Have nothing to do with the [evil] things that people do, things that belong to the darkness. Instead, bring them out to the light... [For] when all things are brought out into the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed...

-Ephesians 5:11-13

Category Archives: History

Tennessee Congressman: America “Needs a Revival”

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, March 29, 2023:  

The day after a female who called herself a male murdered six people, Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett on Tuesday was asked if Congress, or any legislative body, could do anything about such atrocities from happening again. He said, “I don’t see any real role that we could do [in Congress] other than mess things up.”

And then he gave the only real answer to a society being reduced to secular ashes by Marxists: “You know, as we talk about in the church, and I’ve said this many times, I think we really need a revival in this country.”

Burchett, a 54-year-old Republican from Knoxville with an 84 Freedom Index rating from The John Birch Society, is serving his third term in Congress, representing citizens in the state’s 18th district.

He didn’t mention that the revival that the country needs is already taking place, being largely ignored by the mainstream media. The media was forced to pay attention in February to the Asbury Revival when they learned that between 50,000 and 70,000 people had poured into tiny Wilmore, Kentucky, home of both Asbury University and Asbury Theological Seminary.

The ripple effect from that revival spread to other college campuses, including Samford (Ohio) and Cedarville (Alabama) Universities, and University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky. As the revival spread to other campuses like Campbellsville University (Kentucky) and Lee University (Tennessee), The Washington Post was forced to give it coverage.

Baylor University is now in the throes of a similar revival (FM72) in which students have just completed 72 hours of continuous prayer and worship at its Fountain Mall. Charles Ramsey, associate chaplain and director for Baylor’s Campus Ministries, said, “The purpose of FM72 is to stir a passion for Jesus Christ in the Baylor community,” adding:

It is time to take inventory of one’s own journey, to linger in prayer, and to recalibrate towards what is most important: our shared faith in Jesus Christ.

Similar revivals are expected to break out even in states where Christ’s name is either ignored or scorned, such as California. Following a 40-day fast, evangelists Lou Engle and Mando Matthews are gearing up for “Hope California” and have already booked 10 stadiums for the crowds of thousands expected to attend.

A ”Fill the Stadium” event is scheduled to begin on April 9 at the 86,000-seat Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Sponsored by evangelist Nick Hall, it’s expected to be the largest student-led outreach in recent history.

And in little Hammond, Louisiana (population 21,000), a local church is experiencing a revival that, according to Brian Lester of the Voice of Hope Ministries, has already attracted more than 25,000 people. It’s now in its 20th week, and continues with prayer and worship services held weekday nights.

Previous revivals, such as the one Asbury University experienced in 1970, had a far-reaching impact on the culture, and the Great Awakenings early in the life of the American Republic impacted and nourished the birth and spiritual growth of the Republic from its beginning.

As missionary to India William Carey famously said: “Attempt great things for God. Expect great things from God.”

“Jesus Revolution” Continues to Set Box Office Records

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, March 20, 2023:  

After exploding out of the blocks during its opening weekend less than a month ago, Jesus Revolution — a film depicting the Jesus movement in Southern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s — continues to set records. Initial estimates that first weekend were that the film, starring Kelsey Grammar and Jonathan Roumie (who plays Jesus in The Chosen), might generate $6 or $7 million in revenues. Instead, opening weekend saw the film garner over $15 million in revenues.

As of last Friday, the film had passed $45 million, making it Lionsgate’s most successful film since the Covid lockdowns. Pastor Greg Laurie, a primary beneficiary of the Jesus movement who now serves as senior pastor for Harvest Christian Fellowship (which, with four campuses, enjoys a weekly attendance of nearly 15,000 worshipers), told Fox & Friends Weekend: “The timing of this [film] is incredible, and I believe God’s hand has been on it from the beginning.”

The film is based on Laurie’s book of the same title, in which he takes readers on his remarkable life’s journey. In 1973, at age 19, Laurie, under the wing of Pastor Chuck Smith, was given the opportunity to teach a Bible study to 30 people. From this group, Laurie’s ministry grew to become one of the largest churches in the country.

In 1990 he founded Harvest Crusades, and in 2013 served as national chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force. In 2017, then-President Donald Trump invited him to give a message at his inauguration. Laurie has written more than 70 books and hosts a radio program, “A New Beginning,” syndicated on more than 1,100 radio stations worldwide.

And Smith’s ministry (he died in 2013) continues to impact believers around the world. His Calvary Chapel has grown to include more than 1,800 churches worldwide.

The timing is exquisite. The film opened on February 24, just two weeks after the Asbury revival began in Wilmore, Kentucky. That revival was augmented by the celebration of the Collegiate Day of Prayer, and radiated outward from there, touching students and others across the planet.

America is no stranger to surprise visits of the Holy Spirit. The nation’s first revival — the Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s — was prompted by poignant preaching by Jonathan Edwards (“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”) and George Whitefield.

America’s Second Great Awakening, beginning in the early 1800s, lasted five decades. The Third Great Awakening began in the late 1800s, driven by preachers such as Dwight L. Moody.

The Fourth Great Awakening likely began with the preaching of evangelist Bill Graham in the early 1950s, and culminated in the Jesus movement of the late 1960s, celebrated in Jesus Revolution.

Historians may be conflicted about when these revivals began and ended, but one startling fact stands out: God is at work in surprising ways, including turning a small, low-budget film about an obscure pastor and some California hippies finding Jesus into a blockbuster.

Former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney Accepts Temporary Professorship at UVA

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, March 2, 2023:  

Liz Cheney, overwhelmingly rejected by Wyoming Republicans last summer, has accepted a temporary teaching position at the University of Virginia (UVA). It’s a one-year gig, with options to renew.

Her intense hatred of Donald Trump led her to destroy her career as a politician in the Cowboy State. In November 2021, the Wyoming GOP Central Committee voted to no longer recognize her as a member of the party.

She had previously been removed from her position as chair of the House Republican Conference in May 2021, and in February 2022 the Republican National Committee overwhelmingly voted to censure her for taking part in her investigation of the so-called January 6 riot or insurrection.

Her continued scorching of former President Donald Trump led to her resounding defeat in the Republican primary in August, when she garnered less than 30 percent of the vote.

She was rewarded a political plum for her continued vitriolic attacks on Trump by Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who invited Cheney to co-chair the faux January 6 committee.

Now out of office, Cheney will continue her attacks on Trump and his supporters as a professor on the far-left campus of UVA. In her concession speech, she made it clear what her life’s mission would be:

This fight is not over — it may take many years. For anyone wondering about my own future, let me say this: I will do everything in my power to make sure Donald Trump is never again near the Oval Office.

In case anyone still wasn’t clear about her intentions, she reiterated her life’s mission on NBC’s Today show last August:

I believe that Donald Trump continues to pose a very great threat and risk to our republic. And I think that defeating him is going to require a broad and united front of Republicans, Democrats and independents, and that’s what I intend to be part of.…

 

I am absolutely going to continue this battle. It’s the most important thing I’ve ever been involved in, and I think it’s certainly the most important thing — challenge — that our nation has faced in recent history, and maybe since the Civil War. And it’s one that we must win.

She’ll be using her new soapbox at UVA to continue her fight against Trump:

I am delighted to be joining the UVA Center for Politics as a Professor of Practice. Preserving our constitutional republic is the most important work of our time, and our nation’s young people will play a crucial role in this effort….

 

There are many threats facing our system of government and I hope my work with the Center for Politics and the broader community at the University of Virginia will contribute to finding lasting solutions that not only preserve but strengthen our democracy.

Her boss, Larry Sabato, who is the founder and director of UVA’s Center for Politics, sees Trump as the enemy of “our democracy” as well, calling him the “worst” president in the history of the United States.

This fits, of course, as Sabato’s belief system reflects his past work as a Democratic operative after having obtained degrees in government and politics at Princeton and attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Rejoicing at Cheney’s arrival he said:

With democracy under fire in this country … Liz Cheney serves as a model of political courage and leadership. Liz will send a compelling message to students about integrity. She’s a true profile in courage, and she was willing to pay the price for her principles – and democracy itself.

As students of the Constitution know, the Founders didn’t create a “democracy.” Indeed, they did everything they could to keep the constitutional republic they were creating from becoming one.

In any case, the voters aren’t buying the lie. In the six polls taken last month concerning the 2024 presidential race among Republicans, Cheney didn’t even register in four of them, while in the other two she garnered an infinitesimal two percent.

She remains clearly an outsider, barking at the back door of the present front-runner, Donald Trump, who is between 15 and 30 points ahead of his nearest likely opponent in 2024, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis.

Nevertheless, in her fevered hatred of Trump, Cheney has decided that keeping him out of the Oval Office for a second term is her hill to die on.

“Jesus Revolution” a Box-office Smash, Takes Third in Opening Weekend

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, February 27, 2023:  

Jesus Revolution, a faith-based film that follows Pastor Greg Laurie’s book of the same title, was expected to gross between $6 million and $7 million in its debut this past weekend, though previews by various secular viewing sites were not enthusiastic.

At the close of the day on Sunday, the film had grossed more than $15 million, resoundingly contradicting those secular viewers. (Rotten Tomatoes reviewers came in at a paltry 54 out of 100, yet viewers gave it a 99. Cinema Score gave the film, based on viewers’ feedback, an “A+” (only two films in all of 2022 earned that rating), while those polled by PostTrak gave it a 97-percent positive score, with 89 percent saying they would definitely recommend it to their friends.

It’s the remarkable and often forgotten story of how the “Jesus movement” of the late ’60s and early ’70s transformed worship, first in Southern California and then across the country, and now around the world.

