American Christians Need to Stop Being so Precious About Their Religion

 This article appeared on the front of Google News.  It’s written by some person named Chrissy.  I don’t know her pronouns so will refer to Chrissy as she/her.  She claims to have been raised in an Evangelical home and heard the words “be a good witness for Jesus”.  Evidently that means that followers of Christ should bear witness to his words by being obedient in acting Christ like.  Chrissy is now an atheist because she is queer and reports that she is triggered when Christians use the word “witness”.  Of course she is extremely bothered by the fact that Christians don’t celebrate the sins of the LGBTQ lifestyle and she thinks we all need to shut our mouths about saying anything is “sinful”.  Remember that the world will hate me and you because it hated Christ first.

***************************

I grew up in a similar community receiving the same messaging, but while Whitehead remains invested in the Christian faith, I’ve become an atheist. This was probably shaped in substantial part by my queerness, which makes me a target of the right-wing Christian moral panic that defined my childhood and to a large extent defines the American present.

Whitehead also asks rhetorically: “What if the greatest danger to the witness of Christianity in the US wasn’t any of these outside threats? What if the danger was closer to home and looked so familiar that it was able to evade detection?”

He concludes that Christian nationalism is “the greatest threat to Christianity in the US”.

Because of my life experiences, when someone speaks or writes about Christianity’s “witness,” even from a more or less liberal or progressive Christian point of view, I cringe, and I’m quite sure I’m not the only one.

Whitehead is far from alone among Christians who oppose the Christian Right in using this phrase even when addressing an audience that will include many non-Christians. That’s why I believe it’s worth addressing in discussions of Christian privilege, functional pluralism, and building political coalitions based on shared values rather than shared metaphysical beliefs.

Someone who argues the right wing’s culture wars are “harming Christianity’s witness” is not exactly wrong. American youth are abandoning Christianity in droves because many find the faith to be hostile to women’s, racial, and LGBTIQ equality and inclusion.

Of course, everyone is aware there are authentically liberationist Christians who care about social justice, including the civil rights and freedom of conscience of nonbelievers and members of minority religions, as well as abortion access, racial and ethnic equality, and LGBTIQ rights.

But you will not win people over with arguments that the reputation of Christianity, a religion many of us have experienced as oppressive, is at risk. Indeed, making such arguments for the general public and expecting the marginalised people you claim to care about to respond enthusiastically is the height of Christian privilege.

Whitehead’s piece also contains other examples of highly Christocentric language that progressive Christians who are ready to confront their privilege ought to avoid. Like his contention that Christian nationalism makes America “less Christlike”. Leaving aside the fact there is no reason for members of minority religions and nonbelievers to care about the “Christlikeness” of a country, I should point out there is no singular, universally accepted understanding of the meaning of “Christlike” among Christians.

Whitehead would have us believe Jesus simply taught “love,” not the “power, control, domination, fear, and violence” that define the Christian right and much of Christian history.

He should be aware that the rhetoric of “love” is often weaponisedby authoritarian Christians precisely to manipulate and control. Combined with a belief in hell as eternal conscious torment, authoritarian Christians can easily conclude the ends justify the means when it comes to “saving souls,” and the result is that coercion, manipulation, and even violence can be rationalised as “loving” behaviour.

In addition, Whitehead calls Christian nationalism a kind of “idolatry.” This is not just inherently intra-Christian framing, but also inherently colonialist framing. Just look at how the rhetoric of “idolatry” is still used by evangelical missionaries today. And when you combine this invocation of “idols” with an inherently conversionist concern about the church’s “witness,” which Whitehead mentions well before he mentions the marginalised and the problems of xenophobia and racism, it becomes quite clear that Whitehead’s approach to fighting Christian nationalism does not look beyond the religion itself. It also does not go unnoticed that queer and especially trans people – a primary target of the Christian right’s current moral panic – are not even mentioned among the groups Whitehead claims Christians should be supporting.

