Day: June 23, 2021

Pope Francis: ‘Tear Down the Walls’ Against Islam!

BY RAYMOND IBRAHIM

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/columns/raymond-ibrahim/2021/06/23/pope-francis-tear-down-the-walls-against-islam-n1456537;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Pope Francis wants any and all walls, real or figurative, that stand between the West and Islam broken down immediately — or so he’s constantly saying.

Most recently, on Sunday, June 13, 2021, he called for the “growth of a more supportive humanity that tears down the wall of indifference.”  This was spoken in the context of urging Europeans to take in more illegally-arrived Muslim migrants.

Earlier, in March 2019, when asked “a question about migration in general and about U.S. President Donald Trump’s then-threat to shut down the southern border with Mexico,” the pope pontificated in platitudes. “Builders of walls,” he said, “be they made of razor wire or bricks, will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build. … With fear, we will not move forward, with walls, we will remain closed within these walls.”

Less than a week before that, Francis lectured the mayor of Rome about the need to be more welcoming to Muslim migrants. “Rome,” he declared, “a hospitable city, is called to face this epochal challenge [floods of Muslim migrants demanding entry] in the wake of its noble history; to use its energies to welcome and integrate, to transform tensions and problems into opportunities for meeting and growth.”

“Rome,” he exulted, “city of bridges, never walls!”

The grand irony of all this is that Pope Francis lives in the only state to be surrounded by walls — Vatican City — and most of these bastions were erected to ward off ongoing Islamic invasions.

In 846, for example, a Muslim fleet from North Africa consisting of 73 ships and 11,000 Muslims, landed in Ostia near Rome. Muslim merchants who frequently visited Italy had provided them with precise intelligence that made the raid a success. Although they were unable to breach the pre-existing walls of the Eternal City, they sacked and despoiled the surrounding countryside, including — to the consternation of Christendom — the venerated and centuries-old basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul. The Muslim invaders desecrated the tombs of the revered apostles and stripped them of all their treasures.

Pope Leo IV (847-855) responded by building many more walls, including fifteen bastions along the right bank of the Tiber River, the mouth of which was forthwith closed with a chain to protect the sacred sites from further Muslim raids and desecrations. Completed by 852, the walls were in places 40 feet high and 12 feet thick.

Further anticipating the crusades against Islam by over two centuries — and thus showing how they were a long time coming — Pope Leo (and after him Pope John VIII) offered the remission of sins for those Christians who died fighting Islamic invaders. Such was the existential and ongoing danger Muslims referred to in contemporary sources as “Sons of Satan,” caused for Europe — more than two centuries before the First Crusade was launched in 1095.

Indeed, just three years after the initial Muslim invasion of Rome, “in 849 the Muslims attempted a new landing at Ostia; then, every year from around 857 on, they threatened the Roman seaboard,” explains French medieval historian C. E. Dufourcq:

In order to get rid of them, Pope John VIII  decided in 878 to promise them an annual payment [or jizya] of several thousand gold pieces; but this tribute of the Holy See to Islam seems to have been paid for only two years; and from time to time until the beginning of the tenth century, the Muslims reappeared at the mouth of the Tiber or along the coast nearby.

Today, many Muslims, not just of the ISIS variety, continue to boast that Islam will conquer Rome, the only one of five ancient apostolic sees never to have been subjugated by jihad (unlike Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Constantinople).

Similarly, many Muslims all throughout Europe continue exhibiting the same hostility and contempt for all things and persons non-Islamic, whether by vandalizing churches and breaking crosses or by raping “infidel” women as theirs by right.

And that is the point that Pope Francis — whose own ancient city would never have lasted to the present if not for walls — misses: walls should go down and bridges should be extended only when both parties are willing to live in amicable peace.  Otherwise, they serve only to make the destructive work of those who have for centuries been trying to conquer and destroy in the name of Islam that much easier.

For more on how walls saved Western civilization, see Raymond Ibrahim’s Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.

Raymond Ibrahim

Raymond Ibrahim, an expert in Islamic history and doctrine, is author of Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (2018); Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013); and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007). He has appeared on C-SPAN, Al-Jazeera, CNN, NPR, and PBS, and been published by the New York Times Syndicate, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Weekly Standard, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst. Formerly an Arabic linguist at the Library of Congress, Ibrahim has guest lectured at many universities, including the U.S. Army War College, briefed governmental agencies such as U.S. Strategic Command, and testified before Congress. He has been a visiting fellow/scholar at a variety of Institutes—from the Hoover Institution to the National Intelligence University—and is currently a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Friedman Rosen Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. His full biography is available here.  Follow Raymond at Twitter and Facebook.

For media inquiries, please contact communications@pjmedia.com

IRS Denies Tax Exemption to Texas Religious Group Because Prayer, Bible Reading Boost the Republican Party

SEE: https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/irs-denies-tax-exemption-to-texas-religious-group-because-prayer-bible-reading-boost-the-republican-party_3861757.html

EXCERPT: An IRS official denied tax-exempt status to a Texas group that encourages church members to pray for state and national leaders, regardless of their party affiliation, because it benefits “the private interests of the [Republican] Party.”

The ‘Conservative’ Supreme Court’s Love-Affair With Obamacare

Giving the Left’s healthcare scam a thumbs-up.

BY MATTHEW VADUM

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/why-does-conservative-supreme-court-love-obamacare-matthew-vadum/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Conservatives across America have to be asking themselves why they put so much time, money, and energy into electing Republicans when the supposedly conservative Supreme Court justices who follow side with the Left in important cases.

The latest jurisprudential atrocity is the high court’s dreadful but not altogether unexpected betrayal of the U.S. Constitution in California v. Texas, a challenge to the Obamacare redistribution statute lodged by Texas and 17 other states that had been backed by the former Trump administration.

“It’s never been a proper role for the federal government to regulate health care and health insurance,” Robert Henneke of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who represented two individual plaintiffs, said after winning at the trial court level. “It is a proper role for the states.”

There are 6 conservative justices and 3 liberal justices on the Supreme Court, or so the conventional wisdom goes.

Yet instead of dealing with the legal controversy head-on, a majority of the court chickened out, failing for a third time to mete out a richly deserved death blow to the flagrantly unconstitutional, un-American monstrosity that is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). By a vote of 7–2 on June 17, the Supreme Court cavalierly brushed aside questions of the law’s constitutional validity by finding that those challenging it lacked the required legal standing to do so.

Of the three Trump appointees, two –Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett— voted to protect the ACA. Even the most brilliant member of the court, conservative stalwart Justice Clarence Thomas, bought into this cowardly nonsense, siding with the majority on standing.

This ruling should disabuse Americans once and for all of the claim, repeated ad nauseam by the Left, that the Supreme Court, which momentarily is dominated by Republican appointees, is somehow “conservative” or “right-wing.”

It also demonstrates that threatening to pack the court, as Democrats vow to do, is an effective way of making sure the court fails to do its job.

After all, the Supreme Court does what it wants to do. In controversial cases, it sometimes adheres to the Constitution, as its members are sworn to do; other times it just makes stuff up, issuing incoherent decisions written to justify a predetermined conclusion. Invoking standing is a tried and true method of copping out.

