Yes, there were two Democrats killed in MN and two wounded before that. Thankfully, the two wounded survived and one was just released from the hospital yesterday. There was a manifesto and our governor was mentioned. Otherwise, we really haven’t seen the manifesto and the dozens of people listed by the murderer. Hmmm, I wonder why?
“They weren’t throwing water balloons. They were throwing water balloons filled with urine at Christians… assaulted for the high crime of worshiping Jesus in a public space.” —Pastor Russell Johnson
Seattle’s mayor blamed the church — not Antifa — after police and worshipers were hurt. Let that sink in.”
After years of seeing Antifa in action, reasonable people see the network of left wing groups fronting it with cash and bodies. They are organized, well funded, and violent, and Democrats let them run wild.
Antifa simply means anti-fascist. Any group can call itself antifa with varying degrees of organisation strength. In WW2, the Polish Home Army was well organized and well funded whereas the White Rose resistance group was neither. Both were antifa.
My former neighbours claimed to be antifa — they were a local anarchist group, the only funding they had was through their bookstore.
I’m sure Square takes their cut, have to love capitalism. There were two groups in that tweet – border resistance and its going down. I’m sure they describe themselves as antifa but that’s a low bar for donations.
Can people just leave other people alone — why go into a LGBQT event? I’m not going to justify the response but people need to respect their lane in a world of different beliefs. Srsly, lets give each other space.
kathleena — I agree its bizarre how quickly the assassinations were swept under the carpet. Correct me if I wrong, terrorism is a federal charge so wouldn’t the DOJ under Bondi have to lay that charge? The question is why are they ignoring it.,
Then there is treasonous behavior in LA… but let’s keep the focus on defining Antifa and what has not been accomplished by Trump in 6 short months…after four hellacious years with Biden at the helm 🫤
In a meeting with Foreign Secretary de la Fuente, Mayor Karen Bass reiterated that Los Angeles would not cooperate with federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws
J. D. Vance could have brought the country’s conflicting strands together. Instead, he took a divisive path to the peak of power.
J. d. vance poses a problem, and at its core is a question about character. In the years after the 2016 election, he transformed himself from a center-right memoirist and public speaker, offering a complex analysis of America’s social ills and a sharp critique of Donald Trump, into a right-wing populist politician whose illiberal ideas and vitriolic rhetoric frequently out-Trump the original. According to Vance, and his supporters, this change followed a realization during Trump’s first term that the president was lifting up the fallen working class of the heartland that had produced young J. D. To help his people, Vance had to make his peace with their champion. According to his critics, Vance cynically chose to betray his true values in order to take the only path open to an ambitious Republican in the Trump era, and as a convert under suspicion, he pursued it with a vengeance. In one account, a poor boy from the provinces makes good in the metropole, turns against his glittering benefactors, and goes home to fight for his people. In the other, the poor boy seizes every opportunity on his way up, loses his moral compass, and is ruined by his own ambition. ….
A literary bit of The Atlantic piece continued for those interested … :
~ Both versions suggest the protagonist of a 19th-century novel—Pip in Dickens’s ‘Great Expectations,’ Lucien in Balzac’s ‘Lost Illusions. A novelist who set out to narrate the decline of the American empire in the 21st century might invent a protagonist like J. D. Vance. He turns up in all the key places, embodying every important theme. He’s the product of an insular subculture (the Scots-Irish of Appalachian Kentucky) and grows up amid the ills (poverty, addiction, family collapse) of a dying Ohio steel town ravaged by deindustrialization. He escapes into the Marine Corps in time for the Iraq War, and then into the dubious embrace of the cognitive meritocracy (Yale Law School, West Coast venture capital, East Coast media). At a turning point in his life and the country’s—in 2016, with the surprise success of ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ and then the surprise victory of Trump—Vance becomes a celebrity, the anointed spokesman for the 40 percent of the country that comprises the white working class, which has sudden political power and cultural interest. He’s tasked with explaining the world he came from to the world he recently joined. … ~
Those who wish to can find it online easily enough. Those who don’t can carry on and ignore.
