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AARON MORRISON
March 9, 2022·3 min read

The number of white nationalist, neo-Nazi and anti-government extremist groups across the U.S. fell for a third straight year in 2021, even as some groups were reinvigorated by the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol last year and by the ongoing culture wars over the pandemic and school curriculums.

In its annual report, released Wednesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center said it identified 733 active hate groups in 2021, down from the 838 counted in 2020 and the 940 counted in 2019. Hate groups had risen to a historic high of 1,021 in 2018, said the law center, which tracks racism, xenophobia and far right militias.

The number of anti-government groups fell to 488 in 2021, down from 566 in 2020 and 576 in 2019. Such groups peaked at 1,360 in 2012, the year former President Barack Obama was elected to a second term.

“Rather than demonstrating a decline in the power of the far right, the dropping numbers of organized hate and antigovernment groups suggest that the extremist ideas that mobilize them now operate more openly in the political mainstream,” says the new report, shared with The Associated Press ahead of its release.

The Montgomery, Alabama-based law center cited several examples including Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, whose
discussion of a conspiracy likening immigration from nonwhite countries to a “great replacement” of white Americans last September was welcomed by white nationalists who were linked to the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. The law center counted 98 active white nationalist groups in 2021.

The report’s release comes one day after a federal jury convicted a Texas man of storming the Capitol with a holstered handgun, in an attempt to obstruct Congress’ joint session to certify the Electoral College vote that cemented President Joe Biden’s victory over former President Donald Trump. Separately on Tuesday, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, a longtime leader of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group, was arrested on a conspiracy charge related to his alleged role in coordinating the Capitol attack.

Active Proud Boys chapters jumped to 72 in 2021, up from 43 in 2020. The rise in chapters was noteworthy considering that more than three dozen members of the group had been charged in relation to their role in the Capitol attack, according to the law center.

“After Jan. 6, in the immediate aftermath, these groups did lay low," Susan Corke, SPLC’s Intelligence Project director, told the AP. “I had a moment of hope that was quickly extinguished when I didn’t see more mainstream Republicans condemn these groups.”

The extremist ideas expressed by active hate and antigovernment groups "are increasingly normalized,” Corke added.

Beyond the Capitol attack, the law center’s report details how several factions of the far right movement have been reinvigorated by political wedge issues. Issues fueling active hate and anti-government extremist groups include the banning of critical race theory and books that discuss LGBTQ identity in public schools, coronavirus vaccine and mask mandates, and immigration.

“This movement is working feverishly to undermine democracy, but what’s more startling is that they are also coalescing around a willingness to engage in violence,” Corke said.

Slowing any push toward authoritarianism, according to the SPLC, requires elected leaders to universally embrace democratic institutions, while also protecting the right to vote for communities of color and other marginalized people. The law center has also called for better funding of prevention programs that interrupt the radicalization of young people by hate and anti-government groups.

The SPLC is a liberal advocacy organization that, in addition to monitoring hate groups, files lawsuits over justice issues and offers educational programs to counter prejudice. Frequently criticized by conservative groups as biased, the nonprofit group has faced lawsuits in the past over its designation of various organizations as hate groups.
___
Aaron Morrison, who reported from New York, is a national writer on AP’s Race & Ethnicity team.
https://news.yahoo.com/splc-report-hate-groups-decline-160252041.html?soc_src=socialsh&soc_trk=ma

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Thu, March 24, 2022, 6:04 PM
President Biden said Thursday that a food shortage is "gonna be real" following the sanctions that were placed on Russia by the U.S. government as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion into Ukraine.

"With regard to food shortage, yes we did talk about food shortages, and it's gonna be real," Biden said during a press conference at a NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, following a meeting with other world leaders.

"The price of the sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia," he added. "It’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well."

Biden said "Russia and Ukraine have been the breadbasket of Europe in terms of wheat" and insisted that he and other leaders had a "long discussion in the G7" about the need to "increase and disseminate" food production.

"In addition to that, we talked about urging all the European countries, and everyone else, to end trade … limitations on sending food abroad," Biden said. "And, so, we are in the process of working out with our European friends what it would take to help alleviate the concerns relative to the food shortages."

Biden's warning of a "real" food shortage and the impact it will have on America and European countries following the implementation of sanctions on the Russian economy comes after White House press secretary Jen Psaki said this week that Americans are unlikely to face a food shortage.

"While we're not expecting a food shortage here at home, we do anticipate that higher energy, fertilizer, wheat, and corn prices could impact the price of growing and purchasing critical fuel supply, food supplies for countries around the world," Psaki said. "And early estimates from the World Bank suggest disproportionate impacts on low and middle-income countries including in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia."

