“Please look something up: Find out how many times Jesus, himself, used the words obedience or obey. (blueletterbible.org is a good source.) Those of you who do will find a shocking result … a grand total of zero uses. About the best you can get, and only in a few versions, is a single word in John 3 that’s mistranslated. (It’s believe in most versions.) And that word didn’t come out of Jesus’ mouth anyway. Isn’t it strange, then, that modern Christian doctrine is almost fully obsessed with obedience and disobedience? This is, to the theologians, the fundamental Divine pivot; the entire drama of salvation turns on obedience and disobedience. Why, then, did Jesus never mention it?” (01/09/26)
“‘If our nation is ever taken over, it will be taken over from within.’ — James Madison … America currently appears to be in the process of destroying itself. The problems are too numerous to list here, but the most recent devolution comes from the Somali financial fraud and the killing of a woman in Minnesota by ICE, which has leftists all over the country rioting, protesting, and calling for a repetition of the George Floyd mayhem of 2020. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the horrors the nation now faces. As Madison rightly said, if our nation falls, if it is destroyed, it will at least start from within. America is too big: it has too many people, too much geography, too many financial resources, and too large a military to ever be conquered from without until there is nothing left but a dung heap which we created ourselves.” (01/10/25)
“Apart from a few details, I never saw much difference between Trump’s America First shtick and MAGA’s chief foe, the neconservatives. It appeared to be merely a squabble over details, such as whether democracy or strongman rule abroad best served the so-called national interest. No one believes in America Second, Third, or Nth. Trump’s action in Venezuela confirms my impression. Beneath the surface, the contrast between Trumpian America First and neoconservatism disappears.” (01/09/26)
“In the shadows of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation blitz, a lethal pattern has emerged. Since July, immigration agents have shot at least six people behind the wheel of a vehicle (two of them fatal, including Wednesday’s shooting). In each instance, the playbook is the same: the agent claims self-defense, asserting they ‘feared for their life’ as a vehicle was ‘weaponized’ against them.” (01/09/26)
“Government agencies inevitably turn enforcement responsibilities into opportunities to extend the security state. Every initiative to document, monitor, track, or otherwise spy on Americans starts with a mandate to ensure that people are obeying some rule or law. So it is with immigration policies, which fuel government efforts to gather biometric information not just on those who want to enter the country, but on citizens born and raised here. Fortunately, the scheme is getting pushback.” (01/09/26)
“In the days since U.S. Delta Force detained Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores on grounds related to drug and weapons charges, there have been frantic questions about the operation. Why would President Trump direct something so brazen and, potentially, illegal? What is the U.S. government’s plan for Venezuela’s future? And now that we’ve pulled off the audacious kidnapping of a head of state and essentially taken over a foreign country, could it happen again? At the moment, Trump is renewing threats to take Greenland, the island territory under Danish administration that he says is strategically important for national security. It would be difficult for Greenland and Denmark to mount any sort of significant defense should Trump decide on a military operation to take the island, according to David Silbey, a professor of history at Cornell University specializing in military history and defense policy.” (01/09/25)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“In the aftermath of President Trump’s deadly military attack on Venezuela and his abduction and rendition of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia, Trump is now giving the Venezuelan Chavista regime a simple choice: Obey my commands and give me your oil, or die from death by starvation and illness. … After all, who cares about the U.S. assassinations of those hundred defenseless people in those little boats who were accused of violating U.S. drug laws hundreds of miles away from American shores? Who cares about those 100 people who were killed as part of Trump’s abduction raid against Maduro? Who cares about the 8 million Venezuelans who have fled the country in the effort to survive the vise of Chavista socialism and brutal and deadly U.S. sanctions?” (01/09/26)
“We tend to analyze foreign policy in terms of doctrines or ideologies. But from The Art of the Deal to his first primary campaign, Trump has always been more defined by a way of doing things than by a firmly held set of commitments or objectives about what to achieve in the world (other than to look out for Number One). That same mindset can help us make sense of Trump’s actions in Venezuela, and perhaps even to get some kind of handle on what kinds of actions the White House might pursue next.” (01/09/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“In Less Bad Arguments for Protectionism I offered a number of arguments for tariffs that, unlike the more common ones, are consistent with a correct understanding1 of the economics of trade; I do not find any of then convincing but someone else might. One had to do with national defense. Suppose we get into a war with China. It would be inconvenient if some of the things we needed for the war, ammunition, computer chips, drones, or something else, were things we did not produce because we had been importing them from China. So it might be prudent to use protective tariffs to keep critical industries going even if they could not compete with foreign competitors. It is not an absurd argument, but it has several problems, especially as a defense of the tariffs Trump actually imposed.” (01/09/26)
“For years, some of us have argued that President Donald Trump’s January 6th speech was protected under the First Amendment and that any prosecution would collapse under governing precedent, including Brandenburg v. Ohio. I was regularly attacked as an apologist for my criticism of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s ‘war on free speech.’ I wrote about his history of ignoring such constitutional protections in his efforts to prosecute targets at any cost. I also wrote about how Smith’s second indictment (which the Post supported) was a direct assault on the First Amendment. Now, years later, the Washington Post has acknowledged that Trump’s speech was protected and that Smith ‘would have blown a hole in the First Amendment.’ In this appearance before Congress, Smith’s contempt for the First Amendment was on full display.” (01/10/25)
