Last week, supporters of President Donald Trump had to endure much negativity.
There were the melées in Charlottesville and Boston, the media and others on the Left denouncing him, continued calls for his removal from office and so on.
Then there are the conversations that we have with people — friends and acquaintances. For my circle, Trump isn’t sophisticated enough. One Englishman actually said to me just a few days ago:
Trump isn’t very bright. He appeals only to the unsophisticated — like people in Boise, Idaho.
He was refuted pretty quickly on that one, let me tell you.
Anyway, with all of this rubbish going on, Trump’s (previously) scheduled rally in Phoenix, Arizona on Tuesday, August 22, 2017 came at the perfect time.
The videos
Those interested can view everything — from supporters’ interviews to the guest speakers to Trump’s speech — below. Thank you, RSBN:
The following video from Fox 10 in Phoenix is of Trump’s one hour and seventeen minute speech:
If you have never seen a Trump rally, it’s worth watching. They’re all good — and all on YouTube.
Arizona Republicans spoke as did Alveda King, Martin Luther King’s niece who is very much pro-life.
The Rev Franklin Graham — Billy’s son — opened proceedings with a prayer. (Alveda King is on the right in black and purple.) This really is an amazing prayer on so many levels. RSBN also pans the crowd so you can see how many thousands are there:
Speaking of crowds, someone did a great time lapse video of the queue of people waiting to get in to the Phoenix Convention Center. It was a hot day, with temps over 100° F (40°+ C). People get to Trump’s evening rallies early in the morning and are outdoors all day long:
Trump tweeted that there were 15,000.
They were probably in line before Trump left Washington DC. Upon arrival in Arizona, Trump visited the US Border Protection and ICE teams in Yuma:
They told him about their daily work and the dangers they face. Trump discussed the visit in his speech.
Speech highlights
Although the teleprompter was up and running, Trump diverged from it with his trusty Sharpie-written notes and quotes. Trump is nearly always better without a teleprompter.
Trump began by thanking his supporters in Arizona and reminding them that he did his first ever rally there, during the Republican candidate debate season. He also thanked the speakers who preceded him.
He spent several minutes recapping his three statements about Charlottesville, which I covered here last week. N.B.: Although Trump did not say it, Charlottesville was a paid-for, false flag event on both sides.
Trump was amazed that the media did not mention he has ‘a home there’. It is where Trump Winery is located.
He said that the media were to blame for stirring up division in America. He said they reported only parts of stories, particularly those related to him. They take selective quotes from his statements. He wondered if the media even liked America because they seem to be so against the interests of the American people.
He did give credit to Fox News, namely Fox and Friends (morning show) and Sean Hannity (late night show). He watches both:
He also said he did not like it when the media smeared his supporters:
He also said that there was a lot of news they never cover, such as America’s failing education system and gang violence:
Between 32 and 35 minutes in, CNN and MSNBC shut off their cameras. Trump could see this, because their red camera lights went on. He mentioned it.
This is what happened at MSNBC. Notice the test pattern. (Surely, being a ‘Trash Man’ is a good thing. The trash man — dustman in the UK — removes rubbish.) Rachel Maddow wasn’t sure yet what was going on:
Trump talked about his 1m+ new jobs which would help to unify the nation and end the current division. He said that he wanted prosperity for all:
Trump went on to review his many achievements during the first seven months of his presidency, which I’ve also written about.
Although his infrastructure project has started, some CEOs from his advisory panel resigned after Charlottesville, because they did not think his statements went far enough. He disbanded the group:
He criticised Congress (and the Senate) for failing to pass legislation to repeal Obamacare. He said he had not given up and also pledged the largest tax reform ‘in 30 years’:
The tweets below are reactions from the elitist neo-con never-Trumper Bill Kristol (Trump complimented General Kelly, moved from Homeland Security to Chief of Staff) and conservative pundit, the pro-Trump Laura Ingraham:
Trump rightly had a go at local governments and universities bowing to pressure from Antifa to have Confederate and other statues of past American leaders removed. He told them not to touch those of George Washington. Removal takes place in the middle of the night, incidentally:
Around this time:
Trump spoke about renegotiating NAFTA. The first round of talks took place at the end of last week and ran through the weekend:
He signalled that he was sick and tired of the advice from outsiders:
He had a few closing soundbites, including:
Trump then concluded his speech:
Reactions
As ever, Trump pleased his supporters.
A Canadian had a righteous blast at CNN’s Jim Acosta. Thank you:
CNN responded with a programme about impeaching Trump featuring their usual leftist experts, Deep Staters and Democrats.
A New York City radio show host measured Trump’s speech by noting the Left’s hysteria. Responses mentioned the CNN feature about impeachment:
There was also this scandalous CNN commentary on black Trump supporters, including the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, retired brain surgeon Dr Ben Carson:
Terrible. Now that is racist, even if Mr Boykin is himself black. That‘s CNN, folks.
Indeed it is.
NBC’s White House reporter tweeted:
People at home were blown away:
You bet.
In closing, here’s the verdict of Trump’s longtime supporter, Pastor Mark Burns:
Amen, Pastor Burns. MAGA!
In this final instalment on St Peter‘s spiritual journey, what follows are excerpts from the other two blog posts from John MacArthur on this great Apostle.
My other two in this series, based on MacArthur’s posts, are ‘John MacArthur on Peter’ and ‘John MacArthur on Peter’s leadership qualities’.
MacArthur tells us that Jesus taught Peter a number of lessons, all of which helped his spiritual and apostolic development. He outlined these in ‘Peter: Learning from Life Experience’, excerpts from which follow. Emphases mine below.
Previous entries covered Peter’s denial of Jesus early on Good Friday. However, there were other episodes which were also learning experiences for him. Highs were followed by lows:
… the experiences—even the difficult ones—were all necessary to shape Peter into the man he needed to become.
He learned, for example, that crushing defeat and deep humiliation often follow hard on the heels of our greatest victories. Just after Christ commended him for his great confession in Matthew 16:16 (“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”), Peter suffered the harshest rebuke ever recorded of a disciple in the New Testament. One moment Christ called Peter blessed, promising him the keys of the kingdom (Matthew 16:17–19). In the next paragraph, Christ addressed Peter as Satan and said, “Get behind me!” (Matthew 16:23)—meaning, “Don’t stand in My way!”
That incident occurred shortly after Peter’s triumphant confession. Jesus announced to the disciples that He was going to Jerusalem, where He would be turned over to the chief priests and scribes and be killed. Upon hearing that, “Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid it Lord! This shall never happen to You!’” (Matthew 16:22). Peter’s sentiment is perfectly understandable. But he was thinking only from a human standpoint. He did not know the plan of God. Without realizing it, he was trying to dissuade Christ from the very thing He came to earth to do. As usual, he was speaking when he ought to have been listening. Jesus’ words to Peter were as stern as anything He ever spoke to any individual: “He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s’” (Matthew 16:23).
