The Theft of the American Birthright: Notes on 2000 Mules

2000 Mules

Chief Justice Roberts in a 2018 opinion: “When the Government tracks the location of a cell phone, it achieves near perfect surveillance as if it had attached an ankle monitor to the phone’s user.”

Businesses buy geotracking data. Military, intelligence, law enforcement use it. J6ers were tracked preemptively.

What criteria was used to identify mules? The person’s geolocation data had to show them traveling between 10 or more drop boxes and 5 or more Democrat non-profits.

The researchers refer to "unique visits inside of a space." Nowhere does the film say within “100 feet” of a dropbox. Geotracking is precise.

Latitude, longitude, elevation, and time. Examined data from October 1st through the November 2020 election (and to January 6th in Georgia).

In Atlanta were 309 drop boxes. They were geofenced. Researchers ensured avoiding false positives by looking for aberrant patterns.

In Atlanta, 242 people went to an average of 24 drop boxes and 8 left-wing organizations during the two-week period. Of those 242 Atlanta mules, 67 were in the riots. Probably not Trump supporters.

29:30: “How do you know that … big family … this person didn’t just work …?” etc. Answer? The additive elements: Going to the non-profit, identifying a pattern of approach to the drop box, going not past but directly to a drop box, then to other drop boxes, 2 AM visits.

30:09 A pattern of life rather than a spreadsheet of numbers. One in Georgia: 28 drop boxes and 5 organizations in one day.

32:48 Philadelphia: 1100+ mules, close to 50 drop boxes each. “We’re saying someone should investigate.”

Validated data with Secoriea Turner’s murder.

35:02 “Do you have video evidence?” “Four million minutes of surveillance video around the country.” “Official surveillance video of these mail-in drop boxes?” “Yes.”

From Georgia’s presidential and runoff elections, including “I do not have an explanation I can provide other than they do not exist” from Fulton County. Video turned off for particular drop boxes in Arizona. No video available from Wisconsin.

36:28 Same mule in different locations at different times. Official surveillance video. One box, middle of night. Another box, 1962 ballots, 271 people approached that box in 25-hour period.

Gloves appeared from December 23rd to the runoff. December 22nd, Arizona: Indictments for stuffing ballots based on fingerprints. January 5th, 1:00 AM, out-of-state mule at “dozens” of locations.

55:40 “You’ve got video of the same guy going different places?” “Yes.” One mule across six counties, 27 different drop boxes, 5 organizations, in one night.

Clips shared were examples, not exhaustive. Only official video. Criteria so high that it’s likely many have not been identified.

58:34  Whistleblower hired by National Republican Senatorial Committee to monitor drop boxes in Georgia’s runoff. Backpacks of ballots, plates from out of state, two women with large numbers of ballots confronted whistleblower. NSRC did nothing. Law enforcement did nothing.

1:01:50 San Luis, Arizona. Informant says people paid for ballots. Personally dropped off hundreds. Told to go in the dark to drop box with no cameras. Elections “fixed.” “Mafia.” “You’re gonna end up in the trash can in pieces.”

Trump the racist?

I was sitting in a hotel dining area in Texas eating breakfast when I heard Donald Trump announce on the television behind me his intention to run for the Republican presidential nomination. I knew that when he mentioned illegal immigration, his political opponents -- who knew that they’d be actual enemies? -- would twist his statement into hatred of Mexicans and people of Mexican descent.

He denounced David Duke in the '90s;

He’s repeatedly denounced racial hatred in general and anti-Semitism in particular;

He’s been the best friend Israel’s had in the White House in at least a generation;

It turns out that Mexico also opposes illegal immigration -- when they’re the victims of it; and

Cohen's "racist" has been refuted by Candace Owens and Lynne Patton.

Darwin's Crime Scene Investigators

This is in response to @JaTapps, who dances around Darwin's difficulties like Fred Astaire on Red Bull:

I overestimated you. Considering the limitations of Twitter, I thought that you would be able to address the salient points of your creation myth directly, not run like a coward:

a) You absurdly try to dismiss a perfectly useful English word ("kind") while dancing around your misuse and abuse of "species." (If you must have it translated into your own dialect, then genus or species seem the best fit. Family may or may not be too broad, depending on the family.)

b) When you define all fossils as transitions (including the latest, since everything is always "evolving," right?), then you're not only reading your faith into the facts, but you're sidestepping the issue. Why did Darwin need them? Because you can't get from A to Z without all the letters in-between. He needed proof of Evolution's "failures."

c) The only aspect of macroevolution that really matters in the controversy is simpler forms' "evolving" into newer, more complex forms. All you've got are bacteria to bacteria, mollusks to mollusks, fish to fish, and finches to finches. No one's seen otherwise, ever.

There. That's a tidy summary of your prevarications. Now, back to the original question and its follow-up:

1) Who has seen Life arise apart from the same kind of Life (or its programs)?

2) We've seen Life arise from only the same kind of Life (or its programs). Whom does that support, Moses or Darwin?

And this to a serious offering from @4_site_paradigm, who asks, "can you not investigate a crime scene despite no witnesses? Should we discard the plethora of evidence[?]":

That's a perfectly good question. The problem is not the evidence, but the interpretation. If you approach the scene having determined a priori that it was an accident, then that's what you'll see.

That's fine if it was an accident, but if it was a crime, then you're dead wrong.

You're saying that Life arises apart from the same kind of Life (or its programs). Who's seen that? Ever?

I'm saying that we've only ever seen Life arise from the same kind of Life, etc., which is absolutely true. Dogs from dogs, cats from cats, bacteria from bacteria, coelacanth from coelacanth, finches from finches. Man from Man.

Besides that, the basic unit of Life, the cell, is an incredibly complex Von Neumann-type metabolic machine. Who's ever heard of a machine arising from the muck by accident? And Life's programs, genetic code. In your experience, from where do machines and programs come?

You're discarding the evidence that doesn't suit your creation story.

And this in reply to methos1975, from here:

Comments were closed, so I'll just point out (for now) that you offered nothing that supports your claim that Life arises apart from the same kind of Life (or its programs).

Minor variations within species/genus -- as the organism's pre-existing genetic code allows -- examples of human manipulation of that code and its elements, and assumed descent when all you have are similarities are not evidence of your fundamental truth claim.

In other words, you still haven't answered the questions.

As for the second part of your reply, utter Biblical and historical illiteracy doesn't offer much to work with.

It is telling that you advocate for what no one has ever seen, but reject utterly the eyewitness testimonies of generations.

So much for reason and empiricism.

Notes on Trump

From here:

Unity. It does not mean what you think it means. Also ... he offered Ted a home? The Republican party was the home for conservatives long before it was home for preening autocratic, oligarchic, egomaniacal, orange-skinned, small-handed, big-government reality show celebrities, pal.

The Darwinist's blind faith

The foundation of Science is observable fact. That Darwinists must fabricate causal links is an admission that they've got no actual empirical evidence on which to base their religion.

Darwinists condemn what they insinuate is a religious zealot's making things up to fit his worldview, but when they themselves do it, it's called "Science." For anyone else, it's to the Inquisitor!

From here:

Interestingly, some defenders of dinosaur-to-bird evolution discount this evidence against their theory by saying, ‘The proponents of this argument offer no animal whose lungs could have given rise to those in birds, which are extremely complex and are unlike the lungs of any living animal." Of course, only evolutionary faith requires that bird lungs arose from lungs of another animal.

A fraction of a man

"God created man in His own image,

in the image of God He created him;

male and female He created them."

-Genesis 1:27

Offered in response to someone (likely Muslim) defending another tyrant's suggestion that women should surrender their God-given liberties in order to serve the men who dominate them:

Half a man views women as chattel.

A quarter of a man defends that half a man.

A standard response (and more) to the vulgar and idiotic racists emboldened by Donald Trump

The Vile Orange Bigot has coaxed out of the shadows a lot of his fellow racist swine. Rather than waste time refuting every attack individually, it seemed prudent to cobble together several responses to their nescience.

Here is a synthesis of several replies to one of these witless worms and his Trump-inspired, profanity-laden cowardice:

Name-calling, character assassination, and bigotry from another racist Democrat.