At the time, Psaki said the administration was working "with our partners in the G7, multilateral development banks, the World Food Programme, and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization to mitigate" food shortage impacts lower-income countries.

A twitter account managed by the Republican National Committee highlighted previous dismissal from Biden over potential food shortages in America due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In May 2020, while taking aim at then-President Donald Trump during a virtual town hall, Biden claimed America did not have a food shortage problem.

"We don't have a food shortage problem — we have a leadership problem," then-candidate Biden said.

"We have plenty of food," Biden added at the time. "It's being plowed under. You've got-- you're euthanizing cattle and pigs. They're out there making sure that they're pouring thousands of gallons of milk into the ground. It's not a food shortage. It's a lack of leadership-- a lack of leadership."

As war continues to ravage Ukraine, Americans, particularly those who live paycheck to paycheck, are beginning to feel the financial squeeze on their food prices from the conflict half a world away.

It began with a rapid rise in gas prices. Now, with Russian oil banned in the United States and energy scarcity heightened globally, experts say shoppers can expect their grocery bills to rise in coming months – especially if Ukraine misses its wheat planting season.

It comes an absolutely horrible time for American consumers because we're looking every day at inflation almost reaching 10%," Dan Varroney, a supply chain expert and founder of Potomac Core, told FOX Business. "Last month's figures were close to 8%. And that means that consumers, including those that are living paycheck to paycheck, are going to pay more for food."

Russia and Ukraine produce 25% of the global wheat supply, according to the Observatory for Economic Complexity. While neither of these countries export wheat to the U.S. directly, their absence from the global market is expected to strain supply and push prices higher. Fox Business' Andrew Keiper contributed to this article.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-warns-apos-real-apos-220457010.html

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BY TYLER DURDEN/ACTIVIST POST MARCH 23, 2022

While the world has been obsessively focused on crude oil and gasoline in recent weeks, we instead alerted readers to a far more dire scenario playing out in diesel, a source of energy which is absolutely critical in keeping the "just in time" world running on time.

As a reminder, here are some of the articles we have published on the topic in recent weeks, many even before the Ukraine war:

Diesel Is The U.S. Economy's Inflation Canary - Feb 8
U.S. Diesel Stocks Set To Fall Critically Low - Feb 18
China Asks State-Owned Refiners To Halt Gasoline, Diesel Exports - Mar 10
Global Diesel Shortage Raises Risk Of Even Greater Oil Price Spike - Mar 12

Fast-forward to today, when our warning was echoed by the heads of one of the largest commodity trading houses and the biggest independent oil trader who were speaking at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland on Tuesday.

The corporate leaders estimated that as much as 3 million barrels of oil and its products a day could be lost from Russia as a result of sanctions, in line with previous estimates, and warned that global markets face a squeeze on diesel with Europe most at risk of a "systemic" shortage that could lead to fuel rationing.

"The thing that everybody's concerned about will be diesel supplies. Europe imports about half of its diesel from Russia and about half of its diesel from the Middle East," said Russell Hardy, chief of Switzerland-based oil trader Vitol. "That systemic shortfall of diesel is there."

Those imports mean that Russian supplies account for about 15% of Europe's diesel consumption, according to the FT which carried their
comments.

Hardy said the shift to more diesel consumption over gasoline in Europe had helped to create shortages of the fuel. He added that refineries could boost their diesel output in response to higher prices at the expense of other oil-derived products to shore up supply, but warned that rationing was a possibility. Torbjorn Tornqvist, co-founder and chair of Geneva-headquartered Gunvor Group, added: "Diesel is not just a European problem; this is a global problem. It really is."

Tornqvist also warned that European gas markets were no longer functioning properly as traders faced huge demands from banks for cash to cover hedging positions. "I think it's broken. It really is," he said. "I never thought that somebody could say 'ah, gas has fallen below 100 per megawatt hours is really cheap'."

Gas futures linked to TTF, Europe's wholesale gas price have swung from about €70 a megawatt hour before Russia's invasion of Ukraine to about €230 two weeks ago and then slid below €100 this week. Before May 2021, European gas prices were below €20 a megawatt hour.

As noted last week, Europe's largest energy traders called on governments and central banks to provide emergency liquidity support to keep gas and power markets functioning as sharp price moves triggered by the Ukraine crisis have strained commodity markets. Hardy said that to move a cargo equivalent to 1 megawatt hour of liquefied natural gas priced at €97, traders must provide €80 in cash, straining their capital requirements.
Worse, confirming that Europe faces an even colder winter, Tornqvist said

European utilities would struggle to fill gas storage for next winter given the "paralysed" state of the spot market for gas unless policymakers stepped in to provide guarantees to protect buyers against price swings.

