Thursday, February 26, 2026

Blessings in disguise...

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. -Hebrews 12:11

Good when He gives, supremely good;
Nor less when He denies:
Afflictions, from His sovereign hand,
Are blessings in disguise.
   -Brother Lawrence Image

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JD Vance Reveals What He Saw From Democrats During the State of the Union Speech That Most Viewers Didn't   While many viewers saw Democrats refusing to stand or applaud the president’s list of first-year accomplishments, Vance said something else was unfolding in the chamber: Democratic members were glancing at one another, seemingly looking for cues, or permission, before reacting to the presidents words.


SOTU Poll Stunner: A 27-Point Gain in Voters Who Think We’re Moving in the Right Direction  For voters, that’s the long-term takeaway: Republicans stood for American citizens, whereas Democrats stood for illegal immigrants — and absolutely nothing else. They didn’t stand for Olympic champions, war heroes, voter ID laws, lowering the crime rate, grieving mothers, or even vulnerable children. It was a helluva contrast.
   In the long-term takeaway battle, Trump won in a landslide.

How the Left Is Brainwashing America, Featuring Buck Sexton  Today’s instantaneous communications, he argues, make mass hysterias of history like the Salem witch trials seem trivial. “Those were mass hysterias, but they weren’t able to be broadcast over radio and shared with pamphlets to millions of people at once,” Sexton notes.
   The scares and forced masking during COVID inspired him to look into this phenomenon. “COVID was a mass rape of the American mind. We were lied to. We were forced to do absurd, insane things,” he tells Schweizer and Eggers. “And I wanted to get to how do they do this to you? The two core pillars of menticide are confusion and degradation.”

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Cowardice Masquerading as Virtue: Cleveland 1971 and Europe 2026 -Dreher Today in America, in the aftermath of the Great Awokening, we have a new problem. The Great Awokening, which began around 2010 and lasted until Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024, the media, universities, and all the institutions of American life taught young whites, especially white males, that they are uniquely evil. That they are what’s wrong with America. That their purpose in life is to be scapegoats for the failures of black America.

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Transitioning Away from Transgenderism...The transgender cultists are still with us, but there is mounting resistance  This perverse progressive craze has been with us for about 10 years and has caused irreparable harm to many young people. Lawmakers, primarily in blue states, have been prime enablers. For example, Washington passed SB 5599 in 2023, allowing the state to legally hide runaway children from their parents if the parents don’t consent to their child’s “gender transition.” The law also applies to children from other states who may come to the state for such procedures not available to them at home, cementing Washington as a “sanctuary state” for runaway teens.


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The Smear, The Silence, and The Sword...How the Church and the Media Declared War on Faithful Christians  And in this strange new age, the faithful Christian — the man or woman who simply believes what the Church has always believed — is treated not as a citizen, not even as a misguided relic, but as a threat.
   Let us dispense with the euphemisms.

This is not misunderstanding.
This is not nuance.
This is not complex social evolution.

It is a coordinated cultural assault — carried out through language, through shame, through institutional intimidation — against those who refuse to bow to the gods of the age. Image

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posted by Pat Dague @ 10:22 AM   0 comments

Tuesday, February 24, 2026

He made you for an end...

"There is not a spider hanging on the king's wall but hath its errand; there is not a nettle that groweth in the corner of the churchyard but hath its purpose; there is not a single insect fluttering in the breeze but accomplisheth some Divine decree; and I will never have it that God created any man, especially any Christian man, to be a blank, and to be a nothing. He made you for an end. Find out what that end is; find out your niche and fill it. If it be ever so little, if it is only to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, do something in the great battle for God and truth." -C.H. Spurgeon

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Pride and Petulance: Trump Touts American Triumph as Democrats Seethe  Trump was relatively disciplined throughout. He mostly stuck to the script rather than engage the hecklers, depriving them of the attention they craved. He took a long pause and milked the moment after inviting lawmakers to stand if they agreed that "the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens." Democrats stayed in their seats, obviously. "You should be ashamed of yourself," he scolded.

This Moment of the State of the Union Just Lost the Democrats the Midterms  Republicans have been accusing Democrats of prioritizing illegals over American citizens for years, and Trump handed them an opportunity to prove them wrong, and they didn’t take it.
   They couldn't do it, so they handed Republicans a huge gift for the upcoming midterm elections. Trump baited them, and they took the bait. He knew they wouldn’t stand, and now the whole country knows that the only people Democrats stand for are illegal immigrants.