Disparaging a man due to his upbringing and life circumstances is a special kind of low. But we should expect that from the left I guess and even from some who say they are moderates
NJ – I did not read that as disparaging Vance’s upbringing, but was explaining where he came from, what his roots are. Vance himself wrote about all of that in “Hillbilly Elegy.” A friend who read the book around the same time as I did felt that Vance was disparaging his people. Perhaps it is hard to point out those matters without seeming to be disparaging of them.
~ “The Internal Revenue Service said Monday it would allow religious leaders to endorse political figures from the pulpit, dropping a longstanding rule that conditioned the tax-exempt status of churches and other religious institutions on not engaging in political activity. In a federal court filing, IRS officials wrote that political discussions in churches were like a “family discussion concerning candidates” and did not violate the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 interpretation of tax code banning political activity by tax-exempt religious institutions. The agency’s decision came as the result of a lawsuit brought by an evangelical media group and two churches, which alleged the rule violated the First Amendment.” ~
It is an interesting study to observe how we can read the same article and come away with opposing views. I also read JD’s book and came away with his defense of those he grew up with. I could relate to so much of his take having been brought up in the area. I found it refreshing and honest as I continue to view him. He is not perfect but who of us can say we are? But why try to belittle a man trying to make the world a bit better for us all? I truly find it reprehensible .
Not knowing for sure what the author really intended, I can say pretty confidently, knowing DJ as I do, that she did not intend that to disparage Vance’s upbringing and past.
Something that I should have included in my comment about “Hillbilly Elegy,” in case I wasn’t clear, is that I did not agree with my friend’s assessment. I felt that Vance wrote out of love and concern.
“Rumors are circulating in Washington that AG Merrick Garland destroyed the Epstein list and purged all the evidence to remove senior officials and the elites. This took place at Biden’s orders.”
I didn’t read his book, but Vance was an interesting character to me before he was VP. But since the election everyone in the cabinet as well as Vance have sounded so fawning and sycophantic that I doubt I would vote for any of them.
I always want to give people their due, so I would say that the President did a phenomenal job tightening up the border. And he did it very quickly. However I don’t think he has accomplished much else– in a positive sense. He seems to have a tendency to take a chainsaw to problems that need a hatchet, and a hatchet to problems that need a scalpel.
I read Hillbilly Elegy and watched the documentary/movie; I had a mixed reaction but found him mostly arrogant. If you read the reviews in Goodreads, people have mixed reactions — some think he accurately described the white working class and gives them their due and others think he’s arrogant and condescending. I lean to the latter opinion but I can see how people react in a different way.
Some of my socially conservative friends initially found him interesting but have since soured on him. Part of it is his personality — smug is being nice and the other is his association with Thiel and other other tech bros/hedge funds. These associations create the idea of a sellout.
Thus the Atlantic article successfully described the contrast within Vance. I saw ads for the article and was curious, so thanks for sharing some of it.
A friend of mine is a now retired addiction specialist physician in the Apalacian area. Her observations about life in the area where Vance grew up are simliar. Fentanyl, black tar heroin, and all the rest decimated folks–who didn’t have much to begin with. Horrifying.
“Rumours are circulating” is code for we’re making stuff up hoping to deflect attention elsewhere. Bondi said it was on her desk — she might have made that up or she meant the entire file. In the latter case, one could easily create a list from the evidence in the file if no master list exists. Bondi won’t and it’s obvious Trump wants the file closed. It’s a jump to conclude he was a “client” but there’s no doubt his name is in the evidence files
Trump and Epstein were friends, they were on flights together and there was plenty of video and photos of the two together. You then have Trump’s own behaviour towards younger women — teen beauty pageants, dressing rooms, etc. Its not much of a stretch to see Trump implicated.
