REPEAL DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME!

 

Time To Impeach The Squad….

The Squad have justified and rationalized terrorist activities by hamas and hezbollah.  They have used their legislative offices to give aid and comfort to the sworn enemies of the United States and one of our closest allies, a country we had a role in re-establishing, Israel.

It is time for them to be impeached.

Please take a moment to sign the following petition:

Petition To Impeach The Squad 

Autism Heresy….

A pastor from Missouri recently garnered national attention for his teaching that autism is of demonic origin, that to believe otherwise would be to believe God creates “junk.”

This is my response.

In all ages and all cultures, including the United States, the disabled have been reviled.  Sadly, in many instances, the church, called to show God’s love in the world, HAS LED THE WAY.  Generally, the grounds for revulsion are based on the notion that all seeming imperfections are the result of sin, and are therefore evidence of the judgement of God - either on the disabled person, or their family - or worse, satanic.

And yet, we have to ask the question, is this always the case?

We come by this notion naturally enough.

According to the Bible, we are created in the image of God:

Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them,” Genesis 1:26-27, NASB

Being created in the image of God, we have an innate understanding that things here on earth are not as they were intended to be.  The reason for that can generally be explained by the Biblical teaching regarding man's fall from God's favor:

To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall deliver children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

“Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; cursed is the ground because of you; with hard labor you shall eat from it all the days of your life.”

“Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; yet you shall eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” Genesis 3:16-19, NASB

“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned,” Romans 5:12, NASB

It is indisputable that we live in a corrupted world as a result of sin. Despite the teachings of some that man is inherently good, the Bible and empirical observation both give us overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  The teaching of sin accounts for much, even regarding disability and sickness.

But not everything.

I am going to say at this juncture that I do not claim to understand everything God has in mind for each of us when He creates us.  In what I am about to say, I neither attempt to explain God's designs, nor do I apologize for what God explicit says HE has done.

I simply offer what God says about Himself and His creative work in His Word.

The rest is up to Him.

In Exodus, God records a conversation he had with Moses.  He called Moses to lead His people, the Jews, out of their captivity in Egypt.  Moses, however, questioned whether that was God's best decision:

Then Moses said to the LORD, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”

 But the LORD said to him, “Who has made the human mouth? Or who makes anyone unable to speak or deaf, or able to see or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?”  Exodus 4:10-11, NASB

Conventional knowledge attributes all disability directly to sin, yet God explicitly refutes this.  He asks and answers His own question: why does man have disabilities?  I MADE HIM THAT WAY.

In this exchange, God had a perfect opportunity to explain to Moses how disability was the result of sin or demonic activity, to let Himself off the hook.  Instead, God unhesitatingly took full responsibility for creating people with disabilities.

***I*** created them that way.

But WHY?

That is the question that haunts so many - and a question with which I continue to struggle.

I am the father of a son with autism.

There are days when I accept this teaching readily, but then there are the other ones, the days when I rage against God's decision to create my son with autism.  I hear his aspirations - he wants to go to college, he wants be a train engineer, he wants a wife and children of his own in a home of his own - and then I observe his frustrations at the limitations that have been placed on his life, limitations that threaten to completely derail his aspirations, and my heart is torn apart.

So, WHY?

John 9 gives us the answer.

It gives us the account of a man who had been born blind, who spent his life as a beggar as a result.  And the disciples of Jesus, the giants of theology that they were at this point in their training, asked the same question that is still asked today:

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” John 9:2, NASB.

There is that assumption again. 

Jesus, this man is disabled.  Surely the fallenness of man accounts for this, right?

Once again, God has a perfect opportunity to confirm their assumption, to let Himself off the hook.

And once again, He firmly sets the hook:

“It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him,” John 9:3, NASB

I, Jehovah God, Elohim (CREATOR GOD) did it; IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SIN.

But why?  Wouldn't it be more to your glory if you had created this person without their disability, or if you chose to heal them?

God’s answer?

No.

For reasons you will probably never understand during your time here on earth, I will be glorified through the disability of this person.  And make no mistake, THIS PERSON, WHOM ***I*** CREATED WITH WHAT YOU PERCEIVE TO BE A DISABILITY, AIN’T JUNK!

God created, and this person was born with a disability.  And for reasons we will never understand during this lifetime, God somehow will glorify Himself through it.

I don't know everything God is going to do to glorify Himself through my son.  We have already seen wonderful progress in his development, progressing from a child who was essentially non-verbal to an intelligent, diligent, hardworking, affectionate man.  Eleven years ago, we saw God reach through his autism to bring him to Himself in salvation.  He is a Godly man.  Big limitations still exist, but we trust God to continue working.

And 25 years on, we still pray for his healing.

As hard as it is for me to say, God, YOUR CHOICE, for YOUR glory - either way.  God may choose NOT to heal.

And he wouldn’t be the only one God chose not to heal.

Moses was “slow of speech and slow of tongue.”  God’s response indicates that Moses may have had a speech impediment: I created your mouth and tongue.  God didn’t heal him.

