“Nothing Stays in the Closet Nowadays”

Remember when Hollywood executives sought to cover up the scandalous activity of their stars in order to avoid severe damage to box office receipts?

Today, anything goes. In fact, the executives now holding those high Hollywood posts actually go out of their way to parade, publicize, and promote the most brazen immorality of the folks they have under contract. They have concluded (rightly so, obviously) that scandal actually helps one’s career, so vastly different are the moral standards of the public from days gone by. 

Forget Dorian Gray. Nothing stays in the closet nowadays.

Meanwhile, American Christians continue to drink freely from these polluted waters, desiring hipness over holiness, entertainment over enlightenment, and mindless conformity over the counter-culture lifestyle that Jesus commanded.

It’s a very sad state of affairs.

As an ancient seer put it, “Like a trampled spring and a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.” (Proverbs 25:26, NASB)

The Top 5 Plus (August 1)

You may find of interest 3 very brief Vital Signs Blog posts that I posted earlier this week. You'll find them further down the Vital Signs Blog entries. But for now, here's this week's Top 5 Plus.

1) “Mainstream Education Systems Have Become Modern Marxist Discipleship Centers” (Patricia Engler, Harbinger’s Daily)

From the article -- For years, public education systems have been discipling young people to believe a destructive false gospel. This reality helps explain why youth we know and love may seem to be learning less about reading, math, and science than about activism, sexuality, and liberal ideology. Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s going on and what we can do about it.

Through an approach known as “critical pedagogy,” schools are teaching students to think and act like modern Marxists. This approach has been pervading mainstream education, as a 2015 article in the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies reveals:

"After several decades of existing on the educational fringe, it is safe to say that critical pedagogy has entered the mainstream in the United States. . . . Academic conferences such as the American Educational Research Association regularly feature hundreds of sessions related to critical pedagogy and there are special interest groups solely devoted to scholarship in the field. Critical pedagogy and its left-centrist derivative social justice is also applied to previously untouched contexts, from teaching math to physical education. Social justice has even been incorporated into business and sustainability degree programs, including the concept of servant leadership."

In other words, schools are teaching students to view every subject through a Marxist lens...Put differently, the purpose is to raise up modern communists.

2) “John Adams made a terrifying prediction. America is close to proving him correct: The national debt is pushing close to $40 trillion with no simple options to fix it.” (Les Rubin, Fox News)

From the article -- "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." John Adams, our second president, wrote those words more than two centuries ago, yet they are relevant today. Adams understood that free societies are not destroyed only by foreign enemies. They can also be weakened from within through complacency, indifference and the gradual abandonment of the principles that made them successful.

America's Founders spent years studying history and learning from the greatest political, economic and philosophical thinkers who came before them. They deliberately created a constitutional republic built upon limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty and the protection of the unalienable rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

That framework produced the most prosperous and powerful nation the world has ever known. For nearly 250 years, it has survived wars, economic crises, political upheaval and countless challenges because it rested on principles that valued freedom and restrained government.

3) “Socialism and Islam: A tale of two psychoses -- A dark night is descending over America.” (Eric Utter, American Thinker)

From the article -- The times, they are a-changin’. Rapidly. And not in a good way. Two separate -- and growing -- psychoses are converging in a perfect highly imperfect storm of authoritarianism to existentially threaten the land of the formerly free and brave.

To wit: In 2000, only 28% of Democrats identified as “liberal.” Today, that figure has nearly doubled. The number who claim to be very liberal has also risen dramatically. In fact, a recent survey shows that 1 in 3 Democrats now proudly consider themselves to be Democratic-Socialists. The party has been fundamentally transformed — and quickly. DSA candidates are now running in elections across the fruited plain … and winning. This would have been unthinkable just a couple of decades ago.

Simultaneously, the number of Muslims in the U.S. has also dramatically increased, from perhaps as low as 1.1 million in 2000, to perhaps as many as 4.5 million today. That would be greater than a 400% increase. In one generation.

4) “With No Opposition, Canada Has Become The Most Radically Progressive Nation In The World” (Breanna Claussen, Harbinger’s Daily)

From the article -- If the two examples above were not enough, Canada passed the “Online News Act” in 2023, which resulted in Canadians being blocked from viewing news reports from outside the country on Meta platforms. This, coupled with the Liberal government’s suppression of Conservative news groups within the country, should set off alarm bells, harkening back to regimes throughout history that sought to control the information accessible to their citizenry. Today, Canada is the only nation in a total and permanent “blackout” from foreign news sources through Meta.