It’s the story of a recalcitrant pastor of a small church who was initially put off by the behavior of a hippie preacher that his daughter brought home one night. He was preaching to hippies and baptizing them in Pirates Cove off Newport Beach, California — baptizing hundreds of them at a time.

Chuck Smith, the pastor of tiny Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, saw his church grow from just 25 individuals to over 35,000 by 2006, and spawn related Calvary Chapel churches around the globe — currently numbering over 1,800.

The ministry was galvanized by Lonnie Frisbee, the hippie preacher, and led to the salvation of Greg Laurie, who now serves as senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California.

After viewing the movie, this reviewer, who was in his mid-20s when the Jesus movement was taking place, found himself astonished at the impact the hippie preacher, the recalcitrant pastor, and his student continue to have on the country and the world. Although Frisbee passed away in 1993 and Smith died in 2013, the ministry’s influence continues unabated.

In 1973, at age 19, Laurie, under the wing of Smith, was given the opportunity to teach a Bible study to 30 people. From this group, Laurie’s ministry grew to become one of the largest churches in the country. In 1990 he founded Harvest Crusades, and in 2013 served as national chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force. In 2017, then-President Donald Trump invited him to give a message at his inauguration. Laurie has written more than 70 books and hosts a radio program, “A New Beginning,” syndicated on more than 1,100 ratio stations worldwide.

Smith’s ministry, despite his passing a decade ago, continues to grow. As mentioned above, his Calvary Chapel Association now numbers more than 1,800 congregations worldwide. He founded Maranatha Music!, which continues to publish music with which most congregations are now familiar, involving drum sets, guitars, and voices of worship leaders guiding and celebrating the worship services.

The theology is thoroughly mainstream, including belief in the inerrancy of the Bible and the Trinity. It emphasizes the gifting of the Holy Spirit; this makes some traditional denominations nervous, but Smith’s followers say they straddle a middle ground between fundamentalism and Pentecostalism.

Followers practice “believer’s baptism” by immersion, holding that it is “an outward sign of an inward change.” That is made clear in a remarkably memorable moment from the movie when Laurie is baptized. He is immersed and then the film shows him sinking into the water in a state of unconsciousness. He then awakes, sees the light above, and reaches for it. He bursts through the surface, a new creation.

Joel Courtney, who plays the part of Greg Laurie in the movie, remarks on the efforts made to portray the baptism in the most realistic terms possible:

Pirates Cove is exactly where Greg and Cathe (Laurie’s wife) were baptized. This is the same beach they’ve been baptized. They’ve taken people to this beach to baptize them. There have been incredible stories seen at that wall of stone with a little tiny, very scary path that leads down to that beach.

 

It was [a] golden hour, so we had like 15 minutes to film it….

 

We were definitely chasing the tail-end of that light, but we got it, and it’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

 

And I hope people really connect with it.

The film is rated PG-13 for some unsettling drug scenes. But aside from that, the film is a momentous achievement celebrating a little-known and under-appreciated period in the religious history of the country that continues to resonate to this day.

Laurie himself is astonished at the impact the Jesus movement continues to have, now freshly revitalized in Jesus Revolution. As he noted in an interview with Fox News over the weekend, God’s timing for the film couldn’t be better:

As we look at the despondency among [today’s] young people, as revealed recently by a CDC report, where one out of every three teenage girls contemplate[s] suicide, to an outbreak of prayer and repentance on the campus of Asbury College [in Kentucky], you see, here’s the problem, here’s the solution.

Montana’s Democrat Jon Tester to Seek Reelection in 2024

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, February 23, 2023:  

Montana’s senior senator, Jon Tester, the only Democrat to hold elective office in that ruby-red state, announced on Wednesday his intention to run for a fourth term:

I am running for re-election so I can keep fighting for Montanans and demand that Washington stand up for our veterans and lower costs.

 

Montanans need a fighter holding Washington accountable and I’m running to defend our Montana values.

Tester is a primary GOP target in the 2024 general election, and he knows it. His previous election victories were decided by low single digits, and as more Montanans become aware of his real voting record, the contest next year will likely return the Democrat to his Montana ranch.

Before looking at his voting record, it’s helpful to view the general electoral landscape in Big Sky Country. In a state that Donald Trump won over Joe Biden by 16 points in 2020, just 32 percent of registered voters currently approve of Biden’s job performance, compared to 62 percent who disapprove.

Democrats will be defending 23 Senate seats in the upcoming general election, compared to just 11 by Republicans. And just one Democrat-to-Republican flip would return control of the Senate back to Republicans (assuming a Republican wins the White House).

Tester is rough-hewn, known for his often vulgar, expletive-laden language. The population of Montana has grown considerably over the years, however, especially following the Covid pandemic, forcing Tester to woo many new voters coming from more-sedate communities.

The senator managed to offend then-President Trump when he torpedoed Trump’s pick to head up the Veterans Affairs Department. He added to that offense by declaring that the January 6 incident was instigated by Trump, calling it a “despicable and dangerous attack on our democracy [sic]” and “a coup for domestic terrorists.”

Now to his voting record. Tester played a key role in passing the Senate’s pork-laden “infrastructure” bill. He voted for Obamacare and the odious and anti-capitalist Dodd-Frank financial services overhaul legislation.

During his first two campaigns Tester held to the traditional marriage position, but then praised the Supreme Court’s audacious ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges for protecting “the rights and freedoms of every married couple,” including men who want to marry other men, and vice versa.

He went on to compound his flagrant rejection of traditional marriage by voting for the misnamed Respect for Marriage Act, which repealed the Defense of [traditional] Marriage Act that was passed in 1996.

He is pro-abortion and supports embryonic stem-cell research, which kills embryos that are three to five days old, raising significant moral and religious issues for those who hold that life begins at conception.

He has consistently voted for liberal justices to the Supreme Court (i.e., Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson), while voting consistently against conservatives (i.e., Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett).

His Freedom Index (FI) rating from The John Birch Society reveals his low regard for the United States Constitution and his own oath to support and defend it: he has a dismal lifetime rating of just 21 out of a possible 100 in his three terms as senator.

His challenger is likely to be Montana’s Representative Matt Rosendale (Freedom Index of 100), who lost a razor’s edge contest to Tester in 2018. Rosendale is one of those Republican House member “holdouts” who held California’s Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s feet to the fire during his campaign for speaker of the House.

Tester is one of three incumbent senators likely to lose in 2024, according to political handicapper Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. The other two in jeopardy are Joe Manchin of West Virginia (FI rating of 27) and Sherrod Brown of Ohio (FI rating of 20).

Surprise Revival at Asbury University Spreading Across the Land

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, February 16, 2023:  

The surprise revival at a small private Christian university in Kentucky is spreading like wildfire across the country and around the world. Videos posted on YouTube by participants are being viewed by hundreds of thousands, and two days ago the hashtag #asburyrevival had 24 million views on TikTok. Traffic is pouring in to Wilmore, Kentucky, where the school is located, and people from as far away as Canada and New Jersey are attending the surprising event.

Asbury University has about 2,000 students all told, including grad students. Part of the curriculum requires attendance at chapel on Wednesday mornings. On Wednesday, February 8, it was all routine — until it wasn’t.

Alexandra “Lexie” Presta, executive editor of the on-campus paper The Asbury Collegian, couldn’t believe what was happening:

I have been in Hughes Auditorium for almost twelve hours now without an intent to leave anytime soon.…

 

As a senior, I have never witnessed anything like this.

 

I’ve heard about it from alumni, especially those who have come to chapel and spoken about their experience with the [Asbury] Revival of 1970….

 

It doesn’t seem like the night is planning to end anytime soon.…

 

The Collegian will provide updates….

That was on Wednesday night. On Sunday night the revival continued, and Lexie was there, providing the promised update:

We’ve been here in Hughes Auditorium for over a hundred hours — praying, crying, worshipping and uniting — because of Love.

 

We’ve even expanded into Estes Chapel across the street at Asbury Theological Seminary and beyond.

Students and their parents are making the trip to Wilmore, including students from Georgetown University, Indiana Wesleyan University, Ohio State, Purdue, and the University of Kentucky, along with students from two dozen other smaller colleges.

And the wildfire is spreading onto those campuses as well. One of them, Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, is experiencing a similar revival. Rob Fultz, Lee University’s campus pastor who attended the Asbury revival, tweeted: “A mighty move of God started this morning [February 13] at Lee and has been building throughout the day. We are approaching the 10th hour, nothing but voices in prayer, worship, and repentance.”

Laura Levens, a journalist from Baptist News Global, reported on what she saw happening at Asbury:

On the floor and in the balcony, there were all ages of people. Seniors in college sitting in front of senior citizens. Families with multiple children, rows of teenagers, babies, men in their early thirties, college athletes — and so many of these people were singing.

 

They sang widely used praise and worship songs, as old as Jesus Culture and as recent as Hillsong, with a few hymns important to the Asbury students mixed in.

Thomas McCall, a professor of theology at Asbury, witnessed the revival with initial skepticism:

As an analytic theologian, I am weary of hype and very wary of manipulation. I come from a background (in a particularly revivalist segment of the Methodist-holiness tradition) where I’ve seen efforts to manufacture “revivals” and “movements of the Spirit” that were sometimes not only hollow but also harmful.

 

I do not want anything to do with that.

 

And truth be told, this is nothing like that. There is no pressure or hype. There is no manipulation. There is no high-pitched emotional fervor.

 

To the contrary, it has so far been mostly calm and serene. The mix of hope and joy and peace is indescribably strong and indeed almost palpable — a vivid and incredibly powerful sense of shalom.