To be fair, I do not doubt Whitehead’s good intentions in his opposition to Christian nationalism. And I am not singling him out from a place of personal animus, but because his work is currently generating a great deal of buzz and because it contains many of the problematic tropes Americans need to be aware of as reinforcing Christian privilege – the very Christian privilege that allows Christian nationalists to thrive.

If we are to realise democratic ideals, the norms of a functional pluralism in which members of all religions and none are accommodated equally cannot be dictated top-down by members of the dominant religion. It is my hope that pointing out Christian supremacist rhetoric and framing might help to spark public conversations about how to be more inclusive in the important work of opposing the dangerous Christian nationalist movement that has a frightening amount of power in the US today.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/us-christian-nationalism-witness-chrissy-stroop/

As a Nation, Can't We Do Better Than Trump vs. Biden?

 Sadly, I think it's true that a nation will get the leaders that it deserves.  Ben Franklin famously told a woman that "America is getting a republic, if you can keep it."  The headlines are screaming all around us every single day that America is getting very close to losing its Constitutional Republic.

Today, John Stossel, asks the very real question about why America can't come up with some better presidential material than Trump vs Biden.

The betting odds say the next election will likely be a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

It’s odd, since polls show most Americans don’t like either man.

There are good reasons for that. My new video covers some of the worst.

Trump is simply mean. He humiliates people, taking pleasure in mocking them publicly.

In his real estate work, he’s famous for not paying little people who work for him. He stiffed a cabinet-builder, a dishwasher and a plumber. No one is too small to get bad treatment from Trump.

It’s sad that today, America is so divided. Trump makes that worse.

Of course, Biden is divisive, too. Running for office, he promised, “I will draw on the best of us, not the worst.”

But now that he’s president, he does the opposite. He calls his opponents “full of anger, violence, hate and division.” This is drawing on “the best of us”?

Then there are the lies.

Trump lies even about unimportant things, like the crowd at his inauguration, ratings for his TV show, even claiming he won a nonexistent “Man of the Year” award.

And of course, he lies about the big things, like winning the last election “by a landslide.”

But Biden lies, too. When Georgia required voters to show identification, Biden called that “Jim Crow on steroids.” He said that again and again.

But that’s a lie. Jim Crow stopped Black people from voting. After Georgia’s law passed, a poll found “zero percent of Black voters said they had a poor voting experience.”

Biden has long lied to advance himself. He claimed he was “the first in his family ever to go to a university.” But he wasn’t.

He plagiarized that line from a British politician.

He lied about his law school performance, saying he graduated in “the top half of (his) class.” He actually ranked 76th out of 85.

He repeatedly says he was arrested at a civil rights protest, but that’s not true.

This year, one cruel lie caught up with him. For years, Biden insisted he had sixth grandchildren, refusing to acknowledge the seventh, his son Hunter’s daughter, born out of wedlock. Only when even liberal media criticized him, did he finally acknowledge the little girl.

Then there’s the corruption.

I hate political prosecutions, but so much of what Trump does is just sleazy. He paid a porn star hush money and lied about it. He refused to return classified documents and lied about that. He pressured Vice President Mike Pence not to certify electors, then whipped his supporters into a frenzy about it.

But Biden is corrupt, too. Asked about his son’s work in China, Biden firmly responded, “My son has not made money in … China.”

But his son admits making money from China!

Biden claimed he “never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their business, period.”

But his son’s business partner says Hunter put his father on speakerphone when Hunter met with potential business associates.

Maybe Biden’s lies aren’t lies. Maybe he’s just old and confused. But that’s disturbing, too.

Here;  John Stossel: Can’t America do better than old, corrupt Biden or old, corrupt Trump? – Orange County Register (ocregister.com)

Maybe Jesus is simply showing his followers that, "everything on earth will grow strangely dim when you turn your eyes upon me."  Even the American dream!  It's all passing away!  Even the greatest nations on earth!  It's all under the control of the Evil One!  Even good ol' America who has done some incredible things during it's short 250 years on the world stage.

There is a better life coming!  Our hope should not lie in the next presidential election!  It should lie ONLY in the promises of Jesus.

