influenced many others too; I saw him once or twice when I went to Berkeley
Postscript:
I was sad to see that Jon Stewart is stepping down from the DAILY SHOW so I wanted to include one of the best clips I have ever seen on his show and it is a short debate between the brilliant scientists Edward J. Larson (an evolutionist), William A. Dembski (an Intelligent Design Proponent), and then he threw in a nutball in for laughs, Ellie Crystal (a metaphysical theorist). Dembski gives several great examples of design and it reminded me of many of the words of Darwin show above in my letter to Horace Barlow.
William Dembski on The Jon Stewart Show
Uploaded on Nov 15, 2010
Wednesday September 14, 2005 – Jon Stewart’s “Evolution, Schmevolution” segment with panelists Edward J. Larson (an evolutionist), William A. Dembski (an Intelligent Design Proponent), and Ellie Crystal (a metaphysical theorist).
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
Bipartisan Senate group says they are ‘confident‘ they have the votes necessary to codify same-sex marriage
By Daniella Diaz and Ali Zaslav, CNN
Updated 5:36 PM EST, Mon November 14, 2022
(CNN)The bipartisan group working on legislation to codify same-sex marriage has the votes needed for the bill to pass and is urging leadership to put it on the floor for a vote as soon as possible, multiple sources told CNN.
The bipartisan group, which includes GOP Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, said in a statement Monday that they “look forward to this legislation coming to the floor.”
“Through bipartisan collaboration, we’ve crafted commonsense language to confirm that this legislation fully respects and protects Americans’ religious liberties and diverse beliefs, while leaving intact the core mission of the legislation to protect marriage equality,” the senators said in the statement. “We look forward to this legislation coming to the floor and are confident that this amendment has helped earn the broad, bipartisan support needed to pass our commonsense legislation into law.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday took procedural steps related to the same-sex marriage bill, setting up the first test vote for Wednesday.
“I’m going to set up the first procedural vote on legislation that will codify marriage equality into law. Members should expect the first vote on Wednesday,” he said.
“No American should ever be discriminated against because of who they love and passing this bill would secure much needed safeguards into federal law,” Schumer said.
In early September, Schumer vowed to bring the bill to the floor for a vote in “the coming weeks.”
“The Senate will hold a vote on the Respect for Marriage Act in the coming weeks, so that no American is discriminated against because of whom they love,” he said, adding that he hopes enough GOP senators join Democrats in support of passage.
But the bill’s supporters said in September that more time was needed to negotiate the issue with Republicans — and sought to delay any vote in the Senate until after the November midterm elections, which Schumer agreed to.
The bill will need at least 10 GOP Senate votes to overcome a filibuster and advance the legislation toward final passage.
This story has been updated with additional developments Monday.
This week, Roger Severino, Heritage’s Vice President of Domestic Policy and The Anderlik Fellow, breaks down the so called “Respect for Marriage Act.”
Michelle Cordero: From The Heritage Foundation, I’m Michelle Cordero, and this is Heritage Explains.
Cordero: This summer in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Congress introduced the Respect For Marriage Act.
Speaker 2: As abortion rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers continue to protest the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the House is voting on a bill to protect marriage equality, out of fear the conservative high court could revisit other landmark decisions.
Speaker 3: It simply says each state will recognize the other state’s marriages and not deny a person the right to marry based on race, gender, sexual orientation.
Cordero: The legislation passed the House with the support of 47 Republicans. It now moves to the Senate where it would need just 10 Republican votes to pass.
Cordero: Final passage would mean states are no longer allowed to define and recognize marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman. Instead, they would be forced to recognize any union between two individuals, regardless of sex, as marriage. So does our country need a law to protect same-sex marriage? Did the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson threaten same-sex marriage? What about the Americans who believe that marriage is between a man and a woman? What would this bill mean for them?
Cordero: Today, Roger Severino, Heritage’s vice president of domestic policy and The Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Fellow, explains after this short break.
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Cordero: Roger, thank you so much for joining us today.
Cordero: My first question is, does the country need a national law guaranteeing the right to gay marriage? Didn’t the Supreme Court already rule on this in Obergefell? And so what makes this different?
Severino: You’re right to point out that Obergefell is what’s governing today, and that’s not really going to be changing. I don’t see a scenario where the question presented there will be presented again anywhere in the near or intermediate future. So, what is left? Why is it that the liberals in Congress are pushing this to try to codify a version of same-sex marriage in federal law when all the rights and benefits that came from the Obergefell decision are required to be extended to same-sex couples? Nothing would change on the ground. So what’s left?
Severino: Well, to put salt on a wound and to target people of faith who disagree, there’s still a sizeable number of people in this country who believed the same thing that Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton did just not so long ago, good number of years. But they believe that marriage is a union of one man and one woman. And those views deserve to be treated with respect. They come from honorable premises and they reflect the truth about marriage, which there has to be space for people to continue to express those beliefs, especially those of faith. And what this bill is designed to do is to tar such people as being unfit to be in polite society and out of the public square.
Cordero: Why is Congress taking this up now? Just to back up a little bit, what prompted this?
Severino: The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs dealt with abortion. And the abortion precedents are based on a foundation of sand, using substantive due process, which is a legal concept that’s not really found in the Constitution. Which liberal activist judges over the decades have used in all sorts of areas, including same-sex marriage, to invent new rights that are not actually in the Constitution.
Severino: So when Dobbs said abortion is one of these invented rights, we’re returning to the actual text of the Constitution, the majority went out of its way to say it was just limited to the question of abortion and human life. It’s a very unique circumstance. Justice Thomas, who’s an amazing jurist, wrote separately to say that we should reevaluate every case that was built on the invention of substantive due process, which included the same-sex marriage decision. Substantive due process is not the only source of rights under the Constitution, but it’s the one that’s been abused the most by the left. And it should be revisited.
Severino: That does not mean that there’s any vehicle that would come back and say, people who are currently in same-sex marriages, their benefits are at risk. That’s nonsense. So taking a very theoretical statement from one Justice on the court, the left has run with it to try to call some sort of alarmism about marriage and push this wedge issue for political purposes. Again, the practical effect if this becomes law, will have nothing to do with the benefits of same-sex couples. It’ll have everything to do with excluding people of faith from their tax-exempt statuses for houses of worship, from adoption agencies that believe that the best most conducive place for a child in placement would be with a married mother and father, and for those who contract or receive grants from the government who want to live according to the beliefs with respect to marriage. Those are the groups who are going to be targeted. And this law would actually create this bludgeon, which is a private right of action, which means individuals could sue on their own in federal court to hound these groups. And that’s really the object of this stunt.
Cordero: So to be clear, there’s no risk currently present that legally married same-sex couples could lose any of their benefits or legal status?
Severino: Absolutely. There’s no risk that they would lose any benefit. The federal government adopted and adapted to the Obergefell decision. All the state’s governments did. That’s now the status quo. That would not change by this law. And I see no case coming forward that would change that either. So this is really targeted at exclusion for political purposes.
Cordero: Yes. If the bill passes, it’s just an assurance to the left.
Severino: No, it’s not. Assurance is not needed. That’s the thing. What it is a weapon for the left that will be used to go after people of faith. And this how it works. When you have an established national policy endorsed by Congress through the representatives, that carries a tremendous amount of weight for all sorts of other areas, especially when we’re talking about civil rights laws.
Severino: We had a case from the ’80s with respect to tax-exempt status for a violator of a civil rights law. They were deemed not to be a charity, and they lost their tax exempt status. And the Supreme Court said, because there’s an established national policy against that type of discrimination that you lose your tax-exempt status and there’s no recourse. That same tool will be deployed against people who believe that marriage is a union of one man and one woman, which is very different than other types of beliefs that are protected by statutory anti-discrimination laws.
Severino: This is a view, again, that’s based on love of what is the best most conducive way for human flourishing in raising children and supporting the institution that has been proven most effective at that. And that is having the mother and father together in an enduring lifelong commitment so that they’re there for any children that their union conceives.
Cordero: All right. So, where does the legislation stand now? Are there Republicans who actually want to vote for this?
Severino: There were some Republicans that voted for it in the House. And it passed the House, which caught a lot of folks in the marriage movement a bit flatfooted. We have been fighting most recently over the definition of what is a man and what is a woman, with the transgender ideology in sports, in medicine, intimate facilities, et cetera. But the left was very crafty. They latched onto the pretext of what happened in the Dobbs decision to say that somehow same-sex marriage benefits are at risk when they are not, and pushed a vote on this bill to codify same-sex marriage in about 27 hours from Introduction to vote, which gave few … It was a sneak attack move and caught a lot of people by surprise. People did not think through the ramifications, and some people voted for who I think now regret it in the House.
Severino: In the Senate, there’s been some more time to actually present the arguments that nothing’s done on the ground, none of these benefits are at risk. What this is targeting people of faith and putting a big target on their backs. And now we’ve seen the tide shift. What they thought was going to be a quick walk through the Senate has been stymied. People have been asking hard questions. And if the Democrats in Congress thought that there was a way to get a majority vote for this bill, they would’ve very likely done it before the elections because this is really a political ploy, is what it is. They don’t have that, and that is very comforting for the marriage movement. It doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods yet. There’s still the possibility of some action during the lame duck because the sponsors, Baldwin and Collins, have said they’re going to push for it after the election.
Severino: That’s a sign of weakness. If they could have moved it, they would’ve moved it before the election. There’s a risk that in lame duck, when people are heading out the door, they will violate some of their campaign promises. Many folks were elected on a platform supporting marriage, and they may be tempted on the way out to try to get in the good graces of the cocktail circuit and violate their promises. They should not do that. People should keep to the right policies.
Severino: The right policy here is that the last word from Congress, it should be left undisturbed. And Obergefell handles already the issues of benefits for same-sex couples which are not at risk. So Congress should not go out of its way to slap people of faith, and especially not when Congress is going out the door in a lame duck session.
Cordero: Roger, thank you so much for sitting down with me to break down this important issue. We’d love to have you back on, but hopefully Congress drops this and we don’t have to.
Severino: Hopefully they will.
Cordero: Thank you for listening. And as always, if you loved this episode or found it helpful, we would love you forever if you shared it with a friend or on social media. It’s the best way to grow our audience. Tim is up next week. We’ll see you then.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, pictured marching during the 2022 New York City Pride March on June 26 in New York City, is looking for 10 Republicans to endorse a national same-sex marriage bill. (Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
When the Supreme Court delivered its blow to marriage in 2015, burning down three dozen state laws and tearing up 50 million ballots, the GOP’s reaction was straightforward. Outrage. With a handful of exceptions, the response that echoed across the two coasts was a collective “How dare they?”
As far as Republicans were concerned, what the five justices did on that June day was a betrayal of the people, our system of government, and the pillar that’s upheld society since the beginning of time. “It’s an injustice,” they railed.
Now, seven years later, they finally have a chance to prove it. The question is: will they?
Keep in mind that when the Supreme Court redefined marriage for America in 2015, we became only the 23rd country out of 195 to do so, and only one of seven to have it imposed on us by a court. Still today, there are only 33 countries that have gone down this path of redefining marriage.
But as time has gone on, Republicans seem to have gotten increasingly comfortable letting the court decide an issue they argued was rightly theirs. That shock was driven home Tuesday when 47 House members walked away from the party’s principles and platform to cast a vote for same-sex marriage. The list included a surprising number of our movement’s friends, men and women we never mistook as anything but conservative.
Now, Senate Majority Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., smelling blood in the water, is eager to drive an even deeper wedge—insisting he’ll move forward with his own vote if he can find 10 Republicans foolish enough to endorse it.
Twenty-four hours later, at least four Republicans have taken the bait, walking into a political trap that could very well eat into the margins the GOP needs in November. To no one’s surprise, liberal Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) are on board, as well as outgoing Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio). But the real bombshells started dropping Wednesday, when more conservatives seemed to be testing the waters on a radical issue that seven years ago they vehemently opposed. Names like Roy Blunt (Mo.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), and Thom Tillis (N.C.) started popping up in news stories as possible “yes”es.
Just as astounding, only nine Republicans have jumped to marriage’s defense: Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., John Cornyn, R-Texas, Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., James Lankford, R-Okla., who spoke to Punchbowl News, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Roger Wicker, R-Miss.
A whopping 37, many of them pro-family stalwarts, are either “undecided” or unresponsive, CNN reports. It’s an eerie silence from dozens of Republicans, who—just seven years ago—left zero doubt about where they stood.
Then-Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.:“Today’s Supreme Court decision is a disappointment. I have always supported traditional marriage. Despite this decision, no one can overrule the truth about what marriage actually is—a sacred institution between a man and a woman. I have always believed marriage is between one man and one woman and I will continue to work to ensure our religious beliefs are protected and people of faith are not punished for their beliefs.”
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.: “I’m disappointed in this decision. My view is that family issues in Missouri like marriage, divorce, and adoption should be decided by the people of Missouri.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.: “West Virginia’s greatest strength is our people. Regardless of our differences, we care for our neighbors, friends, and communities in need. Acknowledging that we have differing views, the Supreme Court has made its decision. While I would have preferred that the Supreme Court leave this decision to the states, it is my hope that all West Virginians will move forward and continue to care for and respect one another.”
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont.: “The Court is overriding the will of the people of Montana and numerous other states that have defined marriage as between one man and one woman. I believe marriage is between one man and one woman.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa: “I am disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision and its failure to recognize the freedom of our states to make their own decisions about their respective marriage laws. While it is my personal belief that marriage is between one man and one woman, I maintain that this is an issue best handled at the state level.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa: “Traditional marriage has been a pillar of our society for thousands of years—one that has remained constant across cultures, even with the rise and fall of nations. I believe marriage is between one man and one woman. Marriage is a sacred institution. Its definition should not be subject to the whims of the Supreme Court where five justices appointed to interpret the Constitution instead imposed social and political values inconsistent with the text of the Constitution and the framers’ intent. Today’s decision robs the right of citizens to define marriage through the democratic process.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah: “Today, five justices took a vital question about the future of American society out of the public square, imposing the views of five unelected judges on a country that is still in the midst of making up its mind about marriage. That is unfortunate, but it is not the end of the discussion, as Americans of good faith who believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman will continue to live as witnesses to that truth.”
Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.: “I disagree with the court’s ruling. Regardless of one’s personal view on this issue, the American people, through the democratic process, should be able to determine the meaning of this bedrock institution in our society.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.: “I believe in old-fashioned, traditional marriage. But I don’t really think the government needs to be too involved with this.”
Former Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney, R-Utah: “I believe that marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman, and that’s because I believe the ideal setting for raising a child is where there’s a mother and a father in the home. Other people have differing views and I respect that, whether that’s in my party or in the Democratic Party. But these are very personal matters. My hope is that when we discuss things of this nature, we show respect for people who have differing views.”
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.: “Today’s ruling is a blow to state’s rights. I believe states have a constitutional role in setting their own policy on marriage. Marriage is between a man and a woman, and traditional families play an important role in the fabric of our society.”
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb.: “Today’s ruling is a disappointment to Nebraskans who understand that marriage brings a wife and husband together so their children can have a mom and dad. The Supreme Court once again overstepped its constitutional role by acting as a super-legislature and imposing its own definition of marriage on the American people rather than allowing voters to decide in the states. As a society, we need to celebrate marriage as the best way to provide stability and opportunity for kids. As President Obama has said, there are good people on both sides of the issue. I hope we all can agree that our neighbors deserve the freedom to live out their religious convictions.”
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.: “I continue to believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. The Supreme Court’s overreach into decisions that should be made by states and the people living and voting in them is disappointing. Moving forward, we must ensure families and religious institutions across America are not punished for exercising their right to their own personal beliefs regarding the traditional definition of marriage.”
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.: “The court has issued its opinion, but on this particular issue, I do not agree with its conclusion. I support traditional marriage.”
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.: “Today, the Supreme Court has ruled that all states must recognize same-sex marriage. Understandably, many people will celebrate this decision. While I disagree with it, I acknowledge the Supreme Court’s ruling as the law of the land.”
What’s changed? Certainly not the significance of marriage—or the Constitution. Not the party’s platform or the role of states’ rights. If anything’s changed, it’s the ferocious war being waged against our children’s innocence, religious freedom, parents, and human biology.
What’s changed is that we have a Republican Party willing to go to the mat for sports but seemingly unwilling to stand up for an institution whose redefinition has ignited a firestorm of persecution in America—the same redefinition that’s at the bitter root so many evils we’re fighting today in school classrooms, public libraries, our daughters’ locker rooms.