This isn't elementary school; you're defaming someone you know nothing about, and you're doing it on racial grounds. Are you always such a lying, vulgar idiot? You see my nom de guerre and assume that you know something about me.

If you weren't such an historically-illiterate coward, then you would know that Santiago Matamoros is a first-century Jew, an Apostle. Saint James the Moor-slayer, the patron saint of Spain during its eight-hundred-year Reconquista to free itself from Islamic tyranny.

But you don't care about facts. It's not up to a Trump supporter to know anything about the things on which he comments. Just like your candidate -- who has already promised touch-back amnesty and negotiations on deportation, credulous loser -- you attack first and think after, if at all.

How does it feel to make Obama supporters look informed, patriotic, and noble?

Crawl back under the liberal rock from which you slithered, vulgar wretch.

Here's a recent head-shot that found its mark:

What's in a name, illiterate racist?

Trump says that he loves the ignorant.

You must be his favorite.

And another:

Wonderful! Another vile, racist Democrat.

Facts are "stupid" only to tyrants and slaves, and your red-faced, orange-haired buffoon has certainly clowned you.

As for your idiotic and bigoted smear, if you had any integrity, any historical literacy, any dignity at all, then you would know that my nom de guerre belongs to a first-century Jew, one of Christ's Apostles, the patron saint of Spain's eight-hundred-year war to free itself from Islamic tyranny.

You're such an ignorant coward. You deserve Trump.

And another:

How can a first-century saint be "illegal," nescient?

You're a credit to your candidate, illiterate racist.

And another:

Inapt, clumsy, and nescient.

Try again, racist Democrat.

And another:

So, you're just another historically-illiterate and racist Democrat. You know literally nothing about either Santiago Matamoros or me.

Can you be any more nescient?

And another:

The ignorant racists are oozing out of the woodwork, aren't they?

You know, if you had any intellectual integrity, historical literacy, or basic human decency, then you'd have saved yourself the embarrassment of exposing your bigotry over a nom de guerre honoring the patron saint of Spain's eight-hundred-year Reconquista to free itself from Islamic oppression.

But not you. Attack however stupidly whomever points out that you're being played for a fool by the other pathologically-lying liberal from New York.

Donald Trump is a Trojan horse and the embodiment of every absurd lie that liberals tell about Conservatives

Donald Trump is a RINO who will say anything, no matter how shameful, in order to win. He's the other lying liberal from New York, he's broken every promise made to his constituents, and he is a fraud completely unfit to serve as president.

If Trump were only a petty, bitter, pathetic, vile, little man who fears and loathes women, then there might be something to work with there. (His wife's public criticism of his craven personal attacks offers some hope for him). But Donald Trump is much more than just a red-faced, orange-haired blowhard.

Donald Trump is a fundamentally dishonest liberal whose "conversion" is not only conveniently recent but obviously feigned; Trump has already promised his support for nearly every item on a liberal's Festivus list, including: touch-back amnesty, declaring that "hopefully they all come back"; negotiations on deportation and not the enforcement of existing law; socialized medicine more absolute than Barack Obama's; more funding for Planned Parenthood, despite their mass slaughtering of innocents -- the literal poisoning, burning, crushing, and tearing apart of babies -- and then selling their remains; presidential edicts; one-bathroom-for-all; modifications of the Republican position against abortion; and punitive taxation and regulation for businesses that refuse to obey his orders.

Add to that his longtime funding of and praise for liberals (when Ted Cruz was opposing statists on both sides of the aisle in defense of the Constitution and the American people, Donald Trump was still buying politicians, including candidates opposed to the Tea Party), his use of Eminent Domain for personal gain (and not the public good), his making his products overseas, his support for increases in H1B visas, and his hiring of foreign workers (legal and illegal) instead of Americans, and Donald Trump is the establishment and everything that he claims to oppose.

The only thing that Trump's said that he seems to really believe is that Islam hates us; tragically, he doesn't know why, and he doesn't care to find out. And not only had he modified his "ban" (it was just a "suggestion"; Orlando's attack reinstated it, apparently), but his "concern" about Islam doesn't prevent him from condemning free people's defying Islamic totalitarianism, as he did with Pamela Geller's "Draw Muhammad" contest.

And after numerous blunders, insults, and flip-flops, Trump's offered something new: where his initial proposal of a wall to secure our borders contained no racist elements, Trump has now attacked a judge on racial grounds.

Besides the lying, bluster, and inconstancy, Trump speaks as if "2 Corinthians" is the opening to a bad joke, and he's being sued for child sex slavery, has lusted after his own daughter (publicly, on at least two occasions), defends rapists, and will engage in any character assassination -- no matter how bizarre, absurd, or crass -- in order to destroy an opponent.

But you can trust Donald Trump. Every version of him. Just ask John Miller ... over a Trump steak ... in the dining hall of Trump University.

Abraham Lincoln. Frederick Douglass. Harriet Tubman. Ronald Reagan. Ted Cruz. Donald Trump is a Trojan horse and the embodiment of every absurd lie that liberals tell about Conservatives (a term that Trump can't even define). He is merely the other side of Hillary's two-headed coin, and he will destroy the Republican Party.

America could have had a Reagan, but because of open primaries, the cult of personality, and Fox News's around-the-clock, slavish promotion of every ridiculous lie that Trump utters, we're stuck with Il Duce versus Kim Jong-Hillary.

Patrick Buchanan misunderstands Islam

Pat Buchanan asks the question,

"Will Europe remain Europe if she is repopulated by Arabs, Muslims, Asians and Africans?"

It looks like Pat instinctively understands that the problem is Islam, but it appears also that he's settled for the common misrepresentation of Islam as a "race."

What color is Islam, again?

Islam is a belief system, one that demands the rape, enslavement, and slaughter of all who refuse the "invitation" to convert. It has devoured civilizations throughout its nearly one and one-half millennia of bloodlust and terror. And Islam's been trying to conquer Europe since its armies first invaded Spain in the west and the Holy Land in the east, only to be stopped and driven back at Tours, Granada, and Vienna.

Jerusalem, Constantinople, and the rest of eastern Christendom were not so fortunate.
Christians from any land can assimilate, since they share the Common Thread that binds all of Western Civilization, but Islam comes only to destroy.

The New York Times tries a new way to tackle the Bill of Rights

In response to another attempt by the depraved and subversive New York Times to usurp our Constitution:

The problems with (il)liberal efforts to curtail or eliminate the ability of American citizens to defend themselves are several:

First, the right to self-defense is a God-given and unalienable right, period. Only tyrants and criminals want the innocent defenseless.  If you're a criminal seeking to harm someone, and you have a choice between two homes -- one in which the residents are armed and one which is defenseless -- which would you choose?

Second, we already have multiple laws forbidding homicide; if mass murderers and other criminals refuse to follow a law as basic as that, what makes you think that they'll obey gun laws? They won't; only the naive and the nescient think otherwise.

Third, you'll never eliminate firearms; if you make them illegal, only the law-abiding will be weaponless; government and criminals will still be fully-armed.

Germany tried that. Communist and Islamic states, too. How does that work out?

Fourth, the president and other elected tyrants who want to take away our ability to defend ourselves would never, ever, under any circumstances give up their armed security (for which we pay). What makes their lives and the lives of their families more valuable than ours?

If Barack Obama wants the nation disarmed, then him first.

Finally, why would you voluntarily give up your right to defend yourself, those whom you love, and your neighbors? And even if you would, why would you use the coercive power of the state to steal away from the rest of us our ability to do so?

How perverse.

There will never be peace in the Middle East nor anywhere that men consider Muhammad a prophet of anything but hell

From The Blaze, by way of Patriot Update, here:

"The religion of peace has morphed into the religion of pieces. Actions speak louder than words. The only reason all of Islam is being blamed is that the overwhelming majority of terrorists on the planet are Muslim and the silence from the Ummah is deafening and damning."

Those who blame Islam on the basis of Muslim atrocities alone are wrong; how many people who claim to be Christian steal, rape, or murder?

The reason Islam can, should, and must be blamed for Islamic terrorism is because it's directly responsible for it -- the genocidal pedophile Muhammad preached and practiced the rape, enslavement, and slaughter of all who refuse the "invitation" to convert.