When you truly believe that the rapture and then the 1000 year reign of Christ will soon commence and that we will have new bodies freed from sin to rule and reign with Christ on earth for 1000 years, then almost everything that we once loved about this life in America should start to feel a little dull.

As America fills up with voters who are devoid of the Holy Spirit, the restrainer has less and less power to bring up God-fearing leaders to vote for.

I truly hope it's not Trump vs Biden in 2024 but with the rot that is currently in America, it really shouldn't surprise us to have to choose between two rotten candidates.  Our true hope should not rest in either of them.

Do Not Be Deceived!

 Have you ever had someone argue with you and say something like, "You don't keep all the laws of Leviticus like eating shellfish and mixing two kinds of cloth so why would you point out the sexual laws of Leviticus??  You Christians just pick and choose Bible verses to fit whatever you are against!"

The answer to that is very simple.  We only follow the laws, edicts and commands that were carried over into the New Testament.

Had God repeated the prohibition against shellfish and pork in the New Testament then followers of Christ would be abstaining from those.  But instead God freed followers of Christ from dietary prohibitions.  We can eat shrimp, clams and oysters without sin!  But we are not freed from sexual sin in the New Testament.  This fact God makes very clear.

My Bible reading for today came from 1 Corinthians 6.

8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a] 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

How can God be any clearer in His points about behavior that He doesn't approve of?  "Men who have sex with men" is NOT approved by God.  Neither are men who have sex with women out of wedlock, or drunkards, or swindlers.  It's all called sin.

And while no sins are beyond the reach of Jesus to forgive, Paul is pointing out that if we live lives that are filled with this kind of behavior there is a very good chance that we were never saved and and still dead in our sin.  People who are dead in their sin will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Will the USA Launch a Digital Dollar?

 We already know that digital currency of some sort is coming.  It's just a matter of when and how.  For the non-Bible reader they could care less about this conversation. "Hey, I never carry cash, I never use cash and no one I know ever offers me cash!  So I'm already in the cashless society!  If they can get rid of the drug cartels and sex traffickers by making cash illegal, then I'm all for it!"

Clearly, we Bible readers already KNOW what will happen once the world starts to transition to cashless.  The governing bodies will want to start controlling how money is spent.  If you want to fly to Arizona in January but THEY see you have already exhausted your carbon credits for the previous 12 month period, you WILL NOT be allowed to spend your digital currency on a plane ticket.

If you want to grill hamburgers for your family reunion and go the the store to buy 20 lbs of ground beef and THEY determine that you are already over you limit for carbon credits used to buy meat....then you better plan on making a big salad.

If you want to buy a 9mm pistol at Cabela's and you have already exceeded your gun quota that THEY determined, then the purchase will not be allowed.  Same thing with ammo purchase because "who in their right mind needs hundreds of rounds of ammo?"

Have you had your Covid vaccine?  No???  Well, until you get the jab you can only spend your money for grocery delivery.

"Oh Dennis, that would never happen!  The elected officials in D.C. are always looking to do the best thing for their voters and the planet!"

Yes exactly!  And if disagree with what THEY think about the planet...you will be penalized.

Is the U.S. quietly edging toward adoption of a digital dollar?

In March 2022, President Joe Biden issued an executive order directing the Office of Science and Technology Policy to prepare a report on the risks and benefits of creating a digital dollar for the U.S.

In acronym-addicted Washington, D.C., the digital dollar is referred to as a CBDC, or a central bank digital currency. It would be a virtual version of the physical cash you carry in your wallet, resembling a government-issued version of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

The presidential executive order is hardly the only time the federal government has asked itself whether it is time for the U.S. to adopt digital currency.

Just a few months after the Biden executive order, the New York Federal Reserve launched a 12-week program using simulated data to test a so-called digital dollar.

Supporters of CBDCs say they can help make banking services cheaper, easier, faster and more accessible for all Americans.

However, critics argue that a digital dollar would generate major privacy concerns and hand over too much power to the federal government.

What Is a Digital Dollar?

