Did Your Study of the Book of Mormon Move You Closer to Jesus Christ?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to Moroni 10, the last chapter in the Book of Mormon – Another Testament of Jesus Christ, in a lesson titled “Come unto Christ, and Be Perfected in Him.” The lesson was introduced with the following information. 

The Book of Mormon opens with Nephi’s promise to show us that “the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith” (1 Nephi 1:20). The book closes with a parallel invitation from Moroni: “Remember how merciful the Lord hath been” (Moroni 10:2-3). What examples of the Lord’s mercy have you seen in the Book of Mormon? You might think of the merciful way God led Lehi’s family through the wilderness and across the great waters, the tender mercies He showed to Enos when his soul hungered for forgiveness, or the mercy He showed to Alma, a bitter enemy of the Church who became one of its fearless defenders. Or your thoughts might turn to the mercy the resurrected Savior showed to the people when He healed their sick and blessed their little children. Perhaps most important, all of this can remind you of “how merciful the Lord hath been” to you, for the Book of Mormon was written to invite each of us to receive God’s mercy—an invitation expressed simply in Moroni’s farewell words, “Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him” (Moroni 10:32).

The scripture block for this week contained at least three principles that could be discussed. They are: (1) I can know the truth of all things by the power of the Holy Ghost (Moroni 10:3-7), (2) God has given me spiritual gifts (Moroni 10:8-25), and (3) I can be perfected through the grace of Jesus Christ (Moroni 10:30-33). I feel prompted to discuss the third principle. Here are the verses for this principle:

30 And again I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift, and touch not the evil gift, nor the unclean thing.

31 And awake, and arise from the dust, O Jerusalem; yea, and put on thy beautiful garments, O daughter of Zion; and strengthen thy stakes and enlarge thy borders forever, that thou mayest no more be confounded, that the covenants of the Eternal Father which he hath made unto thee, O house of Israel, may be fulfilled.

32 Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

33 And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot.

Moroni’s counsel to “come unto Christ” involves more than learning of and thinking about Him. Rather, this is an invitation to come unto Christ in the most complete sense possible – to become as He is. As you look back on your study of the Book of Mormon this year, what have you felt and learned about Jesus Christ? How has the Book of Mormon helped you to come unto Him. Are you more likely to rely more completely on His grace? How has your study helped you to “deny not” the Savior’s power?

Consider sharing your own witness of the Book of Mormon with someone who needs to hear it, including loved ones, and friends who may not know of its message. I can think of two bits of understanding that I gained in the past two or three weeks.

The first experience that I wish to share happened this week when we studied Moroni 10, which is famous for verses 4-5 about how to learn if the Book of Mormon is true.

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

The lesson material suggested an April 2019 General Conference talk titled “Seeking Knowledge by the Spirit” and given by Elder Mathias Held of the Seventy. Elder Held spoke of two young men in dark suits who came to the home and taught he and his wife about the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Elder Held and his wife wanted to know how they could know if what the missionaries were teaching was true. They knew of the scripture saying that we can “know them by their fruits,” so they decided to look for the fruits with “the eyes of our very rational minds.” They found a Church with (1) “friendly and happy people and wonderful families,” (2) no paid clergy but members who “accept assignments and responsibilities,” and (3) “A church where Jesus Christ and families are at the center of everything.”

There were other things that they liked about: (1) “the emphasis on personal growth, on education, on hard work and self-reliance,” (2) “the remarkable humanitarian program,” and (3) “the general conferences, with the wonderful music and the profound spiritual principles shared there.”

The Herds liked what they saw and could not find any faults with the Church. However, they wanted to know everything before being baptized. After ten months of studying the gospel, they read in Mosiah 18, “As ye are desirous to … bear one another’s burdens, … and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, … if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord?”

These investigators of the Church of Jesus Christ recognized this passage from the Book of Mormon to be the answer to their questions about being baptized. This experience resonated with me and taught me that the Book of Mormon can answer all kinds of questions. As a long-time member, I sought to gain confirmation that the Church of Jesus Christ is true, and I found my answer in Third Nephi 27 where Jesus Christ teaches that His Church will be called by His name and built upon His teachings.