Islam has never, ever, under any circumstances been a "religion of peace." No major school of Islamic jurisprudence rejects offensive warfare against non-Muslims; the Ahmadiyya, who do oppose such violence, are persecuted by their more orthodox coreligionists even in modern and moderate Islamic states like Indonesia.

Muslims who rape, enslave, and butcher non-Muslims are not "taking passages out of context"; they're doing exactly what Muhammad preached and practiced:

"the Messenger of Allah [...] would say: 'Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war. [...] When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. [...] Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. [...] If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them [...]'" (Muslim Book 19, Number 4294).

Consider another example of Muhammad's genocidal intolerance, evidence that Islam has never been peaceful and that those who abduct, brutalize, barter, burn, behead, and butcher in Allah's name are doing just what their "religion" commands:

"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter [...]" (Qur'an 5:33).

Islam's great exegete Ibn Kathir explains this verse:

"'Wage war' mentioned here means, oppose and contradict, and it includes disbelief, blocking roads and spreading fear in the fairways. Mischief in the land refers to various types of evil."

So, Muhammad requires execution, crucifixion, or cutting off hands and feet from opposite sides for "disbelief."

(This passage immediately follows one cited often as proof of Islam's tolerance. In fact, Ahmed mentions it: "It says in the Koran killing one person is like killing the whole of humanity.” Tragically, ironically, fiendishly, Qur'an 5:32 is a warning against Jews, whom Muhammad especially hated.)

This is why there will never be peace in the Middle East nor anywhere that men consider Muhammad a prophet of anything but hell.

The "lone wolf" is not alone; he's obeying the "sacred texts" of more than one billion people and a tradition one and one-half millennia old

How many more Americans have to die, how many Yazidi girls have to be gang-raped and sold into slavery, how many more Christians have to have their homes and churches razed and their heads severed before people wake up? Before the nation demands action?

The Muslim "lone wolf" is not alone; he's obeying the "sacred texts" of more than one billion people and a tradition one and one-half millennia old.

Islam kills. It is not a "religion of peace." Except for the Ahmadiyya, who reject offensive warfare against non-Muslims (and are persecuted as heretics by their more orthodox brethren, even in modern and moderate Islamic states like Indonesia), every major school of Islamic jurisprudence endorses the rape, enslavement, and slaughter of all who refuse the "invitation" to convert.

What are our "leaders" doing in our defense? Don't look to media; serious news people scold not the president for giving Iran's nuclear genocide program a greenlight while they still hold Americans hostage, but the sole reporter who dared to ask him about his perfidy. The professional pretenders are no better; the world burns, and Hollywood rises to the defense of ... chickens. And academia is now an indoctrination center for the jihad against Israel.

Our politicians are swelling Muslim ranks in the United States; rather than telling the truth about Islam's war against the West (and humanity, in general), and acting accordingly, they're importing the enemy.

As these "lone wolf" examples show -- how many "lone wolves" does it take before they become a pack? -- the problem is neither ISIS/ISIL/IS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, nor the imam down the street "radicalizing" the impressionable -- they're merely foot soldiers working from the genocidal pedophile Muhammad's playbook.

The problem is Islam.

We need a mass movement, a public revolt, a popular uprising against this treason; our politicians are not just ignoring the problem, they're making it worse. Bush 43 was bad enough: in the most teachable moment in modern history, he called Islam a "great world religion of peace. And Barack Hussein Obama, the (allegedly) former Muslim, has done everything in his power to facilitate the rise of Islamic states throughout the Middle East and Africa, including a nuclear Iran.

There is no negotiation, no "live and let live" with "kill the pagans wherever you find them" (Qur'an 9:5).

Pervasive (il)liberal bias hides the tilt, or When the world's crooked, the straight look biased

I recall speaking with a friend (quite a few years ago) about media bias. He thought that Fox News was slanted to the Right. I shared that Fox News is pretty center of the road; it just looks biased in view of the rest of Media's overwhelming (il)liberal tilt.

Since when is patriotism a partisan issue? How can opposing the burning, crushing, and tearing to pieces of the innocent in the womb by their own mothers be "extreme"? Liberals lock their doors; shouldn't our borders be secure? They arm their security; what makes them and their children more deserving of protection than our own? And how is the self-evident truth that the human body was created for male-female unions suddenly "hate"?

The Left thinks that jihadists merit understanding, inclusion, negotiations, and access to nuclear weapons, but when a member the leftist media asks about American citizens' essential, God-given, unalienable rights?

You should know better.

And the Republicans are useless (or worse), giving the Tyrant-in-Chief everything he wants.

Some good observations on the Left's divine right of kings, from here:

The most maddening aspect of the polarization debate is the hidden presumption of liberalism’s right to rule. Authors such as Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann attribute most of the polarization in Washington to the Republican Party, which they and other observers argue has become too extreme. This will come as news to grassroots conservatives, who overwhelmingly believe that Republicans in the capital haven’t been nearly extreme enough in opposing President Obama’s governmental gigantism. It’s an implausible case, as there is little in conservative ideology today that you can’t find in Barry Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative or in Ronald Reagan’s famous “Time for Choosing” speech of 50 years ago. The difference today is that Republicans have won some landslide elections and lately a majority in Congress, and this galls liberals, whose real answer to polarization is conservatism’s unconditional surrender.

A defense of Liberty in Wisconsin

Democrats will do anything to take, maintain, and increase power. Just ask Barack Obama.

A defense of Americans' rights, from here:

“It is utterly clear that the special prosecutor has employed theories of law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing. In other words, the special prosecutor was the instigator of a ‘perfect storm’ of wrongs that was visited upon the innocent Unnamed Movants and those who dared to associate with them. It is fortunate, indeed, for every other citizen of this great State who is interested in the protection of fundamental liberties that the special prosecutor chose as his targets innocent citizens who had both the will and the means to fight the unlimited resources of an unjust prosecution. Further, these brave individuals played a crucial role in presenting this court with an opportunity to re-endorse its commitment to upholding the fundamental right of each and every citizen to engage in lawful political activity and to do so free from the fear of the tyrannical retribution of arbitrary or capricious governmental prosecution. Let one point be clear: our conclusion today ends this unconstitutional John Doe investigation.”

Parallel cases: Abraham Lincoln and Ted Cruz on judicial supremacy

Another reason to like Ted Cruz: No other presidential candidate has articulated the same basic truth about the Supreme Court's recent dictum in favor of the paraphilia du jour.

When the Supreme Court decides a case, the parties of that case are bound to that decision, as are those in parallel circumstances. But the Court cannot establish law by extending beyond that strict limit whatever "principle" they've suddenly created.

The current struggle between the friends of the Constitution and those who despise it and them will end in one of two places: either the reasonable and the decent will assert themselves and reestablish the rule of law, common sense, and basic decency, or there will be no barriers to any deviant impulse's being enshrined as "law."

From here:

Clearly anyone seeking a same-sex marriage license in a state who was not party to the Obergefell suit falls under what Lincoln would call a “parallel case.” But what about someone who runs to federal court or a state marriage license bureau, and holds up Obergefell’s doctrine of “dignity” on behalf of, say, polygamy? Must the court or marriage license bureau shrug their shoulders and say, “Well—I guess so”?

When Lincoln arrived in the White House in 1861, he found two executive branch decisions to which he objected. A free black man in Boston had applied to the State Department for a passport to travel to France, which the State Department had denied on the ground that the Supreme Court, in Dred Scott, had declared that blacks could not be citizens because blacks “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” And in Philadelphia, a free black man had applied to the Patent Office for an invention, and been denied on the same ground. Lincoln ordered both decisions reversed.

I often tell this story to my students in classes on the Constitution, with the question appended: “Was Lincoln defying the Supreme Court? Did he act unconstitutionally?” It is amazing—and depressing—that the overwhelming majority of my students get the answer wrong. Such is an example of how deep the idea of judicial supremacy—“the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is,” as the Court self-congratulated in Cooper v. Aaron—has crept into the public mind today.

Look again at Lincoln’s careful language in that passage above. He is saying that the reasoning of Dred Scott must be respected as to the parties of that particular case and in parallel cases (i.e., a slave owner who brings his slave into a free state, as Dred Scott’s owner had done). But in his decision to reverse the executive branch decisions supposedly based on Dred Scott in circumstances that were not parallel—both were free blacks in free states, with no one asserting ownership claims to them—Lincoln was asserting that the executive branch was not obligated to extend the principle of the Dred Scott case more broadly. The Constitution belongs to all three branches of government, each of which may assert its constitutional prerogatives in its own sphere—pending a legal challenge in the courts that concludes otherwise.