A digital dollar would be a form of legal tender in the U.S. that could be used to purchase goods and services, and settle all and any outstanding debts. But it would exist in virtual form only, stored and exchanged online via computer networks, never taking the physical form of paper banknotes.

CBDCs resemble cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. But while Bitcoin is managed by a decentralized network made up of tens of thousands of participants, CBDCs are highly centralized assets managed by governments and central banks.

More and more, the use of physical cash is being replaced by digital transactions, via credit cards, debit cards and payment apps. However, transactions using digital dollars would be very different—that’s because a digital dollar would be a direct liability of the Federal Reserve, rather than a commercial bank or another financial institution.

How Would a Digital Dollar Work?

In today’s U.S. financial system, people access their money via banks, each of which has its own distinct system for tracking payments and deposits. As a result, transactions involving multiple banks can involve delays of one to three working days, since action is required from intermediary banks to ensure they are completed accurately.

With a digital dollar, there would most likely be a single, unified system for tracking payments and deposit, run by the Fed or another government entity. It’s worth noting that the central bank has yet to commit to creating a CBDC in the first place, so the final form of a digital dollar system remains an open issue.

Presently the Fed is studying how a digital dollar could help expand consumer access to the financial system and support faster and cheaper payments.

Advantages of a Digital Dollar

A 2021 survey by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation found that 4.5% of U.S. households are “unbanked.” That means no members of those households have a bank account. Without a bank account, these Americans also do not have access to many digital payment systems, such as Apple Pay and Venmo, because those services require links to bank accounts.

Fed digital dollar accounts could be structured to have no fees and no minimum balances, potentially granting digital banking access to all Americans.

Payment companies charge fees each time a user completes a transaction. Credit card users often don’t see those fees because the fees are paid by the merchants selling goods and services. One of the potential advantages of a digital dollar could be to reduce or even eliminate transaction fees.

In addition, merchants don’t receive the money you pay in a credit card transaction immediately. In fact, it typically takes a few business days for those payments to reach the merchant’s account.

In theory, a digital dollar would move all digital transactions to a single ledger, and payments from a federal account would clear instantly. In addition, a digital dollar would be accepted everywhere that accepts the regular dollar, meaning there would be no need to determine if a company or person accepts a certain credit card or uses a certain payment app.

On the government’s side, a digital dollar could make it easier for the Fed to adjust monetary policy. For example, the economic stimulus payments the government sent out during the COVID-19 pandemic could have been deposited into every American’s digital dollar accounts instantly. In theory, the payments could have been easily tracked to reduce fraud and mistakes.

Paul Farella, managing director of registered investment advisor Willow, says a digital dollar could also make the job of the Internal Revenue Service cheaper and more efficient.

“The government could easily process and return taxes, benefits, refunds and so on with ease, saving taxpayers dollars and time,” says Farella, who holds the Certified Digital Asset Advisor (CDAA) from the PlannerDAO group.

Downsides of a Digital Dollar

Critics of a digital dollar say it would hand too much power to the U.S. government. Critics contend that it would open the door for the Federal Reserve to more tightly control how Americans spend and save their money.

The government could potentially restrict access to funds or credit, implement negative interest rates on cash, collect taxes automatically or eliminate physical cash entirely. The government could also monitor digital transactions and collect data on Americans’ financial activities.

Adam Jordan, director of investments for Paul R. Ried Financial Group, says oversight of transactions and access to financial data likely increase the appeal of a digital dollar from the government’s perspective.

“CBDCs have all the elements that governments have always been drawn to, the two key pieces being tracking and control,” Jordan says.

Digital Dollar Skeptics

Many Fed officials like Fed Chair Jerome Powell have been noncommittal on a digital dollar. But Fed Governor Michelle Bowman recently highlighted the risks involved in setting up a CBDC system.

In a recent speech, Bowman argued that less than one in 20 U.S. households are unbanked. Those unbanked households say they simply don’t want a bank account or don’t trust banks.

“I think it is unlikely that this group would find the government somehow more trustworthy than highly regulated banks,” Bowman said.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller has also said a digital dollar just simply isn’t necessary.