The second experience happened two weeks ago when we studied Moroni 1-6. In Moroni 6:5, we read, “And the church did meet together oft, to fast and to pray, and to speak one with another concerning the welfare of their souls.” This verse brought my patriarchal blessing to my mind, particularly the five different places where it counsels me to stay active in the Church. Then, I thought about the testimony meeting where I first began to question my testimony, which led me on a six-month quest to gain confirmation and the experience discussed in a paragraph above. If I had not been in that meeting on that day, I would not have heard the testimonies given and might not have ever decided to gain confirmation of my own testimony.

Why Is Correct History Essential?

Families, communities, and nations are stronger when adults teach correct history to children. There are several good reasons why children need to learn correct history, whether it be family history or national history. Here are some of those reasons.

·         Teaching history to children gives them a sense of who they are and where they come from.

·         Teaching history to children helps them to improve in critical things and decision-making skills.

·         Teaching history to children gives them a model for good citizenship.

·         Teaching history to children helps them to learn from the mistakes by other people in earlier years.

If teaching correct history to children does so many good things, imagine what happens when children are taught incorrect history or absolute lies. What have children been taught over the past four years about the riot that took place at the Capitol Building?

From the report released by the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee headed by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) on its investigation into the House January 6 Committee, we know that they were taught lies. Loudermilk reviewed the following four key findings of the report with Glen Beck: 

1.      Pipe bomber.

According to FBI testimonies, the cell phone carrier that possessed data related to the January 6 pipe bomber was corrupted when the FBI received it. When the agency went back to the carrier to ask for the data again, it was allegedly told that the data was no longer available.

Loudermilk says that they now know this was a lie.

“We went to the three major carriers, asked them all. … All three of them said, ‘Yes, we were subpoenaed by the FBI, we did provide data.’ All three of them said the FBI never came back to us and asked for the data again, telling us it was corrupted,” he tells Glenn.

When he asked whether these carriers still possessed the data, all three said, “Yes, we keep data for every major event.” …

2.      The gallows.

“The only thing [Democrats] could run on was January 6 and that Donald Trump is a traitor to our country. We systematically dismantled that, but the one thing that they had was the gallows,” says Loudermilk, adding that the Democratic narrative was that it [was] erected to hang Mike Pence because he wasn’t going to object to the certification of votes.”

“But the thing is, Trump didn’t even know what Pence was going to do until 1:00 in the afternoon, and the gallows [were] put up at 6:00 in the morning,” he clarifies.

Further, if someone were to put up a small stand on Capitol property, it would be taken down immediately, so how is it that Capitol Police allowed gallows to remain standing all day?

Loudermilk says that he assigned a team to find out how much investigating the FBI did into the gallows. After asking every government building on the street whether the FBI had contacted it asking for video footage of the truck that transported the materials for the gallows, every single one said no.

“The FBI spent no time looking into who erected the gallows,” says Loudermilk.

3.      Liz Cheney

“Liz Cheney should be investigated,” he says bluntly.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson was the “star witness who came in and testified before the select committee twice under oath.”

“The third time, she started changing her first two testimonies, and then the fourth time, she totally came out with all kinds of crazy stories,” says Loudermilk.

What happened between the first two testimonies and the last two?

“She started communicating directly with Liz Cheney,” he says, who ironically referred Donald Trump to the DOJ in July 2022 to be investigated for “witness tampering.”

Unlike Trump, who was not successful in contacting a witness, “Liz Cheney did communicate with a witness … and even acknowledged that it was unethical.”

“According to Cassidy Hutchinson, Cheney did recommend her to fire her attorney and that Liz Cheney did help her find a new one,” said Loudermilk.

4.      Missing information

Liz Wheeler, sitting in for Stu Burguiere, points to the part of the subcommittee’s report that states, “There was information that was withheld from Liz Cheney and her committee’s final report” and “that there was a terabyte of data that was somehow deleted.”

“Do you know what information was held from that final report … and do you have any way of accessing the deleted data?” she asks.

“Yes, we know what was missing, and we’re releasing it publicly,” Loudermilk says, adding that some of the missing information includes “witness testimonies that exonerated Trump or did not line up with Cassidy Hutchinson’s.”

“As far as deleted documents, we know that they got rid of all the videotapes of all the testimonies, and some of those could have exonerated Stefan Passantino,” he adds.

More information can be found in a video clip located here. 

