Do You Stand for Truth and a Better World?

According to Star Parker, a press conference was held last week on October 7 to express solidarity with Israel and to commemorate October 7, 2023. More than 50 pastors with Michigan Lighthouse Ministries joined with Parker’s Center for Urban Renewal and Education to hold the press conference. 

The press conference was held at a church in Michigan “because the state is home to the largest Arab American population in the country.” Michigan is also home to Democrat Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the U.S. House of Representatives and “one of the nation’s most strident voices against Israel.”

The clergy, mostly black, were not there to oppose Arab Americans. They were there to support the Jewish state of Israel and its values and to express “support for the welfare and betterment of all mankind.”

Parker explained that the clergy are concerned about “the cloud of darkness spreading and enveloping so much of our world today.” She continued:

The miraculous return of the Jewish people to their historical homeland after 2,000 years in dispersion and their transformation of desert and swamp into a thriving modern state, with per capita income higher than most European countries, shines laser-like light into the thick dark cloud of evil around us.

Hamas terrorists noted the first anniversary of their Oct. 7 attack by firing missiles into Israel, saying that, given the opportunity, they would commit the same atrocities again and again.

By atrocities, we’re talking about murder, rape, beheadings, burning of babies, mutilation of corpses.

How is it that there is sympathy for this depravity?

Iran, which provides the billions financing Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations, had a gross domestic product of just $5,740 per capita in 2023, according to tradingeconomics.com. This is only 13.5% of Israel’s $42,674 per capita GD, despite Iran having the fourth-largest holdings of oil reserves in the world.

The difference is that Israel is about choosing life and personal responsibility and creativity, and Iran is about a government stealing the wealth of its citizens to finance a hateful, destructive ideology.

Similarly, the Hamas terrorists. The billions infused into Gaza over the years from Iran, but also from European countries and America, was used to fund terror rather than build a country and create wealth.

Parker explained that she visited Israel and saw similarities between the Palestinians and the people causing so much destruction in the inner cities of America. She noticed that both places had corrupt leaders who were “exploiting the worst tendencies in people by attributing their suffering to others, fostering a culture of blame, rather than taking personal responsibility for their own lives.

In comparison, the black clergy gathered in Michigan to “stand for truth and to stand for a better world….. The appeal of our pastors is unwavering support for the one Jewish state, for the Bible we have received from the Jewish nation, and to end, everywhere, the sick and evil culture of blame.”

 

Does Fake Kamala Plagiarize Also?

 More interesting news about Kamala Harris is coming out. According to reporter Christopher Rufo, a German plagiarism hunter named Stefan Weber discovered that Kamala Harris’s first book Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer (2009). Weber claims that the book is full of plagiarized material and even has a made-up citation.

To add to the interest in this discovery, Joe Biden’s 1987 attempt to run for President of the United States ended when he was discovered to be guilty of plagiarism. Now, his vice president and wannabe successor is guilty of the same vice. Andrea Widburg wrote about the alleged plagiarism in her article published by American Thinker. 

Stefan Weber has dedicated himself to hunting down politicians who plagiarize. In 2021, the New York Times wrote that, in Austria and Germany, Weber “is the undisputed terror of academics, politicians, celebrities ad a panoply of other potential culprits.” A man who was himself the victim of plagiarism, Weber, who has “a near-photographic memory,” has morphed into a business with full-time employees. He’s the real deal, and German-speaking politicians rightly fear him.

Now, perhaps, American politicians will start to fear him, too. That’s because Weber has gone after Kamala’s early foray into authorship….

Weber took his gimlet eye to the book and discovered that Kamala plagiarized at least a dozen passages, as well as making up a non-existent source for one passage. Christopher Rufo’s team confirmed that Weber’s findings are accurate.

Widburg’s article includes a picture of the cover to Kamala Harris’s book as well as a thread from X where “Rufo lists all the stolen passages, aided by a color-coding system that makes it impossible to miss that these were not coincidental verbal parallels.” Widburg also included three things “that are worth noting.”

First, this is more evidence, if needed, that Kamala is a fake and an intellectual lightweight….

Second, we’ve learned that, for decades, there has been a veritable plague of black academics and writers engaging in plagiarism….

Third, Joe Biden’s 1986 presidential campaign imploded when, after he’d already admitted to and groveled about plagiarizing a law review article while in law school, it emerged that he was at it again during the campaign. This time, he’d copied almost verbatim a speech by Neil Kinnock, a British politician.