After the court opinion in California v. Texas was released, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said what needed to be said.

“Obamacare was sold on a lie to the American people,” the Republican wrote on Twitter. 

“Its crown jewel —the individual mandate— was unconstitutional when it was enacted and it is still unconstitutional. Yet, seven justices decided to avoid the question of constitutionality by limiting their decision to a ruling on standing. If the government is allowed to mislead its citizens, pass a massive government takeover of health care, and yet still survive after Supreme Court review, this spells doom for the principles of federalism and limited government.”

“The failed Obamacare system will stagger on as a result of this decision,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a physician who has worked to repeal the law. “Every American’s health care has been harmed by Obamacare.”

Recall that in the 2008 campaign, then-candidate Barack Hussein Obama lied to voters, claiming that his health care scheme would drive annual premiums down by $2,500 and that patients would not see their health care arrangements disrupted. Even left-leaning PolitiFact deemed Obama’s mantra, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” its “Lie of the Year” in 2013.

After BHO conned his way into the Oval Office, the law was enacted in 2010 without a single Republican vote in Congress on final passage. Later, Obamacare “architect” and MIT economist Jonathan Gruber said lying was essential to getting it done. It was “the stupidity of the American voter” that made it important to conceal Obamacare’s true costs from the public. “That was really, really critical for the thing to pass,” he said.

Insurance premiums have shot up since then. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that the total cost of the average employer-sponsored family health insurance premium increased to $20,576 in 2019, up from $13,375 in 2009, a 54 percent increase. In individual markets, premiums rose from an average of $2,640 ($220 per month) in 2011 to $6,960 ($580 per month) in 2019, a 164 percent increase. Many consumers haven’t been able to afford premiums and have lost their insurance.

Finally, the case of California v. Texas came along, affording the Supreme Court a wonderful opportunity to at long last drive a stake through Obamacare’s heart.

Congress teed up the case by making the ACA’s individual mandate disappear in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 by reducing the tax penalty for not purchasing insurance to zero. Those fighting the statute in the current case argued that the revised law ran afoul of the Constitution because the individual mandate was so integral to the law that Obamacare couldn’t function without it.

At the end of 2018, Texas-based federal Judge Reed O’Connor sided with the challengers, ruling they had standing and that the Obamacare law was unconstitutional in its entirety.

In 2017, Congress “sawed off the last leg [Obamacare] stood on,” wrote O’Connor, who was appointed by President George W. Bush. The “mandate ‘is essential to’ and inseverable from ‘the other provisions of’” the law, he wrote.

But the Supreme Court had no interest in doing the right thing.

The majority opinion in California v. Texas was written by liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, though it reads like something written by the weaselly virtue-signaling fake conservative Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts, along with conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, joined the majority opinion. Naturally, liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan also joined it.

Roberts, who wrote the NFIB v. Sebelius decision, had said during oral arguments November 10, 2020, that the Supreme Court had no business striking down unconstitutional statutes.

“On the severance question, I think it’s hard for you to argue that Congress intended the entire Act to fall if the mandate were struck down when the same Congress that lowered the penalty to zero did not even try to repeal the rest of the Act,” Roberts told Texas Solicitor General Kyle D. Hawkins.

“I think, frankly, that they wanted the Court to do that. But that’s not our job,” Roberts said in an assertion that would no doubt surprise his predecessor John Marshall, who invented judicial review in 1803 in the seminal Marbury v. Madison ruling.

Roberts was in fact wrong when he said Congress did not try to repeal the Obamacare law. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that zeroed out the mandate-related penalty came out of the 115th Congress (2017–2018). In fact, lawmakers voted on several bills in that Congress that would have repealed Obamacare.

Returning to the case at hand, Breyer wrote that the 18 states argued that without the penalty the law’s “minimum essential coverage requirement,” as he put it in pleasant-sounding language, was unconstitutional.

They said “neither the Commerce Clause nor the Tax Clause (nor any other enumerated power) grants Congress the power to enact it,” Breyer wrote. “They also argue that the minimum essential coverage requirement is not severable from the rest of the Act. Hence, they believe the Act as a whole is invalid.”

Then Breyer began the excuse-making.

But the Supreme Court does “not reach these questions of the Act’s validity” because “Texas and the other plaintiffs in this suit lack the standing necessary to raise them.”

Article III of the Constitution “gives federal courts the power to adjudicate only genuine ‘Cases’ and ‘Controversies[,]’ … [and] includes the requirement that litigants have standing,” Breyer wrote.

A “plaintiff has standing only if he can ‘allege personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by the requested relief.’”

Citing two precedents, he stated fatuously that, “Neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have shown that the injury they will suffer or have suffered is ‘fairly traceable’ to the ‘allegedly unlawful conduct’ of which they complain.”

Come again?

Another way of putting this is to say that the Supreme Court didn’t care about the needless hardship and suffering Obamacare has imposed on Americans without controlling costs, which keep rising and rising.

The court lacked the resolve to do the right thing and actually interpret the Constitution, so, as it has done many times before, the court chose the result it wanted and then after the fact threw together yet another poorly reasoned written opinion to justify the desired outcome.

“Standing, after all, is not a complicated concept,” Andrea Widburg wrote at American Thinker, citing Whitmore v. Arkansas (1990).

It requires a litigant to clearly demonstrate he has suffered an “injury in fact,” which “must be concrete in both a qualitative and temporal sense.” The litigant must allege an injury to himself that is “distinct and palpable,” not merely “abstract … and the alleged harm must be actual or imminent, not ‘conjectural’ or ‘hypothetical.’” The litigant must also show the injury “fairly can be traced to the challenged action” and “is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision.”

So what would it take to demonstrate an “injury in fact”? Surging health care cost-related bankruptcies? Reduced hiring by employers because health insurance is unaffordable? An increase in morbidity rates because patients can’t afford to go to the doctor? Rising suicide rates resulting from sick patients killing themselves because they can’t get the care they need?Dead bodies overflowing from morgues?

If the Supreme Court doesn’t want to rule on the merits of a case, the standing excuse is an easy out.

Justice Samuel Alito used sarcasm to slam his colleagues for engaging in legal sophistry because they didn’t want to do the right thing.

“Today’s decision is the third installment in our epic Affordable Care Act trilogy, and it follows the same pattern as installments one and two,” Alito wrote in a dissenting opinion that was joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

“In all three episodes, with the Affordable Care Act facing a serious threat, the Court has pulled off an improbable rescue.”

Let’s go over the other two constituent parts of the trilogy.

In NFIB v. Sebelius (2012), the Supreme Court upheld the statute 5–4, on the theory that the individual mandate—which compelled Americans to buy health insurance even if they didn’t want it—was somehow a valid exercise of Congress’s power to tax.

The court again threw a lifeline to Obamacare in King v. Burwell(2015), finding 6–3 that even though the law provides that Congress makes tax credits available only on an “Exchange established by the State,” the latter phrase actually means on an “Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government,” as the justifiably angry late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissenting opinion.

In his dissent in California v. Texas, Alito wrote, “No one can fail to be impressed by the lengths to which this Court has been willing to go to defend the ACA against all threats.”

