Our statement of faith, mission, and resources are grounded in the historical, conservative Christian faith.

1. We affirm the Bible to be the inspired, inerrant, and the only infallible and authoritative Word of God. We affirm the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

2. We affirm that there is one God, eternally existent in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

3. We affirm the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, His sinless life, His miracles, His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, His bodily resurrection, His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and His personal return in power and glory.

4. We affirm that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

5. We affirm the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

6. We affirm the resurrection of both the saved and the lost: they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

7. We affirm the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Two dogs arguing

Why Rome Collapsed - Barry Strauss

Watch the full interview now, right here on X.

Encrypted chat apps like Signal and WhatsApp are one of the best ways to keep your digital conversations as private as possible. But if you’re not careful with how those conversations are backed up, you can accidentally undermine your privacy.

When a conversation is properly encrypted end-to-end, it means that the contents of those messages are only viewable by the sender and the recipient. The organization that runs the messaging platform—such as Meta or Signal—does not have access to the contents of the messages. But it does have access to some metadata, like the who, where, and when of a message. Companies have different retention policies around whether they hold onto that information after the message is sent.

What happens after the messages are sent and received is entirely up to the sender and receiver. If you’re having a conversation with someone, you may choose to screenshot that conversation and save that screenshot to your computer’s desktop or phone’s camera roll. You might choose to back up your chat history, either to your personal computer or maybe even to cloud storage (services like Google Drive or iCloud, or to servers run by the application developer).

Those backups do not necessarily have the same type of encryption protections as the chats themselves, and may make those conversations—which were sent with strong, privacy-protecting end-to-end encryption—available to read by whoever runs the cloud storage platform you’re backing up to, which also means they could hand them at the request of law enforcement.

But the real scandal here isn’t Trump’s temporary jet or Qatar’s diplomatic overture. The buried lede is that an elite American defense contractor can no longer deliver a presidential plane in a timely fashion. It reflects a deeper rot in the U.S. military-industrial complex — one that used to win world wars in less time than it now takes to build a new plane.

Boeing’s delivery of the new Air Force One fleet is a part of the VC-25B program (begun under the Obama administration), which “will replace the United States Air Force Presidential VC-25A fleet.” The government awarded Boeign the contract in 2018 with a target delivery date for 2024. But that date has since been pushed to 2027, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

As CNN previously reported, “Boeing’s $3.9 billion contract to replace the two Air Force One jets has become an expensive and embarrassing albatross. Boeing has reported losses totaling $2.5 billion already on the program … since it agreed to be responsible for what has become soaring cost overruns.”

The District of Columbia court system is an unconstitutional mess. The idea that the president can only nominate candidates to the bench from a preselected list provided by a commission over which he has no control clearly violates the Constitution’s appointments clause.

But somehow the process of reappointment in the District of Columbia is even worse. There, a similarly bizarre committee (the Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure) evaluates judges whose terms have expired, after which it can usurp the president’s nomination and appointment powers as well as short-circuit the advice and consent function of the Senate.

In other words, this commission — and this commission alone — can decide whether judges will continue to serve despite what the president, the Senate, or the people the president and Senate serve want.

President Trump and Attorney General Bondi should consider taking action to remedy this constitutional abomination. //

Because both the nomination and appointment of judges are core Article II powers, having that power exercised by an independent body wholly outside the president’s control is constitutionally untenable. In many ways this is even worse than the unconstitutional judicial-nomination system in D.C. //

So what is to be done? In the case of the Judicial Nominating Commission, the remedy is easy enough: President Trump should nominate whomever he wants and appoint him subject to the advice and consent of the Senate.

For those judges already on the bench and subject to reappointment, he might need to be more creative because the paper authorizing the reappointment does not traverse the White House at all.