It would make a lovely narrative package if Kamala’s campaign were to crash and sink on the same rocks.

Who Is Jack Phillips?

My VIP for this week is Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado. He “has been targeted for refusing to make cakes celebrating same-sex marriage and transgender transitions,” according to Blaze News. The article continued: 

A Christian cake baker has finally defeated legal harassment from the LGBTQ+ movement after fighting in court for more than a decade.

Jack Philips was sued in 2012 for refusing to create a cake for a same-sex couple at his Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado and then later sued for refusing to create a cake celebrating a transgender transition. Attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom have defended Phillips for 12 years…

On Tuesday the Colorado Supreme Court dismissed the second lawsuit after saying that the attorney who filed the lawsuit did not follow the proper process to do so. Phillips won the first lawsuit in 2018 after a court found that officials acted with hostility against his faith.

Neither of the legal victories established Phillips’ constitutional right to free speech as a basis for dismissal.

The court’s decision leaves open the possibility that Phillips will be sued again. Until a court is willing to rule on a constitutional basis for free speech, Phillips and people who take a similar stand for freedom of religion and freedom of speech could face court cases. Kelsey Dallas at The Deseret News agreed with me. 

The Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in favor of Phillips left the door open for additional legal challenges, since it didn’t answer overarching questions about what should win out when religious freedom protections conflict with nondiscrimination protections for members of the LGBTQ community.

Instead, the ruling was focused on Colorado officials’ treatment of the Colorado baker. The court ruled 7-2 that officials had been unlawfully hostile about Phillips’ religious beliefs.

The Supreme Court again ruled in favor of a religious business owner in June 2023 in a case called 303 Creative. But that decision also didn’t fully resolve conflict over Phillips’ cakes, since it focused on business owners’ free speech rights and didn’t clearly define what types of products should be seen as expressive.

Nevertheless, Phillips’ attorney team felt that the 303 Creative ruling supported the Colorado baker’s position in the gender transition cake battle and kept fighting for that case to be dismissed, as it now has been.

Like the Supreme Court in 2018, the Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday did not address key questions about balancing LGBTQ rights with religious freedom.

If and when other cases such as that of Phillips or 303 Creative reaches the Supreme Court, I expect that the high court will eventually rule on the constitutionality of such cases. It seems reasonable to me that a freedom guaranteed by the Bill Rights carries more weight than a more recent “right.” However, I have no legal training and could be wrong!

Why Do Democrats Want to Get Rid of the Electoral College?

 The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the Electoral College. Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 gives the qualifications for electors for the Electoral College: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.” 

Last week Minnesota Governor and Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz said publicly at a fundraiser with California Governor Gavin Newsom how he feels about the Electoral College: “I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go. We need, we need national popular vote, but that’s not the world we live in.” 

Besides wanting to get rid of the Electoral College and elect our President by popular vote, there are numerous other parts of the U.S. Constitution that Democrats do not like. They threaten to pack the Supreme Court, and they would like to do away with the First Amendment and the Second Amendment. Jarrett Stepman at The Daily Signal explained why the Electoral College works for the United States. 

The Electoral College is an integral, time-tested system of selecting American presidents. It preserves the federal nature of our system while not being wholly undemocratic. It’s one of the cornerstones of our remarkably stable republic.

Every state relies on a popular vote to determine who wins their electors, and each has done so since the early 19^th century.

The states are free to allocate the votes or award them in a winner-take-all system. Most have chosen the latter because that approach is slightly more appealing to presidential candidates. But that’s not set in stone.

By allocating presidential votes by combining the number of a state’s congressional representatives and the number of senators, the Electoral College ensures that the states with the largest population have the most votes. But that voting power is somewhat limited. It means that candidates still have to win over voters in small states and can’t focus only on the most popular ones.

Our presidential elections are therefore more likely to reflect the diverse viewpoints of this country and not just the highly populated urban areas.

There is no reason to think that switching to a national popular vote would be better for America, nor have proponents of abolishing the Electoral College ever really made the argument that it would.

They’ve always just gone with buzzwords about the popular vote being more “democratic,” but it’s clear that what they care about most is that the popular vote leads to more Democrats being elected. No surprise there.

However, getting rid of the Electoral College wouldn’t just be bad for Republicans – after all, there are plenty of small blue states too – it would be bad for the country.

What Do You Do To Remember Jesus Christ?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to Third Nephi 17-19 in a lesson titled “Behold, My Joy Is Full.” The lesson was introduced with this information. 