I never took the list too seriously — I took it as a given it was bipartisan, Trump was in it and it would never see the light of day. I had friends who used it to spin into some web about a global paedophile ring controlling the world and others said Mossad has the list and is controlling these paedophiles. To me, its just more evidence that the rich have different standards and will get away with just about anything. One more reason to tax them into poverty (or bring out the guillotine)
The 90 deals in 90 days was never going to happen. Maybe if it was a real estate deal….. Trade deals are incredibly complicated and take years to complete. Here’s where leaders hand off the file to technocrats who know the most intrinsic and bizarre details and let them work without interference just a set of guiding principles and then check in once every few months.
In addition, trade deals need to match the domestic economic strategy of the admin. My perception is that the Trump admin has no clear strategy — no infrastructure plan, no plans for new tech and industry, no energy strategy (beyond drill), etc. The Chinese and the EU both have guiding principles and an economic plan. US gov’ts since Reagan seem allergic to long term economic planning (Biden did employ some planning but not enough). Part of this is the neoliberal logic of free market above everything and the notion that planning is socialist or even worse communist but both Eisenhower and Nixon engaged in state planning.
Character was at play for the last four years, too. And would have been had the other party won the election. No getting around character. “If you believe in Jesus, you belong down the street, not here . . .”
Don’t rub it in! Maybe I’m just getting older and grumpier instead of older and wiser, but every administration seems a net loss to me over the one before it. Regardless of the party. Even if there are real gains there are never enough to justify optimism in terms of the government itself. And I’m actually a very optimistic person in general. But my expectations of government are low enough that I shouldn’t be disappointed. And yet here we are ..
It’s a good thing I have the hope that never disappoints. 🙂
Commentary from Psalm 2 (“Why do the nations rage”) (Dale Ortlund):
~ Despite whatever tumults rock our lives today, David’s greatest son, Jesus himself, has been installed as the ruler of the world. One day this kingship will break open in universal acknowledgment and the universal execution of perfect justice. For now, we can go forth in the glad assurance that in Jesus we will one day leave behind the futility of the present. Every injustice in our lives will be undone.
DJ – I have that book, too! (Dale Ortlund’s “In the Lord I Take Refuge.”) I’ve been reading a psalm and his commentary each morning along with my regular Bible reading.
Yes the lack of character in media and their hitmen, like the Vance writer, do tend to go sideways. But this is the type of crap you can expect from the trash writers at the Atlantic.
Same @#$%, different day.
And it’s always the same people who fall for it, because they desperately need it to be true for self validation purposes. So sad to watch though….
I think Vance is a more complicated character than his supporters (and perhaps his detractors) give him credit for. Making cardboard caricatures out of real people does them and us a disservice.
Kizzie, I think I saw you mention it first, thought I had it but didn’t, so I ordered it. It’s very good. So thank you. 🙂 Especially good reading right now, amen?
Wandering Views 
Yes, there were two Democrats killed in MN and two wounded before that. Thankfully, the two wounded survived and one was just released from the hospital yesterday. There was a manifesto and our governor was mentioned. Otherwise, we really haven’t seen the manifesto and the dozens of people listed by the murderer. Hmmm, I wonder why?
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Remember kids, Antifa is just an idea….
A violent, well funded one. So if it is just an idea, who gets all the money, the idea?
https://x.com/johncardillo/status/1156053405372231683?t=YUAEjiaMERHlmKhNxQLUng&s=19
“Domestic terror group Antifa is organizing to threaten the Border Patrol and ICE.
You can donate to them on a credit card via Square.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey who silences conservatives but not Antifa is also the founder and CEO of Square.”
——
Terrorists.
https://x.com/RickyDoggin/status/1942340460560933027?t=c1w9ntz8pfQNQhDPoUzfCw&s=19
“They weren’t throwing water balloons. They were throwing water balloons filled with urine at Christians… assaulted for the high crime of worshiping Jesus in a public space.” —Pastor Russell Johnson
Seattle’s mayor blamed the church — not Antifa — after police and worshipers were hurt. Let that sink in.”
LikeLiked by 4 people
After years of seeing Antifa in action, reasonable people see the network of left wing groups fronting it with cash and bodies. They are organized, well funded, and violent, and Democrats let them run wild.