One option in the case of a reappointed judge is for the attorney general to seek a writ of quo warranto. One of the ancient prerogative writs, it literally means “by what warrant” and is a way for a court to determine whether or not a holder of public office is legitimate. Rarely used — and almost always pursuant to state law — it is contemplated in the All Writs Act at the federal level. The limited precedent on the subject seems to indicate that the attorney general has the power to seek the writ. //

Law and order in the District of Columbia is a disgrace, in no small part because of its activist local judges chosen and reappointed through an unconstitutional process. As President Trump seeks to “make D.C. safe again,” he should act where he has the authority to do so and fix the broken reappointment process for the D.C. courts.

children need to be nourished by three socio/emotional staples as they grow: Mother’s love, Father’s love, and stability. //

We are raising a generation of children who are experiencing family breakdown on a mass scale, not due to tragedy but because of adult intentionality. Adult desire, identity, feelings, and romantic pursuits have been elevated above the fundamental right of children to be known and loved by their own mother and father. Some of these kids will recognize that brokenness and work to reverse it. Many will be so damaged they will perpetuate the cycle in their personal lives … or their professional lives.

"Over 20 years, the percentage of seniors getting flu shots increased sharply from 15% to 65%. It stands to reason that flu deaths among the elderly should have taken a dramatic dip."

“The User Interface for Reality”

IYKYK

North Korea is infiltrating the West digitally. We must respond with vigilance, not wishful thinking. //

Pro tip for companies: ask prospective employees if they think Kim Jong-un is fat. Seriously. Multiple companies have caught North Korean operatives this way. They won’t criticize the regime—because they don’t want to die. And they’ll walk away from the job if you ask.

Lastly, a moment of reflection.

Harrison Ruffin Tyler, grandson of 10th U.S. President John Tyler, has passed away at age 96.

Yes, you heard that right: the grandson of a man born in 1790 lived into the third decade of the 21st century. That’s not just trivia—it’s a powerful reminder of how young our republic truly is.

John Tyler served before the Civil War—before Lincoln. And now his grandson, a man who lived through the Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War, the Space Race, and the internet age—is gone.

In a culture obsessed with the now, we forget how close the past really is. We are not far removed from the Founders—we’re their grandchildren. Literally.

Harrison Tyler preserved Sherwood Forest, his family’s historic estate. He protected Virginia’s architectural legacy. But perhaps his greatest legacy was just living—living proof that America’s past is not distant. Our institutions, our Congress, our civic inheritance—they’re real. They’re tangible. And they’re fragile.

His passing reminds us to cherish what we’ve inherited. To study it. To defend it. And to pass it on.

The line between the Founders’ America and our own isn’t theoretical—it’s family.

On April 14, Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, announced that the United Arab Emirates would begin using artificial intelligence to help write its laws. A new Regulatory Intelligence Office would use the technology to “regularly suggest updates” to the law and “accelerate the issuance of legislation by up to 70%.” AI would create a “comprehensive legislative plan” spanning local and federal law and would be connected to public administration, the courts, and global policy trends. //

AI, and technology generally, is often invoked by politicians to give their project a patina of objectivity and rationality, but it doesn’t really do any such thing. As proposed, AI would simply give the UAE’s hereditary rulers new tools to express, enact, and enforce their preferred policies.

Mohammed’s emphasis that a primary benefit of AI will be to make law faster is also misguided. The machine may write the text, but humans will still propose, debate, and vote on the legislation. Drafting is rarely the bottleneck in passing new law. What takes much longer is for humans to amend, horse-trade, and ultimately come to agreement on the content of that legislation—even when that politicking is happening among a small group of monarchic elites.

Rather than expeditiousness, the more important capability offered by AI is sophistication. AI has the potential to make law more complex, tailoring it to a multitude of different scenarios. The combination of AI’s research and drafting speed makes it possible for it to outline legislation governing dozens, even thousands, of special cases for each proposed rule.

But here again, this capability of AI opens the door for the powerful to have their way. AI’s capacity to write complex law would allow the humans directing it to dictate their exacting policy preference for every special case. It could even embed those preferences surreptitiously.

Since time immemorial, legislators have carved out legal loopholes to narrowly cater to special interests. AI will be a powerful tool for authoritarians, lobbyists, and other empowered interests to do this at a greater scale. AI can help automatically produce what political scientist Amy McKay has termed “microlegislation“: loopholes that may be imperceptible to human readers on the page—until their impact is realized in the real world.