Of all the Western nations, Canada stands out in the worst possible way. Within the last decade, the nation has startled the world by arresting pastors, freezing bank accounts of dissenting voices, suppressing press freedom, killing its most vulnerable, and taking direct aim at religious liberty. Even members of the highly progressive European Union have pushed back against what they view as a “dictatorship” steadily emerging in the country.

Despite the astonishing state of affairs in Canada, it is even more shocking to hear the views of many average Canadians, who routinely express delight that their politics are not as “messy” as those in the United States. By making this claim, they fail to recognize that the so-called “messiness” stems from having individuals willing to push back and defend their freedoms and morality—something which is present in varying degrees in all other Western nations.

When all of your politicians are careening down the same treacherous path, there is no stopping the train. 

5) “The Left's Rotating Loyalty Oath: The left's articles of faith keep expiring because they were never sincere in the first place.” (John Tillman, The Political Vise)

From the article -- A little more than half a decade later, climate has nearly disappeared from the left’s top concerns. Last year, researchers at Yale asked American voters to rank twenty-five issues by how much they mattered to their midterm vote. Global warming came in twenty-fourth. Only 1% of respondents named it as their most important issue. In September 2025, the Searchlight Institute, a think tank aligned with Democratic priorities, advised progressive politicians to stop using the term “climate change” altogether. The weather hasn’t changed, nor has the left succeeded in its aim of getting everyone to turn vegan and ride public transit. What has happened is that the environment has ceased to be what animates those who turn the levers of the Political Vise.

What’s the latest test? Israel. This year, from Maine to California, primary season has witnessed vicious Democratic infighting over American aid to the Middle East’s only democracy. And to that party’s most dedicated activists, one name has become dirtier than Blackwater or Big Oil: AIPAC.

I am not here to weigh in on foreign policy. The government of Israel may or may not be above reproach. What strikes me here is less Israel itself than the fact that until very recently, other issues commanded far more attention on the American left. Israel, like climate change and the Iraq War before it, has suddenly become the one political issue about which reasonable progressives (perhaps an oxymoron) are not allowed to disagree. And so for the left, this summer’s litmus test is denouncing AIPAC, a venerable organization devoted to drumming up support for our embattled ally.

Other Excellent Articles from the Week

* “The Damage Caused By Fauci’s Lies Is Incalculable—And The American People Deserve Answers” (Mike Pompeo, Harbinger’s Daily)

* “Turkish F-35 Stealth Fighter Jets: A Grave Threat to Greece, Israel, the West” (Nils A. Haug, Gatestone Institute) 

* “AI Will Save the U.S. Economy: The pace of innovation is unlike anything we’ve ever seen.” (Jordan Schachtel, American Greatness)

* “The Misplaced Fixation with Israel’s ‘Image’ -- The practical problems with spinning the Jewish state.” (Eric Dezenhall, American Greatness)

* “3 Lessons from Secretary Rubio’s Speech about Leftist Terrorism” (Kathy Athearn, Washington Stand)

Real Religion Is Both Other-Worldly AND Historical

“The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.” (Acts 1:1-3, New American Standard Bible)

I love this beginning of Luke’s Book of the Acts of the Apostles, emphasizing as it does Christianity’s grounding in real-time, verifiable history. This is seen most clearly in Luke’s care as a historian, in the trustworthiness of his account to an inquiring friend, and in how he begins his letter by reference to the evidential nature of Jesus’ physical resurrection as shown to so many witnesses and in so many “convincing” ways, including His physical presence, other miracles, and the divine wisdom of His teaching.

Ours is a religion of divine, other-worldly origin, to be sure, but God was pleased to unfold His revelation (and the awesome plan of salvation through the atoning sacrifice of Christ for our sins) in human history. That, in itself, is terrific grace.

By the way, this painting of Luke the physician, historian, and missionary was painted by Giorgio Vasari (1570-1571)

The Trumpets Sound!