All adults should be careful about the truthfulness of history being taught to the children. We know that the “victors” are the people who write the history, so we can expect that the story will be slanted their way. However, the truth of the history should be available. When children are taught correct history, they can be instrumental in strengthening families, communities, and nations.

Are Americans Free From Huge Spending Bills?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns 1,500-page spending bills. The U.S. House of Representatives was set to vote on one such bill, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was forced to pull the bill. Rob Bluey at The Daily Signal reported that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were behind getting the bill pulled. 

Elon Musk isn’t messing around, and he just got a massive scalp to prove it. The billionaire owner of X started his day by posting a photo of the 1,500-page spending bill in Congress with this question: “Ever seen a bigger piece of pork?”

Scores of Musk posts and reposts followed Wednesday, sending members of Congress scrambling to quickly declare their opposition as calls and emails began flooding the Capitol.

By the afternoon, President-elect Donald Trump declared his opposition. And within hours, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pulled the bill he had unveiled just a day earlier.

“Elon just became the most powerful person in Washington, D.C., today,” social media influencer Wall Street May told The Daily Signal. “He proved he can flip enough votes in Congress to half a spending bill.”

That’s no easy feat given Congress’ annual ritual of busting the budget.

Congressional leaders, who were hoping to pass the so-called continuing resolution by Friday, turned out to be no match for Musk and the legion of other popular X accounts who railed against pork-barrel spending.

Musk’s relentless focus on the bill Wednesday was particularly salient given his role with Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, whose mission is to reduce waste and cut $2 trillion in spending.

Those goals would be harder to accomplish with a bloated spending bill that adds billions in new spending.

The continuing resolution, which would fund the government until March, was supposed to be lawmakers’ final vote before heading home for Christmas. Instead of a “clean” bill, however, Democrat and Republican negotiators loaded it with a hodge-podge of unrelated policy and additional spending, including a pay raise for members of Congress. [Emphasis added.]

Ramaswamy saw what was in the bill and made a video. Musk then shared the video with his followers. Ramaswamy said, “Congress is about to pass a bill that blows away your taxpayer money, but they made it over 1,500 pages long so you wouldn’t read it…. And the worst part is, they didn’t want you to know about any of it. That’s why they made this a last-minute jam job.”

Ramaswamy and Musk ask their followers on social media to contact Congress. Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) told Fox News’ Chad Pergram that lawmakers received the message.

The phone was ringing off the hook today. And you know why? Because they were reading the tweets, the X from Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, and they were telling me that they were, that they were listening to them. This shows the influence that President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy have in this process before they’re even in office.

Musk and Ramaswamy are already wielding great power, and the Trump administration is not officially in office yet. Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, recognized why Musk and Ramaswamy were opposing the bill.

Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk recognize that if they are empowered to somehow reduce government spending and reduce our deficit because, as Elon Musk says, deficit equals inflation, that’s the bottom line…. When we do deficit spending, we are printing money. We are causing inflation.

Musk put it succinctly: “Unless @ DOGE ends the careers of deceitful, pork-barrel politicians, the waste and corruption will never stop.” He has $277 million reason to help Trump be successful, and he threatened to spend more of his own money against any Republican that votes for the omnibus bill to get them out of office in two years.

Musk and Ramaswamy were not the only people who opposed the spending bill. Vice President-elect JD Vance put the following message on X: 

A statement from President Donald J. Trump and Vice President-Elect JD Vance: The most foolish and inept thing ever done by Congressional Republicans was allowing our country to hit the debt ceiling in 2025. It was a mistake and is now something that must be addressed. Meanwhile, Congress is considering a spending bill that would give sweetheart provisions for government censors and for Liz Cheney. The bill would make it easier to hide the records of the corrupt January 6 committee – which accomplished nothing for the American people and hid security failures that happened that day. This bill would also give Congress a pay increase while many Americans are struggling this Christmas. Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch. If Democrats won’t cooperate on the debt ceiling now, what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration?

Let’s have this debate now. And we should pass a streamlined spending bill that doesn’t give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want. Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025. The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling. Anything else is a betrayal of our country. Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH. If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CAL THEIR BLUFF. It is Schumer and Biden who are holding up aid to our farmers and disaster relief. THIS CHAOS WOULD NOT BE HAPPENING IF WE HAD A REAL PRESIDENT. WE WILL IN 32 DAYS!

Where Is the Real Justice for January 6, 2021?