But going back to diesel, Bloomberg's Javier Blas tweeted a handful of the scariest quotes from the energy CEOs at today's FT commodities summit:

Trafigura CEO Jeremy Weir: "The diesel market is extremely tight. It's going to get tighter and will probably lead into stock outs," referring to when fuel stations run dry.

Gunvor CEO: "Europe is so short of diesel."

Vitol CEO: "The thing that everybody's concerned about will be diesel supplies."

Needless to say, without diesel, not only will traffic in Europe grind to a halt, but much if not all US truck-based logistical support and supply chains will soon be paralyzed. The consequences for the global economy will be dire.

Originally published at Activist Post
https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=5274

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BY MICHAEL SNYDER/ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG MARCH 21, 2022

The economic sanctions that have been imposed upon Russia have caused immense damage, but a loss of the petrodollar would be absolutely devastating for the U.S. economy. Since making an agreement with the Nixon administration in 1974, the Saudis have traded oil exclusively for U.S. dollars.

Today, approximately 80 percent of all oil produced in the entire world is traded for dollars, and the "petrodollar" has become one of the foundational pillars of the current global financial system.

Most Americans don't realize this, but far more dollars are actually used outside of the United States than inside the United States, and having the reserve currency of the world is a massive advantage for us.

Up to this point, there has been an insatiable demand for U.S. dollars all over the planet, and that has allowed us to enjoy a standard of living that is way above what we actually deserve.

Unfortunately, all of that could be about to change. As I have stated many times over the past year, Joe Biden is surrounded by the worst foreign policy team in U.S. history, and that is really saying something.

Thanks to this catastrophically bad foreign policy team, our relations with both Saudi Arabia and China have greatly deteriorated, and this has resulted in them developing closer relations with one another. In fact, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that it looks like the Saudis could soon start pricing the oil that it sells to China in Chinese currency...

The U.S. dollar may be on its way out as the global reserve currency.

Saudi Arabia is actively engaging in negotiations with Chinese officials to price oil sales to China in yuan instead of the U.S. dollar, the Wall Street Journal reported. If the two countries decide to conduct business using the Chinese yuan instead of the U.S. dollar, this could mean trouble for America's dominance as the global economic hegemon. This would be a tremendous blow to the U.S., and the Saudis know it.

So perhaps Biden should not have called Saudi Arabia a "pariah", and perhaps his foreign policy team should not have angered the Saudis multiple times over the past 12 months. Meanwhile, the Chinese still understand the art of diplomacy, and they are reportedly offering "everything you could possibly imagine" for the Saudis to make this move...

"The dynamics have dramatically changed. The U.S. relationship with the Saudis has changed, China is the world's biggest crude importer and they are offering many lucrative incentives to the kingdom," said a Saudi official familiar with the talks.

"China has been offering everything you could possibly imagine to the kingdom," the official said. In retrospect, we now know the reason why MBS wasn't taking Biden's phone calls.

At one time, the Chinese may have been afraid to threaten U.S. interests so openly, but not anymore. As I discussed a few days ago, U.S. relations with China are rapidly falling apart. One of the reasons for this is because of how strongly aligned China has become with Russia...


National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made clear during talks with his Chinese counterpart on Monday that the U.S. has "deep concerns about China's alignment with Russia at this time." He was direct about "the potential implications and consequences of certain actions," a senior administration official said.

Sullivan should definitely have "deep concerns", because he is one of the key figures that has helped to create this mess. After what he has pulled over the years, there is no way that he should ever be hired for another government job under any circumstances. But instead, he is the national security adviser to the president of the United States.

What in the world was Biden thinking when he picked him?

Sullivan is deeply disliked all over the globe, and it certainly isn't an accident that he was put on the list of U.S. officials that the Russians sanctioned on Tuesday...

US President Joe Biden
Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley
National security adviser Jacob Sullivan
CIA Director William Burns
White House press secretary Jen Psaki
Daleep Singh, Biden's deputy national security adviser for international economics
United States Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha
Power
President Biden's son Hunter Biden
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo 

Reta Jo Lewis, president and chairman of the board of directors of the Export-Import Bank Ultimately, this was just a symbolic move by the Russians.

Those sanctions won't really hurt anyone on that list. However, another move that Vladimir Putin made this week will definitely cause a bit of pain for the western world...

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that will allow Russian airlines to take control of hundreds of the Western-built planes leased from international firms, Russian news agency TASS reported, per The Wall Street Journal.

The jets will be added to the country's aircraft register and be deployed on domestic routes, according to Reuters. The news comes on the heels of the island of Bermuda revoking the airworthiness certificates for over 700 leased aircraft in Russia, which went into effect Saturday night.