Antonin Scalia obliterates the perverse Left's black-robed tyranny

The obliteration of Marriage, the death of the Constitution, and the Abolition of Man.

You can sit in a garage and call yourself a car, but that doesn't mean that you're a car.

Marriage is and can be only one man and one woman; one man's urge to insert himself into another man's digestive system is not "love," and it can never be marriage.

Sodomy-as-marriage is a delusion, a fantasy, a violation of Nature, and a (temporarily) successful attempt to use the force of law to coerce the endorsement of perversion. (Or at least, intimidate its critics.)

This is the abolition of Marriage, for there is no legally, logically, practically, nor morally consistent way to endorse homosexual unions and still deny "the right to love," "due process," and "equality" to practitioners of the other paraphilias.

And just wait; Islam is licking its lips in anticipation of its chance to argue in favor of Muhammad-endorsed and Allah-ordained polygyny and child sex slavery.

Justice Antonin Scalia obliterates the perverse Left's judicial tyranny, from Power Line:

The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance.

Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact— and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.

[...]

[W]hat really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch. The five Justices who compose today’s majority are entirely comfortable concluding that every State violated the Constitution for all of the 135 years between the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and Massachusetts’ permitting of same-sex marriages in 2003. They have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment a “fundamental right” overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since. They see what lesser legal minds—minds like Thomas Cooley, John Marshall Harlan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis, William Howard Taft, Benjamin Cardozo, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, Robert Jackson, and Henry Friendly—could not.

They are certain that the People ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to bestow on them the power to remove questions from the democratic process when that is called for by their “reasoned judgment.” These Justices know that limiting marriage to one man and one woman is contrary to reason; they know that an institution as old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until 15 years ago, cannot possibly be supported by anything other than ignorance or bigotry. And they are willing to say that any citizen who does not agree with that, who adheres to what was, until 15 years ago, the unanimous judgment of all generations and all societies, stands against the Constitution.

The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic. It is one thing for separate concurring or dissenting opinions to contain extravagances, even silly extravagances, of thought and expression; it is something else for the official opinion of the Court to do so.

Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent. “The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality.” (Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie. Expression, sure enough, is a freedom, but anyone in a long-lasting marriage will attest that that happy state constricts, rather than expands, what one can prudently say.)

Rights, we are told, can “rise . . . from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era.” (Huh? How can a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives [whatever that means] define [whatever that means] an urgent liberty [never mind], give birth to a right?) And we are told that, “[i]n any particular case,” either the Equal Protection or Due Process Clause “may be thought to capture the essence of [a] right in a more accurate and comprehensive way,” than the other, “even as the two Clauses may converge in the identification and definition of the right.” (What say? What possible “essence” does substantive due process “capture” in an “accurate and comprehensive way”? It stands for nothing whatever, except those freedoms and entitlements that this Court really likes. And the Equal Protection Clause, as employed today, identifies nothing except a difference in treatment that this Court really dislikes. Hardly a distillation of essence. If the opinion is correct that the two clauses “converge in the identification and definition of [a] right,” that is only because the majority’s likes and dislikes are predictably compatible.)

I could go on. The world does not expect logic and precision in poetry or inspirational pop-philosophy; it demands them in the law. The stuff contained in today’s opinion has to diminish this Court’s reputation for clear thinking and sober analysis.

Scott Johnson notes Justice Scalia’s footnote 22:

If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: “The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,” I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.

The Republic is dead.

Turning fiends into friends: The bad medicine of Barack Obama

One might assume it took quite a presidential beer summit to turn those demoniacal health insurance companies into allies of the Demagogue-in-Chief. But make no mistake, it was greenbacks, not six packs, that turned fiends into friends.

And it's not unusual. Donor helps politician get elected. Politician makes law favorable to donor. Donor helps politician get reelected, and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. It's a never-ending cycle of corruption, like Poe's tragedy:

That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

It's a perverse thing, studying something in order to learn how to undo it. Like the serial killer who studies anatomy, or the pyromaniacal fire-fighter, or the liberal educator. Many of our elected officials are experts in the law (not the least of whom is the "smartest president ever," the Constitutional professor in the White House). All of them swear to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Yet they use their knowledge of law, government, politics, and human nature to serve not We the People, but themselves.

Barack Obama is to the Constitution as Jack the Ripper was to the ladies of Whitechapel. Which makes the president Barack ... the Ripper.

And the electorate wonders what happened.

Posted here:

"The administration waived conflict-of-interest laws ...."

Of course they do.

Despite his best efforts to disarm and bankrupt the Republic, the president has provided one valuable service to the nation: He has dispelled forever (except to the most deluded) the notion that liberals are noble public servants who care only about helping the "common man." They are as corrupt and cruel and greedy for wealth, power, and status as the most demonic Conservative of leftist fantasy.

Democrats today (and a lot of Republicans) are nothing more than professional campaigners who care only about maintaining their power and position no matter the cost to the rest of us. They live like kings off our backs while promising to the dull and greedy crumbs for which we all have to pay.

And so will our children.

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." -Thomas Jefferson

An answer for The Morning Answer

Good afternoon, Brian, Ben, and Elisha,

Recently you considered the question of whether or not Muslim terrorists represent Islam. In light of the many incitements to anti-Semitism, genocide, rape, and slavery found throughout Islam's foundational texts -- Qur'an, ahadith, and sira -- and the centuries of obedience to those mandates, it is clear that though there may be moderate Muslims, Islam itself is not moderate.

Islam's great exegete Ibn Kathir explains in his authoritative tafsir that even "disbelief" is considered "waging war" against Allah, a crime punishable by dismemberment and crucifixion (Qur'an 5:33).

Of course, there are those who self-identify as Muslim who do not support the harming of non-Muslims, but the vast majority of the faithful -- even in the West -- support the goals of the jihadists, even if they are unwilling to engage in violence themselves.

All major schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shiite (nearly all of official Islam), uphold the commands to war against all who refuse the "invitation" to convert. In fact, Ahmadiyya Muslims -- who reject offensive warfare against non-Muslims -- are persecuted as apostates by their coreligionists, even in "modern" and "moderate" Islamic states like Indonesia.

This is because Islam's "Ideal Man" Muhammad -- its "beautiful pattern of conduct" for those who want to please Allah -- preached and practiced offensive warfare to make the world Islam. He commanded:

"Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist, the punishment of those before them is already (a matter of warning for them). And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allah) and the religion (worship) will all be for Allah Alone (in the whole of the world)" (Qur'an 8:38-39).

Muhammad's command and example have inspired his followers to war against the non-Muslim world -- as knowledge, zeal, and resources have allowed -- for nearly one and one-half millennia.

This is why Islam conquered pagan Arabia. This is why it exploded (pun intended) out of Arabia after Muhammad's too-late demise and swept through the Holy Land, North Africa, western and eastern Europe, Persia, greater India, western China, and southeast Asia. This is why the Rome of the East, Constantinople, and the greatest church in Christendom, the Hagia Sofia, were conquered, desecrated, and Islamized.

This is why Maimonides observed that no one was as much a scourge to Jews as were Muslims (so much for the "Golden Age of Islam"). This is why Queen Isabella warred to complete the liberation of her nation from eight hundred years of Islamic rule (a feat accomplished very early in the same year she funded a little trip by an Italian navigator named Columbus. Not coincidentally, Islam's hatred of Christians is one reason she was willing to pay for the opening of a western ocean route to the rest of Asia.)

This is why the first Crusade was called in defense of eastern Christianity, under attack for centuries by the spiritual ancestors of ISIL, Al Qaeda, the rest of the Islamic alphabet.

(And from where do you think that at least nominally Christian rulers got the idea to use the force of government in matters of conscience? How might centuries of "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57) and "kill the pagans wherever you find them" (Qur'an 9:5) have warped those languishing under Islamic oppression?)