Here is a stirring passage from John Bunyan’s classic, The Pilgrim's Progress. It comes from Part Two of that classic allegory and describes what occurs after Mr. Valiant-for-Truth is summoned to the Celestial Gate by the Master. Mr. Valiant-for-Truth makes his will, as it were, then speaks his parting words and departs for glory.

“Then said Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, ‘I am going to my Father’s and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles Who now will be my rewarder.’

When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the riverside, into which as he went, he said, ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ And as he went down deeper, he said, ‘Grave, where is thy victory?’

So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.”

By the way, the illustration of Mr. Valiant-for Truth comes from an 1894 edition. The figure was designed by Frederick Barnard and the woodcut engraved for the edition by Dalziel Borthers.

Summer Too Hot for You? Here's Sixteen Very Cool Songs to Help You Out.

This list of 16 songs was, by the way, originally compiled back in 2012. But it probably wouldn't be any different if I made made it today. So, here you go...

1) “All Summer Long” -- The Beach Boys. (But, of course, you could toss in here a dozen others from these guys that could also make the list: “I Get Around.” “Surfin’ U.S.A.” “Surfer Girl.” And so on. They are certainly pop music’s version of The Boys of Summer.)

2) “Summer Nights” -- Marianne Faithfull (Moody, romantic. It’s been a favorite ever since the days of my misspent youth.)

3) “Our Last Summer” -- Abba (Like many of Abba’s later songs, this is great music…but music with a message of particular relevance to my generation.)

4) “Theme from ‘A Summer Place’” -- Percy Faith Orchestra (Beautiful music by which to fall in love. And, as I can also attest, by which to stay in love!) (Note also that the Lettermen have an excellent version of this song.)

5) “See You In September” -- The Happenings (Tuneful, fun but also tender, especially for those who remember the pain of summer partings.)

6) “A Summer Song” -- Chad & Jeremy (A Top Ten hit from 1964. Mellow harmony. Meaningful lyrics. A very pretty number.)

7) “Under the Boardwalk” -- The Drifters (Classic New York soul from one of the greatest vocal groups of the early rock era.)

8) “Summer Rain” -- Johnny Rivers (A dreamy 1967 song that was played on hi-fi sets, 8-track tape machines, and late night FM radio programs throughout the flower power years.)

9) “One Summer Night” -- The Danleers (No doubt about it, this is doo-wop magic. The Diamonds had a nice recording of this too.)

10) “Sealed With a Kiss” -- Brian Hyland (A little saccharine perhaps but this 1962 song effectively captures the feeling of a temporary separation that at least one of the parties suspects might end up being more than temporary.)

11) “V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N” -- Connie Francis (Fun and funky. Connie at her playful best.)

12) “Here Comes Summer” -- Jerry Keller (Could it be that I’ve loved this song for over 65 years? Yep. I first heard it played over Denver's KIMN in 1959.)

13) “Wonderful Summer” -- Robin Ward (A one-hit wonder from a pretty brunette who was raised in Nebraska. And though she didn't have any other radio hits, you can hear her voice in the TV theme songs of Batman, The Partridge Family and several others. Also in hundreds of commercials like those touting Rice-a-Roni.)

14) “Summer in the City” -- Lovin' Spoonful (A harder-edged song that any of the others in this list but still a favorite. I hear this song and...presto...I'm back pumping gas at Banner Tire on West Evans in south Denver.)

15) “Hot Fun in the Summertime” -- Sly & the Family Stone (Did I say “funky” to describe an earlier song. Forget it. THIS is funky.)

16) “Summertime, Summertime” -- The Jamies (Sure, it’s almost a nonsense song but with such a catchy chorus that I had to put it in the mix. And who can't help like a song that contains these lyrics: “Well, I'm so happy that I could flip. Oh, how I'd love to take a trip. I’m sorry teacher but zip your lip. Because it's summertime.”)

If you don't remember these songs (or if you’ve never heard them at all), you can find most of them on You Tube. Have fun. And stay cool, kids!

A Major Summer Buzz? The Odyssey.

There’s an awful lot of buzz this summer over The Odyssey. But alas, the attention is not on Homer’s epic poem, one of the genuine wonders of ancient literature. Oh no, moderns never bother with originals. Their egos insist on the new, the novel, and selected revisions of important works that cover their own ignorance and flatter their own ideological and fashion preferences. That's why the buzz going round is not about Homer’s flawed yet noble hero, but rather on Christopher Nolan’s big-budget and extremely splashy (pun intended) movie.