McCall described what he saw from the very beginning:

Most Wednesday mornings at Asbury University are like any other. A few minutes before 10, students begin to gather in Hughes Auditorium for chapel. Students are required to attend a certain number of chapels each semester, so they tend to show up as a matter of routine.

 

But this past Wednesday [February 8] was different. After the benediction, the gospel choir began to sing a final chorus — and then something began to happen that defies easy description.

 

Students did not leave. They were struck by what seemed to be a quiet but powerful sense of transcendence, and they did not want to go. They stayed and continued to worship. They are still there.…

 

They were still worshiping when I left in the late afternoon and when I came back in the evening. They were still worshiping when I arrived early Thursday morning — and by midmorning hundreds were filling the auditorium again. I have seen multiple students running toward the chapel each day.

 

By Thursday evening, there was standing room only….

 

The worship continued throughout the day on Friday and indeed all through the night.

 

On Saturday morning, I had a hard time finding a seat; by evening the building was packed beyond capacity. Every night, some students and others have stayed in the chapel to pray through the night. And as of Sunday evening [February 12], the momentum shows no signs of slowing down.

News of the revival finally caught the attention of the secular media. Yesterday a reporter from NBC News was assigned the task of investigating the event in Wilmore. He couldn’t believe what he saw:

Tuesday night [February 14] capped the largest crowd yet: 3,000 worshipers piled into the college chapel and four [other] facilities throughout the college town.

 

At least two-thirds of the attendees are from out of state.…

 

Students and staff from 22 schools have visited so far, alongside groups from Hawaii to Massachusetts.… Travelers from Singapore and Canada are expected to arrive soon.

The Asbury College Revival of 1970 lasted 185 hours, and some historians compared it to America’s Great Awakenings of 1740 and 1800. The Lexington Herald Leader recounted that event:

Students were required to attend chapel services three times a week.

 

Asbury, in Wilmore, a city of 4,300 about 16 miles south of Lexington, is an interdenominational religious college whose roots are in the Wesleyan tradition of the Methodist church. (John and Charles Wesley, brothers, were 18th-century revivalists.)

 

On that Tuesday morning in 1970, Custer Reynolds, Asbury’s academic dean and a Methodist layman, was in charge. President Dennis Kinlaw was traveling. Reynolds did not preach. Instead, he briefly gave his testimony, then issued an invitation for students to talk about their own Christian experiences.

 

There was nothing particularly unusual about that.

 

One student responded to his offer. Then another. Then another.

 

“Then they started pouring to the altar,” Reynolds said. “It just broke.”

 

Gradually, inexplicably, students and faculty members alike found themselves quietly praying, weeping, singing. They sought out others to whom they had done wrong deeds and asked for forgiveness.

 

The chapel service went on and on. Asbury, like many evangelical organizations, held annual, scheduled “revivals,” with guest ministers and services booked in advance.

 

This, however, was not the same. No one had planned it. No one was leading it. “There was just a different feeling about that day,” said Marilyn Blackburn, who was then a junior at the college. She is now a substitute schoolteacher in New Jersey.

 

People didn’t want to leave, she said. They were afraid they would miss something wonderful.

It is said that for believers no explanation for this is necessary. For unbelievers, no explanation is possible. On February 23, just over two weeks from the beginning of this revival, the Luke 18 Project will be holding its Collegiate Day of Prayer. More than 1,200 campus ministries, churches, and individuals have already signed up to participate.

And where is that Collegiate Day of Prayer scheduled to take place? Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky.

Twenty-five States Sue ATF Over Pistol-brace Rule

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, February 10, 2023:  

Resistance against the ATF’s pistol stabilizing brace rule continues to build. On Thursday, attorneys general from 25 states filed a lawsuit claiming that the agency’s new rule is unconstitutional and violated the principle of separation of powers that makes our federal government unique.

The lawsuit opened:

For more than a decade, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF”) authorized the public to use pistol stabilizing braces, a popular firearms accessory, without federal regulation.

 

During that time, ATF repeatedly issued letter rulings assuring manufacturers and the public that attaching a stabilizing brace would not alter the statutory or regulatory classification of a pistol or other firearm.

 

As a result, millions of Americans have for years lawfully purchased stabilizing braces and pistols equipped with stabilizing braces from authorized, legitimate manufacturers with ATF’s full knowledge and express approval.

Then the Biden administration intervened:

Then everything changed. Frustrated with congressional inaction, the President of the United States ordered ATF to abandon a decade of practice under an established statutory framework and “to treat pistols modified with stabilizing braces” as “subject to the National Firearms Act.”

 

This “change,” the President said, would require an owner of a pistol equipped with a stabilizing brace to “pay a $200 fee and submit their name and other identifying information to the Justice Department” or face criminal penalties.

 

The President’s express aim was to act “without having to go through the Congress.”

This is how things get done in a dictatorship: The ruler makes the rules, decides who violates the rules, and then punishes the violator. With this rule change, Biden is on track.

Continues the lawsuit:

[T]he Rule in effect vests ATF with unbounded discretion.

 

And ATF has made clear exactly how it intends to exercise that  discretion, estimating that, under the Rule, 99% of pistols equipped with stabilizing braces will now be deemed subject to National Firearms Act (“NFA”) controls.

The number of firearms affected by the rule, were it allowed to stand, is between three and seven million according to the ATF. The Congressional Research Service, on the other hand, puts the number between 10 and 40 million. Regardless, the penalties for violating the NFA are harsh, both through fines and potential incarceration.

The lawsuit reviews the hypocrisy and the illegal intentions of the ATF:

The Rule … represents an abrupt reversal of ATF’s longstanding position that these items are not subject to NFA controls…

 

The agency charged with administering the NFA and GCA [Gun Control Act of 1968] believed for years that pistols equipped with stabilizing braces are not subject to heightened regulation, and now holds the opposite.

The states remind the court that President Biden acted as a dictator:

Without any legislative change, the President of the United States ordered ATF to abandon a decade of practice under an established statutory framework and “to treat pistols modified with stabilizing braces” as “subject to the National Firearms Act.”

The lawsuit also reminds the court that what Biden did in ordering the ATF to violate its own rulings in order to promote his anti-gun agenda violated the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

ATF’s Rule also construes the statute in a way that would raise grave constitutional doubts under the Second Amendment. With millions of stabilizing braces in circulation — even by ATF’s conservative estimate — braced weapons are plainly in “common use” and thus protected by the Second Amendment. (See New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen)

This is the primary obstacle that lawyers for the Department of Justice will have to overcome in defending this lawsuit. By its own admission, the ATF has clearly and repeatedly stated that pistol braces were in “common use” and thus fall inside the Bruen rule, i.e., the ATF must justify its incursion and infringement of the Second Amendment by demonstrating that it is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition. According to the high court in Bruen, “only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’”

West Virginia’s Attorney General Patrick Morrisey called out the ATF’s move:

Let’s call this what it is: an effort to undermine Americans’ Second Amendment right. This is an egregious final rule turning millions of common firearms accessories into “short-barreled rifles.” This is completely nonsensical regulation.

 

This is part of the continued attack by the Biden administration against lawful gun owners.

Morrisey added, “This is also another case of a federal agency not staying in its lane and doing the job the constitution clearly delegates to Congress—writing laws. The Separation of Powers clearly bars federal agencies from making new laws without Congressional directive.”

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita backed up Morrisey:

As long as I’m attorney general, we will never willingly cede Hoosiers’ cherished liberties to the whims of federal bureaucrats. This is a clear case of overreach by the executive branch, and we fully expect to prevail in this lawsuit.

 

By standing together, the individual states can stop the federal government from riding roughshod over our people’s freedoms.

 

Standing up to tyranny is a time-honored American tradition. It requires us not only to resist broad sweeping power grabs but also to combat the incremental chipping away of rights.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western Division of North Dakota. Readers, as well as lawyers for the DOJ, may expect additional lawsuits to be filed over the matter. In the meantime it is hoped that one of the courts will issue a temporary restraining order against the ATF’s enforcement of the new rule while the lawsuits are pending.

Bruen Decision Continues to Support Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, February 6, 2023:  

A federal law preventing someone “subject to domestic violence orders” (DVOs) from possessing “a firearm or ammunition” was tossed by a federal court last Thursday. Prior to Bruen — New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen — a federal law prohibited those under DVOs from owning firearms.

But under Bruen the legal landscape shifted in favor of the Second Amendment, and the reverberations continue to be felt across the land. That would include California, one of the most anti-gun states in the union.

In United States of America v. Zackey Rahimi, the Department of Justice tried to find historical support for its DVO rule under the new Bruen ruling. That ruling now requires that governments attempting to restrict Second Amendment rights must show historical evidence that such laws may be justified today.

In the present case, the DOJ failed:

The question presented in this case is not whether prohibiting the possession of firearms by someone subject to a domestic violence restraining order is a laudable policy goal. The question is whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) [the federal law] … is constitutional under the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.

In the light of N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, … it is not.

The ruling by three members of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, two of whom were nominated by President Trump and the other by President Ronald Reagan, noted that Bruen, along with D.C. v. Heller, put the onus on states seeking to infringe Second Amendment rights to provide historical support for such infringements:

Enter Bruen. Expounding on Heller, the Supreme Court held that “[w]hen the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.”

 

In that context, the Government bears the burden of “justify[ing] its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

 

Put another way, “the [G]overnment must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.”

The “Government” — i.e., the federal government, represented by its Department of Justice — failed to prove it. Quoting from Bruen:

“When it comes to interpreting the Constitution, not all history is created equal. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them.”

 

We thus afford greater weight to historical analogues more contemporaneous to the Second Amendment’s ratification.

The DOJ presented three such “historical references” to bolster its case in support of the federal law — and failed. Wrote the court: “We discuss in turn why each of these historical regulations falter.”