But AI can be constrained and directed to distribute power rather than concentrate it. For Emirati residents, the most intriguing possibility of the AI plan is the promise to introduce AI “interactive platforms” where the public can provide input to legislation. In experiments across locales as diverse as Kentucky, Massachusetts, France, Scotland, Taiwan, and many others, civil society within democracies are innovating and experimenting with ways to leverage AI to help listen to constituents and construct public policy in a way that best serves diverse stakeholders.

If the UAE is going to build an AI-native government, it should do so for the purpose of empowering people and not machines. AI has real potential to improve deliberation and pluralism in policymaking, and Emirati residents should hold their government accountable to delivering on this promise.

In response to a FOIA request, the NSA released “Fifty Years of Mathematical Cryptanalysis (1937-1987),” by Glenn F. Stahly, with a lot of redactions.

Weirdly, this is the second time the NSA has declassified the document. John Young got a copy in 2019. This one has a few less redactions. And nothing that was provided in 2019 was redacted here.

One one my biggest worries about VPNs is the amount of trust users need to place in them, and how opaque most of them are about who owns them and what sorts of data they retain.

A new study found that many commercials VPNS are (often surreptitiously) owned by Chinese companies.

Starting from version 1.26.7, VeraCrypt discontinued support for the TrueCrypt format to prioritize the highest security standards. However, recognizing the transitionary needs of our users, we have preserved version 1.25.9, the last to support the TrueCrypt format.

On this page, users can find download links for version 1.25.9, specifically provided for converting TrueCrypt volumes to the more secure VeraCrypt format. We strongly recommend transitioning to VeraCrypt volumes and using our latest releases for ongoing encryption needs, as they encompass the latest security enhancements.

"Today, I am announcing a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign nationals who are responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States," Rubio declared. "It is unacceptable for foreign officials to issue or threaten arrest warrants on U.S. citizens or U.S. residents for social media posts on American platforms while physically present on U.S. soil."

The Secretary of State also objects to foreign officials demanding that social media platforms adopt global rules that would infringe on American rights. Rubio further expanded on these actions in a post on X.

“For too long, Americans have been fined, harassed, and even charged by foreign authorities for exercising their free speech rights,” Rubio wrote on X. "Free speech is essential to the American way of life — a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.”

He added, "Foreigners who work to undermine the rights of Americans should not enjoy the privilege of traveling to our country.". //

“Whether in Latin America, Europe, or elsewhere, the days of passive treatment for those who work to undermine the rights of Americans are over," he said in a separate X post.

RedRaider85
an hour ago edited
Margaret, I don’t really care.
That sums up my feelings about Tapper suddenly tacking slightly to the right while trying to sale his book.

SCOTUS Takes Up the Power of Nationwide Injunctions and the Threat to Executive Authority.

May 16, 2025

Mark Twain once used the word, Podunk to describe a small, unimportant town. Today, a Podunk pettifogger from just such a place thinks he is David taking on Goliath. But this time, Goliath is the duly elected President of the United States. //

The Presidential Executive Order (EO) has become the way to govern Washington at a time when Congress is entirely dysfunctional. However, the vast network of federal district judges, who are, by definition, supposed to be apolitical and neutral, often rule against the EO. They do so increasingly on a "nationwide" basis, far beyond the districts their courtrooms oversee.

It has become a pressing and multifaceted issue. The United States federal judiciary has 677 district court judges (across 94 districts, including territorial courts like those in Puerto Rico and Guam). These are lifetime appointments under Article III of the Constitution. When an activist federal judge deems the underlying challenge to an EO from a plaintiff noteworthy, the judge sets out to ensure "uniform relief" across the entire country through a nationwide injunction. Even the nine Appeals Courts do not have such a reach. Even the Supreme Court doesn't have the same power unless at least five justices agree! //

Expectedly, Justice Clarence Thomas expressed his displeasure again at nationwide injunctions, pointing out that the U.S. judicial system operated without them until the 1960s, so why were they necessary now? Justice Samuel Alito, who has previously been a skeptic, hinted that he would vote to scale them back.