Omar and Tlaib: The un-American representatives for Somalia and the Palestinians Both have repeatedly proven, but never so vividly as last night, that they were practicing a bit of taqiyya (Islamic deception) when they took this oath. Their loyalty is not to the Constitution and the laws of the United States. By extension, this means that they have no loyalty to America or Americans. They are the face of jihad, sitting in the U.S. Congress.

There is something terribly, horribly wrong with the current crop of Democrats  Who are these people, heckling Trump, and refusing to stand for America's heroes


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Top AI Firm Says Chinese Labs Stole U.S. Tech Using 24,000 Fake Accounts   The incident highlights vulnerabilities in U.S. AI export controls and raises concerns over China leveraging stolen AI capabilities for military and surveillance purposes.

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Trans kindergarten teacher identifying as ‘wolf’ fired after parents raise complaints...Secretary of War Pete Hegseth confirms dismissal of substitute teacher who allegedly wore collar and animal tail at Fort Bragg elementary school Parents first raised concerns about the teacher's inappropriate attire to administrators in early 2025, according to Liberty Counsel. Mothers of pre-K and kindergarten students reported that the teacher was allowed to identify as a female, ask students to address the teacher by female pronouns in the classroom and dress in "tight shirts and tank tops, above-the-knee skirts and combat boots while wearing a BDSM dog collar with dog tags representing sexual fetishes."

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Canada is facing a tough week. Their men’s and women’s hockey teams both lost to the USA in overtime and didn't secure gold medals. Additionally, many Canadians are now stranded in Mexico following a violent attack by drug cartels. Their situation is worsened by media campaigns discouraging Canadians from visiting Florida, citing issues with ‘Trump, bad.’

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Chromebooks are expensive and destructive: Get them out of schools  Author and former teacher Auron MacIntyre said the Chromebooks facilitate cheating, copy pasting, watching pornography on school time, playing video games, and watching movies when they should be working. Cyber bullying was also a bigger issue once Chromebooks came into it, meaning that kids could be getting bullied while an entire class sat silently and teachers wouldn't even know it

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'Snow Hurricane' Energy Reality Check: You Can’t Heat Homes With NetZero Promises  So as the “snow hurricane” buries airports, freezes lakes, and turns highways into luge tracks, all the evidence suggests that when temperatures crash, people do not crave “NetZero utopia,” they crave heat.

After the Endangerment Finding, States Must Prove CO2 Harms. Wisconsin Can’t  While CO2 has not endangered residents of Wisconsin, the climate-based policies have. Residential electricity prices continue climbing even as household consumption falls. In fact, Xcel Energy and Alliant Energy have requested cumulative rate hikes approaching 19% over the next two years. Some in Waukesha County are already facing “dramatically higher” energy bills, double from just months earlier. Under Wisconsin’s current policies, this is sure to continue. In fact, Wisconsin is hurtling toward an energy crisis. The latest long term reliability assessment projects the state will enter “high-risk” territory for blackouts by 2028.

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What is a starling murmuration and why do they form? 

posted by Pat Dague @ 9:20 PM   0 comments

Monday, February 23, 2026

Charity is a paradox, like modesty and courage...

“If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. -Luke 6:32-35

Charity is a paradox, like modesty and courage. Stated baldly, charity certainly means one of two things—pardoning unpardonable acts, or loving unlovable people.  -GK Chesterton

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Netherlands Allows Euthanizing Newborn Babies, Canada Could be Next  Yet the Netherlands already permits euthanasia for newborns under the Groningen Protocol. In such cases, doctors may authorize euthanasia if the infant is deemed to be experiencing unbearable suffering with no hope of improvement, and with parental consent. However, such assessments are inherently subjective.
   Notably, the nature of this debate is not limited to Canada and the Netherlands. Globally, an increasing number of national policies are permitting the intentional ending of lives for the medically vulnerable – those who cannot advocate for themselves. The underlying justification is often malleable, serving as a standard used to permit the termination of life both before and after birth.