Of course, reading Homer’s classic is itself far too difficult for most people nowadays. Good grief, don’t imagine I’m going to really read a book! Give me instead an awesome flick with blaring sound, cinematic wizardry, and 2026 progressivism. And then, after comfortably being ensconced in a theater for a mere 90 minutes, I can pride myself on not only knowing full well The Odyssey; I can even applaud my own experience of the work as being more authentic, more profound, and more impressive to my peers than all those squares before me that only read a boring book.

An exaggeration? Hardly. But the most relevant thing to note is that whatever the understanding of The Odyssey is for this summer’s moviegoers, it will be a far, far cry from the real thing, the classic poetic work of Homer.

Now you’re right in guessing that I have not seen the film. I was never tempted to. I rarely go to the movies and I almost never watch a movie version of a book. But in the case of Christopher Nolan’s movie, I had more reasons than usual to miss the thing. Among those reasons were Nolan’s oh-so-hip bow to the woke fads so worshiped by the left today: casting a skinny transgender actor as a fierce Greek warrior; casting a Kenya-born actress as Helen of Troy; and, most damning of all, portraying Odysseus as a weak, feminine, vacillating, drug-addled, dishonorable man -- all of which Homer’s Odysseus was not.

Therefore...because I believe Homer’s original poem to be a far more worthy artistic work than the movie which is getting all the attention, I wanted to pass along 2 suggestions of how to respond to this summer's fuss. 

Number One -- dare to read the original. Claire and I are doing so right now. We are, in fact, adding to our understanding, pleasure, and inspiration by also reading The Iliad, Homer’s first work. We are reading them in Robert Fagles’ translations, but any you find available can open the doors to rich adventures. And Number Two -- we are adding to our reading of these exciting texts the free online lectures offered by Hillsdale College regarding The Odyssey. As some of you know, Claire and I have enjoyed many of Hillsdale’s online courses in recent years, but these lectures from literature professor Dr. Benedict Whalen have quickly become among our most delightful. 

Indeed, I’ll go so far as suggesting to those of you who feel a moderate interest in The Odyssey but do not figure that you’d not go so far as to tackle the book, to go ahead and at least enjoy these lectures. You'll find them very interesting...and they just might lead you to the book itself. 

The Top 5 Plus (July 25)

1) “On the Abortion Pill, Follow the Evidence” (Tony Perkins, Washington Stand)

From the article -- Following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022, the Biden administration sought to undermine the decision by expanding access to chemical abortion. It relaxed the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), removing the long-standing requirement for in-person dispensing and medical oversight.

But another obstacle remained: the Comstock Act, an 1873 federal law prohibiting the use of our mail system to send articles intended for abortion. Rather than enforce that law, the Biden Justice Department issued an opinion concluding that abortion drugs could be mailed unless the sender specifically intended an illegal abortion. In effect, the government said, “Presume lawful use and ask no questions.”

That DOJ opinion remains in effect today under the Trump administration. Unlike the FDA’s REMS policy, which is being challenged in court, the Justice Department can withdraw and replace that opinion without waiting for Congress or the courts.

Related articles: “Blanche Hearing Blows Holes in Trump’s Pro-Life Credibility” (Suzanne Bowdey, Washington Stand)

2) “A Winning Political Strategy? JD Vance Opts To Appease Dangerous Anti-Israel Conspiracies” (Breanna Claussen, Harbinger’s Daily)

From the article -- As antisemitism ingrains itself deeper into the Democrat Party, and many young Republicans follow behind, taken captive by the conspiracies of Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and others, recent statements by Vice President JD Vance have shown that he is more than willing to feed into the trend.

On an episode this week of the “Joe Rogan Experience,” Vance seemed eager to brand himself as the “reasonable moderate” voice, repeatedly calling Israel an ally while simultaneously propping up outlandish theories directed against the Jewish State.

