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The Trump administration plans major shift away from long-term housing for homelessness

The shelters around here have received a lot less government funding this year--so it doesn't seemg to be "shifting" funds, but instead just cutting them.

Then they will call in the National Guard to get the homeless rounded up, deported, etc. Our cities will look like police states. No wonder why Boston, NY, and Seattle have all elected Democrat Socialist mayors. It's a trend. Momdani got all the publicity--but it's not one person--it's a growing movement away from what many (if not most) freedom-lovers call fascism.

Eventually the justifiable anger (and rage) of the cities will spill out to the smaller cities, and towns, and villages across the country. Hopefully it will be channeled constructively into votes.
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Iran seizes tanker in Strait of Hormuz, US official says, as tensions remain high in region

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker as it traveled through the narrow Strait of Hormuz on Friday, a U.S. official said, turning the ship into Iranian territorial waters in the first-such interdiction in months in the strategic waterway.
Sounds like Operation Praying Mantis 2.0 is in order.
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Trump shouldn’t be fooled by Armenia’s corrupt and malicious prime minister

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Why do people hate ICE...

MAGA Rages at Kristi Noem Saying Trump Admin Has ‘Sped Up’ Legal Immigration Process

Noem was quickly dragged by prominent MAGA media influencers. The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh replied to a viral clip of her comments, “We do not want or need more people to become citizens.”

Steve Bannon’s White House correspondent Natalie Winters hit back, “Not sure what is worse: this actually happening or the admin thinking this is a ‘win.’”
@rjs330 - this seems to be the link you were requesting...
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Eve and the Fallacy of Moral Choices

My how the errors in choices creep in.



Adam received “the command” from God, the quite entirely infamous “do not eat OR ELSE” command that we apparently all fell under.

Eve was not yet separated and formed from Adam. But Eve apparently had heard the command. How so?

Gen. 3:
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

So we have 3 basic possibilities where this repeating of the command from God came from. We have no record of God repeating it to Eve. She may have had an inert or inner understanding of the command, being “within” Adam at the time, (God called them BOTH Adam on the day they were created-Gen. 5) OR the most likely source, Adam himself.

In any case Eve clearly got the command wrong, adding to it the statement that they may not “touch it.” God never said that. In fact they were meant to tend to the Garden and presumably every tree therein, inclusive of the infamous tree of knowledge of good/evil. An error was already in place and an unknown violation of God's Intentions for them, again most likely from the recount of Adam of that command, which would essentially prove his own fault in listening or retelling or tending the Garden. Or Eve made up the error herself, again showing error was in her own mind. In any case the command was mangled in her own mind and statements in stating the command to the serpent. She basically erred to the serpent and of course the serpent struck from there, getting her to consider making a “MORAL CHOICE.” Perhaps not even cognizant of the fact that she already erred.

So Eve starts her decision making with a built in fault. An error in recounting the exact command, to not “touch” the tree.

And here is where her decision making starts, all quite in line with making a good moral decision for herself:

Gen. 3:
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

A classic setup for making a moral choice.

Good/Pleasant/Wise. What could possibly go wrong?

What’s wrong with the picture is that we fail to see that lawlessness was already at work within both Adam, who never even bothered to correct Eve’s misstatement of the command, and Eve, showing that LUST, LUST and PRIDE was already within her, referring to this pattern stated by John in:

1 John 2:16
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

Basically the things of the Father were NOT in Eve, but things of the world: good for food, pleasant to the eyes, the pride of being wise. All seemingly legitimate on the surface using the world’s decision making moral choice methods.

I honestly would hardly find fault in the decision making process, that we all employ daily. In many ways this decision making course is required to even survive. We have to eat. We like to eat things that please our eyes and we certainly are not rewarded for making foolish decisions.

But you see none of these observations are even accurate. What is accurate is that the package of Adam and Eve came PREPACKAGED with FAULTS.

Paul outlined this clearly in 1 Cor. 15:42-46 showing us exactly the conditions that
Adam and “all” natural people are planted in. These 3 things also correlate to Eve’s built in flaws:

Planted in corruption
Planted in dishonor
Planted in weakness

Is there supposed to be some surprise if outcome of making decisions with those pre-existing conditions is not and can never be moral? We make every decision from those planted conditions. Basically being seeded in dung, within the darkness of earth, our own dust body.

