Where Should We Obtain Information?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the power that human beings have on the climate. The Left claimed that the fire on Maui was caused by climate change until more sane people proved that the fire was caused and/or worsened by faulty progressive ideas. Now the Left are claiming that climate changed by humans made Hurricane Idalia much worse than it would have been otherwise.

Chris Enloe at The Blaze gave an example of the blame being passed around, this time by CNN prior to Idalia making landfall on Wednesday morning. CNN anchor Abby Phillip asked CNN reporter Bill Weir, CNN’s chief climate correspondent about how to protect against hurricanes and other natural disasters. The question itself had a flawed foundation of assuming that “warmer water, historically warm water” means “communities now are suddenly in the path of hurricanes where they have not been before.” Instead of correcting Phillip’s assumption, Weir connected “wicked storms” with fossil fuels and climate change. 

“Is there anything that can be done to protect [these communities] going forward?” Phillip asked.

“That’s an amazing question,” Weir responded. “It’s the biggest, sort of trillion-dollar question about how you adapt communities like this to the world that we’re already now living in at the same time trying to mitigate further more wicked storms down the road with more fossil fuel pollution.”

Weir added that the cost of fossil fuel pollution-driven climate change is “becoming bigger with every storm.”

“Science has been warning about this for a very long time. In many ways, it’s been predicted,” he claimed. “It’s the speed that we’re seeing these changes that has taken most folks by surprise.”

Phillip and Weir should have consulted meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue before making their claim about fossil fuels and climate change intensifying storms. Maue corrected Weir a few hours after the discussion took place on CNN. Enloe explained as follows.

The CNN segment was completely misinformed, Maue later pointed out, because there was a major hurricane that hit in the same area as Idalia in the 19^th century – long before widespread usage of fossil fuels.

“Except, the landfall of Idalia is only strongest along coastal area since 1896 Cedar Keys hurricane (125 mph) 125-years ago, well prior to modern fossil fuel usage,” Maue wrote on social media.

Maue, whose doctoral research focused on tropical cyclones, also exposed the reductionist connection that Weir and Phillip made between warm water and a strong cyclone.

“Why didn’t Idalia rapidly intensify during the 3 days it sat over the NW Caribbean? Did someone forget to push a button or turn a knob?” he mocked, explaining the water in the Northwestern Caribbean is “very warm and deep.”

Finally, Maue wondered why hurricanes in the mid-2000s – like Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, which formed over comparatively cooler waters – were significantly stronger than Idalia if the accumulation of fossil fuel pollutants is intensifying cyclonic storms through climate change over time.

Apparently, Weir and other reporters, who earn college degrees focused on journalism and writing, should not attempt to explain scientific phenomena. Americans should stop listening to the talking heads on CNN and other alphabet media organizations and go to experts for all kinds of information. It would be helpful if the media started consulting experts and stopped shoving propaganda into us.

Is Donald Trump in Danger of Assassination?

Last week conservative commentator Tucker Carlson released an interview that he had done previously with former President Donald Trump. The video dropped on X just minutes before the first GOP presidential debate started on FOX. The video has since been viewed more than 250 million times. I watched it in its entirety on the night that it dropped.

Carlson asked a question that I have been thinking for a few years because I was seeing the same happenings that Carlson saw. The question was something about the possibility of Trump being assassinated. Trump ignored the question the first time that Carlson asked it, but he answered it the second time. He admitted that he has enemies that would like to see him destroyed.

I lived through the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. I was a young adult and was not yet interested in politics, but I understood that something evil had happened. Later, President Ronald Reagan and the Pope survived assassination attempts. Again, there was that feeling of something evil happening.

Today, our nation has the same consuming evil of hate, and fifty percent of Americans hate Donald Trump without knowing much about him. Democrats lie about him, and the media fans the flames of hate by spreading the lies. Even though I have lived through reports of assassinations and attempted assassinations of presidents and presidential candidates, I have never seen anything like what is happening in America now.

According to Alex Nitzberg at The Blaze, Carlson suggested that Trump could be the target for assassination when he was interviewed by Adam Carolla earlier this week. Nitzberg reported that Carlson “noted that Trump has been the subject of criticism, protests, impeachments, and indictments.” 

“We’re speeding toward assassination, obviously, “Carlson said, adding that “permanent Washington, both parties, have decided that there’s something about Trump” which is “so threatening” toward them that they cannot have him in office.