Related article: “The Vance Variable: Veep is the partisan divide on Israel -- In a week when the majority of House Democrats abandoned the Jewish state, the vice president served as a reminder that the GOP's lockstep pro-Israel stand is not set in stone.” (Jonathan Tobin, Jewish World Review)

3) “‘Art’ and the Pathology of our Age: Modern art stopped challenging convention long ago. Now it challenges only common sense and rewards the people willing to applaud the loudest absurdities.” (Roger Kimball, American Greatness)

From the article -- What is it about the word “art”? Pronounce it, and the IQ of susceptible folk is instantly halved. (I’ve seen cases where it is diminished by 87 percent.) Normally sensible people who do not, as a rule, appreciate being made fools of stand idly by as someone tells them that a video of some charlatan climbing naked up a scaffolding while applying Vaseline to sensitive parts of his body is “the most important American artist of his generation.”

Instead of throwing something soft and rotting at such mountebanks, they nod solemnly and reach for their wallets. They are only too eager, when a stiffy arrives from the Museum of Modern Art or some similar establishment, to don the soup and fish and buzz round to the super-exclusive evening event where scores of beautiful people line up to sip the shampoo (David Niven’s word for champagne) and admire a tank full of formaldehyde and a dead tiger shark.

What is it about the word “art” that endows it with this mind- and character-wrecking property? Why does it induce incontinent gibbering, not to mention mind-boggling extravagance, among normally hard-headed souls?

4) “NEA Same Ol’ Same Ol’ -- The latest annual National Education Association convention, as usual, focused on the union’s radical political and social agenda.” (Larry Sand, American Greatness)

 From the article -- Then, in her opening talk, Moss said that teachers must “organize, organize, organize.” Notably, she went off on the new national tax-credit scholarship program, which is set to go into effect next year. She attacked the program, incoherently spouting, “First of all, it’s important our members understand what’s happening. I don’t know if they know there is an intentional plan to destroy public education—and if public education is destroyed, then we have a population whose critical thinking skills are diminished, and it’s easier for an authoritarian government to have influence.” Moss also said that the NEA “can be and must be the most powerful force in America.”

On another note about leadership, Cecily Myart-Cruz, the president of United Teachers Los Angeles, was elected by her union colleagues to serve on the organization’s highest governing body, the NEA Executive Committee.

This is the union boss who, when asked about the learning loss students incurred during the COVID-19 shutdown, replied, “There is no such thing as learning loss. Our kids didn’t lose anything. It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their timetables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.” She even bizarrely suggested that “learning loss” is a fake crisis marketed by “shadowy purveyors of clinical and classroom assessments.”

5) “Zero Sympathy for the Democrats’ Political Death March: After years of empowering the fringe, Democrat insiders are discovering that the monsters they cultivated are now consuming them.” (Scott McKay, American Spectator)

From the article -- Primary season is just about over in advance of the 2026 midterms, and it looks like the old-time party faithful on the Democrat side are awfully disappointed with how things sit.

I could show you lots of other examples of the old-school Democrats coming out of the woodwork to sound the alarm about the Democratic Socialists of America turning out enough radicals to win low-turnout party primaries around the country — and tubing the chances of that massive wave election they’ve all but guaranteed themselves.

Other Provocative Articles from the Week

* “The Church of England has betrayed British Jews – again. General Synod has given oxygen to vile lies about Israel.” (Limor Simhony Philpott, spiked!)

* “Fraud: More Than We Can Imagine?” (John Hinderaker, Power Line)

* “Feds Recover Less Than 1% of $400 Billion+ in COVID Relief Funds Lost to Fraudsters” (Mark Tapscott, Washington Stand)

* "Where is Muslim-American Assimilation Headed? A new poll shows a strong patriotic streak -- but also reason to worry." (Zainab Al-Suwaij, City Journal)

* "America’s Top Companies? -- This survey of the nation’s greatest companies is both nonsensical and evidence of the problems that plague our mainstream media." (Stephen Soukup, American Greatness)

The Top 5 Plus (July 18)

1) “Ignorance Is Not Bliss: The Dumbing Down of America: The bill for lowered standards is coming due.” (Richard K. Vedder, American Spectator)

From the article -- I once testified before a state legislative committee that I thought it should be a felony for a school principal or superintendent to knowingly hire a graduate of a college of education. States breaking from the old ways of the educational establishment are showing big gains in student performance. The poorest state in the Union, Mississippi, has shown eye-popping gains in student test scores by rejecting contemporarily fashionable curricular and evaluation practices and getting back to the basics. According to Education Week, less than 30 years ago (1998), only 47 percent of Mississippi students performed at or above the basic level of proficiency on the nationally used National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam. Poor academically, poor economically. 