And lets not ignore what really happened to both Adam and Eve. Where the Word is sown, Satan comes immediately in our hearts to STEAL, to SIN in our own hearts via THEFT.

Obviously both Adam and Eve were stolen from within.

I believe the tempter was already at work within them both from the moment they first heard the Words of God. Yet hardly a one of us can see it, because we too have been stolen from.

And in this state we can’t even be honest with ourselves about it.

Instead we’ll claim that we justify ourselves by making good moral decisions, even with the hard line fact of EVIL CHOICES WITHIN TO CHOOSE FROM.

Remember these Words from Jesus: EVIL COMES FROM WITHIN.

It’s not optional, so let’s not try to pull Jesus’ Leg about it claiming we’re legally obedient and making good moral cnoices. Evil thoughts defile us all, period.

Mark 7:21-23

You have to love an HONEST BOOK. And of course not everything is as it appears on the surface, or in the mirror

Did the beginning of the IDL change the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath?

Leo AL wrote:
I understand your perspective. You're suggesting that:
  1. The Sabbath is no longer binding for those outside of Israel, as it was originally given to the nation of Israel.
  2. The timing of the Sabbath is inconsistent due to the International Date Line, which creates a disconnect between the astronomical day and the day observed by those who attempt to keep the Sabbath.
I disagree with #1. I believe the Sabbath is no longer binding anywhere on Earth. God gave the New Covenant to all who dwell on Earth. It was promised in Jeremiah to Israel and Judah, and Jesus the Savior extended it to every living soul. The Sabbath command was never binding to any other nation.
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Is the Nicene creed supportive of Reformed Theology?

"For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried"
My denomination in its local expression really dislikes the atonement and I have been wanting to present source documents to preachers to challenge them. (I have even shown them their own official catechism). Most of our preachers would simply find comfort and support for their liberal theology from this section. What they DON'T like is the Father giving His Son in order in anyway to assuage His anger at our rebellion.
I wish this foundational creed was stronger on Jesus dying for our SINS (our rebellion against God)
Is this a problem for the reformed. or can we just say that this creed was put together in response to the attacks on the person of Christ rather than His work?
What you describe is penal substitution. It's perfectly possible to believe that Christ died for us without believing that it was needed to assuage God's anger. E.g. one could take Paul's view that through union with Christ we pass from bondage to sin to freedom. Calvin proposed something similar to that: that our mystical union with Christ creates a "community of righteousness" with him.

"For our sake" doesn't commit us to any specific theory of the atonement. I don't think you need to apologize for it. It's not a Reformed confession. It's a more generic statement of Christianity.
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Pope Leo instructions now is Jesus apparition not true.

I was just reading from Wisdom this morning. God-breathed text. Actually early Christians, inspired by the Holy Spirit, decided upon 73 books for the Bible. They did so in accordance with the deposit of the faith, which ended with the death of the last Apostle. There were not 66 book Bibles until reformation times when seven books were dropped by men. My point is that the canon of the Bible is not found within Holy Scripture. The 73 book canon comes from Sacred Tradition. Other parts of the faith, such as the Assumption of Mary, are also not explicitly in the Bible. That too is also part of Sacred Tradition. Likewise our understanding of the Holy Trinity is not explicitly in the Bible.
Yes, our understanding of the Trinity is from Scripture.

Jesus brackets together the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the Triune name of God (Mt 28:19).
Paul uses all three interchangeably (1 Co 12:4-6);
they are linked for prayer for divine (Godhood) blessing (2 Co 13:14),
they are linked in pronouncement of divine (Godhood) blessing (Rev 1:4-5).
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California to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses

Since when is driving a truck a "good paying job"? Maybe it pays well if you've got some extra certifications and drive for a specialty outfit doing stuff like high security or way oversized loads, but everything I hear about vanilla hauling is that it's a race to the bottom and that the industry is full of predatory firms conning drivers into expensive loans. And it's probably within a generation of being completely replaced by robots.