This is why Vlad Dracula -- yes, Dracula ("Dracul" meaning "Dragon"; Vlad's father was a member of the Order of the Dragon, a group founded to defend Christianity from Islam) -- fought to repel the Ottoman Empire's invasion of the Balkans. This is why John Smith -- yes, Pocahontas' John Smith -- warred for Europe against Islam before arriving in the New World; his successes there earning him a family crest depicting the heads of the three Muslims he defeated in one-on-one combat.

This is why Thomas Jefferson and John Adams reported to Congress the Libyan ambassador's admission that the reason the Barbary States warred against nascent America was not because of imperialism, racism, or George W. Bush but because we were unbelievers who refused to submit to Muhammad and so all that we had and were belonged to Islam. This is why John Quincy Adams forcefully and eloquently contrasted Christianity and Islam as the difference between Heaven and hell. And this is why Winston Churchill observed that the world would never experience the end of slavery as long as anyone held Muhammad to be the prophet of a deity.

This is the reason for the Armenian Genocide. This is why it was not Hitler's pope but Hitler's mufti -- the grand mufti of Jerusalem -- who raised volunteers for a special Muslim SS division in the Balkans, advised Hitler on his handling of the Jews, and exhorted Nazis manning the concentration camps to do their "work" there diligently.

This is why 9/11, 7/7, and 3/11 were carried out by Muslims in Islam's name. This is why Christian schoolgirls are kidnapped, raped, enslaved, and beheaded in places as divergent as Indonesia, Nigeria, Egypt, and the UK.  This is why modern Israel was attacked repeatedly by its Muslim neighbors as soon as it was founded and why it  -- and Jews in general -- will never experience peace with the Islamic world.

No one can defeat an enemy they're afraid to name. The non-Muslim world needs the truth to be told about its ancient and existential enemy.

[...]

The racist party hates Reagan

Yes, there is little to distinguish many of the two parties' leaders, but the principles those politicians are supposed to represent couldn't be more diametric.

A response to this with credit to this:

A greater percentage of Congressional Republicans than Democrats supported the Civil Rights Act.

You ought to ask the reasons for Reagan's positions, but you won't, since facts are anathema to you.

Blacks benefited from Reagan's economic policies more than Whites (color-based identifiers are revolting, but since you define people by the melanin-content of their skin cells, so be it).

Pat Buchanan (who's got his own issues with jihad and Israel) invented the term "Southern strategy"; what did he say about the "change" in Republicanism?

"We would build our Republican Party on a foundation of states' rights, human rights, small government, and a strong national defense, and leave it to the ‘party of [Democratic Georgia Gov. Lester] Maddox, [1966 Democratic challenger against Spiro Agnew for Maryland governor George] Mahoney and [Democratic Alabama Gov. George] Wallace to squeeze the last ounces of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice.”

If Southerners wanted to stay with the racist party, they'd have stayed Democrat. They went to the Republican Party because of the freedom issues Buchanan noted.

And right after Reagan's "states rights" speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi -- where Democrat Michael Dukakis spoke eight years later -- he went to New York to speak before the Urban League.

Reagan opposed "affirmative action" -- racial quotas -- just like JFK, Bayard Rustin, and the Urban League board of directors. He hired Clarence Thomas and Colin Powell. And Reagan signed Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday into a national holiday and approved a 25-year extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Why do you hate "states' rights, human rights, small government, and a strong national defense"? Why do you hate America and its citizens of every hue?

Democrats depend on the obedience -- and ignorance -- of "minority" voters in fastening their chains on them.

You're either too gullible to realize it or too complicit to admit it.

Anything else is self-deception and a denial of the Word of God

God is holy and punishes sin, but He is not some vengeful judge standing far above us eager to condemn and destroy.

Instead, He is the One Who became flesh, died for the sins of the world, rose again, and stands alongside us now in our sufferings, struggles, burdens, temptations, and fears. He is not the "friend" that so many imagine Him to be -- as if He's some kind of semi-divine coffee buddy. The Son of God is our gracious Lord (and Brother) Who bears our weaknesses in Himself.

Christians often misinterpret God's Law and Gospel to their own great harm, denying themselves the comfort for which Christ paid with own blood. Following are some of those recent misunderstandings.

I. Who's the buyer?

In the parables of the Treasure in the Field and the Pearl of Great Price, who is the actor? Christ or man?

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it" (Matthew 13:44-46 ESV).

It is tempting to think that we are the one who finds, sells, and buys. (So much of what passes for modern "evangelicalism" comes down to this error.) But that would require us sinful, selfish, sick souls to be a whole lot stronger, mature, and holy than we really are. Than Scripture shows us to be. We're dead in our trespasses and sins, and "every intention of the thoughts of [our] heart[s are] only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5 ESV).

Christ Himself tells us over and over again that it is God Who seeks and saves the lost. What a comfort it is to know that even though we've earned His wrath, God seeks desperately for us wretched sinners not to destroy us, but to save us!

II. Choosing life?

What about Moses' command to "Choose life"? Christians turn this into a slogan, as if they somehow actually do it. Here's what Moses wrote (emphases added):

If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them" (Deuteronomy 30:16-20 ESV).

Did Israel keep God's commands and thereby "choose life"? No, they violated them and so chose death. And what was God's answer to His people's wickedness? He became flesh and died for the sins of the world.

III. Fear whom?

When Christ commanded His people, "do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28 ESV), to whom was He referring?

Not the devil, for where does God ever say to fear the enemy? But He does say over and over and over again to fear Him:

"Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the LORD; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel" (Isaiah 41:14 ESV).

And,

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight" (Proverbs 9:10 ESV).

(Besides that, the devil does not rule in hell. He and his fellow fallen are "cast [...] into hell and committed [...] to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment" (2 Peter 2:4 ESV). They're on short leashes until their final, eternal punishment where they "will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night [...]" (Revelation 14:10-11 ESV).

Don't fear that.

IV. Our utmost?

What about the popular book, "My Utmost for His Highness"? The idea is not a Christian, since God calls our good deeds "filthy rags" (and that term is itself a heavy-duty euphemism).

We have nothing to offer God. Our "utmost" is worthless. We're beggars. Christ Himself told His Apostles -- the Apostles -- that, "So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty'" (Luke 17:10 ESV).

And I've never yet met anyone who's done "everything."

V. A final note

In judging a sermon -- or any other "Christian" message -- ask yourself: Who is the actor, God or man? On whom is the focus, us or Him? Is the speaker's interpretation consistent with what Scripture actually says? It is Gospel?

In other words, is the message essentially, "Christ for us," or is it something else? When the "greatest man born of women," John the Baptizer called the people of God to repentance, to whom did he point? Did he cry out, "Behold yourselves, contributors to your own salvation! Do your utmost!" or was his message, "Behold! The Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world!"?

And did the Apostle Paul proclaim, "you have been saved through faith; you're on your own for the rest"?

It is human nature to want to play a part in our own salvation, even when we say we don't. Man either turns Gospel into Law, waters-down the Law, or denies his sin, all of which rob the believer of the comfort for which the Son of God paid so great a price.

Christ is Life, and He showed us the way:

"Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 18:10-14 ESV).

The only time we should focus on ourselves is when we use the Law to evaluate our own thoughts, words, and deeds, an exercise which shows us only our sin and our need for the Savior. 

Anything else is self-deception and a denial of the Word of God.

Prelude to sacrifice or Sacrament?

One of the truly divine aspects of traditional, orthodox Lutheran liturgy -- and therefore, Biblical, Apostolic worship -- is the proper understanding of what actually occurs during a church service. So many Christians of various stripes look at the service as something we do (sacrifice), but that is completely inconsistent with -- and contrary to -- the Word of God.

Rather, worship is Christ's service to us (sacrament).

I. The Divine Service

Church is not a fitness club where we struggle and strive to improve. We're miserable sinners. What can a dead man do to make himself alive again? What can beggars do before a holy God that He would want it highlighted during His worship?

A better analogy is that church is a hospital in which the Great Physician Himself tends to our sin and sickness. That is what the Divine Service is. Christ comes to us sinners with His mercy through His Word (read, sung, recited, and preached), His "Washing of Rebirth and Renewal" (Baptism), and the feeding of God's people with His own Body and Blood (Communion).