“It’s hard to overstate how bad this is,” Carlson said. “I don’t know where it’s going. But there’s a collision that’s clearly imminent.”

Carlson also described President Joe Biden as “senile, in a way that’s impossible to deny,” claiming that he is “not running the government.”

“I’ve never been this worried about anything as I am about where this is going,” Carlson said….

Despite all of the attacks that have been lobbed against Trump, the former president remains immensely popular, so much so that he appears to be on track to trounce the entire GOP presidential primary pack vying for the party’s 2024 presidential nod.

I agree with Carlson that Trump is in a very dangerous position. Democrats and the Leftists liked Donald Trump until he announced that he was running for President. They did not think that he could win the election because they believed that Hillary Clinton was the anointed one. When they realized that Trump would win they began their efforts to destroy him.

The New York Times announced on the same day that Trump was inaugurated that his impeachment was starting. He had not yet done anything as President, and the Left was ready to impeach him! Democrats impeached Trump over a telephone call asking about Biden corruption in Ukraine. Now, Biden is close to be impeached for his corruption in Ukraine! Trump was impeached for the riot at the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. Now, evidence is coming out that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi declined the use of the National Guard to protect the building.

The Left thought that they had stopped Donald Trump and the America First movement when they rigged the 2020 presidential election. They took no action for January 6^th or any questions about the election UNTIL Trump announced that he was running for President once again.

Now Trump has been indicted for nothing four different times. With each indictment, Trump’s support grows because Americans can see what is really happening. After Trump got fingerprinted and mugshot in Georgia, even Black men began to accept him at a higher rate. They could see that “The Man” (the government) was after Trump just like they were after Black men. The “Hood” announced that they now have Trump’s back.

There are secret combinations controlling the American government – Trump calls them the Deep State. Secret combinations have been on earth since the time that Cain killed Abel, and they are inspired by Satan, who hates freedom and agency. Trump threatens to destroy the power of the secret combinations, and they will do anything to stop him! 

I hope and pray that Carlson’s recognition of the possible assassination will open the eyes of many more Americans as to the evil that is running wild in America. Please join me in praying for God to bless America. Maybe – just maybe – God raised up Trump for such a time as this.

What Is the Gadsden Flag?

All Americans should take a lesson from Jaiden, a 12-year-old seventh grade student at The Vanguard Secondary School in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Jaiden chose to wear patch on his backpack and was kicked off campus when he refused to remove the patch. 

Jaiden’s patch is known as the Gadsden Flag. It features a rattlesnake and the words “Don’t Tread on Me.” An unnamed administrator took issue with the patch because he/she thought that the Gadsden Flag was associated with “slavery” and “the slave trade.” The administrator told Jaiden’s parents that “we can’t have that [flag] around other kids.”

Even though Jaiden’s parents corrected the administrator about the meaning of the Gadsden flag, the administrator was not persuaded. In fact, the executive director of the school told the parents in an email that the Gadsden flag is an “unacceptable symbol,” tied to “white-supremacy groups, and may “refer to drugs, tobacco, alcohol, or weapons.”

The problem arose because neither the school administrator nor the executive director known the history of the Gadsden flag. Britannica.com published the following about the Gadsden flag. 

Gadsden flag, also called Hopkins flag or Don’t Tread on Me flag, historical flag used by Commodore Esek Hopkins, the United States’ first naval commander in chief, as his personal ensign during the American Revolution (1775-83). The flag features a coiled rattlesnake above the words “Don’t Tread on Me” on a yellow background.

             

The flag was one of several contemporary flags that included an image of a rattlesnake, which had become a popular symbol of unity among the American colonies. The rattlesnake symbol originated in the 1754 political cartoon “Join, or Die” published in Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette. The cartoon, which depicted the colonies divided as segments of a cut-up snake, exhorted the colonists to unite in the face of the French and Indian War (1754-63). The symbol was later used to represent unity during the Revolutionary War. One observer, writing to the Pennsylvania Journal in December 1775, claimed that a drum of the newly created Marine Corps displayed a rattlesnake alongside the motto “Don’t tread on me!”