Fast forward a generation to 2022. The proportion scoring at the basic level or above on the NAEP exam rose substantially to 64 percent — above the national average. Why? Massive economic growth in Mississippi accompanied by a huge expansion in educational spending? No. The state remains the nation’s poorest. More native-born Americans are still leaving the state than are moving in. But the old educational ways have been interrupted and some adult supervision imposed, surprisingly in large part by Mississippi’s leading politicians. The legislature passed a Literacy-Based Promotion Act. Third-grade students doing poorly on a standardized literacy test are now not advanced to the fourth grade until they show at least minimal literacy competency. Horrors of horrors! Meaningful consequences for poor academic achievement.

There are lessons here that can be replicated. 

Related articles: “Class Warfare: Student behavior is deteriorating, and teachers are leaving the profession as a result.” (Larry Sand, American Greatness) ...“How Schools Made Gen Z Weaker: Screen-based learning and the replacement of discipline with therapy have undermined students’ cognitive and emotional development.” (Dana E. Abizaid, American Spectator)

2) “Congress Needs To Defund Planned Parenthood -- Once And For All” (Family Research Council via Harbinger’s Daily)

From the article -- Meanwhile, pro-life advocates are now expressing outrage as the expiration date for blocking Medicaid dollars to Planned Parenthood came and went on July 4 — a ban that Congress failed to renew. The defunding of Planned Parenthood originally passed under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but the provision only lasted a year. Now, the abortion giant will once again receive funding for all non-abortion services. 

That frustrates conservatives like Rep. Nathanial Moran (R-Texas), who sees the reconciliation 3.0 process as an opportunity to take a big bite out of the abortion mammoth’s bottom line. “It needs to be in there,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch.” “I will be very unhappy if we don’t have … an instruction from our Budget Committee that allows us to deal with that, because … we only got a one-year moratorium effectively [from the One Big Beautiful Bill],” which, he added, expired on July 4th. “One year is not good enough,” Moran insisted. “It certainly did some good work, but one year is not good enough. We need to make it permanent — or as long as possible — to keep those Planned Parenthood centers from popping back up.”

FRC’s Quena González, senior director of Government Affairs, agrees. “In the first year of the Trump administration, it looked like we might get a down payment on what we had wanted for so long. … But in a twist of irony, America celebrated its 250th anniversary by turning back on the spigot for $800 million in taxpayer funding through Medicare for Planned Parenthood,” he told The Washington Stand. “We have faced the indignity of watching our tax dollars being spent to subsidize Big Abortion. Pro-life voters turned out enthusiastically in 2024 to re-elect a pro-life president and pro-life majorities in the House and Senate, hoping to put an end to this injustice.”

3) “The Iran-Backed ‘Decisive Campaign’ To Destroy Israel and the West” (Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute)

From the article -- The documents, recovered by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Gaza Strip and published by the Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute, reveal that Hamas had meticulously planned the October 7 massacre more than a year before it was carried out. They also expose Sinwar's unwavering commitment to Hamas's founding objective: the destruction of Israel through mass murder and conquest.

The operational planning was astonishingly detailed. Sinwar envisioned breaching the border simultaneously at 25 locations using approximately 2,500 terrorists in the opening assault.

Sinwar estimated that approximately 10,000 "well-trained fighters" would eventually be required to carry out the operation successfully. Each Israeli community was assigned specific assault teams. Military bases were designated for destruction. Strategic road junctions were mapped and allocated to specialized units. Every aspect of the operation had been carefully calculated.

These were not defensive plans. They were invasion plans.

4) “Scapegoating the Jews: Astoundingly, the demonization of Israel has become a key driver of Western politics.” (Melanie Phillips, Jewish News Service)

From the article -- Astonishingly, in America and Britain, the vilification and scapegoating of Israel through an agenda of malice and mendacity—and with undertones of something even darker—has become a key driver of political life.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance has ramped up his attacks on Israel by channeling anti-Jewish tropes of covert manipulation and warmongering...

Not only is there no evidence in the article for this recycled Jewish conspiracy theory, but Vance himself is reportedly close to lobbyists for the Iranian regime. Two years ago, he addressed the Quincy Institute, which Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has described as a “hotbed of pro-Iran lobbying.”