Because we're such wicked sinners, because we're so given to self-aggrandizement, because we so easily lie to ourselves, each other, and God, every word, act, and symbol in worship has special import. So, we must ask ourselves: Does a particular element of the Service focus on Christ, His sacrifice for the life of the world, and His ongoing, unfathomable mercy (and our utter depravity and helplessness, as necessary), or does it focus on what we do to, for, or toward God?

In other words, is it Christ-centered, Christ-on-the-periphery, and Christ in-between, or does it focus on man? Who acts and who receives?

II. The Sacraments

And there's a categorical difference in the Divine Service between a purely-symbolic act and an actual practical function that may or may not have symbolic meaning.

For example, when the offering is brought forward, there is a lot of symbolism. The congregation offers its "firstfruits" for God's work, expresses gratitude for His blessings, and offers itself symbolically to God. But there is also the practical matter of the church needing money to carry on its work.

But what of bringing the elements of the Lord's Supper to the altar during the Offertory?

Thinking it was just a bit of "high church," it was surprising to hear last night that the bringing forward of the bread and wine (with the offering and prayer requests -- completely appropriate, by the way; God invites us graciously to pray on all occasions) during our service is a presentation of our firstfruits, an offering to God.

That's a problem because in the Lord's Supper, the Son of God gives of Himself freely to all. He does the work. We have nothing to contribute to it. Suggesting otherwise resembles strongly the Roman Catholic (mis)understanding of Communion as (in part) our sacrifice.

Considering the less-than-charitable (reductio ad absurdum is not very nice!) and unsatisfactory explanation offered for this practice, I began doing some research. It turns out that out of several pages of search results, all but one or two were links to Roman Catholic sites.

Now, just because something is Roman doesn't mean that it's wrong. But the Church of Rome's understanding of Communion as something in which we play a part (our "sacrifice") is inconsistent with the Gospel. (Don't worry; "evangelicals" deny God's grace also, but they do it by removing Christ and His promises from Communion entirely.)

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal states in part (emphases mine throughout):

God has first blessed us with the gift of creation. Humans take those gifts given, wheat and grapes, and, using our creativity, make bread and wine. Then, we bring those gifts we have received and labored over to present them at the Altar / Table that they might be transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Finally, we receive them back in communion. The procession of the gifts says, in essence, “Behold the gifts God has given us!” The priest says the proper prayers aloud [...] the only prayer that is usually audible at this part of the Mass is the invitation of the presider, “Pray my brothers and sisters…” followed by response of the faithful, “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands…" The rite closes with the Prayer over the Offerings.

So, what is the Lutheran understanding of bringing forward the Bread and Wine? According to this article, the bread and wine are "your own [God's] gifts," an interpretation consistent with the Lord's Supper as sacrament, not sacrifice:

Remembering, therefore, his salutary command, his life-giving Passion and death, his glorious resurrection and ascension, and his promise to come again, we give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, not as we ought, but as we are able; and we implore you mercifully to accept our praise and thanksgiving, and, with your Word and Holy Spirit, to bless us, your servants, and these your own gifts of bread and wine; that we and all who share in the + body and blood of your Son may be filled with heavenly peace and joy, and receiving the forgiveness of sin, may be + sanctified in soul and body, and have our portion with all your saints.

But is that definitive? It is Wikipedia, after all. (Yes, I know.) The official Lutheran (LCMS) explanation of the Liturgy clarifies:

There is, however, an offering that we do make, both now in our worship and one day in heaven itself. It is the sacrifice of thanksgiving as we call on the name of the Lord (Ps. 116:17). In the Apology to the Augsburg Confession (Article 24), this eucharistic sacrifice is carefully distinguished from the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ. The sacrifice for sins belongs to him alone. Every time we try to grab that honor for ourselves, we come up short--very short. But when we recognize our rightful place--that we are on the receiving end of God's merciful goodness--then the sacrifice of thanksgiving cannot help but pour forth from our lips as we give our thanks to the One who gave everything for us.

The giving of our firstfruits, whether it is money or possessions, time or talents, is also a part of this sacrifice of thanksgiving. Our mouths cannot remain separated from the rest of our bodies. If the thanksgiving is flowing from our lips, then it will also find expression in the giving of our very selves for the sake of Christ and the neighbor.

So, we do give something to God at this time: Our thanks in the form of our words and our "firstfruits" -- "money or possessions, time or talents." No mention of bread or wine. (Unlike today, the first Christians had to bring bread and wine to worship for the Lord's Supper, or there wouldn't have been any for Communion.)

What, if anything, did Luther have to say on the subject?

Communion has been called, "Holy food for holy people." Because Christ declares us holy, we are. But we are also sinners prone to self-deception. As long as we're on this side of Heaven, it might be better to refer to The Lord's Supper as "Holy food for wicked people."

Perhaps then pastors, Catholics, and Evangelicals will stop thinking of themselves as meritorious enough on their own to either contribute to the Lord's Supper or deny its power.

Not everyone in Silicon Valley's having a cold one with Barack "Jim Jones" Obama

What good is all the processing power in the world if you don't have any sense?

When Silicon Valley -- and Hollywood and other multibillionaires -- fund the destruction of the Republic, one small voice might not be much to get excited over.

But if dissent against Dear Leader crops up in even liberal strongholds, then perhaps there is hope for the nation.

It's good to see that not everyone in Silicon Valley's having a cold one with Barack "Jim Jones" Obama, from here and here.

Microsoft are the creators of the Blue Screen of Death, but we ought to be able to expect basic keyboard functionality from their operating systems, shouldn't we? Modifier keys sticking in Windows 8 (and other maladies)

As a long-time user of Microsoft operating systems, I've done my fair share of troubleshooting. But a problem cropped up early last year in Windows 8 that's been impossible to solve (though it was quiet for much of 2013). Searches show that it's been plaguing users running other versions of Windows as far back as 2006. Even the new Surface tablets are not immune.

Without warning or any discernable trigger, one or more modifier keys stick virtually. They're not sticking physically; the keyboard is clean and the keys work fine normally. (And yes, Sticky Keys are disabled.)

Often only restarting Explorer, singing out, or restarting will correct the issue.

(I've also experienced certain keys not working -- usually C, V, and H -- unless Shift is held down. Normally when this occurs, they'll work in some programs (like Notepad) but not in others (Firefox, Chrome, or the Metro Start screen).)

I've tried a variety of suggestions. Nothing's worked, not even a Repair Install for the tyrannical and broken Update 1. And Microsoft's support is worthless. Last night, one tech never appeared before transferring me to someone else. That tech seemed unable or unwilling to address the issue. And when I finally found someone competent, the Send button in the chat window stopped working, so I couldn't communicate with him.

Microsoft are the creators of the Blue Screen of Death, but we ought to be able to expect basic keyboard functionality in their operating systems, shouldn't we?

(Perhaps someone can let Satya Nadella know so that he can put an engineer or two on fixing this. And the fact that Windows Updates sometimes refuse to install if you've modified your Start Menu folders. Yes, the Start Menu that doesn't officially exist in Windows 8.)

Below is a complete listing of every workaround I've attempted (with observations; failures are crossed out) for keys sticking virtually in Windows 8 and 8.1 over the last one and one-half years:

Clean install of Windows 8.1: System ran cleanly for a week. Installed Java (for LibreOffice) and PowerDVD, played some of a movie file, quit, and the Windows key locked (though it wasn't visible on either touch keyboard). Right Windows key?

Coming out of sleep, Windows key was stuck. Opened G700 Logitech Gaming Software to see if key assignments had disappeared again. Started recording a MultiKey Macro and found that the right Windows key was stuck. This keyboard has no right Windows key.

After a few Lock Screens, the right Windows key released.

Then, C, V, and H stopped working in Chrome without the Shift key, and unable to search in Start screen.

Someone suggested that Chrome waiting to install an update was the problem, but this install was up-to-date.

Checked Windows Update; several are waiting to be installed.

(Get keyboard with right Windows key?)

Used KeyTweak to remap RWin to RCtrl. Windows also updated.

So far, so good ....

Uninstalled iTunes, Bonjour, Apple Software ....

Uninstalled Unity Web Player ....

Remove SetPoint, use X-Mouse

Disabled T650's SetPoint Zoom in and out

Press the right Windows key (None on this keyboard, so I can't try it.)

The malfunctions seem to occur often with Windows and Flash updates and/or YouTube videos (whether Firefox or Chrome).