Nearly four years ago, a political gathering turned into an out-of-control mob of people who followed the urging of activists to “go into the Capitol.” Political bias on  the January 6 Select Committee kept the truth from getting to American citizens.

Now, we are learning that the Pentagon got involved in politics, something that the military usually tries to avoid. In an article written by Joseph M. Hanneman and Steve Baker and published at The Blaze, we learn the following: 

The Pentagon dismissed an order from President Donald J. Trump to use the National Guard to ensure safety on Jan. 6, intentionally delayed Guard deployment for hours, lied about it to congressional leaders, and used its own inspector general to cover it all up, a U.S. House report concludes.

The Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight investigated the matter for two years. Their recent report “put the blame for failure to get National Guard troops to the U.S. Capitol on former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, two Pentagon Army generals, and Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller.”

“Over the past 24 months of this investigation, my subcommittee staff have faced incredible obstacles in pursuit of the truth; missing and deleted documents, hidden evidence, unaccounted-for video footage, and uncooperative bureaucrats,” said U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the subcommittee….

“This report reveals that there was not just one single cause for what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6; but it was a series of intelligence, security, and leadership failures at several levels and numerous entities,” Loudermilk wrote in the report, set for release on Dec. 17.

“Even amid multiple failures, there were two common elements that significantly contributed to the security issues: an excessive amount of political influence on critical decisions, and a greater concern over the optics than for protecting life and property,” Loudermilk wrote.

The Pentagon failures were covered up and made worse by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, which issued a report “that contains fabricated information, ignores crucial information, fails to interview key individuals, and appears to have collaborated with DoD to portray a false narrative,” the report said.

The Loudermilk report was ostensibly meant to investigate the failures and politicization of the now-defunct Jan. 6 Select Committee, but it spent most of its pages on efforts to stymie getting the National Guard to the Capitol after desperate calls for help from Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.

Officials in the highest levels of the Pentagon blamed the massive security failure at the Capitol on the District of Columbia National Guard rather than owning up to their own efforts to sabotage making the Guard available to quell rioting, the report said.

“The events of January 6, 2021, were preventable,” Loudermilk wrote.

“For nearly four years, Democrats pushed the narrative that President Trump was solely responsible for the riot at the Capitol – spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a politically motivated witch hunt while failing to legitimately examine how United States Capitol leadership was unable to ensure adequate protection for Members of Congress and thousands of congressional staff.

‘These actions taken by Pentagon leadership led to the DoD’s paralysis in response to the riot at the U.S. Capitol.’

“Incredibly, it would take nearly four years for video footage to emerge of Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi – in a rare moment of true leadership – admitting that she was fully responsible for the security failures that day,” Loudermilk said.

The report suggests that the two top members of the select committee – U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) – should be investigated for allegedly destroying investigative documents and possibly suborning perjury from Cassidy Hutchinson, a key anti-Trump witness who testified before the select committee. Cheney likely broke “numerous federal laws” and “should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the report said.

The report makes six key findings on the National Guard issue that primarily implicate McCarthy for undermining efforts to move a Guard quick-reaction force from a nearby staging area to the Capitol, forcing Sund to call in 1,700 law enforcement officers from around the National Capital Region to retake the Capitol grounds.

The first key finding concerns Secretary McCarthy. The Loudermilk report and the article at The Blaze put the blame for having no National Guard troops squarely on McCarthy. “Secretary McCarthy ‘intentionally delayed’ the Guard response that had been approved at 3:04 p.m. by acting Secretary Miller.” The Secretary “then lied to Pelosi, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and other congressional leaders” when “he told them that the National Guard troops were ‘physically moving to the Capitol’ when he ‘knew these forces had yet to receive any orders,’ the report said.”

The second key finding concerns both McCarthy and Miller who “both placed unusual restrictions on the D.C. National Guard in memos issued on Jan. 4 and 5, the report said.” The two men did not want the National Guard to be armed: “The memos withheld authority for the DCNG to be ‘issued weapons, ammunition, bayonets, and batons’ and ‘interact physically with protesters.’” McCarthy went further with his restrictions. He required a “concept of operations plan” to be submitted before he would give authority to the “use of a 40-man Quick Reaction Force.”

The report claimed, “These actions taken by Pentagon leadership led to the DoD’s paralysis in response to the riot at the U.S. Capitol.”