Western powers and the Russians both continue to escalate the economic war that has now begun, and that is a very dangerous game. But in the long-term, what the Chinese and the Saudis are up to could have far graver implications.

Currency is the number one thing that the U.S. exports, and if the rest of the world decides it doesn't need our currency anymore we will be in really big trouble. Everything would change. If you think that inflation is bad now, just wait until that happens. Originally published at The Economic Collapse Blog
https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=5270

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MARCH 22, 2022 12:09 PM
BY CHRISTOPHER HUTTON

Another Twitter account was restricted after it referred to a transgender Biden official as a man.

The conservative Christian Post said on Monday that Twitter temporarily limited its account after referring to Assistant Secretary of Health
Rachel Levine, a transgender woman, as a man, marking the second action taken by Twitter against conservative accounts referring to Levine as a biological man in 48 hours.

"USA Today names Rachel Levine, a man, among its 'Women of the Year," the March 15 tweet said.

The Christian Post claimed it received notification on Sunday that it had violated Twitter's policy regarding "hateful conduct." The account's features, including the ability to like, follow, or retweet content, were then limited but could be restored after 12 hours once the tweet in question was deleted. The newspaper's leadership has said it does not plan to remove the tweet, telling the Washington Examiner, "We will continue to speak the truth even if it costs us our Twitter account."

The Christian Post argued its choice to refer to Levine being a biological male was intentional.

"The reason that The Christian Post is such a stickler for language, especially when reporting on the developments of transgender ideology, is because we value the truth," Christian

Post investigative reporter Brandon Showalter told the Washington Examiner. "If we fail to maintain the integrity of what and how we report on these hot-button issues, we do a great disservice to our readers who count on us to communicate honestly. We simply cannot in good conscience overwrite the truth of our physiology with words that have no meaning or the opposite meaning."

The outlet also may have violated German and French laws regarding internet content, according to a notification it received on Friday. While the newspaper attempted to appeal the decision, the matter remains under review as of Monday.

Twitter took similar action against the conservative satire website the Babylon Bee on Sunday, limiting access to the account due to a tweet identifying Levine as a man. Twitter told the website that its account would be restored within 12 hours of the tweet's deletion, an action the company's CEO Seth Dillon said will not be taken.

"We're not deleting anything," Dillon said. "Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it."

Twitter's policy on hateful conduct includes "repeated and/or nonconsensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone." This category includes "targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals."
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/faithfreedom-self-reliance/christian-post-twitter-account-restricted-foridentifying-rachel-levine-as-a-man

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Navigating a worldwide pandemic has been stressful for parents across the globe, but parents in the United States are operating in perpetual crisis mode. With schools closures, a childcare crisis with many daycares closing for good, and a lack of reliable childcare, parents are having to do it all, and they're burned out. In fact, according to a 2021 survey of parents in 42 countries, parental burnout ranked highest among Americans.

We talked to parents in several countries outside the US who say they're coping well to find out what support systems they have in place that are lacking stateside.

Italian parents often have strong support systems

The Italian government requires everyone to mask up both outdoors and indoors, and vaccination is required to attend work or university, said Candice Criscione, an expat who lives with her family just outside of Florence.

In the United States, most universities require in-person students to be vaccinated and require masks indoors. But mask mandates vary depending on location and are often difficult to enforce.

In the US, 63% of the population is fully vaccinated, while Italy is at over 75%.

Many Italians also have an excellent support system when it comes to raising children, Criscione said.

"Here, you see grandparents picking up children after school and families trade-off with child care. If you need help, you won't have trouble finding it," she said.

Even when parents feel depleted from juggling jobs and child-rearing, "there is a general consensus that sacrifices have to be made, and there's trust in what scientists and authorities are communicating," said Katherine Wilson, who lives in Rome.

"That said, parents are having a lot of trouble without the help of the older generation; often kids in Italy are taken care of by grandparents," said Wilson.

For those in the "sandwich" generation, taking care of their parents as well as their kids, the pandemic has been especially hard. The priority has been making sure that the elderly and the children are protected from COVID-19.

For those that do have grandparents around, it can be the only way they get a break from work and parenting.

"My husband and I manage by making sure we each get time to ourselves, whether it's a bike ride or a short walk. With both of us working, we also have given in to more screen time, although we still try to limit the time and make sure what they're watching provides some value. We live on a property with my in-laws and we have live-in, part-time help with our now 1-year-old, which I'm so grateful for," said Criscione.

A mom in Mexico said kids are often playing and socializing in parks

At the beginning of the pandemic, Mexican mother Diana Bueno Bieletto was on full alert like everyone else, but that fear has since fizzled.

