Why Do We Celebrate National Day of Prayer?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is to worship the God of this land, even Jesus Christ. Today is the 75^th National Day of Prayer – which President Ronald Reagan signed into law in 1988. 

Today Congress celebrated in the U.S. Capitol in celebration of America’s 250 years of liberty as well as “all that God has blessed her with.” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner opened the celebration, according to Virginia Grace McKinnon at The Daily Signal.

“Our Founders did their best to set up our nation in accordance with his guidelines and principles. And my friends, that is why God has blessed America for 250 years,” Johnson told the crowd gathered in Statuary Hall. “He is the one that has endowed us with our inalienable rights, among those of the rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.”

The theme of this year’s National Day of Prayer comes from 1 Chronicles 16:24, “Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the people.”

“The theme of this year’s National Day of Prayer is not rhetorical,” Johnson continued. “God calls us to be faithful and to proclaim his good deeds and on this anniversary, particularly, we have a great opportunity.”

“We should use the entire year as a teachable moment to pass along to the next generation of Americans, who we are, what we’re about, and why we are in this great country,” Johnson suggested.

The speaker offered a prayer over the crowd: “Let’s also pray that we may have the strength, just as our founders did, to hand the faith and freedom on to the next generation that follows us, a generation that cherishes liberty and proclaims proudly what is right and good and true.”

HUD Secretary Scott Turner [is]a former NFL player [who] also served as an associate pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. He shared the glory of God through his own personal testimony.

“I still remember being a little boy sitting and feeling and sensing the presence of God Almighty. Jeremiah 29:11 says, ‘He knows the plans that He has for us, plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future.’”

“I know that that same Providence has washed over the United States of America for the past 250 years,” the secretary said.

“Look at how many storms God has led us over the last two and a half centuries,” he continued. “We survived and thrived despite all these trials, because of the grace of our sovereign God and the same sovereign God that our founding fathers believed in.”

“No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States,” he said, referencing George Washington’s inaugural address. “Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agents.”

Who Won the Redistricting Fight in Indiana?

Last December, the Indiana Senate refused to redistrict the state, so President Donald Trump went to war with them and endorsed their opponents. According to Virginia Grace McKinnon at The Daily Signal, “Six of the seven candidates Trump endorsed against incumbent state senators won by a landslide.” 

“Indiana is Trump country, and it showed again last night,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., who won his primary for reelection to the U.S House, told The Daily Signal Wednesday morning.

“We tried to tell these state senators that were opposing redistricting that this was not a fight they should be fighting,” Stutzman continued. “It’s not a biblical issue, it’s not a moral issue, it’s a partisan issue, and they paid the price last night, and it wouldn’t have needed to happen.”

Newly elected Trump-endorsed candidates who defeated their anti-redistricting opponents include James “Jay” Starkey, Dr. Brian Schmutzler, Michelle Davis, Tracey Powell, Trevor De Vries, and Blake Fiechter. Paula Copenhaver, another Trump-endorsed candidate, is still waiting to see if she defeated her anti-redistricting opponent. Incumbent Greg Goode was the only candidate to beat his Trump-endorsed opponent.

This election received millions in campaign funding, something a state Senate race rarely, if ever, has seen. Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind.; Turning Point Action; Scott Presler; and even Trump’s political arm, MAGA Inc., and its director, James Blair, were involved in the get-out-the-vote effort in the state.

Banks went as far as to pour in $3 million from his 501(c)(4) organization, Hoosier Leadership for America, to support Trump-endorsed primary challengers….

“President Trump showed us how to fight back, and that’s what needs to happen,” Stutzman said. “We need to be utilizing every opportunity that we have to be sure that Republicans are at least competing. We’re too nice sometimes to the Democrats, and they just take advantage of us every time,” he continued. “Every Republican state that has this opportunity, we need to do it so we have a balanced opportunity in the fall elections.”

Redistricting has been a fight for both parties for years; neither can agree on when it started or which side is responsible. The one thing they can now agree on is that they are going to pounce on the opportunity….

 

 

Should Iran Be Allowed to Normalize Control of the Strait of Hormuz?

President Donald Trump told Congress that hostilities in Iran are over. Then Iran started attacking its neighbors like UAE and blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is running out of time because their oil-holding facilities are full, and they cannot get their ships out of their ports.

The United States is also running out of time. Approximately 50 percent of Americans support the war efforts in Iran, including most of the Democrats in Congress and a few Republicans like Lisa Murkowski. However, things may be changing soon.