Prior to Bruen, the court had admitted that the federal law was constitutional: the ends (attempting to reduce gun violence by those under DVOs) justified the means (infringing on their rights). But Bruen now makes such laws unconstitutional:

Doubtless, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) embodies salutary policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society. Weighing those policy goals’ merits through the sort of means-end scrutiny our prior precedent indulged, we previously concluded that the societal benefits of § 922(g)(8) outweighed its burden on Rahimi’s Second Amendment rights.

 

But Bruen forecloses any such analysis in favor of a historical analogical inquiry into the scope of the allowable burden on the Second Amendment right.

 

Through that lens, we conclude that § 922(g)(8)’s ban on possession of firearms is an “outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted.”

 

Therefore, the statute is unconstitutional, and Rahimi’s conviction under that statute must be vacated.

Such adherence to the Second Amendment was met with derision and defiance in California. In a press release, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared:

A federal appeals court has ruled domestic abusers have the right to carry firearms. Where is the line? Who’s next?…

 

These three zealots [the three judges appointed by Trump and Reagan that made up the panel] are hellbent on a deranged vision of guns for all, leaving [the federal] government powerless to protect its people.

 

This is what the ultra-conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court wants….

 

Wake up, America — this assault on our safety will only accelerate.

Newsom’s state attorney general, Rob Bonta, defied the Circuit Court’s ruling:

This is a dangerous decision.… Californians should know that restraining orders, including Domestic Violence Restraining Orders, still prohibit the possession of firearms. These orders are an essential tool that remain in effect and may be requested at any time. I urge Californians to utilize these life-saving tools.

And Joe Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland is going to appeal the Fifth Circuit’s ruling:

Whether analyzed through the lens of Supreme Court precedent, or of the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment, that statute is constitutional….

 

Accordingly, the Department will seek further review of the Fifth Circuit’s contrary decision.

It cannot be emphasized too often: Bruen is directly attributable to Presidents Trump and Reagan, who nominated originalists to the Supreme Court. In fact, the author of Thursday’s Fifth Circuit’s decision, Judge Cory Wilson, was the 200th federal judge to be nominated by President Trump, and the sixth judge nominated by him to the Fifth Circuit.

ATF Rule on Pistol Braces Generating Major Pushback

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, February 2, 2023:  

As expected, the ATF’s extraordinary overreach declaring that pistols with braces are now rifles to be registered under the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) is being met with outrage and lawsuits across the land.

The ATF — the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — knew it was coming and wrote the rule anyway. Anti-gun Attorney General Merrick Garland endorsed it, saying that “keeping our communities safe from gun violence is among the [Justice] Department’s highest priorities.”

This despite receiving nearly a quarter of a million negative comments from citizens during the open public-response period prior to the rule becoming effective. This despite a letter from the Senate Republican Caucus telling Garland that the new rule, if he signed it, “would turn millions of law-abiding Americans into criminals overnight, and would constitute the largest Executive branch-imposed gun registration and confiscation scheme in American history.”

Nevertheless, Garland signed the rule change, triggering numerous lawsuits and other forms of resistance.

The first lawsuit to be filed against the ATF came from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, Inc. — Britto v. ATF — filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. It made it clear just how the ATF violated the law:

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF”) has issued a rule reclassifying pistols with stabilizing braces (which are designed and intended to be attached to the user’s forearm) as short-barreled rifles (which are, by contrast, designed and intended to be fired from the shoulder).

 

ATF made this change without legal authority and despite previously and repeatedly concluding just the opposite….

 

ATF’s actions are unlawful.

 

The new rule unlawfully usurps Congressional authority by significantly expanding the definition of “rifle” under federal law and, with it, imposes potential criminal liability on millions of Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights.

 

Such a dramatic seizure of legislative authority violates not only the Administrative Procedures Act, but the separation of powers … and the “fundamental right” to keep and bear arms.

The second lawsuit to be filed is Mock v. Garland, brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition and also presented to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. It not only challenges the ATF for violating the APA — the Administrative Procedures Act — and the Constitution, it also challenges, for the first time in decades, the constitutionality of the National Firearms Act of 1934 itself:

Even if the Final Rule does not violate the APA and is allowed to stand, the Agencies’ National Firearms Act (“NFA”) … laws, regulations, policies, and enforcement practices with respect to “braced pistols” that the Agencies’ [sic] have classified as “short-barreled rifles” violate the Second Amendment.

Right behind these court filings is the assurance by the Arkansas Sheriffs’ Association (ASA) that its members won’t assist federal agents seeking to enforce this unconstitutional abridgement in their state.

In 2021, Arkansas, anticipating the coming tyranny by the ATF and the federal government, passed its nullification law, Act 1012, under which

All acts, laws, orders, rules, and regulations of the United States Government that were enacted on or after January 1, 2021, that infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and Arkansas Constitution, Article 2, § 5, are invalid in this state, shall not be recognized by this state, are specifically rejected by this state, and shall be considered null and void and of no effect in this state.

Wrote the ASA’s director, Scott Bradley:

We do not support assisting the federal government in any way in the enforcing of this offensive affront to the rights of law-abiding citizens of the State of Arkansas.

 

Criminals don’t obey the law, and when rules like this are put in place, they seek only to criminalize otherwise law-abiding citizens.

The ATF is going to have some heavy lifting to do to overcome not only these lawsuits and citizens’ and sheriffs’ resistance, but legal precedents as well. There’s Cargill v. Garland, which ruled in a nearly identical case concerning the ATF in which the agency declared that bump stocks turned rifles into machine guns:

The definition of “machinegun” as set forth in the National Firearms Act [1934] and Gun Control Act [1968] does not apply to bump stocks.

And then there’s the Bruen decision — New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen — in which the Supreme Court ruled:

When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct [here the right to bear arms], the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.

 

The government [including the ATF] must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.”

Although Cargill took five years to litigate, it is more than likely that one of the courts accepting these lawsuits will issue a temporary restraining order against the ATF while the issue is being heard.

Bishop Calls Out Biden for His “Fake Catholicism”

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, February 1, 2023:  

Days after the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities asked Congress to pass a bill prohibiting taxpayer funding for abortions, Joe Biden was asked about it:

Reporter: Catholic bishops are demanding that federal tax dollars not fund abortions.

Biden: No, they are not all doing that, nor is the Pope.

Bishop Joseph Strickland of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler, Texas, immediately tweeted: “Mr. Biden can’t be allowed to twist the words of Pope Francis in this way.… It is time to denounce Biden’s fake Catholicism.”

It’s long past time. Biden, the master flip-flopper, was, once-upon-a-time, back in 2012, a “pro-life Democrat.”

But that was then. Now, he’s all-in for abortion “under any circumstances.” And he’s all-in for ending the Hyde Amendment that prohibits Congress from funding abortions.

Back in July, Pope Francis made his church’s position on abortion clear: “A month after conception, the DNA of the fetus is already there and the organs are aligned. There is human life.”

And then Francis added a question directed to Biden, a self-proclaimed “devout Catholic”: “Is it just to eliminate a human life?”

The question was rhetorical. Said Francis: “I leave it to [Biden’s] conscience, and [request] that he speak to his bishop, his pastor, his parish priest, about that incoherence.”

National Public Radio (NPR) exposed the conflict just days after Biden was inaugurated, posing the issue: “Biden Is Catholic. He Also Supports Abortion Rights.”

One knows that Biden is a “devout Catholic” because his first press secretary, Jen Psaki, said so. At Biden’s very first press conference she was asked point blank about Biden’s abortion policies. Here is her response:

I will just take the opportunity to remind all of you that he is a devout Catholic, and somebody who attends church regularly. He started his day attending church with his family this morning.

The Most Reverend Jose Gomez, archbishop of Los Angeles and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was far more enlightening. In his statement following Biden’s inauguration, he reminded his readers:

The bishops and Catholic faithful carry out Christ’s commandment to love God and love our neighbors by working for an America that protects human dignity, expands equality and opportunities for every person, and is open-hearted towards the suffering and weak. (Emphasis added)

And Gomez certainly expected Biden, as a “devout Catholic,” to be willing and open to “engage” with him on the touchy topic of abortion:

It will be refreshing to engage with a President who clearly understands, in a deep and personal way, the importance of religious faith and institutions.

 

Mr. Biden’s piety and personal story, his moving witness to how his faith as brought him solace in times of darkness and tragedy, his longstanding commitment to the Gospel’s priority for the poor — all of this I find hopeful and inspiring.

But, Gomez warned:

We cannot stay silent when nearly a million unborn lives are being cast aside in our country year after year through abortion….

I must point out that our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.

He added that those policies, as they are enacted, would affect all human beings, especially Catholics who hold that life is precious, dear, and a gift from God: “Of deep concern is the liberty of the Church and the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences.”

As Biden’s mental and physical health continues to deteriorate, the time gets nearer that he will learn his final destiny. As Jesus’ Apostle John wrote in Revelation 21:8:

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

Australia’s Gun-buyback Program Is a Bust

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, January 24, 2023:  

Australia’s Attorney General (AG) tried to put the best face possible on the disastrous result of its latest gun-buyback program that began in February of 2022:

The first year of the National Permanent Firearms Amnesty was a successful event.… With just under 18,000 firearms and weapons surrendered in its first year, the permanent amnesty has provided an ongoing and robust framework for a reduction in the overall number of firearms … and has promoted public safety.

To put things in perspective, there are reportedly between 260,000 and 600,000 “illegal” (i.e., unregistered) firearms in Australia, and 18,000 of them were “surrendered” in the 12 months ending last July. That’s either seven percent or three percent of the targeted firearms privately owned.