In April, Lee Smith wrote in Tablet magazine that the group of officials, journalists and think-tank experts who formed the Obama administration’s notorious “echo chamber” to give a favorable spin to the 2015 nuclear deal, which would have allowed Iran to develop nuclear weapons with only a few years delay, were trying to pull the same stunt again—this time with “structurally aligned” Vance as America’s lead negotiator pushing things their way.

The more obvious reason for the criticism of Vance is that he’s responsible for a stupid, gullible and dangerous strategy that’s now gone belly-up. He tried to negotiate with a regime whose goal of destroying America and Israel is totally non-negotiable. Vance has chosen to mask his humiliation by the time-dishonored ploy of dumping on the Jews.

Related articles: “Israel as Alibi” (Yochanan Schimmelpfennig, Times of Israel)...“Absolutely Screwed Up -- JD Vance accuses Israel of secret plot against him and drops Mossad-Epstein bombshell in explosive Joe Rogan interview” (Phillip Nieto, Daily Mail)...“The Conspiracy Vance Needs” (Amit Segal, It's Noon In Israel)

5) “Trump Administration Unleashes Global Campaign to Crush Radical Left Terrorism” (The White House)

From the article -- Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent announced powerful tools to combat illicit funding: “At President Trump’s direction, Treasury is expanding its efforts to identify organizations that abuse charitable and nonprofit structures as vehicles for illicit finance. We are examining where tax-exempt status has been exploited, where charitable entities have become financial conduits for foreign influence activity…”

Secretary Bessent vowed to dismantle the financial infrastructure sustaining left-wing terrorism: “We will identify illicit funding, however artfully it is concealed. We will dismantle the networks that sustain political terrorism, however respectable their fronts may be. We will pursue those who enable political violence, however distant their jurisdictions.”

Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller made clear there must be no retreat: “One of the hallmarks of left-wing violence and terrorism is its completely pre-textual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence… When the leftist — who does not believe in freedom, who does not believe in civil rights, who does not believe in any ordinary notion of justice — protests that we are violating his rights, understand the he is lying to try to persuade people who are not closely following the political scene that some injustice has perpetrated against him. We must stay the course and be completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization.”

Other Important Reads from the Week

* “British Police Course Correct after Conservative Christian Politician Murdered” (S.A. McCarthy, Washington Stand)

* “Facts, Figures, and Fantasy: Why Children Need Fairy Tales and Myths” (S.A. McCarthy, Washington Stand)

* “The West Is a Superior Civilization (And I Don’t Care If That Offends You) -- The civilization that gave the world constitutional liberty, modern science, and human dignity deserves defense, not embarrassment.” (Itxu Díaz, American Spectator)

* “Erasing Little Italy Is About More Than a Map” (Ben Shapiro, Jewish World Review)

* “U.K. Bars Finnish Christian MP from Country over Biblical Beliefs on Sexuality” (Dan Hart, Washington Stand)

The Surefire Investment Plan: Get Yourself a 'Paradise Portfolio'

If you were to believe the advertisements of many brokerage firms and insurance companies, you would think that a safe, even luxurious, future was yours if you simply sign on the dotted line with them. But that certainly doesn’t make sense for those who can hardly keep up with expenses now.

The truth is in the numbers; a fellow who lives from paycheck to paycheck just doesn’t have enough to build up a cushion for retirement.

Now don’t get me wrong. Financial planning, frugality, savings, and prudent investments are all good things.  But the best investment plan of all – and the only surefire one – is the one explained by Jesus when He explicitly told us to lay up our treasures in heaven.  This is a fantastic opportunity for us!  Indeed, all of God’s children are saved from the penalty of sin through faith in God’s grace alone.

However, the Scriptures are also clear that believers will receive heavenly rewards by living lives of obedience, trust, and love.  And that heavenly savings account (I’ve taken to calling it my paradise portfolio) is completely safe from thieves, natural forces, and all the sin-stained politics of this earth.

This investment plan, by the way, has nothing to do with your income, your pension, your Social Security or Medicare.  It has only to deal with your faithfulness to God.

No, after paying our bills, we may not have a nickel left over to put into stocks, bonds, or precious metals. But we can always make investments in heaven, adding every single day to that glorious paradise portfolio that the Lord is saving for us as part of our forever inheritance.

Now that is great news!