So stop with the willful ignorance.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Antifa simply means anti-fascist. Any group can call itself antifa with varying degrees of organisation strength. In WW2, the Polish Home Army was well organized and well funded whereas the White Rose resistance group was neither. Both were antifa.
My former neighbours claimed to be antifa — they were a local anarchist group, the only funding they had was through their bookstore.
I’m sure Square takes their cut, have to love capitalism. There were two groups in that tweet – border resistance and its going down. I’m sure they describe themselves as antifa but that’s a low bar for donations.
Can people just leave other people alone — why go into a LGBQT event? I’m not going to justify the response but people need to respect their lane in a world of different beliefs. Srsly, lets give each other space.
hrw
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kathleena — I agree its bizarre how quickly the assassinations were swept under the carpet. Correct me if I wrong, terrorism is a federal charge so wouldn’t the DOJ under Bondi have to lay that charge? The question is why are they ignoring it.,
hrw
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~ The Trump administration predicted 90 trade deals in 90 days. So far there have been 2. (AP) ~
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Then there is treasonous behavior in LA… but let’s keep the focus on defining Antifa and what has not been accomplished by Trump in 6 short months…after four hellacious years with Biden at the helm 🫤
In a meeting with Foreign Secretary de la Fuente, Mayor Karen Bass reiterated that Los Angeles would not cooperate with federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws
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A piece in The Atlantic
The TALENTED MR. VANCE
J. D. Vance could have brought the country’s conflicting strands together. Instead, he took a divisive path to the peak of power.
J. d. vance poses a problem, and at its core is a question about character. In the years after the 2016 election, he transformed himself from a center-right memoirist and public speaker, offering a complex analysis of America’s social ills and a sharp critique of Donald Trump, into a right-wing populist politician whose illiberal ideas and vitriolic rhetoric frequently out-Trump the original. According to Vance, and his supporters, this change followed a realization during Trump’s first term that the president was lifting up the fallen working class of the heartland that had produced young J. D. To help his people, Vance had to make his peace with their champion. According to his critics, Vance cynically chose to betray his true values in order to take the only path open to an ambitious Republican in the Trump era, and as a convert under suspicion, he pursued it with a vengeance. In one account, a poor boy from the provinces makes good in the metropole, turns against his glittering benefactors, and goes home to fight for his people. In the other, the poor boy seizes every opportunity on his way up, loses his moral compass, and is ruined by his own ambition. ….
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Nice hit piece from a liberal rag….
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A literary bit of The Atlantic piece continued for those interested … :
~ Both versions suggest the protagonist of a 19th-century novel—Pip in Dickens’s ‘Great Expectations,’ Lucien in Balzac’s ‘Lost Illusions. A novelist who set out to narrate the decline of the American empire in the 21st century might invent a protagonist like J. D. Vance. He turns up in all the key places, embodying every important theme. He’s the product of an insular subculture (the Scots-Irish of Appalachian Kentucky) and grows up amid the ills (poverty, addiction, family collapse) of a dying Ohio steel town ravaged by deindustrialization. He escapes into the Marine Corps in time for the Iraq War, and then into the dubious embrace of the cognitive meritocracy (Yale Law School, West Coast venture capital, East Coast media). At a turning point in his life and the country’s—in 2016, with the surprise success of ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ and then the surprise victory of Trump—Vance becomes a celebrity, the anointed spokesman for the 40 percent of the country that comprises the white working class, which has sudden political power and cultural interest. He’s tasked with explaining the world he came from to the world he recently joined. … ~
Those who wish to can find it online easily enough. Those who don’t can carry on and ignore.
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Thank you, DJ.
mumsee
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Disparaging a man due to his upbringing and life circumstances is a special kind of low. But we should expect that from the left I guess and even from some who say they are moderates
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NJ – I did not read that as disparaging Vance’s upbringing, but was explaining where he came from, what his roots are. Vance himself wrote about all of that in “Hillbilly Elegy.” A friend who read the book around the same time as I did felt that Vance was disparaging his people. Perhaps it is hard to point out those matters without seeming to be disparaging of them.
