I don’t think we can even envision what lies just ahead in our immediate American future.  Having listened to most of the Trump rallies, it’s going to be a joyride.  How long have we been quiet about this woke nonsense?  (We haven’t been quiet.) They’ve been introducing stuff we don’t even want to know about, and making like we think it’s fine.  We are a long-suffering people.  And we’ve been suffering forever, at least since the 80’s. For young people, their entire lives.  But our long journey to sanity might be just about over.

It’s a similar feeling to when Ronald Reagan won the White House after four years of Jimmy Carter.  Jimmy Cater humiliated the United States, and couldn’t seem to make a right decision.  Many years ago, I watched a documentary on the rescue mission for the hostages in Iran.  It didn’t turn out well, largely due to incompetence.  

These protesters speak up and don’t mind making fools of themselves in front of cameras.  We just change the channel.  But the way things have been going, they were going to bankrupt us and make our lives miserable with all their global-warming mandates. We have to bear the brunt of saving the planet while the most vile of polluters will get on board someday?  We finally had enough.

The networks are nearly broke, ratings having collapsed since the Trump win.  There were apparently some attempts to rig the election in various jurisdictions, and they all fell short.  I guess some places they’re still counting.  “Too big to rig” may have been more than a rallying cry.  There is evidence in some elections, where the loser suddenly catapulted. But it wasn’t enough. Trump won anyway.

Elon Musk is being called “the guest who wouldn’t leave.”  Apparently he’s been staying at Mar-a-Lago and it’s undoubtedly at Trump’s request.  Trump thinks he can use the guy’s ideas and influence.  After all, Musk cut Twitter’s employee rolls by 70 percent when he bought it, and it still runs just fine, maybe better.  Can you imagine if he makes recommendations for government departments along the same lines?  

Have you seen the video of the booster rocket coming back to earth?  I’m guessing the foremost rocket scientists around the world watched in awe.  I have a feeling that they’re watching the entire spectacle, wondering what comes next.

Ever heard of Matt Gatez?  There’s talk of making him Attorney General. Then there’s Kash Patel, and his new prospective job is head of the F.B.I.  Can you imagine the panic inside these departments?  They better make sure their passports are in order.  Who’s Trump going to put in charge of abolishing the TSA, or am I getting ahead?  

Suddenly the media is chasing scandal on most of Trump’s picks for high office.  Get used to it for as long as they’re in business.

I don’t know about everybody else, but we’re walking on air around here.  The media will undoubtedly try to dampen our moods with unfolding “scandals” on everyone who’s been mentioned for high office.  It’s already started.  But the media has been filling our heads with nonsense for years now.  They think we’re about to start believing them without homework?  Dream on.  

Mark

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – November 15, 2024 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Revelations about the Shanghai lock down are just unbelievable.  People face arrest if they venture out for any reason.  Their screams from windows and balconies sound like nothing you’ve ever heard.  Twenty five million people are not allowed out of their dwellings.  The streets are empty.  The COVID must be really bad!  It never got quite that bad in California, but another wave is in the wings.  The Mid Term variant.  Some cities are already demanding masks be worn at all indoor facilities, or you can’t come in.  It’s just great for business.

The Chinese don’t seem to care if their citizens are miserable, or starving.  Judging from the nightmarish soundtrack, they’re not happy.  Nobody within earshot is happy.  At least we can hit the mute button, change the channel or turn the noise off.

The brutality being visited upon people’s pets, should they test positive, is abhorrent to Western sensibilities. But they’ve opted for zero COVID, regardless.  We’re not going to say what they’re doing to people’s pets after they test positive here.  The media, the administration and the obnoxious Dr. won’t say a cross word, or even anything that could be construed as criticism of the regime.  There’s an obvious relationship to protect, now matter what they do.  It’s starting to look like they have Carte Blanche.  Where’s Jimmy Carter and his human rights crusade?  The left has changed. A lot.