               

That same month, Esek Hopkings was appointed commodore of the Continental Congress’s naval forces, and his ship, USS Alfred, hoisted a flag that combined the

Rattlesnake and the “Don’t Tread on Me” motto. The “elegant standard” was presented in February 1776 to the Provincial Congress of South Carolina by Christopher Gadsden, a delegate to the Continental Congress who was that same month placed in command of South Carolina’s military forces. The president of the Provincial Congress of South Carolina subsequently ordered the flag to be displayed in its hall. The design received little mention, however, after the United States achieved independence and adopted the Stars and Strips as the official national flag in 1777 (see flag of the United States of America).

At the beginning of the 21^st century, the Gadsden flag resurfaced in popular culture. It took on libertarian undertones, but it was not initially attached to any particular ideology. Rather, it was used to represent a broad American ethos, including by Nike and Major League Soccer in 2006. But after the conservative Tea Party movement emerged in 2009, the flag became increasingly associated with the movement’s right-wing populism.

With Tea Party rallies taking place during the presidency of Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States, rhetoric at some rallies occasionally took on racial undertones; by association, the Gadsden flag was thereby tainted with racism in the eyes of some observers. In 2014 an African American mechanic for the U.S. Postal Service filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over a coworker wearing a hat with the flag’s design. The EEOC determined in 2016 that the design, although not a racist symbol, is “sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages in some contexts,” and that the complaint against its use met the standard for investigation according to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. [Emphasis added.]

I have been writing this blog since September 2009 and have known about the Gadsden flag from the beginning of its resurfacing. Today, while composing this post, is the first time that I have ever heard or read anything about the flag being racially tinged. From my understanding, the flag was used in defiance of the dictatorial methods being used by the Obama administration – the same reason that I began writing this blog. In fact, I own my own Gadsden flag.

Neither I nor the Tea Party cared about the color of Obama’s skin, but we were concerned about the government doing things that it should not be doing – like taking over automobile companies and giving the stock to the employees. For those who are not aware, the Biden administration is simply the third Obama term because Biden is building on everything that the Obama administration did to destroy America. The Gadsden flag represents defiance against a government that destroys freedoms – exactly the type of government provided by the Biden administration. This is one of the reasons why millions of Americans support Donald Trump.

 

Was Donald Trump Born for Such a Time as This?

My VIP for this week is Donald Trump, former President of the United States and 2024 candidate for President. My long-time readers understand that I believe that Trump will go down in history as one of the great Presidents for the United States. I believe that Trump has been raised up to save the Constitution. This belief has only grown stronger over the years because Trump reminds me of other great people in history who were instruments in God’s hands for the good of the people.

The first person is Esther who was a beautiful Jewish maiden who became queen of Persia. When the lives of all the Jews in the kingdom were threatened, Esther’s uncle, Mordecai, sent a message to her that she should approach the king to tell him of the terrible decree to kill all the Jews. Esther reminded Mordecai that she was not allowed to approach the king unless he bade her come. Otherwise, she would be killed. In his next message,

Mordecai reminded her that if she stayed quiet and the Jews were delivered in another way, Esther and her “father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Esther agreed to do as Mordecai said, but she requested that Mordecai send a message to all the Jews to pray for her for three days. Esther and her maidens also prayed, and Esther approached the king. He bade her come to him and granted her wish. Thus, Esther was instrumental in saving her people. (See the book of Esther.)

The second person is Cyrus, another king of Persia. The Lord inspired Cyrus to send a message throughout his kingdom. Cyrus believed that God had told him to send Jews back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. He also sent back to Jerusalem all the gold and silver objects stolen from the old temple by Nebuchadnezzar. Any Jews that chose to return to Judah were allowed to go, and they were allowed to take whatever they would need to rebuild the temple. (See Ezra 1-10.) The Jews in modern Israel compare Trump with Cyrus and made a temple coin with Cyrus and Trump side by side to honor the move of the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.

I recently gained understanding of two other men to whom Trump can be compared. We honor George Washington for his efforts and sacrifices to lead the colonial army for eight years until the American won the Revolutionary War. We also honor him for his integrity in writing the new Constitution and then for being our first President of the United States. Washington led Americans through years of dark days and deserves the respect and honor that he receives.

The other man is Abraham Lincoln who was instrumental in keeping the United States together despite the Civil War. He came from a poor family who had nothing and rose to be elected President of the United States. He also led Americans through many dark years.

Today Americans are more divided that at any time since the Civil War. The Prophet Joseph Smith prophesied that the day would come that the Constitution would “hang by a thread” but would be saved by good men and women who love the Constitution and America. I believe that Donald Trump was raised up by God to lead the patriots who will be instrumental in preserving the Constitution.