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From today’s Morning Dispatch:
~ “The Internal Revenue Service said Monday it would allow religious leaders to endorse political figures from the pulpit, dropping a longstanding rule that conditioned the tax-exempt status of churches and other religious institutions on not engaging in political activity. In a federal court filing, IRS officials wrote that political discussions in churches were like a “family discussion concerning candidates” and did not violate the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 interpretation of tax code banning political activity by tax-exempt religious institutions. The agency’s decision came as the result of a lawsuit brought by an evangelical media group and two churches, which alleged the rule violated the First Amendment.” ~
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It is an interesting study to observe how we can read the same article and come away with opposing views. I also read JD’s book and came away with his defense of those he grew up with. I could relate to so much of his take having been brought up in the area. I found it refreshing and honest as I continue to view him. He is not perfect but who of us can say we are? But why try to belittle a man trying to make the world a bit better for us all? I truly find it reprehensible .
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Log, meet mote.
mumsee
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Not knowing for sure what the author really intended, I can say pretty confidently, knowing DJ as I do, that she did not intend that to disparage Vance’s upbringing and past.
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Something that I should have included in my comment about “Hillbilly Elegy,” in case I wasn’t clear, is that I did not agree with my friend’s assessment. I felt that Vance wrote out of love and concern.
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Well if that comment was to infer I am a hypocrite have at it…feel free to scroll on by…..
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Thank you.
mumsee
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My pleasue
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Weird how that thing we’re now told didn’t happen sure paid off victims like it did.
https://x.com/I_Am_JohnCullen/status/1942701394940538962?t=8yNt0pLp75wEsYQfHiUxDQ&s=19
“The Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program, established by Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, received approximately 225 applications from alleged victims.
That’s a lot of girls that “didn’t do anything with anyone..”
Of these, about 150 were deemed eligible for compensation, with 138 individuals accepting payouts totaling approximately $125 million.
But, @AGPamBondi and @FBIDirectorKash say there was nothing there..
See the problem? @PressSec “
—–
https://x.com/defense_civil25/status/1942762125656547344?t=SFhsvN6W1iZjWHpsKrPliw&s=19
“Rumors are circulating in Washington that AG Merrick Garland destroyed the Epstein list and purged all the evidence to remove senior officials and the elites. This took place at Biden’s orders.”
LikeLiked by 3 people
I didn’t read his book, but Vance was an interesting character to me before he was VP. But since the election everyone in the cabinet as well as Vance have sounded so fawning and sycophantic that I doubt I would vote for any of them.
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I always want to give people their due, so I would say that the President did a phenomenal job tightening up the border. And he did it very quickly. However I don’t think he has accomplished much else– in a positive sense. He seems to have a tendency to take a chainsaw to problems that need a hatchet, and a hatchet to problems that need a scalpel.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I read Hillbilly Elegy and watched the documentary/movie; I had a mixed reaction but found him mostly arrogant. If you read the reviews in Goodreads, people have mixed reactions — some think he accurately described the white working class and gives them their due and others think he’s arrogant and condescending. I lean to the latter opinion but I can see how people react in a different way.
Some of my socially conservative friends initially found him interesting but have since soured on him. Part of it is his personality — smug is being nice and the other is his association with Thiel and other other tech bros/hedge funds. These associations create the idea of a sellout.
Thus the Atlantic article successfully described the contrast within Vance. I saw ads for the article and was curious, so thanks for sharing some of it.
hrw
LikeLiked by 2 people
A friend of mine is a now retired addiction specialist physician in the Apalacian area. Her observations about life in the area where Vance grew up are simliar. Fentanyl, black tar heroin, and all the rest decimated folks–who didn’t have much to begin with. Horrifying.