Fauci is all over the place, again, warning and explaining as if we’re interested.  He doesn’t show up anywhere that might ask him about the communications we’ve been shown.  But he reserves the right to revisit the darkest mandates of the pandemic. Oh yeah, they just might be necessary. You almost hope he tries some draconian nonsense.  Then the occupant would have to read it off a teleprompter, embarrassing everybody but himself.

Some places still have many people roaming around in public, and driving solo, with their masks securely in place.  Either they’ve been frightened by the experts, or they’re modern Pharisees.  We could never be THAT righteous.  But alas, the experts may emerge to declare another health emergency.  It worked last time.

You might have seen the skit the Saudi’s put on television.  If not you probably will.  It’s too depressing to be funny.  It makes you wonder how it’s received by the other world leaders.  It’s just too close to the truth.  He’s at a podium trying to say something coherent, and the actor playing Kamala is a dude in make-up and pantsuit.  Saudi Arabia is an ally.  Nothing like this happens without approval from the ruling class.  It’s sad that they found it funny, but now the whole world is watching.  They probably already were.

Governor Abbott made good on his promise to bus illegals to Washington D. C.  None are going against their will, and presumably they’re treating it like tourism, glad to be among the gleaming monuments rather than running in the mud along the Rio Grand.  As the redhead said, illegals are free to travel throughout the country.  That alone shows how much this bunch cares for the citizens.  But at least some of the “migrants” are out of Texas.  Send them to Baltimore or Philadelphia.  If they thought it was dangerous where they came from…  The enhanced inspections of big rigs at the border turned out to be a bust, and is in the process of being reversed.  Turns out it was going to hurt American citizens and Texans, so the governor dropped it.

The pope is talking, well, something we never heard of and don’t want to know about.  Hopefully, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  If he does, he must keep some pretty sick company.  You’re forgiven if you fail to be interested.

A pollster that worked for Bill and Hillary has said with current ratings that it’s utterly impossible a second term is in the offing.  We’re still wondering about the impossibility of the first term!  Now that was impossible!

As for Elon Musk buying Twitter wholesale, we’ll have to wait.  There are shoes yet to drop, and the Washington agencies have started some investigations to turn him into a criminal.  Over Tesla!  These electric cars aren’t about the save the planet, and I’m not going to Mars.  In fact with the continuation of the stupid mandates, I’m not flying either.  It was already stupid, But they’ve made it unbearable.

There are fireworks on the Temple Mount, literally.  Turns out Ramadan and the Passover fell at the same time this year.  It must be the third or fourth generation of rock throwers against rubber bullets.  Still, they haven’t learned a thing.

The war in Ukraine?  We’re starting to lose interest, or willingness to expose our senses to the madness of it all.  But don’t worry, the fake administration is on top of it.  Let’s hope it doesn’t escalate.  The Bible doesn’t say it can’t.

Mark

PS: We observed the Passover last evening, and had a great turnout for the cook-out and game day today. The kids are exhausted.  We’re meeting for dinner tonight when more will arrive.  The First Day of Unleavened Bread starts at sundown tonight, and it is an annual Holy Day.

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 15 April 2022 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

It may be that a war is needed.  After all, what hasn’t gone wrong during the pretender’s first full year?   A skirmish would surely soak up plenty of ink and airtime. The White House is all about Russia’s pending incursion into Ukraine.  The occupant famously said that there might be a “minor incursion,” and then we’d just argue about who needs to do what.  Everybody from the redheaded spokes lady to the President of Ukraine has been trying to clean that up ever since. That, and of course the deadly Chinese flu conferring vast powers on government agencies. You don’t suppose a distraction is needed while they act like requirements and mandates are just a benign reality.  Here’s an idea.

How about we all pretend like we’re still free!  But you can’t get away with that in the great State of California.