"You see kids outside playing at playgrounds, malls, schools, [the] beach, parks. I think we value socialization in Mexico even more than health," Bieletto said.

Mexico is just now starting to vaccinate teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17, and is behind the US with 60% of the population fully vaccinated.

In spite of the lack of vaccination available for children 15 and under, the parents we spoke with said they've adapted to life during COVID.

Luis Enrique Rodriguez, who lives in central Mexico, said there are moments when he feels tired, but not burnt-out. "I think culturally we have more support mechanisms than people in the US, and maybe we're not so centered on fear, " said Rodriguez.

"We rely heavily on family support to have a moment to recharge and rest, to go to a cafe or a movie theater or just to have the time in the morning to work from home while someone else helps us take care of the kids," Rodriguez said.

For Violeta Noetinger, a mom of four in Argentina, the beginning of the pandemic was exhausting. Living in a society that relies heavily on domestic help, which was suddenly unavailable due to limited transportation, she said she felt "completely abandoned." But as time went on, parents pooled their resources.

"We hired private tutors for small groups at home — even going against local guidelines — to ensure that our kids had some kind of safe, limited, and somewhat periodic learning and social contact. If I have to think what saved us, it was the small groups we formed with other parents in order to help each other out," Noetinger said.

Similarly, some US families assembled "learning pods" early in the pandemic to better handle the demands of remote school, outsourcing the supervision of a small group of children's remote learning to hired help.

A dad in Norway said he's seeing people have a stronger faith in institutions

Per Ola Wold-Olsen, a father in Norway, said people in his country tend to have faith in their government and its institutions, something that hasn't changed during the pandemic.

Even with homeschooling and working from home, Wold-Olsen said he's seen families coping well. "Mostly, parents are frustrated over how little we can go to the office, travel, and meet in large groups," Wold-Olsen said.

"Both parents contribute equally with home and the kids. There was equality in the home even before COVID. Remote learning required that parents helped their kids a lot, but employers were aware of the need for shorter and fragmented work days and they adapted accordingly," said Wold-Olsen.

Rachel Meyer, an American expat living in Switzerland, where 69% of the population is fully vaccinated, says she's experienced less of an individualistic approach to the pandemic compared to the US. "The partisan cultural divisions over mask mandates and vaccination resistance makes surviving the pandemic especially tough for American parents," said Meyer.

"Because of government-run weekly mass testing and student mask mandates, children here in Switzerland have largely managed to stay in face-to-face school over the course of the pandemic," said Meyer. She said this has been supportive both for both parents' and students' mental well-being.

Grateful to be riding out the pandemic in Switzerland rather than the United States, Meyer said, "It's hard to stay healthy when 50% of your community thinks COVID is a hoax."

There's a sense of collective responsibility for public health in Switzerland that seems to be missing in the US, she said.
https://www.insider.com/differences-between-american-parents-and-the-wold-covid-2022-1

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Jim Denison | Denison Forum on Truth and Culture | Friday, March 11, 2022

Hassan is an eleven-year-old Ukrainian boy. When Russia invaded his country, his mother, a widow, was unable to travel because she had to stay with her sick mother. So she sent her son out of the country on a train by himself with only a plastic bag, a passport, and a telephone number written on his hand.

He traveled roughly 620 miles to Slovakia to meet relatives. After he arrived safely, she said, “I am very grateful that they saved the life of my child.”

Vladimir Putin clearly considers expanding the Russian Empire worth the lives of thousands of Hassans.

A STORY AS OLD AS HUMANITY
The first fact we discover about humans in God’s word is that we are each made in the image and likeness of God. After we learn that “God created man in his own image,” we are even told, “male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Clearly, every male and every female is equally valuable in the eyes of his or her Maker (cf. Acts 10:34; Galatians 3:28).

From then until now, nearly every sin we commit against each other is a violation of this fact. Cain considered Abel’s life worth less than his own. Joseph’s brothers felt the same about him. From Egypt’s enslavement of the Hebrews to the Western world’s enslavement of Africans, sex traffickers enslaving their victims today, and nearly every other kind of crime in the day’s news, we see all around us the horrific consequences of rejecting Genesis 1:27.

In this sense, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a contemporary example of a tragic story as old as humanity. His Communist upbringing and KGB career taught him the Communist worldview with its depreciation of the individual as a means to the end of the state.

"PRIMEVAL CONDITIONS IN BESIEGED CITIES"
The New York Times reports this morning that the war has taken “a decidedly darker turn, with hundreds of thousands of people now living in primeval conditions in besieged cities as Russian forces try to batter the country into submission.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an overnight address, “We are doing everything to save our people in the cities that the enemy just wants to destroy.”