Seven years from now, will we be saying that those issues don’t matter? That the world has “moved on?” That we know someone who’s transgender, and the only way we can love them is to hand society over to their delusions?
If Republicans want to stick their finger in the cultural winds to decide where they stand on timeless truths, then they are throwing away everything the American people have come to respect about today’s party—their courage, their common sense, their conviction.
Maybe these senators think that linking arms with the left makes them seem more compassionate or contemporary. But real leaders don’t vote out of fear or political calculus. They don’t take their cues from the courts or public opinion.
They do what’s right, no matter what it costs them. That’s what voters respect. And that’s what voters, who have stood by this party’s values, deserve.
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Richard Dawkins tweeted on 7/20/2022: The other excellent article by Jerry Coyne today. Some anthropologists want to stop identifying the sex of ancient skulls because we don’t know how they self-identified!
This article about conflicts in anthropology involving gender and ethnicity comes from the website of Jonathan Turley, whose name I’d heard before but whose work and politics I didn’t know. His Wikipedia bio doesn’t give much clue into his politics (to be truthful, I didn’t look hard for it, since it seemed irrelevant to the story), I wondered simply because he cites a right-wing website below.
But Turley is no weirdo: here’s one bit from his Wikipedia bio:
Turley holds the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at The George Washington University Law School, where he teaches torts, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. He is the youngest person to receive an academic chair in the school’s history. He runs the Project for Older Prisoners (POP), the Environmental Law Clinic, and the Environmental Legislation Project.
I am assuming, then, that what he describes and quotes is accurate, and will give my views accordingly. Here’s the article at hand, which relates to the last article we had about ethnicity (which, of course, reflects ancestry). Click screenshot to read:
The conservative site College Fix quotes various academics in challenging the identification of gender and notes the campaign of the Trans Doe Task Force to “explore ways in which current standards in forensic human identification do a disservice to people who do not clearly fit the gender binary.”
Let’s take sex and ancestry separately. Turley’s prose is indented.
On gender and sex:
University of Kansas Associate Professor Jennifer Raff argued in a paper, “Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas,” that there are “no neat divisions between physically or genetically ‘male’ or ‘female’ individuals.” Her best selling book has been featured on various news outlets like MSNBC.
. . . However, Raff is not alone. Graduate students like Emma Palladino have objected that “the archaeologists who find your bones one day will assign you the same gender as you had at birth, so regardless of whether you transition, you can’t escape your assigned sex.”
Well, given that sex is pretty close to a complete binary in humans, and is reflected and diagnosable in our bones bones—hence “Lucy“, A. afarensis, was female and “Turkana Boy“, H. ergaster was male—you determine biological sex from skeletons, not gender.
Is that a problem? I don’t see how. Even if our hominin relatives or ancestors did have concepts of gender beyond male and female, there are genuine scientific questions to be answered by studying biological sex from ancient remains. What was the ratio of males to females in various places, and if it differed much from 50:50, why? If someone’s remains are associated with items, like Ötzi the hunter (actually a mummy), one can conclude something about ancient cultures and the possibility of differential sex roles. Is it important for scientists to debate whether Ötzi identified himself as a “they/them” given that we’ll never know the answer? Or are we forbidden to inspect the genitals? (He was a biological male).
Now it is of sociological value to determine whether our ancestors identified as “men and women” and saw only two genders, but if we can’t do that, it’s ludicrous to say that we shouldn’t identify remains on the basis of biological sex—a lot easier to do! I won’t give a list of scientific questions that can be addressed by knowing the sex of a fossil hominin, but there are lots, and yet some anthropologists want to stop all such research because hominins may not have had gender roles that matched their biological sex.
On ancestry and ethnicity:
Likewise for ancestry. It’s sometimes possible to guess one’s ethnicity from skeletal morphology, but it’s much more accurate to do DNA sequencing. (Sequencing of fossil DNA can tell us both biological sex and which group of either ancient or modern humans you most resemble genetically.) Yet some anthropologists want to stop that research, too. Turley:
Professors Elizabeth DiGangi of Binghamton University and Jonathan Bethard of the University of South Florida have also challenged the use of racial classifications in a study, objecting that “[a]ncestry estimation contributes to white supremacy.” The authors write that “we use critical race theory to interrogate the approaches utilized to estimate ancestry to include a critique of the continued use of morphoscopic traits, and we assert that the practice of ancestry estimation contributes to white supremacy.”
The professors refer to the practice as “dangerous” and wrote in a letter to the editor that such practices must be changed in light of recent racial justice concerns.
“Between the devastating COVID-19 pandemic and the homicides of numerous Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement officials, we have all been reminded about the fragility of life, and the failures of our society to live up to the ideals enshrined in the foundational documents which established the United States of America over two centuries ago. Tackling these failures seems overwhelming at times; however, changes can be enacted with candid and reflexive discussions about the status quo. In writing this letter, we direct our comments to the forensic anthropology community in the United States in hopes of sparking a discussion about the long-standing practice of ancestry estimation and changes that are frankly long overdue.”
Once again, research is supposed to be squelched for ideological reasons. Yet estimating ancestry of remains can answer lots of interesting questions. One, for example involves DNA sequencing of Neanderthals and modern humans. I would consider these to be different, long-diverged ethnic groups of a single species, not different species, for they could interbreed where they lived in the same area and also produce fertile hybrids.
That’s just a guess, but without sequencing their DNA, we wouldn’t know not only that they hybridized, but also that many of us still carry some ancient DNA from Neanderthals. Where did the Denisovans belong? (We don’t know whether they were a different species of hominin from modern humans or simply an “ethnic group.”) What about H. erectus? Did they die out without issue, or are they related to any modern populations? Do any of their genes still hang around in H. sapiens? (I don’t think we’ll answer these questions.)
It is the sequencing of DNA of people from different geographic areas (“races” if you will, but call them whatever you want) that has helped us unravel the story of human migration, how many times we left Africa and when, and when different groups established themselves in places like Australia and Polynesia, or crossed the Bering Strait into North America. DNA and estimation of ancestry has immensely enriched the story of human evolution and migration. That’s all from “ancestry estimation”, and you don’t even need a concept of “race” to answer these questions—only a concept of “ancestry” and “relatedness”. Nor does this research contribute to white supremacy, though of course some racists may coopt it.
In the interests of woke ideology, in other words, some anthropologists want to shut down two promising lines of research. I call that misguided and, indeed, crazy. If you despise white supremacy like most of us do, you don’t get rid of it it by banning anthropological genetics. If you want sympathy for people whose gender doesn’t match their biological sex, you don’t get it by stopping researchers from determining the biological sex of ancient human remains.
As the Wicked Witch of the West said, “Oh, what a world! What a world!”
Made for Comedy Ricky Gervais has 50 year old plumber choose to identify as a 8 year old girl (Plus HUMANIST award taken away from Richard Dawkins)
After Life 2 – Man identifies as an 8 year old girl
4:20 am 4/10/21
In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as.
Discuss.
—
4/12/21 12:46pm
I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic “Discuss” question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue .
American Humanist Association criticises academic for comments about identity using ‘the guise of scientific discourse’, and withdraws its 1996 honourAlison FloodTue 20 Apr 2021 08.56 EDT
The American Humanist Association has withdrawn its humanist of the year award from Richard Dawkins, 25 years after he received the honour, criticising the academic and author for “demean[ing] marginalised groups” using “the guise of scientific discourse”.
The AHA honoured Dawkins, whose books include The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion, in 1996 for his “significant contributions” in communicating scientific concepts to the public. On Monday, it announced that it was withdrawing the award, referring to a tweet sent by Dawkins earlier this month, in which he compared trans people to Rachel Dolezal, the civil rights activist who posed as a black woman for years.
“In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black,” wrote Dawkins on Twitter. “Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.”
Dawkins later responded to criticism, writing: “I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic ‘Discuss’ question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue.”
Among his critics was Alison Gill, vice president for legal and policy at American Atheists and a trans woman. She said Dawkins’ comments reinforce dangerous and harmful narratives. She said: “Given the repercussions for the millions of trans people in this country, in this one life we have to live, as an atheist and as a trans woman, I hope that Professor Dawkins treats this issue with greater understanding and respect in the future.”
In 2015, Dawkins also wrote: “Is trans woman a woman? Purely semantic. If you define by chromosomes, no. If by self-identification, yes. I call her “she” out of courtesy.”
In a statement from its board, the AHA said that Dawkins had “over the past several years accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalised groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values”.
The evolutionary biologist’s latest comment, the board said, “implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient”, while his “subsequent attempts at clarification are inadequate and convey neither sensitivity nor sincerity”.
“Consequently, the AHA Board has concluded that Richard Dawkins is no longer deserving of being honored by the AHA, and has voted to withdraw, effective immediately, the 1996 Humanist of the Year award,” said the organisation.
The Guardian has reached out to Dawkins for comment.
Last year, the author JK Rowling returned an award given to her by the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights organisation, after its president, Kennedy’s daughter Kerry Kennedy, criticised her views on transgender issues. “I am deeply saddened that RFKHR has felt compelled to adopt this stance, but no award or honour, no matter my admiration for the person for whom it was named, means so much to me that I would forfeit the right to follow the dictates of my own conscience,” said Rowling in a statement at the time.
Tribute to Horace Barlow
Steven Dakin @StevenDakin
Elegant & important psychophysics from @TheKwonLab. Retinal ganglion cell dysfunction (not death) limits contrast sensitivity in glaucoma. Sidenote: credit to late/great Horace Barlow for the equivalent noise paradigm.
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November 2, 2019
November 2, 2019
Dr. Horace Barlow, Cambridge CB3 9AX, England
Dear Dr. Barlow,
I have enjoyed reading the book OUTGROWING GOD by your friend Richard Dawkins, and he certainly has much respect for you great grandfather Charles Darwin. However, he has not studied the Bible as extensively as Darwin did because many of Dawkins’ criticisms of the Bible don’t seem to be valid. For instance, on page 53 he states:
Genesis says Abraham owned camels, but archaeological evidence shows that the camel was not domesticated until many centuries after Abraham
Some Biblical texts, such as Genesis 12 and 24, claim that Abraham owned camels. Yet archaeological researchshows that camels were not domesticated in the land of Canaan until the 10th century B.C.E.—about a thousand years after the time of Abraham. This seems to suggest that camels in these Biblical stories are anachronistic.
Abraham’s Camels. Did camels exist in Biblical times? Camels appear with Abraham in some Biblical texts—and depictions thereof, such as The Caravan of Abram by James Tissot, based on Genesis 12. When were camels first domesticated? Although camel domestication had not taken place by the time of Abraham in the land of Canaan, it had in Mesopotamia. Photo: PD-1923.Mark W. Chavalas explores the history of camel domestication in his Biblical Views column “Did Abraham Ride a Camel?”published in the November/December 2018 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Although he agrees that camel domestication likely did not take place in Canaan until the 10th century B.C.E., he notes that Abraham’s place of origin was not Canaan—but Mesopotamia. Thus, to ascertain whether Abraham’s camels are anachronistic, we need to ask: When were camels first domesticated in Mesopotamia?
Chavalas explains that the events in the Biblical accounts of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs (Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Israel and Rachel) have been traditionally dated to c. 2000–1600 B.C.E. (during the Middle Bronze Age). Camels appear in Mesopotamian sources in the third millennium B.C.E.—before this period. However, the mere presence of camels in sources does not necessarily mean that camels were domesticated.
The question remains: When were camels domesticated in Mesopotamia?
In his examination of camel domestication history, Chavalas looks at a variety of textual, artistic, and archaeological sources from Mesopotamia dating to the third and second millennia. We will examine five of these sources here:
1. One of the first pieces of evidence for camel domestication comes from the site of Eshnunna in modern Iraq: A plaque from the mid-third millennium shows a camel being ridden by a human.
2. Another source is a 21st-century B.C.E. text from Puzrish-Dagan in modern Iraq that may record camel deliveries.
3. Third, an 18th-century B.C.E. text (quoting from an earlier third millennium text) from Nippur in modern Iraq says, “the milk of the camel is sweet.” Chavalas explains why he thinks this likely refers to a domesticated camel:
Having walked in many surveys through camel herds in Syria along the Middle Euphrates River, I believe that this text is describing a domesticated camel; who would want to milk a “wild camel”? At the very least, the Bactrian camel was being used for dairy needs at this time.
4. Next, an 18th-century B.C.E. cylinder seal depicts a two-humped camel with riders. Although this seal’s exact place of origin is unknown, it reputedly comes from Syria, and it resembles other seals from Alalakh (a site in modern Turkey near Turkey’s southern border with Syria).
5. Finally, a 17th-century text from Alalakh includes camels in a list of domesticated animals that required food.
Although domesticated camels may not have been widespread in Mesopotamia in the second millennium, these pieces of evidence show that by the second millennium, there were at least some domesticated camels. Thus, camel domestication had taken place in Mesopotamia by the time of Abraham. Accordingly, Chavalas argues that the camels in the stories of Abraham in Genesis are not anachronistic.
Learn more about the history of camel domestication in Mark W. Chavalas’s Biblical Views column “Did Abraham Ride a Camel?” published in the November/December 2018 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.——————
Subscribers: Read the full Biblical Views column “Did Abraham Ride a Camel?” by Mark W. Chavalas in the November/December 2018 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
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Francis Schaeffer noted concerning Charles Darwin’s loss of faith:
This is very sad. He lies on his bunk and the Beagle tosses and turns and he makes daydreams, and his dreams and hopes are that someone would find in Pompeii or some place like this, an old manuscript by a distinguished Roman that would put his stamp of authority on it, which would be able to show that Christ existed. This is undoubtedly what he is talking about. Darwin gave up this hope with great difficulty.
Dr. Barlow you have an advantage of 150 years over your great grandfather and the archaeologist’s spade has continued to dig. Take a look at this piece of evidence from the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop:
TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?)
In the previous chapter we saw that the Bible gives us the explanation for the existence of the universe and its form and for the mannishness of man. Or, to reverse this, we came to see that the universe and its form and the mannishness of man are a testimony to the truth of the Bible. In this chapter we will consider a third testimony: the Bible’s openness to verification by historical study.
Christianity involves history. To say only that is already to have said something remarkable, because it separates the Judeo-Christian world-view from almost all other religious thought. It is rooted in history.
The Bible tells us how God communicated with man in history. For example, God revealed Himself to Abraham at a point in time and at a particular geographical place. He did likewise with Moses, David, Isaiah, Daniel and so on. The implications of this are extremely important to us. Because the truth God communicated in the Bible is so tied up with the flow of human events, it is possible by historical study to confirm some of the historical details.
It is remarkable that this possibility exists. Compare the information we have from other continents of that period. We know comparatively little about what happened in Africa or South America or China or Russia or even Europe. We see beautiful remains of temples and burial places, cult figures, utensils, and so forth, but there is not much actual “history” that can be reconstructed, at least not much when compared to that which is possible in the Middle East.
When we look at the material which has been discovered from the Nile to the Euphrates that derives from the 2500-year span before Christ, we are in a completely different situation from that in regard to South America or Asia. The kings of Egypt and Assyria built thousands of monuments commemorating their victories and recounting their different exploits. Whole libraries have been discovered from places like Nuzu and Mari and most recently at Elba, which give hundreds of thousands of texts relating to the historical details of their time. It is within this geographical area that the Bible is set. So it is possible to find material which bears upon what the Bible tells us.
The Bible purports to give us information on history. Is the history accurate? The more we understand about the Middle East between 2500 B.C. and A.D. 100, the more confident we can be that the information in the Bible is reliable, even when it speaks about the simple things of time and place.
TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, under footnote #94)
So the story goes on. We have stopped at only a few incidents in the sweep back to the year 1000 B.C. What we hope has emerged from this is a sense of the historical reliability of the Bible’s text. When the Bible refers to historical incidents, it is speaking about the same sort of “history” that historians examine elsewhere in other cultures and periods. This borne out by the fact that some of the incidents, some of the individuals, and some of the places have been confirmed by archaeological discoveries in the past hundred years has swept away the possibility of a naive skepticism about the Bible’s history. And what is particularly striking is that the tide has built up concerning the time before the year 1000 B.C. Our knowledge about the years 2500 B.C. to 1000 B.C. has vastly increased through discoveries sometimes of whole libraries and even of hitherto unknown people and languages.