The latest is that Putin has 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine, and now they’re engaged in war games.  Putin has made no secret of the fact that he saw the implosion of the Soviet Union as a great disaster and is maneuvering to try to put it back together.  He plans to be calling the shots for another ten or twelve years, and figures he’d gain hero status if he succeeded in the impossible.  The foremost political prisoner in Russia is a man named Navalny.  Somebody, if not agents of the state, poisoned him by smearing a toxic agent in his clothes, but he eventually recovered.  He’s serving a term in a Russian prison and unapologetic-ally trying to overthrow a man he describes as impossibly corrupt.

TIME magazine ran a lengthy report on him and his situation.  The headline on the Drudge Report called him “The man Putin fears.”  His agents reportedly flew a drone over lavish palatial residences Putin frequents sparking a debate on the actual ownership.  It’s a childhood friend from way back who is the owner, so there.  Nevertheless, Navalny has set up remote operations that are working to turn public opinion against the dictator.  According to TIME, in a nutshell, this is what Putin is truly concerned about and everything else, including war-games on Ukraine’s border is directing attention elsewhere. These are mainstream outfits.  Who knows if they’re credible after all the non-sense they’ve publicized.

It’s pretty discouraging watching nearly everything go the wrong direction.  We’d rather not depress you further by making a list.  It’s in your face most days.  Let’s talk about what’s going on in the rest of the formerly free world.  It’s absolutely heart-breaking to see what has become of Australia, Canada and several nations in Europe.  Governments and health ministers have been issuing orders like they’re going out of style, and sure enough, they are.  The tech companies have tried to black out any news of resistance anywhere.  Apparently they want people to think they’re the only ones, and they’re isolated from what the masses have determined.

Any form of public resistance has been met with overwhelming force in a lot of instances.  People are arrested for whatever as police take dramatic action.  In Australia, we’re told, the masses are fully supportive of the most restrictive policies the government can come up with, and all in favor of severe punishment for those who wish to make their own decisions without having their job or their life terminated by some policy or other.

As the virus reportedly becomes exponentially more common and less lethal, the demands of “authorities” become more strident, and more bizarre.  Who’s thinking this stuff up?  They’re implementing a policy that demands truck drivers have proof of vaccination in order to cross the border, and so goes the talk of shortages.  That’s the Canadian border.  We don’t even want to know about the one to the South.  Seriously.  It turns your stomach.  Then you hear about the flights that land at 3:00 am and “immigrants” being smuggled into neighborhoods under cover of darkness.  No doubt some great people.  Unfortunately their upkeep will be added to the unmentionable national debt, courtesy of your grandchildren.

The virus news is just too much to wrap your head around.  Nations that touted nearly universal vaccination rates are drowning in terrible cases.  How is that possible?  Israel?  They’ve bragged on 90+% and yet are struggling with outbreaks.  It does kind of make you wonder.

We have to try to find some humor amid this rolling catastrophe, and hope and pray it’s temporary.  How is there nothing funny about the administration’s trying their hardest to get us back into the Iran Deal, and they can’t get it done!  Iran’s demands are just too much, to much public humiliation for even the current administration to swallow.  And that’s saying something after the Afghanistan debacle.  It’s enough have you recalling the Jimmy Carter days fondly.  Sarc.

How long will free people be ordered to and fro?  Maybe as long as we comply.  What will they next demand on the basis of “science” or medicine?  We’ve got our mandates.  They’re known as Commandments.  Whatever some discredited agency comes up with, we’ll decide.  Thanks anyway.

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update for 21 January 2022 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The Islamic Republic has made it clear that no agreement can be discussed, let alone reached, unless all sanctions hindering the regime’s operations are removed. It has also been engaging in double-speak, bragging about its strides in uranium-enrichment, on the one hand, while insisting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, on the other.