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Not so toxic: Masculinity’s comeback makes America thrive  Now, with Trump’s administration working to turn all that around, no surprise they’re accused of running a cult of masculinity.
   Well, it’s certainly a sharp contrast to Biden administration figures like “Rachel” Levine, the distinctly unhealthy-looking transwoman who headed the Public Health Service.
   Or such clearly non-combat-ready figures as former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, who looked as if the greatest threat they’d pose to our enemies would have been sitting on them. Image

How do destructive ideas and bouts of collective madness so quickly become policy, law, and the status quo? After all, most have little public support—and are not Western nations supposedly rationally governed?
   There is usually a multi-step process on the road to these self-destructive fits of society-wide insanity.
   The suicidal impulse so often begins with left-leaning researchers in elite universities (i.e., the tenured in search of a novel, grant-getting theory). They begin insisting that a new existential threat requires immediate government intervention, novel legislation, ample funding, and public awareness of the impending danger.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom, like other California politicians, including Rep. Ro Khanna, have tried to exploit the Epstein case, but California Democrats have paved the way for the release of abusers who make Epstein look like Mother Teresa, monsters who abused little girls and boys, who used knives and weapons, who made them bleed and locked up victims for years

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 Dog reunites with N.J. owner after 43 days lost in Colorado

posted by Pat Dague @ 9:14 PM   0 comments

Sunday, February 22, 2026

Faith is required of thee, and a sincere life...

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. -Ephesians 2:8-10

Faith is required of thee, and a sincere life, not loftiness of intellect, nor deepness in the mysteries of God. If thou understandest not... the things which are beneath thee, how shalt thou comprehend those which are above thee? Submit thyself unto God, and humble thy sense to faith, and the light of knowledge shall be given thee, as shall be profitable and necessary unto thee. -Thomas à Kempis

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NYC Mayor Mamdani Breaks 86-Year Tradition, Freezes Out Catholic Clergy — Dolan Is ‘Ticked Off’  Cardinal Timothy Dolan says the new mayor excluded Catholic clergy from his Jan. 1 inauguration and then skipped the installation of Archbishop Ronald Hicks, Dolan’s successor. Dolan did not downplay what that meant.

Mamdani blasted for requiring 5 forms of ID to shovel snow while DSA opposes voter ID  Lefty Mayor Zohran Mamdani opposes requiring ID’s to vote — but mandates no less than five forms of identification in order to shovel snow.
   The New York City Sanitation Department website says that in order to register as an emergency snow shoveler, an applicant must provide two small photos sized 1-1.5 square inches, two original forms of ID plus copies, and their social security card.

NYPD officers harassed, doxed by agitators in Mamdani's NYC   Activists have been recording exchanges with officers and uploading them online in a manner similar to anti-ICE activists who confront federal immigration agents.

Mayor Mamdani’s spending frenzy will lead NYC into a rapid decline  Truth be told, I thought it would take at least one budget cycle for our socialist boy-wonder mayor to implode in a sea of idiocy over how he plans to govern this city and how he intends to pay for it. 
   The fact that it’s happening even before his first budget is finished — with an absurd debate over raising taxes on rich people who are already leaving the city in droves or socking it to working-class homeowners through higher property taxes — is downright scary.

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So now in Britain, we have the authorities’ tacit acceptance of Sharia blasphemy laws. As Islamic law continues to advance in Britain, non-Muslims will find themselves increasingly subjugated. Many will convert to Islam simply to escape discrimination and social opprobrium, as many have already done.

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Gavin Newsom's California Government Has Paid Protestors Over $100 Million Some programs included in CHIRLA’s work are a high school leftist indoctrination program to produce “activists,” a college student mobilization program to push legislation for a mass amnesty, and a “Rapid Response” network with an aim to “shut down detention centers.”

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America’s Streets Are Filled With Poop, and Billions of Gallons of Untreated Wastewater Are Being Poured Into Our Lakes and Rivers   As the ranks of the homeless and the ranks of the drug addicts continue to expand, the number of people pooping in the streets will only continue to grow.
   Meanwhile, America’s crumbling pipes are pouring billions of gallons of untreated wastewater into our lakes and rivers.

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Upstate NY (Baldwinsville) teacher placed on leave after helping students form TPUSA-linked club   Dozens of students launched an online petition backing Fasulo, arguing she’s being unfairly targeted for her political and spiritual views. One student quoted in local reports described her as an influential mentor whose absence has left classmates puzzled and disappointed.

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Study: Pot Use Among Teens Brings Higher Risk of Psychotic Disorders  "This cohort study found that adolescent cannabis use was associated with increased risk of incident psychiatric disorders, particularly psychotic and bipolar disorders. These results could inform the development of clinical and educational interventions for parents, adolescents, and clinicians, as well as protective policies to prevent or delay adolescent cannabis use in the context of expanding cannabis legalization,” the study’s conclusions and relevance portion stated.
    Upon reviewing the findings, Dr. Ryan Sultan, a Columbia University psychiatrist, told NPR, “This is very, very, very worrying.”