Ultimately:
Peter had just learned that God would reveal truth to him and guide his speech as he submitted his mind to the truth. He wasn’t dependent upon a human message. The message he was to proclaim was given to him by God (Matthew 16:17). He would also be given the keys to the kingdom—meaning that his life and message would be the unlocking of the kingdom of God for the salvation of many (Matthew 16:19).
But now, through the painful experience of being rebuked by the Lord, Peter also learned that he was vulnerable to Satan. Satan could fill his mouth just as surely as the Lord could fill it. If Peter minded the things of men rather than the things of God, or if he did not do the will of God, he could be an instrument of the enemy.
He backslid only once — and briefly — but the Apostle Paul sharply corrected him. The incident is in Galatians 2, discussed here.
MacArthur says that, whatever Peter’s experiences with Jesus, he learned to truly be a fisher of men:
Sometimes the experiences were bitter, distressing, humiliating, and painful. Other times they were encouraging, uplifting, and perfectly glorious—such as when Peter saw Christ’s divine brilliance on the Mount of Transfiguration. Either way, Peter made the most of his experiences, gleaning from them lessons that helped make him the great leader he became.
There is one more illustrative exchange between Jesus and Peter, which taught the Apostle about obeying earthly law. MacArthur discusses it in ‘Peter: The Submissive Leader’. It is the story of the temple tax in Matthew 17:
This account comes at a time when Jesus was returning with the twelve to Capernaum, their home base, after a period of itinerant ministry. A tax collector was in town making the rounds to collect the annual two-drachma tax from each person twenty years old or older. This was not a tax paid to Rome, but a tax paid for the upkeep of the temple. It was prescribed in Exodus 30:11–16 (cf. 2 Chronicles 24:9). The tax was equal to two days’ wages, so it was no small amount.
Matthew writes, “Those who collected the two-drachma tax came to Peter and said, ‘Does your teacher not pay the two-drachma tax?’” (Matthew 17:24). Peter assured him that Jesus did pay His taxes.
But this particular tax apparently posed a bit of a problem in Peter’s mind. Was Jesus morally obliged, as the incarnate Son of God, to pay for the upkeep of the temple like any mere man? The sons of earthly kings don’t pay taxes in their fathers’ kingdoms; why should Jesus? Jesus knew what Peter was thinking, so “when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, ‘What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll-tax, from their sons or from strangers?’” (Matthew 17:25).
Peter answered, “From strangers.” Kings don’t tax their own children.
Jesus drew the logical conclusion for Peter: “Then the sons are exempt” (Matthew 17:26). In other words, Jesus had absolute heavenly authority, if He desired, to opt out of the temple tax.
But if He did that, it would send the wrong message as far as earthly authority is concerned. Better to submit, pay the tax, and avoid a situation most people would not understand. So although Jesus was not technically obligated to pay the temple tax, he said, “However, so that we do not offend them, go to the sea and throw in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for you and Me” (Matthew 17:27).
As Christ’s example is the ultimate of all time, from it Peter learned to submit to earthly authority in his own ministry. He also encouraged his converts to do so, too, thereby following Christ’s example:
… in 1 Peter 2:13–18, he would write,
Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.
That is a tall order to fulfil, especially when governments are tyrannical and employers unreasonable.
MacArthur reminds us:
Remember, the man who wrote that epistle was the same man who when he was young and brash slashed off the ear of the high priest’s servant. He is the same man who once struggled over the idea of Jesus’ paying taxes. But he learned to submit—not an easy lesson for a natural leader. Peter especially was inclined to be dominant, forceful, aggressive, and resistant to the idea of submission. But Jesus taught him to submit willingly, even when he thought he had a good argument for refusing to submit.
MacArthur’s posts came at a serendipitous time, just as Peter’s great works and miracles are the subject of where I am in Acts (most recently here and here). Peter will be the dominant Apostle for the next few weeks.
Let us remember MacArthur’s words of wisdom as we read more about this great saint in the weeks ahead.
End of series
At the weekend, I wrote about Acts 9:36-43, the account of Peter raising Dorcas from the dead.
Dorcas became a role model for charity, particularly for women. It is not unusual to find stained glass windows depicting her, especially in Anglican and Episcopal churches. The example on the left comes courtesy of Wikipedia and can be found in St. Michael’s Parish Church, Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire.
Dorcas Societies — Dorcas Circles in the US — exist today in many churches around the world. They are known not only for supplying clothes to the needy, which is what Dorcas did, but also food and practical help to those who need material assistance.
Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican (including Episcopal) and Lutheran Churches celebrate her feast day on January 27 (Protestant) or October 25 (Eastern Orthodox and Catholic). The Catholic Church calls her St Tabitha. Protestants have a joint feast day remembering Dorcas, Lydia of Thyatira and Phoebe, two other notable women of the early Church — and the New Testament.
The early theologian, Basil of Caesarea (St Basil the Great), referred to Dorcas in his work, Morals (rule 74):
That a widow who enjoys sufficiently robust health should spend her life in works of zeal and solicitude, keeping in mind the words of the Apostle and the example of Dorcas.
She is also commemorated in poems by Robert Herrick (“The Widows’ Tears: Or, Dirge of Dorcas”) and George MacDonald (“Dorcas”) as well as in religious paintings.
Last week, I wrote about two of John MacArthur’s Grace To You blog posts about St Peter.
MacArthur had three more, all from the end of July 2017, which I have just found.
My post today excerpts MacArthur’s entry of July 26, ‘Peter: Raw material for leadership’. Excerpts follow, emphases mine.
So often, we think only of Peter of the Gospels rather than Peter post-Pentecost. As I explained last week, Peter had a powerful, Spirit-driven ministry, which included healing miracles. Yesterday’s post concerned his raising — through the power of Christ Jesus — Dorcas from the dead.
Jesus prepared his friend and Apostle for the future. MacArthur opens his post with this:
Are great leaders born or made? Peter is a strong argument for both. Without the Lord’s discipleship and tutelage, he never would have been more than a fisherman. But true leaders also require certain innate gifts—think of it as the raw material of leadership.
Peter had the God-given fabric of leadership woven into his personality from the beginning. Of course, it was the Lord who fashioned him this way in his mother’s womb (cf. Psalm 139:13–16).
MacArthur details the raw leadership characteristics that made Peter into a great Apostle.