Writing for The Times of Israel, Rachel Sharansky Danziger notes, “Vladimir
Putin’s invasion is very eloquent and very loud in this regard. It says: Might Makes Right. It says: human lives are cheap. It says: liberties and free speech must give way to the good of the state, and the good of the state lies in its glory, not in its people’s safety and welfare.”

Then she asks, “Are we willing to accept a world shaped on these terms?”

China’s horrific treatment of the Uyghurs and Kim Jong Un’s imprisonment and torture of those viewed as threats to his dictatorship are other examples. The long history of anti-Semitism is yet another illustration of humanity’s sinful “will to power” and willingness to subjugate other races and peoples to the advancement of our own.

"A RULE WHICH IS NOT TYRANNY"
There is another side to this story. America’s founding on the biblical fact that
“all men are created equal,” while fueling our pioneer spirit and entrepreneurial culture, must be balanced with the biblical fact that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Otherwise, the equality of human lives leads to the equality of human ideas. There can be no right and wrong, only what is right for me and wrong for you.

As D. A. Carson notes in The Intolerance of Tolerance, tolerance then becomes not the right to be wrong but the insistence that there is no such thing as “wrong.” The result is the destruction of institutions foundational to human flourishing.

From the equal rights of the unborn to the definition and sanctity of marriage, the healthy expression of sexuality within biblical marriage, the dignity and value of the elderly and infirm, and the urgency of justice for all races and ethnicities, every dimension of human experience is damaged when objective truth is replaced by relativistic tolerance.

In The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis noted that “the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means ... the power of some men to make other men what they please.” By contrast, “A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.”

A LIGHT THAT "CANNOT BE HIDDEN"
Such a “rule” and “obedience” is captured in the biblical call to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” to God (Romans 12:1). As a “living sacrifice,” every dimension of our lives is to be yielded every moment of every day to our Master and King.

Here we find one of the reasons why a “compartmentalized” life is so hazardous to the life of faith. When Jesus is a sermon subject and a person of history but not an intimate, present reality in our day-to-day lives, we miss the joy and the power he infuses in every soul that is truly united with him.

Conversely, when Jesus is king of every part of our lives every day, we experience the “abundant life” he came to bring (John 10:10) and become the light that “cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14) and “overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4).

So, like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, we can reject Genesis 1:27 by viewing other people as a means to the advancement of the state. Similarly, we can reject Genesis 1:27 by viewing other people as a means to our personal advancement and agendas. Alternately, we can embrace Genesis 1:27 as mandating the relativistic equality of all ideas and values and thus replacing truth with tolerance.

Or we can decide today to become a “living sacrifice” to our Lord and King.

"LET THERE BE PEACE ON EARTH"
Imagine a world in which every Christian made that choice every day. Imagine the impact on every person we influence. Imagine the difference if Christians around the world led the nations of the world to value every person as God does.

A beloved hymn so relevant to our war-torn world begins, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

Would you make these words your prayer today, to the glory of God?

Publication date: March 11, 2022

https://www.christianheadlines.com/columnists/denison-forum/are-you-truly-presenting-yourself-as-aliving-sacrifice-to-god.html

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 This article is more than 2 months old

Academic and member of CIA advisory panel says analysis applied to other countries shows US has ‘entered very dangerous territory’


The US is “closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe”, a member of a key CIA advisory panel has said.

The analysis by Barbara F Walter, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego who sits on the Political Instability Task Force, is contained in a book due out next year and first reported by the Washington Post.

At the same time, three retired generals wrote in the Post that they were “increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military”.

Such concerns are growing around jagged political divisions deepened by former president Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat in the 2020 election.

Trump’s lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was caused by electoral fraud stoked the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, over which Trump was impeached and acquitted a second time, leaving him free to run for office.

The “big lie” is also fueling moves among Republicans to restrict voting by groups that lean Democratic and to make it easier to overturn elections.

Such moves remain without counter from Democrats stymied by the filibuster, the Senate rule that demands supermajorities for most legislation.

In addition, though Republican presidential nominees have won the popular vote only once since 1988, the GOP has by playing political hardball stocked the supreme court with conservatives, who outnumber liberals 6-3.

All such factors and more, including a pandemic which has stoked resistance to government, have contributed to Walter’s analysis.

Last month, she tweeted: “The CIA actually has a taskforce designed to try to predict where and when political instability and conflict is likely to break out around the world. It’s just not legally allowed to look at the US. That means we are blind to the risk factors that are rapidly emerging here.”

The book in which Walter looks at those risk factors in the US, How Civil Wars Start, will be published in January. According to the Post, she writes: “No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war.”

But “if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America – the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or Ivory Coast or Venezuela – you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely.

“And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.”