Second, half of them were useless, non-working, or just simply relics inherited from a previous generation. Slightly more than one percent were given up by persons seeking amnesty for their possession.

The AG put lipstick on that pig:

The report released today found Australians who surrendered their firearms … were primarily motivated to do so out of a sense of responsibility or because they did not require them. [Emphasis added.]

Thirdly, private gun ownership in Australia actually increased since Australia’s experiment with gun control began. As guns.com noted, more than 1.16 million firearms have been imported into the island nation since the first buyback in 1996, resulting in some 816,000 Aussies currently owning nearly three million registered firearms.

And that number only counts those “above ground.” The black market (i.e., free market) in firearms continues to thrive. In a study released last June by Deakin University in Melbourne, criminology professor David Bright said that there is a “large pool” of illegal firearms that criminals can easily access. But police are able to “recover” only tiny fractions of them through buybacks in any given year.

Wrote Bright:

Our research found that the black market for illegal firearms is closed to the general population, but if you are well connected … it is surprisingly easy to get your hands on a gun….

 

Many [prison inmates who were interviewed] told us they could get a gun within a matter of hours after leaving jail — it was just that quick and easy for those who are well connected.

But Australia’s AG ignored these inconvenient facts, adding the “permanent amnesty … protect[s] the public from harm.”

However, there is no proof that such gun buybacks have any statistically significant impact on gun violence, despite many efforts to find it. A study done for the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia concluded that the country’s buyback program “did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates.”

Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, going back to 1980, shows a steady decline in both of those rates. A study of that data resulted in authors concluding that there is “little evidence to suggest that [the buyback program] had any significant effects on firearm homicides or suicides.”

This conclusion was confirmed by another study done in the U.S. by the National Bureau of Economic Research out of Cambridge, Massachusetts:

Our estimates provide compelling evidence that GBPs (gun buyback programs) have done little to reduce gun-related crime or mortality in the United States….

 

GPB’s have no observable effect on gun-related crime.

Still another study, this one published in the Annals of Surgery, summed up the results from 19 different studies in both Australia and the United States, and concluded that “evidence suggests that there may be a small, improved impact on suicide prevention in older, white males, but no effect on interpersonal gun violence or homicides.” (Emphasis added.)

But governments, in Australia and in the United States, continue their quest to disarm their citizens. All they do, however, is prove that it’s “show business” for politicians trying to claim they’re doing something about gun violence.

Dozens of Illinois Sheriffs Won’t Enforce New Gun Law

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, January 13, 2023:  

More than 80 Illinois county sheriffs are refusing to enforce the state’s new gun law banning the sale, purchase, or possession of so-called assault weapons. The new law also bans magazines with capacities exceeding 10 rounds for rifles and 15 founds for pistols. In addition, the new law, while grandfathering firearms owned prior to passage of the law, requires owners of the now-offending firearms to register them with the state police.

Whiteside County Sheriff John Booker says that the law “goes after the law-abiding citizen … [that’s] what we’re upset about.” Sheriffs in Greene, Macoupin, Monroe, and Madison counties won’t be enforcing the law either.

McHenry County Sheriff Robb Tadelman announced that “neither myself nor my office will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the state, nor will we be arresting … law-abiding individuals who have been charged solely with non-compliance with this act.”

Sheriffs in Kankakee, Boone, and Winnebago counties aren’t going to enforce it.

McDonough County Sheriff Nick Petitgout called the new law “a clear violation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

Knox County Sheriff Jack Harlan issued a news release:

Part of my duties that I accepted upon being sworn into office was to protect the rights provided to all of us, in the Constitution. One of those enumerated rights is the right of the people to keep and bear arms, provided under the Second Amendment.

 

I, among many others, believe that [the new law] is a clear violation of the Second Amendment.

Edwards County Sheriff Darby Boewe posted a lengthy statement on Facebook:

Part of my duties that I accepted upon being sworn into office was to protect the rights provided to all of us, in the Constitution. One of those rights enumerated is the right of the people to KEEP and BEAR ARMS provided under the 2nd Amendment. The right to keep and bear arms for defense of life, liberty and property is regarded as an inalienable right by the people…

 

Therefore, as custodian of the jail and chief law enforcement officer for Edwards County, that neither myself or my office will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the state, nor will we be arresting or housing individuals that have been charged solely with non-compliance of this act.

Madison County Sheriff Jeff Conner went even further. In a joint statement with the county’s State Attorney Tom Haine, they wrote:

We feel the duty to clarify for our citizens the policy their Madison County law enforcement leaders will adopt with regard to this new situation….

 

As with any statute passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, it is presumed constitutional.

 

But we are acutely aware that this statute touches on fundamental constitutional issues and is in obvious tension with recent and binding Supreme Court precedent on the Second Amendment [i.e., New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen]. Among other things, it bans many of the most popular firearms in America, firearms that are currently in common use for lawful purposes and which law-abiding citizens have legally owned for many years.

 

Whatever the policy justification, such a ban is hard to square with the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Bruen, which stated simply: “the Second Amendment protects the possession and use of weapons that are ‘in common use at the time.’” Based on the analysis above, we expect a strong court challenge to HB 5471 in short order….

 

Therefore, pending further direction by the courts, the Madison County Sheriff’s Office will not expend its limited resources to check whether otherwise law-abiding gun owners have registered their weapons with the state, nor will the Madison County Sheriff’s Office be arresting or housing otherwise law-abiding individuals solely due to non-compliance with [the law].…

 

The citizens of Madison County can remain confident that their local law enforcement will not turn the criminal justice system against those acting within their clearly defined constitutional rights.

Without saying so directly, these Illinois county sheriffs are taking their roles as constitutional sheriffs seriously. Former Graham County, Arizona, Sheriff Richard Mack defined those roles:

“To keep the peace and to secure, defend and protect the people of this jurisdiction from threats to their liberties, their livelihoods, and the peaceable enjoyment of their property.

 

The nature of that solemn oath requires that the actions of the sheriff in the performance of his duty must conform to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this State.

The State of Illinois, represented by Governor J.B. Pritzker, rejects the whole idea of constitutional sheriffs defending the rights of those who elected them. A Pritzker spokesman declared that, contrary to the opinions expressed by those 80-some sheriffs, “the assault weapons ban is the law of Illinois. The General Assembly passed the bill, and the governor signed it into law.… Sheriffs have a constitutional duty to uphold the laws of the state [and] not pick and choose which laws they support.”

Harold Krent, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, agrees with Pritzker:

The General Assembly has decided [that the gun law] is constitutional. The [state’s] attorney general has decided it’s constitutional. I think it’s an incredible risk for sheriffs to say: “We’re not going to enforce a law” because that’s encouraging a lack of respect for the law.

Various pro-Second Amendment groups, including the Second Amendment Foundation, are filing suits against the law. They have not only the Bruen decision on their side, they also have the Supreme Court’s decision in Norton v. Shelby County, decided in 1886, on their side. In that case the high court ruled:

An unconstitutional statute is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is, in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed.

64 Years Later, What Has The John Birch Society Done?

This article, written by the Communications Director of the John Birch Society, Paul Dragu, deserves widespread circulation. It appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, December 26, 2022:  

 

Modern man is simply being played for a sucker by an immoral gang of sophisticated criminals. These cunning megalomaniacs seek to make themselves the absolute rulers of the human race…. Although they now occupy most of the positions of great prestige and influence in Washington, London, and Paris, as well as in the educational, financial, and publishing circles of the whole world, their power rests entirely on bluff, pretense, and deception. Their success and their purposes are contrary to the whole current of human history. They are sitting precariously on the gigantic powder keg of all honest human emotions. Despite their arrogant assurance on the contemporary scene, they are well aware that sooner or later, the whole flamework of their cruel power will be blown pieces by a mighty uprising of the incalculable forces of man’s moral principles, love for freedom, and common sense. How soon that day of delivery comes will depend on you.

— Robert Welch, December 1958

On December 9, 1958, Robert Welch of Belmont, Massachusetts, gathered eleven successful and patriotic men in a quiet Indianapolis home to announce that he would forego retiring and dedicate the rest of his life to fighting the tyrannical forces trying to destroy America and establish a one-world totalitarian government. To do this, he was going to create an organization unlike any other. He wanted to know if they’d join him.

That was the birth of The John Birch Society.

Welch, who had worked many years as a successful executive for his brother’s lucrative candy company, James O. Welch Company, was a wordy man, attributes tragically considered liabilities in today’s distraction-filled, fast-paced society that is in dire need of truth and understanding. He spent two days explaining the gravity of the communist conspiracy, part of a larger “Master Conspiracy,” he would explain. The transcript of that two-day presentation was published as The Blue Book, now in its 25th printing.

Communism had by that point officially blanketed with equal misery, tyranny, and poverty at least half the planet. Furthermore, Welch warned, communism had subversively infected the U.S. government. His insistence on the large degree of communist influence within the government would over the years serve as a lightning rod for smears and ridicule from corporate media journalists with their heads in the clouds. However, time — which made possible the declassification of documents such as the Venona cables — have unfortunately further vindicated Welch. The Venona operation was a U.S. Army intelligence program set up in 1943 to decrypt messages sent by Soviet spy agencies. According to historians John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr who read and analyzed the cables, by 1948 the “Soviets had recruited spies in virtually every major American government agency of military or diplomatic importance.”

Little has changed in the news business. Today’s regime propagandists by and large continue to deny our nation’s tyrannical march, yet they’re different because they do so while being trampled over by it.