Peter was inquisitive:
Leaders need to have an insatiable curiosity. They need to be people who are hungry to find answers. Knowledge is power. Whoever has the information has the lead. If you want to find a leader, look for someone who is asking the right questions and genuinely looking for answers …
In the gospel accounts, Peter asks more questions than all the other apostles combined. It was usually Peter who asked the Lord to explain His difficult sayings (Matthew 15:15; Luke 12:41). It was Peter who asked how often he needed to forgive (Matthew 18:21). It was Peter who asked what reward the disciples would get for having left everything to follow Jesus (Matthew 19:27). It was Peter who asked about the withered fig tree (Mark 11:21). It was Peter who asked questions of the risen Christ (John 21:20–22). He always wanted to know more, to understand better. And that sort of inquisitiveness is a foundational element of a true leader.
Peter showed initiative:
If a man is wired for leadership, he will have drive, ambition, and energy. A true leader must be the kind of person who makes things happen. He is a starter. Notice that Peter not only asked questions; he was also usually the first one to answer any question posed by Christ. He often charged right in where angels fear to tread.
There was that famous occasion when Jesus asked, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13). Several opinions were circulating among the people about that. “And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets’” (Matthew 16:14). Jesus then asked the disciples in particular, “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15, emphasis added). It was at that point that Peter boldly spoke out above the rest: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). The other disciples were still processing the question, like schoolboys afraid to speak up lest they give the wrong answer. Peter was bold and decisive. That’s a vital characteristic of all great leaders. Sometimes he had to take a step back, undo, retract, or be rebuked. But the fact that he was always willing to grab opportunity by the throat marked him as a natural leader.
Of course, Peter made some glaring errors in judgement, such as his attack on the high priest’s servant in the Garden of Gethsemane during Jesus’s arrest:
A typical Roman cohort consisted of six hundred soldiers, so in all likelihood there were hundreds of battle-ready Roman troops in and around the garden that night. Without hesitating, Peter pulled out his sword and took a swing at the head of Malchus, the servant of the high priest. (The high priest and his personal staff would have been in the front of the mob, because he was the dignitary ordering the arrest.) Peter was undoubtedly trying to cut the man’s head off. But Peter was a fisherman, not a swordsman. Malchus ducked, and his ear was severed. So Jesus “touched his ear and healed him” (Luke 22:51). Then He told Peter, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52).
Think about that incident. There was an entire detachment of Roman soldiers there—perhaps numbering in the hundreds. What did Peter think he was going to do? Behead them all, one by one? Sometimes in Peter’s passion for taking the initiative, he overlooked the obvious big-picture realities.
Properly channelled, Peter was able to use his initiative to build the numbers of the early Church:
… to do the task Christ had for him, he needed moxie, chutzpa—courage to stand up in Jerusalem on Pentecost and preach the gospel in the face of the same population who had lately executed their own Messiah. But Peter was just the sort of fellow who could be trained to take that kind of courageous initiative.
Peter got involved:
There’s a third element of the raw material that makes a true leader: involvement. True leaders are always in the middle of the action. They do not sit in the background telling everyone else what to do while they live a life of comfort away from the fray. A true leader goes through life with a cloud of dust around him. That is precisely why people follow him. People cannot follow someone who remains distant. The true leader must show the way. He goes before his followers into the battle.
Jesus came to the disciples one night out in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, walking on the water in the midst of a violent storm. Who out of all the disciples jumped out of the boat? Peter. There’s the Lord, he must have thought. I’m here; I’ve got to go where the action is. The other disciples wondered if they were seeing a ghost (Matthew 14:26). But Peter said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” Jesus answered, “Come” (Matthew 14:27–28)—and before anyone knew it, Peter was out of the boat, walking on the water. The rest of the disciples were still clinging to their seats, trying to make sure they didn’t fall overboard in the storm. But Peter was out of the boat without giving it a second thought. That is involvement—serious involvement. Only after he left the boat and walked some distance did Peter think about the danger and start to sink.
People often look at that incident and criticize Peter’s lack of faith. But let’s give him credit for having faith to leave that boat in the first place. Before we disparage Peter for the weakness that almost brought him down, we ought to remember where he was when he began to sink.
And, in the early hours of Good Friday, although Peter denied Jesus three times, Peter — and John — followed Jesus to the high priest’s house:
And in the courtyard of the high priest’s house, Peter was the only one close enough for Jesus to turn and look him in the eyes when the rooster crowed (Luke 22:61). Long after the other disciples had forsaken Christ and fled in fear for their lives, Peter was virtually alone in a position where such a temptation could snare him, because despite his fear and weakness, he couldn’t abandon Christ completely. That’s the sign of a true leader. When almost everyone else bailed out, he tried to stay as close to his Lord as he could get. He wasn’t the kind of leader who is content to send messages to the troops from afar. He had a passion to be personally involved, so he is always found close to the heart of the action.
I will post on MacArthur’s other two articles about Peter. I hope these will give all of us a more positive perspective on this great saint who did not hesitate to preach Christ and Christ alone.
The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Dorcas Restored to Life
36 Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas.[a] She was full of good works and acts of charity. 37 In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, “Please come to us without delay.” 39 So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics[b] and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. 40 But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. 41 And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then, calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. 42 And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43 And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner.
——————————————————————————————————-
Last week’s post, about Peter’s healing of the paralytic Aeneas, explained why St Luke — who wrote Acts — shifted focus for a few chapters from Saul (St Paul) to Peter. Briefly, Saul had fled Jerusalem for his home city of Tarsus for a time.
Peter had a dramatic ministry:
Acts 2:33-35 – Peter, Pentecost, Peter’s first sermon, Jesus the Messiah and Lord
Acts 4:22 – Peter, John, the lame man, miracle, healing miracle (includes Acts 3:4-10)
Acts 5:1-6 – Ananias, Peter, lying to the Holy Spirit and God, hypocrisy, sin, deception, death
Acts 5:7-11 – Sapphira, Peter, testing the Holy Spirit, deception, death, sin
Acts 5:12-16 – Signs and wonders, healing miracles, miracles, the Apostles, Peter, women
Acts 8:14-25 – Philip, Simon Magus, sorcery, money, divine gifts, God, Holy Spirit, Peter, John
Acts 9:32-35 — Peter, healing miracle, Aeneas
The following post also gives insight into Peter’s character and personality:
Peter was ministering in Lydda, which was where he healed Aeneas. Last week’s post had more on Lydda, past and present.
Lydda was close to Joppa, where Dorcas lived. The city’s modern name is Jaffa. BiblePlaces.com has a good page on the history of the port accompanied by photographs. It is near Tel Aviv and is not to be confused with Haifa, which is a modern port created by the Israelis.