Jesus Christ had just spent the day ministering in the land of Bountiful, teaching His gospel, letting the people see and feel the marks in His resurrected body, and testifying that He was the promised Savior. Now it was time to leave. “My time is at hand,” He said (3 Nephi 17:1). He was about to return to His Father, and He knew that the people needed time to ponder what He had taught. So, promising to return the next day, He dismissed the multitude to their homes. But no one left. They didn’t say what they were feeling, but Jesus could sense it: they hoped He would “tarry a little longer with them” (3 Nephi 17:5). He had other important things to do, but showing compassion for God’s children is always a high priority to Him. So Jesus stayed a little longer. What followed was perhaps the most tender example of ministering recorded in scripture. Those who were present could only say it was indescribable (see 3 Nephi 17:16-17). Jesus Himself summed up the unplanned spiritual outpouring with these simple and powerful words: “Now behold, my joy is full” (3 Nephi 17:20).

There were several principles taught in this scripture block, including (1) The Savior is my perfect example of ministering (3 Nephi 17; 18:24-25, 28-32); (2) The Savior taught me how to pray (3 Nephi 17:13-22; 18:15-25; 19:6-9, 15-36); (3) I can “hold up” the light of Jesus Christ, and (4) Disciples of Jesus Christ seek the gift of the Holy Ghost (3 Nephi 18:36-37; 19:6-22).

I feel prompted to discuss a fifth principle, “I can be filled with the Spirit as I take the sacrament” (3 Nephi 18:1-12). When we do something often, we can become casual with it or make it routine. In fact, we often do it without even thinking about it. The question for this discussion is, “How can you keep this from happening with the weekly ordinance of the sacrament?” Is it possible to be spiritually “filled” each and every time that we partake of the sacrament? Is the sacrament accomplishing in your life Christ’s purpose for instituting the ordinance of the sacrament? Why is the sacrament sacred to you?

Partaking of the sacrament is sacred to me because it is the way prepared Jesus Christ for me to renew my covenants with Heavenly Father. It is also an opportunity for me to review the life of Jesus Christ, particularly His prayer in Gethsemane, His death on Calvary, and His resurrection. I look forward to seeing His return to earth.

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895-1985) taught that the most important word in the dictionary could be remember. He said that “our greatest need is to remember” our covenants because we made them with God.

After reminding us of the words of President Kimball, President Henry B. Eyring gave “three suggestions about what you could remember each week when you partake of the sacred emblems of the sacrament.” Here are President Eyring’s suggestions: Always Remember Him (churchofjesuschrist.org)

Remember Jesus Christ.

First, remember the Savior. Remember who He was while on earth, how He spoke to others, and how He showed kindness in His acts. Remember whom He spent time with and what He taught. The Savior “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38). He visited the sick. He was committed to doing His Father’s will.

Most of all, we can remember the great price He paid, out of His love for us, to remove the stain of our sins. As we remember Him, our desire to follow Him will grow. We will want to be a little kinder, more forgiving, and more willing to seek the will of God and do it.

Remember What You Need to Do Better

It’s hard to think of the Savior – His purity and perfection – without also thinking of how flawed and imperfect we are in comparison. We have made covenants to obey His commandments, yet we frequently fall short of his high standard. But the Savior knew this would happen, which is why He gave us the ordinance of the sacrament….

Remember the Progress You Are Making

As you examine your life during the ordinance of the sacrament, I hope your thoughts center not only on things you have done wrong but also on things you have done right – moments when you have felt that Heavenly Father and the Savior were pleased with you. You may even take a moment during the sacrament to ask God to help you see these things. If you do, I promise you will feel something. You will feel hope.

When I have done this, the Spirit has reassured me that while I’m still far from perfect, I’m better today than I was yesterday. And this gives me confidence that, because of the Savior, I can be even better tomorrow.

Always is a long time, and it implies a lot of focused effort. You know from experience how hard it is to think consciously of one thing all the time. But no matter how well you keep your promise to always remember Him, He always remembers you.

The Savior knows your challenges. He knows what it is like to have the cares of life press upon you. He knows how urgently you need the blessing that comes from always remembering Him and obeying Him – “that [you] may always have his Spirit to be with [you]” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:77; emphasis added).

So He welcomes you back to the sacrament table each week, once again offering you the chance to witness before Him that you will always remember Him.