The report continued, “The Subcommittee concludes that these explicit control measures on the National Guard stem from both ill-advised, poor judgement by the Acting Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Army, and DoD leadership’s intent to prevent or limit the National Guard’s ability to act on January 6.”

The third key finding involves Chief Sund and Secretary McCarthy. Sund sent an “urgent request” for help from the National Guard in “a conference call with the Pentagon at 2:30 p.m.” to request immediate support from the DCNG. However, McCarthy “declined to make himself available for the call,” even though his “permission was expressly required.” Those participating in the conference call were shocked to hear two senior staff generals deny the request for support because of “optics.”

The fourth key finding involves Miller and Sund. Miller approved “Sund’s request for assistance at 3:04 p.m. and communicated the approval to McCarthy, the report said.” However, “McCarthy failed to tell Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, who didn’t receive the approval to act until after 5:00 p.m.”

Even though McCarthy claims to have called Walker at 3:05 p.m., “Walker ‘has consistently denied that he received any communication from Secretary McCarthy or his staff at any point on January 6, 2021, as he was waiting for authorization to deploy his forces to the Capitol,’ the report said.” The report continued, “This failure to communicate the order in a timely manner has never been addressed by either DoD or oversight bodies, including the Select Committee.”

The fifth key finding involves a call at 3:18 p.m. between McCarthy, Pelosi, Schumer, and other key lawmakers who were trying to “impress upon him the urgency of the situation at the Capitol.” McCarthy told them that he was waiting to get permission from his boss, that he had permission, and that the National Guard was moving. “The truth was that the D.C. Guard was not moving and had not been ordered to the Capitol despite Secretary Miller’s 3:04 p.m. approval.”

“The most troubling aspect of these misleading statements is that congressional leaders made decisions affecting the security of Members of Congress and their staff, based on the information that the DCNG was en route to the Capitol at 3:18 p.m.,” the report said….

“To date, no investigation or disciplinary action has taken place against Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy for deceiving congressional leadership with false statements regarding the delay in deployment of the D.C. National Guard to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,” the report said.

The article then went to the obstruction of the inspector general. In his report of the riot, the “Department of Defense Office of Inspector General issued a 2021 report that ‘knowingly and inaccurately placed blame on D.C. National Guard leadership,’ the report said.” Then the OIG obstructed the House subcommittee’s work of investigation.

The OIG at times obstructed the work of the subcommittee, which detected an “inappropriately close relationship between the DoD Inspector General and DoD, which compromises the Inspector General’s ability to conduct objective oversight.

The OIG interviewed 43 witnesses in the creation of its Jan. 6 report but “failed to interview key personnel from the DCNG who were heavily involved” in Jan. 6 planning, the report said. The OIG report made “alarming accusations” that Gen. Walker lied in his testimony during a March 2021 Senate hearing.

“Major General Walker’s testimony revealed information that is not favorable to Army staff and senior Pentagon officials, and thus DoD IG constructed their report to deliberately undermine the DCNG Commander’s sworn testimony,” the report said.

Loudermilk and his subcommittee were assisted by four National Guard whistleblowers who testified at a hearing in April 2024. The whistleblowers “called out the Department of Defense OIG Jan. 6 report as being riddled with falsehoods.”

“As an oversight entity, the Subcommittee is simply highlighting the lack of independent and rigorous analysis by the Dod IG in their failure to interview the D.C. National Guard witnesses who have maintained a different account of DoD events on January 6, 2021,” the report said.

President Joe Biden has not fired any individual despite the many failings of his administration. No one was fired for the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan. No one was fired for the United States’ part in the disastrous war in Ukraine. I do not hold much hope for Secretary McCarthy even receiving a reprimand from Biden for his lies and unworthy behavior. However, I expect some thorough housecleaning to be done by Donald Trump, starting on January 20, 2025. I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that Trump requested resignation letters from many of the people in government and military to be on his desk when he gets to the White House after his inauguration.

 

Why Does Marc Andreessen Support Donald Trump?

 According to Michael Barone, Marc Andreessen – the person who invested the first web browser for the internet – switched from supporting Democrats to supporting Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Andreessen explained his view in an interview with The Free Press co-founder Bari Weiss. 

“My concern is that the censorship and political control of AI is a thousand times more dangerous than censorship and political control of social media – maybe a million times more dangerous,” Andreessen, a prime innovator of artificial intelligence, told Weiss.