The name Dorcas is Greek. Dorcas’s name in Aramaic was Tabitha. Both translate as ‘gazelle’ or, as Matthew Henry notes, ‘doe’, signifying a pleasing creature. She was a baptised convert and her life’s work was devoted to others (verse 36). Henry elaborates (emphases mine):
1. She lived at Joppa, a sea-port town in the tribe of Dan, where Jonah took shipping to go to Tarshish, now called Japho. 2. Her name was Tabitha, a Hebrew name, the Greek for which is Dorcas, both signifying a doe, or hind, or deer, a pleasant creature. Naphtali is compared to a hind let loose, giving goodly words; and the wife to the kind and tender husband is as the loving hind, and as the pleasant roe, Proverbs 5:19. 3. She was a disciple, one that had embraced the faith of Christ and was baptized; and not only so, but was eminent above many for works of charity. She showed her faith by her works, her good works, which she was full of, that is, in which she abounded. Her head was full of cares and contrivances which way she should do good. She devised liberal things, Isaiah 32:8. Her hands were full of good employment; she made a business of doing good, was never idle, having learned to maintain good works (Titus 3:8), to keep up a constant course and method of them. She was full of good works, as a tree that is full of fruit. Many are full of good words, who are empty and barren in good works; but Tabitha was a great doer, no great talker: Non magna loquimur, sed vivimus–We do not talk great things, but we live them. Among other good works, she was remarkable for her alms–deeds, which she did, not only her works of piety, which are good works and the fruits of faith, but works of charity and beneficence, flowing from love to her neighbour and a holy contempt of this world.
Dorcas was a seamstress who made clothes for the poor. She fell ill and died. The widows who attended to her prepared her body but, instead of burying her, laid her in an upper room (verse 37). John MacArthur explains:
Now, the custom of the Jews at death was immediately to bury the body, since they did not do any embalming. They would merely do what they called the washing, the Mishnah prescribed a certain washing, and then the burial immediately. But in this case, they didn’t bury her, which was very unusual, because dead bodies were a very unsacred thing in Israel to a Jew, and they didn’t let dead bodies hang around.
Henry adds information about the water and says the room where Dorcas was laid out could well have been the meeting place for the disciples of Joppa:
… they washed the dead body, according to the custom, which, it is said, was with warm water, which, if there were any life remaining in the body, would recover it; so that this was done to show that she was really and truly dead. They tried all the usual methods to bring her to life, and could not. Conclamatum est–the last cry was uttered. They laid her out in her grave-clothes in an upper chamber, which Dr. Lightfoot thinks was probably the public meeting-room for the believers of that town; and they laid the body there, that Peter, if he would come, might raise her to life the more solemnly in that place.
MacArthur goes on to say:
They know Peter’s nearby, and they also know Peter has the power to raise the dead if the design of God is that; and so rather than burying her with great faith, they take her body and they stick it upstairs in the upper chamber.
The disciples in Joppa sent two men to Lydda to get Peter to make the ten-mile walk to see Dorcas (verse 38). They did not tell Peter why they came, but simply said he needed to go with them right away.
Peter needed no persuading and went with the men to Joppa. When they reached the house of Dorcas, the grieving widows showed him some of her handiwork, among them undergarment tunics (verse 39).
Henry wrote that the widows were likely to have been poor and recipients of her charity. MacArthur thinks that the widows helped her and that she led their ministry, the original Dorcas Circle.
There must have been quite a hubbub, as Dorcas was a pillar of her community. Peter, as Jesus did when He raised Jairus’s daughter, got everyone outside (verse 40). No doubt, the widows wanted to see what he would do, but Peter — as did Jesus — needed to be alone.
Peter knelt and prayed. Henry points out that this was a greater task than healing Aeneas. It involved restoring life:
in this greater work he addressed himself to God by solemn prayer, as Christ when he raised Lazarus; but Christ’s prayer was with the authority of a Son, who quickens whom he will; Peter’s with the submission of a servant, who is under direction, and therefore he knelt down and prayed.
Peter turned to the woman, and, as is so often with the miracles documented in the New Testament, asked her to do something, in this case, arise.
She opened her eyes and, upon seeing Peter, sat up. He extended his hand to Dorcas, which Henry says was not done solely to help her but also to welcome her back to life. He then summoned the ‘saints’ — quite possibly, including male disciples — and the widows to see Dorcas restored to life (verse 41).
News travelled quickly around Joppa and many more souls believed in the Lord (verse 42). Henry was certain that word of the miracle extended beyond that port city:
… it being a town of seafaring men, the notice of it would be the sooner carried thence to other countries, and though some never minded it many were wrought upon by it. This was the design of miracles, to confirm a divine revelation.
Peter stayed in Joppa for some time, at the home of a tanner named Simon (verse 43). Luke’s inclusion of Simon’s occupation is an important detail. Tanning leather was one of the lowliest occupations. Even today, tanning, whilst necessary, is looked down upon. It is a smelly business.
MacArthur explains:
One of the most despicable trades in the mind of a Jew was that of a tanner, because a tanner, you see, dealt with the dead…the skin of dead animals, making leather. No self-respecting Jew would have anything to do with a tanner. He was despised; and, in fact, the Mishnah said if a woman had a husband who took on the trade of a tanner, she had the right to divorce him, because he went into something so defiled. A tanner was not respected. Not only that, it was ceremonially unclean.
However, Peter chose to stay with a tanner, revealing that, even though he knew all the social opprobrium about the occupation. Peter lodged with someone who was among the lowest of the low.
MacArthur adds that Peter’s stay was not a short one, either:
He stuck around a couple years, and the whole time he lived in Simon’s house, and he never turned him into a carpenter. He let him be what he was. He didn’t make him change.
I would not be surprised if Simon’s social status increased as a result. Peter might have taught the people of Joppa a valuable lesson in inclusion and humility.
Next time: Acts 10:1-8
And so he should.
All week long, the media have told us all about the Far Right people in Charlottesville, but nothing about the violent Alt-Left who were there. I wrote about Antifa and others yesterday.
To recap, this Charlottesville thing was a set-up designed to bring President Donald Trump down. The Far Right and the Far Left were actors and pawns used — and paid — by powerful Trump enemies. I explained why earlier in the week.
President Donald Trump made a statement on Saturday, August 12, 2017 rightly condemning both sides — while the melée was still going on. Big Media weren’t happy because he said the Left as well as the Right were involved in the violence. He made another statement on Monday, August 14, focussing on the Right. No one was happy, including his supporters. On Tuesday, August 15 at Trump Tower — because the White House is being renovated — he took the gloves off.
The interruptions from reporters were epic and uncalled for. A black Trump-supporting talk show host rightly pointed out:
Apparently …
One can imagine the president was well and truly fed up.