I believe that numerous secret combinations are working together to destroy the Constitution and the freedoms of Americans. Some of those combinations are the globalists who want to create a one world order. Others have developed climate change to be their religion. Communists are also part of the combinations.

I believe that Donald Trump was raised up by God to save our Constitution. He is a national leader who loves America and sees many of the dangers that Americans face. I have never seen a man or woman who has been hit with so many problems but remains standing and moving forward. Just as Washington could not be killed in the Revolutionary War, none of the attacks from the Leftists seem to bring Trump down. I believe that Trump was raised up by God for “such a time as this.”

Should the House Launch an Impeachment Inquiry into Joe Biden?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns impeachment of the President of the United States. Article II, Section 4 states: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” This site gives the following explanation: 

The Constitution gives Congress the authority to impeach and remove the President, Vice President, and all federal civil officers for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. This tool was inherited from English practice, in which Parliament impeached and convicted ministers and favorites of the Crown in a struggle to rein in the Crown’s power.

Congress’s power of impeachment is an important check on the Executive and Judicial Branches, recognized by the Framers as a crucial tool for holding government officers accountable for violations of the law and abuses of power….

Evidence is increasing the Joe Biden is guilty of bribery, and the evidence is pushing the House of Representatives to perform an impeachment inquiry. According to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday, the House’s action will depend on whether Biden and the White House cooperate with congressional committees. Fred Lucas at The Daily Signal shared six things that we should know if Congress launches an impeachment inquiry. 

1. Are There Grounds to Impeach Biden?

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee has gathered enough evidence to bring a case against Biden, said Andrew McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who isn’t related to the House Speaker….

[Among the evidence is an FBI form showing a confidential informant reporting that then-Vice President Biden in 2016 received a $5 million bribe from Burisma. Another piece of evidence are emails showing that Biden used pseudonyms and forwarded government information to his son Hunter.

[Still other evidence is newly released bank records showing $20 million from foreign individuals and entities ended up in bank accounts of various members of the Biden family.]

The financial deals Hunter Biden made with Chinese and Ukrainian interests should be too serious for the House to ignore, said Mike David, founder of the Article 3 Project, a conservative legal group.

“Foreign bribery is one of the most serious, most impeachable crimes in the Constitution,” Davis, a former chief counsel for nominations for Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told The Daily Signal….

2. Can a President Be Impeached for Alleged Offenses Before Taking Office?

An important caveat is that the evidence unearthed so far by the House committee panel surrounds the president’s conduct while vice president in the Obama administration.

The three presidents who have been impeached by the House – Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump – were scrutinized for actions while in office.

However, two federal judges were impeached over their actions before they entered office….

3. Would Congress Have More Leverage in an Impeachment Inquiry?

During an interview on Fox Business, the House’s McCarthy said that if the Biden family and the White House don’t cooperate with investigators, an impeachment inquiry “gives the apex of power to Congress when it comes to our subpoena power.”

Legal experts differ on the impact that a formal inquiry would have on the House’s capacity for oversight.

The reason labeling an investigation as an impeachment inquiry could be relevant is largely because the role of congressional oversight in obtaining documents and testimony generally must have a legislative endgame.

Under an impeachment inquiry, however, the sole purpose would be oversight to reach a conclusion about an official’s fitness to serve….

4. Isn’t an Inquiry Just Formality Before Impeachment?

A House impeachment inquiry doesn’t always end in an impeachment….

5. What About Political Fallout?

If House Republicans fail to proceed against the president with an impeachment inquiry, it would be politically costly to their majority, warned Davis, founder of the Article 3 Project.

“If Republicans don’t move forward on an impeachment inquiry in the face of evidence the president of the United States is compromised, these House Republicans deserve to lose reelection,” Davis, also a former chief counsel for nominations for the Senate Judiciary Committee, told The Daily Signal.

Davis, however, said he isn’t certain Republicans will act.

“The D.C. swamp is the only place on the planet where the reptiles lack backbones,” he said.

Inaction could be likely, said McCarthy, the former federal prosecutor.

“The question is whether Speaker McCarthy has the votes. He won’t proceed with an impeachment inquiry unless he has the votes.” …

McCarthy said less conservative Republicans are more interested in launching a “blistering assault” on Biden’s policies for the 2024 campaign rather than in an impeachment case.