It's stable employment with competitive pay. I don't see why you're downplaying it, or how you justify that it's not a good job.

Bias against blue collar workers is a very common mistake made by the uninformed. I'm a blue collar worker myself, and I bet I make more than 90% of the posters on this forum, or better, even with your college degrees.
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Harvard conservative magazine is suspended by its own board after publishing article laced with Nazi rhetoric

I don't know what kind of good you think you're doing propagating a fantasy that denies the realities of what @JosephZ posted. Do you think his claims are inaccurate or do you just not like them?

I don't see why what Italy did over a thousand years ago has anything to do with "Christianity" in general terms. It's not a Catholic teaching... It's not a Christian teaching... It's ancient history that doesn't relate to what's going on today.
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What happens if someone dies before they became a believer, is it their fault?

How does an unborn baby "reject God"?
You are delving into opinion, there; it is not endemic to Calvinism. The question is moot as far as Total Depravity is concerned. My opinion as to whether an unborn baby rejects God does not represent Calvinism, even if the majority of them agree with me (and I don't know if the majority does or not).

However, I believe from the time the fetus is/becomes 'person', whether at conception or any other time, he is corrupt at the core, and any goodness or virtue there is in a person is God's direct doing along the lines of what His Attribute of Immanence implies.
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The ANE perspective on creation & am I fence sitting?

Don't try to force-fit the array of biblical literature into a Modern paradigm. Each book of the Bible was written not only by different people, but by people who lived during different ancient eras as well. We can't stuff ancient literature into a 21st century scientific box and expect it to reflect today's Cosmology.
Yeah...I don't think most people today realize how little distinction ancients made between facts and storytelling. They knew their etiological tales were spinning a yarn, which is why they accepted multiple tales for the same "problem"....but they also believed these stories had an element of truth and were more interested in the narrative than the details.

We also can get into trouble accepting the traditional accounts of authorship and dating, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.
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Fundamentalist or Evangelical?

But we do not tell people not to read
J.B. Philips paraphrase. However we tell them it is a paraphrase and not a direct translation. Its like reading "one man's commentary" on the Bible

Re: JB Phillips, and Letters to Young Churches. In that its not like a new translation (eg THE NIV), done by a team of experts across denominational boundaries. Phillips did offer his initial paraphrase of Colossians to CS Lewis to read and to get his opinion, who praised it and encouraged him to continue. I don't know if Phillips sought the opinions anyone else? But while I understand what you mean by "its one man's commentary", I think its more than a commentary, even though not a official translation.
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St. Albert the Great: The Church and science are in harmony

St. Albert the Great was considered the “wonder and the miracle of his age” by his contemporaries. He was an assiduous Dominican whose accomplishments and gifts to the Church are difficult to exaggerate.

Born around 1206 and joining the Order of Preachers in 1223, Albert quickly became a master of almost every academic subject. Notwithstanding the standards of his own time, he became a pioneer of the natural sciences — both empirical and philosophical. His teachings on nature and theology were revolutionary, and he captured the attention of a young and taciturn Dominican — St. Thomas Aquinas.

While surpassing all his contemporaries in intellect and cogency, it was his own student who managed to shine brighter than he. If Albert blazed the path, then it was Aquinas who reached and held the summit. Then, tragically, when the quick flash of Aquinas’ life was over, it was Albert who defended him and held him up as a beacon of light for the whole Church. St. Albert the Great was a teacher, a bishop, and a forerunner to some of the greatest theological gifts the Church has received.

After joining the Dominicans, Albert went to Paris in 1245 and successfully received his doctorate. He then began teaching in Paris and then in Cologne, Germany. It was during his time in Cologne that he noticed a young man named Thomas. The quiet student was nicknamed “Dumb Ox” by his peers, because of his weight and the mistaken notion that his silence was due to an obtuse mind. In time, Albert realized the great acumen of the young man, and Albert took him on as a disciple.

Continued below.

what is Calvinism answer to how God works?