Here are some questions that you and I might ask ourselves: (1) What can I do to improve my worship during the sacrament and throughout the week? (2) What else can I do to worship more meaningfully? (3) Howe is the Savior’s sacrifice influencing my daily life? (4) What am I doing well as His disciple, and what can I improve?

Is Your Child’s School Trustworthy?

Parental attention is vital for strong family, communities, states, and nations. Parents should be aware of normal behavior in order to know when behavior becomes abnormal and then act to find the reason for the irregular actions. Parents in Spring, Texas, recently discovered questionable behavior from their children and found the reason was in the school. 

A group of parents accused teachers within Texas’ Spring Independent School District of giving their preschool-age children “sleepy stickers” – apparently body-worn patches that release melatonin and other substances.

Lisa Luviano told WKRC-TV her daughter first brought the sleep patches to her attention last month.

“The sticker makes me fall asleep,” four-year-old Layne reportedly told Luviano.

Luviano told the news outlet that her daughter arrived home from school one day and showed her parents the patch, which she was still wearing at the time….

The concerned mother told KTRK-TV that her girl said her teacher gave her the stickers “for sleeping time.”

Joseph Luviano was already suspicious that something was wrong because Layne was not falling asleep at night, at least one night after 2:00 A.M. Layne’s parents wasted no time in acting on the information. Lisa visited the school the very next day to file a report with the intention of filing criminal charges.

Lisa also took a picture of the sleep patch – purple and blue with “illustrations of a moon, clouds, and stars” – and sent the picture to other parents in her child’s class. Several parents indicated that their children recognized the patch and called it a sleepy patch. The parents also said that the behavior of their children had changed also – not sleeping, not eating lunch.

Another parent filed a report with the school and another one with Child Protective Services. The school district issued the following statement:

“Spring ISD is aware of allegations that two staff members at Northgate Crossing Elementary School allegedly administered sleeping supplements to students on Sept. 24.

These staff members were immediately removed from the classroom and placed on administrative leave pending an ongoing investigation by the Spring ISD Police Department. The district takes every allegation of educator misconduct seriously and will take all necessary measures to ensure that our students are educated in a safe and nurturing environment,” the district stated.

Last December a Spring ISD staff member was placed on administrative leave after allegedly giving melatonin gummies to students.

Melatonin, which is sold as an over-the-counter nutritional supplement, is not regulated by the U.S Food and Drug Administration.

There are differing opinions about how an appropriate dose of melatonin for children. In fact, no extensive studies have been done, according to Children’s Health. However, one organization “recommends one to three milligrams for toddlers and preschool-age children,” while another one “recommends just one to two milligrams for children around 5 years old and up to three for children 6 to 12.”

Parents are the guardians for their children and must be aware of dangers facing their children. They cannot assume that their children are always safe in what should be safe situations. They should be aware of what their child’s normal behavior is and seek answers for any abnormal behavior. By diligently guarding their children, they can strengthen their family, community, state, and nation.

Do You Want to Pay More Taxes?

 The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the simple fact that the government should keep the tax rate low to encourage more work and more production. However, Kamala Harris plans to raise the corporate tax rate if elected as President of the United States, while Donald Trump plans to cut the corporate tax rate if he returns to the Oval Office.

Whoever is elected to be the next POTUS will have a deadline to meet by the end of 2025, or Americans in all states will face a tax increase. According to Christina Lewis, Americans for Prosperity, “a grassroots organization that seeks to transform policy around the country,” did a recent survey that found – surprise, surprise – “most Americans oppose tax increases.” The survey was conducted in September by polling company Public Opinion Strategies by which 1,000 likely voters were asked for their views about taxes. Some of the key findings are: 

·         The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by Trump in 2017, expires at the end of next year, but only 40% of voters say they have heard a lot or heard some about portions of the law.

·         Fully 52% of voters said they support increasing corporate tax rates, while 48% said they oppose it.

·         A majority of voters said they believe that raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% would hurt small businesses, consumers, and middle-class families.

Lewis shared other “poll finding that voters would see failure to extend the 2017 tax cuts as a tax increase and that, out of five groups and sectors, voters said a tax increase would hurt middle-class families the most.”

As stated above, Trump has indicated that “he supports extending the tax cuts as one of the landmark accomplishments of his four-year term as president.” On the other hand, Harris has said that she supports “increasing the corporate rate from 21% to 28% to pay for some of the expanded government programs she’s proposed.” In addition, she “took aim at the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” when “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker pressed her about how she would pay for her proposals.