There was a time, for example, when the Hittite people, referred to in the early parts of the Bible, were treated as fictitious by critical scholars. Then came the discoveries after 1906 at Boghaz Koi (Boghaz-koy) which not only gave us the certainty of their existence but stacks of details from their own archives!
The author as publicist. Darwin, above, wrote to influential scientists worldwide, begging their attention to his new book. This is from his letter to Asa Gray. The photograph of Darwin is by his son, William Erasmus Darwin, and was sent to Asa Gray in 1861. It, and Darwin’s letter, are in the Gray Herbarium. ARCHIVES AT THE GRAY HERBARIUM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Of the several thousand letters that charles darwin wrote during his lifetime, few were more important than one he sent on September 5, 1857, to Harvard botanist Asa Gray. Darwin wrote in his semi-legible scrawl: “I will enclose the briefest abstract of my notions on the means by which nature makes her species….I ask you not to mention my doctrine.” Asa Gray thus became the first person in North America to learn about Darwin’s ideas on natural selection.
Darwin revealed his theory to the general public two years later in his revolutionary book, On the Origin of Species. Its publication prompted fierce debate in this country. On one side arose Gray, Darwin’s friend and supporter, a taciturn man best known as a cataloguer and collector of plants. In opposition stood Gray’s Harvard colleague Louis Agassiz, a charming, brilliant lecturer and the most popular scientist in the land. Harvard thus became the most important battleground in the initial American engagement with natural selection.
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Asa Gray was Fisher professor of natural history at Harvard from 1842 till 1873. Although he was originally trained as a medical doctor, his passion was plants. His reputation as a taxonomist helped him establish one of America’s premier collections of dried plants, which contained material from collectors who had traveled in the United States and around the world. By the early 1860s, his personal herbarium totaled almost 200,000 specimens.
Gray and Darwin’s epistolary relationship began in 1855, when Darwin wrote Gray. As usual with Darwin, he was humble, and he wanted information. The Englishman asked the American about alpine plants in the United States and their relationship to plants in Europe and Asia. During the next few years, Gray used his vast collection to provide much-needed information on two topics essential to Darwin’s theory–the distribution of plants, and variation in wild, non-domesticated species.
Gray in 1865. His copy of Origin, with marginalia, is in the Gray Herbarium. ARCHIVES AT THE GRAY HERBARIUM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Despite Gray’s world renown as a botanist, his colleague Louis Agassiz, professor of zoology and geology, commanded most of the scientific attention in Cambridge. Respected by scientists and liked by the general public, Agassiz was also friends with the Boston literati, among them Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Of Swiss origin, Agassiz had made his mark in science in 1840 with his best-known book, Études sur les glaciers. In it he proposed the then-unorthodox theory that great glaciers had once covered and carved northern Europe.
Agassiz first came to this country in 1846, to present a series of lectures in Boston. As many as 5,000 people a night attended his talks on subjects as diverse as fossil fishes, the Ice Age, and embryology. In 1847, Harvard wooed him away from Europe. The most important North American scientific periodical of the day, the American Journal of Science, reported, “Every scientific man in America will be rejoiced to hear so unexpected a piece of news.” In the following years, Agassiz continued to make science accessible to the public through lectures, books, and articles.
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On November 11, 1859, Darwin began the arduous task of gaining support for the imminent publication of Origin of Species. (Not that sales mattered to him financially; he was independently wealthy. Nevertheless, he would receive two-thirds of the net profit!) Like any modern author, he asked his publisher, John Murray of London, to send presentation copies to potential reviewers.
He also wrote personal notes to 11 of the most important scientists of the day. The majority of these letters acknowledged that the recipient would not support Darwin’s theory of natural selection. In one letter he wrote: “How savage you will be, if you read it, and how you will long to crucify me alive!!” But Darwin also tried to push the veracity of his theory by writing later in the same letter, “I am fully convinced that you will become year after year, less fixed in your belief in the immutability of species.”
Two of Darwin’s November 11 letters crossed the Atlantic to Harvard. One went to Asa Gray and the other to Louis Agassiz. The letters are now preserved in the Gray Herbarium Library and the Houghton Library.
Agassiz’s letter is short, only three sentences. Darwin knew that Agassiz would not agree with his theory. He wrote: “As the conclusions at which I have arrived on several points differ so widely from yours,…I hope that you will at least give me credit, however erroneous you may think my conclusion, for having earnestly endeavored to arrive at the truth.” Agassiz did not reply to Darwin, who did not send him another letter until 1868.
In contrast, the letter to Gray (at top right) covers almost two full pages. Again Darwin is humble, and seeks out Gray’s approval, but he is also proud of the book. “If ever you do read it, & can screw out the time to send me…however short a note…I should be extremely grateful,” he writes. In a postscript Darwin adds “…I cannot possibly believe that a false theory would explain so many classes of facts.”
Agassiz, about 1861, and a page from his copy, at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. ERNST MAYR LIBRARY OF THE MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Agassiz and Gray received their copies of Origin in late December. Gray peppered the margins of the small green book with “Yes,” “Well put,” and numerous exclamation points. He clearly approved of Darwin’s overall tone and reasoning. On the other hand, Agassiz’s marginalia range from “This is truly monstrous” to “The mistake of Darwin…” to “A sentence likely to mislead!”– notes that he elaborated on later in his more formal criticism of Darwin and his theory.
Professionally, the two men generally kept their comments about each other’s reaction to Darwin’s theory on a high level. Personally, they remained distant, indulging in a few caustic remarks to friends. On January 5, 1860, for example, Gray wrote a detailed letter about the American response to Origin of Species to the English botanist Joseph Hooker. In describing his own feelings, Gray wrote: “It is crammed full of most interesting matter–thoroughly digested–well expressed–close, cogent; and taken as a system it makes out a better case than I had supposed possible.” Several paragraphs later he described a much different response from Agassiz: “…when I saw him last, [he] had read but part of it. He says it is poor–very poor!! (entre nous). The fact [is] he growls over it much like a well cudgeled dog [and] is very much annoyed by it.”
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Agassiz launched his public attack on Darwin at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston’s most important learned society. He told the group gathered on January 10, 1860, that modern species and fossil species had no genetic relationship. This tenet was central to the theory of special creationism, which held that God had created each and every species in its current location. Species did not change through time, but they did become extinct. Great catastrophes, like floods or the glaciers described by Agassiz in Études, had periodically destroyed life on earth. The fossil record indicated at least 48 successive periods of change, according to Agassiz.
He clarified his position a month later and condemned one of Darwin’s pivotal themes–variation within species. America’s foremost zoologist denied the “existence of varieties, properly so called, in the animal kingdom.” Instead, Agassiz viewed variation within species as merely a stage of growth or a cycle of development. God had created the species; therefore they were immutable. In addition to this line of attack, Agassiz categorically rejected Darwin’s use of domesticated animals as an example of change over time.
By mid summer Agassiz had clearly defined his position: he stood resolutely on the side of special creationism and against Darwin. Agassiz realized that some would question his statements, but knew that “after mature examination of the facts they would be generally received.” In July 1860, he concluded his review of Origin of Species in the American Journal of Science by writing, “I shall therefore consider the transmutation theory a scientific mistake, untrue in facts, unscientific in its methods, and mischievous in its tendency.”
Gray began his public defense of Darwin, also in the American Journal of Science, with a positive review of Origin in the March 1860 issue. He wrote that Darwin’s ideas on variation within plants and animals were “general, and even universal.” He supported the English naturalist’s use of domesticated animals as examples, and believed that Darwin’s various associations of facts “[seem] fair and natural.”
Although Gray vigorously defended Darwin and natural selection in this review, in a three-part series in the Atlantic Monthly, and throughout the springtime debates at Boston’s learned societies, he, like Agassiz, maintained a link between a supreme power and natural selection. Gray did not support Agassiz’s brand of special creationism, but did believe “that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines” by the hands of a creator. Natural selection occurred, but God played some not clearly defined role in the process.
Darwin never supported these statements on the role of a higher power. He wrote Gray: “I grieve to say that I am in an utterly hopeless muddle. I cannot think that the world, as we see it, is the result of chance; & yet I cannot look at each separate thing as a result of Design.”
Darwin did, however, realize the importance of Gray’s thesis in the developing battle between religion and science. (The bishop of Oxford popularized this debate in June 1860 by asking Darwin’s main supporter in England, Thomas Huxley, “Was it through his grandfather or his grandmother
that he claimed his descent from a monkey?”) With Darwin’s assistance, Gray’s Atlantic pieces, which contained his most cogent explanations for natural selection and Design, reached England as a small pamphlet bearing the Darwin-suggested motto, “Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology.”
Despite Gray’s strong religious feelings, he was at heart a scientist. Unlike Agassiz, he could separate his faith and his science. Gray ultimately concluded that “The work [Origin] is a scientific one…and by its science it must stand or fall.”
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For Gray, 1860 was the most important year of the Darwinian debate. He would continue occasionally to write and speak out on the subject, but never as vigorously as during the first eight months of the decade. The controversy had taken him away from his beloved plants. He returned to his work of identifying and cataloguing, and to the next edition of his and John Torrey’s Manual of Botany. In 1864 he donated his library and plant specimens to Harvard; they became the nucleus of the Gray Herbarium. He continued to correspond with Darwin, whose work began to address many botanical problems, including carnivorous plants. They remained friends until Darwin died in 1882.
As a committed anti-evolutionist, Agassiz continued to oppose Darwin for the rest of his career. He presented three lecture courses and published 21 articles and three books between 1861 and 1866 extolling special creationism. None of these, however, were in professional or scientific journals. Despite his growing popularity with the general public, Agassiz’s influence in the scientific debate over evolution faded. When he died, in 1873, he was one of the last, and certainly the most important, of the scientists who subscribed to special creationism.
Ironically, Agassiz is one of the main reasons that Harvard remains a center for evolutionary studies. The worldwide scope of the animal and fossil collections at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, which Agassiz established and directed, combined with the specimens housed in the Gray Herbarium, facilitate ongoing research into questions of natural selection and speciation. In spite of their differences, both Gray and Agassiz shared a profound respect for the scientific method. Their rigorous examination of plants and animals laid the groundwork for the eventual acceptance of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Freelance writer David B. Williams likes to explore the historical as well as the natural parts of natural history. His “Lessons in Stone,” a geological tour of Harvard buildings, appeared in the November-December 1997 issue.
I found Dr. Barlow to be a true gentleman and he was very kind to take the time to answer the questions that I submitted to him. In the upcoming months I will take time once a week to pay tribute to his life and reveal our correspondence. In the first week I noted:
Today I am posting my first letter to him in February of 2015 which discussed Charles Darwin lamenting his loss of aesthetic tastes which he blamed on Darwin’s own dedication to the study of evolution. In a later return letter, Dr. Barlow agreed that Darwin did in fact lose his aesthetic tastes at the end of his life.
In the third week, I look at the life of Brandon Burlsworth in the November 28, 2016 letter and the movie GREATER and the problem of evil which Charles Darwin definitely had a problem with once his daughter died.
On the 4th letter to Dr. Barlow looks at Darwin’s admission that he at times thinks that creation appears to look like the expression of a mind. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words in 1968 sermon at this link.
My Fifth Letter concerning Charles Darwin’s views on MORAL MOTIONS Which was mailed on March 1, 2017. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning moral motions in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
6th letter on May 1, 2017 in which Charles Darwin’s hopes are that someone would find in Pompeii an old manuscript by a distinguished Roman that would show that Christ existed! Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning the possible manuscript finds in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link
7th letter on Darwin discussing DETERMINISM dated 7-1-17 . Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning determinism in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
8th letter responds to Dr. Barlow’s letter to me concerning Francis Schaeffer discussing Darwin’s own words concerning chance in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
9th letter in response to 11-22-17 letter I received from Professor Horace Barlow was mailed on 1-2-18 and included Charles Darwin’s comments on William Paley. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning William Paley in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
10th letter in response to 11-22-17 letter I received from Professor Horace Barlow was mailed on 2-2-18 and includes Darwin’s comments asking for archaeological evidence for the Bible! Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning His desire to see archaeological evidence supporting the Bible’s accuracy in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
11th letterI mailed on 3-2-18 in response to 11-22-17 letter from Barlow that asserted: It is also sometimes asked whether chance, even together with selection, can define a “MORAL CODE,” which the religiously inclined say is defined by their God. I think the answer is “Yes, it certainly can…” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning A MORAL CODE in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
12th letter on March 26, 2018 breaks down song DUST IN THE WIND “All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”
In 13th letter I respond to Barlow’s November 22, 2017 letter and assertion “He {Darwin} clearly did not lose his sense of the VALUE of TRUTH, and of the importance of FOREVER SEARCHING it out.”
In 14th letter to Dr. Barlow on 10-2-18, I assert: “Let me demonstrate how the Bible’s view of the origin of life fits better with the evidence we have from archaeology than that of gradual evolution.”
In 15th letter in November 2, 2018 to Dr. Barlow I quote his relative Randal Keynes Who in the Richard Dawkins special “The Genius of Darwin” makes this point concerning Darwin, “he was, at different times, enormously confident in it,
and at other times, he was utterly uncertain.”
In 16th Letter on 12-2-18 to Dr. Barlow I respond to his letter that stated, If I am pressed to say whether I think belief in God helps people to make wise and beneficial decisions I am bound to say (and I fear this will cause you pain) “No, it is often very disastrous, leading to violence, death and vile behaviour…Muslim terrorists…violence within the Christian church itself”
17th letter sent on January 2, 2019 shows the great advantage we have over Charles Darwin when examining the archaeological record concerning the accuracy of the Bible
In the 18th letter I respond to the comment by Charles Darwin: “My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive….The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words on his loss of aesthetic tastes in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In 19th letter on 2-2-19 I discuss Steven Weinberg’s words, But if language is to be of any use to us, we ought to try to preserve the meanings of words, and “God” historically has not meant the laws of nature. It has meant an interested personality.
In the 20th letter on 3-2-19 I respond to Charles Darwin’s comment, “At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep [#1] inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons...Formerly I was led by feelings such as those…to the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that [#2] whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. [#3] But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning his former belief in God in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In the 21st letter on May 15, 2019 to Dr Barlow I discuss the writings of Francis Schaeffer who passed away the 35 years earlier on May 15, 1985. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words at length in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In the 22nd letter I respond to Charles Darwin’s words, “I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe…will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words about hell in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In 23rd postcard sent on 7-2-19 I asked Dr Barlow if he was a humanist. Sir Julian Huxley, founder of the American Humanist Association noted, “I use the word ‘humanist’ to mean someone who believes that man is just as much a natural phenomenon as an animal or plant; that his body, mind and soul were not supernaturally created but are products of evolution, and that he is not under the control or guidance of any supernatural being.”
In my 24th letter on 8-2-19 I quote Jerry Bergman who noted Jean Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. A founding father of the modern American scientific establishment, Agassiz was also a lifelong opponent of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Agassiz “ruled in professorial majesty at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.”
In my 25th letter on 9-2-19 I respond to Charles Darwin’s assertion, “This argument would be a valid one if all men of ALL RACES had the SAME INWARD CONVICTION of the existence of one God; but we know that this is very far from being the case.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning MORAL MOTIONS in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In my 26th letteron 10-2-19 I quoted Bertrand Russell’s daughter’s statement, “I believe myself that his whole life was a search for God…. Indeed, he had first taken up philosophy in hope of finding proof of the evidence of the existence of God … Somewhere at the back of my father’s mind, at the bottom of his heart, in the depths of his soul there was an empty space that had once been filled by God, and he never found anything else to put in it”
In my 27th letter on 11-2-19 I disproved Richard Dawkins’ assertion, “Genesis says Abraham owned camels, but archaeological evidence shows that the camel was not domesticated until many centuries after Abraham.” Furthermore, I gave more evidence indicating the Bible is historically accurate.
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
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There are 3 videos in this series and they have statements by 150 academics and scientists and I hope to respond to all of them. Wikipedia notes Horace Basil BarlowFRS was a British visual neuroscientist.
In 1953 Barlow discovered that the frog brain has neurons which fire in response to specific visual stimuli. This was a precursor to the work of Hubel and Wiesel on visual receptive fields in the visual cortex. He has made a long study of visual inhibition, the process whereby a neuron firing in response to one group of retinal cells can inhibit the firing of another neuron; this allows perception of relative contrast.