Disable Microsoft Input Configuration Device

Keep keyboard in front of receiver (not blocked by television

Disable "Turn on Toggle Keys" and "Turn on Toggle Keys by holding down the NUM LOCK key for 5 seconds."

Unplug USB mouse (Event Viewer reporting angle errors)

Remove all keyboards from Device Manager, reboot

Pressing Ctrl and +

Press any Function key

Uninstall Logitech drivers and software; use X-Mouse

End jusched.exe in Task Manager

Moved DiNovo Edge USB receiver from USB hub to motherboard USB port

Removed T650 USB receiver

Disabled Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service

Killed Origin

Tapped Shift and Alt

Update of English Input Personalization Dictionary causing sticking?

Don't use Windows Magnifier

Uninstalled Classic Shell, ModernMix, and SkyShellEx.

Okay, so that didn't work. Alarms is gone, and still the keys locked. It was after a long time, and I got a low memory warning. Chrome was running along with iTunes, Origin, and Magnifier.

Pressing keys on physical and virtual keyboards -- and switching virtual keyboards -- seems to have worked ... temporarily.

PowerDVD, USB device, Logitech or Touch processes

Killing BZTRANSMIT64.EXE or BONJOUR released Win key. (Then it reappeared stuck in Touch Keyboard -- but not physically -- until switching to another Touch Keyboard)

Killing Bonjour, some Logitech processes, and turning the keyboard on and off made a difference (this time).

A pointer device did not report a valid unit of angular measurement?

A pointer device has no information about the monitor it is attached to?

A multi-touch device reported inconsistent contact information?

USB issue failing to load drivers?

VLC? Windows Update? Bztransmit64.exe? (overloaded system?)

Disable Intel xHCI mode (?) Enabled USB Legacy Support. Disabling Fast Boot in BIOS not an option with current motherboard; perhaps powering off computer completely (in order to access BIOS; did it clear a conflict Windows 8.1 was saving from restart to restart?) and/or enabling USB Legacy Support might have solved (?) the problem.

Disabled Sleep

Removed unknown from Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Language\Language options\Input Method

Uninstalled VirtualBox

Tap Win (Ctrl, Shift, Alt, hardware and virtual) several times

Detached G700 and T650 TouchPad

Removed Logitech extensions from Firefox, Chrome, and IE. Both browsers have been running for hours. The computer's entered and exited sleep several times.

Uninstalled Zune, iMon

After a Windows Update, no problems for a couple of days. (2/17/13)

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/948889

Uninstalled WizMouse

Uninstalled Firefox

Uninstalled and removed all traces of Logitech software (except Harmony); old versions conflicting? IE and Firefox extensions conflicting?

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/2678-63-ctrl-stuck-because-mouse-buttons-assignments

Twice keys stuck when removing DiNovo from base.

Desktop icons starting to stick; using On-screen Keyboard to press NumLock released them. Great!

Signed-in to LastPass?

Press Shift and type with On-Screen keyboard?

NumLock on in Accessibility On-Screen Keyboard?

Update Classic Shell?

Remove extra keyboards from Device Manager?

Device Manager, Human Interface Devices, disable Microsoft Input Configuration Device?

Hold F12 and Numlock (Numlock not present on DiNovo but is enabled on On-screen keyboard)?

Uninstall BetterDesktopTool? Dexpot?

Hold both Ctrl keys for five seconds?

Hold Ctrl + Shift for 15 seconds to release modifier key lock?

Press Fn and Ctrl keys?

Press Ctrl and Alt keys?

Hold both shift keys and F7 together for several seconds?

Control Panel, Language, Advanced Settings, Change Language Bar hot keys, Advanced Key Settings?

Press function key (e.g., F2), then Ctrl?

Shut down, remove AC power, hold power button for 30 seconds?

Remove tweak programs?

Hold both control keys at same time to reset keyboard BIOS?

Stop Human Interface Device Access service (hidserv)?

Enabled Microsoft Keyboard Filter (Services)

Despite "stockpiles" of Saddam's WMD in the hands of jihadists, the Left still blame Bush

The "irrational" Left is at it again, trying to provide cover for Obama's malfeasance by blaming his predecessor:

McCain is right; it could have been avoided. If, in the aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush had treated the arguments of Feith, McCain, and other advocates of the Iraq War with the disdain they deserved, we (and the Iraqis) wouldn’t be where we are today.

Iraq is imploding because Sunni and Shiite have warred against each other for more than a thousand years. This is what Islam does.

So, yes. Put the blame where it belongs. Some of it on a president who didn't know and didn't learn but had to do something in light of 9/11. (And he was right about Saddam's "stockpiles.") Pile a more generous helping on his successor who, being the "smartest president ever" and a(n allegedly) former Muslim, must have known what would occur but abandoned anyway gains made in Iraq at unfathomable cost in blood (and treasure).

But the bulk of the responsibility for the current "mess" in Iraq goes to the ideology that motivates so much death and destruction: Islam.

If only Muhammad's murderous misogyny were limited to shaking hands

It won't get published there -- we wouldn't want any moral clarity on an Islamic site; Muslims there might start thinking for themselves, maybe even listening to their consciences -- but here are my comments left in response to whether or not it is permissible for a Muslim man to shake a woman's hand:

Respect of women and their rights to their own body and whether or not they allow men to touch them is at the very core of this answer. Keep in mind, Allah is the one who knows best what he has created and what the needs and limits are for each of us. Shaking hands (and touching) members of the opposite sex when [not] closely related, is not permissable for Muslims according to the teachings of Islam.

Muhammad hated women (scroll down a bit here), which is why he preached and practiced polygyny, child sex slavery ('Aisha, the Mother of the Believers. And don't try to lie: she was only a poor, prepubescent nine-year-old when he started raping her as his favorite "wife"), sex slavery, rape, murder, wife-beating, and oppressive, discriminatory laws making women (and little girls) into chattel.

And don't try to justify his murderous misogyny by claiming it was done out of "respect" or "Allah knows best."

There's no one on Earth who doesn't know that Muhammad's laws regarding women are wrong for him.

What it really means to be a Democrat

Some new website's supposed to help you find out the best place to live based on your ideology.

I couldn't help noticing the bias in some of the categories, and -- being the generous person that I am -- I whipped up a few explanations to help readers understand just what they're voting for.

Of course, Republicans today are often just as bad. They're little more than Democrats-in-Conservatives'-clothing and therefore utterly redundant and useless.

(And no, this is not a blanket condemnation of all Democrats; John F. Kennedy, for example, lowered taxes, believed in a strong military, and opposed Communism.

You know, what Obama would call a "right-wing extremist.")

Originally from here [edited]:

What the categories really mean:

A Democrat: You prefer the party of slavery, Segregation, the KKK, and institutionalized racial division, animosity, exploitation, and dependence. (And now Islamophilia.)

Pro-choice: You support a woman's right to murder her unborn baby while he or she is still growing inside her.

Pro-Environment: You support politicians manipulating, taxing, and regulating free peoples based on junk "science" and outright fraud. And you don't realize that climate change has been occurring since long before SUVs or George Bush ever arrived on the scene. (Medieval Warming Period, anyone?)

Pro-Gun Control: You want to be helpless against both criminals and tyrants, a policy which history has proven always works out well. (Unless you're a celebrity or politician, in which case, you've got bodyguards -- or the U.S. military -- armed to the teeth to protect you and yours. Why do you think that your children are more valuable than ours, again?)

Pro-Tax: You're "pro-tax" only as long as others are paying the taxes, not you. Like Bill and Hillary Clinton, you take advantage of all sorts of loopholes to get out of paying your "fair share." (And don't mention charity: Neither Barack Obama nor Joe Biden gave to others nearly as much as a Conservative family of five on one teachers' salary ... until they ran for and won the White House.)

It's "Joseph, husband of Mary," not "Mary, wife of Joseph," or What's in a surname? Nothing we'd recognize, at least until the Middle Ages

A pastor asked recently how Luke, the author of his eponymous Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, could have come up with such personal details of the events surrounding Christ's birth in his Christmas account, since he wasn't there. The answer, of course, is that he most likely interviewed Jesus' mother Mary. The pastor then asked for Mary's last name.