Nobody buys the latter assertion, but the other parties to the JCPOA have convinced themselves that the interests of all concerned are best served through diplomacy. Never mind that Tehran refuses to allow American representatives anywhere near the room where the talks are being held. Washington is willing to have the mullahs dictate the terms of the entire arrangement, and let European, Russian and Chinese envoys enjoy face-to-face contact with their Iranian counterparts.

This makes chief Iranian army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi’s interview on Saturday—a mere 48 hours before the start of the kowtowing in Austria—all the more relevant and chilling. Though the powers-that-be in Tehran have never hidden their desire for the destruction of the United States (the “Great Satan”) and Israel (the “Small Satan”), Shekarchi’s words in the current context should serve as sufficient cause for America to call off the whole charade.

Speaking to the regime-controlled Iran Students News Agency (ISNA), Shekarchi announced that Israel’s annihilation is his country’s “greatest ideal before us and the greatest goal we pursue.”

He additionally mentioned the assassination of the head the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force in a US drone strike nearly two years ago, saying that the “highest level of revenge for martyr [Maj. Gen. Qassem] Soleimani’s blood is the withdrawal of Americans from the region.”

Asked why the “arrogant” global powers, particularly the United States and the “Zionist regime,” have come to the conclusion that they cannot confront Iran, and therefore have no choice but to negotiate, he replied: “When we refer to ‘the Zionists,’ many … think of the occupying regime in Jerusalem … [but] we recognize the occupying regime in Jerusalem as a tool of international Zionism.”

He went on to describe how this “occupier regime” came and took over an “important part of the Islamic world [by] raping and oppressing Muslims.”

“Anyone with a Muslim name, like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and any regime that helps this fake regime [Israel], is a part of this regime,” he added, alluding to the Abraham Accords, which he slammed, while asserting that it’s impossible to get along with the America.

“The oppressed nations that are being forcibly enslaved by the United States today are having their underground facilities and resources looted,” he claimed, describing the “new ignorance fed to the people by the infidel world” as “civilization.”

Yes, he continued, “in terms of thinking, there is no gap between Britain, France and America.”

Given the shared supplicatory stance of the above three Western countries, he was pretty accurate, though he was actually trying to lump them together as colonialist/imperialist invaders, rather than peace-and-quiet-seekers at all costs.

Ditto for his final remark about America, the intent of which was to illustrate the inevitable victory of Islamist forces against the West, but is not far from an apt depiction of its decline in the eyes of its enemies.

“Every day since the Islamic Revolution 43 years ago, the United States has fallen several hundred meters from the mountain peak, and is now near the valley,” he said. “Is it wise to go after an America that is falling into the valley!? Naturally, you have to abandon America, which is on a downward slope. Not only has it achieved nothing, but it’s also lost its dignity.”

Coming from a despotic, ayatollah-led regime whose people are abused and impoverished, the assertion that the United States hasn’t accomplished anything over the past four decades is ridiculous. But there is more than a grain of truth to the second allegation, and not merely because former President Jimmy Carter sat by helplessly while Islamists took over Iran and held dozens of US embassy staff hostage for 444 days.

Former President Barack Obama’s administration, too, humiliated itself by pleading with Iran to sign the disastrous JCPOA in the first place—rewarding it with tranches of cash, and proceeding to ignore its multiple and egregious violations of the pact. Today, it’s President Joe Biden’s team that’s bowing down and bending a knee.

Sadly, it doesn’t matter that The Jerusalem Post’s Benjamin Weinthal exposed Shekarchi’s pre-Vienna interview, which ISNA posted solely in Farsi, with no traces on its English-language website. Biden and his European, Russian and Chinese bidders in the Austrian capital are perfectly capable of and happy to put Iran’s intentions aside in order to push their agenda forward.

Ruthie Blum is an Israel-based journalist and author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring.’ ”

The opinions presented by Algemeiner bloggers are solely theirs and do not represent those of The Algemeiner, its publishers or editors. If you would like to share your views with a blog post on The Algemeiner, please be in touch through our Contact page.