In 1961 Barlow wrote a seminal article where he asked what the computational aims of the visual system are. He concluded that one of the main aims of visual processing is the reduction of redundancy. While the brightnesses of neighbouring points in images are usually very similar, the retina reduces this redundancy. His work thus was central to the field of statistics of natural scenes that relates the statistics of images of real world scenes to the properties of the nervous system.
Barlow and his co-workers also did substantial work in the field of factorial codes. The goal was to encode images with statistically redundant components or pixels such that the code components are statistically independent. Such codes are hard to find but highly useful for purposes of image classification etc.
His comments can be found on the 3rd video and the 128th clip in this series. Below the videos you will find his words.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
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Interview of Horace Barlow – part 1
Published on Jun 18, 2014
Interviewed and filmed by Alan Macfarlane on 5 March 2012
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Interview of Horace Barlow – part 2
Horace Barlow’s quote taken from interview with Alan Macfarlane:
HAS RELIGION EVER BEEN IMPORTANT TO YOU? IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU? No, it is not important to me. Saying you don’t believe in God is a very foolish thing to say as it doesn’t explain why so many people talk about it, there has got to be more to it than that; also I think one has to respect what some godly people say and some of the things they do; I wish one could make more sense of it but I don’t think the godly people have done a very good job; I was never baptized or confirmed so have never been a practitioner, and I don’t miss it; DO YOU THINK THAT SCIENCE HAS DIS-PROVEN RELIGION AS DAWKINS ARGUES? I think it [science] provides some hope of acting rationally to handle the social and political problems we have to deal with on a personal level and one a worldwide level. Religion is a way of perpetuating a way of thought that might have otherwise been lost, and I imagine that is fine.
Dr. Barlow’s only three solid claims in this response to Alan Macfarlane is that science is #1 the best help today with our social problems,(which is in the original clip), #2 Saying you don’t believe in God (position of atheism) is foolish, and #3 we need an explanation for why so many people talk about [God.]
My response to #1 is to look at how the secular humanists have messed up so many things in the past and I include Barlow’s personal family friend Margaret Mead in that. My responses to #2 and #3 were both covered in my earlier response to Roald Hoffmann.
(Roald Hoffmann is a Nobel Prize winner who I have had the honor of corresponding with in the past. Pictured below)
(This July 1933 photo shows [left to right] anthropologist Gregory Bateson with Margaret Mead)
Horace Barlow’s words from interview conducted by Alan Macfarlane:
I don’t ever remember going to Bateson’s house in Granchester as a child; William Bateson’s wife was a friend of my mother’s; when Gregory Bateson was out in Bali he met Margaret Mead; Beatrice Bateson, his mother, felt she was too old to go out and inspect her so she sent my mother instead; she flew off in an Imperial Airlines plane and we saw her off from Hendon; that must have been 1937-8; my mother got on very well with Margaret Mead – she was not altogether convinced by her, but very impressed by her breadth of knowledge and energy; she came and stayed with us many times; I was even more sceptical than my mother and thought she was a very impressive person; Gregory was born 1904 and my mother, in 1886, so there was quite a big age difference between them; I never got on close intellectual terms with Gregory even though we were to some extent interested in the same sort of thing, both in cybernetics and psychology, and his ideas were always interesting; however, my model of a scientist was taken from my mother and not from Gregory; my mother was interested in genetics and the paper for which she was famous was on the reproductive system in plants like cowslips; my mother reasoned like a scientist whereas Gregory was a guru – he liked to think things out for himself; he obviously influenced many others too; I saw him once or twice when I went to Berkeley
Postscript:
I was sad to see that Jon Stewart is stepping down from the DAILY SHOW so I wanted to include one of the best clips I have ever seen on his show and it is a short debate between the brilliant scientists Edward J. Larson (an evolutionist), William A. Dembski (an Intelligent Design Proponent), and then he threw in a nutball in for laughs, Ellie Crystal (a metaphysical theorist). Dembski gives several great examples of design and it reminded me of many of the words of Darwin show above in my letter to Horace Barlow.
William Dembski on The Jon Stewart Show
Uploaded on Nov 15, 2010
Wednesday September 14, 2005 – Jon Stewart’s “Evolution, Schmevolution” segment with panelists Edward J. Larson (an evolutionist), William A. Dembski (an Intelligent Design Proponent), and Ellie Crystal (a metaphysical theorist).
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
Today I’m going to change hats and pretend to be a political pundit so I can offer some unsolicited advice to my Republican friends.
If they like to win elections, they need to realize that Donald Trump is bad news.
Yes, he beat a very unpopular Hillary Clinton in 2016, but every subsequent election has produced Republican disappointment.
The 2018 midterm elections.
The 2020 presidential election.
The 2022 midterm elections.
What should most upset the GOP is that Trump has given Democrats control of the Senate twice. First, by depressing Republican turnout in the two Georgia runoff contests with his sore-loser routine about stolen elections in the 2020 cycle. Second, by convincing Republican voters to nominate inferior candidates in the 2022 cycle.
But the fault is not entirely with Trump.
As illustrated by this cartoon, a significant share of Republican voters like Trump and this gives him enormous power over the GOP.
The interesting question to answer is why many rank-and-file Republicans feel so loyal to Trump – even though he often supported bad policies and has helped Democrats gain power in Washington.
One thing that surprised me over the past four yeas is that I found strong support for Trump from grassroots conservative Republicans. Yes, they didn’t like his fiscal profligacy and they mostly didn’t like his protectionism, but they did like the fact that he was a “fighter,” unlike so many (but not all) Republican politicians who get cozy with the DC establishment. They also figured he was worth supporting because he was so reviled by the establishment media (i.e., the enemy of my enemy is my friend).
I think that analysis still applies, but let’s dig deeper. Another problem is that Republican voters think anti-Trump GOP politicians must be bad (closet Democrats, or something like that).
But that binary analysis – the Trump camp vs the every-other-Republican camp – is woefully inadequate.
I think it’s more accurate (though obviously simplified) to look at the Republican Party as having three camps. And here’s a Venn diagram with my amateur depiction of what unites and divides them.
I’m sure many of you already know my conclusion, which is that the Republican Party should opt for Reaganism.
I’ve written many times why it is good policy, so I’ll conclude by elaborating on why it is good politics.
Simply stated, Trump voters don’t trust establishment Republicans. They view them as proponents of things they don’t like such as bailouts, globalism, and amnesty.
And establishment Republicans obviously don’t like Trump and Trumpie candidates, even if only for stylistic reasons.
Below is a full transcript of Trump’s speech, which started with a new video, combining Sean Hannity‘s voice speaking over clips of Biden’s Thursday speech.
A man waves an American flag depicting former President Donald Trump outside the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Saturday ahead of the campaign rally where Trump will support candidates Dr. Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano.SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES
Full text of former President Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania speech
Well thank you very much and hello, Pennsylvania. Hi.
I’m thrilled to be back in this incredible Commonwealth with the thousands of proud hardworking American patriots that I have gotten to know so well.
Two months from now, the people of Pennsylvania going to fire the radical left Democrats and you are going to elect, Doug Mastriano is your next governor.
You’re going to send my friend Oz, Oz is a great guy, to the U.S. Senate. you’re going to elect an amazing slate of true America First Republicans to Congress. We are going to end the Nancy Pelosipolitical career, the Biden political career.
Our country is going to hell.
This election is a referendum on skyrocketing inflation, ramping crime, soaring murders, crushing gas prices, millions and millions of illegal aliens pouring across our border, race and gender indoctrination, converting our schools and above all this election is a referendum on the corruption and extremism of Joe Biden and the radical Democrat party.
If you want to stop this destruction of America, you must vote Republican you gotta get out
As you know this week Joe Biden came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to give the most vicious, hateful and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president, vilifying 75 million citizens, plus another probably 75 to 150.
If we want to be accurate about it, As threats to democracy and as enemies of the state, you’re all enemies of the state. He’s an enemy of the state, you know that? The enemy of the state is him and the group that control him, which is circling around him, ‘Do this. do that Joe, you’re going to do this Joe.”
Right. I think Philadelphia was a great choice to make this speech of hatred and anger. His speech was hatred and anger. By the way, the next morning he forgot what he said, you saw that.
I do like the red lighting behind him, like the devil.
But Philadelphia was a great choice because the city is being devastated under Democrat rules. Devastated. He could tell you, we love Pennsylvania. I went to school in Philadelphia, what’s happening to Philadelphia?
Fourteen people were shot last weekend in Philadelphia, 14, and the fake news will—God, that’s a lot of fake news lately. A lot of fake news.
Well, they’ll go out and check the facts for people were killed last weekend. At one point last month, seven people were shot in the span of just 71 minutes, in Philadelphia this year. Philadelphia has already seen more than 1,400 people shot including numerous beautiful little children.
Last year, the city set an all time murder record with 560 homicides, and it’s on track to shatter that record. Again in 2022 numbers that nobody’s ever seen other than some other Democrat-run cities. Armed robberies in Philadelphia are up 62 percent. Doug, you have to take care of this. You have to take care of it, and we’ll send you the goods, I’ll send him the goods. You know what the goods are: lots of police officers. That’s what the goods are.
Retail theft is up 59 percent from last year.
There have been more than 750 carjackings this year. Anybody have a nice car, because you’re not gonna have it long. More than triple the average for 2010 to 2019. And it’s heading way up heading up in other cities that are run by Democrats also.
Instead of trying to demonize half of the population, Biden and congressional Democrats should focus on stopping the killing and the bloodshed in Philadelphia and every other Democrat-run city in America where record death and destruction is taking place every single day.
Biden thinks making America great again is bad for our country. Do you believe it? That was in his—Biden says “We got to stop MAGA.” That’s when I defined it, because I don’t think he knows what it meant. It means “make America great again.” We have to stop it. Stop MAGA. Stop making America great again.
He thinks making America great again is a threat to our country. No, making America great again is great for our country.
There’s only one party that’s waging war in American democracy by censoring free speech, criminalizing dissent. You see that happening? Disarming law-abiding citizens, issuing lawless mandates and unconstitutional orders, imprisoning political protesters. That’s what they’re doing, rigging elections. weaponizing the Justice Department and the FBI like never ever before. And raiding and breaking into the homes of their political opponents. I wonder who that could be.
Republicans in the MAGA movement are not the ones trying to undermine our democracy. We are the ones trying to save our democracy very simple. The danger to democracy comes from the radical left, not from the right. Not from the right.
This November, we’re going to stand up to this rising tyranny of sickness, lawlessness And death. And we are going to take back our country. We’re going to take it.
There could be no more vivid example of the very real threats from American freedom. And just a few weeks ago, you saw when we witnessed one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history, the shameful raid and breaking into my home Mar-a-Lago was a travesty of justice.
That made a mockery of America’s laws, traditions and principles. Before the entire world the entire world was watching and they’re shocked. They’re shocked. South American countries, numerous of them, their leaders said could you imagine if that was ever done in our country? What the United States would be saying about us. The Biden administration invaded the home of their chief political opponent who is absolutely destroying him and everyone else in the polls. I hate to say it.
Even including the Republicans, but we love the Republicans, on a phony pretext getting permission from a highly political magistrate who they hand-picked late in the evening, just days before the break-in. And trampled upon my rights and civil liberties as if our country, that we love so much. We’re a third world nation. We’re like a third world nation.
They rifled through the First Lady’s closet drawers and everything else, and even did a deep and ugly search of the room of my 16-year-old son, leaving everything they touched in far different conditions than it was when they started. Can you believe it?
The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters. controlled by radical left scoundrels lawyers and the media who tell them what to do—you people right there—and when to do it.
They’re trying to silence me and more importantly, they are trying to silence you. But we will not be silenced, right. We will never stop speaking the truth. We have no choice because we’re not going to have a country love. The evil and malice of this demented persecution of you and me should be obvious to all entities.
Thank you. That yet, now, the same people, the exact same people are sending the FBI storming through the home of their number one political rival. It’s a disgrace, a disgrace, like possibly never before. Our country has never seen anything like it. They talked about documents not being properly stored. Yet they go in and take documents, dump them on the floor, stage a photoshoot, and pretend that I had done it like I had put them all over the floor.
They took that back. After a lot of product then they put out for public consumption, a picture which is seen all over the world. this is what they do. it’s called disinformation. These are very dishonest, sick people. Very dishonest people.
Americans are sick of the lies sick of the hoaxes and scams, and above all sick of the hypocrisy. But our opponents have badly miscalculated. This egregious abuse of the law is going to produce a backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen before.
Before our very eyes, our beloved country is being taken over by the very people who turned democracies into dictatorships and into ultimately, ruination. They think they can divide us but they can’t. Can’t divide us.
The MAGA movement is the greatest in the history of our country. And maybe in the history of the world, maybe in the history of the world.
In any event, we have no choice. We are trying to save our country because such bad things are happening to our beautiful, beloved America. We will make America great again. I will never turn my back on you.
And you will never turn your back on me because we love our nation. And we will save our nation from people who are trying to destroy it. It was not just my home that was rated last month. It was the hopes and dreams of every citizen who I’ve been fighting for since the moment I came down the golden escalator in 2015, wanting to represent the people. Wanting to stop the massive corruption in our country and determined to finally in this world, put America first. I want to put America first and we did.
We did.
There’s never been a period of time, both before COVID—or the China virus as we say—and after COVID. From that moment on, I became the enemy of the Washington swamp for six years. The radical Democrat party, the RINOs, the media and the Deep State have tried relentlessly to stop me and you.
First they fabricated the Russia Russia Russia scam you so it was a total fabrication. Now they all admit it. Then we had impeachment hoax number one, impeachment hoax number two, and now the same exact people at Justice and the FBI, the same people along with outside scum, are at it again with the horrific raid of my home.
They just go on and on. And they have to be stopped. We have to spend time on our country, not on defending ourselves against scams.
Think about it, about Russia and the Muller—no collusion, right? Came in no collusion. That was your decision after two and a half years, no collusion. I could have told them that after the first hour. And they could have said that because they had the laptop from hell, which had everything, so they knew immediately.
But it went on—but think of this, you know what, I tell this story on occasion very seldom because it’s too sad to tell. But I tell this story because it’s very important. Russia Russia Russia was a hoax. It was developed by Hillary Clinton and a group of people. Small group around the kitchen table, as a way of explaining why she lost an election that a lot of people thought she would win because the Democrats have an advantage in elections. Because of a lot of things, aside from the fact they cheat like hell.
So when they lost, Hillary Clinton and her people, guys like Adam “Shifty” Schiff , watermelon head. Watermelon Head, he’s a watermelon head, but no dummy.
Think of this, think how bad they are, think how evil they are. We’re all fathers and your mothers and your children are great people, and all of the people are represented here—think how bad they are. They make up a story that’s false. It’s now been admitted to be false. The FBI is the last one to tell us that. But it’s now admitted even in the newspapers, even by the people back there, they will not fight it. They make up now think of this or think of this.
So they make up a story about Russia. Let’s say, you know, I was tougher on Russia than any president before. I’m the one that stopped Nord Stream II, the pipeline. I’m the one that did the big sanctions.
And I guarantee you one thing, Putin was not going into Ukraine. I guarantee you that. I guarantee you, nobody was tougher than me, but I also got along with them. That’s a good thing. You know, getting along with other countries. It’s a good thing. Not a bad thing, but think of it. So they make up a story, Russia, Russia. Russia. It was made up so that when they launched, they could say it was Russia.
I’m saying, what the hell did Russia have to deal with? It was Russia. Okay, so Adam Schiff knows it’s a fake story. He made it up with other people. They know it’s a fake and I see Adam Schiff go solemnly to the microphones in the Capitol building, And stand. They’re so sad and say, “Donald Trump Jr. will be going to prison because of what he did with Russia.” Now think of it, he knows the story is a scam. He knows the story’s a fake.
And he wants my son, who’s a good kid, he wants my son to go to prison over something that they made up, that they know is a phony story, and has now been, as they say, fully debunked.
In other words, it was a total lie, and he’s standing before microphones with many of those people standing there and they can’t get enough, saying that my son is going to prison. And I then call my son I say, “Donnie, you okay, what’s going on? What’s going on?”
Think of this. If you’re a parent, think of it. My son’s going to prison on something that they made, which is a total hoax. These are bad people. They’re trying to destroy our country, and we can’t let it go on. Any longer because we have too much work to do.
Whether through activist Attorney Generals, the state attorney generals. If I fly over a state, they send me before a grand jury. “Trump is up there. Let’s see what can we do with the grand jury?”