Walter, the Post said, concludes that the US has passed through stages of “pre-insurgency” and “incipient conflict” and may now be in “open conflict”, beginning with the Capitol riot.

Citing analytics used by the Center for Systemic Peace, Walter also says the US has become an “anocracy” – “somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state”.

The US has fought a civil war, from 1861 to 1865 and against states which seceded in an attempt to maintain slavery.

Estimates of the death toll vary. The American Battlefield Trust puts it at 620,000 and says: “Taken as a percentage of today’s population, the toll would have risen as high as 6 million souls.”

Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton adviser turned biographer of Abraham Lincoln and Guardian contributor, said: “The secessionists in 1861 accepted Lincoln’s election as fair and legitimate.”

The current situation, he said, “is the opposite. Trump’s questioning of the election … has led to a genuine crisis of legitimacy.”

With Republicans’ hold on the levers of power while in the electoral minority a contributing factor, Blumenthal said, “This crisis metastasises, throughout the system over time, so that it’s possible any close election will be claimed to be false and fraudulent.”

Blumenthal said he did not expect the US to pitch into outright civil war, “section against section” and involving the fielding of armies.

If rightwing militia groups were to seek to mimic the secessionists of the 1860s and attempt to “seize federal forts and offices by force”, he said, “I think you’d have quite a confidence it would be over very, very quickly [given] a very strong and firm sense at the top of the US military of its constitutional, non-political role.

“… But given the proliferation of guns, there could be any number of seemingly random acts of violence that come from these organised militias, which are really vigilantes and with partisan agendas, and we haven’t entered that phase.

“The real nightmare would be that kind of low-intensity conflict.”

The retired generals who warned of conflict around the next election – Paul Eaton, Antonio Taguba and Steven Anderson – were less sanguine about the army.

“As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol,” they wrote, “we … are increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk.

“In short: We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time.”

Citing the presence at the Capitol riot of “a disturbing number of veterans and active-duty members of the military”, they pointed out that “more than one in 10 of those charged in the attacks had a service record”.

Polling has revealed similar worries – and warnings. In November, the Public Religion Research Institute asked voters if they agreed with a statement: “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”

The poll found that 18% of respondents agreed. Among Republicans, however, the figure was 30%.

On Twitter, Walter thanked the Post for covering her book. She also said: “I wish I had better news for the world but I couldn’t stay silent knowing what I know.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/20/us-closer-to-civil-war-new-book-barbara-walter-trump-capitol-attack

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Posted by Michael Peabody / February 7, 2022

On Monday, January 24, 2022, the Virginia state senate voted 29 to 11 (SB8) to allow people to hunt on Sundays on public or private land, so long as it takes place more than 200 yards from a place of worship.

Virginia’s ban on Sunday hunting is one of the last remaining “blue laws,” a relic of colonial times when governments passed laws prohibiting various commercial and entertainment activities to encourage religious observance. Until 2014, Virginia had prohibited hunting on private land on Sundays, but the ban on hunting on public lands on one of the two days of the weekend has remained in place.

Virginia’s ban on Sunday hunting on public land is not without quirks. It allows for shooting at targets and waterfowl but not other animals except for unfortunate raccoons, who can be hunted until 2:00 a.m. Virginia explains their Sunday hunting rules in more detail on this website. Whether the governor will sign the law permitting Sunday hunting remains uncertain. A

Survey of the Trending Discussion

While blue laws have been declining for years, there is a quiet push to bring left and right together to give Americans a weekly break. The reasoning is that if people, particularly those who work hourly schedules, can all take a weekly break simultaneously, they can spend more time with their families or enjoy some stress-free relaxation.

From the left, some have begun promoting a four-day workweek. On January 9, Damon Linker, a columnist for The Week, tweeted, “If you want to pass a law to give everyone at least one day off per week, I have no objection. But why say this
has anything to do with “the sabbath” when only about 25% attend services weekly? Or is the idea that people will use the time to return to the pews? I doubt it.”

In response, the same day, Jeet Heer, a columnist for The Nation, tweeted, “Elevator pitch: a secular Sabbath that starts on Thursday evening. This will create a 4-day work week and also preserve religious neutrality.”

On the right, Sohrab Ahmari wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal titled “What We’ve Lost in Rejecting the Sabbath,” published on May 7, 2021. He tweeted about it again on January 9, 2022, saying that this article was his “argument … for restoring America’s blue laws and Sabbatarian tradition.”

Then, on January 11, 2022, Ahmari wrote in The American Conservative: “A campaign for the Sabbath can bring together labor unions, religious conservatives, and small-business owners (that last group historically opposed abolishing blue laws for lack of ability to compete). Can any other issue unite three core constituencies of the new right quite like Sabbath?” Amari notes that “Americans carved out a day of rest and worship going back to the colonial era, not just in Puritan New England, but even in New Amsterdam and Virginia.”