Source: https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/11/30/irans-military-gears-up-for-vienna-talks-by-vowing-to-annihilate-israel/

The post Iran’s Military Gears Up for Vienna Talks by Vowing to Annihilate Israel first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Everybody is in the Easter spirit, wishing each other a happy good Friday and looking forward to the “Easter” holiday.  My Dad always asked, “What’s good about good Friday?”  He explained that you can’t fit three days and three nights into the period between Friday and Sunday, no matter how you slice it.  Many took heart, and now they’re spread out between countless organizations with “leaders,” some of whom claim to be apostles wielding authority far beyond any human government.

Now all the mainstream companies and corporations are doing back-flips to become the enforcers of “woke philosophy.”  They are doing what the government can’t do Constitutionally, if that even matters anymore.  First we had the “mark” of the mask.  Now we’ve got the “mark” of the vaccine.  What do you think is coming?  It won’t necessarily be on the authority of government (though in some cases, and in some countries it is), it seems that corporations, financial institutions and travel companies can’t wait to impose their “woke” regulations and policies on us all.  All the rage now is the “vaccine passport,” making it nearly impossible to participate in commerce or travel unless you’ve got the “marks” they’ve imposed and unless you express fear and dread of whatever the latest craze may be.  The Governor of Florida is currently the most visible example of someone bucking the “vaccine passport.”

Very few are standing against the goody two-shoe movement, and the mainstream media ridicules anyone who dares.  In some cases, they bring false allegations and bogus prosecutions against those bucking the trend.  The military is being emasculated, forced to behave as if they’re enrolled in one of the institutions of “higher learning.”  We’re all starting to wonder if there’s a play on words there somewhere.  We hope not.

Internationally, it’s as if we’ve returned to the days of Jimmy Carter, meaning nothing but ashamed embarrassment for red-blooded Americans.  The world is threatening once again, and the US. is once again the world’s whipping boy. The current administration (regardless of who’s calling the shots) is bending itself into a pretzel trying to appease Iran and get back into the insane nuclear deal. But Iran has conditions, and there are currently “third party” talks on the calendar to satisfy whatever demands the Mullahs impose.  Re-entering the “Iran Nuclear Deal” might require another planeload of untraceable cash, and that will seem entirely reasonable to the “team” running American policy.  It worked last time.

There have been more examples of the absolute inhumanity taking place on the southern border.  Children, sometimes not much more than toddlers, are being used and abused in startling ways.  They seem to be little more than currency to be gambled for the benefit and profit of smugglers, or perish the thought, families.  Sometimes they’re sent back to be used again.  Border enforcement and ICE are “processing” immigrants as quickly as possible so they can get them on a bus or a plane and relieve some of the overcrowded conditions we’re not supposed to see.  Meanwhile, the smugglers are able to take advantage of the situation to transport their “products” without being chased down.  Enforcement agencies have been overwhelmed, and that was the plan. The Cloward-Piven strategy.  Very humanitarian, mind you.

The insanity is such that we can be thankful that God instituted a schedule that takes our minds off much that is going wrong in this world in order to remember how we got here, and the ultimate sacrifice made to secure our place in His kingdom.

We’ve been boosting that message, using means we don’t particularly like while we still can.  Our “boosted” message appeared on the screens of 33,858 individuals.  Of those, approximately 5000 engaged in some way (some only to wish us a happy Easter, having not understood what was going on,) but 240 actually followed the “link” and read the article.

This weekend entails the last Holy Day of the Days of Unleavened Bread, and the early activities are underway.  Last evening we had a get-together at a vacation home acquired by two families that came to visit.  We had a good turnout for a luncheon today at a local Mexican restaurant, and the crew is (as I write) bowling at a facility in town.  More visitors will be coming for the H. D. service tomorrow, and we hope that everyone far and wide is making use of this annual event.  Thanks to all who are with us in these most ignorant of times.

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 2 April 2021 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.