In her article published in The Daily Signal, Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell discussed Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s call for “other countries to join the United States in taking action against Iran’s blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. 

“Iran cannot be allowed to normalize this control of the strait,” he said. “It’s completely unlawful, illegal. It’s outrageous, and every country in the world should be joining us in condemning it and doing something about it, but the United States has stepped up.”

Rubio briefed the press on Iran Tuesday in the place of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is on maternity leave. He addressed President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States will come to the aid of ships stuck in the Strait of Hormuz due to security concerns.

Trump named the operation “Project Freedom.”

“Right now, you have a country who is unlawfully, criminally and illegally taking possession of an international waterway and blowing up commercial vessels and putting mines in the water.”

Rubio said: “I don’t know how people don’t appreciate how outrageous this is, how unacceptable it is that any country would fire and try to sink commercial vessels or put mines in the water.”

Iran has placed an unknown number of mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which 20% of the world’s crude oil passes.

Rubio said the U.S. is appealing to the United Nations.

“All we’re asking to do is to condemn it, to call on Iran to stop blowing ships, to remove these mines and to allow humanitarian relief to come through, because there’s humanitarian aid that’s trapped,” he said. “That’s it, it is a very modest request.”

Someone needs to stop Iran from this criminal activity, Rubio said. “And that’s why the United States military is guiding stranded commercial ships safely through the strait and is working to restore freedom of navigation and putting an end to these efforts to blow to hod the global economy hostage.”

After Project Freedom began Monday morning regional time, two U.S. merchant ships have already safely passed through the strait, Rubio said.

“They’re now safely along the way,” he said.

Who Is Rudy Giuliani?

My VIP for this week is “America’s Mayor” Rudy Giuliani. The “81-year-old former New York City mayor is in critical condition in a Florida hospital,” according to Blaze News. 

Giuliani was the mayor who solved the crime problem in New York City and made the Big Apple safe to visit again. He was also the mayor on September 11, 2001, when terrorists struck the Twin Towers.

Giuliani’s spokesman Ted Goodman wrote on X, “Giuliani is currently in the hospital where he remains in critical but stable condition. Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he’s fighting with that same level of strength as we speak.” Goodman also asked for “prayers for America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani.”

In his article published at The Daily Signal, Al Perrotta reported that Giuliani “is on the mend.” He wrote that “America’s Mayor” “is recovering from pneumonia” and “remains hospitalized in critical but stable condition.” 

Giuliani, 81, came to global prominence in 2001 as he led New York’s recovery from the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers, which his spokesperson said led to him developing restrictive airway disease.

“This condition adds complications to any respiratory illness, and the virus quickly overwhelmed his body, requiring mechanical ventilation to maintain adequate oxygen and stabilize his condition,” spokesperson Ted Goodman said in a post on X.

He added that Giuliani was now breathing on his own.

Perrotta also reported that the former mayor of New York City is now a resident of West Palm Beach, Florida, where he is hospitalized at Good Samaritan Medical Center.

What Speech Is Protected?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. Recently, Jimmy Kimmel thought he was being funny by discussing how Melania Trump glowed like a soon-to-be widow. She confronted him and called for him to lose his job.

It was “reckless political speech,” according to Ben Shapiro in his article published at The Daily Signal. 

Americans love arguing about free speech. We invoke the First Amendment as a kind of political force field: You can say whatever you want, whenever you want, without consequence.

But the First Amendment only restricts government action. It does not guarantee you a career, a platform or immunity from backlash. The real question is not whether certain speech is legal but rather what kind of speech deserves social consequences – and what kind doesn’t.

And if we’re talking about reckless political speech, we should talk about Jimmy Kimmel. Years ago, he abandoned comedy in favor of applause lines, tearful monologues, and the occasional performance of empathy. He’s an unfunny late-night scold who treats half the country as a punchline.

As annoying as that is, being unfunny is not a crime. The bigger issue is when media figures cross the line from tastelessness into rhetoric that creates a permission structure for violence. To understand the difference, it helps to break political speech into three categories.

First: illegal speech.

Yes, illegal political speech exists in America. A classic example: “I want to kill the president.” That’s not merely commentary. It is an actionable, direct threat.

There is also incitement. Under the Supreme Court’s Brandenburg standard, speech qualifies as incitement only if it is intended to and likely to produce imminent lawless action.