“What is the major market failure in the current U.S. payment system that a CBDC and only a CBDC can solve?” Waller recently said.

The Fed is already addressing some of the problems of slow and costly transactions by launching the FedNow digital payments system, which is expected to go online in July 2023. The goal of the FedNow system will be to facilitate low-cost bill payments, money transfers, paychecks, government disbursements and other consumer activities.

In March, Republican Senator Ted Cruz reintroduced legislation to ban the Fed from creating a digital dollar system, which he says could be used as a “financial surveillance tool by the federal government.”

Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has said a U.S. CBDC could pose a risk to Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

Democratic Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr.—a controversial anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist—has said the government could potentially freeze Americans’ digital dollar funds to force them to comply with “arbitrary” federal mandates.

Here;  Guide To The U.S. Digital Dollar – Forbes Advisor

The Collapse of American Cities

 We can see the cities of America deteriorate.  We know that office buildings are empty and that soon the city won’t be collecting the taxes from that office building, they won’t be collecting the sales taxes from noon-time shoppers, the theft and open looting of retail stores will force them to close which will further exacerbate any reason for people to want to go the city.  Cities are now filled with “useless mouths” who don’t really do anything other than consume and vote while they contemplate what pronouns to use or decide what victim class they want to be a part of.  Those types of folks vote Democrat and now you can see why cities end up being run by Democrats who run them into the ground.  The saying below gives us one more reason to expect America to fall into hard times.  

“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

************************

International Man: What made big American cities attractive places to live in the past?

Doug Casey: Well, it’s not just American cities; it’s cities in general. Throughout all of history, cities have equated with civilization.

Cities offer safety, comfort, wealth, and community. They’re a medium for people to exchange ideas and trade easily. The Ascent of Man is built on cities and wouldn’t have been possible without them. Civilization is all about specialization and division of labor. The larger the city, the freer the society, the greater the possibilities.

American cities have been among the best in history because America itself has offered more freedom and less government restrictions than anything in the past.

It’s no mystery why American cities should have been so great in the past, but things are changing. To destroy cities is to destroy civilization.

International Man: American cities have visibly deteriorated across all metrics in recent years.

For an increasing number of people, the value proposition of living in cities no longer makes sense.

What is your take?

Doug Casey: I presume everybody’s heard the mnemonic, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

Unfortunately, American civilization has reached the stage where it’s getting soft, weak, and degraded.

I place the State—government—at the root of this collapse. It’s implemented welfare, which not only allows but encourages people to consume without producing. So-called “democracy” has created class warfare, wherein everyone tries to gain control of the government to gain wealth and power. It’s created an unstable society, inventories of people that have been correctly called “useless mouths.” They’re incapable of anything beyond consuming and voting.

Governmental policies have turned the cities into cesspools.

That little aphorism about weak men that we quoted earlier can be seen as a variation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics—one of the few laws that I believe in. It states that everything winds down over time unless there’s an adequate input of energy to keep things going. In other words, to stay healthy, they should produce more than they consume. But that’s no longer true. Many American cities are now net drains on the country.

The collapse that American cities are experiencing has been very quick from a historical point of view. You can lay part of it to the general degradation of society, which has been actively promoted by academia, the media, and the entertainment industry. Wokesterism, a philosophy of neo-Marxism, racism, and rabid collectivism, has totally captured governments everywhere. But especially in the cities, from which their corrupt and degraded ideas spread out to the general population.

International Man: What will happen to the already tight budgets of many cities as their most productive residents continue to leave in increasing numbers? What are the implications?

Doug Casey: Well, the degradation affecting American cities is actually nothing new. It’s happened across time and space throughout history. Babylon rose and fell and went back to dust. The Egyptian, Hittite, and Assyrian Empires all vanished. The golden age of Athens lasted less than 100 years. After Rome collapsed, cows and goats grazed in the forum during the following Dark Ages.