“The thing with AI is, I think AI is going to be the control layer for everything in the future – how the health care system works, how the education system works, how the government works,” he said. “So that if AI is woke, biased, censored, politically controlled, you are in a hyper-Orwellian, China-style, social credit system nightmare.”

Like fellow tech titan Elon Musk, Andreessen has come to see the Democrats as “the ones who are trying to silence free speech.” …

Andreessen is concerned less about transitory partisan finagling and more about possibly permanent suppressions of truth. The claim that “the COVID lab leak hypothesis was ‘misinformation’ and broadly censored on social media” is one such example, he says.

I have written often about the lab leak hypothesis and how denigration of it was concocted by former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci and former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins.

Starting February 2020, Fauci and Collins conspired to get colleagues who considered the lab leak likely to write a paper disparaging that theory and endorsing the idea that the virus came from a live animal market.

No evidence of such transmission has been found, and presumably, Fauci and Collins’ control over millions of dollars in research funding helped persuade the authors to change their minds. After publication, Fauci airily referred the article to the press as if he had nothing to do with it.

Establishment press outfits were happy to play along, characterizing the lab leak theory as “already debunked” (The Washington Post) or a “fringe theory” (The New York Times). The latter outlet’s lead COVID-19 reporter offhandedly referred to its “racist roots.”

Facebook and pre-Musk Twitter, now X, followed the cues and suppressed the lab leak theory even as they suppressed criticism of masking protocols and school closures.

By March 2023, the Energy Department joined the FBI in concluding that the virus likely resulted from a lab leak in China. They were bolstered by multiple articles by former Times science writer Nicholas Wade, and by Matt Ridley and Alina Chan’s book “Viral.”

Finally, this month, a detailed report by the House Oversight Committee not only endorses the lab leak theory as the most likely explanation of the virus but also, as Ridley wrote in The Telegraph, “lays out in gobsmacking detail just how much senior officials allegedly have schemed to prevent information emerging.”

What they were covering up, it becomes plain now, is that Fauci was commissioning China’s Wuhan laboratory to conduct gain-of-function research, making the virus more contagious to humans, presumably to develop means of defense.

The report explains in painstaking detail how Fauci, in testimony before Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., used a misleading definition when he vehemently denied authorizing gain-of-function research.

One can argue the attempted coverup by Fauci and others ultimately failed….

However, one must also add that the scientists who led the coverup retained the capacity to shape pandemic policy, pressing successfully for measures that proved to be harmful or unnecessary, such as school closures, masking for children, and vaccine requirements for those with natural immunity from previous infection.

Another thing one must add: The press and social media billionaires who went along with the scientists’ speech suppression acted on the assumption that they were frustrating the intentions of Trump and his supporters, whom they continued – and continue – to regard as something like Hitler and Nazis.

Any evidence in favor of things the Trump side was for, the media outlets felt an obligation to suppress….

The Barone article shows that Andreessen is interested in protecting free speech. Americans should support all people who are willing to work to protect free speech in our nation.

Will Donald Trump Become Another George Washington?

            My VIP for this week is President-elect Donald Trump, the Time Magazine Person of the Year. He was honored this week by being asked to ring the bell to open the Stock Exchange. According to Steve McKee at The Daily Signal, George Washington may have been our greatest president. 

The reason? His [Washington’s] rejection of the predations of power. At the end of the Revolutionary War, Washington had the leverage and prestige to anoint himself America’s monarch, but refused to do so. When Washington resigned his military commission, King George III called him “the greatest man in the world.”

And as the only president twice unanimously elected by the Electoral College, Washington could have served for life. He instead chose to step down after two terms and return to Virginia and his beloved Mount Vernon.

McKee believes that Trump “has the unique opportunity to emulate” Washington. His reason: the fact that Trump knows the job of being President of the United States and is not a true “lame duck” who will “lac the political power to get much done.”

Having already served one term as president, however, Trump is getting off to a running start. And having once again earned the imprimatur of the American people who understand who he is and what he intends to accomplish, he has his mandate. Unable to run again, he can think in historical terms.

Washington could be Trump’s model as he exercises the duly elected powers of the executive branch to dismantle its unconstitutional elements and unwind the administrative state.