“Someone should do something about the president” is protected, though irresponsible, speech. “Go kill the president” crosses into territory the law can punish. It’s speech but also an attempt to trigger violence.

Second: typical inflammatory rhetoric

American politics is filled with heated language. “Fight like hell.” “We’re going to war with the other party.” That sort of rhetoric can be ugly and excessive, but it is also normal.

We’ve seen how absurd it becomes when people try to treat that as literal incitement. After Gabby Giffords was short, some on the left blamed Sarah Palin because a campaign graphic had “targeted” certain districts.

That was ridiculous. Using combative imagery is not the same as directing violence.

Third: the permission structure for violence

A permission structure for violence is created when people repeatedly portray political opponents as monsters.

This is how you create the mental environment where unstable people conclude that violence is justified. If the president is a traitor, rapist, pedophile, and mastermind behind a corrupt system, then how else could he be stopped?

This kind of rhetoric leads directly to chaos.

It is also the kind of rhetoric Kimmel has trafficked in for years.

Recently, Kimmel tastelessly joked that Melania Trump had “the glow of an expectant widow.” It was disgusting, and she has every right to be furious. But it wasn’t a call to violence. It was a cheap, ugly joke suggesting she secretly wants her husband dead.

Kimmel later claimed he rejects violent rhetoric, then immediately pivoted to blaming Donald Trump for rhetoric that supposedly inspires violence. It was the standard modern play: Insult someone, then wrap yourself in moral superiority.

But when it comes to rhetoric that encourages violence, it isn’t the widow joke that should be the focus; it’s the conspiracism.

Kimmel has repeatedly called Trump a pedophile, suggested he is connected to Jeffrey Epstein and involved in a coverup, called him a rapist and accused him of protecting pedophiles, coming after voting rights, enriching billionaires while harming the poor, and manipulating the system to evade accountability.

That is not “normal political speech.” It is speech that turns a political opponent into a movie villain – a figure so corrupt and monstrous that extreme actions begin to feel righteous.

This kind of conspiratorial framing has a track record. It fuels ugly episodes of modern political violence: a steady stream of baseless accusations designed to convince audiences that the other side is not merely wrong but evil.

If someone eventually acts on that belief, we shouldn’t pretend it came out of nowhere.

So should Kimmel be fired?

Firing him for the Melania joke would be punishing the wrong offense. A tasteless, bad joke is not the central issue.

The central issue is rhetoric that treats political opponents as criminals without proof, assigns monstrous motives without evidence, and creates a cultural climate where violence feels justified.

If America wants to lower the temperature, scrutiny should be directed at conspiratorial storytelling that teaches people to hate.

 

What Does It Mean to Become Holy?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to Exodus 35-40; Leviticus 1: 4: 16: 19 in a lesson titled “Holiness to the Lord.” The following information introduced the lesson.

Leaving Egypt—as important as that was—didn’t fully accomplish God’s purposes for the children of Israel. Even a comfortable life in the promised land wasn’t God’s ultimate goal for them. These were only steps toward what God really wanted for His people: “Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). How did God plan to make His people holy after they had lived in captivity for generations? He commanded them to create a place of holiness in the wilderness—a tabernacle. He gave them covenants and laws to guide their actions and change their hearts. And He commanded them to make animal sacrifices to teach them about atonement for their sins. All of this was meant to point their minds, hearts, and lives toward the Savior. He is the true path to holiness, for the Israelites and for us. We have all spent some time in the captivity of sin, and we are all invited to leave sin behind and follow Jesus Christ, who has promised, “I am able to make you holy” (Doctrine and Covenants 60:7).

The scripture block includes the following principles: (1) The Lord wants me to become holy (Exodus 35-40; Leviticus 19); (2) The Lord asks me to make my offerings with a willing heart (Exodus 35:4-35; 36:1-7); (3) Temple ordinances were given anciently (Exodus 40:12-14); (4) Because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, I can be forgiven (Leviticus 1:1-9; 4; 16). This essay will discuss Principle 2 making sacrifices willingly.

In the first year after leaving Egypt, the relationship of the children of Israel with Jehovah could be described as inconsistent. However, Exodus 35:4-35 and 36:1-7 show that the Israelites willingly donated personal materials to build the tabernacle. We will look at Exodus 35:4-10 to see the commandment of God and Exodus 36:1-7 to see the results.