Chief Justice John Roberts focused on the procedural aspects of nationwide injunctions, suggesting that the Supreme Court has become more efficient at handling emergency cases expeditiously. He undercut the concerns of Justices Barrett, Gorsuch, and Sotomayor.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh had the best legal solution by suggesting that class-action lawsuits could serve as an alternative to nationwide injunctions. His questioning was a rare demonstration of principled legal analysis, not tainted by politics.

"Federal district judges are appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate, and serve lifetime terms. There are currently 677 such judges in the U.S. Do you support or oppose individual district judges having the authority to block or halt a president’s policy nationwide?"

A solid majority of Americans say yes. Specifically, 56% said they either support such powers "strongly" (31%) or "somewhat" (26%), while just 28% said they oppose it either "somewhat" (13%) or "strongly" (15%). A sizeable 16% said they weren't sure. //

Democrats are most supportive, with 71% saying the support the judges, just 14% saying they oppose them. Among independents, that majority falls to 54% support, and rises to 30% opposition. The surprise comes among Republicans, where a plurality of 48% support judges over presidents, while 40% support it. //

But the numbers shifted somewhat with our second question: "Do you agree or disagree that federal judges should serve for a limited term rather than a lifetime appointment?"

The answer was even more overwhelming, this time not in favor of the judges. Overall, 71% said they either agree "strongly" (41%) or "somewhat" (30%), while the disagree category mustered only 16% for disagree "somewhat" (9%) or "strongly" (7%). //

Overall, 64% said they supported arresting judges who break laws either "strongly" (43%) or "somewhat" (21%). Just 22% opposed the idea, 10% "strongly" and 12% "somewhat." //

According to the Congressional Research Service, federal judges issued 17 separate injunctions against Trump from the time he re-entered office on Jan. 20 through March 27.

This is nothing new. In 2019, William Barr, Trump's second attorney general, complained about judicial injunctions directed at Trump.

"Since President Trump took office, federal district courts have issued 37 nationwide injunctions against the executive branch," Barr said. "That’s more than one a month."

"By comparison," the nation's former top lawyer added, "during President Obama’s first two years, district courts issued two nationwide injunctions against the executive branch, both of which were vacated by the Ninth Circuit. And according to the Department’s best estimates, courts issued only 27 nationwide injunctions­ in all of the 20th century (emphasis ours)." //

Americans' appetite for enabling federal judges to halt presidential actions willy-nilly may soon be tempered by a Supreme Court decision that limits those powers. If so, it should not be politics. It should be because the Constitution does not allow it.

///

That's democracy. But what is consistent with Constitutional Law? Districts should not have jurisdiction beyond their district.

Force, Fracture, or Fatigue. What Will It Take to Break Putin? //

After two years of crippling sanctions, sweeping NATO expansion, financial isolation, and relentless diplomacy, Putin still hasn’t blinked. As the front lines harden and global patience wears thin, one question remains: What will it take to break his will to fight? China remains silent, quietly enabling the Kremlin. If peace is to be forced, Trump must make Beijing understand there will be a price for helping Putin hold the line.

Amajority of voters say America is headed in the right direction. That has never happened in the nearly 20 years Rasmussen Reports has been posing the question.

A Rasmussen survey taken May 18-May 22 and released Sunday said 48% of Americans say the country is headed in the “right direction,” while 47% say the U.S. is on the “wrong track.” Five percent are “Not Sure.”

Rasmussen’s Mark Mitchell put the numbers in context, saying, “In 20 years, the % of people who say the U.S. is headed in the right direction has never been higher than today.”

The pollster began conducting its right track-wrong track surveys in 2006. //

RealClearPolitics is also seeing a huge swing toward optimism. A November 2024 survey indicated 63% believed America was on the wrong track, with only 26% saying the U.S. was on the right track. A difference of 37 points. Today, 51% say America’s on the wrong track, with 44% saying we’re on the right track. A difference of seven points. That’s a 30-point improvement in a matter of months.