“A penalty is a tax. The United States is a State. And 18 States who bear costly burdens under the ACA cannot even get a foot in the door to raise a constitutional challenge. So a tax that does not tax is allowed to stand and support one of the biggest Government programs in our Nation’s history. Fans of judicial inventiveness will applaud once again. But I must respectfully dissent.”

Perhaps Justice Thomas’s conscience bothered him so instead of doing the right thing he slammed his colleagues for wrongly deciding NFIB v. Sebelius and King v. Burwell.

“But, whatever the Act’s dubious history in this Court, we must assess the current suit on its own terms. And, here, there is a fundamental problem with the arguments advanced by the plaintiffs in attacking the Act—they have not identified any unlawful action that has injured them,” he wrote in an opinion concurring with the majority.

Tedious stuff.

And although Gorsuch may have done the right thing in this case, his brief tenure on the court does not inspire confidence.

With Gorsuch’s majority opinion last year in the 6-3 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, the justice used the court as a national super-legislature and amended a law without involving actually elected lawmakers. (Roberts was the only other conservative in the majority.) Gorsuch stretched the meaning of the word “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include sexual orientation and gender identity, something nobody thought it meant in 1964. As then-Solicitor General Noel Francisco said during oral arguments, “Sex means whether you’re male or female, not whether you’re gay or straight.”

“Many will applaud today’s decision because they agree on policy grounds with the Court’s updating of Title VII,” Alito wrote in a dissenting opinion.

“But the question in these cases is not whether discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity should be outlawed. The question is whether Congress did that in 1964. It indisputably did not.”

But I digress, sort of.

Over the past year the Supreme Court has left the American people at the mercy of radical leftists. 

Power-mad governors and mayors inspired by swamp creature Anthony Fauci and fed bogus data by lying, monomaniacal epidemiologists, declared war on the American people as they combated the Chinese virus that causes COVID-19. 

The Supreme Court stood by for the most part and allowed the Left’s ongoing experiment in social control to proceed unimpeded. Ditto for the election-related challenges brought by President Donald Trump and Republicans, which seem more and more justified with each passing day as post-election audits and investigations continue.

There was so much justice to be done, but the Supreme Court refused to do it.

As it turns out, what seemed true before the ruling has only come into sharper focus after it: good, patriotic people who believe in the American idea cannot count on the Supreme Court, which has long enjoyed reverence it does not deserve, to save America.

We will have to do it ourselves.

Racist MINNEAPOLIS Mayor: Jacob Frey~10th in a series.

BY BRUCE BAWER

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/racist-mayor-jacob-frey-bruce-bawer/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Editor's note: This is the 10th part in Frontpage Mag's new series on Racist Mayors. (See previous parts below this article). Stay tuned for more installments.

If you want to be thorough about the matter, of course, you can’t talk about the ongoing destruction of the city of Minneapolis under the auspices of its callow, hapless young mayor, Jacob Frey – aptly described by New York Post columnist Miranda Devine as a “soy boy,” a “man-child,” and a “half-price Justin Trudeau” (they’re both cute in the same doe-eyed, dumb-looking way) – without also taking into account the pernicious contributions of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, whose mantra, since the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, has been “systemic racism”; Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, who, with breathtaking mendacity, blamed last year’s Antifa and BLM mayhem on “white supremacists”; the state’s Hamas-linked, Jew-hating Attorney General Keith Ellison, a serial girlfriend abuser and longtime Farrakhan acolyte who boasts continually of his efforts toward “social transformation”; and radical-left City Council President Lisa Bender, who, when challenged (by CNN, no less!) on her ridiculous call for “a future without police,” dismissed public concerns about armed home burglaries as coming from “a place of privilege.”

But although each of these reprehensible characters has played a significant role in Minneapolis’s current tragedy, Frey, who turns forty in July, is without question the star of the show. His big moment came on June 6 of last year, when, in what Devine characterized as “a scene reminiscent of a Maoist struggle session,” the masked, t-shirted mayor inanely confessed to a restive crowd of black radicals that he was “coming to grips with my own brokenness.” Yet even this wince-inducing display of abject contrition wasn’t enough for them: when he told them he wouldn’t defund the police (although, as he assured the New York Times, he believes fervently in “deep structural reform of a racist system”), they jeered at him, and Frey, looking for all the world like a teenager being sent to bed without dinner by his parents, meekly obeyed the rabble’s command to go home. Did it count for nothing with this mob that two days earlier, in an almost equally pathetic tableau, Frey had abased himself at a memorial service for George Floyd, sobbing hysterically for over a minute, his entire body trembling and heaving, as he knelt by the creep’s casket? Or did the June 6 horde, having observed this embarrassing spectacle, figure that if this wuss could be brought so low, so fast, so easily, then perhaps, with just a little more humiliation, he might not only shutter the police department but offer to put every last cop in front of a firing squad?

These scenes of well-nigh unprecedented public debasement, as it happens, came after several days during which Frey, not previously known for a preoccupation with race relations, privately strove, in the wake of Floyd’s demise, to play catch-up, holding mawkish phone calls with black staffers and colleagues and activists and clergy, attending what the Star-Tribune called a “listening session hosted by Black media outlets,” reading a book about “the long-lasting psychological damage of racism,” and essentially apologizing for his whiteness to pretty much everyone in town with a melanin count higher than his own. So eager was he to ingratiate himself with the canaille - justice be damned - that before the verdict came in at the Derek Chauvin trial, he declared, disgracefully: “Regardless of the decision made by the jury, there is one true reality, which is that George Floyd was killed at the hands of police.” And this in a burg that was once famous mainly for being safe, clean, and dull – identified in the American mind with wholesome Seventies sitcom heroine Mary Richards and with the hard-working, law-abiding Scandinavian-Americans who called it home.

Indeed, while racial unrest is old news in places like Baltimore, Detroit, St.Louis, and Los Angeles, it’s new to Minneapolis – and to Minnesota generally, where, as Powerline’s John Hinderaker noted recently, the “population was barely 1 percent African-American” until 1980 or so; in the decades since, the growth in the non-white population has been the result mostly of mass welfare migration and a tsunami of Somali refugees. If black people consider Minneapolis a white supremacist hellhole, they sure have an odd way of showing it. Yet Frey would have you believe that his city has for generations been a locus of world-class tensions between oppressive whites and tyrannized blacks, that the Chauvin trial was part of a “global reckoning” after “centuries-long inequities and racial injustice.” And what was Frey’s own contribution to this momentous “reckoning”? Unforgivably, and to what we may hope will be his everlasting infamy, he decided to let criminal gangs run riot in the streets, laying waste to homes, banks, stores, libraries; faced with a decision either to send in the police to protect lives and property or to virtue signal by caving to a barbaric mob, he chose the latter, even instructing police to abandon a precinct house to the mindless jackals. After all, Frey pronounced, the havoc wrought by black rioters was the result of “400 years” of “built-up anger and sadness” and was thus “not only understandable” but “right.”