How many statements does he need to make about this?
So, he asked the media, ‘What about the Alt-Left?’ That occurs about halfway through this video, which is only part of the press conference, which was supposed to be about his new infrastructure policies, which is why Trump was flanked by newly married treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and transportation secretary Elaine Chao. Instead, it was mostly about Charlottesville. Watch the body language and note the welcome absence of a teleprompter:
Elaine Chao looks on in admiration. She’s married to do-nothing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky).
This is the next part, which is about violent activists pulling down Confederate statues. Trump asks where it will stop and if Washington and Jefferson are next:
Asking how far these unhinged radicals will go led to a confrontation between Trump and the always complaining, ever-interrupting Jim Acosta from CNN, who, as I said yesterday, needs his press pass pulled — permanently. In fact, CNN should be suspended indefinitely from press briefings:
The White House issued a summary of talking points about the press conference. Particularly enjoyable is the bullet point that reads (emphases mine below):
The media reacted with hysteria to the notion that counter-protesters showed up with clubs spoiling for a fight, a fact that reporters on the ground have repeatedly stated.
Hilarious — and so true.
The Daily Wire, not necessarily a pro-Trump site, enjoyed it. It was vintage Trump — the man so many voted for — for sure. Excerpts follow from ‘Trump’s Epic Presser Clarifies Three Truths That Have Driven The MSM Insane’ (emphases of numbered items in the original):
During a fiery question and answer session with the leftwing media Tuesday afternoon, President Trump arrived loaded for bear. The presser was vintage Trump. Combative, oftentimes hilarious, and filled with deeply satisfying moments that sometimes happen when Trump is at his best, moments when stark truths are finally said out loud, and by the President of the United States, no less.
… Trump appeared to enjoy every moment of the hostile back and forth. Moreover, he had three truths he wanted to communicate to the American people, and so that is exactly what he did and we are now a better country for it.
1. “Not all of those people were neo-Nazis.”
Trump again blasted the white supremacists in Charlottesville, and he also tore into the man charged with driving his car into a group of Antifa counter-protesters as a “disgrace to his family and country … a murderer.”
However, Trump also pointed out that not everyone who protested that day against the removal of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s statue is a racist …
The media’s response to this truth has been unhinged. They are claiming Trump believes there are good people in the white supremacist movement. This despite the fact he made clear — without being asked — that this is exactly what he did not mean:
I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists.
And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers.
2. “Are we going to take down statues to George Washington?”
Although Trump made clear that he believes, and appropriately so, that the decision to remove statues should be left to local governments, he also made another clarifying point: Where does this madness end? …
Acosta kept saying, ‘No, sir. No, sir,’ but I’ve seen this many times before in my lifetime: mission creep — smoking bans being a primary example.
Back to the article, which also suggests mission creep:
Quite hilariously the disingenuous is pretending Trump is insane for lumping together Lee with Jefferson and Washington, even though the calls from the Left to memory-hole our slave-owning Founding Fathers, to remove their statues and tributes, have been floated for more than a decade.
Where will it end?
Lincoln was serious about freeing the slaves and shipping them back to Africa. West Virginia is lousy with tributes to Klansman (and Democrat) Robert Byrd. Ulysses Grant owned slaves. Franklin Roosevelt interned the Japanese.
The media can pretend the Left’s Taliban-ish crusade for historical purity is not real, but it is, and Americans know it.
3. “There was violence on both sides.”
This is, without question, the most important point the president made, and he made it repeatedly.
Post-Charlottesville, the MSM’s shameless propaganda push, their audacious and coordinated attempt to write the culpability of Antifa out of Saturday’s riot is not only Orwellian, it is (and this is by design) dangerous. The media obviously wants Antifa motivated and out there, wants their own personal army of Brownshirts fanning out across the country to break heads, not just of Nazis but of everyday Trump supporters, of anyone on the Right who dares hold an unacceptable opinion.
Trump was having none of it:
What I’m saying is this. You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and it was horrible. And it was a horrible thing to watch.
But there is another side. There was a group on this side, you can call them the Left. You’ve just called them the Left — that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that’s the way it is. …
I think there’s blame on both sides. … I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say [so].
The article concludes:
Today, he dragged the media’s favorite leftwing supremacists out into the spotlight.
Trump’s taking hell for it, but he is doing the only moral thing — telling the truth.
Indeed, and Trump supporters are most grateful. I hope this happens more often. I really do. Chief of Staff General John F Kelly was also there standing to Steven Mnuchin’s left, and it is unclear whether he disapproved of Trump’s truth telling or if he was annoyed with the media. He looked out, he looked down, but was enigmatic. By contrast, Mnuchin was trying to suppress a grin every now and then.
Whatever the case with the lying media:
From the Christian Post article:
While some, like Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer, have claimed that there is a “direct line” between the events in Charlottesville and the choices Trump made in his 2016 presidential campaign, conservative African-American clergy members, scholars and political activists decried such an argument in a Monday press conference at the National Press Club.
Organized by The Center of Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit think tank founded by conservative political commentator and activist Star Parker, the press conference was originally scheduled for the purpose of praising the Trump administration’s plan to revitalize inner cities. But given the events of last weekend — where clashes between white supremacists and counter-protesters became deadly — Charlottesville and the related issue of racial conflict dominated much of the talk in the news conference …
The Rev. Derek McCoy, CURE’s executive vice president who also directs the CURE National Clergy Network, was the first to respond to the question.
“One thing you need to understand — you are saying that the president is the instigator and I think that is absolutely wrong. No, it is not disingenuous,” McCoy asserted. “The president made his comments and we are not standing up here to say that we are best friends with everything the president does but he is in an office that we all respect. … If we are looking about how we can move our country forward, we are trying to make sure that we do that collectively together.”
Corrogan Vaughn, a political activist who ran against Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland in the 2016 election, argued that those in the media who blame Trump for the racial tension in the United States are trying to turn Trump into a “villain.”
“Don’t make our commander in chief a villain when in actuality it is more the villainess of the media in terms of making something where nothing is,” Vaughn stated.
Well said.
Who are more credible, these good people or the lying media?
This week in America with regard to matters domestic was nothing short of demonic.
It showed that a spiritual battle is going on of epic proportions. As horrible as it was, we are seeing only the surface. Things will get worse before they get better.
We know about the far right, so let’s look at the far left, since the media won’t.
The Far Left
After Charlottesville, the Far Left continued their rampage by tearing down a Confederate statue in Durham, North Carolina:
On Tuesday, August 15, the local ABC affiliate WTVD reported (emphases mine below):
Durham County sheriff’s deputies arrested a woman who said she took part in toppling the Confederate statue in downtown Durham. More arrests are expected.