After the Indianapolis meeting, Welch and his co-founders wasted little time getting to work. JBS began creating chapters the following month and in two years’ time the organization would explode in membership and influence. By 1961, chapters had formed from sea to shining sea, as patriotic Americans of all walks of life joined to reverse the fast-spreading disease of collectivism. JBS established its own book publishing house and set up bookstores all over the country to circumvent the publishing gatekeepers. This was in addition to the magazine Welch had started before JBS, American Opinion. Members worked to create understanding of the collectivist threat and an influence that would steer the nation toward freedom. Birchers passed out magazines, informational pamphlets, and books. They met regularly and recruited others and launched letter-writing campaigns. Many would even run for local office and win.

And all these book-reading, pamphlet-distributing, letter-writing patriots were getting things done. Americans were learning about the statist threat, they were joining in the fight against collectivism and government centralization, and they became part of a group who understood that behind the attempt to destroy our successful Republic stood a conspiratorial push for an oppressive New World Order, one that would crush the human spirit with the boot of tyrannical oligarchical rule.

It didn’t take long for JBS’s meteoric rise to incite a response from the forces it threatened. Beginning in 1961, corporate media — the propaganda arm of the Insiders — launched a nonstop, merciless, mostly fact-free onslaught at the JBS. Interestingly, corporate media attacks resembled to a tee the exact strategies the communist hierarchy in Moscow created to be used against the growing anti-communist grassroots movement in the United States. Psy-op expert and former OSS agent Edward Hunter revealed this in 1961 to the Senate Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws. In the coming years, media mouthpieces would smear Birchers as right-wing extremists, Nazis, fascists, antisemites, bigots, and racists, all despite blatant evidence to the contrary but all according to communist-devised strategies. The JBS has always opposed government centralization and all collectivism, which includes fascism; and JBS members, leaders, and sponsored speakers have included people of various colors, races, and religions, including Jews. The media painted a profoundly false picture of the JBS, a distortion each subsequent generation of reporters has largely perpetuated.

The attacks against the JBS became so intense that Welch asked the government to investigate his organization, confident it would vindicate it. In 1963, the California Senate Subcommittee on Un-American Activities released the results of an investigatory report on the JBS. It concluded that the organization comprised patriots of various colors and religions and nothing subversive or bigoted existed about the JBS. It also documented that JBS had chapters that were racially integrated. This was before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law.

But the fact-finding report did not curb the attacks. Even so-called conservatives got in on the act, including William F. Buckley and his National Review magazine. The neocons at National Review — the magazine included members with at one point had ties to communist organizations, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the CIA — peddled the narrative that America’s decline was the result of bumbling liberalism and gross stupidity as opposed to an intentional, orchestrated dismantling. Welch and JBS members, however, knew better.

National Review went after Welch in 1962 with infelicitous articles about him. Then in 1965 NR went after JBS members because they followed Welch, whose great sin was believing in conspiracies. NR especially took issue, like the rest of media, with Welch’s belief that General Dwight Eisenhower had wittingly or unwittingly served the goals of the communists. Welch was inclined toward the former, that Eisenhower consciously served the communist agenda. Welch’s unpopular, hard-to-swallow thesis, which remains controversial to this today and is still being used as a cudgel against the JBS, was eventually printed as the book The Politician.

Sixty-four years have passed since Robert Welch launched the JBS. The organization, typical of one that has endured so long, has gone through changes, trials, and triumphs. But through it all, we have remained consistent in our mission, “Less Government, More Responsibility and – with God’s Help – A Better World.”

Decades after that fateful meeting in Indianapolis, Welch was asked to name one of JBS’s most significant accomplishments. “Surviving,” he replied. While this may seem a flat and inapplicable answer, JBS survival, we believe, is the difference between complete global tyranny and the world in which we live today. JBS members have foiled plans for regional alliances such as the North American Union. They have fought tooth and nail to prevent the destruction of the Constitution via an Article V Convention. They’ve worked since the ’60s to stop the nationalization of local police. JBS has also been credited by its enemies as the most effective organization to besmirch the angelic goals of the Agenda 21/2030 plan and derail it from burrowing into American communities.

But our greatest contribution has been education. Sixty-four years later, we’ve arrived at point in time in which we are on the brink of majority knowledge of the maniacal conspiratorial elite class. During all our years, from 1959 to 2022, Birchers continued living up to Mr. Welch’s mantra — “education is our total strategy, and truth is out only weapon.” They have distributed millions of magazines, books, pamphlets, and videos. We’ve even met visitors from the other side of the planet whose eyes were open after reading our materials. We’ve published and distributed some of the most important books on the Conspiracy, including None Dare Call It Treason by John Stormer, The Invisible Government by Dan Smoot, None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen, The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin, and Deep State: The Invisible Government Behind the Scenes by Alex Newman. Our affiliate magazine, The New American, and its predecessors, Review of the News and American Opinion, have influenced more people than today’s efficient surveillance apparatus could track. We’ve also started a K-12 school, FreedomProject Academy, to raise up the next generation of patriots. And we recently revived a tool that can revolutionize the political makeup of the United States – the Congressional ScorecardThe Scorecard uses seven key votes to measure how well – or badly – every U.S. congressman, Republican or Democrat, adheres to the U.S. Constitution. This tool is now being expanded to include state legislatures. The Scorecard omits the need to decode politicians’ political rhetoric and goes straight to the fruit they bear via their legislative votes.

In short, JBS has prevented the destruction of America. If it weren’t for the JBS, we believe the world the globalists seek to install — one in which you will own nothing and they everything — would already be reality. If, however, we would’ve had more “pullers at the oars,” as we’ve always sought to recruit, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are now in, either. Inflation is robbing us, our elections are a mess, government is collaborating with corporations to silence and manipulate us, and our rogue intelligence agencies run illegal operations against its own citizens.

However.

It is not unreasonable to argue that we are in better position than we were in 1958, if for no other reason than that more people know what’s going on than ever. You cannot address a problem you don’t believe exists. Birch education has converged with reality. Covid tyranny revealed that there indeed exists a totalitarian-minded managerial class seeking to render us subservient cattle citizens of their global oligarchical government. It showed that despite endless talk of “democracy,” the West is not only not immune to tyranny, but plans to weaponize its exclusively advanced technology to injure, control and enslave all humanity.

A giant is awakening. There are plenty of signs. An overwhelming majority of Americans now reject the experimental concoctions they tried to jab into all of us. The propaganda and censorship collaboration between government and Big Tech is coming to light faster than we can keep up with. Corporate media trust (and subscriptions) is plummeting while that of “alternative” media is skyrocketing. Government school indoctrination continues to lose its influence as parents are pulling their children out by the droves. Election chicanery has been exposed and Americans won’t rest until our elections are restored.  This is why the Biden regime has tried to nationalize elections. And patriotic Americans are working in a plethora of ways to raise awareness and change their communities, the key to national restoration.   And politically speaking, the America First takeover of the GOP is within sight.

In an August 1815 letter to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams ruminated on the War of Independence. “What do we mean by the Revolution? The War?” Adams asked rhetorically. “That was no part of the Revolution. It was only an Effect and Consequence of it. The Revolution was in the Minds of the People….”

Why is there such an intense effort to propagandize and censor us?

Because they are afraid of you. They know that when enough Americans wake up, the jig is up. During that fateful meeting in 1958, Robert Welch said this to his future co-founding members:

“Truth, reality, human instinct, and the overwhelming weight of human desire are on our side. We have these points in our favor against a Conspiracy that must depend on falsehood, cunning terror, utilized by less than 5% of the population.”

Voters Dismiss January 6 Committee

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, November 10, 2022:  

With voters effectively dismissing the January 6 “select” committee, former President Donald Trump now holds all the cards: He may choose to ignore the committee’s demands for his records and his presence before the committee, or comply. He could challenge the committee’s last-ditch effort to embarrass him by going to court.

History is likely to record that the year-long effort by the “insurrection” committee was not only an enormous waste of taxpayer funds, but a waste of time as well.

After that investigation, during which it interviewed hundreds of individuals and reviewed millions of documents, the committee has failed in its efforts to pin responsibility of the so-called insurrection on the former president.

Voters decimated the committee on Tuesday, leaving just five of the nine-member committee in office after January. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) was voted out on Tuesday, while Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), and Adam Kinzinger (D-Ill.) were either voted out in a primary or decided not to run for reelection.

That it was a “show” committee from the start was proved when the committee, in subpoenaing the former president, stated its foregone conclusion: “You were at the center of the first and only effort by any U.S. President to overturn an election and obstruct the peaceful transition of power, ultimately culminating in a bloody attack on our own Capitol and on the Congress itself.” It spent millions trying to prove this, and failed.

That the committee was a sham was further confirmed when Trump offered to appear in person, but only if the proceedings were televised. This was anathema to co-chair Liz Cheney, who told The New York Times that “this [would be] a situation where the committee is going to put itself at the mercy of Donald Trump in terms of his efforts to create a circus.”

Of course, the committee has assured that history will record its success in turning its own efforts into that circus without any help from Trump. As Trump himself said upon learning of the subpoena, “Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting?” He answered, “Because the Committee is a total ‘BUST’ that has only served to further divide our country.”

Voters have reduced the committee to a shell, about to be dismissed altogether in January as current results from Tuesday’s midterm elections appear to put Republicans back in control of the House. At the moment, RealClear Politics reports that eight House seats have already flipped from Democrat to Republican, with 31 races still to be decided. Republicans need only seven of them to regain control.

Until then, it must be a delicious moment for the former president, who holds all the cards. The temptation to take on the committee in person, in full view of the public, must be overwhelming. It’s likely that he will just let the committee disappear into history, with nary a whimper or a tear.