Among the victims of all this “understandable” violence have been several black Minneapolis children. On April 30 of this year, Ladavionne Garrett Jr., 10, was shot in the head in his parents’ car; he had brain surgery and slipped into a coma, but so far has managed to cling to life. On May 15, Trinity Ottoson-Smith, 9, was struck by a stray bullet at a birthday party and rushed to a hospital by police; when she died twelve days later, Frey tweeted tritely: “No parent should ever have to say goodbye to their child.” On May 17, Aniya Allen, 6, was shot by a stray bullet while eating a Happy Meal in a car outside her home; when she died two days later, Frey tweeted: “Aniya’s life mattered. Ladavionne and Trinity’s lives matter. We owe it to them and their families to help get answers.” Answers? The answers were obvious. Savages given carte blanche by Frey to go on shooting rampages had slaughtered innocent children. In all likelihood, these savages were black males – career criminals, probably, like Floyd, whom Frey had mourned so ostentatiously. But Frey, naturally, made no mention of this detail. (Nor, when he lamented, on March 17, the growing number of assaults on Asian-Americans, did he acknowledge that most of the perpetrators were black, and that these assaults were simply part of an overall rise in black crime; instead, he attributed them to “[h]ateful rhetoric,” presumably by white racists.)

The deaths of Trinity and Aniya, and the ordeal of Ladavionne, taught Frey nothing. His tweets about them came off as perfunctory. Only when white cops kill black hooligans does he seem to break out the Kleenex. This was demonstrated on April 11, when a police officer in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center killed Daunte Wright, a black man resisting arrest on a weapons warrant; it was demonstrated again on June 3, when another black man, Winston Boogie Smith (was his mother an Orwell fan?), died during an exchange of gunfire with U.S. Marshals trying to arrest him for murder. Like Floyd’s death, but not those of Ladavionne or Trinity or Aniya, the deaths of Wright and Smith sparked new rounds of civil unrest in the Twin Cities – and more tearful hand-wringing by the reflexively repentant boy mayor: “The anguish in Katie Wright’s voice after losing her son echoes in my mind and across our entire state this morning….Minneapolis stands firmly with the people of Brooklyn Center in seeking justice for Daunte Wright and peace in our cities.” 

Even when he isn’t weeping convulsively over dead hoodlums, Frey engages in an over-the-top brand of racial pandering that self-respecting black Minneapolitans must surely find condescending. Every time he stands at a lectern (invariably coming off like a kid who’s been cast as a mayor in a school play), he repeats the same absurd hyperbole about the “400 years of injustice” that are now hitting the black community “like a tidal wave”; about how he’s “building a new and inclusive community as we speak”; about the urgent need to transform the intersection of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, where Floyd died, into a “permanent memorial to George Floyd and everything that he stood for [!] in his life”; and about how the black citizens of Minneapolis should henceforth be the “key beneficiaries” of municipal largesse. Post-Floyd, pretty much every issue, in Frey’s anything-but-colorblind mind, seems to have become tinged with race: for example, he recently applauded a push in the Minnesota statehouse to legalize recreational pot use as an “encouraging step for racial justice.” You can’t make this stuff up.

As much as he’s genuflected toward blacks, moreover, Frey hasn’t neglected to fawn impressively over other non-whites. On April 12 (two days after tweeting that a newly opened Muslim eatery offered “the best goat I’ve ever had”), he bragged about having “granted a noise permit to Dar Al-Hijrah for Cedar-Riverside to broadcast the call to prayer for the holy month of Ramadan”; on May 13, he tweeted: “As this Holy Month comes to a close, I’m wishing all our Muslim friends and neighbors who observed Ramadan a happy and healthy Eid al-Fitr.” Note that while Frey, a Reform Jew, twice referred to Ramadan as “holy,” he failed, last fall, to tweet so much as a word about Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. As for the two major Christian holidays in 2020-21, he contented himself with a brief, breezy “Merry Christmas to those celebrating” and “Happy Easter, Minneapolis.” And this man who called Ramadan “holy” made no mention of God in his Thanksgiving tweet (“Our family couldn’t be more grateful for the frontline workers, healthcare heroes,” etc.), which, in any case, was considerably less enthusiastic than his tweet, a week later, about Native American Heritage Day: “Love seeing Indigenous voices lifted up & celebrated….Leaders like Autumn Dillie [of the American Indian Community Development Association] are working year-round to make MPLS a better place.”

And, alas, his actions match his contemptible words. Repeatedly, he’s given the thumbs-up to special treatment for blacks at the expense of whites. In February he touted the Minneapolis Climate Action and Racial Equity Fund, which, in the name of pursuing an “inclusive” approach to climate change, distributes public funds exclusively to BIPOC- and immigrant-owned businesses; in March he promoted another initiative, this one administered by the Metropolitan Economic Development Association, that also enriches only black firms. The goal of Minneapolis’s post-COVID recovery, he explains, “has never been to return to the way things were. A more equitable economy means specifically lifting Black businesses.” Some might decry this policy as blatantly racist; but Frey calls it “inclusive recovery and transformation,” boasting that “equity has been the driving force behind allocating the limited funding we have.” Yes, not equality but equity – meaning systematic discrimination to address “systemic racism.” For if your city is emerging from a pandemic-induced economic crisis that was made even worse by a concomitant epidemic of black vandalism, arson, and looting, how to handle the recovery justly other than by throwing money at blacks and freezing out whites? On Martin Luther King Day, Frey proclaimed that he was “in awe of [King’s] legacy of championing meaningful change”; but virtually everything that this nincompoop has said and done during the last year has been utterly, and dangerously, at odds with King’s noble proposition that it’s character - not skin color - that counts. 

Previous Parts of the Series:

Part I: Chicago's Lori Lightfoot.
Part 2: LA's Eric Garcetti.
Part 3: DC's Muriel Bowser.
Part 4: KC's Quinton Lucas.
Part 5: SF's London Breed.
Part 6: Philly's Jim Kenney.
Part 7: St. Louis' Tishaura Jones.
Part 8: Jackson's Chokwe Antar Lumumba.
Part 9: Seattle's Jenny Durkan.

Biden DOJ Opposing West Virginia Law That Prohibits Biological Boys From Playing on Girls’ Teams

SEE: https://christiannews.net/2021/06/22/biden-doj-opposing-west-virginia-law-that-prohibits-biological-boys-from-playing-on-girls-teams/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

(Christian Headlines) — Last week, the Biden Department of Justice filed a brief in federal court opposing a West Virginia law that prohibits biological boys from playing on girls’ teams, saying it violates federal law and the U.S. Constitution.

The law, H.B. 3293, prohibits high school and college sports teams that are “designated for female[s]” from being open to the male sex. The bill says that “classification of teams according to biological sex is necessary to promote equal athletic opportunities for the female sex.”

But in a Statement of Interest brief filed in federal court, the Department of Justice opposed the law. The DOJ sided with an 11-year-old biological male who identifies as female and who wants to compete on middle school girls’ cross-country and track teams. The 11-year-old athlete “is a girl, not a boy,” the DOJ brief says.