Takiyah Thompson, 22, was taken into custody shortly after protesters held a news conference Tuesday afternoon at North Carolina Central University. Thompson climbed a ladder to the top of the statue to tie a rope around its neck before the crowd tore it down.
Thompson is charged with:
-
- disorderly conduct by injury to a statue (Class II Misdemeanor)
- damage to real property (statue as a fixture (Class I Misdemeanor)
- participation in a riot with property damage in excess of $1,500 (Class H Felony)
- inciting others to riot where there is property damage in excess of $1,500 (Class F Felony)
The protesters who took part in toppling Confederate statue in Durham on Monday held the news conference Tuesday to call for the dropping of any charges related to the incident.
Thompson was given a $10,000 unsecured bond. She bonded out at 5:48 p.m. The World Worker’s Party Durham chapter has set up a legal defense fund to help fight her case in court.
Deputies said Tuesday night that investigators continue to search for other suspects in the removal of the statue.
“The people decided to take matters into our own hands and remove the statue,” said Thompson, a member of the Communist-platform Workers World Party and a student at N.C. Central University. “We are tired of waiting on politicians who could have voted to remove the white supremacist statues years ago, but they failed to act. So we acted” …
At a news conference, Durham County manager Wendell Davis called pulling the statue down “unlawful and inappropriate”.
Wendell Davis is black. So are other Durham County officials.
The New York Post had details about the jail sentences accompanying the felony charges:
Takiya Thompson, 22, has been charged with disorderly conduct by injury to a statue, damage to real property, participation in a riot with property damage in excess of $1,500 — and inciting others to riot where there is property damage in excess of $1,500, according to the Durham County Sheriff’s Office.
The last two offenses are Class H and Class F felonies, with each carrying a sentence of up to 25 months and 41 months behind bars, respectively.
Interestingly, the left-of-centre and anti-Trump magazine The Atlantic recently published an article, ‘The Rise of the Violent Left’.
The author, Peter Beinart, posits:
Antifa’s activists say they’re battling burgeoning authoritarianism on the American right. Are they fueling it instead?
Yes, they are.
Beinart catalogues the various events that Antifa’s violence have cancelled in recent months. The Far Left group does not want any conservatives, Republicans or Trump supporters (not every Trump supporter identifies with either of those two groups) to hold or participate in any public gatherings.
Antifa and similar groups get a degree of ideological support from Democrats. Beinart explains:
For progressives, Donald Trump is not just another Republican president. Seventy-six percent of Democrats, according to a Suffolk poll from last September, consider him a racist. Last March, according to a YouGov survey, 71 percent of Democrats agreed that his campaign contained “fascist undertones.”
He’s anything but. Check YouTube for old videos of him helping the black community in New York. Here’s one for starters. I think it’s his Alpha masculinity that the Left — including Democrats — finds triggering.
Beinart goes into the history of Antifa:
“antifa,” which is short for antifascist or Anti-Fascist Action. The movement’s secrecy makes definitively cataloging its activities difficult, but this much is certain: Antifa’s power is growing. And how the rest of the activist left responds will help define its moral character in the Trump age.
Antifa traces its roots to the 1920s and ’30s, when militant leftists battled fascists in the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain. When fascism withered after World War II, antifa did too. But in the ’70s and ’80s, neo-Nazi skinheads began to infiltrate Britain’s punk scene. After the Berlin Wall fell, neo-Nazism also gained prominence in Germany. In response, a cadre of young leftists, including many anarchists and punk fans, revived the tradition of street-level antifascism.
In the late ’80s, left-wing punk fans in the United States began following suit, though they initially called their groups Anti-Racist Action, on the theory that Americans would be more familiar with fighting racism than fascism. According to Mark Bray, the author of the forthcoming Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, these activists toured with popular alternative bands in the ’90s, trying to ensure that neo-Nazis did not recruit their fans. In 2002, they disrupted a speech by the head of the World Church of the Creator, a white-supremacist group in Pennsylvania; 25 people were arrested in the resulting brawl.
Then things went quiet. Beinart says that these activists focussed on anti-capitalist activities.
He says that Antifa re-emerged from the time Trump ran in the Republican primaries in 2016. The activists garnered support from the mainstream Left:
An article in The Nation argued that “to call Trumpism fascist” is to realize that it is “not well combated or contained by standard liberal appeals to reason.” The radical left, it said, offers “practical and serious responses in this political moment.”
That includes violence.
Some Democrat-dominated cities, such as Portland, Oregon, have become defined by Antifa. Portland had days of violent protests after Trump won the presidential election on November 8, 2016. Other protests have taken place since then.
This sets a worrying precedent, because Antifa don’t like the police or local government, either, even when those officials are Democrats:
What’s eroding in Portland is the quality Max Weber considered essential to a functioning state: a monopoly on legitimate violence. As members of a largely anarchist movement, antifascists don’t want the government to stop white supremacists from gathering. They want to do so themselves, rendering the government impotent. With help from other left-wing activists, they’re already having some success at disrupting government. Demonstrators have interrupted so many city-council meetings that in February, the council met behind locked doors.
Meanwhile, Trump supporters are frustrated. They see Democrats buckling to Antifa demands:
Joey Gibson, a Trump supporter who organized the June 4 Portland rally, told me that his “biggest pet peeve is when mayors have police stand down … They don’t want conservatives to be coming together and speaking.”
Meeting with violence is another concern of Trump supporters and Republicans:
To provide security at the rally, Gibson brought in a far-right militia called the Oath Keepers. In late June, James Buchal, the chair of the Multnomah County Republican Party, announced that it too would use militia members for security, because “volunteers don’t feel safe on the streets of Portland.”
Beinart concludes:
Revulsion, fear, and rage are understandable. But one thing is clear. The people preventing Republicans from safely assembling on the streets of Portland may consider themselves fierce opponents of the authoritarianism growing on the American right. In truth, however, they are its unlikeliest allies.
The media
Because the media are almost universally Democrats, they will defend Far Left groups and even deny their existence. After all, someone has to protest Trump and his supporters. If they have to use violence, so be it.
And, it is interesting to see who the Left defines as ‘far right’, for instance, this multiracial group of readers and contributors to /pol/4chan. It’s difficult to describe /pol/ fans other than to say that they are young people who oppose political correctness and enjoy making fun of the Left. For that, they get branded as a hate group. I’m not necessarily defending them, but activists can take things way too far.
Returning to — and closing with — the media, watch for the Charlottesville story to run and run, while other incidents past and present are conveniently swept under the rug.
The media are shameful.