Paul had his “thorn in the flesh,” GIVEN TO HIM BY GOD: “to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me--to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness,” 2 Corinthians 12:7-9.  What, are you going to try and tell me that Paul of all people didn’t have enough faith? God didn’t heal him.

Jesus instructed the pharisees, “But whenever you give a banquet, invite people who are poor, who have disabilities, who are limping (lame), and people who are blind,” Luke 14:13.  He didn’t tell them to lay hands on these individuals and heal them, he told them to show compassion, to provide for them - and he never derided these individuals or attributed their disabilities to demonic influences. Never.

And Leviticus 19:14 warns, “You shall not curse a person who is deaf, nor put a stumbling block before a person who is blind, but you shall revere your God; I am the LORD.”  The implication?  Once again God says, I MADE THEM THAT WAY.

Simply stated, the teaching the autism has its origins in demonic activity contradicts what the Bible clearly teaches: worse, it attributes God’s creative activity to Satan.  For reasons we will never understand during this lifetime, God created these individuals with their developmental disabilities for His purpose and glory.

9/11/23

There have been TWO national tragedies on 9/11.  Don’t forget either one.

Quite a difference in responses.

9/11/01 (WTC, Pentagon, Flight 93): “Let’s roll!”

9/11/12 (Benghazi, Libya): “Stand down!”

Fauci: Trying To Stay Relevant….

 Fauci is making the news again.  He says the plain english wording of a study (published by no less than Oxford University) showing the ineffectiveness of masking is being misinterpreted and the medical establishment now want the study wording to be revised to reflect the accepted narrative, so let’s see what the plain wording of the study actually says:

“Medical/surgical maskscompared to no masks

“We included 12 trials (10 cluster-RCTs [randomised controlledtrials - added]) comparing medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the spread of viral respiratory illness (two trials with healthcare workers and 10 in the community). Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness (ILI)/COVID-19 like illness compared to not wearing masks (risk ratio (RR) 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.84 to 1.09; 9 trials, 276,917 participants; moderate- certainty evidence. Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory-confirmed influenza/SARS-CoV-2 compared to not wearing masks (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.42; 6 trials, 13,919 participants; moderate-certainty evidence). Harms were rarely measured and poorly reported (very low-certainty evidence).

“WN95/P2 respirators compared to medical/surgical masks

“We pooled trials comparing N95/P2 respirators with medical/surgical masks (four in healthcaresettings and one in a household setting). We are very uncertain on the effects of N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks on the outcome of clinical respiratory illness (RR 0.70, 95% CI 0.45 to 1.10; 3 trials, 7779 participants; very low-certainty evidence). N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks may be effective for ILI (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.66 to 1.03; 5 trials, 8407 participants; low-certainty evidence). Evidence is limited by imprecision and heterogeneity for these subjective outcomes. The use of a N95/P2 respirators compared to medical/surgical masks probably makes little or no difference for the objective and more precise outcome of laboratory-confirmed influenza infection (RR 1.10, 95% CI 0.90 to 1.34; 5 trials, 8407 participants; moderate-certainty evidence). Restricting pooling to healthcare workers made no difference to the overall findings. Harms were poorly measured and reported, but discomfort wearing medical/surgical masks or N95/P2 respirators was mentioned in several studies (very low-certainty evidence).  One previously reported ongoing RCT has now been published and observed that medical/surgical masks were non- inferior to N95 respirators in a large study of 1009 healthcare workers in four countries providing direct care to COVID-19 patients…

“There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this e!ect was also present when ILI and laboratory-confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes. Harms associated with physical interventions were under-investigated.”

Key words: “harms were rarely reported.”  In other words, they were so focused on proving that masks were absolutely critical that they couldn’t afford to document 1) the harm wearing masks may have caused, and 2) how many were infected DESPITE wearing masks.

That is about as plain as it can get, with almost zero room for “misinterpretation.”

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/fauci-defends-masking-covid-cases-184801071.html

Saying It Again: Kyle Rittenhouse Was No Hero….

Yet another push to portray Kyle Rittenhouse as a maligned, misunderstood hero.

Then 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two people, injured another, during the Kenosha, Wisconsin riots. He was eventually arrested after attempting to turn himself in - an attempt that was initially rejected by police.  He was charged with multiple felonies, at least one of which leading to a mandatory life sentence if convicted, in a show trial that was designed to fail.

He treated by many white people as a hero.  Is he, or is he a common criminal?

Let’s look at this.  

BTW, selling firearms, shipping them to FFLs in other states, is what I do for a living as an employee of a national FFL; the requirements listed here are those that were in force at the time.

* The MINIMUM age at which a firearm may be owned/possessed under FEDERAL LAW is 18, unless a minor is in the company of their PARENT or LEGAL GUARDIAN.  Federal law is VERY SPECIFIC on this this point; being with friends who are over 18 doesn’t meet federal standards.