I’ve been going through this for six years now. Local Democrats and county prosecutors, congressional committees or federal agencies, the radical Democrats are engaging in a desperate attempt to keep me from returning to the White House where they know I will clean this mess up again.
They want to stop us from completing our mission to bring back American values. Secure America’s borders, millions and millions of people are pouring into our country. Nobody has any idea where they’re from. Last month, 129 countries were represented. They’re emptying their prisons into the United States of America
They know we’ll continue to fix America’s trade deals. Continue to lower taxes. Nobody gave tax decreases like Trump, bigger than the Reagan cuts. And lower regulations created all of those jobs, defend and protect our police and our military. We have to protect our police. You know, our police want to protect us. They’re stymied from doing it.
We have to protect our police.
No, we’re going to reclaim our energy independence. We’re going to save our Second Amendment which is under siege.
We’ll build our manufacturing base, just like I was doing. In other words, they know that we’re going to make America great again. You know, we had a different saying because after we did so well we were all set. And we had a statement remember Keep America Great. But after they destroyed it, I’d love to use it. But I must say there’s nothing like MAGA.
I don’t know. I don’t know KAG. KAG wasn’t the same. Keep America Great. The problem I had though wasn’t the fact that KAG can’t compete with MAGA, the real problem I had that.
We can’t use the word Keep America Great because they’ve destroyed our country. So we can’t keep it great because it’s not great. Right now. Our country is a laughingstock. Our leaders are a laughingstock.
You know, we just sent another $13 billion to Ukraine, that gets us close to $80 billion now. Well, it angers me more for a different reason. It would have never happened before, Putin really wouldn’t have done it. Said “Vladimir, you’re not gonna do that, Vladimir.”
He knew that. He knew it. He knew it. But he did it soon as the election was rigged and it was considered over. I don’t know if it’s ever going to end, if you look at what’s going on, because more and more facts are coming out, like the FBI with Facebook the other day can you believe but you know what?
Our country, it would have been so inappropriate to say Keep America Great, because who the hell wants to keep our country the way it is right now? I don’t know.
But together, we have easily beaten every single witch hunt in the past think of that—the time and the money and the effort it takes. And now we will likewise do that in the future if they continue their craziness, and if they don’t stop they don’t stop that’s all they’re good at is disinformation, they put out disinformation.
You know, when I heard about Russia was right after I came down that beautiful golden escalator.
First lady, I said “you’ll be a great first lady.” She has been a great first lady. Great first lady. They love our first lady.
But people would come up to me, this was right at the beginning. Right after the escalator ride, but people have shared, “you know anything about Russia?”
Young guys come up, beautiful, staffers, there a lot of them here right now and here all over the place. That just came up to me. You won Pennsylvania by a lot, sir. That’s right. You’re right about that. I think at nine o’clock in the evening, we went 950,000 votes up with 73 percent of the vote cast. All of a sudden, around 3:02 or something, the equipment closed down. It all closed down. And then you had that massive spike. Remember the spike that went to heaven and came back? It should have gone to hell and come back.
And all of a sudden we were tied and then all of a sudden, we lost by a whisper. A rigged election. But the people would come upm some of them are here, “Sir, sir. It’s such an honor to meet you, sir. Sir. Can I ask you a question? You know, what is it? What do you think about Russia?”
No, not really, but I know probably less than you know. But I have a lot of common sense and I know how to defend our country and I’ll end up being friendly with them and will do just fine.
Then a month later another one came up. “Hello, Uncle Sam. Look, send up Uncle Sam.” Great people, great people.
And a month later, another young person came up. A little naive, and said, it was really, actually, was cute. He said, “Oh sir, it’s such an honor to go for a couple of minutes.” He said, “Sir, can I ask you one question has been bothering me.” Yeah, what is it? “Do you, what do you think about Russia?”
And then again and again, then after about five or six times you’re gonna think about Russia. When I looked at my people, my help people that are a little older. I said, “What the hell is going on with Russia?”
This is all I knew what was going on. It was a scam. And we took two and a half years to win. But all of that time and effort and money and the corruption and the people that were in charge of that scam are horrible, and they’re the same people that we have now. They never leave. They never leave. And if we would have had an attorney general with courage, instead of somebody that was afraid to be impeached, so I don’t want to be—we would have gotten to the bottom of the very quickly.
We’ve been waiting for Durham for a long time, Durham, please come in and give us your work, please. You’re up, Durham. We gotta get Durham going here.
But this battle is not about me. This is a struggle for the very fate of our republic. Our movement is fighting against a corrupt group of unelected tyrants who believe they can wield absolute power over you, with the help of a willing and very corrupt media.
They think the deep state, not the citizens should be the true masters of this country.
On our watch, we will never let that happen. And we will never let it happen, even though we’re going to be gone. We’re going to set this country up so strong and so powerfully that we may not be here, at least some of the older ones—that I love you all, but we’re going to have the country set up properly. Like it was before the COVID came in, before the China dust came in.
And even after we handed it off where we had a higher stock market, because we did it twice. We had a higher stock market on January 20 than we did—think of it—the so-called handoff. I hate to even use the term it’s so ridiculous. It’s so ridiculous. I have to use that term. But the handoff, we handed it off, the market was higher than it was just prior to COVID coming into our country. We did an incredible job, an incredible job.
But we have no choice in 2022 and 2024. We have to smash the grip of his vile and vindictive political class. We have to clean house in Washington, D.C. and we have to restore government for the people.
If we do not, our republic and, indeed, our country will be destroyed and we will never be able to do what is called a comeback. You won’t be able to do it. It’ll never come back again.
It’s so fragile, you know, it’s so fragile. You will never bring it back again. You remember in the campaign, I used to say if these people get in we’re going to end up with Venezuela on steroids. I said it many many times. I never thought it was much of a possibility. But I never knew people could cheat like that. Not like last week. Weirdo. He’s a weirdo.
Mark Zuckerberg came to the White House, kissed my ass all night. “Sir, I’d love to have dinner, sir. I’d love to have dinner. I’d love to bring my lovely wife.” All right, Mark, come on in. “Sir, you’re number one on Facebook. I’d like to congratulate you.” Thank you very much, Mark. I appreciate it.
Well, Mark Zuckerberg confessed that in 2020, the FBI went to Facebook and the media and gave them the false narratives that the Hunter Biden laptop from Hell was Russian disinformation, even though they knew that was not true. So they went in they said it was Russian disinformation, by the way. The guy that came in with that stuff just got fired. He perp-walked, he was perp-walked out of the FBI on Friday.
But that doesn’t help us, and the election of 2020, that doesn’t help us. They perp-walked him because of all the things he did. So many more than what we’re even talking about. The FBI made it clear that they did not want the truth about the criminality and influence peddling of the Biden family coming out before the election, because that would hurt the chances of Joe Biden who virtually never left his basement winning the election.
You know, he came to Philadelphia, as you know, you know many people they had almost nobody showed up. And we have a lot of people. A lot of people, and we’re not even talking about all the people outside that couldn’t get in, because you have better real estate, right? We got a lot of people outside watching. I hope they’re watching the big screens we put up outside.
You know this place? I think it holds 12,000 people. So we sold out in about 15 seconds and I said what are we going to do? For the people that can’t get in? That’s why a lot of times, I like fields because fields, you could just keep having them. In Alabama, we had 66,000 people. Figure this: Outside of Houston, Texas, we had 89,000 people show up.
But what the FBI did was corruption and election interference on a scale that we have never seen before in our country. According to pollsters, it made a 10 to 20 point difference, not even including all of the other totally determinative evidence of illegality that was found having to do with the 2020 presidential election scam, including ballot stuffing and not adhering to the laws, rules and regulations of state legislatures, which is totally illegal. They just did whatever they wanted to do. And frankly, Republicans locally that ran things in a lot of states—should be ashamed of themselves.
Should be ashamed of yourself. And a guy like Mitch McConnell, who allowed this stuff to happen, should be ashamed. You should be ashamed. The 2020 election was rigged, and now our country is being destroyed by people who got into office through cheating and through fraud.
Now watch, the cameras will all turn off as soon as I say that because they’re not allowed to put the cameras. They’ll all turn off. They don’t want to hear that. They don’t want to hear that. You know why?
But Republican leadership just doesn’t fight because in many cases, they are intimidated. They’re afraid they’re actually afraid, Republicans must get tougher and stronger and fast.
The way I’ll tell you a guy that fought back that’s why he’s here. Today is your nominee. Doug Mastriano. He fought, he fought, but he was dealing with RINOs, all such crap.
Doug, you fought like very few people fought, that’s really why he’s here, because everybody saw that. He fought. You know, after people figured it out. They all ran on the basis of “we’re gonna stop” but they were not there. He was there at the beginning. And the people understood it.
So the big deal—by the way, I saw a poll today, Doug, that you’re tied or up one point. Just so you know, again, all they do well is cheat on elections and use this information. So when he’s running, he’s got a big base, and he won by a lot. He won by even more when I endorsed him, but that’s okay. And you know what?
They said this guy Shapiro, who’s a lightweight, they said the following. They saw he was going to win, he was doing well, he was way up and he had a big base and they don’t like that. So what do they do? “The one we really want to run against is Doug Mastriano. That’s the one.”
Well, they say that one every time, they have somebody that’s going to kick their ass, they go out and they say, “go on, we want to run again.” The one person they didn’t want to run against is Doug Mastriano. This information I kept hearing it, I’d be out I see the people going crazy for Doug, for his incredible wife but it’s true.
He was right there from the beginning, day one, got to fight the Republicans and the Democrats, yet to fight people. American elections should be determined only by the American people. And that did not happen in 2020. and I’m just talking to FBI but there are many, many other things. We won’t go into it.
The Mar-a-Lago raid was a desperate effort to distract from Joe Biden’s record of misery and failure. The many disasters that our country in the world are now suffering would never ever have happened. If I was in the White House, you all know that all of this stuff when you could take the five worst presidents in American history and put them together, and they would not have done the damage Joe Biden has done to our country in less than two years. They could not have done it.
Two years ago when I was in office, gas was $1.87.
We weren’t talking about going to all electric cars which are twice as expensive. I mean, the problem is—a friend of mine wanted to do something for the environment. He went out and bought a electric car and he made a certain trip. I won’t say from where—Kentucky—I won’t say from, and he’s a good person. He wants to do what’s well, now he understands. Not so good.
And he bought an electric car and he made the trip often from Kentucky to Washington, and he made it and he drove down and put the car away and drive back. He was getting like 38 miles a gallon and he was fine. And then he goes to hybrids and all the other things they can do.
But he wanted to go all-electric, because he wants to save our country, wants to save the atmosphere. And he called me, he said “I’m exhausted.” Why? He said, “This damn trip took me forever. I drive for two hours, and then I’d have to have my car charged. And in two cases I couldn’t find a place to charge it, but even if I could, it took me more time to charge the damn car than I could spend in it driving.”
He said, “It took me two and a half times. Please Please let’s get rid of this stuff. Please.” And you see in California, you see what’s happening there, with going all electric cars. Number one, people can’t afford them. Number two, the batteries are made all in China, all the earth, the rare earth comes out of China.
And interesting. We have all the guests, and the guests to leave the gasoline, when it’s refined. We have it all right under us, we don’t have any of the other stuff. And if we did, our environmentalists wouldn’t let us take it. It all comes out of China and a little bit in the Congo, guess who controls the Congo, China.
We play right into their hands you see where I’m getting a lot of great press because I told Germany, don’t make a deal with Russia on the pipeline. And they said, “Oh, that’s so funny.” I actually didn’t during the meeting, G7, I sent, Angela, Angela Merkel, a white flag of surrender. She said, “Donald, Donald, but why’d you send me this white flag?”
I said, “Angela, you’re going to surrender, 75 percent of your energy is coming from Russia. If you look back over the decades, Russia and Germany haven’t done too well together. When there’s a war, when there’s a problem, they’ll just turn it off, Nord Stream II, and Angela, you’re not going to be able to defend yourself.” “Oh, that will never happen.”
Well, that was about two years ago. The only thing, I never thought it was gonna happen this fast. And now they’re giving me great—remember, I made the speech at the United Nations. And the German delegation was all smiling. They thought it was so funny. They’re not smiling. No one said it better than me. They’re not smiling.
But now gas is $5 and $6 and $7. And it’s going to be going up. Think of it, and they brag because it came down slightly. You know, it came down about 42 cents.
We actually had it down to $1.42. Remember that? But I had to get it a little up. We had to let the oil companies make a couple of bucks. I didn’t want to wipe out the oil companies.
But what’s happened is one of the big reasons for inflation is what this guy has done with energy, because energy is so all-encompassing. It’s so big. With the help of Pennsylvania energy workers. Did you get screwed or what? Remember, I told you they were gonna do this to you. He lied during the debate. He said, “No, no, I would never do that.” The first thing he did practically was kill the pipeline. Right? That was like the first thing he did.
And you know, all those workers voted for me, but the head of the Union voted. I wonder if he’s still the head, check it out. He ought to be fired real fast. The Keystone pipeline would have been great. A lot of jobs, would have done a good job, with the help of Pennsylvania energy workers, under my leadership. We had American energy independence for the first time ever, ever.
And within a short period of time, we would have been energy-dominant. We would have been bigger that Russia and Saudi Arabia combined, times two, and now we’re beggars.
We’re like a beggar nation. You think that, we’re energy beggars, we would have been bigger than everybody combined. The two biggest, the biggest energy suppliers combined times two. We’re going to be energy-dominant and figures we gave you the largest tax cuts and regulation cuts in American history. The radical Democrat Congress just passed one of the largest tax hikes in American history, pulverizing the middle class and now you have the privilege of having 87,000 IRS agents go after you. And they’ve actually been approved. I’d never heard of this one. They got approved to carry guns so they can go after you with guns. You know, they don’t want to have guns but it’s okay for the IRS. It’s like an army.
Can you imagine that that was approved? That they allowed that to get through?
And all Mitch McConnell had to do is waive that debt ceiling. I’m not approving anything having to do with debt ceiling, unless you drop all this crap, $4 trillion. Because McConnell folded like a dog, you saw that, and I always said he would, I told you he will, he did. And West Virginia which voted for me—45 points I was up 45 points—West Virginia is not happy with Joe Manchin, because he killed coal, and they put taxes on coal. Clean beautiful coal, he killed it. I can’t imagine he’s going to do well. I don’t know—well, the heck to him.
Under the Trump administration, we had the greatest economy in the history of the world with no inflation. Biden and the Democrat Congress created the worst inflation in 50 years, 9.1 percent. It is gonna go a lot higher. And now they are making it worse with their immoral plan to wipe out hundreds of billions of dollars of debt for college graduates. Now think of this. How unfair is it, how unfair is it all of those, people, many of you are here, that paid and worked so hard. I saw they were doing a story about Pocahontas. That’s Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts.
And this big strong guy came up, a really good looking guy. And he looks at he goes, “Hey, well, what’s going on with this debt? You want to cancel the debt? I’ve been working my ass off for 12 years,” he said, “and I’ve almost got my daughter’s debt paid off. I worked weekends for 12 years. My neighbor, he’s my friend but he hasn’t worked at all. And now his debts could have been canceled, but I worked. This is unfair.”
And then he was not doing nice after that. So we’ll forget what he said, that he was not too happy. But you can multiply that times millions and millions of people. They paid for it on the backs of hardworking citizens and they’re raising your taxes. Remember this, you don’t realize it, you’re getting the biggest tax increase in history. So all this information, they’re saying under, under 400,000, You’re getting the biggest tax increase in the history of our country. So enjoy paying it.
And you know what? It’s paying for things like that, but the “Green New Deal,” which is like taking the money and throwing it out the window, and it’s actually worse. It’s actually like taking the money and destroying our country. Because it sets us back. Just like Germany, you know, Germany’s back to building and opening its plants because they got so screwed up with a green new energy.
They got carried away, windmills all over the place, killing all the birds, destroying all the values of homes, destroying the planes and fields, beautiful planes. If you want to see a dead bird cemetery, go under a windmill sometime. It’s not a pretty sight. It’s also the single most expensive form of energy you can get. And all of those big giant turbines are built in China and Germany to a lesser extent.
I rebuilt our military including our nuclear capability and hope to God we never have to use it. And the creation of the Space Force. See what they’re doing with Iran. Iran was dying to make a deal with them, without a deal done, within one week after the election. And now we’re going to pay them hundreds of billions of dollars and they’re gonna have nuclear weapons within a short period of time.