Knowing that people in those days didn't have last names, one participant answered "Theotokos" ("Mother of God"), because that title identifies Jesus' mother uniquely among every Mary, Miriam, Maryam, or Maria in human history.

The pastor's response? "That's a title, not a last name." His answer was that Mary's last name is "wife of Joseph."

Well, "wife of Joseph" is a title, too. And it doesn't appear in the New Testament. (Last names didn't exist until the Middle Ages.)

People did have appellations that indicated familial, occupational, or locational associations. John the Baptizer, Jesus of Nazareth, Leonardo da Vinci. In Matthew 1:16, Joseph -- Jesus' stepfather -- is referred to "Joseph the husband of Mary."

So, according to the pastor's logic, that would make Joseph's last name "the husband of Mary."

How do the Biblical texts actually refer to Mary, the mother of Jesus? The name "Mary" turns up fifty-four times in the ESV New Testament; only nineteen times does it refer to Jesus' mother. Here are a few examples:

"Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 1:18).

"And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh" (Matthew 2:11).

"to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child" (Luke 2:5).

"And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, 'Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed [...]'" (Luke 2:34).

And just "Mary" in a number of verses (e.g., Matthew 1:16, Mark 6:3, Luke 1:27, Acts 1:14). Interestingly, the Apostle John never refers to his adopted mom Mary by name (he uses "His mother" in John 19:25).

Adding context to Scripture can help us relate personally to the people, places, and events from so long ago, but it needs to be done truthfully. And a pastor should be the last one to err or worse, fabricate.

Loreena McKennitt's buying what they're selling in Marrakesh Night Market

A foreign culture, moonlight, exotic foods, mystery, a general excitement in a crowded market ... what's not to like?

How about genocidal anti-Semitism? Universal commands to enslave or slaughter all who refuse the "invitation" to convert? Sacralized gender oppression, including rape, wife-beating, polygyny, and worse-than-second-class-status?

I'm sure Ms. McKennitt is unaware of what she's been sold. (Imagine the buyer's remorse when she finally unwraps that package!)

A response to the artist's musings here:

"women are veiled to a great degree ... I am stuck by the sense of intrigue the environment creates; as much is concealed as is revealed ... "

I love Loreena McKennitt, but she is totally out of her element here. These musings indicate a Westerner on vacation romanticizing the "other," a naive stranger delighted in her "tolerance" and "openness" but substituting her imagination for the reality of where she is.

A love of exploration, other cultures, and human creativity is wonderful, but all of those -- love, exploration, culture, creativity -- are diametric to Islam.

In other words, there may be moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. And that's why a veil -- which might be mysterious on Ingrid Bergman or Audrey Hepburn -- is, on the devout, merely a symbol of Muhammad's violent misogyny and genocidal intolerance.

A culture's being infected with "kill the pagans wherever you find them" (Qur'an 9:5) -- and assorted other crimes against humanity -- disqualifies it from being exotically-romantic, doesn't it?

"Jihad will continue until America is no more"

Who would make such a racist, bigoted, and hateful comment? Who's the colossal Islamophobe? Rush? Hannity? Pamela Geller or Robert Spencer? Nope.

Rush and Sean are still afraid of the "j" word (although Sean will use the word with an "-ist" at the end). And Geller and Spencer will one day be hailed as guardians of Western Civilization (if it survives).

No, that's the head of Islam in Iran. Perhaps our (allegedly) former-Muslim-in-Chief can explain to Khamenei how he misunderstands The-Religion-of-Peace-Say-Otherwise-and-I'll-Cut-Your-Head-Off and how he's "hijacking a great world religion." (If only Bush 43 had been making a veiled admission of Islam's guilt with that now-clearly unintentional pun!)

Whether it's Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, or Iran, Sunni or Shia, USC or UCLA's MSA, the goals are the same.

Anyway, here's more evidence that the "smartest president ever" who grew up Muslim and his lapdogs in the media are really only facilitating the end of civilization, a process they accelerate by allowing a nuclear Iran

In response to a question by a parliamentarian on how long this battle will continue, Khamenei said,“Battle and jihad are endless because evil and its front continue to exist. … This battle will only end when the society can get rid of the oppressors’ front with America at the head of it, which has expanded its claws on human mind, body and thought. … This requires a difficult and lengthy struggle and need for great strides.”

The only things "transparent" about liberals are their utter, craven dishonesty and homicidal malfeasance

So, Democrats are calling Obama "detached," "flat-footed," and "incompetent."

That makes them racist, right?

And now that the government's utter, fatal failures in caring for our national heroes are being exposed, the VA is going to "allow" more veterans to go to private medical facilities for help.

How magnanimous! How wise!

These are the people to whom the greedy, closet racists, and the apathetic have entrusted our medical care?

Way to go, America. You elected a "detached and flat-footed incompetent" to take away our health care -- not to mention our right to determine how best to spend our own resources -- from private industry only to return to it when they start killing us.

Well done!

Obvious truths?

Yes, if you're willing to read honestly.

Two replies, one offered to a Roman Catholic who is afraid to deal with the Word of God as the Word of God, and the other to an atheist who is either so uninformed or so perverse as to try to undermine the faith of the weak.

From here (pending moderation):

To Rose:

Facts are facts.

If the history -- even in the Old Testament -- isn't true, then you can't trust Christ, Who said that it is.

You're not only "not Sola Scriptura" -- by the way, neither are Southern Baptists, even though they [might] think they are -- you're not any Scriptura.

You need to rethink that.

To Hiker:

With regard to your so-called "contradictions":

1) The Creation accounts (not "stories") do not conflict; they focus on the event from two different perspectives.

Both accounts were written by the same author, Moses, who was educated in all the wisdom of the ancient world. Don't you think that he would have noticed that he was "contradicting" himself? And the people of ancient Israel, to whom this subject matter was Life-and-Death and who preserved Moses' writings as the very words of God -- don't you think someone (everyone!) would have noticed? "Hey, wait a minute, Moses ...."

2) "Two different flood stories"? Genesis is still written by Moses.

3) The fact that you have to ask where was Jesus born and where His parents lived indicates that you're either intellectually-lazy or cravenly-dishonest, since the answer is available to anyone who can read. [The tone of this line bothers me, but taken in context, it seems necessary, since Hiker is not asking honestly; he's trying to destroy Rose's faith.]

Christ was born in Bethlehem, in a manger. When the Magi (number unstated) find Him, it's close to two years later, which we know from the historical record: Herod ordered the slaughter of all male babies two-years-old and younger based on the time of Christ's birth he learned from the wise men:

"Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men" (Matthew 2:16).)

4) As for Bethlehem or Nazareth? No one's ever moved from one city to another, have they?

"And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David [...]" (Luke 2:4). 

"And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth [...]" (Luke 2:39). 

5) Archaeology has uncovered another reign as governor/proconsul for someone named Quirinius, because, you know, no one's ever been named the same as someone else or served in an office twice.

[Luke calls Pontius Pilate "governor of Judea" in Luke 3, even though Pilate was "procurator"; Luke used the word to mean "one who governs" and not necessarily as a title. Luke also notes that the Luke 2 census was the "first" while Quirinius was governor; he notes a later census under Quirinius in Acts 5. Finally, Vardaman notes microletters on the Lapis Venetus also placing Quirinius as proconsul of Syria and Cilicia c. 12/11 B.C.]

Your objections are simplistic, dishonest, and stale. You're neither reading nor thinking for yourself, or you're hoping only to undermine the faith of others.

Perhaps, Hiker, it's time for you to reexamine your religion. And your motives.

Palin nails Domestic and Foreign Policy in one paragraph

Of course, this is an improper use of "baptism."

But her pointing out the utter hypocrisy of the murderous and craven Left and a proper response to those who would enslave or slaughter innocents merely for rejecting their "invitation" to convert to their genocidal ideology is moral and brilliant.

From here:

I do have to apologize for that. I am sorry. Not all intolerant, anti-freedom, leftist liberals are hypocrites. I'm kidding, yes they are. And they are not right. The policies that poke our allies in the eye and coddle adversaries instead of putting the fear of God in our enemies. Come on! Enemies who would utterly annihilate America. They obviously have information on plots to carry out jihad. Oh, but you can’t offend them, can’t make them feel uncomfortable, not even a smidgen. Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.