It doesn’t have to happen that way, but that’s the general trend of things. At this point, the American empire is collapsing, and its cities are leading the way.

https://internationalman.com/articles/doug-casey-on-the-collapse-of-american-cities/

We Are Witnessing the First Stages of Civilization’s Collapse

This article has quite the alarming headline.  You don’t need to look into it very far to realize that it’s all about global warming and how we are going to collapse unless we quit burning oil and eating meat.  We don’t disagree that collapse is coming but we disagree as to WHY it’s taking place.  We currently have 8 billion people on earth and they are all sinners.  The vast majority have rejected their Creator and decided to “do their own thing”.  When you have that many corrupt, lying, thieving perverts going their own ways, you have a recipe for disaster.  We believe that what we are witnessing is the earth groaning under the weight of sin.  Jesus told us that if the people didn’t cry out Hosanna when he entered Jerusalem, the very rocks would have cried out.  As the return of Christ draws near is the world literally groaning for its redemption?  We believe that would be the biblical interpretation of the lawlessness, fires, hurricanes, looting, heatwaves, drug abuse and perversion that is swamping our world.

**************************

 In his 2005 bestseller Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, geographer Jared Diamond focused on past civilizations that confronted severe climate shocks, either adapting and surviving or failing to adapt and disintegrating. Among those were the Puebloan culture of Chaco Canyon, N.M., the ancient Mayan civilization of Mesoamerica, and the Viking settlers of Greenland. Such societies, having achieved great success, imploded when their governing elites failed to adopt new survival mechanisms to face radically changing climate conditions.

Bear in mind that, for their time and place, the societies Diamond studied supported large, sophisticated populations. Pueblo Bonito, a six-story structure in Chaco Canyon, contained up to 600 rooms, making it the largest building in North America until the first skyscrapers rose in New York some 800 years later. Mayan civilization is believed to have supported a population of more than 10 million people at its peak between 250 and 900 A.D., while the Norse Greenlanders established a distinctively European society around 1000 A.D. in the middle of a frozen wasteland. Still, in the end, each collapsed utterly and their inhabitants either died of starvation, slaughtered each other, or migrated elsewhere, leaving nothing but ruins behind.

The question today is: Will our own elites perform any better than the rulers of Chaco Canyon, the Mayan heartland, and Viking Greenland?

As Diamond argues, each of those civilizations arose in a period of relatively benign climate conditions, when temperatures were moderate and food and water supplies adequate. In each case, however, the climate shifted wrenchingly, bringing persistent drought or, in Greenland’s case, much colder temperatures. Although no contemporary written records remain to tell us how the ruling elites responded, the archaeological evidence suggests that they persisted in their traditional ways until disintegration became unavoidable.

These historical examples of social disintegration spurred lively discussion among my students when, as a professor at Hampshire College, I regularly assigned Collapse as a required text. Even then, a decade ago, many of them suggested that we were beginning to face severe climate challenges akin to those encountered by earlier societies—and that our contemporary civilization also risked collapse if we failed to take adequate measures to slow global warming and adapt to its inescapable consequences.

But in those discussions (which continued until I retired from teaching in 2018), our analyses seemed entirely theoretical: Yes, contemporary civilization might collapse, but if so, not any time soon. Five years later, it’s increasingly difficult to support such a relatively optimistic outlook. Not only does the collapse of modern industrial civilization appear ever more likely, but the process already seems underway.

https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/civilization-collapse-climate-change/

USA Urges Citizens to Leave Belarus Immediately

 Belarus is friendly with Russia. Check out a map and you can see that Belarus shares their entire Eastern border with Russia.  To their West they border Poland, Latvia and Lithuania and those 3 nations are part of the 31 nations that are members of NATO.  So there could be little doubt that the borders of Belarus and those 3 nations are most likely tense.

Today in the headlines, the US Embassy in Belarus has urged Americans to leave immediately.  Why?  Maybe because it's going to be increasingly hard for America to work with Belarus on any issue that involves US citizens and tourists that run into legal trouble or go missing or need medical help?  Or maybe it's because USA is getting closer and closer to having a hot war break out between USA and Russia?