After Eight Years of Litigation, Coach Joe Kennedy Will Get His Job Back

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, October 28, 2022:  

In a “stipulation agreement” supported by attorneys on both sides, Bremerton (Washington) High School assistant football coach Joe Kennedy will have his old job back at the end of the current season:

[Joseph Kennedy] is to be reinstated to his previous position as assistant coach of the Bremerton High School football team on or before March 15, 2023.

Kennedy was fired for one reason and one reason only: Bremerton was following the notion that the Founders somehow had built a “wall of separation” between religion and the state, and that the state was thus free to quash any seeping over from the spiritual world into the secular.

Writing for the majority (6-3) decision in June exonerating Kennedy, Justice Neal Gorsuch touched briefly on that falsehood:

Kennedy’s private religious exercise did not come close to crossing any line one might imagine separating protected private expression from impermissible government coercion. [Emphasis added.]

Tyrants, seizing the quote from Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists more than a decade after the Constitution was put in place as sufficient proof that government must protect itself from spiritual influence, have sold the canard across the land.

At issue was Kennedy’s kneeling and praying in public view after each game. This was, in the district’s view, a violation of separation of church and state. This view as been pushed for decades, using Jefferson’s remarks in his private letter to the Danbury Baptists as a hammer to remove all religious expression from the public square.

Gorsuch expanded slightly on the myth in his opinion in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District:

Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a personal religious observance, based on a mistaken view that it has a duty to suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech. [Emphasis added.]

 

The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination. Mr. Kennedy is entitled to summary judgment on his religious exercise and free speech claims.

The attack on Kennedy’s religious freedom was intentional and deliberate, wrote Gorsuch:

The contested exercise here does not involve leading prayers with the team; the District disciplined Mr. Kennedy only for his decision to persist in praying quietly without his students after three games in October 2015….

 

Prohibiting a religious practice was thus the District’s unquestioned “object”….

 

A government entity’s concerns about phantom constitutional violations do not justify actual violations of an individuals’ Frist Amendment rights. [Emphasis added.]

Tim Greenwood of Tim Greenwood Ministries provided one of the clearest definitions of the Founders’ original intent on the matter more than 10 years ago:

The “wall” was understood as one-directional; its purpose was to protect the church from the state.

 

The world was not to corrupt the church; yet the church was free to teach the people Biblical values [without interference].

The Pilgrims left England over exactly that type of interference. Wrote Greenwood:

The American people knew what would happen if the State established the Church like in England. Even though it was not recent history to them, they knew that England went so far as forbidding worship in private homes and sponsoring all church activities and keeping people under strict dictates.

 

They were forced to go to the state established church and do things that were contrary to their conscience. No other churches were allowed, and mandatory attendance of the established church was compelled under the Conventicle Act of 1665.

 

Failure to comply would result in imprisonment and torture.

 

The people did not want freedom FROM religion, but freedom OF religion.

Coach Kennedy’s restoration to his position at Bremerton is a small victory in the larger war against religion being waged secular and anti-Christian forces in America, using the myth of separation as justification.

New York Judge Strikes Down Rule Allowing “No Excuse” Absentee Balloting

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, October 25, 2022:  

Democrats’ ever-growing lust for power in New York State was considerably dampened last Friday by a ruling by a state supreme court judge declaring its rule allowing absentee voting for any reason unconstitutional.

In other words, in one of the most liberal (i.e., power hungry) states in the union, the state’s constitution still reigns supreme.

The New York State Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to vote. It has been amended so that voters unable “because of illness or physical disability” to vote in person may request and receive a mail-in ballot.

But the heavily Democrat-laden state legislature (Democrats control 106 of the 150 Assembly seats and 43 of the 63 Senate seats) decided to “clarify” the meaning of “illness” so that it would include anyone suffering from, or who might possibly think they might be suffering from, Covid-19.

As Supreme Court Justice Dianne Freestone wrote:

“Because of illness” shall be expanded to include, but not be limited to, “instances where a voter is unable to appear personally at the polling place of the election district in which they are a qualified voter because there is a risk of contracting or spreading a disease that may cause illness to the voter or to other members of the public.”

This proviso, which became effective in August 2020, was set to expire on January 1, 2022. But the power-grabbing ruse worked so well that the Democrat-controlled legislature decided to extend the period for the full year 2022.

Judge Freestone also noted that when voters had an opportunity actually to amend the constitution directly to reflect what the Democratic legislature wanted, it was soundly defeated. Wrote Freestone, “New York voters overwhelmingly rejected this broad-sweeping ballot proposal that would have amended the [state’s] Constitution to authorize all voters to vote absentee in any election for any reason.”

But that didn’t deter the Democrats. This little ruse all but guaranteed that Democrats would rule in perpetuity in The Empire State.

Judge Freestone saw through the ruse and declared the legislature’s efforts to expand mail-in balloting unconstitutional because they “conflict with and violate various provisions of the Election Law and the New York State Constitution [and] interfere with various constitutionally-protected rights of citizens.”

She wasn’t done. She called out the defendants’ attempts to justify the extension using “alarmist” statistics:

Indeed, the Respondents’ [the defendants’] respective papers are replete with alarmist statistics of rising incidences of COVID-19 infections and the collective phantom menaces of Monkey Pox and Polio looming.

 

The Respondents suggest throughout their respective papers and arguments that this consternation about constitutionality is the Shakespearean “much ado about nothing”.… This Court is skeptical of such a pollyannish notion.

She added that if the overreach was not nipped in the bud now, then the expiration date will continue to be renewed on into infinity:

There is nothing before this Court to suggest that the continued overreach of the Legislature into the purview of the New York State Constitution shall sunset or that this authority once taken shall be so returned.

 

Despite the express will of the People against universal absentee voting … the Legislature appears poised to continue the expanded absentee voting provisions … into an Orwellian perpetual state of health emergency … cloaked in the veneer of “voter enfranchisement.”

Latest America’s Values Survey: Good News and Bad News

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, October 21, 2022:  

The good news from the latest America’s Values Study undertaken by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University is that nearly all of the nearly 4,000 citizens polled not only think that inflation is going to influence greatly how they vote on November 8, but that their vote will likely reflect their belief that the Democrats are primarily responsible for it.

The bad news is that more and more of those 4,000 are looking to government and not to God for help.

Six in ten of those polled say that inflation, the rising cost of living, food prices and shortages, and oil and gasoline prices will influence how they vote in the midterm elections by “a lot.”

George Barna, the lead pollster, wrote:

Many of the most influential issues in this election are those that highlight publicly perceived failures by the Democrats. The highest-impact issues — specifically, inflation, the cost of food and related shortages, and policies and prices related to gas and oil — all highlight turns for the worse over the past two years, when Democrats have held the White House and both chambers of Congress.

 

If historical patterns hold true, voters will hold Democrats responsible for those failures. Some four out of five incumbents in the U.S. House and Senate are typically re-elected.

 

However, there may yet be substantial change in the two federal legislative bodies given the confluence of anger with the condition of America, the historical tendency to replace the prevailing party in mid-term elections, the unusually large number of incumbents not seeking re-election, and the fact that the issues of greatest importance to voters underscore public dissatisfaction with Democrat rule.

But when it comes to issues like morality, the right to life, and the threats to religious liberty by the government, those polled scarcely mentioned them at all. As Barna noted,

Even among the most deeply religious Americans, regardless of their faith of choice, a greater emphasis was placed upon the personal impact of governance choices and public policies. That focus on self, to the exclusion of the community, is a reflection of their syncretistic worldview and the decline of spiritual commitment in America.

Barna holds that that “syncretistic” view held by most Americans — including those who call themselves Christians — is made up from a vast buffet-like array of religious positions rather than the singular Christian faith that informed the Founders of the nation.

Len Munsil, president of Arizona Christian University, noted the resultant decline in morality exposed by the survey:

Religious segments such as born-again Christians and people who regularly attend evangelical churches did not include issues such as abortion, national morals and values, [or] religious freedom in their top-five lists [of influences].

Lindsey Jensen, a brand ambassador for Turning Point USA, noted the trend away from traditional Christianity two years ago:

Without the belief in God or the natural rights given to us by God, the Constitution wouldn’t exist nor could it be upheld….

 

As Christianity declines, we see that more people in our nation look favorably on the idea of more government involvement. Instead of turning to God or the church, they want the government to solve their problems.

She notes the primary problem — people who call themselves Christians don’t act like it:

Our nation is feeling the repercussions of Christians who “check the box” and attend church but don’t actually want the Word of God to inform their daily life and change the way they live.

 

Our nation needs the kind of people that reflect Christ in all they do.

This is precisely the point made by America’s 30th president, Calvin Coolidge:

The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.

The good news is that there is likely to be substantial change in Washington following the midterm elections. The bad news is that the necessary cultural shift away from secularism and the “weak Gospel” toward rebuilding a culture based upon historical Biblical Christianity, self-reliance, and individual responsibility remains elusive.

Another Court Fails to Abolish the Odious and Unconstitutional Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, October 21, 2022:  

When Freddy Eynsford-Hill attempted to court Eliza Doolittle (played by Julie Andrews) in the play My Fair Lady, she expressed her exasperation:

Words! Words! I’m so sick of words!

 

I get words all day through;

 

First from him, now from you! Is that all you blighters can do?

One reading through the latest court decision on whether Elizabeth Warren’s illegitimate brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), is unconstitutional or not, and one gets sick of the words: It’s unconstitutional, all right, but we’re just going to clip its wings and not abolish the monstrosity altogether.

Three Federalist Society-approved, Trump-appointed, so-called conservative judges (Cory T. Wilson, Don R. Willett, and Kurt Engelhardt) ruled that the CFPB is unconstitutional, but kept it in place anyway.