LikeLiked by 3 people
“Rumours are circulating” is code for we’re making stuff up hoping to deflect attention elsewhere. Bondi said it was on her desk — she might have made that up or she meant the entire file. In the latter case, one could easily create a list from the evidence in the file if no master list exists. Bondi won’t and it’s obvious Trump wants the file closed. It’s a jump to conclude he was a “client” but there’s no doubt his name is in the evidence files
Trump and Epstein were friends, they were on flights together and there was plenty of video and photos of the two together. You then have Trump’s own behaviour towards younger women — teen beauty pageants, dressing rooms, etc. Its not much of a stretch to see Trump implicated.
I never took the list too seriously — I took it as a given it was bipartisan, Trump was in it and it would never see the light of day. I had friends who used it to spin into some web about a global paedophile ring controlling the world and others said Mossad has the list and is controlling these paedophiles. To me, its just more evidence that the rich have different standards and will get away with just about anything. One more reason to tax them into poverty (or bring out the guillotine)
hrw
LikeLiked by 1 person
Debra I think many of us are waning in support for anyone….trusting the Lord evermore…
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Character.
If one lacks that, things are guaranteed to go sideways.
Or worse (as we are seeing).
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And just think. Three more years of this ….
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The 90 deals in 90 days was never going to happen. Maybe if it was a real estate deal….. Trade deals are incredibly complicated and take years to complete. Here’s where leaders hand off the file to technocrats who know the most intrinsic and bizarre details and let them work without interference just a set of guiding principles and then check in once every few months.
In addition, trade deals need to match the domestic economic strategy of the admin. My perception is that the Trump admin has no clear strategy — no infrastructure plan, no plans for new tech and industry, no energy strategy (beyond drill), etc. The Chinese and the EU both have guiding principles and an economic plan. US gov’ts since Reagan seem allergic to long term economic planning (Biden did employ some planning but not enough). Part of this is the neoliberal logic of free market above everything and the notion that planning is socialist or even worse communist but both Eisenhower and Nixon engaged in state planning.
hrw
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Character was at play for the last four years, too. And would have been had the other party won the election. No getting around character. “If you believe in Jesus, you belong down the street, not here . . .”
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There is more than enough lack of good character to go around…dismissive petty and cruel knows no bounds or so it would seem. Sad
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“And just think. Three more years of this ….”
Don’t rub it in! Maybe I’m just getting older and grumpier instead of older and wiser, but every administration seems a net loss to me over the one before it. Regardless of the party. Even if there are real gains there are never enough to justify optimism in terms of the government itself. And I’m actually a very optimistic person in general. But my expectations of government are low enough that I shouldn’t be disappointed. And yet here we are ..
It’s a good thing I have the hope that never disappoints. 🙂
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Debra, I am in full agreement there. 🙂
Amen.
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Commentary from Psalm 2 (“Why do the nations rage”) (Dale Ortlund):
~ Despite whatever tumults rock our lives today, David’s greatest son, Jesus himself, has been installed as the ruler of the world. One day this kingship will break open in universal acknowledgment and the universal execution of perfect justice. For now, we can go forth in the glad assurance that in Jesus we will one day leave behind the futility of the present. Every injustice in our lives will be undone.
Take heart. We are on the right side. ~
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Pam Bondi clarified that she meant the entire file, JFYI.
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DJ – I have that book, too! (Dale Ortlund’s “In the Lord I Take Refuge.”) I’ve been reading a psalm and his commentary each morning along with my regular Bible reading.
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Yes the lack of character in media and their hitmen, like the Vance writer, do tend to go sideways. But this is the type of crap you can expect from the trash writers at the Atlantic.
Same @#$%, different day.
And it’s always the same people who fall for it, because they desperately need it to be true for self validation purposes. So sad to watch though….
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think Vance is a more complicated character than his supporters (and perhaps his detractors) give him credit for. Making cardboard caricatures out of real people does them and us a disservice.
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Seems there is a target on the back of Vance for some reason. Bully tactics of the left and their friends….
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Kizzie, I think I saw you mention it first, thought I had it but didn’t, so I ordered it. It’s very good. So thank you. 🙂 Especially good reading right now, amen?
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