6. Any Chance the Senate Would Remove Biden?

Legal and political experts consulted by The Daily Signal were all in agreement that even if the evidence is insurmountable, there is no chance that a two-thirds majority of the Democrat-controlled Senate would vote to remove Biden from office….

McCarthy, the former federal prosecutor, warned it could end in Biden and supporters declaring victory after the Senate trial.

“Why would they want an impeachment that is doomed to fail in the Senate?” McCarthy, the former prosecutor, said. “He probably should be impeached and removed over it. But Biden would be acquitted in a Senate trial. So why would you give Biden a victory?”

I believe that the House should do an impeachment inquiry to get all the evidence possible. Then they should present the evidence to the American people to allow Americans decide by an election whether Biden should be removed from office. 

How Can We Learn the Things of God?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to 1 Corinthians 1-7 in a lesson titled “Be Perfectly Joined Together.” This lesson was preceded by the following statement: “Record your impressions while you read 1 Corinthians 1-7. These impressions may include promptings to study an idea further, to share with others something you learn, or to make changes in your life.”

The lesson for Sunday School was preceded with this interesting statement: “Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught that most people ‘come [to church] seeking a spiritual experience’ (“A Teacher Come from God,” Ensign, May 1998, 26). As you read 1 Corinthians 1-7, prayerfully consider what you can do to help create spiritual experiences in your class.” 

Both of the above statements of counsel encourage us to prepare for and to act on spiritual promptings, which come from God. The lesson was introduced by the following paragraph.

During the months that Paul spent in Corinth, “many of the Corinthians hearing [him] believed, and were baptized” (Acts 18:8). So it must have been heartbreaking for Paul to hear, just a few years later, that there were “divisions” and “contentions” among the Corinthian Saints and that in his absence they began to heed the “wisdom of this world” (1 Corinthians 1:10-11, 20). In response, Paul wrote the letter we now call 1 Corinthians. It is full of profound doctrine, and yet at the same time, Paul seemed disappointed that the Saints were not ready to receive all the doctrine he wanted to give them. “I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual,” he lamented, “for ye are yet carnal” (1 Corinthinians 3:1-3). As we prepare to read Paul’s words, it might be helpful to examine our own readiness to receive truth – including our willingness to heed the Spirit and strive for unity within our families, with our fellow Saints, and with God.

The scripture block for this week contained several appropriate principles to discuss, but I feel prompted to discuss this principle found in 1 Corinthians 2:9-16: “I need the Holy Ghost in order to understand the things of God.”

If I wanted to learn about algebra, I would seek instruction from an algebra instructor. If I wanted to learn about automotive mechanics, I would seek someone who knows how to work on automobiles. Paul tells us how to seek learning about “the things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:9-16). Here are the applicable scripture verses:

9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned..

15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

God knows all things, and He teaches us the things that we should know through the power of the Holy Ghost. He has helped me to better understand His doctrines and principles. He has taught me many concepts that I needed for my college classes. He has even helped me to make decisions in making quilts or planting gardens. God knows all things and will help us in our daily lives if we listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

The most important things that God teaches us are “the things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:11). In the October 1977 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elder LeGrand Richards of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke about the things of God and man. He gave several examples of how people learned about the “things of God” by being instructed by God. One of his examples is as follow: 

Now I would like to point out a few of the differences between the ways of men and their teachings and the truth as the Lord has revealed it through his holy prophets. First, I refer to the way they believe in the Trinity. When the Prophet Joseph saw his vision, the whole Christian world believed in a God without body, parts, or passions. That means he had no eyes; he couldn’t see. He had no ears; he couldn’t hear. He had no mouth; he couldn’t speak. Moses knew that this condition would prevail, for when he went to lead the children of Israel into the Promised Land, he told them that they would not remain there long, but that they would be scattered among the nations, and that they would worship gods made by the hands of man (that’s man’s doing) that could neither see, nor hear, nor taste, nor smell. (See Deut. 4:26–28.) That’s exactly the kind of a god the whole Christian world was worshipping at the time Joseph Smith had his vision. But Moses didn’t leave it at that. He said in the latter days (and we live in the latter days) that if they would seek after God they would surely find him. (See Deut. 4:29.) Joseph Smith sought after him and found him.