* Rittenhouse was an Illinois resident.  In order to even LOOK at a firearm in Illinois OR ANY OTHER STATE he would need a firearm owners identification (FOID) card.  The minimum age to receive one is 21, unless his parent submitted a request on his behalf in writing; no record of that ever happening.  Again, in order to legally transport his firearm, he would need to be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian and possess a FOID card.

* Wisconsin law stipulates that a minor under 18 may not possess a dangerous weapon unless in the company of a parent.

* Wisconsin does not have stand your ground (SYG) laws.  SYG laws apply when one is out in public, and refer to one’s right to use force up to and including lethal to defend one’s self and those around them if in immanent danger of great bodily harm, rape, or death.

* His firearm was straw purchased (Rittenhouse gave his legal aged friend to make the purchase on his behalf) and stored for him in Wisconsin to get around Illinois law. 

*At 18, he was too young to be hired as armed security for ANY business.

So what does this all mean for Rittenhouse and his supporters?

An out-of-state minor in Wisconsin, without his parent or legal guardian, with a firearm not authorized for him to possess or transport by any applicable Illinois FOID card (which must still be carried/possessed while out of state) in the absence of a parent or legal guardian, killed two people and injured a third in a state that does not have or recognize stand your ground laws.  Even if Wisconsin DID have a stand your ground law, a claim is only valid if the claimant is not committing a crime.  Since Rittenhouse was a minor illegally in possession of a firearm, he has no such claim.  Further, the dealership he claims to have been hired to protect has denied doing so.

Kyle Rittenhouse isn’t a hero, he is a criminal, acquitted in a show trial that wasn’t even that good of a show.  He took two lives and injured a third.  Regardless of how you feel about the rioters, and for the record I believe they need to be held accountable for the damage they caused and the crimes they committed, Rittenhouse committed several crimes.  If he had been in his home when it was being attacked, or even a business owned by his parents, things would be far different, but he wasn’t.  To pretend otherwise is the height of hypocrisy.

Cosecha: In No Position To Make Demands….

On the way home from work today I saw the sign: “We Demand Driver’s Licenses.”

The organization that placed the sign?  Cosecha.

Cosecha is an organization DEMANDING the rights of citizens and legal residents for illegals.  I’ll let their website speak for itself:

“Joe Biden is the new president of the United States.

“Our fight is only just beginning.

“For too long, undocumented immigrants have been denied basic dignity and respect in this country.

“We have lived with the daily fear of being separated from our loved ones or left to suffer die in detention centers. We have been criminalized by police and terrorized by ICE. We have been forced to live in the shadows, unable to return home, and exploited in the workplace, even as our essential labor allows this country to function.

“The truth is against immigrant communities have been a mainstay of bipartisan politics for decades. Now, Democrats have control over the White House, Senate, and the House of Representatives—just as they did in 2009 when Obama first took office, and soon deported millions of our loved ones and community members.

“We have learned from the failures of the past and Movimiento Cosecha is ready to fight against the current administration to win the protection, dignity, and respect we deserve. Sign up now to join us!”

No one has criminalized you; you did that to yourselves and your families when you entered the United States ILLEGALLY.  That choice results in terror.  Strangely enough, that is even Biblical: 

“Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same…”, Romans 13:1-3.

You live in the shadows and live with terror because you CHOOSE to; no one is FORCING you to do that.

Being exploited is a result of being here illegally.  As a citizen or legal resident, there are certain protections to reduce the likelihood of being exploited by employers, landlords, etc.  By choosing to remain here illegally, you CHOOSE to make targets of yourselves.

Now, I do not for one moment believe that anyone deserves to be terrorized or exploited.  Nonetheless, this is a result of choices you have made.

Further, I take issue with the basic premise that we OWE you certain benefits merely because you managed to infiltrate our country without being caught: driver’s licenses, free public education, free housing, and even free medical and food.  

Licenses and education are benefits provided to citizens and legal residents.  Moneys deducted from their pay or paid by them directly cover the costs associated with providing these benefits, so these aren’t “free” benefits despite what politicians would have us believe. 

Driver’s licenses help establish LEGAL RESIDENCY and are also associated in many states with voter registration - both benefits accorded to citizens and legal residents.  

“Free” medical and food are, with some exceptions, provided as a safety net to taxpaying citizens and legal residents; they are not truly “free,” they are provided by moneys collected from taxpayers.

I have lived in a couple of different countries.  In both instances, I entered legally.  I had a means of support in place.  I paid my own way and provided for my own needs.  I learned the languages and customs.  I didn’t DEMAND anything or expect preferential treatment.  I obeyed the laws.  I used public transportation for much of my travel.

If you want to live freely and enjoy the benefits afforded by this country, you need to do what hundreds of thousands of people desiring to become citizens do: apply for legal residency.  No, because you are here illegally it won’t be easy and it may be costly.  But if you want to live openly, freely, and without fear, stop making demands and start applying.

If not, despite what you say, no one is stopping you from going home.