UK Puberty Blocker Trial Finally Halted Over Significant Safety Concerns  A shocking NHS-supported trial has now been suspended following officials’ warnings of “significant” long-term harms to young people. The controversial plans aimed to give puberty blockers to children as young as eight-years-old, but the UK’s medicines regulator has finally stepped in to stop it, citing major safety fears.

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posted by Pat Dague @ 9:26 PM   0 comments

Saturday, February 21, 2026

O Blessed Assurance...

 
Blessed Assurance 
CityAlight

All my attempts to be satisfied
Were vain and empty
Until the moment you rescued me
And your love filled me

My soul sings
Now my soul sings

What blessed assurance
I’ve found in you
I’ve found in you
I won’t be shaken I will not be moved
How steadfast your strong hand
Is keeping me
Is keeping me
I won’t be shaken I will not be moved
Oh blessed assurance

No other love that I’ve ever known
Compares to you God
No other love that I’ve ever found
Has done what you’ve done

Ever my anchor
Ever my strength
Ever my portion
And all I need

Ever my healing
Ever my hope
Ever the truth that leads me home
That leads me home

posted by Pat Dague @ 7:01 PM   0 comments

Friday, February 20, 2026

Fire is the chosen symbol of Heaven for moral passion...

Fire is the chosen symbol of Heaven for moral passion. It is emotion aflame. God is love; God is fire. The two are one. The Holy Spirit baptises in fire. Spirit-filled souls are ablaze for God. They love with a love that glows. They believe with a faith that kindles. They serve with a devotion that consumes. They hate sin with a fierceness that burns. They rejoice with a joy that radiates. Love is perfected in the Fire of God. -Samuel Chadwick

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Pete Hegseth delivers powerful pro-life, anti-woke, 'Christ is King' speech  “As long as I have breath, I commit to you that I and we should never allow any group, no matter how large or small, to silence us from speaking the capital-T Truth: Christ is King. He died for our sins. We are forgiven,” he declared as the crowd erupted in applause. Image

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Forging the Mineral Alliance: U.S. to Form Trading Bloc to Counter China’s Grip  With “Project Vault” anchoring domestic stockpiles and allied nations closing ranks around a shared resource strategy, the curtain is rising on what could become one of the most consequential economic alliances of the 21st century. Image
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Blizzard warnings for millions as blockbuster nor’easter takes aim at New York City, Northeast  It all gets started during the day on Sunday when rain and snow develop from parts of New York into the Mid-Atlantic. Rain will change over to snow as colder air arrives.
   Conditions will go downhill dramatically Sunday evening into the overnight hours as the storm intensifies quickly off the coast. Strong winds and snow falling at rates of an inch or more per hour at times will expand north from the Mid-Atlantic to southern New England. Image

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Mamdani Is Collapsing Faster Than We Thought That socialist utopia that Mamdani was supposed to deliver has instead turned into a slow-motion fiscal catastrophe a mere two months in — and even the liberal media is starting to notice.

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Susan Rice's Terrifying Vow If Democrats Take Back Power   Simply incredible. The Democrats have spent a decade telling us that President Trump is an authoritarian, a fascist, Hitler, who is weaponizing government and then they run on a platform of punishing the people who didn't resist Trump to their liking.  That's the real fascism here. Image

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posted by Pat Dague @ 5:16 PM   0 comments

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness...

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 
-Romans 8:26-27

If the spiritual life be healthy, under the full power of the Holy Spirit, praying without ceasing will be natural.  -Andrew Murray

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Why Exactly Did They Destroy the Border? -VD Hanson  Biden’s border chaos wasn’t accidental—it was a political strategy to reshape America’s electorate and expand left-wing power.

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The expanded policy restricts the use of U.S. funds for controversial programs, and it seeks to establish a pro-life, pro-family ethos throughout U.S. foreign aid programming. It prohibits giving any U.S. funds to groups that promote abortion, gender ideology, or DEI. This restriction could end UNICEF’s longstanding partnerships with UN agencies like UNAIDS and the UN Population Fund, and with abortion industry giants like International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), which provide and promote abortion, as well as sexual autonomy and sex-rejecting surgeries and drug treatments for children.