At one time the Prophet Joseph visited the President of the United States, and the President asked him the difference between his church and other churches, and the Prophet said, “We have the Holy Ghost.” And when one has the Holy Ghost, he is laboring under the divine direction of God, the Eternal Father, and his Son, Jesus Christ. He is not dependent upon the ways of man, and as Paul pointed out, the ways of God are foolishness unto men because they can’t comprehend them.

Compare, now, that idea of God with the experience of the Prophet Joseph. As a young man, he went into the woods to pray in answer to the invitation of the apostle James, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” (James 1:5.) And in answer to his prayer, a light descended from heaven, brighter than the noonday sun, and in the midst of that light were two glorious personages: the Father and the Son. The Father said to Joseph: “This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (JS-H 1:17.)

And then the Savior of the world, whose right it is to pass judgment upon the right and wrong of all individuals and groups, asked Joseph what he wanted to know, and he asked which of all the churches he should join. The Savior answered that he should join none of them, for they all taught for doctrine the precepts of men. And that is the reason for the thousand churches in the United States today—it is because they follow the precepts of men rather than the revelations.

Joseph Smith, as a fourteen-year-old young man, learned that God will answer prayers when we sincerely seek for answers. He also learned a truth that had been lost from the world: God the Father and Jesus Christ have glorified bodies of flesh and bone (see Doctrine and Covenants 130-22-23). This truth explains and supports the doctrine that God created male and female in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27).

Elder Richards shared other examples of how the “things of God” differ from the “things of man.” One of those examples is baptism. Man has decided that infants must be baptized by sprinkling water on them or they will not be saved. God commands that male and female must be baptized by immersion after they reach the age of accountability (age eight). Therefore, infants, toddlers, and children under the age of eight years are innocent and do not need baptism.

What Is Truth?

Families, communities, and nations are stronger when truth is spoken. Jesus Christ taught, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” He told us that we need to know the truth to be truly free.

Those people who speak the truth help other people to be free. The opposite is also a fact: those who want to control other people use lots of lies to keep them under control. All we need to do to know the truth of this statement is to look back on all the lies that were told to us about COVID-19. People were lying to us because they wanted to control us, and they used the excuse of COVID-19 to do so.

Yesterday former President Donald J. Trump turned himself in at the jail in Fulton County, Georgia. For whatever reason, the county sheriff thought that he needed a mugshot of Trump, the most famous man in the world.

Andrea Widburg shared “eight absolutely true statements about Trump’s indictment and arrest,” but she started with the “most obvious” truth: “Never take a mugshot photo of an innocent man with at least 75 million fans, a large percentage of whom are brave and have a great sense of humor.” Widburg’s eight truths are as follow: 

First truth: Race-obsessed Southern Democrat prosecutors have a long and deserved reputation for corruption….

Second truth: Don’t indict and book someone for being an election denier when there’s indisputable evidence that you were prepared to deny the election on the exact same grounds.

Third truth: Those who already hate Trump will continue to hate Trump – and I don’t mean leftists. I mean those alleged “conservatives” who happily saw Biden enter the White House because they preferred a manifestly corrupt, radical Democrat to an admittedly eccentric man who was the most conservative president in modern American history….

Fourth truth: [Fani] Willis’s arrest of the lawyers who advised Trump about legal ways to challenge the election outcome is something that tyrants do. Shakespeare himself foresaw and understood what happens when you attack lawyers. People love quoting Shakespeare’s famous line from Henry VI, Part 2: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” What few remember is that the speaker was a villain who sought, with others, to overthrow the rightful monarch….

Fifth truth: When you’ve already destroyed the lives of hundreds of Americans for doing nothing more than walking through the Capitol after black-clad, still-unindicted men destroyed all evidence that doing so was trespassing, it’s really a bad idea to give them a martyr king.

Sixth truth: When you create a martyr, people who haven’t even been arrested will start lining up their mugshots, too….

Seventh truth: If you indict a former president and the lead opponent (by far) to the current White House occupant, you will discover that there is a deep well of people who firmly believe in Alinsky’s fifth and sixth dicta: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.” “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” Between humor and imagery manipulation, this is playing out as a Trump victory, not a defeat…. [Lots of memes]

Eighth truth: The mugshot and arrest mean Trump is garnering support from real people on the streets who don’t live in the Twitterverse (“X-verse”) but who have very strong feelings about how the legal system can be abused.