These people are crazy, this figure. I mean, they honestly, they can’t be stupid. They must hate our country. They must hate our country. They surrendered our strength and our wisdom, our everything. They turned Afghanistan into the greatest humiliation our country has ever seen. I believe it was the most humiliating thing, time that our country’s ever gone through.
Thirteen dead soldiers, but they never mentioned those soldiers who lost their legs and arms and face. They were obliterated. Nobody talks about them and there were many. Nobody talks about them. We left American citizens behind. And we left $85 billion worth of the best military equipment in the entire world, planes and tanks and goggles 700,000 rifles and AK-47s.
We left it all behind, figure this, 70,000 vehicles is not a used car lot in the country that has probably 500 vehicles, 70,000 vehicles we left behind. Some of those vehicles cost millions of dollars because they’re armor-plated with six inches of steel. We left it all behind. I built much of it. Because I rebuilt our entire military, think of it, $85 billion worth of military equipment. And you know, I saw a number the other day, the second largest arms dealer in the entire world is Afghanistan.
Because they’re selling their cars. They don’t need 700,000 rifles and guns—700,000—they need 40,000 or 20,000. What were we thinking? You don’t take the military out first. And remember this, in Afghanistan 18 months, we didn’t lose one soldier. You heard the numbers’ Philadelphia, 18 months.
I spoke to Abdul, I said, Abdul don’t do that. Don’t do that. “Why sir. Why do you send me a picture of my house?” I said Abdul, That’s a different story. Don’t go and we were fine. Remember, they said, why is he speaking to the Taliban? Because that’s where the problem was, right. That’s where the problem was.
Eighteen months and Biden, actually a couple of months ago, well, I’ll say one thing. We didn’t lose one soldier in 18 months and they’re screaming at him. You don’t take it back. You’re not supposed to say that, because it’s good. We didn’t lose a soldier in 18 months. They were so afraid. They didn’t want anything. We could have gotten out, I want to get out more than anybody. I’m the one that got it down to 2,000.
But also, we should have kept Bagram because if China—Bagram Airbase costs billions and billions of dollars, years ago, to build. It’s one hour, a day from where China makes its nuclear weapons. We should have never left without keeping Bagram. What a shame.
The most humiliating time I believe, actually, that probably, Putin went in because when he saw the incompetence of that, he said, “This is going to be easier than I thought.” And now we have a war between Russia and Ukraine with potentially hundreds of thousands, and even millions of people, are going to die. That would have never happened if I was your president. Would have never happened. I promise you.
Vladimir, you can’t do that.
Those beautiful golden terrorists in Moscow, Vladimir, I want to leave them alone. Please. You can’t do it, Vladimir. He would never have done it. He would never have done it.
He said “Why should I believe you? You did kill me on Nord Stream.” Nobody thought that was possible. I ended Nord—can you imagine? Biden came in and he opened up the pipeline. I ended it. Then he says, “Oh, Trump was soft on Russia.” I was soft.
The only one that doesn’t think that is Putin. He didn’t think I was too soft with the sanctions. But think of it, the biggest deal they’ve ever done is Nord, that nobody ever heard of until I came along. They were building this massive pipeline. Nobody ever heard of Nord Stream II till I came along.
We created the border in United States history. We ended catch and release, we deported record numbers of illegal aliens, gang members, and we built hundreds and hundreds of miles of border wall. In two and a half years of Democrat-inspired losses, we’re delivered lawsuits. I want every one of them, look, two and a half years that went. And you know, we completely finished our original plan for the wall and they came to me for some other sections. They said, “Let’s do it. Come on. Let’s go fast.” Then we added much more wall, 200 miles, and we almost got that finished on top of what we did. And I figured that this guy would finish it up. And he didn’t!
Not only didn’t finish when Texas wanted to use the stuff that was sitting there ready to be erected, it was going to be erected very quickly. Very quickly. very effectively. Great, great wall. It’s actually what Border Patrol wanted. I said what do you want? This is exactly what, steel. They wanted concrete. They wanted rebar, heavy set rebar. They wanted exactly that, and they have to be able to see through, so we see what’s happening on the other side.
I want to just give a nice big beautiful concrete plank but they didn’t want that. So we gave them exactly what they wanted. And this could have been finished in a few weeks. And not only didn’t they give this free to Texas, Texas could have put it up. They actually took it away, and put it in a secure area. And nobody can take it. That’s just a terrible thing. Three weeks was all it would have taken to complete the job.
Our country is paying a terrible price for the rigged election. I ran twice. I won twice and did much better the second time than I did the first, getting millions and millions more votes in 2020 than we got in 2016.
Doug knows that we got millions of more votes. I tell people, yeah. Oh, what a great job you did. I was being interviewed by this fake news reporter. And he said what happened in 2020? I said, Well, we did much better actually. We got New Orleans, more votes, we get the largest number of votes of any sitting president in history. They said, “You know, I never thought of it that way.” I said why don’t you start thinking about that way. Got a rigged election. And likewise getting more votes than, think of it, there has never been a person as the sitting president got anywhere near. I think we got like 10 million more votes than Obama. You know, so popular.
He’s so popular. They say he’s so handsome. Oh, Obama is such a great speaker. What does he say? He says nothing. And we’re leading Biden, and everyone else including the Republicans, by record numbers in the polls. So I may just have to do it again. You’ll be starting to have to do it again. Do it again. Have to do it again.
But first, we have to win a historic victory for the Republican Party this November.
Among our highest priorities must be to end the nightmare Joe Biden and congressional Democrats have created on our southern border, that nightmare.
Remember this, we had the strongest, best border we ever had two years ago. Now we have the worst border. I believe it’s worse than any border anywhere in the world. Because no country would let people come into the country the way we have. Right here in Pennsylvania, last year two illegal alien criminals allegedly brutalized and bludgeoned women to death. On a busy street corner in Chester County and illegal alien stands accused of grabbing a 33 year old woman by the hair, pulling her down and around the ground and stabbing her to death in front of her 7-year-old daughter.
Just a few weeks ago, an illegal alien murderer was charged with shooting to death a 76-year-old man from Pennsylvania. He took a walk every morning and this guy killed him for no reason whatsoever. He didn’t know, he didn’t know him, didn’t do anything. Just wanted to kill him.
The radical Democrat Congresses turned our country into one giant sanctuary for serious criminal aliens. We protect all of the criminals, we don’t protect our own people. In fact, they raid our people. And the Republican Party. We believe our country should be a sanctuary for law abiding citizens who love America. If we’re going to make America great again, our first pass is to make America safe again. We have to have a safe country.
You know, I told you before, I love the fields, but I like these better because of the air conditioning system, but that conditioning is not working too well. It’s about 100 degrees up here. I’m sweating like a dog but I’m cold. Dr. Oz? Dr. Oz.? Am I okay Doctor? Am I okay? He says yes. I was in Arizona for his show years ago and Dr. Oz, in a second, but I was at a show years ago and he did like an examination of me—I don’t know what the hell they did the show for, I wasn’t like even a politician at that. But he did an examination, and the word he said is extremely healthy. Very, very fine, fit man but he should lose 20 or 25 pounds. I was so angry. I didn’t speak to him. He said he was great but he could lose a couple of pounds.
He’s great. He’s gonna be great.
Under a Democrat, all the streets of our great cities are drenched in the blood of innocent victims. Much of this crime is caused by drug dealers, who during the course of their lives will kill an average of 500 a month. Citizens, every drug dealer is responsible. And that doesn’t include what they’ve done to families of people that haven’t died, but families that are just devastated by what happened to their children and to themselves. Think of it, 500 people the average drug dealer kills. I’m calling for the death penalty for drug dealers which will upon stashes reduce drug distribution in our country on day one by 75 percent.
No more blue ribbon committees. What to do, you know, I was setting them up in the White House, is a blue ribbon committee headed by socialites, and they just want—I mean, look, they’re very nice people, but they just want a little publicity for themselves. They can’t deal with the kind of killers that would—We want the death penalty for drug dealers, and you will save millions of lives. You know, we’re gonna lose 250,000 people I think this year, you know, just to go off for a second. Does anybody mind that? I do that.
Is there any perfect place to be on a beautiful Saturday evening than a Trump rally?
But just to go for a second. So you know, I got to know a lot of the foreign leaders and let me tell you, unlike our leader, they’re at the top of their game. There’s no one in like Central Casting that could play the role in Hollywood, all of Hollywood. Nobody can play the role of President Xi of China. Nobody could play the role. He’s a fierce person. Putin, fierce, is smart. You know, a lot of times I’ll say somebody’s smart, and the fake news go, he thought President Xi smart.
He rules with an iron fist 1.5 billion people. Yeah, I’d say he’s smart, wouldn’t you say he’s smart? So I’m with President Xi. And I got along with him to work. I mean, once COVID is yourself, but we made a great trade deal with him, helped our farmers, helped our manufacturers, but I’m with him. And I really had a great relationship with him. And then I asked him a question I said, “President,” he’s president for life, by the way, like thinking as a king. He said, “but I am not a king.” I said, “You are to me, you’re president for life. It’s the same.”
You will be very soon, you know that—another thing by the way. Do you notice a lot of ships are circling Taiwan. That wouldn’t have happened either, by the way. But I said, “President could I ask you a very simple question. Do you have a drug problem?” He looked at me like, what’s wrong with that? “No, of course not.” He goes, “No, no.” He’s like, “What the hell of a stupid question it is. No.”
I said you don’t have a drug problem with 1.5 million people. His big problems, they make the drugs, he sent them into our country. That’s their problem. That would have been their problem and he was stopping it too. But now they’re sending the fentanyl in numbers that you wouldn’t believe, wouldn’t believe it, pouring through that portal. At numbers you wouldn’t believe, I had him very close to stopped. He couldn’t do it. “So President, President, you don’t have a drug problem, but why? But why don’t you have a drug problem?”
“We have quick trial. It’s a what is it quick. We immediately catch the drug dealer. We give him quick trial. And if he is guilty, which I would say probably,” Would you say, Oz, would you say they’re getting 100 percent? Or only 99?
“If the drug dealer is guilty, he is immediately executed. So we have no drug problem.” And they have other countries like that to Singapore, other countries. And if you do that, you know, I’m told this and it’s a hard thing to say, because calling for the death penalty stuff, but think of it.
They kill 500 people during a lot of time, and I think it’s much worse than that. I think that’s only what we hear about who would stop it. If you didn’t get it down, 75 percent. Person said from day one, I’d be surprised and these committees that they set up, it’s laughable, it’s a horrible thing. We would solve that problem so fast and I’m calling on Republicans and Democrats immediately to institute to get to 10, and institute the death penalty for drug dealers. You will no longer have a problem.
Philadelphia has become, as you heard many times over the last short period of time, worse than it’s ever been. It’s become a killing field a few days ago. A 4-year-old boy was shot while getting a haircut. For his first day in school. His mother was so proud of him, is getting a hug. He was shot.
Recently, a mother was shot in the head and horribly murdered, her unborn baby was miraculously saved. Under a Republican Congress. We should pass emergency funding to hire thousands and thousands more police officers nationwide to put violent criminals behind bars and keep them behind bars and also leave our police alone to do their job.
Give them back the respect, they know what to do and nobody can do it better but they’re under siege. They don’t want to lose their house. They don’t want to lose their families. What they do to police officers. What they do to police. You’re always gonna have some bad apples, but they’re very few and we have a country that’s become one of the most unsafe countries in the world.
Think of it, you’re gonna deal with third world nations where they’re much safer than many parts. Think of it. what I said in Afghanistan, we didn’t lose one soldier in 18 months. And yet I just read off numbers in Philadelphia. If you look at Atlanta, I have a district attorney in Atlanta, she’s asking for a perfect phone call. And yet, it’s even worse proportionately than Chicago for killing.
But the district attorney, Trump made a phone call, because he was challenging the election. So they’re after me for perfect—by the way, perfect for you. Be very proud of me. Just like the call to Ukraine was a perfect call. The one in Atlanta was a perfect, perfect call and yet Atlanta is even worse than Chicago. Proportionately restoring safety. Market starts with defeating the Democratic stream. It’s right here in Pennsylvania, your state’s radical Democrat candidate for Senate. John Fetterman is the most dangerous Democrat.
He’s the most dangerous Democrat.
He came to join Congress this year and one of the most fringe far-left freak shows ever to seek election for any offense, at any stage and I’ve watched them over the last couple of years. And I said, “You gotta be kidding.”
Actually I saw Conor Lamb, I don’t know, kind of be a decent politician, you know he can’t pay into the sort of middle Democrat area and he was doing commercials that was so good for me, they people thought that he was a Republican. I like Conor Lamb.
But Fetterman got it. He got it in a landslide. And this guy is a disaster. He comes in with a sweat suit on, I’ve never seen him wear a suit. A dirty dirty, dirty sweat suit. It’s really disgusting. You know, I’m a clean freak. I’m a clean freak, Oz, I don’t like those dirty sweat suits that disgusting.
Fetterman may dress like a teenager getting high in his parents basement. But he’s a raging lunatic, hell bent on springing hardened criminals out of jail in the middle of the worst crime wave in Pennsylvania history. He wants everybody out of jail.
And, by the way, he wants to get rid of the police. Fetterman is a defund the police Marxist who’s just pulling the wool over people’s eyes, who literally said that if he had a magic wand and could fix one thing, he would end life sentences without parole for murderers, cop killers, rapists and other monsters. Criminals. That’s what he said. He wants him to get them out of jail.
Get addicts? Yeah, let’s put Trump in jail. Let’s get these murderers, let these murderers out, put Trump in jail. That Trump is no damn good. He has worked his ass off for this country through his position on the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons. Fetterman has released a record number of dangerous criminals, back on the streets, many of which have created horrible just atrocious crimes. He supports setting loose one out of every three inmates in your prisons. And he bragged that his goal is to get as many criminals out onto the street as quickly as possible.
Fetterman supports taxpayer-funded drug dens and the complete decriminalization of illegal drugs including heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, and ultra-lethal fentanyl, and by the way, he takes them himself—which would mean death and despair for every community in Pennsylvania and every community in the United States of America.
Compare that to President Xi of China, a little different, wouldn’t you say? Fetterman openly supports deadly sanctuary cities and he signed a pledge to ban fracking which would demolish almost a million jobs in Pennsylvania. I told them, I told you they were going to do that Pennsylvania, well you did listen to because I won Pennsylvania by a lot.
I can only hold accountable the people that counted the votes. Did you ever hear the statement by, I believe it was Lenin, did anyone ever hear of—many people would say it with less sophistication, Lenin. Lenin, I like the way they say that. Where he said the vote-counter is far more important than the candidate, well that turned out to be true. The vote-counter is far more important than the candidate, said by Lenin.
And while Fetterman wants to raise your taxes, he is a spoiled and entitled socialist loser who leached off his parents’ money, you know he lives on the parents money until he was 49 years old. And on top of it all, he’s too cowardly to even show up and debate. A very nice man. Nice. He’s very nice, and you’ll treat him nicely, right?
Because he knows that his positions are totally indefensible, and in all fairness, you need to be out there and just ripping it for you, otherwise you’re going to lose out to all the other southerners that are going to bring back money to the states, et cetera. And as we’ll do it.
Fetterman is running against a man I’ve known for many years. I told you I had a real problem with him when he said I was a little heavy. I didn’t like that. And of course it was wrong, was he wrong? And who is with our MAGA movement all the way. he’s with us all the way. And you know, some people thought that, “Oh gee, maybe it was a little bit of a controversial thing,” but I know him very well. And he’s a guy that gets it done. He’s a good person, and his wife is a fantastic person, I think I like her even more than I like him, Lisa.
So I’d like to ask Dr. Oz to step forward and say a few words. He’s been an incredibly successful man on television, in medicine. He knows what’s happening, and he’s going to work and fight for Pennsylvania. Thank you.
Dr. Oz: Pennsylvania, we have one question, one important question we have to answer by November 8. Are you ready for it? Is the country headed in the right direction? If your friends say “Yes,” take away their car keys. They should not be driving in that condition, people should stay home. But if the answer is no, we’ve got a big problem. This country has dramatically turned in the wrong direction. I’m the person for change.