Trump will have to direct his communications office to begin revoking press passes, starting with CNN’s Jim Acosta, who has been belligerent from the beginning and known for interrupting Trump. He did so again the other day. More on that tomorrow.
Last week, a media frenzy ensued over President Donald Trump’s words about North Korea.
Here is MSNBC’s Brian Williams on the subject. From August 9, 2017:
He actually does say at the beginning of that segment:
Our job, actually, tonight, Malcolm, is to scare people to death.
For those who do not know, Williams has told some whopping lies in the past. In fact, they were so outrageous that he was suspended from his job as NBC news anchor in 2015. Before his suspension, he was the 23rd most trusted person in America. Afterwards, he plummeted to the 835th spot.
Unfortunately, he was given his own show on sister channel MSNBC, The 11th Hour. (The video above is from that programme.) In February 2017, Williams had the gall to devote an entire segment on his show to President Trump’s ‘lying’. Amazing.
I’m writing this post on Tuesday, August 15. This is what has happened recently between the US, North Korea and China. China holds much control over North Korea, particularly in terms of trade and labour.
It’s also worth noting that the Korean War never came to an official end (emphases mine below):
The United States has remained technically at war with North Korea since the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. The past six decades have been punctuated by periodic rises in antagonism and rhetoric that have always stopped short of a resumption of active hostilities.
On August 8, CNBC News reported that China would pay a heavy price for abiding by UN sanctions against North Korea:
China will pay the biggest price from the new United Nations sanctions against North Korea because of its close economic relationship with the country, but will always enforce the resolutions, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.
The United Nations Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Saturday that could slash its $3 billion annual export revenue by a third …
China has repeatedly said it is committed to enforcing increasingly tough U.N. resolutions on North Korea, though it has also said what it terms “normal” trade and ordinary North Koreans should not be affected.
The latest U.N. resolution bans North Korean exports of coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood. It also prohibits countries from increasing the numbers of North Korean laborers currently working abroad, bans new joint ventures with North Korea and any new investment in current joint ventures …
China appreciated comments earlier this month by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that the United States does not seek to topple the North Korean government and would like dialogue with Pyongyang at some point, Wang added.
The United States does not seek regime change, the collapse of the regime, an accelerated reunification of the peninsula or an excuse to send the U.S. military into North Korea, Tillerson said.
That same day, North Korea threatened to launch missiles at Guam, a strategic US territory. CNBC News reported:
North Korea said on Wednesday it is “carefully examining” a plan to strike the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam with missiles, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump told the North that any threat to the United States would be met with “fire and fury”.
A spokesman for the Korean People’s Army, in a statement carried by the North’s state-run KCNA news agency, said the strike plan will be “put into practice in a multi-current and consecutive way any moment” once leader Kim Jong Un makes a decision.
In another statement citing a different military spokesman, North Korea also said it could carry out a pre-emptive operation if the United States showed signs of provocation …
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” Trump told reporters at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
On Sunday, August 13, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson posted an op-ed, ‘We’re Holding Pyongyang to Account’, lucidly explaining what the US is doing and why. An excerpt follows:
The object of our peaceful pressure campaign is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. has no interest in regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea. We do not seek an excuse to garrison U.S. troops north of the Demilitarized Zone. We have no desire to inflict harm on the long-suffering North Korean people, who are distinct from the hostile regime in Pyongyang.
Our diplomatic approach is shared by many nations supporting our goals, including China, which has dominant economic leverage over Pyongyang. China is North Korea’s neighbor, sole treaty ally and main commercial partner. Chinese entities are, in one way or another, involved with roughly 90% of North Korean trade. This affords China an unparalleled opportunity to assert its influence with the regime. Recent statements by members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as other regional and global voices, have made clear the international community holds one view regarding North Korea’s provocative and dangerous actions: They must stop. Pyongyang must stand down on those actions.
China has a strong incentive to pursue the same goals as the U.S. The North Korean regime’s actions and the prospect of nuclear proliferation or conflict threaten the economic, political and military security China has worked to build over decades. North Korea’s behavior further threatens China’s long-term interest in regional peace and stability. If China wishes to play a more active role in securing regional peace and stability—from which all of us, especially China, derive such great benefit—it must make the decision to exercise its decisive diplomatic and economic leverage over North Korea …
This 2017 Brookings Institution paper written by Fu Ying, a Chinese lady who has been part of China’s government for many years, namely in foreign affairs and ambassadorships, backs up Tillerson’s words about China’s desire to secure regional peace and stability.
On Monday, August 14, President Trump took action on trade with China to level the playing field for the United States.
The first of the three actions relates to intellectual property rights:
The People’s Republic of China has implemented laws, policies, and practices and has taken actions related to intellectual property, innovation, and technology that encourage the transfer of American technology and intellectual property to enterprises in China and otherwise affect American economic interests. This restricts U.S. exports, deprives U.S. citizens of the right to fair remuneration for their innovation, contributes to our trade deficit with respect to China, and undermines efforts to strengthen American manufacturing, services, and innovation.
For example, U.S. companies can be required to enter into joint ventures with Chinese companies if they want to do business in China, resulting in Chinese companies forcibly acquiring U.S. intellectual property. Americans are the world’s most prolific innovators, creating the greatest technologies, products, and companies. They should not be forced or coerced to turn over the fruits of their labor.
The President is also standing strong against the theft of American IP, including defense-related technologies. The costs of intellectual property theft alone to the U.S. economy are estimated to be as high as $600 billion a year. Such thefts not only damage American companies, they also threaten our national security.
Consequences of China’s reported actions may include: lost or reduced U.S. sales, exports, and jobs in key technology sectors; loss of intellectual property or proprietary technology to Chinese companies; loss of competitive position in the marketplace or in business negotiations; and network security costs, legal fees, and other costs.
The president then issued a memorandum for the US trade representative. This is Section 2, allowing him to authorise an investigation into China’s practices with regard to US trade:
The United States Trade Representative shall determine, consistent with section 302(b) of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2412(b)), whether to investigate any of China’s laws, policies, practices, or actions that may be unreasonable or discriminatory and that may be harming American intellectual property rights, innovation, or technology development.
The third action was the issuance of a fact sheet with regard to American intellectual property and China. This fact is worth noting:
According to the IP Commission Report, China is estimated to be responsible for between 50 percent and 80 percent of all IP theft costs that harm the United States economy.
These actions met with praise by a variety of people — retired military officers, heads of defence companies, think tank experts and others. One of them, Professor Stefan Halper of the University of Cambridge, stated:
Since China joined the WTO in 2001, 2.4 million U.S. jobs have been lost and 60,000 U.S. manufacturing firms have been forced out of business. Entire regions of the country have been hollowed out. Intellectual property theft–70% by China–now costs the U.S. some $600 billion a year. A thorough review of this problem, and a rebalancing of the trade relationship, is urgent. The Administration is to be commended for initiating that today.