There’s much that can be done. Twenty-five years ago, noted economist Milton Friedman matter-of-factly outlined 11 Cabinet-level departments that should go: Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs. (There was no Department of Homeland Security at the time, but we can guess what Friedman would have said about that.)

To be fair, Friedman argued that some functions of these eliminated government departments, such as stewarding the nuclear stockpile and taking care of veterans should be maintained.

Beyond that, we know that expensive entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid can’t just be “undone.” But they can, and must, be reformed.

The idea of putting some two-thirds of the executive branch on the chopping block sounds shocking to those of us who’ve grown up in the era of Big Government. And some would say we can’t possibly go that far – these departments are too big, too deeply ingrained in our way of life, and employ too many people to be unraveled.

I say that’s why they must be unraveled, to tame the federal Leviathan that has become as dangerous to liberty as it is economically unproductive.

That’s not to say the new Trump administration should be cavalier about how it goes about the task, which is why, for example, generous severance packages are being mentioned for employees displaced by the work of Trump’s advisory commission – the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Nor should the second Trump administration be unrealistic about the unanticipated consequences resulting from a dramatic reduction in the size and scope of the federal government.

But there’s nothing that says problems such as poverty, policing, and public health must be handled at the federal level. In fact, the Constitution reserves those powers to the states or the people.

To be sure, any unwinding of this giant ball of yarn must be handled wisely and deliberately, and there’s room for plenty of debate regarding what stays and what goes.

But the more the federal government can be returned to the limits the Founders intended (and the American people ratified), the more we will return self-governance to the states, to the cities, and to the people, where it belongs.

Progressivism has gotten into quite a mess over the past hundred years, and it’s likely to require a decade or more of conservative victories to return us anywhere close to first things.

However, if our new president emulates the example of George Washington and seeks a similar legacy, he can retire to his beloved Mar-a-Lago when his work is done – knowing that America will thrive for another 250 years.

Will Trump Make Good on His Threat of Mass Deportations?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns deportation of immigrants who entered the United States illegally. President-elect Donald Trump made serious campaign promises about mass deportations of illegal immigrants. Both Trump and his “border czar” Tom Homan claim that they will start with violent criminals, but they have no promises about stopping them.

Stu Burguiere of “Stu Does America” discussed Trump’s promises about mass deportations. According to an article by the Blaze TV Staff, Burguiere “believes he’ll make good on these promises – specifically regarding mass deportations.” 

“I think they’ll go pretty big,” Burguiere says. “He was re-elected largely, partially, based on his border stance and how poorly the border went under Joe Biden. And so he’s going to be, I think pretty, aggressive on this.”

And Tom Homan is only confirming Stu’s belief.

The incoming border czar told residents of Chicago this week that mass deportations would start in the Windy City, whose mayor, Brandon Johnson, has said he plans to protect illegal immigrants from federal agents.

“Chicago’s in trouble because your mayor sucks, and your governor sucks,” Homan said, not mincing words. “If he doesn’t want to help,” he continued, singling out Johnson, “get the hell out of the way.”

“Now, the way the immigration law is set up, and this is a little confusing and at times makes things difficult, cities cannot get in the way. Brandon Johnson is a moron, and he cannot get in the way, not legally at least. What he can do is just not help,” Burguiere explains.

“If you happen to arrest someone for, let’s say theft, you could say, ‘Hey, by the way, not only do we have you on theft, but we also have you on this border violation. We’re going to send you to the authorities for that.’ They could easily participate in that type of situation, and that’s really what the Trump administration is asking for,” he continues.

“Instead, they’re just getting opposition from all over the place, even though places like New York want mass deportations to occur. New York voters want the state to support Trump deportations,” he adds, noting that a Siena College poll shows that 54% of respondents say the state should support any Trump administration efforts to deport immigrants living there illegally.

According to the poll, only 35% of respondents oppose the plan.

“I will remind you, that’s not a national poll. That’s a poll of the state of New York that voted for Kamala Harris by, I think, 12 points. So that is a remarkable thing,” Burguiere says, adding, “This is what the people want.”

Democrat mayors of several blue cities are threatening to oppose Trump’s plan to deport illegal immigrants. However, Democrat Eric Adams, mayor of New York City, met with Border Czar Homan and discussed how they could work together to clear the violent criminals out of the Big Apple. Other mayors, not yet named, have contacted Homan about their own discussions about illegal immigrants.