Ok. So you 'support' your self-deterministic position with opinion based on emotion (i.e. on your conception of what "God is love" means and what that conception implies). FWIW you are correct in this: The Calvinist denies the self-contradictory notion of libertarian "free will" in the creature —Only the Creator has that kind of free will. Calvinists also deny that anyone is "just carrying out what [God] has....decreed them to do in the first place." Sentient creatures do willfully decide to do that for which God holds them responsible.
Nope, I support it through experience and the self--contradictory nature of determinism. My criticisms of Calvinistic confusions involving God willing what he would not have isn't emotional, it's highlighting the central lunacy of Calvinism.
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Missouri's GOP governor calls special session to redraw congressional districts to promote "Missouri Values"

Facing Numerous Challenges from Voters, Missouri GOP Gerrymander Goes to Court

A state court held a trial Wednesday on the question of whether the Missouri Constitution prohibits mid-decade redistricting after a group of voters filed a lawsuit challenging the plan. It’s one of numerous legal challenges that the Republican gerrymander will need to survive — as well as a proposed ballot referendum that could give voters the final say.

In a brief, the plaintiffs argued that the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that redistricting can “occur only immediately following the certification of the census and cannot occur again until a subsequent census is certified.”

Voters are taking the gerrymanders to court in all three states. [TX, NC, MO]

Not to belabor the obvious (but some need it), in the case of California, it was the voters who enacted the change.
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Trump campaign officials, led by Rudy Giuliani, oversaw fake electors plot in 7 states

Updates: [quotes from individual state wiki pages]

Nevada:
Prosecutors refiled the charges in Carson City in December 2024 to resolve the venue issue. Because the statute of limitations for the filing false instruments charges had expired in December 2023, state prosecutors were not able to initiate a new case on those charges, although the forgery charges have a statute of limitations that is one year longer.

Nevada Supreme Court revives criminal case over Trump elector gambit

The 6-0 decision comes just days after Trump pardoned dozens of allies — including these defendants — for any potential federal crimes related to the 2020 election.

The justices concluded that Attorney General Aaron Ford properly brought the forgery case in Las Vegas, overruling a lower-court decision that found the case should have been brought in Carson City, where the pro-Trump elector nominees signed the false documents.

Among those facing forgery charges — which carry a maximum five-year penalty — are the state’s sitting GOP chairman Michael McDonald, his vice chair Jim Hindle and the state’s Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid.
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Nearly 70 Planned Parenthood centers have closed this year, according to abortion giant

Here is a roundup of recent pro-life- and abortion-related news:

Nearly 70 Planned Parenthood centers have closed nationwide in 2025​

Nearly 70 Planned Parenthood centers have closed this year due to Medicaid and Title X funding cuts, according to a recent Planned Parenthood report.

Planned Parenthood has closed 20 facilities since federal defunding earlier this year following a round of nearly 50 other closures.

President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act prevented federal taxpayer dollars from being used to subsidize abortion providers for one year, meaning abortion providers don’t currently qualify for federal Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.

Rather than giving up abortion offerings, abortion providers like Planned Parenthood are closing clinics across the country.

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Vatican-set thriller based on true story set to begin filming in 2026

A new Vatican-set thriller based on a true story is currently in the works, according to Variety.

“Santo Subito!” will follow Father Joseph Murolo, an American priest asked by the Vatican to serve as the “devil’s advocate” in the investigation of Pope John Paul II’s life and his path to sainthood.

The film will take place after the pontiff’s death and follows Murolo, who “must make sure that nothing undermines the sanctification of Karol Wojtyla, the first non-Italian pope in 450 years,” the synopsis reads, as he interviews candidates and witnesses. The description goes on to say that the priest will navigate a “moral labyrinth” that will “put his own faith to the test.”

Murolo will be played by actor Mark Ruffalo, known for his role as Bruce Banner, or the Hulk, in “The Avengers” movies.

Filming is expected to begin on March 9, 2026, on location in Italy and Poland.

“The film offers a genuine behind-the-scenes investigation of the Vatican world, while also taking us into the deeper realm of faith and values,” a co-producer of the film, Nicolas Brigaud-Robert, said. “The script itself is a page-turner, and I can’t imagine any audience remaining indifferent to Father Murolo’s journey.”

Continued below.

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