Blacks did well economically during the Trump presidency. The Biden administration has destroyed their gains and set them back by decades, even as crime in their neighborhoods has soared thanks to Democrat race hustlers. No wonder blacks are cooling on Biden … and this arrest won’t help.

John 8:32: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” The above are eight truths and, with luck, not only will they free Trump and those who worked within the system to challenge a manifestly, provably corrupt election, but these truths may also free America from the intense corruption of the United States government and its state partisans.

All Americans should understand the truth that the likely party candidates for POTUS in 2024 will be Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Both men are flawed in numerous ways, and both face legal problems. So, we should look past the flaws and legal problems and examine their records honestly.

Trump loves America, and he did many things to strengthen America and to make America better and Americans better off – economy (low inflation, lots of jobs), border security (lowest number of illegal crossings in decades), foreign relations (no wars – first president in decades to keep us out of war), oil independence (and full oil reserves – to be used for national emergencies, such as war), and numerous other ways.

Biden, on the other hand, has weakened America in almost every way – high inflation, pay people to not work, involved in war between Ukraine and Russia, emptied our oil reserves (sold much of our oil to China), opened our borders to all the world (more than six million immigrants have entered America during the Biden administration), made America a laughing stock to the entire world, and numerous other ways.

Biden was supposed to be the great uniter, but he has widened the gap by declaring war on all conservatives and supporters of Trump – MAGA people.  In addition, he allegedly sold America to our enemies by changing government policies to make his family rich with tens of millions of dollars from Ukraine, Russia, China, and other nations (all enemies of America).

All Americans need to look for the truth about Trump and Biden and then support the future president who would be best for America. By doing so, we can strengthen our families, communities, and nation.

How Do We Get Back to Equal Justice Before the Law?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the need for equal justice before the law. Former President Donald Trump was arrested and indicted today in Atlanta, Georgia, for challenging the 2020 presidential election.  This is Trump’s fourth indictment in the past five months.

Trump was charged with violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act), a law made to indict mobsters and gangsters. Charges were made for making telephone calls to legislators, encouraging people to watch television programs, and other such things.

Meanwhile, evidence continues to arise due to the corruption of then-Vice President Joe Biden and his family. It appears that Trump’s first impeachment came for questioning the Biden corruption. Victor Davis Hanson explained the situation this way. 

Despite years of Biden family and media disinformation, we are finally learning that President Joe Biden really did fire Ukrainian prosecutor Victor Shokin for looking into state corruption involving the oil company Burisma and his son Hunter Biden – and ultimately Joe Biden himself.

As vice president, Biden, in his own words, bragged that he had threatened to cancel the deliverance of American foreign aid to Ukraine unless Shokin was dismissed.

So what is Congress to do now – unimpeach and exonerate an innocently impeached Donald Trump, and instead impeach a guilty Biden for essentially the same allegations?

After all, the Left redefined the impeachment bar in 2019 as leveraging foreign aid to Ukraine to benefit one’s political career.

And that is exactly what Joe Biden did to ensure his son could continue to raise millions for the Biden family with foreign governments, while being shielded from political consequences.

An impeached Trump also was accused of using the power of government to go after his likely 2020 presidential rival by suggesting that Joe Biden and his family were corrupt and should be investigated by Ukrainian officials for fraud and bribery.

Despite Joe Biden’s denials, Trump was right: There was plenty of evidence to link unwarranted Ukrainian payoffs going into Biden family coffers.

So Trump in 2019 had good reasons to ensure that none of the Bidens was still burrowed deeply into the Ukrainian payoff machine.

In contrast, Biden had far less grounds to unleash the full powers of government against his probable 2024 rival, Trump.

After explaining several more examples of how Biden is treated much better than is Trump, Hanson concluded his article as follows:

Finally, Joe Biden can no longer work a full day. He mutters. He stumbles. He serially lies.

He hijacks solemn occasions commemorating national tragedies by trying to one-up the grieving with his own self-absorbed stories – most of them irrelevant and narcissistic half-truths.

If a cognitively and criminally challenged Biden cannot finish his term, we will finally learn the full story of 15 years of Biden family corruption.

The Bidens will lose the only impediment – Joe Biden’s political machinations – left in the way of an honest, full-blown felony investigation into what is likely the most corrupt presidential family in American history.