Continue reading this story >>

Pastors Should Lead Fight Against Evil Deep State

Rumble — Pastors, ministry leaders and the Church should be on the frontlines of the fight against the diabolical Deep State and its evil agenda, says The New American magazine Senior Editor Alex Newman in this episode of Behind The Deep State after returning from the Liberty Pastors Summit. Alex begins by talking about the Black Robe Regiment, the American pastors who helped lead the War for Independence against the tyrannical British regime. At the Liberty Pastors Summit, hundreds of pastors and their wives were educated from a biblical perspective about globalism, the Deep State, medicine, history, climate, law, Critical Race Theory, education, and so much more. This is hopefully the start of a new Black Robe Regiment against the wicked forces working to undermine God, the Bible, America, and liberty.

White House Doc Shows Plan To Use Threat of “Domestic Terrorism” For Gun Control

Anonymous Snitch Group to Dox ‘Domestic Terrorist’ Trump Voters

BY JOHN CRUMP

SEE: https://www.ammoland.com/2021/06/white-house-doc-shows-plan-to-use-threat-of-domestic-terrorism-for-gun-control/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

White House Doc Shows Plan To Use Threat of “Domestic Terrorism” For Gun Control, iStock-1267413669

WASHINGTON, D.C. –-(Ammoland.com)- Is the White House using the threat of “domestic terrorism” to institute gun control? According to a White House document titled the “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism,” gun control is a crucial component of Joe Biden’s plan.

The document says there is a rise in domestic violet extremists (DVE). It highlights the biases against minority populations as one factor of the growth of DVEs. It also states that those that believe that the Federal government is overreaching its power are at risk for becoming extremist, and the “perceived government overreach will almost certainly continue to drive DVE radicalization and mobilization to violence.”

While left-wing groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter are not mentioned in the document, patriot groups are referred to as militia violent extremist (MVEs). Last summer, left-wing riots caused havoc across the country, causing millions of dollars of damage to properties and cost several people their lives.

According to the document, the idea of fraud in the recent general election led to the January 6th breach at the Capitol. It also claims that COVID-19 conspiracy theories also have led people down the path of extremism. It lays down the idea that not trusting the government leads to violent domestic extremism. It claims that this plan is something all Americans can get behind. Many gun owners would disagree with President Biden’s statement.

The document breaks up the plan into four strategic pillars, and one pillar should be very concerning for gun owners. The Biden administration is using the threat of domestic terrorism to infringe on the right to bear arms.

The document reads:

Strategic Goal 2.1: Strengthen domestic terrorism prevention resources and services.

While those who break the law in furtherance of domestic terrorism must face investigation and prosecution for their crimes, it is equally important that the Federal Government engage in efforts to prevent individuals from being drawn into the grip of domestic terrorism in the first instance. That means reducing both supply and demand of recruitment materials by limiting widespread availability online and bolstering resilience to it by those who nonetheless encounter it, among other measures. It also means reducing access to assault weapons and high–capacity magazines and enforcing legal prohibitions that keep firearms out of dangerous hands. Such prevention efforts must be pursued while safeguarding civil rights and civil liberties, including privacy protections, and while avoiding discrimination, bias, and stereotyping.

The document wants to restrict access to modern sporting rifles. The AR15 is included in this category. The AR 15 is the most popular rifle in the country. Americans of all walks of life own these rifles, and people like Stephen Willeford have used an AR15 to defend their community from a crazed murderer. One pregnant woman even used an AR15 to protect her family against home invaders. According to the document, the Biden administration wants to make it harder for Americans to defend themselves with the rifle that has been called the modern musket.

The document also states the White House wants to use the threat of domestic extremism to reduce access to standard compacity magazines. It does not say how it will accomplish that goal, but people like Biden’s ATF director nominee, David Chipman, want to add standard capacity magazines to the NFA. Chipman went as far as comparing detachable magazines to machine guns.

It also talks about using “legal prohibitions” to prevent firearms from falling into “dangerous hands.” The document never mentions what prohibitions it will use. Gun rights advocates are worried that this move could be an excuse to push for new gun control restrictions. The Biden administration, in the past months, has launched attacks on the right to bears arms. These attacks include going after homemade firearms and pistol braces.

The White House did not return AmmoLand’s request for comment.

About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

John Crump

BUSTED: High-level Chinese defector has DIRT on US officials, including Joe and Hunter Biden

Image: BUSTED: High-level Chinese defector has DIRT on US officials, including Joe and Hunter Biden

BY J.D. HEYES

SEE: https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-06-22-busted-high-level-chinese-defector-dirt-covid-us-bidens.html;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

(Natural News) When then-President Donald Trump first suggested early in the COVID-19 pandemic that the Wuhan coronavirus ‘may’ have originated in a lab in that city, it immediately made sense.

First and foremost, Trump has seldom been proven wrong about the things he says, despite the fact that his usual detractors in the hate-stream media and the hater Democrat Party reflexively discount him because they are hapless partisans. Never mind how many times those fools have been proven wrong.

With that in mind, it’s interesting to see how many of those same people are now changing their tune about the lab-leak “theory” Trump espoused early on, just as details begin to leak about a high-level Chinese defector who is now in U.S. custody and is allegedly spilling the beans about COVID’s true origins, along with details about a host of other bioweapons programs being pursued by Beijing’s military.

“He alleges that the current pandemic was caused by a lab leak, and that bats were the real cover-up story. The defector alleges that while the lab leak was an accident, it was allowed to spread,” Townhall reported.

In addition, according to the most recent developments, the identity of the defector has been confirmed: He’s definitely a high-ranking Chinese counterintelligence official, so what he has to say is being taken very seriously.

According to Matthew Brazil and Jeff Stein at “Spy Talk“:

Chinese-language anti-communist media and Twitter are abuzz this week with rumors that a vice minister of State Security, Dong Jingwei defected in mid-February, flying from Hong Kong to the United States with his daughter, Dong Yang.

Dong is, or was, a longtime official in China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), also known as the Guoanbu. His publicly available background indicates that he was responsible for the Ministry’s counterintelligence efforts in China, i.e., spy-catching, since being promoted to vice minister in April 2018. If the stories are true, Dong would be the highest-level defector in the history of the People’s Republic of China.

Red State has since confirmed the reporting with its own sources, so the guy is legitimate. And here’s what he has reportedly divulged to U.S. intelligence officials thus far:

— Info about early pathogenic studies of the COVID-19 virus

— Models of how the virus would spread, damaging the U.S. and the rest of the world

— Financial records showing which organizations and governments funded COVID-19 research as well as work on additional biowarfare research (Dr. Anthony Fauci, beware?)

— The names of U.S. citizens who are giving China intelligence (this is huge)

— Names and records of U.S. business leaders and public officials who have gotten ChiCom money

— Details surrounding meetings that U.S. government officials had, maybe unwittingly, with spies from China and Russia

— Details about how China got access to a highly secretive CIA communications system that led to the death of dozens of Chinese citizens who were working for our premier spy agency

There’s more, and it directly relates to our current leadership.

“Dong also has provided DIA with copies of the contents of the hard drive on Hunter Biden’s laptop, showing the information the Chinese government has about Hunter’s pornography problem and about his (and Joe’s) business dealings with Chinese entities,” Jen Van Laar of Red State noted.

“Some of the files on Dong have proven to shine a light on just how it was that the sale of Henniges Automotive (and their stealth technology) to Chinese military manufacturer AVIC Auto was approved,” she added, citing highly classified technology that aided Beijing’s stealth fighter technology.