4 And Moses spake unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which the Lord commanded, saying,

5 Take ye from among you an offering unto the Lord: whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it, an offering of the Lord; gold, and silver, and brass,

6 And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair,

7 And rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins, and shittim wood,

8 And oil for the light, and spices for anointing oil, and for the sweet incense,

9 And onyx stones, and stones to be set for the ephod, and for the breastplate.

10 And every wise hearted among you shall come, and make all that the Lord hath commanded;

[Exodus 35:11-35 lists all the work that God commanded.]

 1 Then wrought Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whom                                            the Lord put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all manner of work for the                         service of the sanctuary, according to all that the Lord had commanded.

2 And Moses called Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom, even every one whose heart stirred him up to come unto the work to do it:

3 And they received of Moses all the offering, which the children of Israel had brought for the work of the service of the sanctuary, to make it withal. And they brought yet unto him free offerings every morning.

4 And all the wise men, that wrought all the work of the sanctuary, came every man from his work which they made;

5 ¶ And they spake unto Moses, saying, The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work, which the Lord commanded to make.

6 And Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing.

7 For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much.

The Israelites showed an acceptable way to respond to commandments from God. They willingly brought materials, so much that they were told to stop. What can we learn from the Israelites that could help us to better serve the Lord?

God may not ask us for precious metals, linens, or wood for a tabernacle, but He will ask us to make sacrifices. He asks young men to give two years of their lives and young women to give eighteen months of their lives to missionary service. He also asks couples to sacrifice time with their grandchildren to serve as senior missionaries, mission presidents, and temple presidents. What is the Lord asking you to sacrifice to help you to become holy?

 

What Questions Should Be Asked about a Child’s School Day?

Asking questions can strengthen families, and strong families strengthen their communities, states, and nations. A valuable time to ask excellent quality questions is when a child returns from school.

In her article, Amy Morin suggests that asking thoughtful questions can “spark meaningful conversations.” Morin is a psychotherapist, clinical social worker, instructor at Northeastern University, and author of several books. 

According to Morin, there are “seven questions that lead to productive conversations while also helping kids grow mentally stronger.”

1. ‘What was the best part of your day?’

This question encourages kids to scan their brains for positives. For children who dislike school or tend to focus on what went wrong, answering this question helps them build optimism and gratitude – which are both protective factors for mental health.

Frame the question with your own experience, saying, “The best part of my day was going for a walk during my lunch break. What about you?” Your child might share a highlight, like “I played kickball at recess.”

2. ‘What’s a mistake you learned from today?’

This one normalizes errors and celebrates healthy risk-taking. Talking openly about mistakes reduces shame and helps kids see them as opportunities for growth.

Ask with a tone of curiosity, not judgment: “Did anything happen today that you’d do differently next time?” This might prompt them to say, “I forgot my library book so I’m going to pack it tonight so I don’t forget.”

3. ‘Who were you proud of today?’

It works because it turns their attention to others and cultivates empathy. You will also gain insight into your child’s relationships and what they value.

Make the question more specific by asking, for example, “Did you see anyone try really hard at something today?” Your child may talk about a friend who was brave or might give themselves a pat on the back and say, “My friend forgot her snack so I shared mine.”

4. ‘What’s one thing that would have made today better?’

This question helps kids identify feelings like frustration and disappointment without dwelling on those experiences. It naturally opens the door to problem-solving and planning.

You can ask in a fun way, such as, “if you had a magic wand to change one thing about today, what would it be?” This can lead to creative ideas, like, “I wish there was more time for my art project so maybe I’ll bring it home to finish it.”

5. ‘Who did you help today?’

You can empower kids to engage in prosocial behavior with questions like this. When you ask regularly, kids begin to look for opportunities to be helpful and acts of kindness become second nature.

Ask about small acts of contribution: “How were you a helper today?” They might remember something simple, like, “I helped the teacher pass out papers.”

6. ‘What was the most interesting thing you learned today?’

It emphasizes curiosity over academic performance. Showing interest in the learning process itself fuels lifelong learning.

Encourage kids to talk about what they learned aside from just their subjects. They may share a fun fact, like, “I learned that my teacher knows how to play the violin.” Show interest and ask follow-up questions to keep the conversation going.

7. ‘What’s something new you’d like to try?’

This nudges kids to look outside their comfort zone and encourages them to be courageous. They don’t have to be good at something in order to try something new – it’s a learning experience. If your child hesitates to try new things, encourage an experiment by asking, “Is there a club or activity you’re curious about just trying once?” They may be more likely to explore if they know they don’t have to stick with it forever.