Trump is in a dangerous situation. Not only does he have 91 charges against him – any one of them would put him in prison for years. Even though his charges are nonsense and would most likely be overturned by higher courts, such cases would take years to work through the court system.

In addition, Trump is in danger due to assassination. The secret combinations that are controlling our government will attempt assassination if they cannot win in the courts or in an election. The only course they would have left is to kill him. If he is imprisoned in Georgia, he could be killed there – several people have died there in recent months. Then there are numerous foreign nations that would kill him if given the chance, such as Iran, Russia, or China.

Who Won the GOP Debate?

Tonight eight Republican candidates for President of the United States took the stage in the first official GOP debates of the season. Those participating in the debate held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, are North Dakota Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.

Virginia Allen, Mary Margaret Olohan, Jarrett Stepman, and Tyler O’Neil published an article in The Daily Signal shared “some of the most noteworthy answers and exchanges from the debate.” A few of those responses are as follow: 

Burgum

“First of all, I’m a very pro-life governor in a pro-life state, and this issue is very important,” Burgum said when asked about abortion.

But the North Dakotan added that despite his personal opposition to abortion, he did not believe in a federal abortion ban. He cited the 10^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as the reason for his opposition to a national ban….

Christie

Christie addressed the problems at the southern border. He laid out his plan for addressing the millions of illegal immigrants who have already come to the United States.

“The first thing we need to do is to stop any more from coming. That’s the first thing we need to do,” the former New Jersey governor said.

As for those who have already come here, he said, “We have to have law and order in this country. We have to enforce the law.”

What that means, Christie said, is that the U.S. needs to make sure that the people who come here illegally are not “rewarded for being here illegally.”

He said that there were huge numbers of “wonderful people” from around the world “waiting in line and following the law to try to come here and pursue the American dream.” ….

DeSantis

“Our country is in decline,” the Florida governor said. “This decline is not inevitable. It’s a choice. We need to send [President] Joe Biden back to his basement and reverse American decline.”

DeSantis added, “We must reverse Bidenomics so that middle-class families have a chance to succeed again.” …

Asked if he would support sending U.S. special forces across the border to Mexico to shut down fentanyl labs and stop criminal cartel activity, DeSantis said, “Yes, and I will do it,” without hesitation.

“We have to reestablish the rule of law and we have to defend people,” DeSantis said of the situation along the southern border.

Haley

Haley … described herself as unapologetically pro-life, but pushed for Republicans to stop “demonizing the issue of abortion, calling for Americans to rally around consensus. That remark provoked a rebuke from Pence….

Hutchinson

Hutchinson accused Trump of undermining respect for the U.S. justice system, trying to tie the former president to the crime issue….

“It starts at the top with a respect for our justice system, that our former president who is under indictment has undermined by attacking judges, by attacking prosecutors, by attacking the system, and saying he’s aggrieved,” the former Arkansas governor added….

Pence

Pence defended his position on Ukraine, his handling of the transition of power after the 2020 presidential election, and his record as former vice president…

When the candidates were asked if they would support Trump if he is again the nominee, Pence did raise his hand after several other candidates did so. Hutchinson was the only candidate to not raise his hand.

Pence spoke clearly of his pro-life views and promised that as president, the American people would have a “champion for life” in the White House. Pence indicated he would support a national law banning abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy, when a baby in the womb is able to feel pain.

Ramaswamy

Ramaswamy was quick to fire back at his fellow candidates Wednesday evening, sparring with Christie, Haley, Pence, and others in sometimes heated exchanges on foreign policy, climate change, and more.

When asked if he would support additional funding for Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion, Ramaswamy said he would not support an increase and added that aid for Ukraine detracts from other, more pressing concerns for Americans…

The entrepreneur-turned-presidential candidate said that America will be made secure by ensuring that “we are strong at home.”

Scott

Scott defended his record on issues such as federal spending and abortion. He spoke passionately about his pro-life record and the need for federal legislation to limit late-term abortions….

Scott said that the Declaration of Independence defined our rights as coming from our Creator and that among those right is the right to life….

In his closing remarks, Scott spoke about the attainability of the American dream….

Front runner Donald Trump did not participate in the debate. However, an interview with Tucker Carlson was released five minutes prior to the opening of the debate. I watched both the interview and the debate, and I still believe that Trump is the only candidate that can take on the Deep State.

Here is my opinion about who won the debate: The front runners are still at the head of the pack and none of the others moved up.