In September, a new film titled, “Riding the Dragon: The Bidens’ Chinese Secrets,” detailed a number of business deals Hunter Biden did “as a board member of the Beijing-based BHR Partners investment firm,” the New York Post reported at the time.

The deals “served the ‘strategic interests’ of the country’s communist government and military — and may have imperiled American national security,” The Post added.

Sounds like our new Chinese counterintelligence friend has confirmed that. Now — what’s going to come of it?

Sources include:

NYPost.com

RedState.com

NaturalNews.com

Nearly 4,000 Bay Staters Get COVID-19 After Being Fully Vaccinated

Nearly 4,000 Bay Staters Get COVID-19 After Being Fully Vaccinated

BY VERONIKA KYRYLENKO

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/nearly-4000-bay-staters-get-covid-19-after-being-fully-vaccinated/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

As of June 12 in Massachusetts, there have been 3,791 people fully vaccinated for COVID-19 who have tested positive for the virus.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, these breakthrough cases make up 0.1 percent of the 3,720,037 fully vaccinated people in the state, the Boston Herald reported.

“Testing to identify current infection remains critical to control of COVID-19,” a DPH spokeswoman told the paper. “People with current infection can spread the virus to others and isolation of cases and identification of close contacts (individuals who may have been exposed) is a foundation of public health response.”

Health officials also warned about the contagious “Delta variant,” seen in some areas in the United States. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health, expressed the need to get as many people vaccinated due to the highly contagious variants.

Boston University infectious diseases specialist Davidson Hamer noted, “We’re learning that many of the breakthrough infections are asymptomatic or they’re very mild and brief in duration. The viral load is not very high.”

“Breakthroughs are expected, and we need to better understand who’s at risk and whether people who have a breakthrough can transmit the virus to others,” Hamer added. “In some cases, they’ll be shedding such low levels of the virus and won’t be transmitting to others.”

The phenomenon of “shedding,” or transmission of the spike protein from people inoculated with mRNA vaccines to unvaccinated people, has been dubbed “the latest COVID-19 vaccine misinformation,” and “fact-checked” as having “no scientific basis.” But in reality, it does happen.

Writes Dr. Lee D. Merritt,

Recently, a paper written by the FDA in 2015 surfaced, titled “Design and Analysis of Shedding Studies for Virus or Bacteria-Based Gene Therapy and Oncolytic Products — Guidance for Industry.” The paper, which was written for pharmaceutical researchers, states in the introduction, “Shedding raises the possibility of transmission of VBGT or oncolytic products from treated to untreated individuals (e.g., close contacts and healthcare professionals).” 

Dr. Merritt says the FDA suggests pre-clinical data on shedding may be requested if “humans have not been previously exposed to the product and the route of administration differs from the natural route of exposure /infection,” which certainly applies to the COVID shots. It is noted that the FDA recommends these studies be done prior to licensure, specifically in Stage I testing. Currently, America, and the whole world, is now at Phase IV of the vaccine-approval process, but no official information on shedding is provided.

In the meantime, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pacifies the public, saying breakthrough cases are normal. “COVID-19 vaccines are effective and are a critical tool to bring the pandemic under control. However, no vaccines are 100 percent effective at preventing illness. There will be a small percentage of people who are fully vaccinated who still get sick, are hospitalized, or die from COVID-19,” states the agency.

The CDC said last month that through April 30, 10,262 breakthrough infections were reported from 46 U.S. states and territories to the agency. Of the cases, more than six in 10 occurred in females, with the median patient age being 58, according to a new report from the CDC, which stopped counting breakthrough infections as of May 1, except for those that cause hospitalization or death. Approximately 10 percent of the patients required hospital care, and 160, or about 1.5 percent, died.

“Part of what’s at play here is that each person’s immune response to a vaccine will be different, in the same way that each person’s response to contracting COVID-19 has been different,” says Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. 

He says it is also important to consider that a virus’s incubation period, or the time between a person being infected with the virus and when that person shows symptoms, can vary widely between viruses. The shorter the incubation period, the more the virus is able to spread before the body’s immune response gets going. 

But all these factors, indeed, should have been evaluated during the medical trials. According to John Hopkins University, a typical vaccine development timeline takes five to 10 years, and sometimes longer, to assess whether the vaccine is safe and efficacious in clinical trials, complete the regulatory approval processes, and manufacture a sufficient quantity of vaccine doses for widespread distribution. But due to “pandemic and urgent need,” the timeline for COVID-19 vaccines was accelerated. The CDC claims it did not affect their safety and efficacy, and recommends them to adolescents, and “pregnant or breastfeeding people” (yes, the CDC uses a “woke” language to refer to mothers-to-be and breastfeeding women), even though “there are currently limited data on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant people,” and “Clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccines … did not include people who are breastfeeding.”

The concerns over vaccines’ safety are constantly resurfacing, but all those “unfortunate” cases of deaths and severe side effects, and now COVID-19 infections, are shrugged off by the “expert” community and mainstream media as “statistical errors” that “are expected.”

According to the CDC, 317 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in the United States from December 14, 2020, through June 21, 2021.

President Biden declared June a “national month of action” and introduced a slew of incentives to vaccinate 70 percent of Americans by the Fourth of July.

The world’s biggest genetic experiment on the population continues.

A Parent’s Summary of the Spread of Critical Race Theory At Gordon College

BY MANNY SILVA

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2021/newsletter20210623.htm;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

LTRJ Note: The following summary is written by Manny Silva, the founder of Concerned Nazarenes (a watchdog group that began several years ago when the Nazarene denomination began to be heavily indoctrinated with the emerging church). Recently, his son was a student at Gordon College. Please do not think that the problems described below are within the confines of Gordon College. Many Christian colleges and universities are going down the same path. For an explanation of Critical Race Theory, read our July 2020 report and also S is for Social Justice The Language of Today’s Cultural “Revolution.” If you have children or grandchildren attending or about to attend any college or university in this country, please help equip them before they enter. Otherwise, you could end up witnessing a disastrous transformation in your young people. Worth noting, Gordon College has been on the Lighthouse Trails contemplative college list for several years. There is a connection between contemplative spirituality and the current “social justice” paradigm shift (one led to the next).

August 2020 to May 2021

Manny Silva

By Manny Silva
In late August of 2020, just before classes started, a racially charged incident occurred, although the actual perpetrator to this day has not been found. During the course of the semester, two more incidents occurred, but no one was ever found to be responsible.

The first incident: A black student leader had used tape in a dorm hallway to spell out
BLM.” Later that morning, it was discovered that it was changed to say “ALM” (for all lives matter apparently). The very next day, Saturday, about 100 students marched to the President’s personal residence to protest. All this triggered a host of other activities, such as BLM signs posted all over the campus, as well as student sit-ins and protests, with demands for justice for people of color.

Even before these incidents, there were already a number of activities scheduled that were themed with
Black Lives Matter ideas. Dance parties, “educational” meetings, and seminars with speakers who had
backgrounds in Critical Race Theory.