I’ll make the change based on our family values here in Pennsylvania, because I believe in the American dream, I am part of the American dream. My whole life has been about hard work, and earning, and supporting kids because that’s what Americans do. I believe we can make safe city streets and communities. I believe we can have a secure border and allow legal immigration but not the fentanyl brought by traffickers bringing human beings and fentanyl from China which took 100,000 lives last year.
And I know people just aren’t hurt by fentanyl. I believe we can have an economy that hurts the American people but most importantly, I believe in each and every one of you and so should you. God bless you.
Donald Trump: We have a great record of endorsement, all of us together. Very close to 90 percent. And I endorsed that guy and I’m telling you, I will always tell you this. I’ll tell you the truth and he’s going to be a phenomenal representative for Pennsylvania. You gotta vote him and you got to vote.
Great guy. And Lisa, thank you very much. Thank you very much for what you have to put up with, Lisa. Thank you very much. You know they spent, just so you know, they spent like $50 million trying to destroy that man. $50 million. Like it was water. And they didn’t come close. This guy is tough and he’s strong and he loves us
This November, you also have to defeat the far left Democrat candidate for governor, Little Josh Shapiro—who is so much like Fetterman, other than he’s about half his height which is fine. It’s fine. I would say it’s absolutely fine as we don’t want to tell height jokes. Not here to tell any jokes today. Not weight jokes, not heighte jokes. I’ve got them all covered.
But he is a disaster for the state. He’s the one that kept saying “Oh, after” after it came out that we have a great man running against him. “Oh, that’s the man I wanted to run against.” No it’s not. Because that’s the man that had a base like I do. He has a base that’s so powerful and so strong. He doesn’t want to run again. As attorney general, he presided over the complete disintegration of law and order and letting things and criminals run wild.
Look at the numbers I just talked to you about in Philadelphia. Well, he’s the guy who knows those numbers are getting worse. There is nothing to stop these animals from continuing, those numbers are gonna get worse, if that’s possible. It’s not even—you would think it’s not possible.
Shapiro supports sanctuary cities, and he sided with Marxist anti-American BLM radicals and Antifa, and he’s a vicious hater of free speech and a hater of your Second Amendment. So he’s gonna let criminals roam your streets, and he’s not gonna let you have a gun to protect yourself. Shapiro is also using his office to shut children’s schools and force masks to be strapped to your children’s faces, doing unimaginable harm.
And like Fetterman, Shapiro is a pro-abortion extremist who supports totally unrestricted abortion on demand. Right through the ninth month. Think of this and you know where I am. You know where I am, the exceptions, I believe in the exceptions. He supports it the right through the ninth month and beyond. You know what beyond means, after the baby is born, after the baby is born. So as I said in my debate with Crooked Hillary Clinton, rip the baby out of the womb at anytime, and if the baby’s already out of the womb, he’s there too. “Just talk to the doctor.”
Now you don’t want that. States will make the decision by the way, the states will make the decision and in Pennsylvania, I have a feeling that decision will be an interesting decision, but it’s up to the states and that’s the way it was always supposed to be. But he wants to let things happen that no civilized person would allow. They don’t allow it in other countries.
No Pennsylvanian should listen to one word on abortion from these two twisted sickos who believe in killing and dismembering babies right up until that that time that time of birth. Shapiro is running against an incredible patriot and a fearless warrior for Pennsylvania workers and Pennsylvania values. Doug Mastriano, who has been with me right from the beginning, I mean right from the beginning. I remember that. They all wanted my endorsement. They all ran.
I know you had the U.S. attorney, nice guy. He was a nice guy, but he didn’t do anything in terms of the election fraud. “No, there was no problem in Pennsylvania, there was no problem.” There was massive problems. And then he wants to run, he said, “Sir, Bill Barr would not let me go after anybody. He wouldn’t let me touch anybody.” What a shame what an opportunity, but he wanted to run. Others wanted to run.
I said the one guy that supported election integrity and supported me right from the beginning. Is Doug Mastriano. One day he came to the White House with a whole group of people. He brought them and he was working like hell, it was really an uphill battle because you had the Democrats. They didn’t want to hear anything. And then you had some bad RINOs that just—somebody, someday, somebody’s going to explain the RINOs. Why are they doing it?
But Doug is a former Army colonel who honorably served our country in uniform for 30 years before going on to fight for you. In the State Senate, he became the most respected person in the Senate and definitely the hardest fighter. He was the relentless person out there fighting against lockdowns and COVID mandates. He didn’t want to destroy real Americans, he got it long before the so-called doctors who weren’t very good, and a true champion for election integrity and tough as hell on a thing called illegal immigration.
We want people to come into our country legally. As your governor, he will back down from nobody, he’ll back down those violent criminals and crack down on violent crime and COVID mandates, protect Pennsylvania oil and gas workers, which right now—enjoy your job for another couple of months, because you’re not gonna have it longer.
And defend your jobs, your rights and your freedoms. Doug is joined by an incredible person who I also got to know because we were in a real fight with a lot of really sick, bad people. Rebby, thank you very much. Thank you, stand up. And she was a big part. She’s a great partner to a man that will be one of the greatest governors in this country. Doug, please come up. Please come up.
Doug Mastriano: Oh, yeah. Thank you, Mr. President. Philadelphia loves you and America needs you. Thank you for your leadership.
Thank you for paving the way for people like me and everyone you see out here to fight for freedom. Thank you for taking the shots. And standing boldly and leading by example, Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania is the Keystone State. On 8 November, we’re taking our state back by storm. That’s right. We’re gonna do it. We’re gonna do it. We’re gonna be the state where people want to come to raise their families, to succeed in business on day one. We’re out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. We’re gonna drill and dig like no tomorrow. That’s right. That’s right. We’re gonna do it. Oh, yeah.
On day one, we’re no longer a sanctuary state. So Joe Biden can have these illegals, we’ll drop them off at his beach house where he spends all his time anyway. You can have them on day one. We’re gonna have the backs of law enforcement on day one, there’s no more mask requirement or COVID jab requirement. That’s right.
We’re gonna walk like free people like never before, Pennsylvania. This is where the light of liberty was lit in 1776, a new birth of freedom in 1863. And something very near and dear to both of our hearts: We’re going to fight like hell for voting integrity, and we’re going to start with voter ID. That’s right. That’s right.
The left, my opponent, is too dangerous, too extreme and too radical. When he can’t even define what a woman is, then the guy is nuts. Pennsylvania is less safe with his six year record of failure as attorney general that all ends on 8 November. Pennsylvania, the key to our nation starts with us. And let’s not forget that on September 11, 2001, and you are a champion on 9/11/2001, Mr. President, and he was. We saw him at the World Trade Center. Meanwhile, Flight 93 over Somerset County, the terrorists had it. Todd Beamer and other people on that flight took action. What did they say?
Pennsylvania, let’s roll!
Donald Trump: You know, Doug said a lot in a few short sentences. One of the things he mentioned was voter ID. The Democrats don’t want voter ID. Actually it’s interesting. The leadership, the people want it, 91 percent Democrats, but the leaders don’t want voter ID, OK. I think the only reason you don’t want voter ID, there’s only one reason because you want it cheap, right. That’s the only reason.
When you had the Democrat National Convention, the last one, they had signs, and the biggest signs, they were like billboards, pictures, fingerprints, everything. You couldn’t get in. But the greatest thing happened over the last few days, Starbucks, this guy Schultz. The one with the extremely thin legs. I think maybe Dr. Oz would have said he’s either really good or very, very, very thin. But he was doing a debate. He was sitting down, I thought his legs—I didn’t think he’d be able to stand up. But Schultz, he’s the head of it.
But he just announced unions are trying to take over stuff. But he will not under any circumstance allow mail-in voting because it’s evil and corrupt. And the process can be corrupted. And yet when he was running for president for about three days before he realized he couldn’t do it, took him about two days. But when he was running for president, he was talking about mail-in ballots. Now that he’s got his company that he’s got a nice piece of, he wants nothing to do with voting by mail-in ballots for unions, because he says you can’t get their vote, and it’s easily corruptible.
When are people going to get smart, and get rid of this mail-in voting in Pennsylvania, killing our country. You’ll do it. We’re also joined tonight by the next congressman from Pennsylvania’s 8th congressional district. Jim Bognet. Jim, thank you very much. Good luck. I hear you doing well, these two guys are gonna help you a lot. Thank you, Jim. Great job.
So Jim’s running against radical Democrat socialist Matt Cartwright. That’s another beauty. Who said he’s all on board for the Green New Deal. Greatest waste of money in history. The Green New Deal, why don’t you just throw the money right out the window. And he absolutely supports defunding the police and votes with Biden 100 percent of the time, so you know he can’t be any good. Everybody get out and vote for Jim. Okay.
Also with us, our Pennsylvania treasurer, a very good person, good woman, Stacy Garrity. Hello, Stacy. Thank you, Stacy. Great job you’re doing. Friend of mine—a warrior. Never laid down, always been their representative. Dan Meuser. Dan, thank you. Great job. Great job. Thank you. And also Fred Keller. Another warrior. Fred stand up, what a good guy. Thank you for all your help. He comes to our defense. He gets out there the two of them.
Now a woman is with us. She’s very silent. Very shy. doesn’t believe in using guns to protect yourself. Says anybody can come into my house anytime you’d like. No, no. She did a little ad I saw, her first time, and her ad was something to the effect. “Sure. Anybody can come into my house. He can be big,” and she took this gun. I never saw anybody used this gun. Boom, put it back and she said, “But he might not get out of my house alive.” And I said “I think I like her,” Marjorie Taylor Greene.
A man I’m very proud of. He’s got a tough race. But I’m very proud of this. You have a RINO governor in Maryland. His name is Larry Hogan. I think he wants to run for president. I think he wants to run for president, they said you got to look in the mirror first—it’s not gonna work. Not gonna work. But he’s a real RINO and he doesn’t want this man because this is all for our country.
His name is Dan Cox. And he beat he beat Larry Hogan’s candidate by like 20 points with my endorsement. With my endorsement, and he’s doing fantastically Dan. Congratulations. And Larry Hogan—and this is my fault, I’m sorry, Dan—but Larry Hogan is not going to be supporting you only because I am supporting you. So I don’t know what that means. But I can tell you that Maryland has a great, great man running and I hope you’re going to do well and we’ll be out there helping you.
Okay, thank you. I have a feeling you’ll do very well. A friend of mine who’s a great businessman and a great person, Mr. Woody Johnson and his wife, Suzanne Johnson. Where’s Woody? Stand up, Woody! He’s shy. They own a very small company named Johnson. Johnson, does anybody like Johnson? I want to own a piece of that company, too. Great job. We love your boss. And Cynthia Hughes and Gina Pernod with the Patriot Freedom Project. What a job they do. Where are you? Where are you, stand up for the job. And we all appreciate it. We all appreciate it.
With the help of everybody here today we are going to fight for Pennsylvania. We’re going to win for Pennsylvania this November. One of the first things we will do is stand up for parents’ rights. It’s time to finally and completely break the radical local education cartel. Can you believe like 10 years ago, let’s put yourself back, that somebody would stand up—I can’t believe I’m calling myself a politician. But I guess I am. I don’t know. I can’t stand politicians.
But can you believe that 10 years ago—like put yourself in that position—a politician would be standing up saying we’re going to defend parental rights? I mean, that’s about as basic as it gets, but that’s what we have to do because these people are crazy. Our children are captive to unhinged Marxist educators who are pushing inappropriate sexual, racial and political material on our children from the youngest possible age.
At long last, every parent in America must be empowered to opt out of the indoctrination and send their child to the public, private, charter, religious or home school of their choice. In addition, we will get critical race theory the hell out of our schools, out of our military and out of every part of our federal, state and local government, just like I did two years ago, it was out. We had it out, but they put it right back in.
We will also keep men out of women’s sports. You know those stories that I tell? I love to tell those stories, the woman swimmers, I tell it again, should I, you want me to? Mr. Wall, stand up Wall, please. This is Mr. Irving Q. Wall, you know, it’s so ridiculous. And you know, it’s not politically correct, and a lot of people are afraid to talk about it, but I’m not—men in women sports.
So you have this swimmer, who’s really—I met her the other day, very high quality swimmer and she’s gonna break the record. She’s worked like hell. She’s worked all her life. The big meet is on and she looks to the left and she sees all of those great athletes that she’s been fighting for years. She looks to the right, and she sees this massive human being, he’s looking up, what is he, like 6’6″ or something? He’s got a wingspan bigger than Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt was small by comparison and she looked over, I’ve never seen her before. Anyway, she wanted to break that record she fought so hard to do. And the race started and as you know, she was severely injured. She was injured by windburn because he went by her so fast.
The wind burned the hell out of her. And she didn’t quite make it that day for the record. But he did. He broke the record by 38 seconds. You know, usually you break it by—she wants to break it by 1/8 of a second. But he was far better than her. He broke it by 38 seconds. That’s one that no woman’s ever gonna catch.
And then the better one is the weightlifter. You had a woman she’s gonna lift the 213 pounds and that’s a lot of weight. Do you think I could lift, Oz, you think I could lift 213 pounds and she got up and she was gonna break it. They put it half an ounce and a half an ounce and have these big barbells and dumbbells and she’s up there and she pulls it up and she’s gonna do it—couldn’t do it too. So she was ashamed but she couldn’t do it.
And then this person comes in you know, they actually call it—this is the correct term. A person in a man’s body. That’s what they call it. This is supposed to be politically correct. I hope it is. Otherwise they’ll be very rude to me. The fake news will be very rude.
This guy walks up, they asked him before, did you lift? “No, not too much.” And he gets up—ding—that was the end of that record. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And no teacher should ever be allowed to teach transgender to our children without parental consent.
Another one of our highest priorities under a Republican Congress will be to stop left wing censorship and to restore free speech in America. We don’t have free speech. Go out and sign up, by the way, for Truth Social. Anybody on Truth Social? It’s hot. And it’s much better than Twitter. You see what’s going on with Twitter. Twitter’s not doing do well. Frankly, if we didn’t have Truth we wouldn’t be able to get the word out like they do. We get the word out fast.
The Radical Left Democrat Party is not, in my opinion, a 50 percent party within our country. They’re against God, guns, oil, law enforcement, voter ID, tax cuts, regulation cuts, the Constitution and they’re against our founding fathers. But other than that, actually, they’re quite good. The way they win is to cheat in elections. I really believe that. How can you be against all of those things and for some of the things that therefore and be considered a 50/50 party? I don’t believe it.
They cheat like hell on elections all over the country, and they’re really good at it. Everywhere the Republican Party has the chance, we must pass critical election integrity reforms, including Universal voter ID citizenship confirmation. No more fake drop boxes by Zuckerberg and these people, no private money pouring into local election offices. And ultimately, we need same day voting with only paper ballots. Same day voting. Same day paper.
France just had an election. Big country—35 million people. They hd same day voting, all paper ballots. The election ended at 11 o’clock. They had the vote, that was it. Nobody walked away. Right here in Pennsylvania, Democrats are still trying hard to rig your elections.
Act 77 clearly violates your state Constitution encouraging widespread abuse of mail-in ballots, and your radical left state Supreme Court just violated the Constitution a second time by overturning a decision by an unbiased lower court. Republicans in the state legislature need to get to work immediately to kill Act 77 by a state constitutional amendment, they have to do it immediately.
We are just two months away from the most important midterm election in American history. And we need a landslide so big that the radical left just cannot rig it. You know the more we win by, it gets harder, harder, harder, harder. They can cheat a lot but once you get to a certain level, it gets very hard. This is the year we’re going to take back the House. We’re going to take back the Senate, we’re going to take back America. We’ll take back America.
And in 2024, most importantly, we are going to take back our magnificent White House. Together we will fight for more jobs for Pennsylvania families, fair trade for Pennsylvania workers and more Pennsylvania factories forging more products stamped with those beautiful, beautiful words, “Made in the USA,” right? Made in the USA.
We will shut down Biden’s border disaster, reinstitute our strong Remain in Mexico policy. How good was that, Remain in Mexico? You think it was easy for me to get Remain in Mexico from Mexico, but I got it. I said “You don’t give it to me, you’re gonna pay big tariffs on your cars.” “Oh, we’d love to give it to you.” Strengthen the patriots of ICE and Border Patrol. They’re patriots and they’re great. We will again end catch and release. We will end chain migration, we will end the visa lottery and we will clamp down on illegal immigration. Just like we did less than two years ago when we had the most secure border in our country’s history.