The U.S. Embassy in Belarus has issued an alert warning on Monday that Americans should depart the country immediately.

Belarus has aided Russia in its 18-month war in Ukraine, which has pitted Minsk in opposition of the West, including its neighbors.

"Do not travel to Belarus due to Belarusian authorities’ continued facilitation of Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, the buildup of Russian military forces in Belarus, the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, the potential of civil unrest, the risk of detention, and the Embassy’s limited ability to assist U.S. citizens residing in or traveling to Belarus," a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Minsk said.

Of Belarus’s neighbors, U.S. citizens are not permitted to enter Poland overland from Belarus and are advised not to enter Russia or Ukraine, which leaves Lithuania and Latvia. The Lithuanian government closed two border crossings days ago, while four more remain open, though the Polish, Lithuanian, and Latvian governments have said additional border crossing closings could happen.

The State Department has four travel advisories: 1. exercise normal precautions; 2. exercise increased caution; 3. reconsider travel; and 4. do not travel. Belarus is listed in the fourth category.

Shortly after the war began, the State Department ordered the departure of U.S. government employees and the suspension of operations of the U.S. Embassy in Minsk while it suspended all consular services, routine and emergency. Should an American decide to travel to Belarus despite the warnings, the State Department advises that the person “have a contingency plan in place that does not rely on U.S. government assistance.”

The Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization led by a former close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has relocated, to some extent, to Belarus given its short-lived attempted mutiny earlier this summer, which likely contributed to Lithuania's decision to close two of the border crossings with Belarus.

Here;  US urges Americans to leave Belarus immediately | Washington Examiner

If you still decide to go to Belarus and you end up in trouble, the US Gov't will have almost no ability to help you...unless you happen to be a black, woman, lesbian who hates America...then they will jump through all the hoops in the world to fix your freedom and bring you home!  But white men who are married to one woman....you better just stay out of Belarus.

In related news, Poland has been putting thousands of soldiers on their border with Belarus.  Here's what's being said about that;

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland is deploying thousands of troops to its border with Belarus, calling it a deterrent move as tensions between the two neighbors ratchet up. Those tensions between Poland — a NATO and European Union country — and Belarus, which is Russia’s ally in its war on Ukraine, have been building up in recent months on the border. Here is why:

ORIGINS OF THE TENSIONS

Poland has been backing the Belarusian opposition ever since the 2020 presidential elections, where pro-Russian Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term in a vote that Poland and the wider Western community saw as rigged.

In 2021, Belarus began organizing and pushing thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa across the border into Poland. The move is seen by Poland and the EU as planned with the Kremlin and intended to cause instability in Europe. Poland's right-wing government, hostile to the idea of accepting migrants, built a $400,000 wall that substantially reduced the inflow.

After Russia's Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine, Poland condemned the attack and has been supporting Kyiv with military equipment, political backing, and humanitarian aid, including hosting more than 1.2 million refugees. Belarus is on Russia's side in the conflict, and Poland is participating in international economic sanctions on both countries.

Here;  https://www.britannica.com/news/59081/aad1f9d81ce9eaed2fed0d6128fa528d

Maybe Democrats should read that line about how a $400,000 wall substantially reduced the inflow!

Russia and China Rattle US Navy in Joint Exercise Near Alaska

 Here's an interesting report from CBS News about Russia and China doing some joint naval exercises really close to Alaska.  Most Americans would do well to look at the map and remember just how close Alaska and Russia are to each other.  And what the heck is China doing with their navy off the coast of Alaska?  I'm guessing it's their response to the question, "What the heck is the US Navy doing all the way over here off the coast of Taiwan?"

China, Russia send 11 military vessels near Alaska, U.S. responds with 4 Navy destroyers (msn.com)

Russia, North Korea Will Fight WITH China if War Breaks Out Against USA

Not a real big surprise here.  As the world divides into camps you need to decide WHO you are most closely aligned with.  Turkey is part of NATO but they seem to be more aligned with Russia than the USA.  The North African Muslim nations are more aligned with a Russian worldview than they are with an American one pushing LGBTQ and diversity, equity and inclusion.  And of course the Bible has told us all along that Russia will lead a large coalition made up of Turkey, Iran and North African nations all the while never mentioning America. So something is going to remove America from the scene...maybe sooner than later.