The administration moved quickly to condemn acts of racism towards people of color. But the rest
of the semester would result in the very same social-justice warriors becoming the intimidators of
white students, or students of color who rejected the BLM movement. The administration was almost
completely silent about this particular problem.

Two other incidents happened that were made prominent. Some words were written on the wall next to
an Asian student with racist comments. And then later in the semester, a t-shirt with a BLM-type
slogan was defaced with a racist slur.

Again, to this day, the culprits have never been apprehended. But an interesting note: the same student
leader whose sign was defaced in the first incident, is the same black student who posted a violent and
racist rant against students and anyone else who supported President Trump. He also used profanity in
describing them. That student, months later, was depicted in an official Gordon College post as a model
Christian student.

The atmosphere in the first semester was one of racial tension. Chapel services deteriorated to being
platforms for social justice and rants against “white privilege.” Students looking for uplifting and
biblical messages were seeing very little of that and have been thoroughly discouraged.

Concerned Gordon Parents and the Letter to the Trustees

Finally, after conversations with various parents, I helped to form a group called Concerned Gordon
College Parents on November 7, 2020. In a few days, we had over 150 members. We strategized and
shared information for several months. During the first semester, various parents sent letters of concern
to President Lindsay. Others sent letters or met personally with Dan Tymann, Director of Student Life. I
met with Dan Tymann during the semester. Finally, a preliminary letter was drafted, and after other
parents edited and finalized it, we sent it to the Board of Trustees on February 2, 2021. (The Chairman
sent a response to the parents, which is one of the documents I have provided [see document links at bottom of this post].

The second semester began, and it was worse than the first semester, as far as guest chapel and convocation
speakers. February was National Black History month, and it was a constant parade of CRT-type
speakers, culminating in some of the worst proponents of CRT ideology. These speakers included 2—
Marla Fredericks and Jemar Tisby. Another document that I’ve included is a review of Tisby’s ideology.
Not one speaker throughout the semester was ever invited who was a strong opponent of Critical
Race Theory. This was one of our major concerns, that Gordon College is actively promoting the
CRT ideology, not just allowing for discussion and scholarly debate.

The following 5 links are some related information:

  1. This is a letter to the editor I wrote that is at Lighthouse Trails Research website.
    https://www.1iuhthousetrailsresearch.com/blow/?P=33078

2. Video of Student sit-in at Admin Building, with various students expressing themselves.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CHGqLN3lov9/?igshid=b1sf5ttbrru3&fbclid=IwAR 0rpdzddC1rjQradcu-BNAgfDkGxUJ58g7cvf4M-h2 vZDu-0fkrryHbE

3. Marla Fredericks, convocation speaker, Feb. 21, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MqafnyG_R0

4. More of Marla Fredericks: highlights from the Impact Movement Zoom conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWu4u7ilRM

5. Jemar Tisby, convocation speaker, Feb. 26, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw_CDQKQ5zM

Here is a post by the official Gordon College FaceBook page, where they decried racism, using
a BLM sign. The conversations are enlightening and show the great divide between different
parents and supporters of the college.
https://www.facebook.com/GordonCollege/photos/a.282385650634/10163995500 075635

And four more:

  1. President Lindsay’s response to the Nov. T-shirt Incident: https://www.gordon.edu/nov1response

2. Gordon College Shalom Plan 2021 (note various recommendations which are race-based)
https://www.gordon.edu/shalomplan

3. The AFRO Hamwe Instagram Page:
https://www.instagram.com/gc_afrohamwe/?hl=en

4. Pastor Marvin Daniels (** A very encouraging chapel message—one of the few good ones)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyRd-R_EHuY3

Other Issues to Be Concerned About

Please note that there are other concerning problems that have been on the rise for some time now, including the
LGBT activism on campus becoming a serious problem. At this writing, there is at least one current professor
who is a promoter of LGBT ideas. The homosexuality activism was also noted in the letter to the Board of
Trustees. It included reference to very inappropriate plays performed on campus in 2019, including a play that
depicted lesbian relationships. Another play included very profane language. The following two links are relevant:

  1. Spiritual and Sexuality Project: Christy Gardner, professor at Gordon College
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNy7MPrVWk8

2. The LGBTQ+ Instagram Page (Not an Official Gordon College site)
https://www.instagram.com/lgbtqplusatgordon/?hl=en

What to Look for This Upcoming 2021-22 College Year at Gordon

President Michael Lindsay has moved on to become President of Taylor University. In an interesting twist, the
Provost of Taylor University, Dr. Michael Hammond, has been appointed President of Gordon College. We are
already concerned with this appointment, and in our limited research, many of us believe that Dr. Hammond
may be more “woke” than President Lindsay. Time will tell, and I am sure we will find out more of his plans for
the coming year—although he must be aware by now of the Shalom Plan and all the issues that have occurred in
the past year. The following article may be of interest, and it references Dr. Hammond’s involvement in the
firing of a veteran professor at Taylor University.: Taylor University Fires Tenured Professor Over Little Hitler Video:
https://thecollegepost.com/taylor-university-little-hitler-video/

Manny Silva’s attached documents:

#1 Letter_Pres Lindsay_TO_Parents_01_26_2021

#2 Letter_Parents_TO_Board of Trustees_02_02_21

#3 Letter_Chairman Smith_TO_Parents_02_06_2021

#4 Shalom Plan 2021 Gordon College

#5 Tartan Article On Gordon Parents Letter_02_06_2021

(photo: wikipedia - Gordon College)

Francis Chan’s Dangerous Path to “Unity” and a Eucharistic Christ

BY L. SHARP

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2021/newsletter20210623.htm;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

I am writing to address two related topics:

1)    Francis Chan’s new book released 4/1/21 titled Until Unity

2)    Francis Chan’s conversation with Hank Hanegraaff and KP Yohannan regarding Chan’s changing views on the so-called “Eucharist” (Aug. 2020 video on Hank Hanegraaff’s program).

I.  Francis Chan’s website about his new book Until Unity

Francis Chan released his new book in April 2021 titled Until Unity. Why does this matter? Sadly, there is growing evidence that Chan has slowly turned away from the Bible as the source of truth and doctrine to church tradition, the opinions of men, and experiences to reformulate his theology.

Francis Chan’s own website explains his new book (see https://untilunitybook.com/):

CHURCH UNITY IS NOT OPTIONAL

. . . New York Times–bestselling author Francis Chan challenges us to see what keeps us from being unified as Christians across denominations and cultural differences—and why it needs to change.

. . . It’s clear from Scripture that God desires unity for His Church. Unity is what Jesus prays for, what He commands, and what He says will be the chief argument for unbelieving people coming to know God.

But if unity is that important to the heart of God, and that critical to the mission of the church, then why isn’t it something the Church fiercely fights for and passionately pursues?

We divide easily because we love shallowly.

. . . Francis Chan [says] doctrine is not at the root of most division [emphasis added].

The main problem is the shallowness or non-existence of our love for each other . . . Those who are believers will hear the call and be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit. This will be messy and painful, but we cannot allow this to discourage us from giving everything we have to the pursuit of a unified, restored Bride.