We will stop the crime wave in Democrat-run cities, we will give our police the power they need and the respect they deserve. And we will not take legal protection away from our police. These maniacs want the police officers go out and hire lawyers so they can defend themselves. We won’t do that. We will restore law and order in America. And we will override governors that don’t look for law and order.
We will hold China accountable for unleashing the virus upon the world. We will protect innocent life. We will defend our Constitution. We will defend the Second Amendment and we will proudly uphold the Judeo-Christian values and principles of our nations. We will restore education to our schools and we will teach our children to love their country, honor our history and to always respect our great American flag.
In conclusion, our MAGA movement, Make America Great Again, is by far the greatest political movement in the history of our country. Together we are standing up against some of the most menacing forces, entrenched interests and vicious opponents our people have ever seen. Despite great outside dangers, our greatest threat remains the sick, sinister and evil people from within our own country. But no matter how big or powerful the corrupt radical left Democrats are—and they are corrupt and they are powerful. We have to make them much less powerful. We will never allow anyone to forget that this nation does not belong to them. This nation belongs to you. This is your home. This is your heritage.
And our American liberty is your God-given right. From Allentown to Johnstown from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, and from Philadelphia to Scranton, PA. We stand on the shoulders of American legends who poured out their blood, sweat and tears for our rights and for our freedom. They were so great.
Pennsylvania is where our founding fathers declared independence. It’s where the army weathered its brutal winter at Valley Forge, where General George Washington led his men on a daring mission across the Delaware and where our union was saved by immortal heroes at Gettysburg. And this is the state where generations of tough strong Pennsylvania miners, factory workers and steel workers forged the greatest nation in the history of the world.
But now we are a nation in decline. We are a nation that is failing. We are a nation that has the highest inflation in over 50 years and where the stock market just finished the worst first half of the year since 1872. Likewise, we are a nation that has the highest energy costs in its history. We are no longer energy independent or energy-dominant as we just were two short years ago. We are a nation that is begging Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and many others for oil. “Please, please, please help us,” Joe Biden says, but we have liquid gold right under our feet than any other country in the world.
We are a nation that is consumed by the radical left’s Green New Deal, yet everyone knows that the Green New Deal will lead to our destruction. We are a nation that is surrendering all over, but in particular to Afghanistan, leaving behind dead soldiers, American citizens and 85 years’ worth of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world. We are a nation that allowed Russia to devastate a country, Ukraine, killing hundreds of thousands of people and it will only get worse.
It would never have happened with me as commander-in-chief. And for four long years, it didn’t happen. Never happen. And China with Taiwan is next. We are a nation that has weaponized its law enforcement against the opposing political party like never before. We’ve got a Federal Bureau of Investigation that won’t allow bad election-changing facts to be presented to the public and a Department of Justice that refuses to investigate egregious acts of voting irregularities and fraud.
And we have a president who is cognitively impaired and in no condition to lead our country and everybody knows it. We are a nation that no longer has a free and fair press. Fake news is all you get and they are truly the enemy of the people. We are a nation where free speech is no longer allowed. Where crime is rampant like never before, where the economy has been collapsing, where more people died of COVID in 2021 than did in 2020.
We are a nation that is allowing Iran to build a massive nuclear weapon, which they are incredibly being allowed to do right now in China to use trillions and trillions of dollars that is taken from us to build a military, to rival our own. And just two years ago we had Iran, China, Russia and North Korea in check. They weren’t going to do a thing against us. And everybody knows it.
And perhaps most importantly, we are a nation that is no longer respected or listened to around the world. We are a nation that in many ways has become a joke. We are a nation that is hostile to liberty, freedom and faith. We are a nation whose economy is floundering, whose stores are not stocked. Whose deliveries are not coming and whose educational system is ranked at the bottom of every single list.
But we are not going to let this continue. Two years ago, we had the greatest election that we’ve ever had. But it was taken away from us. We weren’t allowed to use the power of the people to make America great again. Two years ago, we also had greatness like no one had ever seen. And soon we have that greatness again.
It was hard-working patriots like you who built this country. And it is hard-working patriots like you who are going to save our country. We will stand up to the radical left lunatics, RINOs and we will fight for America like no one has ever fought before.
The left praises democracy when elected but claims the right will destroy democracy when it loses. Pictured: Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton discusses the 2016 election during her 2017 book tour. (Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers, NurPhoto/Getty Images)
Recently, Democrats have been despondent over President Joe Biden’s sinking poll numbers. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support.
As a result, the left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when it expects to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when it fears losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup.
A cynic might suggest that those on the left praise democracy when they get elected, only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or they mask their own revolutionary propensities by projecting them onto their opponents.
After all, who is trying to federalize election laws in national elections contrary to the spirit of the Constitution? Who wishes to repeal or circumvent the Electoral College? Who wishes to destroy the more than 180-year-old Senate filibuster, the over 150-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, and the more than 60-year-old 50-state union?
Who is attacking the founding constitutional idea of two senators per state?
The Constitution also clearly states that “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” Who slammed through the impeachment of former President Donald Trump without a presiding chief justice?
Never had a president been either impeached twice or tried in the Senate as a private citizen. Who did both?
The left further broke prior precedent by impeaching Trump without a special counsel’s report, formal hearings, witnesses, and cross-examinations.
Who exactly is violating federal civil rights legislation?
New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in December decided to ration new potentially lifesaving COVID-19 medicines, partially on the basis of race, in the name of “equity.”
The agency also allegedly used racial preferences to determine who would be first tested for COVID-19. Yet such racial discrimination seems in direct violation of various title clauses of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
That law makes it clear that no public agency can use race to deny “equal utilization of any public facility which is owned, operated, or managed by or on behalf of any State or subdivision thereof.” Who is behind the new racial discrimination?
In summer 2020, many local- and state-mandated quarantines and bans on public assemblies were simply ignored with impunity—if demonstrators were associated with Black Lives Matter or protesting the police.
Currently, the Biden administration is also flagrantly embracing the neo-Confederate idea of nullifying federal law.
The Biden administration has allowed nearly 2 million foreign nationals to enter the United States illegally across the southern border—in hopes they will soon be loyal constituents.
The administration has not asked illegal entrants either to be tested for or vaccinated against COVID-19. Yet all U.S. citizens in the military and employed by the federal government are threatened with dismissal if they fail to become vaccinated.
Such selective exemption of lawbreaking non-U.S. citizens, but not millions of U.S. citizens, seems in conflict with the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
After entering the United States illegally, millions of immigrants are protected by some 550 “sanctuary city” jurisdictions. These revolutionary areas all brazenly nullify immigration law by refusing to allow federal immigration authorities to deport illegal immigrant lawbreakers.
At various times in our nation’s history—1832, 1861-65, and 1961-63—America was either racked by internal violence or fought a civil war over similar state nullification of federal laws.
In the last five years, we have indeed seen many internal threats to democracy.
Hillary Clinton hired a foreign national to concoct a dossier of dirt against her presidential opponent. She disguised her own role by projecting her efforts to use Russian sources onto Trump. She used her contacts in government and media to seed the dossier to create a national hysteria about “Russian collusion.” Clinton urged Biden not to accept the 2020 result if he lost, and herself claimed Trump was not a legitimately elected president.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has violated laws governing the chain of command. Some retired officers violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by slandering their commander in chief. Others publicly were on record calling for the military to intervene to remove an elected president.
Some of the nation’s top officials in the FBI and intelligence committee have misled or lied under oath either to federal investigators or the U.S. Congress, again, mostly with impunity.
All these sustained revolutionary activities were justified as necessary to achieve the supposedly noble ends of removing Trump.
The result is Third World-like jurisprudence in America aimed at rewarding friends and punishing enemies, masked by service to social justice.
We are in a dangerous revolutionary cycle. But the threat is not so much from loud, buffoonish, one-day rioters on Jan. 6. Such clownish characters did not for 120 days loot, burn, attack courthouses and police precincts, cause over 30 deaths, injure 2,000 policemen, and destroy at least $2 billion in property—all under the banner of revolutionary justice.
Even more ominously, stone-cold sober elites are systematically waging an insidious revolution in the shadows that seeks to dismantle America’s institutions and the rule of law as we have known them.
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Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
The Honorable Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Washington D.C.
Dear Representative Adam Kinzinger,
I noticed that you are a pro-life representative that has a long record of standing up for unborn babies! It was in the 1970’s when I was first introduced to the works of Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop and I wanted to commend their writings and films to you.
Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL-16) joined his House Republican colleagues in a press conference urging Democratic leadership to allow a vote on the Born Alive protections. The proposal would protect babies who survive abortion and provide them with the same medical care that any other premature baby would receive. Yesterday, the Democrats blocked the proposed legislation—for the 17th time—from coming before the House for a vote.
Joining the Congressman and House Republican leaders at the press conference this morning was Jill Stanek, an Illinois nurse and pro-life advocate who has witnessed the devastating realities of these pro-abortion laws. The Illinois legislature is currently debating two abortion bills, similar to the extreme pro-abortion agendas in New York and Virginia.
It seems you have a grudge against President Trump while our freedoms under President Biden are being taken away. I recommend to you the article below:
Roger Kimball Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion
Mr. Kimball concludes his article with these words:
That’s one melancholy lesson of the January 6 insurrection hoax: that America is fast mutating from a republic, in which individual liberty is paramount, into an oligarchy, in which conformity is increasingly demanded and enforced.
Another lesson was perfectly expressed by Donald Trump when he reflected on the unremitting tsunami of hostility that he faced as President. “They’re after you,” he more than once told his supporters. “I’m just in the way.”
There were a few Republicans Thursday who surprised observers when they voted in support of holding former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress and referring him to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
Prior to the vote, four Republicans were considered a lock to approve the criminal referral, according to Capitol Hill sources: Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan and Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio.
Cheney and Kinzinger are on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and have for months stood alone as the only two House Republicans willing to speak out against former President Donald Trump’s continued lies about the 2020 election. They were the only two House Republicans to vote for the formation of the select committee on June 30.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formed the select committee after Republicans rejected a bipartisan commission that would have been evenly split between five Democrats and five Republicans. Only 35 Republicans voted for that measure when itpassed the House of Representatives, and it was defeated by a GOP filibuster in the Senate.
From left: Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a Democrat, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois arrive for the House Select Committee hearing investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
More
Upton has served in the House for more than three decades, since 1987, and will face a primary challenge next year because of his willingness to stand up to Trump.
Gonzalez is retiring from Congress next year, after only four years in the House. “While my desire to build a fuller family life is at the heart of my decision, it is also true that the current state of our politics, especially many of the toxic dynamics inside our own party, is a significant factor in my decision,” Gonzalez said in September when heannounced he would not seek another term.
The remaining five Republicans included three who voted for impeachment — Peter Meijer of Michigan, John Katko of New York and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington — and two House Republicans who did not vote to impeach Trump: Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
Trump seems never to have discerned what a viper’s nest our politics has become for anyone who is not a paid-up member of The Club.
Maybe Trump understands this now. I have no insight into that question. I am pretty confident, though, that the 74 plus million people who voted for him understand it deeply. It’s another reason that The Club should be wary of celebrating its victory too expansively.
Friedrich Hayek took one of the two epigraphs for his book, The Road to Serfdom, from the philosopher David Hume. “It is seldom,” Hume wrote, “that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” Much as I admire Hume, I wonder whether he got this quite right. Sometimes, I would argue, liberty is erased almost instantaneously.
I’d be willing to wager that Joseph Hackett, confronted with Hume’s observation, would express similar doubts. I would be happy to ask Mr. Hackett myself, but he is inaccessible. If the ironically titled “Department of Justice” has its way, he will be inaccessible for a long, long time—perhaps as long as 20 years.
Joseph Hackett, you see, is a 51-year-old Trump supporter and member of an organization called the Oath Keepers, a group whose members have pledged to “defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” The FBI does not like the Oath Keepers—agents arrested its leader in January and have picked up many other members in the months since. Hackett traveled to Washington from his home in Florida to join the January 6 rally. According to court documents, he entered the Capitol at 2:45 that afternoon and left some nine minutes later, at 2:54. The next day, he went home. On May 28, he was apprehended by the FBI and indicted on a long list of charges, including conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and illegally entering a restricted building.
As far as I have been able to determine, no evidence of Hackett destroying property has come to light. According to his wife, it is not even clear that he entered the Capitol. But he certainly was in the environs. He was a member of the Oath Keepers. He was a supporter of Donald Trump. Therefore, he must be neutralized.
Joseph Hackett is only one of hundreds of citizens who have beenbranded as “domestic terrorists” trying to “overthrow the government” and who are now languishing, in appalling conditions, jailed as political prisoners of an angry state apparat.
Let me recommend that you read this letter below from Senator Ron Johnson and his colleagues:
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), along with senators Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), sent a letter on Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting information on the unequal application of justice between the individuals who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, and those involved in the unrest during the spring and summer of 2020. The senators sent 18 questions to the attorney general on what steps the DOJ has taken to prosecute individuals who committed crimes during both events, and requested a response by June 21.
“Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances,” the senators wrote. “This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning.”
The full text of the letter can be found here and below.
June 7, 2021
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Garland:
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently dedicating enormous resources and manpower to investigating and prosecuting the criminals who breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. We fully support and appreciate the efforts by the DOJ and its federal, state and local law enforcement partners to hold those responsible fully accountable.
We join all Americans in the expectation that the DOJ’s response to the events of January 6 will result in rightful criminal prosecutions and accountability. As you are aware, the mission of the DOJ is, among other things, to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. Today, we write to request information about our concerns regarding potential unequal justice administered in response to other recent instances of mass unrest, destruction, and loss of life throughout the United States.
During the spring and summer of 2020, individuals used peaceful protests across the country to engage in rioting and other crimes that resulted in loss of life, injuries to law enforcement officers, and significant property damage.[1] A federal court house in Portland, Oregon, has been effectively under siege for months.[2] Property destruction stemming from the 2020 social justice protests throughout the country will reportedly result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion in paid insurance claims.[3]
In June 2020, the DOJ reportedly compiled the following information regarding last year’s unrest:
“One federal officer [was] killed, 147 federal officers [were] injured and 600 local officers [were] injured around the country during the protests, frequently from projectiles.”[4]
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), “since the start of the unrest there has been 81 Federal Firearms License burglaries of an estimated loss of 1,116 firearms; 876 reported arsons; 76 explosive incidents; and 46 ATF arrests[.]”[5]
Despite these numerous examples of violence occurring during these protests, it appears that individuals charged with committing crimes at these events may benefit from infrequent prosecutions and minimal, if any, penalties. According to a recent article, “prosecutors have approved deals in at least half a dozen federal felony cases arising from clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Oregon last summer. The arrangements — known as deferred resolution agreements — will leave the defendants with a clean criminal record if they stay out of trouble for a period of time and complete a modest amount of community service, according to defense attorneys and court records.”[6]
DOJ’s apparent unwillingness to punish these individuals who allegedly committed crimes during the spring and summer 2020 protests stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment of the individuals charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. To date, DOJ has charged 510 individuals stemming from Capitol breach.[7] DOJ maintains and updates a webpage that lists the defendants charged with crimes committed at the Capitol. This database includes information such as the defendant’s name, charge(s), case number, case documents, location of arrest, case status, and informs readers when the entry was last updated.[8] No such database exists for alleged perpetrators of crimes associated with the spring and summer 2020 protests. It is unclear whether any defendants charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol breach have received deferred resolution agreements.
Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning. In order to assist Congress in conducting its oversight work, we respectfully request answers to the following questions by June 21, 2021:
Spring and Summer 2020 Unrest:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the unrest in the spring and summer of 2020? If so, how many times and for which locations/riots?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020 were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals were incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals were released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?[9]
How many DOJ prosecutors were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol Breach:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the January 6, 2021 protests and Capitol breach? If so, how many times and how many additional arrests resulted from law enforcement utilizing geolocation information?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals are incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals have been released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?
How many DOJ prosecutors have been assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
I want to recommend to you a video on YOU TUBE that runs 28 minutes and 39 seconds by Francis Schaeffer entitled because it discusses the founding of our nation and what the FOUNDERS believed:
Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.
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March 23, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view. Although we are both Christians and have the Bible as the basis for our moral views, I did want you to take a close look at the views of the pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff too. Hentoff became convinced of the pro-life view because of secular evidence that shows that the unborn child is human. I would ask you to consider his evidence and then of course reverse your views on abortion.
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The pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff wrote a fine article below I wanted to share with you.
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