They used smooth-sounding words, quoting from The Federalist, No. 48:

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced . . . that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

But that is exactly what the CFPB is: deliberately and intentionally designed by an enemy of the Constitution (Sen. Elizabeth Warren, with The New American’s Freedom Index rating of just 15 out of 100, lower even than that of another enemy, Nancy Pelosi, with 23) to protect the runaway and rogue agency from any constraints whatsoever and thus allow it to expand its power over the financial sector of the nation without limit.

Two financial service groups, the Community Financial Services Association of America and the Consumer Service Alliance of Texas, brought four charges against the rogue agency:

(1) the [2017 Payday Lending Rule’s] promulgation violated the APA [i.e., exceeded its authority];

 

(2) the rule was promulgated by a Director [who is] unconstitutionally insulated from presidential removal;

 

(3) the Bureau’s rulemaking authority violates the nondelegation [of powers] doctrine; and

 

(4) the Bureau’s funding mechanism violates the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution.

Wrote Judge Wilson, for the three’s unanimous decision:

We agree that, for the most part, the Plaintiffs’ claims miss their mark.

 

But one arrow has found its target: Congress’s decision to abdicate its appropriations power under the Constitution, i.e., to cede its power of the purse to the Bureau, violates the Constitution’s structural separation of powers.

 

We thus reverse the judgment of the district court, render judgment in favor of the Plaintiffs, and vacate the Bureau’s 2017 Payday Lending Rule.

This leaves in place the rogue agency, created by Congress in 2010, and its license to pursue hapless financial institutions that happen to stumble over the agency’s ever-changing and ever-expanding power to make the rules, interpret the rules, and then enforce the rules — precisely what the Founders intended to prohibit.

The three blind and weak-kneed mice admit the agency is unconstitutional. On page 32, deep into its 39-page screed, Wilson admits that their decision will allow the agency to act “as a mini legislature, prosecutor, and court, responsible for creating substantive rules for a wide swath of industries, prosecuting violations, and levying knee-buckling penalties against private citizens.”

They add that

An expansive executive agency insulated (no, double-insulated) from Congress’s purse strings, expressly exempt from budgetary review, and headed by a single Director removable at the President’s pleasure is the epitome of the unification of the purse and the sword in the executive — an abomination the Framers warned “would destroy that division of powers on which political liberty is founded.” [A quote from The Works of Alexander Hamilton]

And so, through temerity or threats or unknown pressure from unknown places, the three “constitutional” “conservative” judges abdicated their responsibility to protect the citizenry from such combinations and threats to their liberties.

Polls, History, Big-name Democrats, and the Media All Predict a Red Wave in November

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, October 20, 2022: 

When Tim Swarens, the deputy opinion editor for USA Todaygives it up and says “Democrats are failing across the board. All signs point to a red wave on Election Day,” it’s time to examine the evidence.

He cites seven reasons behind the wave expected less than three weeks from now:

  • History: the party in power loses ground in the midterms
  • The current resident of the White House is notoriously unpopular
  • Inflation is high and likely to remain so
  • Rising interest rates are killing the housing market and will likely cause a recession
  • Crime is increasing, especially in Democrat-controlled cities
  • Economic issues are more important to voters than abortion
  • Pollsters show Republicans leading in most key races, and they may in fact be undercounting Republican voters

There are numerous other indicators, all of which signal the coming red wave. For instance, big-name Democrats are coming to the rescue of Democratic contenders. Former President Obama is conducting a whirlwind tour of Nevada, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin in an attempt to shore up Democrats who are fighting the wave.

Socialist Bernie Sanders, who just turned 81, has been called on to perform resuscitation in Oregon, California, Nevada, Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. His plan is to make 19 stops in the next two weeks, promoting the socialism that is bringing America to its knees.

Understandably, some of those Democratic candidates aren’t appreciative. Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way, a progressive leftist group, noted that “the Mandela Barnes [who is running against Republican Senate incumbent Ron Johnson in Wisconsin] campaign is planning to bring in Sen. Bernie Sanders. I desperately want Barnes to win, so I ask again of his campaign: Why would you do this? Why????”

Online betting site PredictIt shows that bettors (real people with real money making real financial bets) are moving away from Democrats and toward Republicans running for the U.S. Senate. PredictIt uses a “continuous double auction” to sell shares for each race. For every person who makes a bet on one side, there must be a taker of that bet on the other side.

In the race “Which party will control the Senate after 2022 election?,” Republicans are buying shares at $.62 while Democrats are buying the other side of the bet at just $.41.

For the House, the race isn’t even close: Republicans are buying the meme that their party will control the House after the midterms, paying $.86 compared to Democrats taking the other side, who are paying just $.17 per share.

Traditional pollster Trafalgar Group found that, in a generic race for Congress, Republicans lead Democrats by more than five percentage points, while Rasmussen shows a seven-point advantage for Republicans.

Poll aggregator RealClearPolitics predicts that Republicans are set to gain at least two seats in the U.S. Senate, two governorships will flip Republican, and, at present, Republicans will gain at least 16 seats in the House, with 38 seats still undecided.

The real question remains, though: What will those Republicans do after their coming takeover? Will they hew to their oaths of office? Or will they, as Salon writer Heather Digby “Digs” Parton put it, squander their advantage by doing “almost nothing” except “investigate” and “impeach”?

Will they follow the lead of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert (who enjoy The New American’s Freedom Index ratings of 97 and 93, respectively), or will they continue to follow the lead of the likes of Kevin McCarthy, who sports a paltry FI rating of just 60 out of 100 in his voting following the Constitution?

Barna Polls Reveal Many of America’s Foundations Remain in Place

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, September 29, 2022:  

The results of two polls conducted under the auspices of pollster George Barna reveal that, despite decades of withering and deliberate attacks, many if not most of America’s most cherished values remain in place.

Barna, who heads up the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University (ACU), wrote:

Recent national surveys have reported that Americans no longer trust most politicians or either of the major political parties, and believe the media are fanning the flames of division.

 

Americans also believe the country is moving in the wrong direction and fear for the future of the nation’s democracy [sic].

 

Add the ravages of inflation and the threat of a recession to the political chaos, and what’s left is a nation wondering if we will find our way back to solidarity and unity.

The two polls, conducted online in July and involving nearly 4,000 respondents, offered four dozen different value statements and learned that topping the list of values Americans cherish the most is family. The study ranked just how strongly respondents felt about each category, including “fight to/die for,” “sacrifice resources for,” “argue in support of,” “do not feel strongly about,” and “would not defend.”

Eighty percent of those quizzed said that family was worth fighting or dying for, or sacrificing resources to preserve and strengthen. Other values respondents strongly supported were justice, integrity, character, and the ownership of private property.

The values offered by the Left through movies, TV, talk shows, and mainstream media — such as unconstrained sex, unrestrained entertainment, public recognition of fame, and strong government — were among the least appealing to the respondents.

As Barna noted:

Despite the nation’s progressive elites constantly pushing for permissiveness, tolerance, indulgence, and pervasive equality, a minority of Americans place significant value on the likes of universal empowerment, cultural diversity, economic equality, and tolerance.

He added:

When we consider the values on which America was built, it is encouraging to find that a handful of the values embraced by early Americans remains intact: family, financial cautiousness, hard work, humility, and moderation.

 

That speaks to the foundational nature of those attributes in the continuity of our republic.

Those “foundational” values have been under attack by communists and their sympathizers ever since the publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848. In Chapter Two of that book, for instance, one finds this:

Abolition of the family!…

 

The bourgeois [middle-class] family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of [the private ownership of] capital.

The communists won’t be satisfied until they have destroyed everything of value, including Truth itself.

Cid Lazarou, writing for The Epoch Times, notes just how important those traditional American values are to the survival of the Republic:

It’s no accident that communists vehemently oppose family and parenting.

 

The importance of these social institutions can’t be overstated, serving as an essential foundation for the nurturing and protection of children that foments a stable, healthy society. Such values are a direct threat to communist hegemony.

 

As a parent, I can attest to the unconditional love one feels for one’s children. It’s something most parents can relate to. It creates unsurpassed altruism and loyalty within the family unit—a powerful bond that further threatens the collective obedience demanded by totalitarian ideologies such as communism.

 

It’s for this reason that communists oppose the family, seeking to not only destroy it, but to also usurp the role that parents play in raising children. By doing this, they can then build their new society from the old, as a new order is created out of their chaos.

One of the communist front groups most exalted and hailed as righteous by the pro-communist mainstream media is Black Lives Matter. BLM founder Patrisse Cullors has publicly and proudly announced that she and co-founder Alicia Garza are “trained Marxists.” On BLM’s website (until it was “scrubbed”) appeared this:

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another….

One of those directly involved in conducting the surveys in July is Marc Nuttle, who noted: “The authority of the family as the essential foundational element that secures the stability of society in the United States is the essence of what defines us as Americans.”

That “authority” is found in the Holy Scriptures, the foundational document upon which the Founders relied in creating the American constitutional Republic:

  • Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
  • Exodus 20:12: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD God is giving you.”
  • Psalm 127:3-5: “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!”

Barna concluded his review of the polls with these words of encouragement to those actively involved in the fight against tyranny and for the restoration of the Republic: “Rather than deny the existence of those long-cherished, proven core values, wise leaders will seize those as foundation stones for the future of the nation that connects us with our history.”

Sovereign citizens of the American Republic have the opportunity next month to select and put in place “wise leaders,” whose commitment is to their oath of office and to the amazing country that sprang out of the wilderness with these foundational truths as part of its nascent culture.

Many of the articles on Light from the Right first appeared on either The New American or the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor.
Copyright © 2021 Bob Adelmann