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Moderate Taliban Urge Beating Women Without Breaking Bones The Taliban has passed a law that allows men to beat their wives as long as it does not cause “broken bones or open wounds”...
...A husband may strike his wife and children freely, provided the violence does not leave visible bone fractures or open wounds.
   Even where serious injury can be proven, the maximum sentence is 15 days in prison.
   Article 34 says that a woman who goes to her parents’ home without her husband’s permission – even to escape violence – faces up to three months in prison. Family members who shelter her face the same sentence.

EXPOSED: Muslim Brotherhood's Stealth Jihad in Our Schools – World Hijab Day Grooming at Columbia Heights Public High School (Video) It’s long been documented as a vehicle for advancing Islamic supremacist agendas in America, starting in colleges but now aggressively expanding into high schools under the guise of a “harmless student club.”
They’re pushing:
-Hijab trials on non-Muslims (normalizing mandatory Islamic veiling)
-“Prayer” spaces and calls that declare “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is greater—implying superiority over         other faiths)
-Halal food demands
-And overall, Islamic indoctrination disguised as diversity

Muslims behaving badly...There’s a difference between immigrants, who come seeking a better life and want to assimilate, and conquerors   Too many immigrants in the last decades have come to milk America dry, whether through welfare scams or drowning the labor market with cheap, illegal labor, with the money then remitted to their home countries. And if they’re Muslim, they come to conquer. They have no intention of assimilating and contributing. They are lions and hyenas, and we are the prey and the carcass.

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How Apple News and other tech giants change the narrative for Democrats In January Apple’s top stories consisted of 620 stories from left-leaning and other news sources.
-Exactly zero stories came from any outlet that could be described as right-leaning.
-Among other tricks Apple tries to justify this by rating news sources on their “trustworthiness.”
-And who could have guessed that conservative or other right-leaning outlets are consistently graded as “untrustworthy”?

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Poland pulls out of treaty banning antipersonnel mines, says it will use them to defend against Russia   He said Poland needed to defend itself against Russia, a country which “has very aggressive intentions vis a vis its neighbors” and which itself never committed to the international land mine ban treaty. Image

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It cannot be said often enough that the headline cries and street shouting about ‘hell on Earth’, ‘billions dying’ and ‘mass extinction’ have no basis whatsoever in science.

The Trump Administration Takes on the Green Political Religion...Green ideology is anti-Western at its core   From its beginning, the theory that atmospheric CO2 caused by human emissions threatens our existence, was the poisoned fruit of scientism, not science, and at best a mere weak theory dressed up in the jargon and quantitative data of real science.
   This theory’s purpose has been to serve leftist political ideologies, by creating what Obama henchman Rahm Emmanuel called a “serious crisis you never want to waste,” and so lose “an opportunity to do things that you think you could not before,” usually because they violate the Constitution.

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posted by Pat Dague @ 9:44 PM   0 comments

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God...

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
    that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord's hand
    double for all her sins.
-Isaiah 40:1-2

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O for a closer walk with God,
A calm and heavenly frame,
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!

So shall my walk be close with God,
Calm and serene my frame;
So purer light shall mark the road
That leads me to the Lamb.
    -William Cowper Image

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Catholic Bishop Slams Notre Dame Appointment: "Slap in the Face" to Pro-Life Teachings  Ostermann, an associate professor of global affairs and political science at Notre Dame since 2017, was appointed to the post effective July 1, according to a university announcement last month. She has co-authored at least 11 opinion columns between May 2022 and May 2024 advocating for abortion and opposing laws that protect unborn babies from it.
   In those writings, she has described such laws as “forced pregnancy and childbirth” amounting to “violence,” “sexual abuse” and “trauma,” linked opposition to abortion with white supremacy and racism, and argued that abortion is “freedom-enhancing” and “consistent with integral human development.

My take: Beijing has found another way to evade American federal, state and local defenses. It is exploiting a gap in medical and health regulation.
   An ideal time for the Chinese Communist Party to pull the biowarfare trigger: 48 to 72 hours before the People’s Liberation Army invades Taiwan.


California Politicians Pass Law Hiding Corruption from the Public  Using the same facade of legality to ban the public from learning about their abuses, California Democrats introduced California Bill 1608 under the innocuous title of ‘Office of the Inspector General, High-Speed Rail’ which bars disclosing details about investigations into the project.

Senators grilled a Trump nominee over “white culture,” ignoring that what they call taboo is really just the traditional American culture most have long lived in.

Why Exactly Did They Destroy the Border? -VD Hanson Biden’s border chaos wasn’t accidental—it was a political strategy to reshape America’s electorate and expand left-wing power.

posted by Pat Dague @ 8:10 AM   0 comments