Later that day, North Korea backed down for now on the threats to launch missiles. Surprisingly, CNBC News was effusive:
After a weekend filled with a series of conciliatory statements from China, some of them downright surprising, the situation with North Korea seems to be less tense right now, which could be construed as a major win for the Trump team …
While these developments do not fully constitute a real solution to the potential threats North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs pose to the region and the world, everyone’s nervous meter seems to have gone down several notches …
Now if these sanctions hold and North Korea simply halts its ICBM launch tests, what many saw as some kind of massive fumble by the Trump team could easily turn into the administration’s biggest triumph of the year.
It will be a very easy narrative for President Trump and his aides to pursue if they make the point that the president’s tougher talk—that so many of his domestic critics condemned—seems to have moved China to finally do something meaningful to rein in North Korea.
By replacing President Trump’s threatening rhetoric with the more conciliatory and reasoned statements of Mattis and Tillerson, the U.S. has given up nothing. But those words may have forced China’s hand at long last.
All of this stems from a classic miscalculation by both Beijing and Pyongyang …
And Big Media, who fuelled the fire.
When will they learn?
You can’t stump the Trump!
On Friday, August 11, 2017 I reviewed President Donald Trump’s highly successful first 200 days in office.
I wrote then that I had more to cover on the topic.
Then events in Charlottesville, Virginia unfolded.
So, today, I am returning to Trump’s amazing success despite all the odds — and obstacles.
I was surprised to see a reporter at The Atlantic, an anti-Trump publication, come out on August 2 and actually say the US president is getting things done.
Although David A Graham must hold the magazine’s negative line towards him, the first half of ‘Trump Has Quietly Accomplished More Than It Appears’ is well worth reading. Excerpts follow, emphases mine:
Imagine, if you will, that there is a shadow government.
The actual government, the administration of Donald Trump, is coming off the worst week of his presidency, although there haven’t been any smooth weeks …
Things are going considerably better for the shadow government. With the Trump administration’s chaos sucking up all the attention, it’s been able to move forward on a range of its priorities, which tend to be more focused on regulatory matters anyway. It is remaking the justice system, rewriting environmental rules, overhauling public-lands administration, and greenlighting major infrastructure projects. It is appointing figures who will guarantee the triumph of its ideological vision for decades to come.
The trick here is that the administration and this shadow government are one and the same. Even as the public government sputters, other elements of the Trump administration are quietly remaking the nation’s regulatory landscape, especially on the environment and criminal justice.
There is so much attention paid to the chaos in the executive branch that it’s easy to come to believe that Trump is getting nothing whatsoever accomplished. Even for people who don’t support the president’s agenda—especially for them, in fact—it is useful to step back occasionally and take stock of what this presidency is doing to work toward its goals.
Trump’s complaints that the press is ignoring his victories in favor of covering controversies ring hollow. You can’t very well go around setting things on fire and then asking why the press keeps covering the fires. But warnings that the Trump administration is doing X to distract from Y seem misguided for a couple of reasons—one being that they ascribe a greater organization that the White House evinces in any other sphere, and another being that the supposedly distracting stories are often just as catastrophic. But the large-scale disasters do keep attention focused away from what smaller agencies are doing, as Ben Carson acknowledged recently.
“Let me put it this way,” the secretary of housing and urban development told the Washington Examiner. “I’m glad that Trump is drawing all the fire so I can get stuff done.”
Again, you won’t hear this from Big Media and their acolytes.
This is a short, instructive segment from MSNBC’s Morning Joe with former Republican (a weak one, at that) Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski (daughter of the late Johnson then Carter adviser and globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski). This is from February 2017:
The discussion is about how Trump will be able to take over the media narrative and ‘control exactly what people think’.
Mika firmly says:
That’s our job.
Trump has not yet won the media war, but he is regularly calling them out for the deceivers they are.
The US president and his cabinet are doing much to positively transform policy, and he’s only been in the job less than eight months. Some members of his cabinet have been in for far less time.
This is why, for the first time in decades (Bush I, to be precise), I echo this sentiment:
MAGA!
At the weekend, another new — and bad — media narrative appeared: Charlottesville.
Charlottesville is in Virginia and should not be confused with Charlotte, North Carolina.
By now, everyone reading this will have seen video footage and commentary on the violence.
Although no one will entertain talking about it in Big Media, this was likely to have been a false flag driven by powerful opponents to President Donald Trump and executed by extremist and disturbed minions on the left as well as the right.
We do not know all of the facts yet, therefore, further speculation is premature.
This was the president’s statement in full. In it, he said that many groups were responsible:
A professor who is an expert on nationalism concurred:
Fox News has a summary of those on the left and the right who complained about Trump’s statement. Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said:
“Donald Trump, I thought, was very explicitly clear in condemning what happened,” he said on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.” “He will never satisfy those who hate his every word.”
The Washington Examiner reported that Huckabee also said:
some people “cannot get over the fact he is president”.
A Department of Justice and FBI investigation is currently underway.
One hopes the investigators will find out exactly who issued the order for the police to stand down. The police are there to protect protesters who have a permit to demonstrate. Both left and right had permission to be there on Saturday, August 12. The left said they would be peaceful, but they came with the weapons, not the others. The police left defenceless people unable to fend off their aggressors. Then there was the guy in the car. You can see the footage here; also note the broken windscreens, front and rear.
The city — and the state — are governed by Democrats.
Trump supporters are highly suspicious of what took place. One says the events in Charlottesville look just like the Soros-engineered ones in Ukraine in 2014. Virginia declared a state of emergency and, as no one is talking about the violent left-wing groups, it would not be unreasonable to assume there could be calls for martial law in various states.
There are further indications that this could have been a false flag: a) a Soros-backed organisation was preparing to go days before Trump supporters (who, incidentally, did not go) learned of the event and b) the Charlottesville mayor worked with Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta at the Center for American Progress as well as on Obama’s transition team.
There was also a man whom MSNBC and the New York Times interviewed who happened to be at the protests in Charlottesville on Saturday. He worked for the State Department and managed a Democrat Virginia gubernatorial campaign. (Mirror link of the images is here, in case the other link is removed.)
Hmm. Never think the Deep State couldn’t be involved in this.
By the way, August 12 just happened to be Soros’s birthday.
All of this was designed to make Trump and his supporters look evil.
But, who is decrying the violent leftists there that day? No one in the media. Telling, isn’t it?
Condolences to the families of the lady and two state police officers who, sadly, lost their lives that day. I hope that those who were injured recover fully and soon.