My comments:

Chan sidesteps the issue of doctrine (in the issue of “unity”) and claims the main problem is “the shallowness or non-existence of our love for each other,” so he can base his whole argument for “unity” solely on his “love” (or lack thereof) premise. If he would admit that doctrine does divide, then in his attempt to tell us how “unity” is achieved, he would have to deal with doctrine at some level. Yet, he dismisses doctrine from the start so he can talk about “love” or lack thereof and its role in achieving or not achieving “unity” and skip discussing specific doctrines(s) altogether.

What does the Bible say about the importance of doctrine?

2 Timothy 3:16 – All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Titus 2:1 – But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:

1 John 4:1 – Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

Hebrews 13:9 – Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

Ephesians 4:14 – That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Titus 1:9 – Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

2 Timothy 2:15 – Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Further Comment on Chan’s new book:

The dedication of Chan’s book reads: “This book is dedicated to the followers of Jesus from various denominations who have forgiven me for my arrogance and divisiveness over the years.”

II. Francis Chan’s March 11, 2021 YouTube video about his new book Until Unity

On Francis Chan’s Mar.11, 2021 short YouTube video advertising his new book, he talks about the need for unity, and at the very end, he quotes Eph.4:11-13, but he leaves out the next 3 verses (vs.14-16), which defines what unity is!

Here is the full context of how the Bible defines “unity” in Ephesians 4:1-16:

1 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;

5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,

6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

7 But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

8 Wherefore he saith, ‘When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.

9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?

10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)’

11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

Here are the verses Francis Chan left out in his video–Vs.14-16—

14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

Here are some observations about “unity” from Eph.4:13-15 (left out by Francis Chan):

1)    According to verses 13 and 14, the goal of biblical unity is so we would “be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;”

2)    According to verse 15, biblical unity/”unity of the faith, involves “speaking the truth in love,” not just to “love” (in an experiential sense). “Speaking the truth in love,” the verse goes on, so that we may “grow up into him in all things.” Biblical unity involves “speaking the truth in love,” and by this, we grow up spiritually. Love without truth is not biblical love. And truth is about what the Bible teaches (i.e. doctrine).

III. Francis Chan, Hank Hanegraaff, KP Yohannan and the “Eucharist”

An Aug.18, 2020 video titled, “Is Christ Present in the Eucharist” reveals more of Francis Chan’s slide away from the truth of the Bible and his associations with men who have also turned away from the Bible.

At the urging of Hank Hanegraaff and KP Yohannan, Chan was challenged to reevaluate his view of church history and of communion (their meaning – Eucharist) verified in the video.

In the video, Francis Chan talks about reevaluating his view of communion, or the so-called Eucharist, and Hank Hanegraaff and KP Yohannan briefly discuss how they themselves formulated their current views about the Eucharist. Before discussing the contents of this Aug.18, 2020 video, I wanted to familiarize you with Hank Hanegraaff and KP Yohannan.

1)Hank Hanegraaff

Hank Hanegraaff is known to millions through his former radio program, “The Bible Answer Man.” He converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in April of 2017 in the Saint Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. His former radio program “The Bible Answer Man” has now been changed to “Hank Unplugged,” and in his latest book (released in 2019 by Thomas Nelson Publishers) titled Truth Matters, Life Matters More, he explains his Eastern Orthodox conversion (see link: https://www.thomasnelson.com/9780785216063/truth-matters-life-matters-more/).

The list of those who endorsed Hanegraaff’s book include Catholics, Eastern Orthodox folks, and most notably, Scott Hahn, Ph.D., Chair of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization at Franciscan University of Steubenville. [Hahn, who converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, is discussed in Roger Oakland’s book, Another Jesus: The eucharist Christ and the new evangelization.]

The buzzword: “New Evangelization” is defined by Lighthouse Trails writer Kevin Reeves as: “A program by the Catholic Church designed to win the world to Christ [the Catholic Eucharistic christ, that is], with the Eucharist as the focal point.”

Please see Lighthouse Trails booklet by Roger Oakland titled: The New Evangelization From Rome

2)KP Yohannan

He is the founder and director of Gospel for Asia (GFA). According to his own website (see link: https://kpyohannan.org/about-kp-yohannan/), he has written over 200 books in Asia, and 11 in the U.S.

Lighthouse Trails has confirmed KP Yohannan’s slide into contemplative spirituality (a spiritual outlook that incorporates a New Age style mystical meditation) via his 2020 book: Never Give Up.

That book, by the way, was also endorsed by Hank Hanegraaff.

IV.  August 18, 2020 YouTube video: “Is Christ Present in the Eucharist?” With Francis Chan, Hank Hanegraaff, and KP Yohannan

The Aug.18, 2020 video “Is Christ Present in the Eucharist” reveals just how much Chan has turned away from the Bible he claims he believes in to church tradition and the opinions of men. Also, this trio together are contributing to the demonic momentum toward the movement of biblical Christians into an unbiblical view of communion (what is being called the Eucharist).

1)    “Eucharist”? Why is Francis Chan even calling the communion “the Eucharist”?

Kevin Reeves, in his booklet: C is for Catholicism, defines Eucharist as: “the sacrament of the partaking of the Communion wafer and wine consecrated by the priest during the [Catholic] Mass. Believed to impart special grace, because the recipient is said to be eating and drinking the actual body and blood of Christ.”

At the urging of Hank Hanegraaff and KP Yohannan, Chan was challenged to reevaluate his view of church history and of communion (i..e., the Eucharist).

2)What did the August 2020  video reveal?

Francis Chan on the so-called “Eucharist”

He seems to think he has misjudged folks who believe in “transubstantiation.” What is transubstantiation? Kevin Reeves defines “transubstantiation” as: “The doctrine that asserts that during the Mass, the Host (the communion wafer) and the communion wine are transformed miraculously into the literal body and blood of Christ.”

Chan ends up opening the door about his view on the Eucharist and admits: “[I] don’t know where I land yet” (23:26 minute mark). He states that he “used to” (keywords are “used to”) view those who believed in transubstantiation as “almost silly” or “heretical” (2:07-2:26 minute mark) but not anymore apparently.

*Note: on p. 101 of his new book: Until Unity, Chan states: “I am currently 90 percent sure that I have been wrong about my belief that Christ is not present in the Eucharist” [emphasis added]

3)    Final thoughts about Francis Chan, the “Eucharist” and his new book: Until Unity:

May we pray for Francis Chan, that God would open his eyes to the Enemy’s deceptions. And, may God help rescue those sheep who are following Francis Chan and being led down a deceptive path of the Enemy.

God is Faithful and True, and His Word is true,

(photo (l-r): Francis Chan, Hank Hanegraaff, K.P. Yohanon, from a 2-second video clip from YouTube; used in accordance with the U.S. Fair Use Act)

Related Information:

Catholic Priest Believes Francis Chan Heading Into Catholic Church Based on Eucharistic Sermon

False Revival Kick-Started by Francis Chan, Rodney Howard Browne, Benny Hinn, Bill Johnson, and Todd White

Francis Chan Warns Those Who Criticize Christian Leaders: “God Will Destroy You”

DRESS REHEARSAL FOR A FALSE REVIVAL? – Evangelical, Charismatic, Emerging Leaders, & Pope Francis Unite for “Together 2016” in Washington, DC