Joel Mathis, writing for the left-leaning publication, The Week, observed the conversations about blue laws. He concluded that “if the right and left can agree on anything these days, maybe it’s that workers should get a day off now and then.”

That society can shut down and function during a mandatory rest period was proven during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic when all but “essential” services ceased in many jurisdictions. This has not gone unnoticed by the Green Sabbath Project, an interfaith environmental organization that advocates for voluntary observance of a weekly day of rest. The Green Sabbath Project calls people to take a weekly day of rest and “Make it real sabbath. For you. For earth. Don’t drive. Don’t shop. Don’t build.”

According to the Project’s website, “Whether commemorated as a secular, spiritual or religious act, green sabbaths properly practiced offers a weekly investment in family and local community, a weekly interruption of the suicidal econometric fantasy of infinite growth, a weekly divestment from fossil fuels, a
weekly moment of rewilding. As Greta Thunberg reminds us, we already know what the solutions are for our environmental crises.”

Are Blue Laws Constitutional?

In 1961 the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that a Maryland blue law did not violate the Establishment Clause because it had a predominantly “secular” purpose even though it was initially designed to promote church attendance, and did not violate the Free Exercise rights of employees who were restricted from selling particular merchandise on that day.

It may seem that there are apparent constitutional problems with Sunday blue laws designed to promote church attendance. But in 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the issue in McGowan v. Maryland, a case brought by employees of a discount department store who Maryland fined for selling items prohibited from selling on Sundays, including floor wax and loose-leaf notebooks. Maryland’s laws only allowed certain things like medications, tobacco, newspapers, and food to be sold on Sundays.

The employees said it violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause. Still, the Supreme Court found that they only alleged economic injury, not an infringement on their religious practices. Even though blue laws historically aimed to promote church attendance, they were now based on secular reasons to improve “health, safety, recreation, and general well-being.” The Maryland law provided the same day of rest for everyone, and the fact that it was significant for Christians did not mean the state could not use it to meet secular goals. The Court noted that the law did not constitute an establishment of religion. (You can read the decision and listen to the oral arguments in McGowan here: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1960/8 )

Justice Earl Warren, writing for the McGowan majority, wrote, “the State seeks to set one day apart from all others as a day of rest, repose, recreation, and tranquility – a day which all members of the family and community have the opportunity to spend and enjoy together, a day on which there exists relative quiet and disassociation from the everyday intensity of commercial activities, a day on which people may visit friends and relatives who are not available during working days.”

He then wrote, “It would seem unrealistic for enforcement purposes and perhaps detrimental to the general welfare to require a State to choose a common day of rest other than that which most persons would select of their own accord. For these reasons, we hold that the Maryland statutes are not laws respecting an establishment of religion.”

Using the Levers of the State

Writing for the conservative National Review, “Some Notes of Caution about Reviving Blue Laws,” on January 18, Tal Fortgang, a Jewish community member, expressed his concerns while noting the value of weekly rest. He described the differences in religious faiths that worship on Saturday instead of Sunday and recommended that persuasion rather than force was the way to bring about a day of rest, “[W]e can all demonstrate the value of Sabbath observance, of church attendance, of living lives that, in the aggregate, would make our society much healthier. We do so by engaging with the culture even when it is hostile, showing that adherents to a traditional moral code are unlikely to suffer those modern plagues of alienation and aimlessness. Once we have primed the culture, then we can think about using the levers of the state.” (Emphasis added.)

Steven Greenhut, writing in the Orange County Register on January 20 in a piece titled, “Modern Pharisees think government creates virtue,” notes some pitfalls of blue laws, which can create an underground economy. “Instead of promoting virtue, they become a means by which special interests – such as small businesses and beer distributors – abuse the legislative process to limit competition.” He writes, “Mandating that businesses close Sunday won’t do anything other than reduce jobs and give the rest of us fewer opportunities to go shopping and live our lives as we choose.”

While existing blue laws that specifically prohibit things like Sunday hunting may be disappearing from the books, there is a movement afoot to reintroduce the concept of a standard mandatory day of rest in ways that appeal to people across the political divide. The idea of using mandates to achieve goals for “the common good” has been seeing a resurgence in recent months. Modern approaches to blue laws are couched in secular terms and appear neutral on their face, yet they harken back to a religious tradition that has persisted in the West longer than it has been absent. Students of history would do well to recognize this trend and remember what happened to dissenters from mandatory Sunday rest in the past.
https://religiousliberty.tv/a-concept-in-common-are-sunday-blue-laws-making-a-comeback.html