This week, the U.S. Navy's Carrier Strike Group 5, centered around the USS Ronald Reagan, has been steaming off the east coast of Taiwan.

Be glad it is there. China has been throwing a diplomatic tantrum -- fiercer than usual -- because the Biden administration allowed William Lai Ching-te, Taiwan's vice president, to make "transit" stops in New York and San Francisco on his way to and from Paraguay.

Beijing in response promised "resolute and forceful measures." There have been numerous Chinese air and naval provocations near the embattled island republic in the last few days. As soon as Lai arrived in New York, the Chinese foreign ministry called Taiwan "the core of the core interests of China."

So, will China go to war soon? And if war comes, will it embroil the world's great powers?

China's regime has already declared a "people's war" against America, and has been waging such a struggle with its "unrestricted warfare" tactics.

 But what about a "hot war"? War between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, as Henry Kissinger said in early June to Bloomberg, is "probable." China can still be deterred -- the presence of the USS Ronald Reagan is almost certainly giving the Chinese military second thoughts -- but one thing looks increasingly likely: If there is a war, Russia and North Korea will fight alongside China. The world is dividing into camps.

China is telling the world that Lai is a one-man provocation. For one thing, he is currently leading in Taiwan's January 13, 2024 presidential election, and Beijing is unhappy, to say the least. The Chinese Communist regime considers Lai, running on the Democratic Progressive Party line, the "separatist" candidate. Beijing has already labeled the frontrunner a "troublemaker through and through."

One American China-watcher, the astute Guermantes Lailari, thinks Chinese ruler Xi Jinping will move on Taiwan this month, perhaps taking one of its offshore islands. Others believe that he will wait for the January election before deciding what to do. These analysts see China's military exercises as merely an intimidation tactic, meant to make the Taiwanese "fear war."

Copley is correct that Russia and North Korea would probably prefer to stay out of a conflict over Taiwan, but there are other factors at work.

First, a Chinese attack on Taiwan would allow Moscow and Pyongyang to grab territories they have long coveted. The Russians have desired all of Japan's northern islands, the Kurils, and North Korea wants to absorb South Korea.

Second, Russia and North Korea are particularly dependent on China, and China would lean on both of them with all it had.

Third, Moscow and Beijing are already close partners in combat in North Africa, where they are fueling insurgencies that look like wars.

Fourth, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un see the world in the same terms, and they all realize that none of them will accomplish their goals unless they get the United States out of the way.

Perhaps of greatest concern is that all three regimes share a nuclear weapons doctrine of "escalate to de-escalate" or "escalate to win": threatening the use of nuclear weapons to keep others from defending their intended victims. Xi and Putin appear capable of actually using their most destructive weapons. Kim in this regard is an unknown, but both his father and grandfather believed in taking everyone down with them. "If we lose, I will destroy the world," said Kim Jong Il, father of the current North Korean leader.

Kim Jong Un has apparently been inspired by Xi's and Putin's nuclear warnings. Beginning last year and continuing into this March, Kim has made threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively. His regime last year even enacted a law authorizing such use.

When aggressors threaten the use of nuclear weapons, anything can happen. America will have to be prepared that China, along with its friends, are willing to do anything to get what they want.

Here;  The World Is Dividing Into Camps And Russia/North Korea Will Fight With China (prophecynewswatch.com)

We continue to pray that the rapture of the church is going to happen soon.  Furthermore, we continue to believe that America will go into a sudden collapse following the rapture of the church.  When millions of Americans go missing it will trigger the world to question the "faith and confidence" that has been sustaining the US Dollar for about 50 years.  The world will quickly rush to the exits as they panic-sell their American assets and US Dollars.

We believe this is the reason that America isn't mentioned in Biblical prophecy.